Note to readers: I had posted an earlier version of Chapter 5 with an Indigenous character, and it didn't feel right. I've spent some time with the advice of Indigenous people who have been asked by non-Indigenous how to write Native characters in any depth. Generally, their advice is "Don't." So here is a new version of what used to be the second half of Chapter 5.
I am not Indigenous to Turtle Island, and I know tons about Crabtree but only the tiniest glimmer of the complex and nuanced spiritual traditions and language of the Algonquin people. I was out of my lane, so I rewrote.
Thanks to the people at the "Ojibwe Language and More" blog for the language lessons I drew on for the previous chapter. There are videos there with explanations of some of the nuance. I'm going to leave Bill in, for consistency with the world of the show, but I'm not going to try to develop him any further, and I am more than open to any criticism about how he is portrayed.
As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for your patience.
Chapter 6
It was another hour before the party around the fire broke up and the other travellers finally went to bed. At about 2:00 a log on the fire popped, and Murdoch started awake. "Julia? Julia!" he cried out. His throat was dry, and speaking caused him to wheeze. The wheeze led to a bout of barking coughs punctuated by the occasional grunt or moan. "Julia!" he tried again.
George was already awake—there was no way he was getting any sleep, what with his lack of pillow, not to mention the incessant, deeply worrisome ambient noise. "Sir. Sir. Shh. Hush, sir. Sir. Julia's not here, sir. It's George. We're in a tent in the woods, sir."
"George! What are we doing in the woods? Where's Julia?" Murdoch stared at him in confusion through the dim light.
Damn it all, thought George. Delirium again? "We're coming home from Haileybury, sir," he answered patiently. "The inspector sent us to investigate the death of Edward Graham."
"Why… why do I hurt so much?" he asked, clutching his left arm to himself.
"You were shot, sir. Shot in the chest. The medicine woman took the bullet out but it's still going to be sore."
"Sore, George." Murdoch's eyes were glazed with pain, and he was gasping for breath.
"I suppose that must sound a bit of an understatement. Let me get you some laudanum, sir," George whispered.
"Laudanum, George! Why on Earth would we have that in the woods?"
Yes, the delirium again, George thought gloomily. Damn it. I was sure he was through the worst. He should not be travelling! He sighed. "The innkeeper keeps a supply. He told me there's quite a demand for such preparations up in these parts."
"The innkeeper." Murdoch thought for a moment, a hint of panic in his eye. "Were we at an inn?"
"Yes, sir. In Haileybury. We spent last night there."
"Haileybury. We… we were going there to investigate the death of Edward Graham. George! We have to get to Haileybury!" He tried to sit up, and George caught him and gently pushed him back down.
"Sir. It's all right. We've already come from there. We solved the murder. We're on our way back to North Bay."
"North Bay," said Murdoch, puzzled and anxious, just before another fit of wheezy coughing wracked him. As he shook, George dug through one of the bags and fished out the small brown bottle of liquid and a box of matches.
"Here's the laudanum, sir," he said softly. He lit a match and held it in his teeth while he unscrewed the lid of the bottle and pulled the liquid into the eyedropper. He blew out the match, still holding it in his mouth, before it could burn his lips. The gibbous moon and the last of the campfire gave enough light that he could make out the detective, wait for a break in his coughing, and squeeze exactly six drops of the laudanum into his mouth. "There you go, sir," he whispered, and closed the bottle before he slid it back into the bag. Murdoch lay back and waited, and George tried again, and failed again, to sleep. What were they going to do in the morning?
He had long since given up on trying to count sheep, having reached several thousand the previous night to no avail, and instead tried to focus on Murdoch's ragged breaths. They were at a relatively constant rate, probably fast enough to be worrisome, and so a count of them would enable him to calculate elapsed time. Although I suppose that trying to calculate anything is perhaps less than conducive to the relaxed state needed for sleep, he was musing at about the fifteen-minute mark, when Murdoch's breath suddenly hitched and the coughing started again.
A shadow appeared at the tent door. "Murdoch?" a man's voice inquired. George was racking his brain to try to remember whom that voice belonged to when the tent flap opened, and Andrews peered in.
"Andrews!" George was quite surprised. Not much about the taciturn man had registered with him, and he had no idea what to make of his presence.
"Crabtree," Andrews greeted him quietly. "I can help your friend."
George furrowed his brow. He had no idea whether he could trust this man, but all he himself had to help Murdoch was more laudanum, and it was increasingly clear that the laudanum was not enough. "Uh…" George began. "How?"
"Let me in and I'll show you."
George weighed the options. He could let this man in, potentially opening them to theft or worse. He could leave him outside, keeping them safe from any external threat, but leaving his friend gasping and agonized and possibly doomed, depending on how bad the wound had become. He was torn.
Finally he came to a decision. He could not bring himself to watch William Murdoch suffer when help might be at hand. He had to believe the offer and the man were genuine, and there really was something Andrews could do to ease Murdoch's misery. He closed his eyes and uttered a silent prayer, then said, "Well, come in, then."
Andrews crawled into the tent, and George shifted over as far as he could. "He keeps coughing," Andrews said.
"Yes, I noticed." The lack of sleep and the unfortunate circumstances were making George peevish.
"Shot?"
"Yes," Murdoch wheezed, "my chest. Left side. Feels tight. Very tight."
"Let me see," said Andrews.
"Now wait just one minute," George protested. "What exactly are you planning to do with my friend here?"
"I've spent a lot of time in these woods," Andrews replied cryptically. "Got hurt more than once. The locals took care of me, showed me things."
"What kind of things?" George asked, a bit indignant.
"Plants, tools, this and that," Andrews said as he held two fingers to Murdoch's neck to check his pulse. He made a noise of disapproval. "You got any light?"
"Pardon?" said George.
"Light. I need light," Andrews said as Murdoch coughed again, his right hand clutching at the wound on his chest as his breath came in short gasps. George obligingly produced the flashlight, and turned it on.
Andrews laid a hand on Murdoch's forehead, and made the same disapproving sound. George was struck by how pale the detective looked. Doctor Ogden is going to have my hide, he thought grimly. Andrews took the flashlight from him, and shone it in Murdoch's face, checking his pupils. He recoiled slightly in apparent disgust. "What did you give him?"
"Laudanum," he said defensively. "It's all I have for him. Well, that and some gauze. Cost a small fortune, it did."
Andrews rolled his eyes. "Laudanum. Ridiculous." George opened his mouth to protest, and Andrews held up a hand. "Everything you need is right outside." He began unbuttoning Murdoch's shirt.
George was flummoxed, and was working himself into a bit of a lather when Murdoch spoke. "It's all right, George. There are a lot of medicines here in the woods, if you know where to look."
"Well that's as may be, sir, but does this man know what he's doing?"
"I think we have to assume that he does, George." Murdoch's breath hitched as Andrews removed the bandage and began to palpate his chest.
George noticed it was even more swollen than earlier. Andrews moved diagnostic fingers over his ribs and around the wound, laid an ear to his chest to listen to his breath, and abruptly left the tent.
"Sir?" George whispered. "What's he going to do?"
Murdoch smiled groggily. "I don't know, George," he said.
"The swelling in your chest and your difficulty breathing are quite worrisome, sir. I must say you're looking quite poorly." On impulse he reached out a hand to Murdoch's sweaty forehead, and flinched. "You're feverish! Oh, dear Lord. Oh, God." He sank back, feeling a quick shudder of despair. How can things be even worse than last night?
"I'm quite all right, George. You needn't concern yourself," Murdoch wheezed pleasantly.
That damned laudanum, George thought angrily, and something within him snapped. "Sir!" he hissed. "You are most certainly not quite all right! You've been shot, you spent eleven hours on a horse today, you couldn't even stand upright this evening, you fell and very likely injured yourself more severely—I mean, come now, sir, how do we know you didn't tear something inside your chest when you fell after getting down from old Alice?" He was building up a good head of steam. "What if the bullet weakened a blood vessel, and if you'd stayed put it would have repaired itself, but you've pushed yourself so hard that it's burst?" He was gesturing so frenetically in the tight quarters that he nearly hit Murdoch in the face.
"George." Murdoch's expression grew hooded. "You're not helping."
"I'm just being realistic, sir! This is quite the terrible predicament you've put us in! There's something badly wrong with you, and we're a whole day's ride from a hospital, and just what do we know about this Andrews and his plants?" George could feel himself turning pink.
The tent flap opened again, and Andrews crawled back in, this time bearing a bundle wrapped in a deer skin. "Move," he said gruffly.
George glared at him. "I beg your pardon, my good man," he said, drawing himself up.
"Do you want my help, or not?" Andrews demanded. "I tell you, I know what I'm doing. Fixed up a lot of folks out here, I have."
"So you have medical training, then. A qualification."
"Not so's you'd consider it such, no. I offered help 'cause your friend here don't sound like he'll see the morning. But if a piece of paper's what's important to you, I can go." Andrews started to stand up.
"All right, all right." George snorted. "Come in." He felt his pulse beating in his temple.
"You're welcome," Andrews said acidly as he crawled in and George shifted out of the way. Andrews settled next to Murdoch while George, holding the flashlight for him, made himself as small as he could. The tent was dreadfully cramped.
Andrews unfolded the bundle to reveal a short stick with some pointy white objects attached to one end, a large chunk of dried moss, a few strips of deer hide in various widths and lengths, and a collection of bottles and jars. He opened one of the jars, sniffed at the contents, wrinkled his nose, and reached in for a thick, greasy brown salve that he rubbed on Murdoch's chest, over and around the wound. He then picked up the stick, and George got a better look. The sharp white objects attached to it were strangely familiar. It took him a moment to place them: pike teeth. He had nearly impaled his finger on one when he and Mack were gutting the fish he had caught three nights before.
He was just about to ask what exactly Andrews intended to do with that stick full of pike teeth, when the blond man lifted it up above Murdoch's heaving chest, waited for a pause between shallow, gasping breaths, and brought it back down sharply, plunging the teeth into his skin.
George yelped more loudly than Murdoch did. "What are you doing?" he squeaked in surprise, ready to fight, but first he had to get those awful teeth out of Murdoch's chest. His lunged for the stick, but Andrews, seemingly anticipating his movement, caught his wrist and held him back. "No! You have to take it out slowly," he scolded George as he lifted the stick gently himself, and laid it, bloodied teeth and all, back on the leather of the bundle. Pink-tinged fluid began to rush out of Murdoch's chest. Andrews caught it with the moss, which collected the fluid like a sponge. "Hold that there," he ordered George.
George was getting ready to protest when he noticed that Murdoch's breathing was starting to ease as the sponge became saturated with whatever was draining out of him. George was utterly nonplussed. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but found himself quite speechless. He held the moss as he'd been instructed, and waited as Andrews sat Murdoch up and wrapped a wide strip of deer hide around him, threading it beneath his shirt and behind his back. "Here," he said to George, and handed him a new piece of moss. George shrugged in confusion.
"You take the wet one off and put this one on," Andrews said impatiently. George did as he was told, and Andrews brought the deer hide over the moss to hold it in place. George withdrew his hand, and Andrews secured the hide behind Murdoch's back, then buttoned his shirt back up and lowered him back onto the pillow.
"What did you do?" George demanded, wide-eyed.
"Drained his chest, what did it look like?" Andrews said offhandedly as he gathered his jars and bottles and the stick and the rest of the moss back onto the deer skin. George looked at the wet moss quizzically, and Andrews picked it up, opened the tent flap, and flung the soggy mess onto the fire.
"Well what was wrong with him?" George asked, still astonished.
"Just like you said. You lot probably made the bullet hole worse by refusing to stay put. Chest was full of fluid, crushing his lung. He was suffocating. Like I said, you boys sure are fools, travelling with him like this." He unscrewed the lid of a small bottle. The contents smelled green to George, if green had a smell. "Drink this," Andrews said, pushing it at Murdoch.
"What is it?" George asked, sceptically.
"Dandelion extract in wine. Stops infection."
"Julia will want to analyse that," Murdoch murmured. He drank the contents of the bottle obediently, then frowned, lost in opium-addled thought. Finally he spoke. "Perhaps… perhaps we should have remained in Haileybury, George."
George's eyes flashed in anger in the dim light. "Oh so now you decide that! Now while we're stuck out here in God's country two days from home! That's what I told you, sir! I told you that repeatedly and you didn't listen!"
"I'm sorry, George. I should listen to you more." Murdoch was contrite.
"You certainly should, sir. I must say your pigheadedness has been tempting me to leave you here." George's voice rose, and he folded his arms. It would take time before he was ready to accept Murdoch's apology.
Murdoch looked so stricken by George's outburst that George immediately apologised himself, though, realising he'd gone too far. "I'm sorry, sir. I'd never leave you here. Your stubbornness is just… just so frustrating."
A muffled voice came from another tent. "Will you lot shut up with your little tiff? Some of us are trying to sleep."
"Sorry!" George apologised again, more loudly this time, and fell silent. Andrews remained inside the tent, flashlight shining on Murdoch's rising and falling chest, until he was satisfied that his breathing had steadied and his colour was starting to improve. "There," he said neutrally, and headed for the door of the tent. "Call me back in if he gets worse again," he whispered as he departed.
"Are you quite all right, sir?" George asked for what seemed like the thousandth time, as quietly as he could.
"I can breathe a lot more easily," Murdoch said slowly, and smiled. "This is quite, uh, quite the relief, George."
"I'm glad, sir."
"I think I'll sleep now."
"Very well, then, sir, you do that, and I shall endeavour to do the same. Sweet dreams." George switched off the flashlight, climbed back onto his bedroll, and lay on his back to wait for sleep, though it did not seem likely that it would come soon. He missed his pillow, and he was going to be boggling about Andrews and his actions for quite some time. The wolves howled in the distance again, and he heard a branch snap nearby. Murdoch started to snore.