Down to a Soundless Sea (18 page)

When Doc returned to the barn to fetch Tom Doud’s horse, he found Dean setting out slop for the pigs. Doc told Dean that an arrangement had been agreed to. The old man would pay thirty-five dollars a month with room and board, and Dean would work the spread until the old man could take over again.

Dean appeared pleased, but tried not to show how much. He thanked the doctor for his assistance in the matter and went back to his chores with a tenacity that belied his earlier grievance of lingering ill health.

Doc bid Dean farewell as he mounted. He said he would be riding circuit again in about three weeks. He expected to find some improvements to the place when he returned. Dean happily waved good-bye and returned to the barn. Doc Roberts spurred Doud’s stallion in hopes of making it back to Tom’s spread before moonrise. Tom had promised him a thick sirloin steak for supper if he got back in time, and Doc could almost taste the promise. Doud’s stallion needed little encouragement to make a fast passage back to his own paddock. The animal seemed just as anxious to depart the old man’s property as Daisy had been.

Three weeks later, true to his word, Doc Roberts was again found jigging a reluctant Daisy toward the Grace Point ranch. When he arrived, it was to discover the homestead looking somewhat better, but noticeably deserted. Doc stabled Daisy, gave her a light measure of oats, and made his way toward the house.

When he was only a few yards from the porch a commotion of unusual verbal violence broke out from within. Doc thought he had heard the worst the old Stoat could generate
when it came to vulgarity, but he now acknowledged that the old man had only skimmed the surface in the past. His well of obscenity was almost unfathomable. Doc Roberts had known men shot down in saloons for far less.

Not knowing what to do at first, Doc loitered, listening, not wanting to insert himself into the situation. His lingering embarrassment and chagrin at the low degree to which his patient had descended made him feel as though he might have avoided the exercise of ministering to the old reprobate in the first place.

Certainly the old man was an obscene aberration, but Doc Roberts maintained rigid scruples and would do nothing out of professional character. In spite of his personal feelings, it was not in his nature to be vindictive or vengeful. A patient was a patient and ethical considerations aside, his predisposition was keyed to curing people, not judging them.

The rancher’s enraged and wrathful voice mounted into a tirade of truly hideous proportions. It reached a crescendo with the sharp report of a slap and a brief stifled scream. Doc was about to change his mind and enter the fray before any more violence erupted, but he was too late. A melee exploded with a shattering crash of furniture, screams, shouts, and curses. Before Doc could reach the door, it splintered off its hinges with a bang, and out rocketed two figures. In the lead was the old man, screaming and flapping his arms like an earthbound albatross. At first Doc couldn’t believe any old man with a broken leg could move that fast until he noticed that Dean had the rogue by the collar and crotch and was giving him the bum’s rush. The Stoat weighed as nothing in Dean’s strong grip, and though the old man railed and waved his arms about, he was powerless.

While Doc watched, fascinated, Dean raced the old man
across the yard, over the goat-trimmed grass, and toward the cliffs. Dean screamed that this would be the very last time the old blackguard would beat a woman this side of hell and with that parting sentiment, launched the old sinner out over the cliff like a bag of wool.

Doc Roberts stood agape. The old man seemed suspended in air for a moment, flapping his arms in the most optimistic manner. Then he disappeared like a rock, squeaking his last mortal profanity, something to do with excrement, as Doc recalled.

Dean didn’t remain at the precipice to inspect the scene below, but turned as though he had just thrown out the trash and walked back to the house. Doc was surprised to witness an expression of mature determination and resolve on Dean’s boyish face.

As he walked by, Dean looked up and noticed Doc Roberts for the first time. He nodded as though Doc had just witnessed a commonplace occurrence. He didn’t even take notice of Doc’s profound look of astonishment and dismay.

“Glad to see you, Doctor. How’ve you been keeping yourself?” Dean grasped the doctor warmly by the shoulder and walked him toward the door like a favorite uncle. Doc was still in something of a stuttering daze, but Dean continued to ignore it.

“Oh, but look at you, Doc! You’re surely a soul who could probably use some coffee. Won’t you come in and share a pot?”

Doc allowed himself to be seated at the kitchen table. The only remaining evidence of the lethal struggle was a broken chair and washbasin, and these were being gathered up by Mary Rose as they entered.

Mary Rose looked well enough, except for an angry-looking red welt the size of a saucer on her left cheek and eye.
Despite this, she smiled at Doc, nodded, and proceeded to pour three cups of coffee without a word of explanation or comment. Then she sat down with her own cup and looked thankfully toward her young benefactor.

Dean turned his chair around and straddled it like a horse. He rested his crossed arms on the back of the chair and smiled broadly. “Of course you’ll be the best man at our wedding, won’t you, Doc? We couldn’t have a wedding without you. Mary Rose wants you there special. So do I.”

Doc looked up from his coffee and gathered his thoughts. Then he closed his eyes and grinned. “Yes. Yes, I’d like that. Thank you both for asking. When’s the happy day to be?”

An hour later Doc and Daisy disappeared east down the road while the new couple waved farewell. Doc noticed at once that Daisy’s gait had lost its agitated prance. She tossed her head with modest gaiety, as though amused by some cryptic witticism only a horse would appreciate.

Doc Roberts spent a considerable time pondering that day’s events. He wondered what kind of future the couple could expect with a homicide weighing in the balance. Either way, he wouldn’t be the first to mention it. But if, indeed, anyone should ever inquire what he knew of the matter, Doc Roberts would shrug and reply that as far as he knew, the old man simply fell from grace under the weight of a lifetime of ponderous iniquity.

In point of fact, Doc was never questioned about anything. No one seemed to care, one way or the other.

As a gesture to honor his new bride, Dean changed the name of the homestead to Rose Point, and Mary Rose changed her last name to Dean.

Professor Solomon Gill sat at his desk surveying his impatient pupils over the wire rims of his reading glasses. He had paused in his presentation of an article by Dr. Herbert Nash on aboriginal commonalities as they pertained to the indigenous coastal peoples of California.

His restless students took the hint and stopped their fidgeting when he paused in his reading and iced them with an expression of profound disapproval. His pupils bent every effort to stop squirming, but it was beyond expectation. This was their last class, on the last day of school before the commencement of their 1933 summer recess.

San Jose was a beautiful campus set in a landscape of abundance. Her scholars felt privileged to study under her ivied auspices, but summer vacation was summer vacation, and little mattered beyond thoughts of escape, freedom, and leisure.

It was a magnificent afternoon. Small, picturesque clouds skipped across the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west. Through the open windows of the classroom the calls of robins, jays, and sparrows penetrated the academic veneer with promises of long summer days of deliverance. For most students and faculty it was a joyful liberation from the routine demands of university life. The entire world waited in delighted anticipation, all save poor Professor Solomon Gill.

The hour chimed from the bell tower just as Professor Gill concluded his reading. He dismissed his class and formally wished his students a pleasant and stimulating sabbatical. The professor resolved his semester’s best efforts with a caution to keep up on their reading. This last statement went mostly unheard in the clamor and commotion of the swift mass exodus.

His pupils joyfully shouted their parting sentiments and vanished like spooked deer.

In seconds Professor Gill found himself sitting all alone, while through the windows he watched the quadrangle fill with a flood of exuberant youth making good their escape before fastidious professors suddenly remembered some parting summer assignment. In minutes his vista showed scant signs of academic life of any kind.

The professor was tall, angular, and slightly stooped at the shoulders. He sported a full head of brown hair that spurned all attempts at reasonable grooming, in short, a semianimated example of a forty-three-year-old bachelor. His slightly dusty, threadbare appearance and worn boot heels endorsed his unmarried state.

Except when officiating from the lectern of academia, where he exhibited reasonable skill and wielded absolute power, Professor Gill had a tendency to display pronounced symptoms
of social reticence. His great aunt, Miss Honoria, often likened him to a youthful Abe Lincoln: “Very distinguished, to be sure, but I’d feel encouraged if he’d say something useful now and then.”

Her insensitive remarks always made Solomon blush with suppressed indignation. Many of his students, on the other hand, thought the professor closely resembled a wrathful Ichabod Crane and used to call him “Black Ichy” behind his back.

As Solomon Gill rose to harvest his notes and stuff them into his worn briefcase, one of his female students entered again and begged a moment of his time. The young woman needed sober advice on an academic matter, and she thought Professor Gill best qualified to render assistance.

Professor Gill squinted over his glasses and said, “Yes, of course, come in, Miss Castro. What is it you wish to know?” Solomon Gill continued to stuff papers and books into the case, but it appeared unwilling to digest the total volume.

Miss Castro approached, almost as shy as the professor himself. “My parents said they would sponsor me to accompany one of two expeditions this summer, and I still haven’t made up my mind which would be most rewarding. Dr. Rice, at Stanford, is leading a small group north to the Salmon Island excavations, and our Dr. Holt has been invited to muster a party of students to work the diggings at Casa Grande. Which trip would you recommend as the most rewarding, Professor? As an anthropologist, I mean, would you have a preference of one above the other?”

Professor Gill flushed slightly, more at his inability to close his briefcase than from the complexities of the question. “That’s hard to say, Miss Castro. It quite depends on which direction you wish your course of studies to take. As an anthropologist,
as you say, I think I might be attracted to both expeditions equally, like yourself. But if one were to judge the caliber of events by the quality of the instructor, I would have to choose Dr. Holt. He is one of the most illuminating interpreters of post-Clovis native cultures in America, and a very sympathetic gentleman as well. Dr. Rice, though credible in every degree, has a reputation for being something of a martinet in the field, and it’s a long, wet, walk home from Salmon Island.”

Professor Gill cleared his throat nervously. “By the way, Miss Castro, what were the expenses quoted for Dr. Holt’s junket, if I may ask?”

“Not at all, Professor. Each student is expected to pay one hundred dollars for the three-week course. That includes all travel and boarding expenses, of course. Were you thinking of joining us, Professor?”

“I’m afraid my summer recess is spoken for,” said Professor Gill. “But I look forward to hearing about your many adventures next semester, Miss Castro.”

The girl smiled. “Yes, thank you, Professor, and thanks for the recommendation. I’ll talk to my father tonight. Good-bye. Have a pleasant summer, Professor.” Miss Castro disappeared like the others, and Solomon Gill’s world was again tranquil, accompanied only by distant birdsong and the pace of his own labors.

Professor Solomon Gill had lied. He had nothing in the least interesting to do during his vacation, primarily due to the problem of funds. College professors, especially the younger variety with only modest tenure, were not highly recompensed for their services. Inherited wealth was almost a requirement to survive on a teacher’s salary, and Solomon Gill was his aging mother’s sole support. There was little left for anything like
adventurous forays into the desert to study the digs at Chaco Canyon. Solomon couldn’t even afford a weekend of museums in San Francisco, much less a trek to Salmon Island. And, if the truth be known, the professor was jealous, almost crestfallen at the thought of the injustice of it all.

The professor wallowed in these unhappy speculations all the way home on the trolley car. He remained earnestly steeped in his melancholy all through Mrs. Hammel’s pot roast. His landlady had always prided herself on her Friday evening pot roast, and her boardinghouse was popular in that regard.