Chapter 3 - The Doctor Who Was Afraid to Speak
Dr. Pike fell before Garrick reached him.
The bullet struck his shoulder, not his chest, but blood spread instantly across his shirt.
Nola dropped beside him.
“Thomas, linens!”
Garrick ran through the back door with his revolver drawn.
The yard was empty.
Hoofbeats faded toward the creek.
Again.
The shooter knew the land.
Again, he escaped.
Inside, Nola pressed folded cloth against Pike’s wound.
“Stay awake.”
His teeth clenched.
“Bullet went through.”
“That’s good.”
“It doesn’t feel good.”
“Good means you may live.”
Thomas returned with cloth.
Clara stood in the hall, crying silently.
“Take your sister upstairs,” Nola told him.
“I want to help.”
“You already are. Help Clara.”
He obeyed.
Garrick came back.
“Gone.”
Nola didn’t look up.
“Then help me.”
For twenty minutes, there was no mystery.
Only blood.
Pain.
Clean cloth.
Boiling water.
A needle sterilized over flame.
Nola stitched what she could, bandaged what she could not, and watched Pike lose the last of his resistance.
When the doctor finally lay on Garrick’s bed with his shoulder bound, his face looked twenty years older.
Garrick stood over him.
“Talk.”
Pike swallowed.
“You’ll get us all killed.”
“Someone already tried.”
Pike looked at Nola.
“She knows?”
“Enough.”
“No,” Pike whispered. “She doesn’t.”
Nola folded her arms.
“Then fix that.”
The doctor closed his eyes.
“Hollow Creek has been sick for years.”
Garrick’s patience vanished.
“Stop speaking in riddles.”
“It began with the mine.”
“What mine?”
“The closed silver workings north of Bell Ridge.”
Garrick frowned.
“They shut down before I bought this ranch.”
“They never truly shut down.”
Pike spoke slowly.
“Silas Hollis reopened part of the lower tunnels in secret. Not for silver.”
“For what?”
“Arsenic ore.”
Nola felt a chill.
Arsenic.
Used in pesticides.
Medicines.
Poisons.
“Illegal?” she asked.
Pike nodded.
“Not merely illegal. Dangerous. Men got sick. Livestock miscarried. Wells turned strange.”
Garrick stared.
“My cattle lost calves last spring.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“And said nothing.”
Pike looked ashamed.
“Hollis owns my debt.”
“That’s your excuse?”
“No.”
Pike’s voice cracked.
“It’s my shame.”
Nola brought the ledger from the table.
“What is 417?”
The doctor looked at it and turned away.
“Tell us.”
“It was a trial designation.”
Garrick’s hands curled.
“What kind of trial?”
“Neutralizing compounds.”
“Speak English.”
Pike swallowed.
“Hollis needed a way to keep workers functional despite exposure. So he hired a chemist.”
Nola’s stomach turned.
“He experimented on people.”
Pike nodded once.
“Small doses. Supposed antidotes. Stimulants. Sedatives.”
Garrick’s face became terrifyingly calm.
“Who?”
“Miners first.”
“Then?”
Pike closed his eyes.
“Families.”
Nola thought of Elsie.
The needle marks.
“You injected children.”
“No!”
Pike opened his eyes.
“I refused.”
“But someone did.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Gray coat?” Garrick asked.
Pike’s silence answered.
“You know him.”
“Only as Mercer.”
“First name?”
“Caleb.”
Garrick went still.
Nola noticed.
“You know him too.”
Garrick walked toward the window.
“Caleb Mercer worked my ranch when Mara was alive.”
Thomas, listening from the stairs despite instructions, whispered, “Mr. Mercer?”
Garrick turned.
“Go upstairs.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Thomas obeyed reluctantly.
Nola looked at Garrick.
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared after Mara died.”
“Convenient.”
Garrick’s gaze snapped to her.
“You think he killed her.”
“I think you do.”
He said nothing.
Pike breathed shallowly.
“Mara discovered the ledger.”
Garrick turned back.
“What?”
“She found records in Hollis’s freight office. She came to me. Asked questions.”
“Why didn’t she come to me?”
“She was protecting you.”
“From what?”
Pike’s eyes filled with something close to pity.
“From learning your land was the center of it.”
Garrick stared.
“My land?”
“The old mine tunnel crosses beneath your north pasture.”
Nola remembered the rider disappearing toward Miller’s ravine.
The hidden compartment in the barn.
The locket.
Everything seemed to tilt.
Garrick sat slowly.
“Mara knew?”
“Yes.”
“And then she died.”
Pike’s voice dropped.
“The wagon accident was no accident.”
The sentence seemed to remove all air from the room.
Garrick did not move.
Nola watched grief become something harder.
Sharper.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I swear.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
“Who was?”
“Hollis. Mercer. Maybe others.”
Garrick stood so fast the chair fell backward.
Nola stepped between him and Pike.
“Don’t.”
“Move.”
“He’s injured.”
“He knew my wife was murdered.”
“And if you kill him, you lose the man who can tell you who else knew.”
That stopped him.
Barely.
Pike looked toward the bedroom door.
“There’s something else.”
Garrick’s voice was raw.
“What?”
“Your wife didn’t only collect evidence.”
“What did she do?”
“She hid it.”
“The ledger?”
“That’s one piece.”
“Where’s the rest?”
Pike looked at Nola again.
“She sent it away.”
“To whom?”
Pike hesitated.
Then he said the name.
“Nola Vance.”
Nobody spoke.
Nola’s blood went cold.
“That’s impossible.”
Pike studied her.
“You truly don’t know.”
“No.”
“Mara knew your mother.”
Nola stepped back.
“My mother died six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You knew her?”
“I knew of her.”
“How?”
“She treated mining families in Missouri.”
Nola’s heart hammered.
“My mother was a midwife.”
“She was more than that.”
Nola suddenly remembered sealed notebooks her mother never let anyone read.
Packages sent without return addresses.
Visitors who came after dark.
She had been seventeen.
Too young to care.
“What was my mother involved in?”
Pike’s voice softened.
“She documented poisoning cases connected to Hollis’s investors.”
Nola almost laughed.
It was too absurd.
“My mother never knew anyone named Hollis.”
“She knew his company.”
“What company?”
“Western Chemical Works.”
Nola knew that name.
Every person in St. Louis knew it.
They manufactured dyes, medicine, agricultural powder.
And six years earlier, her mother had died after a sudden illness no doctor explained.
Nola gripped the table.
“What did Mara send me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I received nothing.”
“You must have.”
“I did not.”
Pike frowned.
“Then someone intercepted it.”
Garrick spoke.
“Your name was in my barn because Mara put it there.”
“Or Hollis did.”
“No.”
Pike shook his head.
“The list in the barn was recent. Mara had been dead two years.”
“Then why me?”
Pike looked frightened again.
“Because somebody knows you are connected.”
A cry came from upstairs.
Elsie.
Nola ran.
The child was shaking violently.
“Garrick!”
He reached them.
“What’s happening?”
“Hold her gently.”
Elsie’s body convulsed.
Nola turned her on her side and kept her airway clear.
“Don’t restrain her.”
Clara sobbed in Thomas’s arms.
The seizure lasted less than a minute.
It felt like an hour.
Then Elsie went limp.
Garrick’s face broke.
“Elsie?”
“She’s breathing.”
Nola checked her pulse.
Rapid.
But present.
Then she saw something.
A faint reddish line traveling up the child’s wrist.
Nola’s stomach dropped.
Infection.
Whatever had been injected was causing more than poisoning.
She rushed downstairs.
“Pike!”
The doctor struggled upright.
“What?”
“The punctures are infected. Red streaking.”
His face changed.
“You need quinine?”
“No. Something stronger.”
He thought.
“There’s carbolic solution at the clinic.”
“Mercy House?”
Pike nodded.
Garrick reached for his coat.
“I’m going.”
“No,” Pike said.
Everyone stared.
“You can’t.”
“My daughter needs it.”
“The building is guarded.”
Garrick pulled on the coat.
“Then the guards better move.”
Pike grabbed his sleeve with his good hand.
“You don’t understand. Mercy House isn’t a clinic anymore.”
“What is it?”
Pike whispered, “It’s where Hollis keeps the children.”
Silence.
Clara stared from the stairs.
Thomas went pale.
Garrick slowly turned.
“What children?”
Pike looked toward the window.
A lantern flickered in the distance.
Then another.
Then five more.
Moving across the field toward the Hale ranch.
Pike whispered, “They found me.”
Garrick reached for his rifle.
May you like
Outside, horses surrounded the house.
And someone knocked politely on the front door.
