All Bedlam Courses Past (part thirty-six)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Two

Avarice Creeping On

(part thirty-six)

He got the ball rolling. “Think I gave you a pretty good gist in my letter. Our town’s a small place…”

“Not so very, though, from what I’ve read.”

“That’ll please the mayor, you folks down here knowing Cookesville’s on the map.”

“You have a celebrated medium who has built a resort there, a Mr. Ebrach. Also, I know of George Rutherford. The Vanguard is a Republican paper.”

Thacker deployed his wink. “I’m not up to no good, sir. Mr. Rowan is a pillar of the community. Helping move some poor folks from the old asylum to the new one upriver. Political differences.” The phrase said plenty, and nothing over-specific. The face of Quackenbush eased into wise accord. “But I guarantee Mr. Rutherford won’t make free with scandal. More a case of me not putting a foot wrong, kind of hazard you can’t spot unless you know sufficient.”

No, Rutherford had his uses for scandal…never just toss it on the table. Keep it on the shelf to spice a dish with here and there.

LeBeau tapped his friend’s knee. Quackenbush, more than clear his throat, hocked a little. He tucked away his handkerchief. “I am a Christian, Thatcher.”

“Of course you are, sir.”

“And so I believe that if a thing happens, it happens in harmony with God’s plan; that, therefore, if a man seek to conceal an act, his act must be brought to light. For by God’s will, nothing done can be intended for secrecy. If it were not purposed to instruct, it would not be done. You may like me to provide you some bona fides. I am a medical doctor, and have practiced in a limited way, although taking patients has not been material to my living.

“Now, we go back to the time before the war, an easy time for men to fall into…hmm. Let me wax, Thatcher, a little poetic, and say rather to heave up on the brink, in conversing of perhaps not much. Which brink, you understand, was that unbridgeable chasm separating one gentleman of the ’50s’ views from another’s. Otherwise, the story is almost farcical…it possesses certain humorous aspects.”

Thacker pulled out his book and pencil. The old fellow was a raconteur. He was going to roll this story out, stinting himself no side trips.

“Should I name names?” the doctor asked. (Not of the reporter, for whom the answer must always be, yes, indeedy.)

“Easier to keep your story straight.”

Quackenbush eyed LeBeau. “Anyhow, one can’t libel the dead. Which principle, I’ve often thought, makes life inconvenient for those carrying on the family name. Buckley, Thatcher, was the fellow started it. Moultrie Cincinnatus Buckley. Fortune seeded in the China trade, invested early with the New York shippers. Hard secessionist. Started buying up dailies around the time of the Kansas-Nebraska fracas.”

40

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part thirty-seven)

(2023, Stephanie Foster)