Waking Brigid

CHAPTER 1
Savannah, Georgia
Friday, October 9, 1874






THE dream always began the same, and, though he recoiled in terror even inside the dream, he could never escape the outcome. He was walking toward the hospital tent. Around it were men broken in battle, arms and legs smashed by rifle balls, sword cuts already infected with the filth of the battlefield. Cannons rumbled in the distance. Couriers rattled back and forth on the muddy trails of the camp. Beside the tent was the inevitable harbinger of his trade--a stack of arms and limbs sawn from men as they screamed. The Confederate doctors rarely had laudanum or whiskey to dull the patient's pain while the saw rasped its way through the flesh and bone. Cutting the bone was always the most agonizing part. Some cried out. Some just cried. The ones who screamed seemed to do the best, though the screams haunted him as they did every doctor. In his dream he would enter a tent, a vague concoction of the tents at Shiloh, Antietam, and a half-dozen lesser battles where the men of the South died for "the Cause." Someone he thought he knew handed him a saw and a scalpel. Somnolent, deadened, he walked to a table where a patient lay, his pants crudely ripped back, revealing a shattered right leg.
"Hold him," he muttered to the two Negro orderlies who stood at the head of the table, like waiters at a crudefeast. As they moved to hold him down, the boy raised his head, and Gaston saw that he was young, maybe sixteen.
"You're not gonna take my laig," he cried through the pain.
"No choice, son." He repeated the litany, "It's your leg or your life."
"You're not gonna take my laig." Stubbornly repeated.
"Hold him." The orderlies tightened their grip, yet the boy struggled to raise his head.
"Butcher." He said it calmly, pronouncing judgment on the doctor.
The screaming began when he cut into the flesh with his scalpel. So much like cutting up a cow or a pig, only this flesh lived, this flesh screamed with a human voice.
Until then the dream had been true to reality, so close to what he had seen and done a thousand times, even down to his feeling of cold detachment as he sliced away a part of a man who might never feel like a man again. But then the insanity started; the tent began to drum as things fell against the canvas. The poles swayed; the oil lamps rocked with the impact. Where the objects struck, each left an imprint of blood. The tent began to sag under the strain. The blood leaked through the canvas. A seam over his head split, and shattered arms and legs fell on him. Some were mangled stumps, some putrid with gangrene, some freshly removed. Some limbs were tattered, some cleanly cut. The tattered ones betrayed the work of a soldier. The cleanly cut were the work of doctors. All the limbs fell straight at him. A putrid thigh slapped him in the face, blinding him in one eye with its trail of gore. As the limbs cascaded through the rent canvas and beat him to the floor, he saw a fervid look of victory in the face of the boy.
"Ain't gonna get me. Ain't gonna get mine."
Then Gaston was swamped in the onrush of limbs, buried in a mound of bone and blood and torn meat. Heclawed madly for the surface, but it was out of reach; the tide was endless. He tried to breathe, but his mouth and nose were blocked by a putrefying gore that made him retch.
He would wake up gasping for air. The sour mash whiskey he kept by his bedside was the only thing strong enough to wash the taste out of his mouth.
It had been almost ten years since Appomattox, and Savannah once again grew rich on the cotton trade. But Gaston's dream and his memories never let him enjoy the peace and the new prosperity. He always remembered that one-half of the budget of the state of Mississippi was spent to pay for artificial limbs in 1866. That fact reminded him that for three years he had not been a doctor, just a meat cutter and an expert at the final game of triage.
He heard his boy running up the stairs.
"Doc Gaston, Doc Gaston, you needed."
Ezekiel began knocking loudly at the door; he knew the doctor was normally a heavy sleeper.
"Come on in. I'm awake."
Ezekiel's dark eyes took in the bedroom quickly. "Been havin' that dream?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you needed. Mistah Richardson took real bad."
"I'll get dressed."
"I be downstairs." Ezekiel turned to his small room to get dressed.
Ezekiel's relationship with Dr. Gaston went back eight years. He knew well enough that he had to go with the doctor to the hospital, even though Zeke was nowhere near fond of the Saint James' Ward. Saint James' was the "lockup ward" at Saint Joseph's Hospital. In the ward were those too crazy to be left on their own. What made Ezekiel specially afraid was that Saul Richardson had gone from being a respected man to someone screaming about the Devil overnight. And now it was near the black of the moon again.
"White people too smart to believe in the Devil," Ezekiel muttered as he pulled his clothes on. "They willin' to talk about him, but don't believe. He sets his traps just the same, and Mistah Richardson fall into his snare." He finished dressing quickly. Doc Gaston usually got ready too soon for him anyway.
In a few minutes they were on their way. Gaston walked steadily, though not quickly. The war years had aged him prematurely, though at sixty-two he was hardly a young man anymore. He didn't carry a bag. Saint Jo's would have everything he needed, not that they had anything to help Saul Richardson, except enough laudanum to knock him senseless. Gaston and Ezekiel walked the few blocks to the hospital in silence. The fog that often rose in the city at night enveloped them, so that the light of the gas lamps was diffused, leaving much of the street in darkness. The fog swallowed the sounds of conversation and even dulled the sounds made by the few horses and carriages abroad at this hour. The sharp tap of hooves on stone was transmuted into a dull clopping sound. As they walked through the shroud of fog, Ezekiel was concerned with his fears. Gaston was concerned with his patient.
David Gaston was one of Saul Richardson's circle of friends, not merely his doctor. They had known each other for many years. Richardson's family was part of Savannah society, and, as such, was one that Gaston frequently saw at the various gatherings. They had become close friends since the war, which had left too many empty seats for them not to have. Yet Gaston had not really been part of Richardson's daily life, any more than Richardson had been part of his. They saw each other socially, and they might play cards together on occasion. The business world of cotton factors and the medical world of doctors did not overlap to any great extent.
Richardson had begun screaming almost a month ago, on the night before the new moon. He'd been taken to theSaint James' Ward and given enough laudanum to quiet him. It had taken a large dose, three times more than Gaston usually used for an amputation. The next day Gaston had gone to see Mrs. Richardson. Her elegant home looked out over one of Savannah's many squares.
His wife had let it slip to Gaston that it was odd for Richardson to have been at home on the night it started. He had been going out to his gentlemen's club on the first or second night before the new moon since before their marriage. He had failed to attend only when pressing business had called him from Savannah. Since he had not gone two nights before the new moon, she had expected him to have gone the evening before the new moon. Instead, he had locked himself in the study shortly after dinner. His screams had brought her downstairs. When she was unable to persuade him to unbolt the door, she had sent the cook's son for the police. From that point, Gaston knew the story. The police had summoned him almost as soon as they had arrived. Mrs. Richardson could not, or would not, add anything more of substance to the story. She had not known where her husband went or for what purpose on those evenings, merely that he arrived home long after she had retired. Savannah had always been a city of secrets. That a wife did not know where her husband might be or that a husband was not precisely sure of his wife's whereabouts was merely a matter of good manners in a city whose sophistication was greater than its devotion to moral standards. Certainly few had known of the negotiations with General Sherman that assured that the city managed to surrender to his army without a shot being fired or a house being burned.
Gaston's reverie was broken by their arrival at the front entrance of the hospital. It was brightly lit as usual. He turned up the stairs of the hospital. The flicker of the many gaslights made the brick front seem to waver in the darkness. Ezekiel hung back.
"I wait for you heah."
"Come on in and go down to the kitchen, Zeke. They'll have hot coffee down there."
Ezekiel hesitated, fear gleaming in his eyes.
"Suit yourself, Zeke, but I might be a while. Besides, there's a lot more bright light in the kitchen than you're likely to see out here." Faced with such a persuasive argument, Ezekiel followed the doctor into the hospital and immediately turned down the stairs to the kitchen.
Sister Mary Francis was waiting for the doctor at the front desk, her stocky hips balanced, as always, by a rosary, a crucifix, and a heavy ring of keys. Her hands fluttered more than usual, and a strand of gray hair had escaped the confines of her wimple, a certain sign that she had been roused from sleep for the emergency. Yet none of her disarray served to lessen the stern devotion to her patients that gleamed like frozen candle flames in her green eyes.
She gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head to the doctor and led the way to the Saint James' Ward. As they walked down the long corridor to the ward, Gaston noticed an unusual number of nuns about for the hour. Whispering like black doves, they stayed in the shadows at the sides of the corridor, out of the way of the aged nun and the physician in tow. For them, what resided in the confines of the Saint James' was terrifying. It was damnation itself, the Devil come to roost. They had heard the screams in the night, and they knew that no secular potions could safeguard Richardson from that which stalked him.
"Damn you." Richardson's screeching cry echoed down the hallway the moment the heavy door to the Saint James' was opened. "Kill me and be done with it."
Gaston barely recognized Richardson's voice. It was hoarse with screaming. He looked at the nun beside him. She was crossing herself. He took refuge in clinical thought.
"How long?"
"Since just before ten."
"Have you given him any laudanum?"
Her face creased a bit more deeply. "He's too dangerous at times for many of the sisters. But he is rational much of the time. The orderlies won't go near him, even after I put the fear of God in them." She sighed. "But we did give him his dose at nine." As if on cue, the screaming from Richardson's room suddenly ceased. The sudden silence startled both of them.
The nun looked at the doctor. "As I said, he is rational much of the time."
The doctor shook his head. This case troubled him more than he wanted to admit. "So at nine you gave him the full dose I prescribed."
"The full dose."
Gaston frowned. With that much laudanum in him a man could have his leg sawn off and not have his drug dream interrupted. "Are you certain he drank it all?"
A moment's irritation at Gaston's question flickered through her eyes. She let it pass before replying in a neutral tone, "I saw him drink it. I took the bottle back from him. He ..." She stopped.
"Yes?"
"He said, 'Thank you, Sister. Better have a priest at hand. This could be my last night as your guest.' He smiled at me with a look I've seen before." She turned to the doctor. "They know when they're about to die. I know he's not really sick, but it was that look of death."
Gaston knew the look she referred to too well to question her judgment.
When they reached the door to Richardson's room, Gaston rapped on it. "Saul? It's David."
The hoarse voice came through the iron door. "I am sorry I cannot receive you any better, David. But please come inside. It's safe enough now. Regardless of what those nuns and half-witted darkies tell you, I have not become the Devil."
Gaston opened the small view hole cut in the door andlooked through the grille. Richardson's face blocked the view into the room. Gaston was aghast at the changes in the two days since he'd last seen Richardson. He had the drained look of a man who was only hours from death by internal bleeding.
"But David," Richardson said, "you have to promise one thing. You have to leave when I tell you. The Devil will come for me, and I will know when he's coming. But he may get you if you're with me." A slight flash of humor passed through his eyes. "I know quite well that you think me insane. I assure you I am not, but if you fail to swear that you will leave when I tell you, I will knock you senseless the moment you set foot in this room. Then the boys can drag you out of the way of harm."
"Saul, it's me."
"David, I don't have time for politeness. Do you swear?"
He nodded. "I swear."
Richardson turned away, and Gaston reached for the door handle. "Stay here, Sister. Be ready to let me out."
She bowed her head and clutched her rosary.
A shadow darkened the viewing port. "And David," Richardson whispered, "wear a cross."
Gaston stepped back from the door, only to find a crucifix pressed into his hand. It was Sister Francis's. It was her only valuable possession. The heavy silver crucifix had been on her waist from the first day that Gaston had met her in the better days of the 1840s. He resisted taking it from her.
She pressed it into his hand. "If the Lord doesn't recognize me as one of his own without it by now, he never will."
Gaston started to put it back into her hand.
She stopped him. "If praying over a thing can make it holy, then that's as holy as you'll find. It might serve to protect you. Please, wear it."
He drew the chain up over his head until the heavy silvercross dropped down on his chest. Then he did something he had not done for years. He crossed himself.
The door opened into a room that was totally vacant except for a bed, a chamber pot, and a chair. Richardson sat on the bed. A complete view of his patient did little to reassure Gaston. Dark circles of exhaustion marred Saul's patrician face. Saul had always been thin, but now he was emaciated. His skin had the sickly white tone of the seriously ill. He was sweating feverishly. A poorly healed cut on his cheek hinted at something more, as did the cuts on his hands and abrasions on his wrists. "I'm glad you came. Sorry I can't offer you a drink, but the staff here seems somewhat lax."
Gaston grimaced at the forced humor. "Hello, Saul. How are you?"
"Uh, a little dry now. Could I have some water?"
"Sister," Gaston called over his shoulder, "might you bring us some water?"
"Of course, Doctor." Her response was muffled by the thick door.
"It's all right, David," Richardson said. "It really is. I intend you no harm. The sisters are less confused than they act. Every one of them knows what's happening here. They know it as well as I. They know who it is that I am facing."
"And who's that?"
"The Devil, a demon, a minion of the netherworld."
"Saul, I can't believe--"
Saul interrupted. "But the nuns can. They know. Look in their eyes. They know. The nurses avoid me. It is always two that come. One stays in the hall. Half the time, the one who comes in is clutching her crucifix or her rosary. Any amulet that might give them some protection."
The sound of the door opening behind him caused Gaston to turn and see a frightened nun with a carafe of water and two glasses on a tray. She set the tray down just inside the door and scurried out. A second nun held the door forher. She swiftly shut the door, and the latch clicked as the door shut. It couldn't be opened from the inside.
Gaston's nervousness was obvious, and Richardson smiled. "You're not in any danger really. I can tell when I'm about to lose control. They'll have time to get you out of here."
"Lose control?"
Richardson got up from the bed and walked to the barred window that looked out over nothing more interesting than another wall of the hospital. "They don't let the people on the street see in here," he grimaced, "probably some sense of delicacy. My keepers are made uncomfortable by the situation. One minute I am a Richardson, someone to be reckoned with. A few minutes later I'm the most violent patient on the floor, like an animal--biting, clawing, defecating."
He moved back to the bed and sat down, grimacing as a bruise or cut took his weight. "It's all done to shame me, to shame one who would break faith with them."
Gaston waited.
"When I first came here, when you first admitted me, I was too afraid to say much. But in the past few days, I've become certain that they are going to kill me. So I don't have much more to fear. And I want to tell someone."
He stared across the room at the iron door. "You won't believe me, but I'll tell you anyway. I don't have much time for the story." He looked at Gaston. "But it will be a story without names. If you knew the names, you might say something. Then your life would be at risk as well."
Gaston remained silent and let Saul continue. "Before the war, I joined a club, a very exclusive club. It seemed something grand, like a Hellfire Club. We donned robes and chanted, engaged in all manner of perversity, bowed to a statue of Satan, reveled in our superiority.
"Some seven years after I came home from the war, I was invited into the inner circle. Much hurrah, blood poured on burning sulfur. Even greater fun. I advanced tothe special meetings, held after the new members departed. There I began to see things that made no sense to me. Some of the women who were brought in for our little rituals were of the lowest class. They always arrived in a drugged haze, but still screamed most convincingly. I thought it was part of an act, that they were prostitutes, hired for the evening of fun. Probably made a month's pay for a night of debauchery." He took a sip of water. The glass was unsteady in his hand. "Until we killed one of them." He looked at Gaston. "One of our more prominent citizens did the actual killing, though the job wasn't very hard. The poor girl had been used and used and was half out of her mind. Two men held her up, and he slit her throat from behind." A look of distaste passed across Richardson's face. "He seemed skilled at the task. The blood shot out of her neck, and one of the women in the group came up with a bowl and caught it. The blood splashed into the bowl and down her arms. Like beasts, others came to rub their hands in it, dunking them into the bowl, painting their faces with the hot blood while the woman died.
"I was horrified. Drunk or not, I backed away into a corner of the room and crouched there. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then they passed the bowl, leaving the draining corpse in the middle of the floor. Like a perverted acolyte, the woman brought the bowl to each of them; each of them tasted the blood. The last person that she took the bowl to was our leader, our high priest. I watched him drink from the bowl, then paint his face with the blood. He took the bowl from her and turned to pour it over the small fire they had built near the center of the room.
"That's when one of the others stopped the priest. He said, 'One has not partaken.' He pointed to me. I was vomiting." He looked at Gaston. "You can't imagine the smell, so choking, so overwhelming ... ."
"I can."
"That's right; you were at Antietam. I forgot. You'dknow." He ran his hands over his head, pushing his dirty hair out of his face. "The priest stood over me, all drenched in blood, and held the bowl over my head. He said, 'You've sworn. You are one of us. You cannot deny the sacrament.' Then he poured some of the blood onto my head. The rest he gave to the fire."
Gaston was too shocked to respond immediately. He knew that among the prostitutes of Savannah, some would go missing from time to time. But no one paid it much mind, thinking the girls had perhaps moved on to where they could make more money. Or maybe they had gotten drunk and fallen into the river. In a few hours they would be well into the Atlantic. But those that went missing were never the courtesans who serviced the upper class. The missing ones were the girls who met the cotton ships, who lived in the worst brothels of Indian Street, or who seemed to live nowhere at all. There was always a ready supply, both colored and white. The white girls came from the ruined farms of South Georgia, daughters of sharecroppers. Many had been orphaned by the war. The black girls were former slaves or the children of slaves who had found themselves free in 1865. They had no knowledge of how to cope with their new world, even if they did have their freedom and a small piece of land. Both groups lived a precarious existence. On a whim or a failed crop, the entire family of a sharecropper might be turned out. If the man of the family was dead or if he had some accident while farming and the women couldn't make up for his work among themselves, they had to find a way for the family to survive. These girls, without education, breeding, or family ties, had but one thing to sell. Once they did, their families would have no more to do with them, even if most of the money they made was sent back to help the family. The girls were condemned by the ruthless Baptist morality that ruled the red clay Piedmont.
Richardson continued his story. "I was trapped. I had sworn myself into the club, done all manner of thingsthat would place me in the grip of the law or earn me social ostracism. So I could not betray them. But I had to get out. I'd seen too much death already."
Gaston interrupted. "Saul, I can't believe ..."
Richardson ignored the interruption. "They warned me that I would die if I left the group." He paused, then continued, "Now I know it's true. Over the past month, the visions have become worse. I see the face of a demon, some creature, over and over again. It comes in the night. Sometimes I lose consciousness. That's when the sisters say I go insane." He shook his head with exhaustion and shame. "You see, tonight may be my last night."
"Why?"
"It's the night before the new moon. The time they do their rituals."
A silence fell between the two men. Gaston noticed the stale smell of the bedsheets, the faint reek from the chamber pot.
"So why did you call me here?"
"A priest seemed unlikely to hear my confession, but a doctor could hardly refuse to come."
"But you've told me nothing I can use."
"Nor will I. But you have brought something I can use." His hand reached out to grab the crucifix that hung around Gaston's neck. "A nun's crucifix, worn smooth with prayer ..."
"It's not mine; I can't."
"I need it." His hand clasped the crucifix like a soldier in his first battle grasps his rifle.
Gaston reluctantly slipped the chain over his head.
"Thank you, David. The sister won't mind. No nun would mind having her crucifix in the hands of a sinner when he meets the Devil." A sardonic grin crossed Richardson's face. He raised his voice. "Would you, Sister? I know you're listening."
She responded, her voice muffled by the door, "I hope it serves to burn his hands if he comes for you."
"He will come," Richardson answered with certainty. Suddenly he turned his head to the side and seemed to peer through the wall. He cocked his head, as if listening.
Richardson's face grew more somber. "Get out, David; get out now." He withdrew into the far corner of the room and folded himself around the crucifix. "Get out," he screamed. "Get out."
Gaston stood, but did not move. He wanted to help, but had no idea how. The room became cold, and the light from the oil lamp near the ceiling seemed to dim. Then the door crashed open, and the formidable strength of Sister Francis dragged him out into the corridor. One of the other nuns, Sister Mary Brigid, emerged from the shadows to pull the door shut. Sister Francis threw the latch on the door and tried to look through the small viewing port in the door. The lamps were already extinguished, and a dull red glow suffused the room. The last thing she saw was Richardson, cowering in the far corner. The air turned chill, gelid, as if all of the warmth had been sucked from the night.
Sister Francis turned for help, then stopped. A low, animal growl emerged from the room, mated with Richardson's first scream. She turned back to the door. The slide that covered the view port in the door slid shut, driven by an unseen hand. Then the door shuddered as something, perhaps the bed, slammed against it from the inside.
Richardson's incoherent screaming reverberated down the hall. The orderlies ran toward them. They stopped when something like an animal's roar erupted inside the room. It did not sound like Richardson. Sister Francis desperately tried to open the slide in the door, but could not budge it. Regardless of the chill that suffused the air, the door was hot to the touch. The chamber pot shattered against the wall in the room. Dark laughter came through the door, though it was hard to distinguish beneath Richardson's screams. Then the laughter stopped, to bereplaced by an unmistakable bellow of rage. Richardson screamed once more; then there was the sound of a heavy object striking the wall.
They heard the sound of shattering glass, and it was over. The silence was so sudden that they almost fell into it. The chill that had clung to the air vanished, to be replaced by the warm and humid air of a normal October night.
Gaston and Sister Francis crossed themselves. The orderlies became unfrozen. Some made the sign of the cross. Others made signs from different religions, but they were all signs of warding off evil.
Gaston looked at them. "Boys, get this door open." They reluctantly came down the hall.
The larger of the first two orderlies, the one they called Elijah, reached for the latch, slid it open, and pushed the door. Nothing happened. Elijah was a big man, well over six feet. He threw his shoulder into the door. Nothing. Then he motioned to the other orderly, Sam, who came and lent his shoulder to it as well. Both were big men, heavily muscled. Together they weighed well over five hundred pounds, yet they had to hit the door five times with their combined weight to open it far enough for a man to enter. Then they backed away from it.
"Sister, fetch me ..." Gaston stopped. Sister Brigid had two oil lamps in her hands, both already lit. She handed one to Gaston. As he took it, he glanced into her eyes. He had never seen eyes that deep a shade of blue, nor could he read the expression on her face. Unexpectedly, she seemed calm and self-possessed. He turned to enter the room, and was not surprised that Sister Brigid, not the redoubtable Sister Francis, was the one to follow him.
The room had been destroyed. The chamber pot had been smashed against the left wall. The twisted frame of the bed had been blocking the door. The glass in the windows on the far wall had shattered outward, leaving few shards within the room. Parts of the one chair were stillrecognizable. But it was the right wall that drew their attention. Richardson lay on the floor, one arm twisted behind him at a grotesque angle. He appeared to have been thrown against the wall. He had struck with enough force to shatter his skull. On the right side of his skull, blood, brains, shattered bone, and hair were intertwined. Gaston looked at the corpse almost dispassionately. He had seen too many.
Thinking of the nun, he turned, expecting her to be upset by the condition of the corpse. Instead, he saw her standing near the opposite wall, her head bent down.
"Sister Brigid, are you all right?"
"Yes," she said, almost distractedly. "Come look at this."
He walked over to where she stood, realizing that she was not cringing from the sights in the room and wondering at her self-control. She pointed to something on the floor. It was Sister Francis's crucifix. He bent down and reached toward it.
"No." Brigid stopped him with that cool voice of hers. "It's too hot. See, look around the edges; it's partially molten."
He peered at the object on the floor. She was right. Part of the cross had indeed been melted. He looked up at her. The expression on her face was pensive. Then he stood, looking from the crucifix to the twisted body on the opposite side of the room.
Gaston said, "I would never have thought that he would let go of that cross."
"I think it unlikely he had much choice." With that Brigid left the room, walking in unhurried steps through the twisted furniture.
Gaston was struck by her calm. He thought he knew why the corpse had not bothered her. She had seen far worse in the war, but this situation was nothing like anything she would have seen in the war--the brutalized corpse, the molten crucifix. She saw the impossible,the unbelievable, with an equanimity that he could not achieve. He wondered what was the source of her self-control. Even with all of his experience, he had no explanation for the events in the room, at least not one that he could believe.
Copyright © 2008 by Amy Clark