Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories

  “I’ve answered that,” he said, “nothing more or less.”

  “Yes, you have, and in your family’s presence,” Pastor Boone said, allowing a terseness in his tone as well. “What about their wishes?”

  “It was my hand taken and therefore my grievance, not theirs.”

  For a few moments the only sound was the fire’s hiss and crackle.

  “They could have married without your blessing,” Pastor Boone said. “They can yet.”

  “Yes, and should they, let us be clear,” the Colonel replied. “Helen will never step inside this house again, and if I see Ethan Burke on this land, or in town, or in church, I will kill him.”

  “You would need kill me too then, Father,” Helen shouted from the porch.

  Mrs. Davidson raised her hands to her ears.

  “I will not listen to one word more,” she said, her voice rising. “I will not. I will not.”

  When she turned to Pastor Boone, something seemed not so much to break inside her as wither. Mrs. Davidson’s hands fell to her sides and her head drooped. For four years she had maintained the farm with her husband gone, no one to help but a daughter. Twice, outliers had come and stolen livestock, threatened to burn the house and barn down. Pastor Boone remembered how when the word came of Lee’s surrender, no Confederate soldier’s wife, including the woman before him, had mourned the lost cause. What tears had been shed were of relief it was finally over.

  “There is no good in speaking of further violence,” Pastor Boone said. “Haven’t we all suffered enough these last years?”

  “We, Pastor?” Colonel Davidson asked, his face reddening. “You dare speak to me of your suffering during the war.”

  “Fetch Pastor Boone’s overcoat,” the Colonel told his wife, and this time Mrs. Davidson did as she was told.

  When Pastor Boone came outside, Ethan stood on the front step, Helen on the porch, their clasped hands bridging the boundary. They were arguing. Helen turned to Pastor Boone, tears in her eyes.

  “Don’t let Ethan do it.”

  “We shouldn’t have bothered having you come,” Ethan said. He freed his hands and gestured toward the axe. “It’s the only thing to satisfy him. By God, I’ll do it right now. I will.”

  Pastor Boone stepped close and took the youth by the elbow.

  “You’ll bleed to death or get gangrene. What good will come of that?”

  “I’ve seen many a man live who lost a hand,” Ethan said, shaking free Pastor Boone’s hand. “He in there survived it, didn’t he?”

  “Ride back with me,” Pastor Boone said. “I promise we’ll find a way, a way that won’t risk your life.”

  “Listen to him, Ethan,” Helen said. “Please.”

  “We’ve waited long enough,” Ethan said, tears in his eyes as well now. “I’ve done all of everything else and it’s still not enough.”

  “Just one more week,” Pastor Boone said. “Allow me one week.”

  “Please, Ethan,” Helen said, sobbing.

  Ethan dried his eyes with a swipe of his forearm. He nodded and addressed the house.

  “One week,” the youth said loudly. “One week and I will do it, Colonel Davidson, I swear I will.”

  “I have always taken you for a wise man, William, despite your primitive beliefs,” Doctor Andrews said the following morning. “But what you purpose is unworthy of a rational mind.”

  The two men sat in the house’s back portion that served as office and examining room. Sickness, his or a congregant’s, had brought Pastor Boone to this room many times, but more often it served as a salon for the best-educated men in Marshall to discuss everything from literature and politics to science and religion. The room had changed little in three decades. The Franklin clock ticked on the top bookshelf, beside it jars holding powders and tinctures. On the middle shelf was a solemn row of leather-spined medical books, below that Man’s Place in Nature and On the Origin of Species wedged between volumes by Shakespeare, Scott, and Thackeray. The examining table pressed against the opposite wall; in the room’s center sat a mahogany desk, one side bedecked with pill cutter, ledger, mortar and pestle, the other a silver scale and balance aged to a dulled lustre. An oil lamp sat on the desk, its flame alive. Because of the closed curtains, a lacquered darkness gave the office the aura of a confessional booth, which, like the room’s seeming immutability, no doubt made it easier to speak of fears too often confirmed.

  “There is no other way,” Pastor Boone said. “Elopement is not possible and the Colonel’s own wife and daughter cannot dissuade him. The youth has done all he can. For eight months, he’s performed all manner of chores. Even in this weather, he was out there cutting and stacking wood. He offered to burn his uniform, and him on the winning side.”

  “The Colonel sounds rather like Prospero,” Doctor Andrews said.

  “Prospero forgave his enemies,” Pastor Boone answered. “It was Ethan’s notion to do the labors, and he’s shown himself worthy of any man’s daughter.”

  Doctor Andrews removed a briar pipe and tobacco box from a drawer, as was his habit when anticipating a vigorous exchange. He tamped the tobacco and lit the pipe, doused the match with a sweep of the hand.

  “I see that your new pipe has arrived.”

  “Yes,” Doctor Andrews said, holding the briar pipe before them. “I only wish ideas could cross the ocean as quickly.”

  “So will you help us?”

  “You have forgotten my oath, Parson, primum non nocere.”

  “You will be healing, Noah, and not just two families but a whole community.”

  “But at such cost, William,” Doctor Andrews replied. “They are young folks, both likable and attractive. If this union is not made, they will find others to betroth. With time, even accept that it was wise to do so.”

  “Ethan is resolute,” Pastor Boone said. “What you will not do, he will do with an axe.”

  “You truly believe so?” Doctor Andrews asked. “My experience avers that, once the axe is in hand, such brash valor abates. At Bowman-Gray I saw my fellows swoon cutting cadavers. The same in this office. Men you would think fearless get the vapors seeing a few drops of blood.”

  “He saw blood and wounds in the war, no doubt amputations,” Pastor Boone said. “If it’s not done by someone else, he’ll do it. He would have done so yesterday with the Colonel’s own axe if I had not intervened. As for Leland Davidson, you know the man. Do you believe he’d break a vow, any vow?”

  “I do not,” Doctor Andrews replied. “It would be an admission that he could be wrong.”

  The clock chimed on the half hour. Doctor Andrews set the pipe on the desk’s spark-pocked wood.

  “I must look in on Leah Blackburn. She has run a fever three days.”

  “You have proffered no answer,” Pastor Boone said, but did not pause for one. “We are old men, Noah. Unlike the Colonel and this youth, we were spared the war’s violence and suffering. Perhaps it’s time for us to render what is our duty, even if we would wish it otherwise.”

  Doctor Andrews stood and Pastor Boone rose as well.

  “Old men, William? Yes, I suppose we are,” Doctor Andrews mused, rubbing his back. “I’ve watched others become gray and decrepit yet somehow presumed it was not happening to me. Is it so with you?”

  “Sometimes,” Pastor Boone answered.

  “Perhaps it’s because we are always looking for imperfections in others, and not ourselves,” Doctor Andrews suggested.

  “I’ve had cause to find plenty within myself,” Pastor Boone said.

  “If you mean your neutrality during the war, you protest too much, William. You did what you thought best, as did I.”

  “Best for the church or for myself?”

  “Prudence was necessary,” Doctor Andrews said. “I made no show of Unionist sympathies once the war began.”

  “But you did before. I did not even do that,” Pastor Boone said. “Perhaps if I had, and done so forcefully, Leland Davidson would not have
joined the Confederacy.”

  Doctor Andrews smiled.

  “This present business should allay you of that vanity. Davidson is a man who values only his own opinion.”

  “But even now I don’t understand his motivation to do so,” Pastor Boone said. “He had no slaves to fight for.”

  Doctor Andrews set his pipe down.

  “Perhaps I should not say this, William, but since you’ve broached the complexities of human motivation, might your involvement in this affair be of benefit to yourself as much as these young lovers?”

  “In some ways, yes. I will admit that,” Pastor Boone said, “but, as will be obvious, not in all.”

  “And you are certain he will sever his hand if I don’t assent?” Doctor Andrews asked. “Absolutely certain?”

  “Yes.”

  Doctor Andrews pressed his forehead with an open hand, as if to deflect some thought from breaking through.

  “When would you have me do this?”

  “Today,” Pastor Boone replied. “Ethan said he’d wait a week, but I fear he won’t wait that long.”

  “This afternoon at five o’clock then,” Doctor Andrews said. “I visit my last patient at four, and I’ll need to fetch Emma Triplett to assist me. But know I shall yet attempt to stop this folly. I will tell Ethan your motives are not solely in his interest, and point out that what seems brave and chivalrous today may not seem so when he has to support a family with one hand.”

  “No, not his hand,” Pastor Boone said. “You have misconstrued my meaning.”

  The following afternoon the air still whitened each breath, but Pastor Boone and Ethan set out beneath a clear sky. The buggy passed slowly through town. Icicles dripped on posts and awnings, the thoroughfare a lather of mud and snow. Despite the cold, customers and storekeepers lined the boardwalks. Evelyn Norris, whose nephew had died in a Georgia prison camp, shook her head in dismay, but others tipped hats and nodded at Pastor Boone and Ethan. Several held out hands in the manner of a blessing. The bible and package lay on the buggy seat between them, the rings set deep in Ethan’s right pocket.

  As they rode out of town, the slashes left by other wheels vanished. By the time they entered the woods, the only indentions were those of squirrels and rabbits. They passed over snapped limbs shackled with ice. A cardinal swung low and settled on a post oak branch.

  “It always comes down to guilt, does it not, that and somebody’s blood,” Noah had said when he’d taken the ether from his cabinet. “Your religion, I mean.”

  Pastor Boone had been sitting on the operating table, shirt off, his eyes on the pieces of steel Emma Triplett had boiled and then set on a white towel. The woman had left the room and they were alone.

  “I suppose, though I would add that hope is also a factor.”

  Doctor Andrews had grimaced.

  “I can’t believe I’ve allowed you to talk me into this barbarism, and for no other reason than some bundles of papyrus written thousands of years ago. We may as well be living in mud huts, grinding rocks to make fire. Huxley and his X Club will soon end such nonsense in England, but in this country we still believe the recidivists, not the innovators bring advancement in human endeavors.”

  “I would say our country’s military believe so,” Pastor Boone answered as Emma Triplett came back in the room, “as evidenced by the number of deaths in this last conflict.”

  Emma Triplett handed a kerchief to the doctor, who nodded for Pastor Boone to lie down.

  “Since a man of your advanced years may not rouse from this, I’ll allow you the last word,” Doctor Andrews said as he poured ether on the cloth, “although if you do pass on, and your metaphysics are correct, you shall quickly settle our debate once and for all.”

  Pastor Boone was about to speak of Mrs. Newell’s similar doctrinal view, but the kerchief settled over his nose and mouth and the world wobbled a moment and then went black.

  The woods thinned and the valley sprawled out before them. The Davidson farmhouse appeared and Ethan shook the reins to quicken the horse’s pace. Pastor Boone’s wrist throbbed, a vaguer ache where the hand had once been. The bottle of laudanum and a spoon were in his coat pocket, but if he took a dose, it would be just before the return to town. As the buggy jostled over the creek, Pastor Boone gasped.

  “Sorry, Pastor,” Ethan said. “I should have slowed the horse more.”

  “As long as you’ve waited,” Pastor Boone replied, “a bit of haste is understandable.”

  A hound came off the porch, barked until it recognized Ethan. The buggy halted in front of the farmhouse and Ethan wrapped the check reins around the brake and jumped off. He helped Parson Boone from the buggy’s seat, being careful not to bump the bandaged wrist. The front door opened and Helen came out on the porch. Pastor Boone took the bible off the seat.

  “Bring the package,” Pastor Boone said to Ethan, and stepped onto the porch.

  “What happened, Pastor?” she asked, but then her face paled.

  Ethan brought the package and Pastor Boone used his elbow and side to secure it.

  “Stand behind me,” he told them. “I’ll call you when it’s time to come inside.”

  Pastor Boone entered the parlor’s muted light, set the bible and package on the lamp stand. Mrs. Davidson offered to take the overcoat and he told her she’d have to help him. She held the overcoat in her hand, did not move to hang it up. Pastor Boone opened the bible with his hand and found what he searched for. He left the bible open and slipped two fingers between the pasteboard and the knot of twine. He lifted the package with the fingers in the manner of measuring its weight. He crossed the room to where the Colonel sat.

  “I take you as a man of your word, Leland,” Pastor Boone said, and placed the package beside the Windsor chair. “Open it if you wish.”

  Pastor Boone went to the door and motioned Ethan and Helen inside. He took up the bible and balanced it in his hand, positioned himself between the two young people.

  “Mark 10, verse nine” Pastor Boone said. “What therefore God hath joined together.”

  A SORT of MIRACLE

  Baroque wished he and Marlboro were back at the house watching medical shows with their sister, Susie. Instead, they were in a truck with Denton, their brother-in-law. Baroque wasn’t used to Denton being this close. Denton was an accountant, and Monday through Friday he was at work all day. When he came home, he usually disappeared into the back bedroom after dinner. Of course Saturdays and Sundays Denton was around more, and often in the front of the house, and it was starting to take just a little thing like opening the refrigerator door for their brother-in-law to give Baroque and Marlboro a look, a real unfriendly look. One night Denton had called him and Marlboro lard-asses and claimed they lacked ambition and would never amount to anything if that didn’t change.

  He’d said it just the one time, but Baroque could tell Denton had thought it more than one time. He and Marlboro had even sat on the porch for a few minutes yesterday, just to get somewhere Denton wasn’t.

  But they were with him now and they sure couldn’t get away from him in a truck cab, and the three of them were riding up a bumpy dirt road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, doing something that Baroque was pretty sure wasn’t just a little illegal, like smoking pot or running a stop sign, but a lot illegal, like getting sent to prison, regardless of Denton saying it was a public service. When Baroque asked why they had to go bear hunting this particular day, Denton said this cold spell would soon send the bears into hibernation. Marlboro had asked what hibernation was and Denton had answered that it was when dumb, lazy creatures laid around for months doing nothing.

  The dirt road came to a dead end. Cinder blocks marked the parking lot, and there was a trail on the other side. Denton told them again everything they were supposed to do and handed Baroque the cell phone, then left with the pistol and knife strapped around his waist. Once up the trail a few yards, Denton was suddenly gone, like the woods had just swallowed him up. It made
Baroque feel spooky, but everything about this bear business had been spooky. Like the way two weeks ago Denton had brought a big carton home after work and pulled out a steel trap, a pistol, a yellow box of bullets, and then a knife. A big knife, the kind Baroque had seen only in movies where maniacs hacked people to death, maniacs who always had some mask or hood covering everything except their eyes, which made it worse, because it could be anybody who was the maniac, even the person in the movie who seemed most normal. Like Marlboro, Baroque wore only a regular shirt and a sweatshirt. The warmth from the heater seemed to have whooshed right out the moment Denton opened the truck door. Baroque and Marlboro hadn’t been with Denton when he set the bear trap, but Baroque wished now that Denton had made them come then instead of now, because it had to have been a lot warmer that day. His breath clouded the windshield and Baroque felt his body start to shiver. He looked at the trail, then cranked the engine and put the heater on high.

  “Denton said we shouldn’t do that unless we got real cold,” Marlboro said.

  “Well, I am real cold,” Baroque said, “aren’t you?”

  Marlboro nodded and clapped his hands together and rubbed them.

  “How cold do you think it is?”

  “Eighteen degrees,” Baroque said. “That was the number on the bank sign.”

  “I don’t think we’ve ever been in weather like this,” Marlboro said.

  “No,” Baroque agreed. “It’s probably never been this cold in Florida, except maybe during the Ice Age.”

  “I wish Susie could have come down to Florida to help us get a job there instead of up here.”

  “That would have been better,” Baroque said, “but there’s nothing we can do about that.”

  “I guess this is our first job,” Marlboro said, “being here, I mean.”

  “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “You think we’ll lose our nose and fingers, like that guy on the medical show?”

  “No,” Baroque said. “That guy was stuck on a mountaintop three days. We won’t be here that long.”

  “I sure hope not,” Marlboro replied. “I don’t think I could eat if I couldn’t breathe through my nose.”