The Devil's Paintbox, page 23
The city of Seattle was nothing like Aiden had imagined. He felt guilty for how nice he had made it sound to poor Polly so long ago, on the night of the wolves. There were no ice cream parlors or music halls. Aside from a few brick buildings, most were rough clapboard, weathered gray and all the same. Some of the downtown area along the shops had boardwalks, but to cross the street he waded through ankle-sucking mud thickly studded with horse droppings. The breeze smelled of tidal ooze, and the sky was thick with sooty smoke from the piles of burning sawdust slag at the sawmill. He ran a finger down the side of his face and found it black with grit.
It wasn't even four o'clock, but the winter twilight combined with the smoke in the air had lanterns flickering in windows. As he walked down the main street, voices called to him from every doorway, offering jobs, berths on ships, clean rooms, the cheapest whiskey, fair gambling, good laundry, the salvation of his soul and the best women.
“You hungry?” A Chinese boy grabbed his hand and tugged him toward a saloon. “Need best room? Golden Palace for you. Good stew here, real beef! No mule, no dog, no rat!”
“No thanks,” Aiden said. “I'm looking for Ruby's place. Can you show me?”
“Ruby no good! Bugs in bed, water in whiskey! Come stay Grand Palace! Very nice here,” the boy said loudly. Then he winked, tilted his head and cupped his fingers in an unmistakable way of asking for a tip. Aiden walked on, and when they were out of sight of the Grand Palace, he stopped.
“Well?” he said, casually tumbling a penny between his fingers.
“You need wash? Pretty girl? Good job? I know!” “No thanks, just Ruby's.”
“Down there.” The boy pointed at one of the shabby buildings at the bottom of the hill.
Ruby was unimpressed with Aiden's mention of Mr. Powhee's name, but she seemed like a woman who would be unimpressed by anything short of Christ himself sitting on a unicorn, and even then she would bite his coin.
“Fifty cents for a bunk. Twenty-five more to guard your kit,” she said. “I have a locked room, and this is the only key.” She pulled a sturdy metal key out from the bosom of her dress. She was a tiny woman with streaky red hair and just enough of a mustache that it showed in a certain slant of light. It was difficult to place her age; she could have been fifty or a hard-living thirty. She wore ropes of beads and silver necklaces, long sparkling earrings and rings on every finger, though Aiden suspected more glass than jewels.
“I'm looking to meet some old friends,” he said. “Perhaps you have heard of them. They arrived in a wagon train in late October.”
“People come and go.”
“One is a preacher—the Reverend Gabriel True. Also a doctor …” He hesitated, finding it hard to even say the name. “Carlos Perez.”
Ruby laughed. “I have little need for preachers or doctors unless there's a dead body around, and when there is, names are not handed about.” She looked at him over a pair of gold-rimmed half-glasses that she wore on a beaded chain. “But my cook is a Bible fellow, you can ask him if you like.”
“How about any old doctor, then?” Aiden asked. Ruby narrowed her eyes and looked him up and down suspiciously
“You can't stay here if you're sick.”
“Sorry ma'am, I'm not sick at all. It's just that I'll be going north for the gold mining come springtime, and I hear there's smallpox up there. I mean to get myself vaccinated while I'm here.”
She sniffed, and pushed her grimy sleeves back, displaying rows of bracelets on each arm: thin gold and silver bands, Indian beads and Chinese ivory.
“Dr. Abradale can do that, I suppose. He's a queer one, and English, but he's the only one there is.” She pulled a heavy gold pocket watch out of her skirt. She must be wearing twenty pounds of jewelry and baubles, Aiden thought. “It's just after five, and he leaves his office at six o'clock promptly to take his supper at the Golden Palace, so you'll find him easily enough. Will you be dining here?”
“I don't know,” Aiden said. “I will have a bed, though, thanks.” He put fifty cents on the counter.
“And your kit?”
“I don't really have any,” he said, nodding to the small bag he carried over one shoulder. She examined his coins carefully and pointed out the room where he would have a bunk.
“I have three clear lanterns out,” she said. “Two yellow is Sally's next door. Before that, two red for Little Joe's; his whores are all diseased, so talk to Sally if you have that need. That marks your path from the high road. We have our guards, but be mindful nevertheless.”
r. Abradale s office was easy to find, a low narrow building squeezed between a hardware store and a burned-out church. There was no bell, but the front door was open, and so Aiden walked into a vestibule with two benches.
“Hello?” he called. “Dr. Abradale?” He entered the examining room and saw a battered wooden cabinet against one wall, two chairs against another and in the center a table with an enamel top. Aiden had never seen a doctor's office before, but it seemed as if there should be more to it. There was another entry at the rear of this room, and he had just raised his hand to knock when the door suddenly flew open.
“Someone there?”
Aiden saw a plump little man with thick spectacles, wiry, uncombed gray hair like a clump of lichen clinging to his head, a soiled smock and a scalpel in one hand.
“Yes? Hello? What's the problem?” the man asked brusquely.
Aiden looked warily at the raised scalpel. “Oh, sorry.” Abradale lowered the knife. “Just trimming some specimens. Come, come.”
Aiden entered the second room, not sure exactly what sort of specimens were being trimmed. He was relieved to see the table covered with plants.
“Good lot of new ferns today, you see,” he said in a clipped English accent. “Fascinating phylum. Pteridophytes; most primitive of the vascular plants.”
“You're the doctor?” Aiden looked doubtfully at all the plants.
“Yes.” The man stared at him impatiently his eyes big as chestnuts through the thick glasses. “Botany is a hobby. Though I am published in the field. Orchids were my original subject. Named three in Surinam. But there's a lady botanist down there now, you see. Paints pretty watercolors. Weak on taxonomy in my opinion, but she's popular. So I came up here. Not a glamorous field, ferns, but fascinating. And no ladies up here doing watercolors, eh?
“So what's wrong?” He peeled off the thick glasses and gave Aiden a quick glance up and down. “You look fine.”
Aiden explained that he wanted a smallpox vaccination.
“Good idea, very smart,” Abradale grunted. “Surprising how many don't take the vaccine, in this day and age. There's some religions against it, do you know? And some just bloody stupid. But I cannot give it to you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I don't keep any here. Especially not now.”
“Why not?”
“There's Indians on the hunt for it. Came right here to my own door. Bad business. Police caught them, though. A whole band of them ready to murder. Killed a police guard. Crushed his throat. I did the postmortem. Brutal.”
Aiden didn't know what a postmortem was but felt it best not to ask about anything brutal. He had to work to push away the image of Silent Wolf being beaten to death.
“Come back in two weeks.” Abradale took off his stained smock, then tenderly draped a sheet over the table of ferns.
“I won't be here in two weeks,” Aiden protested. “Is there someone else who has the vaccine? Another doctor?”
“There's none to be had right now. No. Sorry. Good evening.” Abradale waved a hand toward the door. “Now do excuse me. I've a table kept for me at six at the Golden Palace. Latecomers eat standing, and the meat is largely gristle by then.” He put on his jacket and picked up his hat.
“Might I impose upon you for company, then?” Aiden jumped at the tiny opportunity, racking his brain for polite words. “I—I would like to hear more about the ferns. I've often admired them, as—ah, I'm a logger, and there's ferns all over.” He couldn't tell one fern from another but figured the man for one who liked to talk much more than listen, so he should be all right.
“Awfully young for a logger, aren't you?”
“No,” Aiden said lamely.
“Well, come along, then; you might as well fill the other seat. But step lively.”
Aiden's plate was clean and his brain was numb with long Latin words about ferns before he managed to get Dr. Abradale back around to the subject of smallpox vaccine.
“That must be a fascinating process too,” he offered. “Making vaccine for people out of cows. How do they do it, anyway?”
“Nothing to it, really.” Abradale shrugged. “Scratch a pustule on an infected cow and put the pus to another cow. On the udder, I think, tender skin there. The new cow develops pustules and you pass it on. Goes on forever.” He spoke with the careful overenunciation of too much wine. Aiden had insisted on treating for a jug of it. It was thick and terribly sweet, and he could hardly drink it himself.
“So is there a farm of cows just for that?”
“Um-hummmm.” Abradale nodded as he chewed.
“Where?”
“I've no idea. Cow country, eh! Down the valley, I suppose.”
Aiden poured him more wine.
“Thanks, lad.” He took a deep drink. Aiden choked some down too. The Golden Palace was indeed full, with men standing around the walls eating quickly off tin plates. A piano player pounded out lively music. There were no women except for one serving the tables.
“How do you actually get the vaccine from the cows to people?” Aiden asked.
“What? Oh, well, threads, generally.” Abradale sopped up the last smears of gravy with a piece of bread. “Bits of cotton string soaked in the cow pus, you see? Prick the arm, then lay on the string. They used to just take the cow around door-to-door and scrape it right from the cow into your arm! But this is the modern age, eh?” He plowed the last bit of bread around the bare plate in vain hope. “There's a team going about now, I believe—something about it in the Gazette.”
“Going around where?” Aiden asked hopefully.
“Oh—logging camps, trading posts, forts and the like, I think. It's January, eh? Vaccine doesn't travel in summer, goes bad in the heat, so winter is the time to take it around. Get to everyone while they're gathered up.”
“Will they bring it to the Indian villages too?” Aiden proceeded cautiously now.
“Oh no. Can't do that!”
“Why not?”
“Ah, well. Complicated,” Abradale said. “Different species. Well, not species, exactly—not like ferns and orchids. But different enough for disease. Influenza, whooping cough, measles—our diseases are much harder on the red man. Kills them four to one.”
“So—shouldn't that be more reason to vaccinate them?”
Abradale leaned forward, peering at him closely. “You're a Christian lad, eh—” Aiden wasn't sure if that was a question or not, but Abradale quickly went on. “Of course you are—you don't look a bit like a Jew—so you must believe God knows what he's doing, eh?”
“I'm not sure what you mean, sir.”
Abradale stirred three spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee and took a delicate sip. “Let God's will be done. You see? The good Lord can save the Indians if he wants!” Abradale patted his hand on the table like a judge. “Perhaps he doesn't want to. We shouldn't be interfering with vaccinations.”
The argument seemed so ridiculous that Aiden didn't even know where to start. Hadn't millions of good Christian white people died before the smallpox vaccine was invented? Had that been God's will?
“Will you have some pudding, Dr. Abradale?” The waitress, a plump young woman with shiny apple cheeks, leaned down over their table, showing a generous bosom and a tray of desserts. “Ah!” Abradale beamed with happiness. “Have the pudding, lad—it's lovely.”
“I—ah, I'm full, thanks,” Aiden lied. He felt slightly nauseated and dizzy. Not from the rich food or syrupy wine but from the calm cruelty of Abradale's twisted logic.
“It's cherry!” The waitress tilted the tray toward Aiden and pointed to a little china dish with a piece of cake studded with purple cherries, swimming in custard and syrup.
She was not especially pretty, but her round face was smooth and the skin clear. Aiden thought of Bandy and what a different life she would have had if she weren't all scarred. She would be in San Francisco, teaching school and living in a cozy little room with gaslights and rugs. She could go to musical recitals and plays and have nice men courting her.
“No thank you,” Aiden said. He watched Dr. Abradale spoon up a glistening purple bite. “What about Christian Indians?” he asked. “Shouldn't they be vaccinated?”
“Ah, well, difficult that—” Abradale looked unhappy to have the conversation steered from cherry pudding back to smallpox. “You must understand, the vaccine isn't perfect for our own. It sometimes fails. Imagine the trouble if we start pricking the red devils! Remember the Whitman Massacre? Oh, it's nearly twenty years ago, and measles, not even smallpox, but no one forgets it around here.” He spoke quickly between spoonfuls. “The Indians got the measles and thought the whites were working evil magic on them. They slaughtered thirteen or fourteen people at the mission. So you see the problem, eh?”
“But couldn't you explain the risks to them and let them decide?”
“Explain? They have witch doctors!”
Abradale scooped out the last drop of syrup, patted his lips, surrendered his napkin and pushed away from the table. “Fine evening!” He stood and shook Aiden's hand vigorously. “Call on me in two weeks, eh? I'll get some vaccine for you. Awful thing, the smallpox.”
iden walked back to Ruby's in a gloomy frustration. The rutted mud road had stiffened in the cold of night, and he stumbled over the lumpy ground. He turned his jacket collar up against the chill wind. He felt stupid. He should have thought this through before he left the camp. It had been a fool's errand from the start. Stupid Tupic coming here in the first place. Stupid Indians dying so easily. Stupid white men thinking everyone else was stupid. Stupid everyone in the world.
He had not slept much in three days now and was unimaginably tired. He tried to remember the lights. Two red, one white—three clear? As he skidded down the steep path to the waterfront road, he suddenly heard scuffling in the shadows. Aiden stopped, his skin prickling. He should probably be afraid, he thought, but was actually more annoyed. He was no longer a stick-legged pony. He had learned to fight and learned to hurt, was tired of both and didn't want to do either right now.
“Who's there?” he called out. “I've a damn grim attitude, so come on if you want! But you'll need four to take me down and I'll cut at least two of yours balls off as we go!”
The night fell silent. He thought he heard a woman giggling from one of the houses. The clink of a metal chain gave him a moment's warning, then it was all grunts and boots, clubs, chains, sticks and planks. Aiden ducked and swung a hard punch at the nearest figure. He felt his fist connect with ribs, hard enough to wrench out a grunt of surprise. But then a hard whack knocked the back of his legs and his knees hit the ground. He dropped, rolled and kicked, and heard someone fall with a gasp of pain. Not a second for satisfaction, though, as a chain slammed into the mud inches from his head. He crabbed away, grabbed a chunk of dirt and flung it up toward the voices. A boot kicked hard against his side. He waited for the next kick, then grabbed the man's foot, twisted and flipped him to the ground.
Aiden scrambled to his feet and punched his fist into the man's stomach. The man groaned, but then a bat slammed across Aiden's back, knocking him facedown into the hard rutted road. He struggled to get up. It was so dark he couldn't tell if there were two or twenty men, but even the Bull couldn't fight off two men with clubs. He steeled himself for the next blow, but then there were shouts and gunshots, and as quickly as it had all started, it ended.
The attackers ran off. Someone took his arm and helped him to his feet. There were two big men with clubs of their own, and another with a pistol and a lantern.
“Well, there's one less for the bilge business!” One of them laughed. “Anything broken?”
“No.” Aiden bent over, waiting for the world to stop spinning. He wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand. Someone held the lantern up close to his face and Aiden squinted.
“Lookit there, Mack—he's a young one! Boy don't even shave yet!”
“They'd like him for a sailor, eh?” They all laughed.
“I do shave,” Aiden said defensively, stupidly, as if that were all at stake in the world right now. It wasn't often, and only his chin, but he did shave.
“A few bruises, but still pretty enough,” the man said. They laughed some more and Aiden heard a bottle being uncorked.
“You fight like a man, anyway.” The man with the club took a drink and handed him the bottle. “Where are you staying? Ruby's or Little Joe's?”
“Ruby's.”
“Come on, then; we'll see you safe home.”
They walked him there, bid him good night and returned to their patrol. Aiden found a pitcher of water and some tin cups on a stand by the desk. He took a cupful outside, where he did his best to wash the dirt and blood off his face. He went back inside, felt his way down the dim hallway to his room, stumbled quietly to his bunk, pulled the rough blanket over his head and shivered. Seattle was notorious for Shanghai crews. It was the only way most ships got a crew these days. Knock a man on the head in a bar and he would wake up at sea the next day with no way off. Powhee had warned him; Ruby's guards took it as routine. So why did he feel there was something more to this attack?
Cold morning. What now? In the dining room, Aiden poured himself a cup of coffee and eyed what looked like the worst corn bread in the history of the world: flat doughy squares, shiny raw in the middle, where leavening had clearly failed. They looked worse than “corn jelly meat,” if such a thing were even possible. Still, he choked a couple down. They weighed in the bottom of his stomach like lumps of clay.
