The Only Living Man With A Hole In His Head
The Only Living Man With A Hole In His Head
by
Todd Colby Pliss
Copyright© 2012 Smashwords Edition
For my parents Linda and Irwin, with love. Thank you for your generous support. And for Wayne and Brooke.
The Only Living Man With A Hole In His Head. Copyright © 2011 by Todd Colby Pliss. All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except for quotations embedded in articles and reviews. For information address S.B Addison Books, 32 Lincoln Ave. Niles, OH 44446 or email info@sbaddisonbooks.com
Portions of this novel are fictitious and drawn completely from the author's imagination. Those portions including, dialogue, incidents, and characters are not to be construed as real.
EBOOK EDITION
Cover designed by: Joshua Longiaru
ISBN: 9780983868174
CHAPTER ONE
December, 1867
San Francisco, California
It was not that Dr. John Martyn Harlow enjoyed digging up corpses. In fact, in his forty-nine years, it would be only his second exhumation, but sometimes a man had to disturb the resting bones of another man. It was the right thing to do for the right reason. It had included journeying to San Francisco, not on one railroad—for it would be two additional years, in 1869, that the entire territory of the United States would be linked by uninterrupted rail line—but rather transferring between four separate lines to arrive at the fast growing city by the bay. As Dr. Harlow, attired in a choice suit custom made by one of Boston’s finest tailors, scanned the horizon, focusing on it’s port, with the neat row of wooden buildings along the shore. Chimneys on top of the wooden buildings, belched smoke and Dr. Harlow found it hard to consider that twenty months prior, the whole area had been rocked by a major earthquake. None of the folks back in Dr. Harlow’s hometown, a small town in rural Vermont, could even comprehend what an earthquake felt like. But there, on October 8, 1865, as one of the newspapers reported, there existed "scarcely a house in the city that does not show some mark of the visitation, in cracked walls, open joints, flaked plaster, or a cranky position. Many of the old heavy brick structures are so shaken up and twisted as to be dangerous to the occupants".
Dr. Harlow, thin and slightly haunted looking, thought about how appropriate the miserable weather was for the scene playing out before him. Rainy and cold, the foggy morning lent a more macabre aura than usual to Laurel Hill Cemetery. Laurel Hill was the final resting place of numerous citizens, wealthy and poor alike. Fittingly, those included were the graves of Andrew Halladie, famed inventor of the cable car, so associated with the metropolis, the fifty-four acre graveyard also served as a place where families would picnic and young couples would promenade among the dead.
Moisture softened the dirt into mud, making it appear as if it were a giant cake batter waiting to be mixed. A dampness that seemed to permeate every cell of his body the way he had seen scarlet fever do so in many of his unfortunate patients.
The gravediggers went about their work diligently. Dr. Harlow was acquainted with the knowledge that many corpses were being dug up to be sold to medical schools as cadavers. It was a lucrative endeavor, but one of which he did not approve. As he watched the men work, he wondered if they were indeed part of the grisly trade. That was not his main concern, at least at the moment.
SWACK! Another fresh shovelful of mud was tossed aside.
Holding an umbrella, Dr. Harlow stood impatiently with two other men.
"Just how long will this be, Harlow?" Judge Johnson, the older of the men, inquired between coughs.
"Does the act of digging up a corpse frighten you, Judge?" Dr. Harlow asked.
The Judge, one of San Francisco's most respected public officials, simply stated with disdain, "Certainly not. I shall have other commitments to attend to."
“Whether or not we approve, death is a natural part of the cycle of life,” the physician's observation fell on indifferent ears.
The third observer, David Shattuck, took it all in stride. He freely held a flask from which he'd take an occasional sip. Not that it was a party or a celebration that he was attending. After all, it was his kin whose bones were being so thoroughly disturbed. Nor was he an excessive drinker who could throw 'em down real good—at least not anymore.
SWACK! Dr. Harlow's ears perked up at the sound of a shovel as it hit wood.
The Judge impulsively shoved a legal document into David's hand, as if he were clutching a piece of cloth ablaze and couldn't wait to get it out of his age-spotted fingers. "It's official," the Judge coughed some more, "he's exhumed."
David stared at the legal papers and uttered, "Thank you, your Honor."
Again, one of the gravediggers forcefully bore down his shovel, hitting and splintering wood. "For God's sake!" Dr. Harlow cried out. "Be careful." Those men were acting like they were participating in a log-splitting contest.
David took another swig from his trusty flask and extended it to Dr. Harlow, an edgy man who did not seem to notice the bottle at all.
The pair of gravediggers, both youthful men typical of the profession that was populated by those who were unskilled at little else or had yet to take on a respectable apprenticeship, took pride in the fact that former president Abraham Lincoln himself had once worked in the trade. Matthew, the stronger of the two, knelt beside the heavy coffin to tie a thick rope around its handles. Then he hopped out of the freshly dug burial space. Taking rope in hand, the gravediggers attached it to the saddles of the two standby muscular horses and slapped their rumps.
"He's been dead for seven years," Judge Johnson barked. "What could you possibly hope to find?"
"I hope to find the truth," Dr. Harlow spoke with honesty.
In what gave the impression of occurring as fast as a bolt of lightning hitting a tree, the rope slipped off the coffin, which then began a perilous slide down six feet of mud, eliciting a "For God's sake!" cry from Dr. Harlow. As the one closest to it, the healer immediately dived to his knees to grab the handle to slow the crashing fall, but the weight of the coffin dragged him with it. Part of the coffin cracked open, as if an egg shell dropped carelessly by a child onto a kitchen floor. "DAMN!" was the only word that streaked in the good doctor's mind—and the bones of a foot came protruding out. Dr. Harlow flashed a wicked grin at the gravediggers, who, without hesitation leaped back into the grave to re-attach the rope.
Moments later, in the compact cemetery hut lit by lantern, the thunder showers heavier and splashing annoyingly through holes in the roof, Dr. Harlow and David watched as the gravediggers removed the bulky lid. Full of anticipation, the out-of-towner could feel his own heartbeats as pronounced as the precipitation that fell on him. The corpse came into view. David took another gulp from his flask as he noted how rotted to black the remains had become. Perhaps his brother-in-law being dug up like a deep-rooted bush wasn't such a wise idea after all. Then again, it had been his mother-in-law's decision. His presence was purely formal as the law required to be "the family member of record" to witness and receive the documentation of said disinterment.
Dr. Harlow, at once saddened by the sight of his deceased friend and former patient, but also elated at what the opportunity would mean for the medical world, carefully touched the head. His fingers gently glided to the top of the cranium, ending at a large lump.
Memories of two decades earlier came flooding back, swimming like a school of minnow in his mind. This was, however, not the appropriate time to reminisce. David nudged him, "Doctor Harlow?"
"David. You're second kin," Dr. Harlow stated as he regained his composure, "By law, well, I won't force you. Do you want to?"
"I reckon it's only fitting."
David positioned himself at the top of the coffin. He had to be strong, not physically, but emotionally, spiritually, that was the important thing. Not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, David yet felt that a higher power did govern the Universe and surely there was a purpose for his standing in the cemetery at that moment in time about to do the unthinkable. David placed a hand on each side of the cranium and, in one rapid motion, with Dr. Harlow holding the body down, twisted off the head, the movement punctuated with a creaking sound.
"You feeling right?" Dr. Harlow asked as David handed him an open hat box filled with cotton.
Passing the skull to Dr. Harlow, he mumbled, "Right as rain."
Dr. Harlow, cradling the precious cargo, nestled it in the bed of white. Suddenly, the notion of something missing came over him like a cold shiver. The physician with the soggy garments snapped his own head back toward the open coffin. "Where is it?" he demanded of no one in particular. Dr. Harlow, who began to search frantically, broke off a piece of coffin wood, then impulsively tossed it aside. "Not here. I know he was buried with it."
David indulged himself another comfort sip from his trusty flask as he and the soiled gravediggers looked at one another, confused. Had this visitor from back east gone mad? Had he contracted the much feared scarlet fever, possibly from one of his patients? Was the stress of what he was doing getting to him?
Dr. Harlow grabbed the lantern and peered into the coffin. "It simply must be...AHA!" A partial smile of relief adorning his face, he lifted up a Tamping Iron, and what an impressive rod it was—three feet in length, one-half inch in diameter, weighing thirteen pounds, one end pointed, the other with a crowbar tip. The perfect tool for a railroad foreman to have in his arsenal. Taking it in one hand, Dr. Harlow absentmindedly rested his other on the decayed body in the coffin.
"Extraordinary," David blurted out.
The gravediggers watched restlessly. To them, this was just another gig. Just another corpse in just another coffin in just another cemetery. No questions asked. That was, as long as they were paid in gold coins, preferably, or good old US of A currency.
Finally, one of them asked, "Sir, shall I remove the remains?"
Dr. Harlow could hardly take his eyes from the Tamping Iron, but managed to reply, "That's quite all right. I have what I came for. Do you mind finishing? I haven't much time to prepare it for the train ride."
"I'll put him to rest with what dignity is left him."
The healer placed the cover on the box and proceeded to carry both the head and the Tamping Iron out of the hut.
CHAPTER TWO
September 13, 1848
Cavendish, Vermont
"Phineas, do tell. Please."
Nag. Nag. Nag. Phineas Gage had grown up in a household of women, namely his mother and younger sister. Even though he had lost his father when he was a mere lad of twelve, and had no male role model to draw from, he still considered his skills ample when it came to dealing with the fairer sex. The proof? There he was, at age twenty—five, with his long-term girlfriend, and he still enjoyed his freedom without having tied himself down with matrimony, as was the case with a majority of the people his age. It's not that he had a "roving eye". Rather, he was climbing the ladder of success in his chosen field and wasn't feeling the itch to rush into the marriage and children department.
On that brisk autumn Vermont morning as the leaves were about to begin their annual ritual of color change that would turn the whole of New England into an orgy of vibrant hues, Phineas was once again listening to Elisa's barrage of questions about his intentions for their future together. "I have informed you of my knowledge on the matter," Phineas proclaimed whilst standing in the cozy den of the cabin he called home as he prepared for the long day of labor ahead.
"Surely, as a close friend of Harrison's," Elisa pointed out, her hazel eyes sparkling, "you must be privy to knowledge as none other would." She busied herself by brewing her favorite peppermint tea since she was a wee girl.
"When we labor, we must keep our focus on what is at hand. It is not a social call."
"But still! Marriage is but once in a lifetime," Elisa said with such conviction that her long silky mane of blond flustered.
Phineas packed his meal basket, which included a lunch of stewed rabbit, roast mutton, chestnut soup and plum pudding. There would be no cafes, general stores or saloons in the vicinity of the day's work site. Phineas’s mother was known to make the best plum pudding in all of Windsor County. Some folks speculated it was the extra pinch of nutmeg she added. If Hannah herself were telling her secret, which she wasn't—not even to kin—that it was the shot of brandy she added to each batch. "How go the wise words, which you yourself, Elisa, are so fond of stating—Patience is bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
Elisa, disregarding the words spoken by her beau, was in a dreamy state, her lengthy hair flowing in the breeze of an open window, as she declared, "The Cavendish Ball! So romantic a setting for a man to ask for a woman's hand. Under the autumn sky, stars shining bright, the whole of Cavendish in attendance to witness such a joyous event.
Oh, how I envy Rose." She floated close to Phineas, put her mouth beside his ear, "Your beloved is getting on in her seasons."
"Hardly. Twenty-one is but a child."
"When mother was thus, she already bore three children."
"That was a different era," Phineas countered. "This is 1848. We reside in a more enlightened time. There's even talk at work of one day soon a railroad connecting the whole of the United States territory. Can you imagine, being able to travel from the Atlantic clear out to the Pacific in only one train compartment? Now, that's progress," Phineas cracked a smile at that thought. He was a laborer who took pride in what he did, wholeheartedly believing that he was helping make the nation a better place for its citizens.
Elisa took a sip of tea. "I attempt to see another vision. One that includes marriage and joyful children." She watched with hopeful eyes as Phineas packed up an extra set of work clothes. A railroad foreman never did know when those may come in handy.
Phineas placed his arm gently around Elisa's shoulder. "Elisa, you are my angel," he reassuringly began, “my precious flower. I can not and will not imagine my days without your beauty, intelligence and grace." It may have sounded as if Phineas was laying it on thick in an attempt to butter her up, but he meant every word that escaped his mouth. He recalled back to when he was nine and laid eyes on Elisa for the first time on a trip into town. All it took was a flash of Elisa’s sincere, bright smile and Phineas was mesmerized. Her smile combined with her golden locks and hazel eyes that glowed like two compact bonfires burning, set her apart from every girl in the entire town. Or perhaps Phineas’s fascination came from the feeling that Elisa made him comfortable, like he’d known her for an eternity, if one believed in that sort of thing. But whatever it was that made Elisa so special to him, Phineas considered himself lucky to have her in his life.
He sincerely continued, "Please bear my patience. I have made foreman and it is with that responsibility that I endure. When the new addition of the Rutland and Burlington is complete, I shall grace your wishes. And mine too. I must take leave." With that, he kissed her and left.
"The Cavendish Ball. How romantic!" Elisa couldn't help herself.
The Rutland and Burlington Railroad, ever since it's 1843 charter given by the State of Vermont, had been expanding fast. Only the strongest of men, both in strength and spirit, could handle the long hours, back-breaking labor and most of all, repetition of the job. In the era before unions and strikes, railroads varied in fairness in how they treated their workers. Some railroad executives believed in fair pay while others treated their laborers as little more than a commodity to be purchased at the lowest cost. Phineas, who had been employed with that particular railroad for eight years, had worked his way up the proverbial ladder, from yard laborer to track layer to blast assistant to blaster to construction gang leader to foreman. He'd even worked as a brake operator for a time. Phineas laughed when his friends told him he wasn't strong enough for that position, but he'd proved them wrong—again. Many of the foremen didn't like the immigrants coming in to work on "their" railroads, but as long as they worked an honest day, Phineas had no problem with any of them.
The construction gang consisted of rugged, young men, who were in the process of moving the railroad through the wilderness and granite bedrock. The lead gang—the blast gang—were in constant movement between the front of the right-of-way to the safety area just ahead of men laying track. On that Indian Summer day, Phineas stood proud, clutching his Tamping Iron, and observed his crew. He was happy with all of them. Yep, he thought, but didn't dare say out loud for fear of stroking any egos, these boys make me look real good.
"The Blasters bet a nickel they'll lose you today," Phineas teased the gang. He was always very good at doing what he could to make the long days go by faster.
Harrison, with his dark eyes and thin mustache, glanced at a formidable mass of stone. “Not with that wall of rock.”
The blasters and the construction crews behaved as if they were of different species, like lions and zebras on the African plains doing their eternal dance of death. Even outside of work, the men on the different crews rarely socialized. On the job, that animosity often manifested itself in a flurry of competitiveness. Phineas lifted his Tamping Iron and pointed it at the front line of workers. "If I was you, I'd bet 'em a dime you'll be licking their heels like dogs all afternoon." He knew how to get them going, burrow under their skin, get them working hard, make himself look good. Isn’t that part of what being an effective foreman was all about?
Edward, more shy and introspective than most of the other crew, stepped forward.“Don’t fall for it. Phineas could trick the Devil into shoveling twice the brimstone and make him think it was his idea of fun.”
“Aye, and he’d be smiling,” Phineas said with a wink.
Harrison shot a crooked smile at his friend, Edward. “We’ll win that one, if old soft hands Edward here keeps on the straight and narrow.” Both of them had enjoyed their after hours rabble-rousing together, but at work, they each thought the other didn’t quite pull his own weight.
Edward’s brow furrowed, “What kind of thing you implying by calling me soft hands?” To him, those were fighting words.
“You know damn fine what I mean.”
“Why don’t you spell it out for me?”
“Spell it out? I know you ain’t been in school since the fifth grade, but now I got to spell for you? D, O, G, dog. Wait, I got another one. L, A, Z, E. You know what them letters spell out?”
“One of these days, Harrison, you’re going to push me too far.”
From the front line close to the granite rock, Tommy Granger, the teenage blast assistant and something of a mascot to the blast team, shouted, “Foreman!” Tommy was the all-American kid who reminded Phineas of himself at that age. Hearing him, Phineas turned to walk away.
“Bet those boys a shot of whiskey,” Edward suggested before his foreman was out of earshot.
“That’s an honest challenge,” Harrison added, then looked at Edward and shook his head disappointingly as if a mother whom had just caught his son’s hand in the cookie jar.
A smaller gang of twelve men, the front line, toiled with intensity. They feverishly handled chisels, hammers, picks and wedges to break holes in the granite. The men had heard tales of other gangs on other railroads in the central states, or even in the Kansas territory, where the ground was soft as finely ground sugar, or at least beach sand. Those pansies didn't know nothing 'bout how hard working a front line could really be. Just let 'em try to deal with New England granite. See how far they would get. The front line team hoisted their tools and moved to the safety of the back line.
Phineas could not let the opportunity pass to have some good—natured fun. He marched right up to the Blast Gang. "The back line says their sisters could blast faster, and bet you a shot of whiskey they'll catch you." The foreman was only greeted by laughter, hearty roars of laughter at that. A challenge was on. The Blast Gang bellowed a rally cry, which, forty yards away, was echoed by the Track Gang.
Tommy, sporting an impressive set of powder burns on his face, lifted a small urn and poured black gunpowder down a three-inch wide hole driven into the solid rock. He labored meticulously until all the gunpowder disappeared down the neat slot. Then he backed up. Phineas moved in and knelt in front of the blast hole. What he would do next took skill, focus, experience. He trusted only himself with the task. He carefully looped a piece of fuse over the tip of his Tamping Iron, then lowered its point end down the neat hole.
Tommy watched cautiously-this is where the supervisor's years of experience proved essential-as Phineas reversed the iron so that the flat end could enter the hole. The boss nodded, pulled out his iron. Next, it was Tommy's turn to pour sand over the gunpowder and the deep buried fuse in its tidy slot. Phineas carefully tamped down the gunpowder until he shouted, "CUT OUT!"
Iron pulled up in a rapid movement, Phineas and Tommy dashed from the charged hole like two rabbits spooked by a horse. They covered their ears to the deafening explosion that followed, as rock rained down upon the area and settled to reveal a ten foot void that seconds ago was solid rock. Phineas always admired the effectiveness of the gunpowder. Poetry in motion. Even the Blast Gang took a breather to proudly admire their work.
"She's a beauty, Mr. Gage?" Tommy asked.
"It'll do." Phineas had blasted more holes than he could count.
To him, it would be like comparing pine cones. You've seen one, well...you know how that goes.
The Blast Gang rushed forward as the construction crew rallied a war cry to repeat the cycle in order to get the new line built.
It still being early, the autumn sun not anywhere near its zenith, they had a long way to go. Phineas strode to the head, trusty Tamping Iron in hand, his loyal blast assistant dogging his heels.
“Mr. Gage,” Tommy's blue eyes twinkled, “what do you plan on doing after you finish with the railroad?”
“Have myself some tea and get me some sleep.” Phineas wasn't fooling neither.
“I reckon to mean, after your time with the railroad is done?”
Normally, Phineas would not bother making such small talk; he liked to stay focused on the task at hand. But as he sensed Tommy had a right case of hero worship, he didn't mind indulging the youth.
“Have me some tea and get me some sleep. And not answer questions.” He slapped the hat off Tommy's head in a playful way.
Tommy caught his hat and declared, “Mr. Hayes says you're the best he's seen. You could be foreman anywhere. Set your paycheck aside and buy yourself a farm. That's what I'm gonna do. Buy me a few acres, get me some horses.”
Phineas made a slightly perturbed face, as if he just sucked a lime. “Horses? Never got along with them since one threw me. Can't stand them.”
Tommy was unfazed. “Yeah, well, you don't need to work 'em. Not the way you get men on the right side of a job. Not you, Mr. Gage.”
This kid was too much.
Behind Phineas, a few of the track workers loaded excavated rock onto a platform car, to be shipped away for use as building material for other construction projects, including bridges, barns and railroad support walls. Some of it would be exported to far off states. One of the large rocks rolled up to Phineas.
”You mind throwing that back to us, Boss”, one of the workers, a six foot, five inch man with the nickname of Shorty, inquired.
“Tarnation,” Phineas shook his head. “The next time I crew up, I'll hire the Sisters from St. Mary's. They'll get the job done. Maybe even let them do some blasting.” He wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead.
Shorty, always quick with a comeback, said, “Yeah, but they ain't as pretty as we.”
Phineas could only laugh, as did the other workmen within earshot. The foreman looked ahead at the front line, the men intimate with their tools. He bellowed, “Prepare!”
****
In the Cavendish Hotel, the main lodge in town, a sick man laid in agony, his face sweated from fever, his stomach covered with black leeches. His concerned wife looked on and silently prayed. Jesse had been a farmer most all his sixty years, but unlike most of the ones who resided in the county, he had moved up from the south as a young man (same year Andrew Jackson was elected president, matter of fact), thinking the cooler, drier air would help his sinuses. Dr. John Harlow, dapper in dress, as was his custom, with his neatly trimmed dark beard, and a face that reflected the can-do spirit of a man in his early thirties, sat beside the bed dabbing the bloody tracks left by the leeches doing their vampirical task.
“He's just fretting awful,” Linda finally spoke, her emotions pouring out in a flood of words. “What on Earth made him collapse like that? He wasn't doing nothing much. Are you sure we ain't going to catch his spells? Preacher says he got the Devil.” After four decades of matrimony, she had never witnessed her strong-willed husband catch a spell quite like the current one.
Dr. Harlow, a man of science and reason, could feel his blood pressure rise in frustration each time a misguided person spoke of spells and the Devil. But, he was aware that ancient superstitions die hard. He calmly said, “The days of superstition are behind us, thankfully. Spells are an imbalance, like all sickness. We heal it with what we call antiphlogistic remedy.” The physician was not sure if what he had said was getting through, but he had to give it a shot anyway. “The leeches will balance the humors in your husband. Purge his bowels, and his system will be right as rain.”
“God willing.” Linda knew of Dr. Harlow's reputation as a fine physician and healer, but it would not hurt to put the power of prayer to work.
Dr. Harlow scraped the last of the bloodsuckers off Jesse's stomach. No doubt they did their job well, their bellies full of his vital fluid as a hummingbird's would be of nectar. With the filthy rag, he wiped the remaining streaks of blood. Turning to Linda, he instructed, “Blot him until the blood forms a scab. He'll be weak, so keep him in bed.” He closed up his doctor's kit.
“Doctor, will he...”, Linda could not bear to articulate her full thought.
“Your husband should recover just fine, Mrs. Anderson.”
“Bless you, Doctor, bless you.”
Dr. Harlow descended the narrow stairway to the hotel lobby. Cavendish, tiny dot on the landscape that it was, did not yet possess a proper hospital nor even a humble medical center. So Dr. Harlow, when not making house calls, treated patients at the hotel where there were always available beds, clean linens, and fresh homemade cheddar cheese soup. He would purchase select supplies for the lodge as a token of appreciation. Stuart, the mature receptionist, was present and perky to greet the physician with his customary grin and always present black bow tie. “Saving souls once again, good doctor?”
“Our first rule is “do no harm”. Upholding that is challenge enough.”
“Born with the hands of God, you are.”
“And the haunting limitations of Faust,” Dr. Harlow chuckled.
“Frost?” Stuart who, like most natives, left what passed for a formal Cavendish education at a young age and was not be acquainted with Faust or perhaps even the Bard himself for that matter. Books, like porcelain chamber pots, were expensive. Few homes had any, except the requisite Bible.
Stuart handed him a basket filled with tasty muffins. “The little woman who bakes molasses muffins?”
Dr. Harlow took the basket, but was in no mood for a molasses muffin. “Faust,” he clarified, “a fictional character. From the book of Faust.”
Stuart looked puzzled. “I read a book once.” It obviously did not require an abundance of book smarts to be a hotel receptionist.
Oh, what the hell. Maybe Dr. Harlow would enjoy a muffin after all. They did smell tasty. Biting into the moist baked good, he explained, “Faust was a doctor, who was idolized by the villagers, but was haunted by the realization that the more he learned, the more he could never comprehend as much as God. Ergo, even his successes were merely detours in a long line of defeats learning the secrets of the human body and soul. A being that God creates, and only God can understand.”
Stuart listened with rapt attention, but his blank facial expression revealed that he understood barely anything said to him.
“You sure use some big words, doctor.”
“Tell Miss Frost her hands work molasses far better than mine heal.” The healer patted the clerk on the hand, then took one last big bite to finish off the muffin.
A farmer's wife, a lovely young lady who went by the name of Wendy, rushed into the lobby, a grave look of concern plastered on her smooth face. Spotting her target, she blurted out, "Dr. Harlow, my husband cut his foot on the plow. Can you come right quick?"
It didn't take the medicine man but a moment to have her an answer. "Certainly, Mrs. Beng, I am prepared now." He gathered his things instinctively and followed the concerned lady out of the hotel.
****
Work on the rail line was going well as the sun reached it zenith, the labor force a finely lubricated machine. There were no such things as bonuses for the men, but if they completed the day's quota, they might get to head home a little early, even though that rarely happened. Phineas and Tommy settled around the hole bored in another stretch of granite that blocked the railroad's progress.
Tommy, his confidence growing stronger by the hour, carefully poured the gunpowder down the hole. Phineas watched him do so, then carefully looped the fuse around the tip of his Tamping Iron. That was always Phineas’s favorite part. Most of the men loved watching the blast hole being made–there was something about men and blowing things up. But for Phineas, he considered it an art form in itself to use his always loyal Iron and loop just the right amount of fuse around its tip in the correct, skillful way.
Not far behind Phineas, around the platform car, Blasting Gang members argued. To the foreman, it sounded like it was getting serious. Two years before he had started with the Rutland and Burlington, a quarrel broke out between two of the work crew—nobody would ever remember about what—and ended with one of the men dead from a gunshot. Violence wasn't unheard of on railroad work crews, however, murder was. Phineas did not want to see that happen on his watch. As he glanced upward, he discovered it was none other than Harrison and Edward engaged in squabble.
"Gentlemen, we have a tight schedule," Phineas admonished. Perhaps a consequence of the day's unusually high temperature was shortened tempers.
Harrison tersely said, "Don't blame me, Boss. Someone 'round this place ain’'t holding their own." Turning to Edward, he added, in a louder voice, "I said you ain't holding your own!"
"I'm a working as hard as you are," Edward's eyes burned. "You're upset that Rose danced with me at the Winter Ball and you ain't forgot it, not all this time. This ain't got nothin' to do with my work."
Pulling out the Tamping Iron from the hole, the foreman looked over his shoulder. He did not notice that Tommy, in a rare act of carelessness, fumbled the bag, causing sand to pour out.
"I'm busting my ass," Edward insisted.
Phineas eyed them while his hands slowly turned the Tamping Iron upside down, so that the flat end could tamp the powder. He had no intention of acting as a babysitter when he signed on with the railroad.
Harrison, using his scrawny body weight in an effective manner, shoved Edward and added tenaciously, "No, you're slacking! And them pansies is gonna catch up to us and we're gonna lose that bet. I know it so."
"Shove me one more time and you'll forever be part of the Rutland Burlington Rail."
"That a promise?"
"I'll make it so."
Puffing up his chest in a schoolboy-ish way, Harrison's face contorted into the hardened features of a bull fighting for it's life in a bullfighting ring. "You're calling me out, and I am ready to..."
Phineas had had enough. Goofing around to blow off a little steam was okay, but this was getting into a situation where one of his men might actually get himself hurt. He needed every man able-bodied.
He was about to get up, but decided not to expend the energy. Phineas did, however, absentmindedly and unintentionally lean directly over the point of his iron as he turned his head to shout back, "LADIES!"
The men froze, not just the bickering laborers, but all of Phineas’s men. They seldom heard such a stern tone from their foreman. They all knew him as one level headed gent, especially under pressure.
Tommy came up behind Phineas with a full sack of sand. Out of the corner of his left eye he caught a glimpse of something that didn't look right—the pointed end of the Tamping Iron sticking up as the boss lifted the iron about three inches to tamp down the powder. As the iron descended, Phineas added, not to anyone in particular, "We have work to accom..."
As Tamping Iron dropped into the hole, a spark ensued between tool and granite—BOOM! Aided by the natural acoustics of the remote location, the discharge rang thunderously loud on an unbearably, brutally soupy—atmospherically humid, scorching late summer day. The blast shot the iron up the gun-barrel shaped opening with the speed of a bullet. With abundant force, the pointy end of the Tamping Iron entered under Phineas’s cheek, boring behind his eye, through his skull and brain matter, bursting out the top of his cranium. Happened as fast as the blink of an eye, or maybe, as one of the men would later describe it, the sting of a bee.
The Tamping Iron, drenched in red life fluid and dull gray brain tissue, soared through the air, an iron bird perverted with the stench of human misery. Phineas, thrown onto his back by the upward momentum of the rod—almost in a dream state, for it all happened so rapidly, but to him, and, even to his men, it would seem like an event that happened in slow motion—watched as his loyal Tamping Iron landed on the graphite thirty yards away with an echoing clang.
All around, pieces of rock of varying size rained down. And, for a instant—one of those life moments that can seem so much longer than what they actually were—everyone stood frozen, echoes of the explosion swirling in their ears. A surreal dust settled around the foreman.
"Mr. Gage?" Tommy had the courage to inquire. No answer was forthcoming.
Both gangs rushed forward to their boss, who now lay flat on his back, on the ground six feet from the blast hole. Many of the men would later admit that they feared the worst. Big Wayne, a long time member of the blasting gang and perhaps its physically strongest, attempted to hold back the tears. No use letting his co-workers witness him like that. As they reached the stricken man, Phineas sat up. A presumed corpse come to life. The men froze. "Good God," one of the them blurted out.
Blood streamed downriver from Phineas’s forehead, his face quickly enveloped in red. Yet, remarkably, and defying the odds, he was and remained conscious, though stunned. His hands and forearms were black with powder burns. "That was a might charge," he spoke to everyone's amazement, including his own.
"Boss, boss...," Tommy cried out. The men all gathered round the injured man.
Phineas slowly glanced up. Funny, only one of his eyes seemed to bring him an image anymore. "I have to report this mishap," he said.
"He's hurt real bad," Edward observed, already feeling a pang of guilt at what had transpired.
Workers crouched around him, inspected his burned arms, the head injury, the vacant eye socket. Big Wayne was reminded of a watermelon he had once seen dropped on a walkway and left out in the summer sun to rot. One wage earner tried to hold down the bleeding forehead, but the tissue was so soft he yanked back his hand and stared in horror at the flesh stuck between his fingers.
"That's his brains!" Tommy couldn't help exclaiming. He had never seen the real thing before.
Phineas looked at him and casually replied, "It is?"
"God damn," Edward pointed to the Tamping Iron. "His rod went clear through his head."
"That's impossible," Jeremiah, a rather strawberry-blond haired blasting gang man determined. “He would be dead.”
Phineas saw it differently. "Indeed...I reckon it did, though."
He ceremoniously stuck his left index finger into the cavity in his cheek and, with the men watching in awe, made it disappear. Phineas wore the mask of a nonchalant expression on his face. "Right through this here hole."
"Hot damn," Jeremiah expressed in the way of a convert.
"It sure felt like that's what it done so."
Suddenly, remembering that an injured man needed medical help pronto, Harrison took charge and bellowed, "Get the ox cart up here."
Edward moved in close to Phineas. "What's that feel like?"
"Like a quick sting. A burn. Odd."
Another worker chimed in, "Take your damn fingers outta your head. You'll hurt something."
Phineas removed the finger from the fleshy abyss. "I reckon you to be right."
Harrison, always the practical one and genuinely concerned for his friend, rallied to the men, "He needs a doctor. Help me move him."
"I can make it myself," Phineas stubbornly insisted. To the men’s' disbelief and a thorough round of gasps, he slowly attempted to stand on his own. The task, difficult under the circumstances, was not to be completed.
"Come on, hurry up and help him. Don't just stand there like damn trees." Harrison was getting frustrated.
The workers rushed to support Phineas, who appeared conscious but in mild shock. They carried their foreman over to the ox cart as it was wheeled toward him. Harrison and Jeremiah gently placed Phineas with his back to the boards and his feet straight up in front.
Phineas took it all in, almost as if watching the scene unfold from a distance. Harrison straightened the injured man out and asked, "You comfortable?"
"As much as I can be, I reckon."
Harrison turned to the men, "Somebody go on ahead and warn the doctor."
Daniel, a diminutive member of the front line crew, the only son of a preacher working the line, raised his hand with purpose. "I'll go." He hopped on a horse and galloped off like the wind.
Phineas stirred. "Get me my time book. And bring me my iron." He wasn't too injured to forget he was a Rutland and Burlington foreman.
The ox cart driver urged the strong beast forward. But before it could get too far, Tommy, running alongside it like a loyal puppy, handed the time book and still bloodied Tamping Iron to Phineas, who weakly took hold of them, and hopped onto the cart. Tommy strained to think of something—anything—to say that might put Phineas in better spirits, physically, emotionally, spiritually. No appropriate thoughts came to mind. Should he make a joke? Comment on the lovely autumn weather? Ask about his family? Phineas himself broke the ice by handing him the time book and demanding, "Write me off the clock."
The ox cart moved at a faster pace, the site becoming a dim dot as Phineas viewed it though the fuzzy vision of his one good blood soaked eye. He heard words of encouragement and prayer from the fading men before all was silent except for the clop—clop of the ox's footsteps.
CHAPTER THREE
Cavendish's Main Street could have been any main street in any modest town in Vermont. Since its founding in 1761, the wee town's main thoroughfare contained all of the stock-issued types of establishments that tidy New England towns consisted of—barber shop, hotel, butcher, farm supply, small schoolhouse (yes, wooden), saloon (usually more than one, depending on how rowdy the townsfolk liked to get) and, of course, the white structure on the hill overlooking the town where every good God-fearing Christian citizen made a point to be on Sunday mornings—no matter how hungover.
On the porch of the sleepy Cavendish Hotel, the elderly owner, Joseph Adams, sat in a high chair listening to the birds chirp their final songs of the season before they headed south for the winter. Joseph had built and run the hotel for three decades.
Now, with painful arthritis progressively limiting his mobility, he had been relying on Stuart more and more to take on the responsibilities of the day to day operations. Not that business had been too good lately anyway. Joseph leaned forward, slack-jawed at what he saw—an ox cart rolling towards him with its blood soaked occupant appearing like the spectra of the Grim Reaper itself. Even before the cart came to a full stop, Tommy jumped down.
"My God, what in tarnation?" was all Joseph could murmur to himself. A few patrons of the nearby shops noticed the wounded man, and moved closer to offer help, or at least to gawk.
Tommy, cautiously placing his arms around Phineas, eyed a burly man. “Help me help him, carefully.” The man moved close to assist.
Phineas would have none of it. “I ain't dead yet. Let me alone,” he mulishly insisted. He grasped his Tamping Iron, stepped down from the cart without help, his actions met with gasps from the onlookers.
“Mr. Gage, please.” Tommy pleaded. “You'll make it worse.”
“Nonsense. What ain't killed me yet.” Climbing, in a shaky manner but yet without incident, Phineas ascended the steps of the hotel and, noticing the blood that streamed off his body, boldly took a seat on the porch. Red vital fluid flowed from his mouth and forehead, a ghastly image that one of the townsfolk thought reminded him of road kill. Phineas turned his head stiffly towards Joseph.
Joseph's first instinct was to avert his gaze away from such a grim scene. He had been no stranger to injury, however, having been a veteran of the Indian wars some years earlier and having witnessed atrocities no man should be burdened with. “Good God, Phineas. What kind of trouble did you get yourself into?”
“Accident.” Phineas paused to spit out blood. “At the rail.”
The railroad manager gallantly held up his iron. “See this here iron?”
“Yeah, I see it clear all right,” Joseph replied. By then, the townsfolk had gathered tightly around, a freak show like Cavendish had never seen before. Men from the railroad arrived on horseback, holding on to hope that they wouldn't be arriving to a cadaverous sight.
Ignoring the growing ruckus, Phineas continued, “It went clear through my head. Just like you shoving a knife through a deer to skin it.” At this, the crowd stirred uncomfortably.
Edward, who arrived on a white horse named Powder, as in the snowy kind, spoke in defense of his friend. “We seen it.”
Phineas clutched the Tamping Iron, as if the tighter he embraced it, the more strength he drew from it, the object that so gravely had injured his being. “That's what this here iron did to me.” He closed his eyes, the good one anyway. The onlookers leaned forward, expecting him to expire at that moment. His eye, however, opened again, gazed around with his right pupil. He covered it with his hand, curious and in some pain. “Can't see too good.”
“You should be dead,” the burly man let his opinion vigorously be known.
“I reckon.” Phineas’s functioning eye panned the crowd. “Gawk. Go on. A rod don't fly through a head every day.”
A young woman, Rachel, who had journeyed into town direct from her husband's farm for a fresh batch of flour, accompanied by her precious juvenile daughter, blurted out, “This is the Devil's work.”
The child leaned forward, her mouth open, to get a better peek. “Come along, Emma,” Rachel pulled the inquisitive girl along. “And close your mouth.”
“Or, you'll catch the Devil's flies,” Phineas chimed in, actually releasing a small chuckle, the first sign of lightness since the whole miserable ordeal had begun.
Joseph looked Phineas in his good eye and in a practiced soft voice said, “Now Phineas, tell me the truth. Did a rock strike you? It's important to know this if you pass out from the pain.”
Harrison, who had joined the other railroad men, defended his friend, “It was that bar. Look. It's all blood and brains.”
Phineas had a flash of memory, a vision of himself as a young boy, playing on a riverbank, tossing random rocks into the river, seeing how far he could get them. Then, his mother Hannah, calling out for him to come in for supper. What is the beginning of the end, Phineas wondered for the briefest of moments. The “life flashing by in an instant” death finale? What else would pop into his mind? It did jar him into asking, “Can someone please call my mother and sister up north in Proctorsville?
A long-limbed man who had known Phineas for quite a spell, Adam, whose uncle was employed by the Rutland and Burlington at the time Phineas commenced his career, spoke up, “I gots to go to Proctorsville. I'll ride up right now, Phineas.”
Joseph pressed on for answers. “If it was the rod, how did it happen?”
“Charge didn't blow proper. Went off too soon.” Phineas coughed up a petite piece of brain, then held up the piece. “Anybody seen live brain before?” Ironically, he never had much of a stomach for gore. Having seen his share of accidents in his line of labor, Phineas always did what he could to help the injured, but sometimes lost his lunch in the process. Strangely, at this time, the sight of his own bodily entrails didn't leave Phineas sick. Was this nature's way of letting a person deal with their own personal destruction without passing out?
“I'm gonna be sick,” Tommy verbalized, his face turning a queasy shade of green as he ran off to find a private spot.
From the opposite end of Main Street, not very far at all by most Main Street standards, Shorty hustled down the narrow road with another man, Doctor Edward Williams, trailing on another horse. Dr. Williams, a stout, practical man (many would characterize him as hard-nosed), with an appearance older than his fifty-three years, was known around town as a competent physician, if not exactly a warm-hearted one. Phineas sat with one hand pressed up against his head as Dr. William's horse approached and came to a halt. “You're a sight, Phineas.”
Phineas sighed. “I reckon. But at least I'm a live one at that.”Dr. Williams carefully dismounted his horse and stood beside the mutilated man. He pulled a cloth from his bag and used it to wipe Phineas’s head. “Does this hurt?” he inquired.
“Not so much.”
As blood, all varieties of fresh and dried, was wiped away, more poured over the cleared area, but Dr. Williams still managed an inspection. “What hit you?” he finally asked.
Phineas held up the filthy Tamping Iron. “This bar. Went clean through.”
“This is no time for stories,” Dr. Williams said with a hint of vexation. Sometimes he wondered—though never aloud (that wouldn't be too good for business) if he should have become an attorney, like his brother, and moved to a more populated area. He had grown weary of the never-ending stream of injured farmers, the middle-of-the-night calls to deliver a baby, and the general lack of culture in his patients.
“We seen it,” Harrison spoke up.
Dr. Williams continued to manage the life fluid scrub. “He'd be dead. Your eyes saw something, but not that.” He spoke directly to Phineas, “I'm going to clean you up out here. No sense messing up the hotel.”
Up on Main Street, nearby the Cavendish Lumber Yard & Feed Lot, a muscular Westphalian horse plodded along. On the mare, sat Dr. Harlow, fresh from a house call on yet another farm. Fortunately, this one only required the attention to a sprained ankle, which included the standard treatment of compression by cloth, elevation to minimize swelling, ice, when available, and the crucial suggestion of bed rest. Tommy, who first observed the glint of the sun that bounced off the saddle, then recognized the healer in the distance, cried out, “Doctor Harlow!” then dashed off as if he were a thoroughbred in a race and the gate had just been raised. “Doctor Harlow, Doctor Harlow,” he panted, “There's been a terrible accident.” From the distance, the physician got the news and quickly snapped his whip to get his horse moving.
Dr. Harlow arrived amid the commotion and the sea of persons who had gathered around. He jumped down, medical bag in hand, from his ride, who he had named Jefferson after a late favorite uncle, whom himself had been named after his granddad's favorite leader.
Townsfolk parted to let him through. Phineas had trouble viewing out of his one good eye and had to turn his head around like an owl to watch. The medicine man turned to his colleague and in a soft, confidential tone, inquired, “Is it true?”
Dr. Williams nodded his head, answered in a hushed tone, “That he's dying, yes. That the bar passed through a skull and left the man alive—preposterous. Whatever struck him, he'll be dead by morning.
Can you tend him, I'm due to deliver the Brooken’s baby?”
“Yes, yes. Go.”
Dr. Williams stood up. “Phineas...,” he started but then stopped.
What could he say? Inform him that he had little chance of surviving to hear the sound of the morning roosters. Tell him he may never see family again, at least not in this world. “I best be on my way,” he sauntered off, leaving Dr. Harlow standing in front of Phineas.
“Well, here's work enough for you, Doctor,” Phineas’s voice wobbled.
Dr. Harlow placed his bag down. “I was told of a terrible injury. I can see it was not exaggeration.” He pivoted to the beefy men who were obviously railroad laborers. “Help me get him inside.”
Leading the crew of men who assisted the gravely injured up the creaky stairs to a room that he kept specially prepared for the wounded, Dr. Harlow secretly harbored concerns about his new patient's chances of surviving even the current hour. Arriving at the barely furnished room, consisting of little more than a bed, oil lamp, wash basin and small bedside table, Dr. Harlow instructed, “Place him on the bed, keep him upright. Cautiously.” The men acted as told. Phineas’s wound began to stream a fresh river of crimson fluid. “Gentlemen, I believe it best if we're left alone. Thank you.”
The men took their leave, awarding their foreman hopeful wishes as they did so.
Phineas rested on the bed. Dr. Harlow wet a cloth in the wash basin and begun to clean off his head. “You bear your pain with heroic firmness.”
“Don't have much choice.”
Dr. Harlow picked up a straight-edged razor. “Do you have the strength to hold this towel in place while I shave you?”
“I reckon.” Phineas was still trying to get used to the fact that he only had vision in his one eye. He wasn't dwelling on it. It was just one more piece of information to process in the day's queer events. He sat and held the cloth as the healer used the razor to shave his scalp. Bloody hair and bits of skull and brain flipped off the blade and floated around the bowl of water. Both men observed this for a moment.
“Most...remarkable.” Dr. Harlow put down the razor. It was time for him to examine the open wound from the top. “Do you have any family?”
“My sister and mother. In Proctorsville. Someone fetched them.”
“Proctorsville. Been there a few times myself. Mighty fine town.”
“Don't get up there much on count of my busy work schedule.”
Dr. Harlow meticulously examined the wound on the cheek. “This might hurt.” He prudently inserted an index finger into the cheek cavity.
Phineas did not flinch. “It don't.”
Dr. Harlow let his whole finger disappear into the human black hole. That was not something that had been taught in medical school.
“You say it went all the way through?”
“Yep.”
Dr. Harlow took his other index finger and slowly placed it into the gap on top of the patient's head, and let it disappear until—a look of astonishment flooded his eyes—his fingers met somewhere inside of Phineas’s skull, and the reality of the situation demanded that he suddenly pull out his fingers.
“I feel tired,” the ill man said.
“That's to be expected.” Dr. Harlow helped Phineas to lie down.
“You've lost a lot of blood.”