Visions of Liberty Part 4

Mark hadn't died doing anything glamorous like beating back the wild forest of a new planet. He'd been milling grain, and had fallen between the giant wheels. The hardwood cogs chewed him up, spit him out, and left him for me and G.o.d-and G.o.d washed His hands of the matter.

At the Yoders' I pulled on Zeke's reins. He snorted and plodded to a nonchalant stop just short of the weathered post I usually tied him to. One of the little Yoders, Joshua, walked down to greet me.

"Gutenmorning," he said, mixing his German and English with a smile.

"Good morning, Joshua," I replied. I clambered out of my buggy, then reached back in to retrieve my black bag. Of all my visits, I looked forward to seeing the Yoders the most.

Joshua eyed Zeke with a critical eye.

"Your horse is getting old. How much longer will he be pulling you around? My dad could sell you a good one, with straight legs and a strong back and the look of eagles."

A fast talking six-year-old, this Joshua. Somehow I knew he wouldn't spend the rest of his life on New Pennsylvania.

Unless he contracted a serious disease. Or broke a leg. Or . . .

"No thank you," I said. "I think old Zeke will hold out just fine for me." In response Zeke broke wind and swished his tail.

Joshua giggled and ran back toward the house, his bare feet kicking up small puffs of dirt.

Joshua's mother came out to the porch. The hem of her black dress sc.r.a.ped the dirty wooden floor planks, and her white blouse had blue stains all over it. Several strands of honey-brown hair had escaped the edges of her bonnet. She brushed at them.

"Dr. Hostetler," she greeted me. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Mrs. Yoder." I walked onto their porch. Several giggling kids ran out the door past me.

I looked around, but didn't see Rebecca anywhere.

"I'll tell Ben and Esther you're here," she said. "Please, come in."

I stepped in. The house smelled of food. Fresh-baked bread sat on the counter by the large iron range, and it appeared that Mrs. Yoder was taking advantage of the hot stove to put a cake in as well.

David Yoder, his full beard as dark as the unkempt hair crammed into his straw hat, shook my hand.

"You ministered to Suderman's son," he said. "G.o.d bless him, that was a fine boy. A tragedy."

The tragedy was that none of you would let me bring my skills to bear on him.

Mrs. Yoder took a stick and stirred the coal bin under the range. She opened the oven for a quick peek and waved her hand over it. "We'll have to pray for Betty," she said.

That brought back the image of Betty Suderman sitting in her buggy outside my house, waiting for the news of her son's death. I forced it back into my subconcious when I saw Ben and Esther coming down the stairs. Ben's beard had just started growing in, a sign that he was no longer a bachelor. Esther unconsciously held her arms protectively over her stomach.

I shook Ben's hand while Esther smiled nervously at me.

"Let's see what we have here," I said. I undid the clasp on my little black bag and opened it up. The look on Esther's face said that Pandora's box had nothing on my medical bag.

There is nothing so amazing as hearing the heartbeat of a tiny human being inside of its mother's womb.

But amazing as the experience was, I had another sobering thought: here was another little person who had better never come down with a disease, or undergo a crippling accident.

I took the stethoscope away from Esther's belly.

"Everything seems okay," I said. I smiled rea.s.suringly. Although, without any scans, I couldn't be absolutely certain. A sonogram to look at the baby would have been nice; DNA tests to make sure to make sure everything was okay after the birth would have been even better. There was no law prohibiting it; just a belief that was a thousand times stronger than any law.

Esther coughed. She stood up with her proud husband, linking her arm through his. They walked back up the creaky steps.

"Asa and I'll be out in the field after lunch," David Yoder said to his son's back.

"I'll be there," replied Ben.

David winked at me. "There'll be a raising happening soon enough for the two of them. Will you join?"

It would be another chance to see Rebecca. I tried to hide my enthusiasm. "We'll see what my schedule is like," I said. "But, yes, I would like to join."

David looked around. "We're almost ready to bring in this year's wheat. Weather's been good. Real good. The strange seasons throw you off a bit, but I think I've got it figured this year. There'll be thres.h.i.+ng soon, eh?"

He could have used any of a dozen instruments to predict the weather to a fraction of a degree, the rainfall to a tenth of a centimeter. No law against it. Just a moral repugnance to anything that would make his life easier. We'd argued it many times. I'd never come close to winning.

David kept trying to rope me into coming over to lend an able hand. And in truth I wanted to go. The women would cook blackberry and grape pies. There would be freshly churned b.u.t.ter and baked bread.

Was.h.i.+ng off a day's worth of hard sweat from forking wheat into the wheels of the thresher, joking with all the other men, eating that special food-it was an appealing picture. It was almost my only pleasure on this world, other than being in Rebecca's company.

Despite my privileged place in the community as a doctor, it was their nature to be wary of me. I had a very advanced education, which didn't sit too well with them, and technology was a very important part of my job (or at least it should have been)-but it was that very technology that was viewed as dangerous to the health of the community. No one ever told me I couldn't use it. I had the freedom to offer it to them; they had the freedom to refuse it. We were both batting a thousand: I always offered, they always refused.

Girls pa.s.sed by us with white tablecloths, utensils, plates of bread, and half-moon pies. Someone brought out a tureen of bean soup. I pulled my watch out. "Brother Yoder," I said. "I'm falling behind already, I have to go."

David frowned. "You'll miss church tonight?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I don't know if that's good," he said.

"I have to see the Andersons' son and tend to him. They say he's had a cold for a few days, but it could be worse."

"There should always be time for G.o.d," David told me.

"A long time ago G.o.d spoke to me," I lied, trying to hide my irritation, "and charged me with curing the sick."

To which David could make no argument. He had been chosen by lot to be a preacher. His sermons were well thought out, I was told. I avoided Sundays, and sermons, and all that went with it. I could always easily be elsewhere. David and some of the other Elder preachers sensed that, but again, they usually made an allowance for me.

"I really must go," I said.

"Ja, well," David shook my hand and paid my fee. "Make sure you get some bread from my wife before you leave," he said.

"Thank you."

When I walked out the door I looked around. Rebecca stood out on the porch, just beside the door.

She smoothed down her spotless white ap.r.o.n and smiled.

"Hi," she said.

She had her mother's honey-brown hair and hazel eyes.

I smiled back. "h.e.l.lo, Rebecca."

"It's good to see you again."

I could see David Yoder looking at me through the window. He was no fool. Someday soon I would have to tell him that I had nothing but honorable intentions toward his daughter. Which was true: marrying Rebecca was about the only thing that would make all the unnecessary dead men and women bearable.

"I heard you say you might make the raising?" said Rebecca.

"Will you be there?"

"Of course," Rebecca said with a shy smile. "I'll be helpingMutter with the cooking."

"Then I will do my best."

"I hope you do make it," Rebecca said. "There's singing and dancing afterwards."

Their notion of singing and dancing wasn't about to put the dance halls of Earth and some of the colony worlds out of business, but it was better than nothing. Maybe, just maybe, for a few hours that day, no one would get hurt. No one would come down with a disease that I wasn't permitted to cure. Maybe.

I checked my pocket watch. I would have to push Zeke faster than his usual meander to make it on time. But it was worth every delayed minute.

"I would really enjoy dancing," I told Rebecca. "I have to leave now. I'm very late."

She took my hand and shook it. Her skin was cool to the touch, and feathery.

"Gute nacht, Rebecca," I said.

I drove Zeke at a quick clip through the forest, my mind thinking fuzzy, pleasant things about Rebecca. I didn't hear the distant rumble until Zeke began to perk his ears up.

It began low, but soon became a high pitch as I saw the triangular shape approach. Zeke slowed and sidestepped uneasily.

"Easy," I said.

The sound jumped to earsplitting. The s.h.i.+p buzzed just over the treetops, thundering past on a flyby, the pilot and his companions sightseeing no doubt. I craned my head back and caught just a flash of the number on the side: DY-99. The buggy bounced as Zeke began moving off the road.

"Whoa!" I yelled, pulling on his reins.

Zeke veered back toward the road, then stopped. He whinnied and looked back down at the bushes. A long creeper held his rear left leg. Hundreds of yellow barbs along the vine punctured his stifle, and blood began to trickle down toward his hoof.

I looked down at the gray floorboards of the buggy. The creepers might move up for me.Calm yourself , I thought;nothing is gained by panic .

"Come on, Zeke," I shouted, snapping the reins.

He strained against the creeper, pulling, his muscles quivering. Then he started kicking and bucking, until I heard a tearing sound, as he finally pulled free. Strips of torn flesh hung from his leg. He moved back away from the creeper, onto the road, but the buggy was still in the bush.

I snapped the reins again, and Zeke pulled at the buggy. We didn't move.

"Whoa."

I took my black bag and jumped out onto the road. Two long vines anch.o.r.ed the rear wheels. Zeke started straining at his harness again.

"Whoa!" It didn't seem to have any effect. Zeke still pulled, staring past me with determination and flared nostrils.

I started taking off his harness. My fingers slipped in under the buckle, and got caught as Zeke let up, then lunged forward again. Creepers began moving up the buggy toward Zeke. I waited for his next pause and lunge, then let go. I landed painfully, hitting my tailbone on a sharp rock.

I pulled a never-used scalpel out of my bag and tried to cut a vine away from Zeke's legs, but it was too small and the vine was too thick, and Zeke wouldn't hold still. He whinnied and kicked, but his efforts were becoming weaker, and finally he just stopped.

The vines wrapped around his legs and began to pull him down the side of the road. He pawed with his front legs at the road, dragging gravel and dirt in with him. Then he gave up with a snort.

The bushes rustled and sighed as they pulled Zeke in, and everything grew quiet.

Shaken, I stood up with my black bag.

The Andersons were a long walk away, but I could make it out of the forest road before dark. As long as I stayed in the middle of the road, I would be okay.

I limped off down the road, wondering what mad whim had made us come to this planet in the first place.

The Andersons were kind enough to give me a lift back to my house, though it meant a long drive. It was dark, and Mr. Anderson kept to the very middle of the road. I looked away as we pa.s.sed the spot where Zeke had lost his battle for life.

Once I was back in my house I struck matches and held them over my gaslights. They lit the room with a phoomph! of pale flickerings. I made dinner: pasta and a red sauce one of the ladies bottled for me, and some stale bread. Tonight would be a good night to just go to bed early, I thought, instead of poring over my library of books, hoping to find old-fas.h.i.+oned ways to mimic modern medicine.

But instead someone thumped at the door.

I opened it to find David Yoder standing on my porch.

"What is it?" I asked. "Is it Esther?" Probably she was going into labor too soon. I turned, thinking about forceps, wondering how I could convince the old man to let me use them in his house.

"No," David said. "It isn't Esther. Rebecca collapsed . . ."

I stood there, dazed, until my mind caught up with the rest of me. I grabbed my bag in a daze and followed David out to his buggy.

"Creepers," I explained.

David nodded. He'd lost a horse or two to them as well.