The Devil in Silver

“But the worst way to kill them, in mass numbers, was to drive a herd toward the edge of a cliff and just make all those big dumb things jump right off. It was messy. Some people think the men did it just for fun. Or maybe it was more efficient. Didn’t use any bullets and you had all of them right there at the bottom of the cliff. The sight, from above, must have been something truly hellish. Just thousands of bison, broken into pieces. Heads and hooves and tails and guts. Blood everywhere. Some of them didn’t die right away. They might be down there snorting and wheezing and slowly drifting off toward death. But it hardly counted as a loss for anyone but the buffalo. Even though it sounds wasteful, the profits were so big it didn’t matter.”

Dorry finished by slowly pouring the apple juice into Pepper’s mouth.

Pepper’s arms shivered and his tongue expanded in his mouth like a sponge. His eyes focused on the old woman standing over him. He smiled at her: a mama bird feeding its chick.

After drinking two ounces, he regained some control of his body. He raised one hand and took the juice from Dorry, sat up straighter, and slurped the rest himself.

And Dorry returned to her chair, snatched both pieces of toast off his tray, and winked. The price of partnership.

Pepper grabbed the green apple and bit it once. A chomp so huge it exposed the core. Smaller bites, Pepper. After he finished chewing he asked, “Dorry, why did you tell me that story about the buffalo? It’s horrible.”

They laughed and the mood seemed to lighten.

Then Dorry said, “I want you to understand where you’ve found yourself, big boy. In here we’re the buffalo. And New Hyde is the cliff.”

Pepper wasn’t any goddamn buffalo, or bison, or whatever. He was a man and he’d be leaving soon after he made his phone call. Of course, Pepper couldn’t say those things to Dorry. Instead he spent forty-five minutes finishing his apple while she calmly watched him, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“We’ll have to go back to the nurses’ station if you want to make that phone call,” she said. “You remember where it is?”

How could Pepper be expected to forget? What kind of dimwits was Dorry used to dealing with? But then Pepper remembered he’d been unable to walk half an hour ago, so maybe he shouldn’t be too smug.

“Down that hall.” Pepper gestured with his head.

Dorry grabbed the cereal box off his tray and held it up. She raised her eyebrows and Pepper consented to let her take it. Dorry marched over to the gaggle of patients by the television. She skirted around one table, closer to the windows, and stopped beside an old black woman wearing a purple pantsuit and matching little church hat. Dorry leaned close and spoke into the woman’s ear, then set the cereal box in her lap.

Pepper and Dorry turned their walk back to the nurses’ station into a funny kind of race. Dorry held on to the wooden railing running along the right wall, and Pepper held on to the one on the left. They used the railings for balance, and to drag themselves forward. Eating breakfast had spiked Pepper’s blood sugar enough to put a dent in his paralysis, but he still needed a little help. And Dorry did, too. Clinging to their respective rails, they lumbered in harmony.

When they reached the nurses’ station again, the same tops of the same four heads were still bent over the same paperwork. The staff members hadn’t shifted. Just as Dorry and Pepper reached the oval room, a phone rang behind the nurses’ station and one of the staff, a woman, picked up.

“Northwest,” she answered, as if this was her name. She listened for a moment. “The doctor is not on the unit just now. Let me put you through to his voice mail. All right?” She asked without waiting for a reply. A faint click could be heard as the nurse pressed the transfer button. Then a clunk as the plastic phone went back into its cradle. The woman went back to paperwork. At New Hyde the term for this was charting.

Pepper found he could best move through the room if he focused on its discrete little details. If he spent too much time planning his phone call to Mari, everything he needed to explain and to ask of her, then he got tripped up. Stick to the basic motor functions, Pepper! Footsteps, and hands held tight to the railing, and keeping pace with Dorry as she led him forward.