All Bedlam Courses Past (part ninety-nine)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part ninety-nine)

 The patient observed, adenoidal: “That fellow Élucide was hiring for a job.”

“You,” the nurse said. “You’re not looking for her.”

“In my Sunday best, ma’am. No.”

The idea played that he might say yes. He had not tried letting Miss Gremot make a specimen of him. Another idea played, that he might snatch those bottles, ranked fresh on the patient’s tray…

This one he’d shared, in casting that look. The nurse put herself between her charge and the thief. “Don’t be up here stealing again. Someone!”

She shouted the last, making Richard jump. And so he took off at a jog.

He slowed reaching the upper walk, studied the canopy. Something about the existence of this canvas at all, that precious people could not be rained on, made him itch to light a match to it. Miss Gremot and Mrs. Rutherford would only scheme up some greater extravagance, have the town subscribe to get Ebrach a new thing…

Have a grand reopening with a speech from the senator.

He ran, hearing noises, got down Arcadia, and found himself following a girl. Why not, for curiosity?

Later, he named them, itemized them, made a false story to lend tragedy to the girl’s loss, of her five dollars in dollar coins, her onions and potatoes and bread. He thought of throwing the onions in the river, to watch them splash. He remembered elderberries, that his mother would never fix pies and not feed him one, if he brought her the wherewithal. But he could get fed through onions. Fat grocery onions didn’t grow in the woods. He ate the bread, and the potatoes raw, two. That was all his stomach could take.

He lay in dirt under Horace’s barn. For one, because caught, he could say a dream of God’s mercy had driven him here, praise be… For another, because Horace kept no dog.

Neighborhood dogs, though, were barking. He heard a door knocked. The town constable was at the preliminaries, asking if anyone’d seen a man, run along, or look like he got a basket. A woman’s voice said no. And, goodness sake, downtown in broad daylight!

The knock came to Horace’s.

Sanderson was polishing the buggy in the drive. Would’ve seen, but thought he knew most folks who ever walked along this way.

“Be one of them from the railroad. Get up to fires all night and every kind of drink and carry-on.”

It was new to hear the younger brother speak, which he did in eager repetition to Mrs. Horace, assured with no need to come down the walk, that this was not a thing to worry about.

“It’s what things come to,” Sanderson said.

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)