The Last Adam (19 page)

Out in the lot she could see the formidable fawn-coloured shoulders of Moloch III, moving with sullen majesty in the radius of the forty feet of thin steel cable which attached his ringed nose to a stake. He was the biggest Jersey bull she had ever seen; he must weigh more than fifteen hundred pounds, and that in a small breed which didn't run to fat. Really, he was too good for this herd; but she hated to sell him at a time when nobody would want to pay anything like what he was worth. It might be better to buy a couple of heifers fit for him, and see what she got. She threw the cigarette down, turning her head and calling, deep voiced, through the kitchen door; "When do we have lunch?"

Mrs. Foster answered, "About twenty minutes, Miss Cardmaker."

"Well, lay another place, Doctor Bull's coming up." She could hear more distinctly now the sound of a motor which had attracted her attention, changing gears to get up the bad road. She sat still on the steps until it came in sight beyond the barnyard and turned in at the gate. George Bull drove it close to the steps and banged the door open.

"You haven't eaten, have you?" she asked.

"They don't give me time."

"We'll have something in about twenty minutes." She stood up. "I hear a snake bit you. Is it all right?"

"Sore as hell. I had to cut it all up. Well, I went and asked for it. Hurts my patients more than it does me, I guess. Moloch looks pretty good out there."

"I guess I'll keep him. Sit down."

She went into the kitchen, presently returning with a couple of the crystal wine glasses beautifully emblazoned with Levi Cardmaker's self-conferred eighteenth-century coat and crest. Setting them on the step, she took a jack-knife from her pocket, levered a corkscrew from one side of it, sank it with a muscular twist and drew the cork of the whisky bottle. "This is from Sansbury, on your prescription," she observed, sniffing it. "I guess it's better than Anderson's." She sat down and filled the wine glasses. "What are you so busy about?"

"Healing the sick." He raised the glass and swallowed half of it. "That is pretty good. Oh, a lot of them collapsed when the sun hit them and curled up. They should have stayed under their stones. We'll get a blizzard next week."

"Who's sick?"

"The whole bunch. Regular epidemic. A good many may be just malingering, but Ralph Kimball looks like acute nephritis. We may not see much more of him. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the others. Or they may all be reacting to something like that Spanish 'flu. Stay out of town a while. It seems to be running around. A cold snap will probably finish it off."

"You don't seem much worried."

"It's their hard luck, not mine. Nothing to be done, except see how it comes out. It takes a lot of forms, this influenza. For all we could do about it, some specially bad sort might start up again any time. Wipe out three-quarters of the human race, given a real start."

"No great loss. Speaking of loss, I hear the Talbot girl's death got the gang down on you."

"Some of the women took it to heart. Emma Bates was all set to give me a piece of her mind. Her idea was I should have been there that afternoon."

"What's your idea?"

"That's mine, too," admitted George Bull. "Not that I could have done anything short of an oxygen tent, or some such nonsense they think up to milk the paying customers—but I could certainly have saved myself a lot of dirty looks. Emma was pretty riled. She never did get rid of that piece of mind, so she spent a week chewing it for anybody who'd listen. I could see her at Mamie's funeral wondering whether she couldn't get Doctor Wyck to have me ejected."

"Who else was unhappy?"

"About everybody, I guess. Except Howard Upjohn. He got some cash business—Banning's cash, I don't need to say. And, of course, Mamie. Where she is now, she won't have to be an Episcopalian; or clean up after the Bannings; or give her money to her mother; or wonder whether she'll have a baby if she does."

"Blow over?"

"Sure. That was damn near two weeks ago. Even Emma was calling me up this morning. The real trouble was, I forgot to put on a big show entitled 'The Wonders of Science.'" He lifted the glass and drank thoughtfully. "Funny thing, Janet, to see the change there. When I was first practising, they kind of thought a doctor was a medicine man. They didn't know what it was all about; he was sort of dabbling in the occult, and anything he did was all right with them. They don't know any more now; but they've been reading the papers, and they want some of that, not God knows what out of a bottle. You ought to see Verney's place. Nurses sitting around in uniform making urinalyses. Half a ton of fluroscopic machines. Verney telling all the women to get undressed for a thorough examination. When he's through, he has a four-page record. Nine cases out of ten, he doesn't know a thing he couldn't have found out by feeling a pulse and asking a couple of questions. Talk about the occult! But everybody thinks when he's written down so much he must know something; and the women are purring like cats, wondering if he didn't think they looked pretty good in the raw. That's giving them proper attention. People like the Bannings, who can pay for it, are going to have proper attention or know why not."

"Was Mrs. Banning at the Talbots'?"

"No, just Herbert; but she's on her hind legs as usual. Henry Harris knows she'd like to oust me from Medical Examiner to the School Board, and anything she wants, he seems to make it his special business to see she doesn't get. I guess it annoys her a good deal."

"What's that rat got against the Bannings, George? I've always wondered."

"I don't know. Wish I did; it might be good for a laugh. Maybe it's just politics. Henry can get a lot of people into line voting Democratic for no reason at all except that Banning is a Republican. He was even having a try at me. Fact is, half the people in town know that if they were in Banning's place, they'd think they owned the earth; so that must be what he thinks. They're just going to show him he doesn't. They're going to show him that there isn't enough money in the world to make them stop being contrary damn fools, if they've a mind to be."

Janet laughed briefly, shook another cigarette from a flattened package and thrust it in her mouth. "They make me sick," she said. "The whole lot of them. Kill all you want, George."

"Oh, they aren't so bad, as people go. They're just trying to be free and equal. Fun watching them. I've been right here for forty years and I've never been what you'd call bored."

"You wouldn't have been bored anywhere on earth, so long as they had lots of food, and a little liquor, and a couple of accommodating women."

George Bull's great laugh boomed out. "Sure," he said, "the simple life!" He lifted the wineglass and emptied it. "Can we eat? I got a lot more patients."

THREE

 l

A four by six cut of a photograph taken from the crest of the Cobble showed the great steel towers of the finished transmission line crossing the valley at New Winton. There was also three-quarters of a front-page column about it. Henry Harris, examining the weekly issue of the Sansbury
Times
while he sat on the step of Bates' store on Thursday morning, observed beneath the cut the minute italics:
Courtesy Interstate Light
&
Power,
and allowed himself to smile. You wouldn't catch Marden wasting money.

Henry Harris' interest, though detached, was personal. No one in New Winton knew it, and no one would be likely to guess from the
Times'
vigorously Republican editorial attitude, but the controlling interest in the paper, and in the
Times
Print Shop, had long ago joined the host of miscellaneous properties always quietly accumulating in Henry Harris' hands.

Owning the
Times
was really one of Henry Harris' amusements, and by far the most expensive one. Not that it actually cost him anything, for the printing plant made up its deficit; but he did sacrifice a possible profit for the pleasure afforded him weekly. Marden, a stumpy, swearing little man, was a fanatically honest and economical manager. Knowing of course, that it would be good business for Henry Harris to scrap the paper, politics quite aside, Marden's continued assaults on the Democrats, whether in Sansbury, Hartford, or Washington, had a subtle extra note of defiance. He felt that he was tilting, too, at Henry Harris' indulgence. Every paragraph said also: "Put that in your pipe, Mr. Harris. If you don't like it, you know what you can do."

Henry Harris, his warm private smile lighting over the current example of Marden's valour, turned contentedly on to the section "headed
New Winton Notes.
These were written by Miss Kimball, and if Marden's exaggerated blustering hadn't been reward enough, Miss Kimball would certainly justify his extravagance. Miss Kimball's importance rested entirely on this little job; it made her feel that she was not merely the underpaid village Librarian, but actually somebody. Probably it contributed the assurance shown when she sided so haughtily with Mrs. Banning against Henry Harris. Not an unkind man, Henry Harris was content to enjoy the irony hard to miss in Miss Kimball's rudeness to the person whose most casual word could knock out the props of her whole self-esteem. The spectacle of her skating with dignity on this (had she only known) thinnest possible ice, tickled him. She did not ever mention Henry Harris, just to pay him for daring to differ with Mrs. Banning. As he did not wish to be mentioned, Miss Kimball was not only funny but perfectly satisfactory. He read:
Mr. Norman Hoyt, the well-known artist, is planning to start on a motor trip to Santa
Fe,
New Mexico, Monday. He expects to be away for two or three months. Accompanying Mr. Hoyt will be Miss Valeria Hoyt, his daughter, and Miss Virginia Banning, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Tracy Banning.
This item was the unquestioned cream of Miss Kimball's news; but immediately under it appeared the line:
Mr. Ralph Kimball is confined to his home by a slight illness.

Henry Harris chuckled. "Next thing to nepotism," he remarked.

Lester Dunn, letting the store door close behind him and standing still on the step, said: "What the hell are you mumbling about, Henry?"

"Just enjoying the news. Smart girl, Miss Kimball. I hope the
Times
appreciates her. Where are you going?"

"Nowhere."

Henry Harris folded the paper and tucked it in the pocket of his old corduroy coat. He pointed a pipe stem at his car, standing isolated by the pavement edge. "Come on," he said, "I'll take you there."

"What's up?"

"You never can tell." He glanced at Lester. "You don't look so hot. Got a hangover?"

"Oh, I got a damn cold or something. I feel lousy. What's the trouble?" —'

"No trouble yet. You're probably getting this influenza I hear so much about."

"Bunk. It's something I ate." Driving slowly down the green, Henry Harris said, "How's Doc Bull's hand?"

"Don't know. I haven't seen him since Tuesday."

"Saw him Tuesday myself. By the way, he didn't say anything to you, did he?"

"No."

"I've got a notion he didn't hear anything that time. But he may think something's up. It would be sort of uncomfortable if he does. More I think of it, the more I'm afraid passion betrayed me, Lester."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, you see the whole business isn't really worth the money. I wouldn't have started it if I hadn't felt the urge to annoy my friend Matthew. He needs to be heated up every little while so he won't mildew. But —" He shook his head thoughtfully.

"Listen, Henry, I'm sorry, but I've spent that money, if you're thinking about a refund and calling it off. Besides, what difference does it make if Doc Bull knows? What will he do?"

"Probably nothing. But I like a neat job." He laughed. "You can usually take a chance on big things, Lester; but you have to be awful careful about little ones. Well, we'll try to mop up the spilt milk. Maybe it'll be a lesson to me."

"Lesson about what?"

"Maybe about paying people in advance."

"Watch out!" Lester said.

A glittering black car, going fast, gave them a perfunctory blare of horn and was by. "Doctor Verney," Henry Harris nodded. "Well, I guess Virginia'd better hurry up and get well if she's going to accompany Mr. Norman Hoyt, the well-known artist, to New Mexico."

"There're an awful lot of people sick in this town. Maybe Doc Bull will be so busy he won't get around to anything, anyway."

"Glad to hear it. What I'm worrying about is his getting around to see the mess the Interstate people left that camp in. I'm going to send Albert Foster up as soon as he gets off the job he's doing for Ordway. I hate to pay somebody else three dollars a day when Albert would do it for two fifty."

"Why didn't you make them clean up themselves?"

"Oh, that Snyder chap was kind of sore. I soaked them pretty hard for rent. That land on the hill isn't worth anything. They could have bought the whole mountain for less. They were late and wanted to get out so I thought I wouldn't bother them."

"What's it to Doc Bull?"

"Nothing, but if he wanted to, he'd probably figure out a way for the Board of Health to fine me. It's right on the edge of the water-supply area. After the way he got Banning about the dumping, anything might happen."

"Doc Bull would never bother to go up there. Being Board of Health here's just a racket. Keep your shirt on, Henry. We may make some money yet. Listen, drive over to my place, will you? I got the trots. Been on the can all morning."

"You better take a dose of something and go to bed. We'll never make any money with you laid up. Sure, being Board of Health's a racket; but you can't expect Doc Bull to run himself ragged for three hundred dollars a year salary."

A travelling clock whose silver face could be folded away in its supporting case of pale grey morocco was turned half towards her on the bedside table and Virginia Banning, shifting her head a little on the pillow, could see that it was five minutes to nine. Waiting a moment, concerned, to find out how she felt, she decided that to-day she was all right. There was perhaps a trace of faintness, a hint of yesterday's bad headache, but both would probably go as soon as she had some coffee. Relieved, she remembered wondering, when she felt so rotten on Tuesday and yesterday, if she were really going to be sick. She had not quite dared ask Doctor Verney how long what he called a touch of influenza might last, but her misery had a solid permanence which could easily mean a week or two. The Hoyts wouldn't be able to wait that long.