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“Scarlet fever,” Doc said as a start.
The three of us – Doc, Sheriff Lock, and myself – were sprawled in our chairs in the sheriff’s office, enjoying a gentlemanly libation and convivial atmosphere, by which I meant we were smoking and drinking whiskey. (I’m Mayor Strade – call me Les or Lester, everybody except the Sheriff does.)
Doc’s led a life that seems in line with the rest of the killers, thieves and drunks in Bakerstown; most of his stories end with “and that’s when I shot that son of a bitch.” So I asked him a question about his life before here. After all, Doc is an honest-to-God people-doctor and not just a card-playing gunman who always stands half a step behind the sheriff with a clear line of fire at whoever Lock’s talking to.
“Louisiana’s full of ague and that was goddamn bad enough,” Doc continued. “Then this shit went through Vermilionville while I was working under my old shingle, trying to stay out of trouble. It was mostly kids with it. Ain’t nothing to do but quarantine and cover your face cool them down and hope you didn’t get it. All that death, like something out of the war – but little coffins, lots of little coffins. Undertaker was hammering ‘em together one step behind the demand.
“This one fella, a widower, he had three kids and they were all down with it – two boys and a girl. The little ‘un was an idiot, he had the face. But strong as a mule, that kid; he got better first, when the other two was still sickly and I didn’t know if they’d live. His pa railed at me for saving the ‘wrong’ one a purpose; said he didn’t want no damn’ idiot kid and God coulda took back His mistake when he had the chance and I spoiled that. Right in front of all three of those kids and the Negro woman that did the work on the place.”
Lock’s wooden pipe rocked upward from his teeth clenching on the stem. I felt my own blood seethe and my eyes lower. Simple children can be heartbreaking and burdensome to large impoverished families, but some of them thrive if the family treats the afflicted child with care and love. This wasn’t anything like.
“I looked at this fella. I scratched my chin to show I was thinking. I looked at the sick kids, their eyes big. This wasn’t the first time he’d talked that way, you could tell. Same with the woman – she didn’t say nothing but her eyes were like a wolf with her cubs. I cocked my head at the little ‘un, then caught their pa’s eye again and nodded at the door. We walked out, just a concerned father conferring with the doctor. Outside we went, down to the river’s edge so we couldn’t be overheard. I turned to him. ‘They got kin elsewhere?’ says I. ‘The ones that are still sick. Kin that’d take ‘em in and feed ‘em regular?’”
“’Their aunt,’ says he. ‘Old maid down in Broussard, shares a house with another old maid. Dotes on ‘em. Shit, she even likes that little mistake, hugs him up every time she visits. Probably’d be the only one to cry if – well.’ He smiles cause he knows what I’m about to say.
“’See, if there’s just another death from “scarlet fever,”’ I says, like I’ve thought this over, ‘and everyone’s too busy burying their own dead, and a body just disappears? Nobody ever knows what really happened here, do they? It’s one less order between them and the coffin-maker. Nobody knows what happened, except maybe the nurse, and that can be took care of even easier.”
“’You’re right,’ the fella agreed. “What you got in that gator-bag to do it?”
"’It’s not in the bag,’ I said. And that’s when I shot that son of a bitch.”
Lock grinned like a skull around his pipe at my reaction. Doc grinned – and it was hard to tell which was scarier-looking at that moment.
“Tossed him in the river like a bag of trash. Went back to the house. Told the nurse that the kids’ pa had gone plum loco from his own bout of fever, railing about killing ‘em all and her too. Couldn’t save him without killing all of them, could I, said I, so it was self-defense. Told the nurse to get them to the aunt in Broussard, when they were a little better, and maybe she ought to stay there a while too, until they figured out what happened and who’d done the deed.
“Then I lit to my heels and got the hell out of that state.”
Lock leaned over and nudged my half-full glass in my direction. I took it, closed my mouth, and opened it again to drink.
“And that, Les,” said Doc, “is why I don’t do regular doctoring no more. Reckon I ain’t cut out for it.”