Chapter Four

Paul was awakened by a loud animal noise; it sounded like a banshee. He looked at his pocket watch. It was about 5:20 in the morning. The sun would be rising soon, but it was still dark. He slipped on a pair of pants and put on his shoes. As he opened his bedroom door, he saw Larene quickly getting dressed. He raced downstairs. The noise sounded like an animal fight. Paul slipped out the front door and followed the loud animal sounds, which led him to the barn. His eyes were well adjusted to the dark and he could see fairly well. When he entered the barn, he saw a rather large fox confronting Beowulf. The horse was trapped in its stall and the fox was working his way towards it. When animals went rabid, especially in the final days of the disease, they look straggly and ungroomed. They get wild, vicious, fearless, and delusional. Their eyes looked crazed, they growl, and bare their fangs. The foamy, white saliva from the fox's mouth was all the proof he needed. Beowulf was terrified. The fox's jaws were snapping. The two animals were making sounds that were unrecognizable. Beowulf was trying to rear up, but there wasn't enough room in the stall. Paul grabbed a pitchfork that was leaning against the barn wall. He poked the fox to divert its attack on Beowulf. It worked. The fox was now facing Paul, teeth showing, back hair all bristled, and poised to pounce. Paul lunged forward with the pitchfork. He managed to impale the animal through its jaws. Unfortunately it was not a lethal blow. The enraged animal struggled on the end of the pitchfork. Paul took a deep breath and with all his strength, he forced the tines of the pitchfork all the way through the beast. The animal convulsed a little bit and then stopped moving. Larene came running into the barn with a broom and a lit lantern.

"Are you alright? You didn't get bitten, did you?"

"I'm fine." Paul said, taking the impaled fox and pitchfork to the back of the barn. Larene checked in on Angel, who was a bit nervous, but unharmed. He came back in the barn and borrowed Larene's lamp. Using the light from the lamp he closely examined Beowulf's legs for any sign of a bite; he was unbitten.

Larene made coffee and tried to cook some eggs. They were unidentifiable, but they were edible. They both wanted and needed some time to talk, but today was not that day. He had patients that he had to check on, and a much needed collection of new books on pharmacology had to be picked up in town. She reminded him that the following day was when Maleva had agreed to meet with him.

Larene watched from the side of the house as Beowulf trotted Paul down the road. Beowulf didn't try to brush Paul off of him. They had shared a horrifying experience together; to the extent that something like this is possible, they had bonded.

Paul had a busy day, treating animals and human alike. When finished with his rounds, he rode into town and picked up his books from the shipper. He and Beowulf took a slow pass by the dress shop. Through the glass he could see Judith, apparently showing Captain Wellen something of interest in her store; both glanced up at the movement at the window. Judith was middle aged, formal, exquisitely dressed, and a complexion like a porcelain doll. Her hair was so blonde it looked almost white. She wore it piled on top of her head, using decorated little combs to hold it all in place. With little evidence of recognition, the uniformed Captain restored his attention back to Judith. Paul smiled to himself.

The sun was setting; fortunately he had some freshly roasted chicken to bring home to Larene for dinner. As he approached the familiar curve in the road he thought about Rummy, his furry friend in his neighbor's back field. He stopped, dismounted Beowulf, and went rummaging through his saddlebag and pulled out a piece of chicken. He went over to the fence where Rummy's long leash would get him close enough to be petted. He saw Rummy curled up in a hole he had dug. He stood up, shook himself, and came running over to Paul, tail wagging the whole way. There was something wrong though. He was running with a limp. He was favoring his right paw for some reason. His rope was tangled up around the stake he was tied to, and Paul couldn't reach him. The happy dog was jumping the best he could and making joyful yelps. Paul tossed him the chicken, which he ate immediately. Rummy needed his paw treated. He was tempted to jump the fence and just do it, but that was a good way to make enemies or worse, get shot.

Rummy's owner, the Sabows, lived in an austere wood house that could use a little work. They had enough land to grow what they needed and livestock enough for themselves, but not necessarily to sell. Paul knew Mr. Sabow was a retired Sergeant Major, and Mrs. Sabow was great cook, because he could smell her pies when she was baking. He once treated her for a burn on her hand, but that was a while back. He knocked on their door.

Emily Sabow answered the door; a nice middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile, wearing an old, but clean housedress. She did recognize him.

"Dr. Paul" she said, what on earth brings you here?" She open the screen door and allowed him inside.

"Who is that?" came the grumpy voice from a back room.

"It's Dr. Paul, Sergeant." He entered the room, but did not offer to shake Dr. Paul's hand.

"What do you want?" he snarled. Sgt. Sabow was slender, salt & pepper hair, average height and weight, heavily wrinkled with a permanent scowl on his face.

"Joseph!" Emily snapped, "Could you possibly be more inhospitable?"

"You know I don't like it when you talk to me like that woman!" he retorted sternly.

"Allow me to apologize to both of you. I don't mean to intrude. I noticed Rummy has an injured paw. I would like to look at the wound, and treat it if you will allow me."

"We didn't call for a doctor, and we are not paying for one!" Joseph barked.

"Joseph Allen!" Emily said in a shocked voice.

Joseph looked out of the window at Rummy, and Paul sensed a hint of concern and tenderness on his part. As Joseph headed out of the room, Paul asserted again that there would be no charge to treat Rummy.

"Fine!" he snapped, disappearing into the back room.

Emily opened the back door of the house. Rummy saw Paul and ran towards him, tail wagging and limping the whole way. Emily watched as Paul washed off Rummy's paw and cut back some of the fur from the wound. His heart dropped when he confirmed it was an animal bite. Judging from the size of the puncture wounds, it was probably a fox or a raccoon. He disinfected it and applied an ointment. He bandaged the paw, but he had no expectation that the dressing would stay on the dog for long. Dogs like to lick their wounds. When he was finished, he took the dog's furry face in his hands and looked in his canine friend's eyes.

"You did good, Rummy. You protected the chickens and the family from whatever maligned critter was trying to hurt them. Let's hope that critter wasn't rabid." Paul petted Rummy for a moment, and the dog ran back to his post in the backfield. Emily and Paul went back into the house and she closed the back door.

"Emily," Paul said seriously, "there is an outbreak of rabies and we need to be concerned about that bite. If Rummy's behavior changes dramatically in the next two weeks, he may very well be infected. If he is infected, he will be a danger to you and your livestock. There is no cure."

"I understand," she nodded, worry in her eyes.

Paul packed up his bag and started towards the front door, while Emily watched. She obviously wanted to say something. He stopped and waited expectantly.

"Do you think I'm a terrible wife, speaking to my husband that way?" She asked him, a mixture of shame and pain on her face. Paul gently took her warm, soft hands in his own and looked her in the eyes.

"Emily, I know you are a very good wife. You are married to a retired Sergeant Major who spent 25 years giving orders. If you didn't speak up for yourself, he would run over you and never respect you for the fine woman you are."

Having lived with four women, Paul understood empathy. It comes naturally to women, but not so easily with men. He remembered one important aspect of empathy. If you are genuinely going to empathize with someone, you have to allow yourself to feel what they are feeling. He could feel Emily's pain. She rewarded Paul with a gentle smile as he reached the door.

"I will drop off some fresh lamb chops in a day or so," she said as he was leaving. He thought for a moment and started to turn back toward her, "uh…," But she interrupted him.

"I will cook them first!"

Paul rode home and put Beowulf up for the night. With all the food, medical bags, and books that were secured to the horse, Beowulf seemed relieved to be free from the burden. Paul walked in through the front door. He was very glad to be home.

"I brought dinner!" he yelled out.

"Wonderful!" Came a cheery voice from down in the laboratory. Light footedly, Larene trotted up the stairs from the cellar laboratory. She was wearing a cotton summer dress, knee length, light yellow, and covered by a big white apron. The apron had taken the brunt of the dirt. Her straw colored hair was balled up on top of her head with a knitting needle somehow holding it in place. Her faced was a little smudged. Her smile and enthusiasm for his return made her face glow.

"I am so hungry!" she said, rifling through his bag to get at the chicken. Tearing off a leg, she pulled him into the kitchen so they could eat together. "Where did the chicken come from?" she muttered through her mouthful of chicken.

"The Andersons" Paul replied, "I took the splint off their Arabian horse. Interesting," he continued, "they were fighting when I got there, something about that young pretty widow that lives nearby. I guess they made up because I heard a commotion coming from the bedroom as I was leaving."

Paul took a moment and tore off a piece of bread from a loaf that was on the table. He looked up at Larene to see her staring at him with an all too familiar expression. He sighed in amusement. There was no way such a provocative and salacious story was going to be concluded without more details. The amount of details a man provides another man about such an event is quantitatively insignificant compared to the amount of details a woman expects. He could try to change the subject or make a hasty departure to his laboratory. He knew the futility of these diversionary tactics. He had to undergo an exhaustive debriefing of the whole Anderson family drama.

They talked a little more but were far from getting caught up on current events. They went to bed early. They had a long day of laboratory trials to perform.

Morning seemed to come way too soon. Paul's bedroom windows were halfway open. He could hear the rooster crowing from a nearby farm. He had slept hard. The sun had just risen. He got dressed in older clothes; he didn't want to ruin any of his nicer suits.

After a stop in the bathroom, he checked on Larene. She was still in bed, her head under the sheet and gold hair spilling across the pillow. She had one bare foot sticking out from under the sheet. He could hear her gentle breathing. Paul quietly descended the stairs and went into the kitchen. He started a fire in the stove, filled the coffeepot with water, but could not find any coffee. The coffee canister was empty. As much as he wanted to blame Larene for this transgression, he seemed to remember her reminding him to pick up coffee at the general store in town. He closed his eyes as if in a meditative state. With so much uncertainty in the world, there was one thing he knew to be true. He was not going to make it through this day without coffee.

Paul apologized to Beowulf for his required participation in the quest for coffee. Beowulf galloped at a comfortable pace into town. It was a beautiful morning. Paul looked inside the general store. The door was locked but he could see Cynthia inside stocking the shelves. She was a big girl with a wonderful sense of humor.

"We're closed!" she yelled out.

"I just need coffee!" Paul replied loudly.

"Come back at 9:00" she said, pointing to a store clock that read 6:45 in the morning.

"Come on, Cynthia! You owe me!" She stopped what she was doing and looked at him through the glass store door.

"Remember when you got sick eating that huge can of sugared cherries? Who was it that nursed you back to health, and didn't tell anyone?" Cynthia gave Paul her very best mean stare, but she wasn't angry.

"Come back in 15 minutes, I will have your coffee ready for you."

"That's blackmail!" came a voice from behind Paul, startling him. It was Captain Wellen.

"You scared the heck out me." Almost every morning, Captain Wellen would march double-time through the town, up and down the main street, carrying an exceptionally heavy rifle. He would curl the rifle with his arms, outstretch it, and also lift it above his head. He wore an old pair of uniform pants and what appeared to be a nightshirt. Wellen called this daily ritual his institutional.

"You should join me for my morning institutional, Paul. It would be good for you." he said encouragingly and slightly out of breath.

"That would be great, and I would really like to, but you would wind up arresting me for inciting a riot," Paul said quite seriously, as they slowly walked in the direction of the town square.

"Why would I do that?" Wellen asked in surprise.

"Well, you see" Paul explained patiently, "You are a trained and conditioned soldier. You look like an athlete. When you run, you raise your knees to just the right height, you swing your arms just perfectly, you head is held high and you breathe through your nostrils like a racehorse. Now, in contrast, when I run, I get out of breath and my face turns red, I get a pain in my side and my countenance is one of pain. My arms flail around and I stumble about a lot." The Captain watched his friend, listening intently and nodding slightly. "Now, when townsfolk see me jogging about, unlike yourself, they will naturally assume that I must be running away from something – being chased by something horrific and deadly. First, it will just be a few people, not wanting to be a victim of what is chasing me, and they start running behind me, looking backward occasionally, scared and crying out. More and more people, screaming and running as fast as they can, join in on this apparent escape. In no time at all you have a hysterical mob running through town, a human stampede, causing destruction and turmoil in its path. I just can't with a clear conscience allow that to happen!"

"Oh good grief!" Wellen said, rolling his eyes at Paul's dramatics, and returned to his double-time pace in the direction of the gentlemen's boarding house where he stayed.

Paul collected his coffee from Cynthia and rode home. He slowed down a little at the curve in the road to see if Rummy still had his bandage on. Rummy just laid in the cool hole that he had dug, looking up at Paul. His coat looked dull. Paul's heart dropped. He had seen that condition before.

Paul made coffee. With some eggs, bacon, and cheese they had, he cooked omelets. Larene knew he had skills in the kitchen, but never asked him to cook. Larene flitted downstairs looking fresh and well rested.

"Aw, you got coffee and made breakfast! You have had a busy morning!" She kissed him on the cheek, sat down, and ate her breakfast. Paul had cleared his schedule so he could spend the next couple of days doing research in his laboratory. As was their practice, they talked over coffee, getting caught up on what each other had been doing. She shared his concern for using wolves as test subjects. They were bigger, stronger, vicious, and much harder to handle. Transporting them from the outside of the house to the holding pens in the laboratory was going to be a challenge. They discussed protocols for the process. Paul also shared about Wellen's love interest, and the sad news about Rummy. Paul knew that Rummy had only a few days more before he became potentially dangerous. He asked her if she wanted to come with him to see Maleva. She thought for a moment and declined. She wanted to distill some pharmaceuticals in preparation of testing.

It was about 10:30 in the morning when they finally made it into the lab. They opened the doors, which provided a soft breeze. The big room smelled a little musty and just a bit humid, but it was tolerable, especially in the spring. Larene had done an outstanding job of organizing his books on the shelves, and arranging all the new chemical compounds in the cabinets. Together, they kept detailed records of what they had tried. Paul was probably the foremost expert on rabies in the country. He had read every book on the subject, talked to every knowledgeable person he could find, and documented his own research. He had observed the entire cycle of the disease from the beginning when an animal is infected, to the end, when the subject died. He knew that different animals responded uniquely to the infection. An animal's size and metabolic rate were variable factors. Some mammals seemed immune, but that wasn't actually true. Rats didn't seem to contract or spread rabies. Paul attributed that anomaly to the short life span of rats, and their abnormally low amount of saliva.

The insidious infection was elusive, and didn't provide real identifiable symptoms until death was imminent, which could take up to two weeks or more. A person or animal that knowingly gets bitten by a rabid mammal has no hope of survival. Other than the site of the bite, where the disease is transmitted by saliva, there are no symptoms to treat. In the days and weeks that follow, the victim slowly is consumed by the infection. Humans can get delirious, aggressive, drool because of excessive salivation, but frequently can't swallow when they become dehydrated. Paul had tried treating the symptoms as they manifested, but that only provided a modicum of relief for the patient. The resulting outcome was inevitable.

Using the established scientific method, he had tried almost every drug, compound, mineral, plant derivative, animal extract, in every logical concentration, all to no avail. He intended to quickly review his new texts and test the potency of a handful of drugs that he had just purchased.

Larene and Paul worked well together. They had a fair division of labor. They knew when the other needed space. They did disagree once in a while, but they didn't take the disagreement personally. They took turns taking lab notes. Larene had better penmanship, so she would usually label the different test vials containing the experimental formulas. He tested the reaction of three new formulas on two small raccoons and a fox, all infected with rabies. They all died within minutes.

"I am going to head out to the gypsy camp, Larene. Do you need anything?" Paul inquired. She stood up from her uncomfortable wooden chair and came to him. She pulled the silver watch by its chain out of his pocket. Looking down at the timepiece, she said, "It's almost noon. The Christie brothers are supposed to drop off a wolf they trapped. They think it is infected."

"Larene honey, please be careful," Paul pleaded. "Unless they are willing to help you, don't try to move the animal by yourself. Just wait until I get home." Larene nodded, and they went upstairs. He got cleaned up, took his jacket off the wall hook, and headed for the front door. His hand was on the doorknob when Larene came down the stairs. She looked clean and fresh again. She got right in front of him, nose to nose and toes to toes. She looked deep into his eyes.

"You got all prettied up for the Christie brothers, I see."

"I did, she cooed, now lightly pressing her body against his. "I would hurry home, if I were you." Larene watched as Beowulf and Paul went down the road, leaving a cloud of dust; the brown horse galloping as fast as it could go.