Orcutt wiped his mouth.
Well it's two thousand years old — the oath is — but that don't help it any. What can a doctor really do, Curtis-ever think about it? I've been at it a long time now, and I know what I can do. Nothing. I sit around and drink coffee. Pass the time of day. It's a damn silly oath, really — pretentious and silly.
Oh well, Truxton—
Sawed both legs off a boy once that was smashed by a wagon. His mother says to me before I leave— I got his legs in a burlap bag his father kindly lent to me — you must be tired, do have tea. Red hair she had like a forest burning, and deep green eyes. So I did. I had tea. It was good tea, Curtis, most excellent of the green kind, carefully cooked, one of the best cups I ever drank — like this coffee now that Luther has so nicely boiled for me.
Look, really Truxton — jesus—
Only thing bothered was the blasted bag. He give it to me and he says: get them off the place, get them away. I drank my tea with the sack resting on my feet. I don't know what she thought it was, maybe she knew. I just prayed it wouldn't leak onto her rug. It didn't though — a little blood on my socks was all.
For god's sake, Truxton, we've been through enough.
I remember another time when I was holding the hand of a fellow in a coma — nothing to do but sit and look wise while the organs of his body ate on one another — a long night, it was, too, before he died — well, his son was sitting in a chair over by the door — he was maybe fifteen, maybe more — and he and I were the only ones in the room with his pa and his pa's snore — and the whole time, the whole time, mind, the whole time this boy sit there by the door looking down, hunting a picture of his hate in the floor, I don't know, but looking down and muttering over and over just loud enough for me to get it: I hope you die you bastard, die; I hope you die; die die die. Finally, you know, I just up and screams at him — thump thump thump, he'd been going, die die die — I yell to shut up, but he wasn't a person, he was a drip from a pump — thunk thunk thunk — die — that's all — and I had to get up and tilt back that chair and haul his ass out of that room like he was heaped up in a barrow… singing his little tune.
God. Tell them about the cut-rate tonsil—
The old man died of course, like he'd been told to, and then that crazy fool kid went in the barn and fired a shotgun at his head.
Doc? Hey, it's hurting again.
Let me tell you something funny about poor Boylee — we've lots of time.
Time… yeah. We've plenty of time.
Christ, yes, time, we've sure got that. We've got no damn horses but we've got time.
Doc — tell them about the—
Well several years back when the tail of the Hen Woods burned — remember? — Boylee was out there fighting the fire and one of the Duluth children — they've moved since, remember them? — climbed up a tree to watch the blaze — and it was something to see, too — so anyway, while he was watching he caught his foot in a crotch and got it stuck there. Well, as you can bet, he was howling something fearful as the fire burned down to him. Boylee was there too, running wild around the bottom of the tree and yelling like a fool when I rode up with Watson. Mat climbed up there easy and took him down. It wasn't hard, but Boylee — well, I just figure Boylee was afraid a little. Surprising, ain't it? Real scared, he must have been. It's interesting… Of course it wasn't snowing then, the twigs weren't frozen into nails and the bark icy, and of course it was broad day and the boy was a mere fifteen feet up, maybe, if that, and the climb — well — the kid had got there. Funny, ain't it, how things happen. Boylee's been mad at me ever since, just because I was there to see him do his dance, and maybe because I laughed so hard. Course the child was alive too, not shit on and bit up and hung out like Henry Pimber.
So you felt him over.
Ah — morning, Jethro — how's it feel to be awake? Good nap?
You touched his eyes.
Well — no… no — did you? I just figured it. A dramatic note.
A lie, in short, that's perfect truth. I can understand that.
Look, Truxton, I've been asking you a natural question. You know it's natural. There's plenty of reason for wondering. What do you think? Could he have?
Oh well — how high was he?
Seventy-five, eighty, wouldn't you say, Luther? Hey — you asleep?
No — christ. I'd say eighty easy.
About seventy's right, Menger said.
That high?
Orcutt thought a while, his nose over his coffee, inhaling the steam, his hands warming themselves at the cup.
That's high. It's more a matter for the preacher, seems to me, he said, nodding at Furber who was sprawled on the coats in the corner like a dead crow. He could have seen clean to Columbus from up there. It's hard to tell what a man will do if he's warmed up to it — Boylee for instance.
Why work so hard to kill yourself, why sweat?
And why so high? Didn't he want to be found?
To get shit on by birds like you said.
He'd have fell out of there some time, what was left of him.
The rain would have run right off him.
Well the wind would have dried him good.
Yeah. And the cold would have come on and held him a long time just in the shape he was. He'd have been well kept and damn near sound till summer.
That coat wouldn't have held him. The belt would have broke.
Well his branch did.
Was Boylee nesting on it?
No, I don't think so. He was on the one below it. He cut Henry loose and then he lost him — a cold load, I bet — and when Henry went he busted Boylee's branch off too.
Well, Orcutt said, I'm sorry I missed that. That must have been something. All my life I'll be sorry I missed it.
That's all right — Tott'll tell you about it till you're sick of it.
What do you suppose he went along for?
Without a single reason I can see to do it — that's what gets me.
He was getting well. He was okay — right, Doc?
Sure. What the hell was the point? He was okay — right? If he goes to execution in a chariot, and I in a cart or by foot, where is the glorious advantage, Furber quoted.
Orcutt felt of his beard and brushed it with his sleeve, happier now it was soft.
It's hard to figure, he said. That's high. Eighty's high. No ladies here? Ah then I'll chew. I must have a chew here somewhere.
He felt himself.
You know I took that sack away on my mare — she could smell it too, she reared around and fished to beat the devil — and I was maybe a mile on the road when I hear galloping behind me and it's father in a lather. The child is dead, he says, and I say that's too bad — it sure was no surprise-so I say that's too bad — what do you say, anyway, time like that? — and I get ready to give him back his money as I figure that's what he's come for, and well, I don't mind if it makes him feel any better, you know. But he says, holding out his hand in a smart-ass way, give me back the bag. The bag, I say, surprised, why? We want to bury him together, he says back, furious with me for being witless. You wouldn't want us to bury him in pieces, would you, separated like that from himself, he says, horrified. And he snatches the bag and gallops away, holding it out at arm's length, the thing beginning to wet its bottom and to swing and kick about by itself like he had a living chicken in it. Ain't that a funny one? Ah.
Orcutt finally dredged a piece of tobacco from his vest and carefully picked off the lint. With one hand he unclasped his knife and deftly sliced a generous hunk.
Just from the physical side you understand, he said — the other's outside science — my guess would be he wasn't strong enough to do it. Not by half. He'd been greatly sick, poor Henry had, and he was never what you'd call a powerful man, not in body surely, or in spirit either I should say. Not enough strength in him and not enough gumption.