They hung the stranger on Tuesday as the clockwork figures on the tower struck the twelfth gong.
Roscoe Gordon had seen the man the day before as the stranger climbed onto the fountain’s rim and started speaking in words no one could understand. He held something small and shiny in his right hand, alternately thrusting it toward the crowd and pointing at it with his left hand. Most of the early morning crowd ignored him, ducking their heads as they bustled past. Running late as usual, Roscoe hadn’t paid much attention either as he hurried across the square toward his job at the cemetery on the far side of town. Then the stranger’s narrowed eyes caught his. Roscoe felt a jolt like a spark of electricity at the man’s intense gaze.
The steam whistle from the brass factory sounded the hour, letting Roscoe tear his eyes away. He brushed back his thick, brown hair and strode on, his long legs carrying him away from the square and the unsettling stranger.
The stranger was still at it when the trolley rumbled past on its third round of the evening. He’d grown hoarse by then, with an air of desperation in his tone. Roscoe paused to listen on his way home. By now some of the townsfolk surrounded the stranger. Shopkeepers closed their doors to join the gathering crowd. Workers on their way home from the mill stood at the back with crossed arms and scowling faces.
Dawdling under a gas lamp at the edge of the square, Roscoe still couldn’t tell what the man said. His outlandish tongue mixed with a few words of English made him sound like someone possessed by demons. He had the look of a demon too, unlike anyone Roscoe had seen before. Tangles of wild hair the color of faded autumn leaves sprouted like bushes from his head, and his eyes, bright with the intensity of his words, were different colors, one a pale, nearly colorless blue and the other so dark the pupil and iris melted together. He wore a bright yellow cravat, an ancient green vest, and a tattered coat of motley that flapped like the wings of an exotic bird as his speech grew ever more emphatic.
A rabble of younger boys mocked the stranger. They took turns climbing on the fountain’s edge and shrieking in a singsong imitation of the stranger’s gibberish, then doubling over in laughter. They waggled their fingers in their ears and pranced about. The stranger paid no attention, not even when the boys tossed pebbles at him. Then Tommy Pettigrew, a twelve-year-old known for mischief, dug a couple of rotten apples from the garbage behind the grocer. He pelted the stranger, catching him on the ear.
The stranger stopped talking. He turned and fixed his pale eye on Tommy. Slowly, the stranger raised his arm, pointing a stubby finger at the boy. The arm shook in anger and something else, more sinister perhaps. “Beware!” he roared in accented English.
Surprised, Tommy stood still, as if the word had knocked the breath right out of him.
They might have remained, gazes locked, for all time, but Tommy’s father pushed through the crowd and broke the spell. He grabbed his son by the ear, dragging him toward home, scolding all the while.
At sundown, when it became clear the stranger meant to go on haranguing the good townsfolk, the sheriff locked him up in the town jail. They might have let him go the next morning, running him out of town with a warning. But Tommy Pettigrew took sick that evening and died before daybreak. Sure, the stranger was in jail by then, but Tommy’s mother swore he’d hexed the boy. Then she took sick and died an hour later. By mid-morning the whole Pettigrew family, along with the maid and the cook, were dead. The stranger’s weird words and evil eye were the only explanation.
The town’s justice was swift. By noon they had mounted the stranger on a wind-up trolley, tied a rope around his neck, and threw the loose end over the branch of the hanging tree on the edge of the square. Folks said he never stopped shouting at them until the noose choked the breath out of him.
Roscoe wasn’t in town for the hanging. If he’d been there, he could have told them no good ever came of hanging a man without a trial, not that anyone ever listened to Roscoe. While the townsfolk were stringing up the stranger, Roscoe was still out at the cemetery. His job as assistant groundskeeper mostly meant mowing the grass, weeding, and picking up trash folks left behind. For all the fancy title, it was little more than janitor work, but Roscoe didn’t mind. It meant he didn’t have to talk to many people, not live ones at least. He spent a fair amount of time talking to the dead folk there. And that suited Roscoe too. Dead folk usually had a lot fewer troubles than people with more corporeal concerns.
Roscoe learned of the hanging mid-afternoon. He was lounging against the Mehlkopf monument, eyes closed. He chewed the tender end of a blade of grass and listened to the steady clacking of the grass clipper, a clockwork contraption meant to keep the grounds neat. The machine did a reasonably good job of cutting the grass in a straight line. Roscoe needed only to rewind it every fifteen minutes or so and straighten it if it went off course. He dozed in the warm sunshine.
A sudden kick to his boot startled him. His eyes flew open. Frowning down at him was Mayor Mehlkopf, a bird-like man with a shiny bald head and a beaked nose. A half step behind the mayor was the mayor’s brother, Sheriff Mehlkopf. On the other side of the sheriff, Bill Anders, the cemetery sextant, scowled.
“You think I’m paying you to sleep in the sun?” Anders fumed. “That’s an expensive piece of machinery you’re like to ruin.”
The grass-clipper had stopped clacking. Instead it emitted a soft, petulant whine, having gotten hung up on the rough edge of a gravestone.
Roscoe scrambled to his feet, mumbling an apology and a slew of half-formed excuses. He flipped the switch on the clipper, and the whining gears ground to a halt.
“Never mind all that,” Mayor Mehlkopf interrupted him with a wave of his hand. “You need to drop everything and dig a grave.”
“One grave?” Roscoe had heard of the Pettigrew family deaths. But their graves were set to be dug by a whole crew, not just him. “For the Pettigrews?”
“Not the Pettigrews.” The sextant’s scowl deepened. “That stranger. Dig it over there, in potter’s field. And put him in it.” He jerked his head toward a large, tarp-wrapped bundle on a hand cart.
Roscoe blinked. “The stranger is dead? When’s the funeral?”
“No funeral.” Sheriff Mehlkopf looked grim. “Just bury him quick and deep.”
“Does he have a name?” Roscoe asked. The whole affair seemed wrong to him.
“You ask too many questions, young man!” Mayor Mehlkopf rubbed his hands together as if to wipe away the dirt. “Just do your job.” The three men walked down the grassy slope to where their carriage waited.
Roscoe could have told them this was a bad idea. No good ever came of burying a man nameless. But no one paid much attention to Roscoe, so he didn’t waste his words. He put the grass-clipper back in the shed and retrieved a shovel. He trundled the cart with the dead man on it to the edge of potter’s field and began digging.
The ground was soft after two days of rain, but roots from the ash trees shading potter’s field made for slow work. When the hole was finally ready, Roscoe rolled the corpse over the edge. It didn’t seem respectful, but he had no other way of getting the dead man in place.
The tarp slipped as the man fell, revealing the stranger’s face. An angry rope burn stretched diagonally across his throat. A thin dribble of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. No one had bothered to close the dead man’s eyes. Swollen and bloodshot, they stared at Roscoe, unblinking, unseeing.
Roscoe slid down into the grave. He bent over the stranger and closed the man’s eyes. The corpse’s right hand had fallen free of the tarp and lay palm up in the dirt. Shards of broken glass glittered from a dozen puncture wounds. Gently, Roscoe tucked the bloody hand back inside the tarp.
As Roscoe straightened, the dead man’s ghost hung over them, those terrible eyes wide open and boring into Roscoe. The specter raised a long, gnarled finger, the same one he had pointed at young Tommy. Roscoe shrank back, pressing up against the dirt sides of the grave. But the stranger’s finger did not point to Roscoe, rather somewhere beyond him, toward the east. A gurgle rumbled from the dead man, like gases escaping through liquid, or a strangled man trying to speak. Roscoe shivered, and the specter vanished.
After taking care to rewrap the tarp around the corpse, Roscoe scrambled out of the grave and began shoveling dirt back into the hole.
An hour later, Roscoe leaned on his shovel, contemplating the fresh mound. “Seems you had something important to say, stranger,” Roscoe whispered. “Too bad you won’t be doing any more talking, now that rope’s crushed your throat. I wish I could help.”
It felt wrong, leaving the dead man without a funeral, a marker, or any words of comfort. But Roscoe couldn’t think what else to do, so he cleaned the shovel, put it away, and went home.
He found the house in an uproar. Mrs. Doak, their part-time maid, part-time tea-drinker, rushed past Roscoe with a basin slopping water in her wake. Mother lay on the couch, sobbing. Roscoe’s sister, Emily, knelt beside the couch with another basin of water and a dripping rag. In a hysterical voice, nearly as shrill as Mother’s, Emily exhorted the older woman to calm down.
As she caught sight of Roscoe, Mother let out a sound somewhere between a snort and a wail. “Oh, there you are, my poor, dear boy. Come here to Mama.”
Startled by such an unaccustomed greeting, Roscoe took a step back. “What’s going on?”
Mother lay back on the chaise. “It’s dreadful, just dreadful! I’ve been so worried. You’ve no idea…”
“What’s dreadful, Mother?” Roscoe cut in. Mother could go on like this interminably, and Roscoe had the uneasy feeling something really was wrong this time.
“Lock and bar the doors, now the dear boy is home,” Mother cried. “Shut up all the windows and draw the curtains.”
“I fear it’s too late!” Emily clutched Mother as if she held onto a life preserver.
Roscoe caught hold of Mrs. Doak as she rushed to carry out Mother’s orders. “What is she talking about?” he demanded.
“Haven’t you heard?” Mrs. Doak twined her fingers together and twisted them. “Mrs. Melhkopf is dead, and young Patsy Mehlkopf took sick no more than an hour after her mother died. It’s a plague upon us and all because of the stranger’s hex. We’re doomed, all of us.” The housekeeper suddenly stopped, her face white with terror. She backed away from Roscoe. “And you out there burying him!” She spun away from him and stumbled to the kitchen, rubbing her hands on her apron as if she could scrub away his touch.
“Is that so, Emily?” Roscoe turned to his sister.
She nodded. “There’s sickness at the coroner’s house too,” she said, her voice muffled in her Mother’s bosom.
Roscoe frowned. He didn’t know much about hexes, but throwing out a random hex seemed a pretty chancy way of killing people. More important than the question of how it worked, was the question of why. Why hex the whole town? Why come into this town at all? The man was a stranger. He had no kin, no friends, no business here. He had no reason to want anyone hurt, let alone dead. The antics of a rude little boy were hardly enough reason to curse the town. Hanging the man might bring on such a need for revenge. But from what Roscoe had heard, the hex, if that was what it was, had come before they set about lynching him.
Clearly, he needed more answers than anyone here could provide. Roscoe spun on his heel and headed back out, ignoring his mother’s wail of protest as the door slammed behind him.
It seemed unwise to call on the mayor, grieving and worried as he must be, so Roscoe turned toward the sextant’s house, a two-story brick building not far off the Main Square.
Roscoe knocked on the door. A curtain twitched in the parlor window, but no one came to answer. Roscoe pounded harder and shouted. “I know you’re in there.”
Mr. Anders opened the door a crack, the chain still on. “What are you doing here?”
“Folks are saying that stranger you had me bury so quick has hexed the town. What do you know about him anyway? Seems he wasn’t here long enough to do anyone harm.”
The sextant leaned closer to Roscoe. “He was a Tinker.”
Roscoe nodded. Tinkers were traveling folk, roaming from town to town mostly fixing things for folks or selling odd bits and parts. No one much minded their coming, as long as they didn’t overstay their welcome and moved on as soon as the job was done. Still, as far as Roscoe knew, being a Tinker wasn’t a crime.
Maybe he’d said something Roscoe hadn’t heard. Not gibberish after all, but some outlandish tongue only Tinkers used. “Do you have any idea what the man was saying there on the green?”
The sextant drew back, clearly offended. “I do not speak the language of Tinkers.”
“Never thought you did.” Roscoe held up his hand to allay the man’s anger. “It’s just I’ve heard it said his harangue was cursing the whole town.”
The sextant rubbed his whiskery chin. “Michael Wittinger did say he understood the word ‘hope’, but he wasn’t sure if the man meant ‘hope’ or ‘no hope.’ And I’m sure he said ‘pestilence and doom’.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a hex.” Roscoe knew the townsfolk were, in general, a superstitious lot, but he didn’t think the leaders were so gullible. He frowned at the sextant. “We’ve never hung a man for speaking out before, not even a Tinker. What made this one so special?”
The sextant stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind. His eyes darted left, then right. “He broke the quarantine,” he whispered.
“Quarantine? What quarantine?” Roscoe’s head jerked up.
“When Mayor Mehlkopf came back from the capital two days ago, he put the town under quarantine. He canceled all the trains and closed the harbor. The roads east and west are barricaded. There’s a terrible plague in the capital, and the mayor doesn’t want it to come here.”
Seemed too late to stop it now, Roscoe thought. Some sort of plague was already here. A plague was a lot more believable than a hex. Still, if the stranger brought the plague, why tell everyone? Was that what he’d been doing?
Roscoe didn’t believe that, not for one minute. If he were running from the plague, he’d never stand out on the green and announce it.
Taking advantage of Roscoe’s inattention, the sextant ducked back inside his house. The lock clicked shut.
Roscoe stared at the door. He could have told the sextant that no bolt or lock would keep out a plague, but he wouldn’t listen. No one ever did. Maybe the sextant didn’t know that the stranger’s ghost remained either. At present, the ghost seemed tied to his grave, but soon he could wander, slipping in doors unseen, an angry ghost bent on haunting his persecutors.
Sighing, Roscoe turned away. The sextant wouldn’t believe that either.
Shoving his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, Roscoe strode toward the fountain where the stranger had been preaching. Most of the shops on Main Street were already closing. Even the soda shop on the corner had the gaslights turned off and the shutters drawn. At the general store, Mr. Wells was dragging the last racks of aviator goggles and ear-flap hats inside. Roscoe crossed the street.
“Afternoon, Mr. Wells. Let me give you a hand with that.” He reached for the closest rack.
Mr. Wells slapped his hand away. “Oh no you don’t! Not until you’ve disinfected.” He nodded toward a bowl of strong-smelling vinegar set on the bench in front of the store.
Roscoe dipped his fingers in the bowl. The vinegar seeped into a hangnail on his thumb, stinging like the dickens. He shook his hand and resisted the temptation to suck on the offending thumb. “What’s going on, Mr. Wells? Seems everyone’s scared witless on account of that stranger, even now that he’s dead.”
“As well they should be! He’s brought doom on us.”
Roscoe frowned as he helped move the last rack inside. “Surely you don’t believe in hexes.” As far as Roscoe knew, Mr. Wells was a down-to-earth sort of man, not believing in anything he couldn’t see. He didn’t even believe in ghosts.
Mr. Wells took off his work apron and folded it neatly. “No, I don’t believe that nonsense. But I do believe in science and contagion. Maybe the poor man didn’t know he was carrying it, but there’s no doubt in my mind, that Tinker brought the plague here. I only hope we put him out of his misery before he infected us all.”
“But Mr. Wells, if it’s just a sickness, don’t you have something in that medicine room back of your store? Seems to me that would stop this plague quicker than hanging the man.”
Mr. Wells pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No. I don’t. And before you ask, it’s too late to send to the capital for anything to help. Towns all up and down the river are shutting up, barricading their roads, and closing their harbors and stations. Nothing is moving anywhere in the county.” He waved the back of his hands at Roscoe, shooing him out the door. “My advice to you, young man, is go home. Lock your door, and pray to God no one thinks you’ve become a carrier because you buried the poor devil.” Mr. Wells splashed the remaining vinegar on the entryway before closing the door.
Roscoe crossed back to the square and sat on the limestone rim of the fountain. He stared at the water sprouting from the mouth of a green-tarnished heron. Normally, he found the splash of the water soothing, but he was too troubled to relax. Though the Tinker’s ghost had not followed Roscoe, the specter of the dead man with the angry scar haunted him. Would nobody miss the stranger? Would no one mourn his passing? Tinkers usually travelled with family. Was this stranger truly alone? Clearly, the man had come to town for some reason important enough to defy barricades.
Come to think of it, how had the stranger come to town? With no trains running, and the harbor and roads closed, he must have come on foot.
With sudden purpose, Roscoe stood, brushed his wet hands on his vest, strode past the hanging tree to the post office on the corner of the square. Anyone entering town from the east would surely pass by there.
Inside, the air was thick with smoke. The postmaster, a tall, thin man with wispy brown hair and an equally thin moustache, bent over a large canvas bag. A contraption a bit like a beekeeper’s smoker was strapped to his back. He aimed the nozzle at the piles of letters and packages. Dark smoke spewed from the nozzle and settled onto the paper.
“What in the name of all tarnation are you doing?” Roscoe coughed violently, waving smoke away like a swarm of mosquitos.
The postmaster looked up, his sandy eyes red-rimmed from the smoke. “Fumigating the mail. Only way to keep it safe. I’m not sure what that stranger brought into town, but I don’t want to be any part of spreading it.”
“Did you see him come into town? I thought all the roads are closed.”
“That they are. I helped put up the barricades myself.” He leaned closer to Roscoe and motioned him to lean in too.
Roscoe hesitated because of the smoke, but leaned in anyway.
“Just between me and you, those barricades aren’t much good against a plague. Sure they’ll stop a cart or a steam car, but a walking man could go right around them, skip across the river, and the guards would be none the wiser.”
“Is that what the stranger did?” Roscoe asked.
“Can’t say for sure how he snuck past the barricade, but he sure enough did walk into town without a please or by-your-leave. I saw him with my own eyes, striding down that main road with his coat-tails flapping like he owned the place.” The postmaster crossed his fingers in a quick sign against evil. “He was a Tinker, you know.” He pumped out a great puff of smoke over the pile of letters.
Roscoe opened his mouth to tell him his smoke might keep away flies and mosquitos, but was no use warding off hexes, or plagues, or ghosts. But the postmaster had turned away, focused on his fumigation, so Roscoe closed his mouth without saying anything.
Once outside the post office, Roscoe stopped on the boardwalk to think. Being they were travelling folk, Tinkers usually had some sort of vehicle. Besides, this Tinker’s boots hadn’t been road worn or dusty. They had been clean and fairly new, not the boots of a man who had walked thirty miles, which was how far it was to the nearest town. So he must have come most of the way by wagon, either an old-fashioned horse-drawn or a modern steam wagon. He’d probably come close enough to see the barricade at the Colt’s Fork Bridge on the east edge of town. Maybe he had come up to it and been turned away. In any case, instead of giving up, he must have parked his wagon somewhere and skirted the barricade. That took a powerful lot of determination.
Roscoe felt a growing kinship with this Tinker, a man who got a notion in his head and carried on no matter what. Mother claimed this sort of stubbornness was sheer obstinacy, but Roscoe preferred to think of it as tenacity. And if the Tinker had found it so important to come into town, Roscoe felt he owed it to him to find out why. Perhaps the Tinker’s vehicle would hold a clue about his purpose.
Roscoe continued to the Colt’s Fork Bridge. Sure enough, they had stacked telegraph poles across the entire width of the road. A tangle of wire, barbed with tiny points of metal, surmounted the pile. The formidable blockade would indeed stop any vehicular travel.
Sitting on the edge of the barricade was Bram Wilkes, one of the newest town deputies. Roscoe pulled up short. The young man had been a classmate back in high school. He had been a bully then, with a great deal more brawn than brain. High school was six years past, but Roscoe doubted anything had changed. Best avoid talking to him whenever possible.
Roscoe ducked off the road and into a corn field alongside. From there he made his way down to the river. Colt’s Fork Creek wasn’t deep this time of year. Water splashed over a sandy bed, littered with rounded stones tumbled into place by the current. Roscoe rolled up the legs of his pants and waded across. Bram never looked up.
On the far side of the creek, Roscoe picked his way through another field and returned to the road. His wet shoes slopped against the macadam as he continued east.
It took more than an hour of searching before Roscoe found the Tinker’s wagon in a small meadow with a row of stately pines at the far edge. Apparently, he had made some effort to hide the vehicle with pine boughs but had not taken the time to cover it well.
Roscoe dragged off the pine boughs, revealing a barrel-shaped steam wagon, with a small stove pipe jutting out of the roof. The wagon was old enough it had been originally horse drawn, but had been remodeled to include a steam engine. Bright colors and patterns decorated the large back wheels, but the rest of the wagon was shabby, with peeling paint and bare patches. It seemed the stranger had begun re-painting, but never finished. Roscoe circled the wagon and stopped at the back, facing the rear door. The steps were folded away and the door closed. Roscoe hesitated. It didn’t seem right to invade the man’s home. But there could be clues as to the man’s identity inside and answers to the question of why he came at all.
Roscoe folded down the steps, climbed up, and pulled the door open.
A huge black bird swept out the door, cawing in raucous annoyance. Roscoe fell back, one arm raised to protect his eyes. The crow swooped low across the clearing and then flapped back and perched above the wagon door. It cocked an eye at Roscoe and clacked its beak, then stepped back, as if to make room for Roscoe to enter. Roscoe brushed himself off and cautiously stuck his head inside the Tinker’s wagon.
The Tinker’s ghost sat on the bed, head down, hands folded helplessly in his lap. He looked up at Roscoe and sighed. Not the sigh of an angry ghost, but one defeated.
With a nod to the silent ghost, Roscoe stepped inside the wagon. The man was not just a Tinker, Roscoe realized, but an apothecary of sorts. In addition to the pots and pans, hammers and tongs hanging from the walls were bunches of dried herbs. Above a sink, a small cupboard held a dozen glass bottles filled with liquids of various colors. A stack of labels advertising liniment sat next to a pot of glue. A folded newspaper lay on the polished wooden table that divided the workshop/kitchen area from the living/sleeping area of the wagon. “I wish you could talk,” Roscoe muttered. He sat on the edge of the bed beside the ghost and opened the paper.
Unfortunately, it was not in English. Roscoe recognized a few place names of local towns in the headlines, but he couldn’t understand anything else. He flipped through it, to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. On the back page, in what appeared to be several columns of ads, two such items were circled in red. These were of no help since Roscoe couldn’t read them either.
Roscoe rummaged around in the wagon, until he found a box of six dozen small vials each half-filled with clear liquid. On the side of the box was a label, listing the contents as anti-plague serum. The box was addressed to Doctor Shadrack Beswick. Roscoe sat back on his heels, remembering the crushed glass in the dead man’s hand. Where had a Tinker gotten such medicine?
The ghost rose from the bed, his glum look replaced with one of hope. He pointed to the label on the box and then himself.
“You are Doctor Beswick?” Roscoe said to the ghost. “A Tinker and a doctor?”
The ghost nodded.
Roscoe studied the labels on the vials. Though he didn’t recognize the scientific-sounding words, he could see each was neatly typed, with a list of what were probably ingredients. These were not the crude labels of a snake-oil potion, but the real thing, manufactured by a real pharmacy. Four more boxes, identically labeled, identically filled, were tucked away underneath the bed.
“This is medicine, isn’t it?” Roscoe mused aloud. “For us?” he asked the ghost.
Dr. Beswick’s odd eyes lit up with something that might be hope. He opened his mouth, but produced only a gargled croak. He swirled away in obvious frustration.
Roscoe ducked and instinctively held out his hands to placate the frantic ghost. “Easy, man. I guess that’s why you raved about a plague. You wanted to bring this medicine into town. To help. But why us?”
The ghost settled back on the bench and pointed to the newspaper.
Roscoe looked more closely at the ads that had been circled. The one crossed off listed a town upriver, and the second one named his town. “Oh. You were going all along the river, helping each town along the way.”
The ghost let loose a wail of such deep sorrow that Roscoe covered his ears. But he couldn’t look away from such longing. Dr. Beswick had come to help, but the town had turned him away, refused to listen, and murdered him.
No wonder the man’s ghost was so troubled. With such a tragic ending, the man’s ghost would linger for days, years even. His pain would seep through town, infecting everyone with a sense of despair.
Everyone, that is, who survived the plague Dr. Beswick had tried to prevent.
Roscoe snapped shut the box of medicine and jumped to his feet. He could do what the Tinker had tried and failed to accomplish. He could be the hero this time. For a glorious moment, he imagined himself bringing salvation to everyone.
Then he paused, pressed his lips together, and sat back down. Who was he fooling? Him, a hero? No one ever listened to Roscoe. More, likely they would string him up the same way they’d killed the Tinker. He slumped beside Dr. Beswick on the narrow berth.
His sigh mingled with the mournful moan of the stranger’s ghost. The angry scar on Dr. Beswick’s neck pulsed, and his eyes blazed. He looked at Roscoe with burning intensity, then aimed his ghostly finger at Roscoe, then at the medicine, and finally toward the town.
“I can’t.” Roscoe shuddered. “I know you want me to take over for you. But I can’t. No one ever listens to me.”
Dr. Beswick’s ghost leaned in, mouth open in a silent scream. He grew larger and larger until he loomed over Roscoe like a thunder cloud ready to burst. He slashed a finger across his throat, mirroring the scar. Then he jabbed the same finger at Roscoe over and over again.
Roscoe shrank away from the ghost’s fury.
But the doctor did not mean to hurt him. He was only trying to help. That’s all he’d ever been trying to do.
Roscoe stiffened in sudden resolve. This man had given his life in his attempt to help others. Roscoe couldn’t let that sacrifice be in vain. Dr. Beswick could no longer make anyone listen. But Roscoe still had a voice. It was no good giving up before he even tried.
Pocketing two vials of the serum, Roscoe went outside. He leaned against the wheel hub of the Tinker’s wagon, thinking about a plan. He couldn’t force his way through the barricade with the medicine. Bram was too dumb to listen to any kind of reason, and he was six inches taller and at least fifty pounds heavier than Roscoe. There was no sense in trying to overpower him. But really, Bram wasn’t the one who needed convincing. No one listened to him either.
The crow cawed twice, hopped from the wagon roof to Roscoe’s shoulder, and tilted its head. One dark, unblinking eye stared at Roscoe. Like the dead Tinker, the bird seemed intent on telling him something.
Roscoe had no idea what the bird wanted, but the crow’s intensity gave him an idea. If Roscoe was going to succeed where the doctor had failed, he had to get someone to listen, the right someone, with the power to change things.
Roscoe stuck his hands in his duster pockets and walked toward the river, whistling tunelessly.
The Tinker’s ghost moaned, hovering directly over the wagon as if tethered there. “Don’t worry,” Roscoe called over his shoulder. “I’ll be back.” He strode along the road and through the field, until he came to the river. He waded across and come onto the main square.
The place was even emptier than it had been earlier. Not a single shop was open. The shutters were closed on the post office and the bank. Even the hotel had its door closed and barred. Roscoe paused in the middle of the square, considering who he should who might listen. No one believing in hexes, so that left out most of the town, including his mother, and probably the postmaster.
Roscoe decided to try the sextant first. Mr. Anders knew there was a plague, and he had the power to lift the quarantine to bring in the wagon. But no matter how hard Roscoe knocked, the sextant refused to answer his door, even when Roscoe tried kicking it in.
Maybe it would be best to go directly to the mayor. Roscoe hadn’t wanted to go to him first, knowing the man’s own family was suffering. But there was no time to worry about that anymore. Pompous and arrogant as the mayor was, he had at least tried to protect the town with the barricade. Could he be convinced to tear it down?
The mayor lived on the far side of the town square, in a huge house with beveled glass sidelights flanking the front door and a bulbous copper clock tower looming over the north wing.
As Roscoe pulled the door bell, the massive clock gears ground into place and chimed the hour. From inside, the echo of the bell rang though the halls.
No one came.
Roscoe was just about to ring again, when the door swung open revealing the mayor’s butler wearing silver gloves, bronze goggles, and a formal black duster. “Yes?” he said, his voice muffled by a long scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose.
“I need to see Mayor Mehlkopf. It’s urgent.” Roscoe stood tall and tried to make his voice sound authoritative, but it came out more pleading than commanding.
“The mayor does not see …” The butler paused, as if deciding the right word, then continued, “persons without an appointment.”
The tinker’s crow, perched on the gaslight by the entry way, cawed harshly, whether in judgement or encouragement, Roscoe couldn’t tell. In either case, the sound reminded Roscoe of his resolve. He stuck his foot in the door. “Then let me make an appointment.”
The butler did not bother to answer. With one swift motion, he kicked Roscoe’s foot back and slammed the door in his face.
Roscoe rang and rang, but the butler did not return.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Roscoe turned away from the mayor’s front door. If Roscoe couldn’t get to him, who would Mayor Mehlkopf let in?
The crow flew to Roscoe’s shoulder, cocked his head, and stared at him. That unblinking black eye made Roscoe so uncomfortable he looked away. He gaze fell on Mr. Well’s shop across the square.
Mr. Wells was the closest thing to a doctor the town had, and a good friend of the mayor. Surely the Mr. Mehlkopf would listen to him.
With renewed resolve, Roscoe cut straight across the square to Mr. Wells’s closed shop and hurried around back. A flight of wooden steps led to a second floor apartment. Roscoe took the steps two at a time and knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?” Mr. Wells shouted from inside.
“Me, Roscoe Gordon.”
“Go home, Roscoe, before someone says you’re spreading the plague, just from being near that stranger.”
“Wait, Mr. Wells.” Roscoe rattled the doorknob. If the pharmacist wouldn’t listen, he didn’t know where else to go. He kicked the door in frustration. “Listen to me! You’re wrong. All wrong.”
The door opened a crack. Roscoe could see one rheumy eye.
“Wrong about what?’
“The stranger.”
“He’s already dead, Roscoe. Maybe we were overhasty, but nothing can be done now.” The eye backed away, and the door started closing.
Roscoe shoved a toe in the crack. “No, it’s not too late. What if the stranger didn’t bring the plague? What if he was trying to help? What if he brought the cure?”
Mr. Wells opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. “What are you claiming, boy? This is nothing to joke about.”
“No joke.” He held out one of the vials. “I can’t tell for sure, not without an apothecary to check on it, but his wagon is full of this.”
Mr. Wells snatched the small bottle from Roscoe. He turned it over and held it up to light. He opened it and sniffed.
Sweat beaded on Roscoe’s forehead as the silence stretched out. He needed Mr. Wells’ help to convince the mayor to take down the barricade and bring in the medicine. “The plague’s already here, Mr. Wells. All the wire and logs in the world won’t stop it. That barricade is keeping out the stuff that might just save us.”
Mr. Wells closed his eyes and shuddered, as if holding back a sob. “My God,” he whispered. “My God, what have we done?”
Nothing good, Roscoe might have said, but that wouldn’t help. “It’s what we do now that matters, Mr. Wells. You’ve got to talk to Mayor Mehlkopf, help bring that wagon into town.”
Mr. Wells took a deep breath, swiped the back of his hand across his face, and opened his eyes. “Right. Wait here.” He ducked into his kitchen and returned a moment later with his hat and coat. Brushing past Roscoe on the landing, he lead the way down the steps and over to the mayor’s house.
The same butler opened the door, but instead of asking to see the mayor, Mr. Wells barged right in. “Get out of the way, George,” he said as he pushed past. “Where’s Morton? The library?” Without waiting for an answer, Mr. Wells hurried up the broad staircase. With a smirk at the butler, Roscoe followed.
With his head in his hands, Mayor Mehlkopf slumped behind a gleaming desk. “Go away,” he said without looking up. “There’s nothing anyone can do.”
“Nonsense,” Mr. Wells barked. “Listen to this.” He stood aside and waved at Roscoe.
Roscoe gaped at Mr. Wells. Wasn’t he going to do the talking now they were with the mayor?
The mayor lifted his head, saw Roscoe standing there with his mouth open, and moaned. He dropped his head again. “Go away,” he repeated.
Roscoe was used to people ignoring him, but this time the mayor’s casual dismissal angered him. This man, with the power to do as he liked, had given up at the first defeat. Roscoe cleared his throat. “It’s not too late, Mr. Mehlkopf. There’s medicine.”
The mayor waved his hand as if brushing away a pesky fly. “Medicine?” he said derisively. “How could you have medicine? Do you take me for a fool?”
“Only if you won’t listen,” Roscoe said, and immediately regretted his words as too brash, as likely to get him fired as to help anyone. Quickly, before anyone could interrupt, Roscoe explained about the Tinker, Dr. Beswick and the wagon full of medicine.
As he spoke, Mayor Mehlkopf, raised his head, sat up straight, and looked right at Roscoe. By the time Roscoe had finished, the mayor was on his feet. With a brief nod of thanks, he rushed out the door to issue new orders. Within an hour, the barricade came down, and Roscoe and Mr. Wells drove the Tinker’s wagon into town.
News traveled fast, especially in a frightened town. Soon people with masks and kerchiefs covering their faces, gathered, glancing nervously from neighbor to neighbor. Rumors spread through the crowd like electric fire. Some said there was a plot to kill them all quickly, end the suffering. Others claimed the whole thing, even the plague, was a hoax. Mr. Wells urged people up to get their doses, but no one stepped forward.
“You tell them.” Mayor Mehlkopf pushed Roscoe forward.
Roscoe stumbled, eyes wide. Him? Talk to all these folk? His eyes met Mr. Wells, who nodded encouragement.
Though he hands shook, and his knees wobbled, Roscoe climbed onto the fountain’s rim. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and told the whole story. With this third telling, it grew easier, and he spoke with greater confidence. But what really convinced the townsfolk was when Roscoe took his dose in front of everyone.
As the townsfolk finally began lining up for the medicine, Roscoe eased away from the crowd, and made his way out to the cemetery. It was a relief to be away from everyone. He hadn’t realized how much energy it took to have people actually listen to him. He found the stranger’s grave and saw Dr. Beswick’s ghost there, hovering over the fresh mound. The rope burn on his neck had dulled to a burnished scar. Roscoe set out the smooth, flat board he’d brought along. With a small pot of paint, he carefully lettered the marker. “Dr. Shadrack Beswick, stranger no more.”
He let the paint dry a bit, then nailed it to a cross piece. As Roscoe pounded the sign into the head of the grave, Dr. Beswick’s ghost floated overhead. From an ash tree shading potter’s field, the Tinker’s crow cawed twice.
The ghost shuddered as if letting go of a great weight. He nodded once to Roscoe, then faded away, like dust motes blown by the breeze.
An avid fan of all things historical, Terri Karsten lives in a hundred year old house near the upper Mississippi River. After retiring from teaching high school English, she divides her free time between writing books, playing with grandkids, and chasing the outdoor life. Karsten writes both fiction and non-fiction, and has publication credits in a variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias, including Highlights for Children, The Winona Daily News and An Encyclopedia of Women’s History. Her novels focus on historical fiction with strong women as protagonists (A Mistake of Consequence, When Luck Runs Out). For more information, visit her website: www.terrikarsten.com