Eutopia (12 page)

When they first met in the autumn of ’10, Garrison Harper had insisted that Andrew dine with him and his wife at the sprawling mansion he’d had built overlooking the town. That meal was sumptuous—roast beef in a thick burgundy sauce with good French wine, a sugar loaf soaked in rum, followed by Napoleon brandy in wide snifters and cigars imported from Cuba at the end of it. The meal he brought with him today was simpler: mashed potatoes, some greens from Mrs. Harper’s garden and a breast of well-cooked chicken already cut into bite-sized chunks. He carried the plate in himself, withdrawing the silver cover with a flourish, then called out to the hallway when it developed that someone had forgotten to provide any silverware.

“We are,” said Mr. Harper, “a hospital in an Idaho logging town, and not a fine restaurant in Boston. I must remind myself of this daily. Is there a chair in here?”

“Beside the bureau,” said Andrew. “Thank you, Mr. Harper. This looks delicious.”

Mr. Harper scooted the chair over beside Andrew’s bed, and settled into it. Garrison Harper was not a fat man, not by any means. But he was tall—well over six feet—and he had complained to Andrew on that first night: “The years add weight to both the soul and the waist.” The combined weight made the chair creak precipitously, and that and the memory made Andrew smile.

Mr. Harper was like that, always joking with the help. Andrew understood that behaviour to be an affectation—a rich man’s hollow conscience at work. But his own father was the same way, walking through the stables and calling out the men who worked for him by name, sharing a joke or asking after their wives, acting like he was one of them. Andrew couldn’t begrudge it.

“Go,” said Mr. Harper, passing the fork from the nurse who brought it, to Andrew. “Eat a bit. You have to get your strength back.”

Andrew ate. He was famished, but he restrained himself. If he took this too fast it would come up just as fast.

“I am ashamed,” said Mr. Harper at length.

Andrew set down his fork.

“Sir, do not trouble yourself,” he said. “I will find other work.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Harper gaped.

“Other work, sir. After I take my leave.”

“Do you imagine I am here to—to
dismiss
you?”

“There is no need,” said Andrew. “It is done.”

Andrew explained what had transpired between himself and Dr. Bergstrom that morning. Mr. Harper listened quietly, and when it was done, he said simply, “No.”

“Sir,” said Andrew, “I am bound to remind you that with my right arm as it is, I will be of limited use in the surgery.”

Mr. Harper blinked at him, as though this fact had been just presented him and somehow altered everything.

“My God, Dr. Waggoner, have I misread you? Do you wish to depart Eliada? I would not blame you if it were the case.”

Andrew knew there was a part of him for whom that was the case. But it was only a small part—the part of him that had been afraid of leaving his father’s home for continental Europe, the part of him that would have settled for clinic work in Harlem rather than take a train to the wilderness of northern Idaho. And that part had not had much say in how Andrew lived his life for many years.

“I would be a fool not to fear the noose,” he said. “But I have not offered my resignation either.”

“I’m glad,” said Mr. Harper. “It is too easy for civilized men to turn away when faced with depravity. When I said earlier that I was ashamed, it is to that which I referred. When I came here those seven years past, to carve this town out of the hills, I did not intend to make just another haven for depravity. When I made the decision to hire a Negro physician to tend to people, it was not to bring him to slaughter. And although I am well glad to see you here and alive, I did not intend to taint Eliada’s soil with the blood of my workers.”

Mr. Harper looked at Andrew expectantly. He’d delivered the whole speech in the manner of exactly that: a speech, written and well-rehearsed as for a university pageant, or from the stump in an election. This was a thing that Garrison Harper had done more than once since they had met. That first night over cigars and brandy, he had held forth uninterrupted for nearly three-quarters of an hour on his plans to create a paradise for workers and owners alike in Eliada: a community devoid of strife and class warfare where men happily lifted their tools at sunrise and set them down again at sunset, not once tempted by Bolshevism or bad morals—and on and on. It was a rich man’s habit, not, in this instance, shared by Andrew’s father. Of course, Andrew’s father was new to the game of wealth, and so did not have the generations of breeding that had so infected the talk of the Harper men.

“You didn’t tie the rope,” said Andrew.

“No,” said Mr. Harper, “but I might as well have loaded and aimed the guns. Why did I agree to have the Pinkertons of all people come here? This is not how I imagined my legacy.”

“They’re hard men, no doubt of that. And they left three would-be murderers dead, without trial. But if they hadn’t been there, it would have been two innocent men dead.” Andrew took a breath. “I’d like to thank Mr. Green and his men for their aid.”

“For that,” said Mr. Harper, “you’ll have to wait. I sent Mr. Green away.” He looked at Andrew, and noting something in his expression, hastily added, “I didn’t dismiss him. He’s off to Bonner’s Ferry. To collect my daughter and her friend, along with some visitors that Dr. Bergstrom is entertaining. Have you met Ruth?” Andrew reminded him that he had arrived in the autumn, some time after Miss Harper had departed for school. “Well. She’s a wonder. When you’re able, you must join us. Perhaps we’ll have our spring picnic soon, if the weather holds—in the orchards.”

“That would be fine,” said Andrew. It was good, if baffling, to see this rich white man talk so easily about introducing him to his daughter. “I would enjoy that, thank you.”

“Excellent.” Mr. Harper clapped his hands onto his knees and started to rise. “Have you finished your supper? No? I will leave it. Is there anything else you need?”

“One thing,” he said. “Have you looked in on the patient?”

“The patient?”

“The one some fellows here call Mister Juke. Your men rescued him along with myself.”

“Oh,” he said. “No. I haven’t.”

“He has been here some time, I understand,” said Andrew. Harper stood hands in his pockets, no longer meeting Andrew’s eye.

“Yes. Dr. Bergstrom has been most
charitable
with that one.” Mr. Harper shook his head, and smiled as though recalling a private joke. “One of the doctor’s many admirable qualities. Qualities with which,” he added, stepping toward the door, “you will have ample opportunity to acquaint yourself in the coming months and years. I am so glad you have elected to remain a part of our project. I will go see Dr. Bergstrom now, to make sure we are all of that same understanding.”

“Thank you,” said Andrew.

But Garrison Harper had already fled the room. Pondering the speed of his departure, Andrew wondered, did Harper know about Juke’s irregularities?

He took another bite of chicken and as he chewed, he reflected on that and other matters arising from their visit. He was glad enough to be still employed. But he was confounded by the deepening mystery of this strange creature that could survive a hanging. A hanging that some men in sheets thought due him, on account of the alleged rape of Maryanne Leonard. What, Andrew wondered, was the precise nature of the patient Mister Juke?

Ask Dr. Bergstrom
, Sam Green had told him.
Never mind
, Dr. Bergstrom had told him. And as for Garrison Harper? The man, with whom all responsibility in Eliada ultimately rested, was too spooked to say anything at all. Andrew set his fork down and pushed the dining table aside.

It was a mystery, there in that quarantine. He could not let go of it.

Andrew Waggoner winced as he swung his feet over the side of the bed. When he settled his weight on them, he wanted to scream. But he held it in, for nearly a minute, before he flopped back onto the bed, bathed in new sweat and breathing in hitching gasps. Pain was a message from the body to the mind—a message that a fellow failed to heed at his peril. Andrew knew this.

But Andrew also knew that if he was smart about it and had a good enough reason, a fellow could ignore pain all the same. It was just, thought Andrew as he gasped air and felt the tears welling out, a matter of will.

The hospital at Eliada was busiest Mondays, but as Sam Green pointed out, it stood to be busy any day the mill was running and men were engaged in the dangerous profession of sawing up trees for lumber. Tonight was Tuesday, and the Pinkerton man would not offer any guarantees.

“Mondays are bad because men are coming off their weekend drunks,” said Sam Green. “But it doesn’t matter. Drunk or sober, they cut their hands and break their bones, and sometimes a chain will snap and a log will swing and one or the other or both will catch a man in the skull. There are saws and axes and mallets, swinging and sawing all the time, and not always true—and if one of those does not get him, why, you put enough men in a room doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs and sipping tea, and even here in this perfect world, before too long one of them’s bound to fall down with a bad appendix or a kidney stone or some awful tumour.”

Or, thought Jason Thistledown, the whole room of them could drop dead from a strange disease, like Cracked Wheel did in the winter. Would this place, this hospital, have helped out any? If he’d been able to bring his mama here, would that have made a difference?

“Thank you, Mr. Green,” said Aunt Germaine.

The three of them stood in front of Eliada’s hospital in the deepening twilight. The building was a simple, rectangular box, made of white-painted wood and climbing fully three storeys tall. It was back some distance from the dock area (where a few moments earlier they’d bid fare-thee-well to Ruth Harper and Louise Butler) on what Jason figured was the very south edge of town. The land right around it had been cleared but it backed on thick, shadowy forest.

“What I mean to say, ma’am, is that you may not be able to see Dr. Bergstrom for some time. He may be occupied. If you like, I could send for a boxed meal.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” said Aunt Germaine. “We won’t be filling our faces in a waiting room, while others before us suffer.”

Sam smiled and shrugged. “As you please, ma’am,” he said to Aunt Germaine. He tipped his hat first to her and then Jason. “Will you be all right with that bag, Mr. Thistledown?”

“I expect.”

“Then, I shall take my leave of you. Welcome to Eliada.”

“Good night, Mr. Green,” said Aunt Germaine, and Jason repeated it. Then the two of them headed up the walk to the wide front doors to Eliada’s hospital.

Carved into their frame were the words:

Compassion. Community. Hygiene.

“That’s Eliada’s motto,” said Aunt Germaine, and Jason said, “Sounds like a fine one to me.”

The entry hall to the hospital was not the pandemonium that Sam Green had led Jason to expect. It was a large room, bigger than the town hall at Cracked Wheel by about half, with benches along the walls. The tall windows had their curtains drawn, and the only light came from kerosene lamps set into little brass wall sconces. Aside from Jason and his aunt, there were perhaps a half-dozen other people there: a band of men huddled together on a bench and talking quietly. One, a young man not much older than Jason, looked hard pressed. Jason didn’t have to count on his fingers to put it together: someone had died or was dying—a person who was kin to the poor fellow. He knew how that felt, and from seeing himself in the glass those weeks alone in the cabin, he knew how it looked too.

At the other end of the room, next to another set of doors, was a long dark wood counter. Aunt Germaine went there, and pressed down on a little silver bell. Jason set the carpet bag and his own sack down beside Aunt Germaine, excused himself politely and made his way back to the bench. He wasn’t intending to eavesdrop, but that wasn’t clear to the group of men and the preacher he supposed, the way they shut right up and gave him a look as he went to sit down.

“Pardon me,” he said, and skidded farther down the bench until they judged him enough past earshot to start up talking again.

Jason didn’t hold it against them; after all, he’d damn near shot his Aunt Germaine in the back, just for looking at his mama’s corpse the wrong way. Sadness had a way of changing the rules.

Up at the counter, Aunt Germaine was talking to a woman wearing some kind of uniform. Jason had never seen a bona fide nurse before but he expected that was what this woman was. She wore a white smock and a sort of frilly white cap that held most of her hair in. Jason started to get up as the nurse, nodding, backed through the swinging double doors. Aunt Germaine turned to Jason with a look that was, if he were to be honest about it, more than a little bit smug.

“It is as I said,” she said. “We were expected, and Dr. Bergstrom will see us presently.”

“Well good,” said Jason. “Why don’t we sit a spell. But—” he leaned to Aunt Germaine “—not next to those fellows. Let’s give them their room.”