The Shadow Catcher

Still he stared, didn’t speak.

“If you can speak, I need you to tell me what year it is.”

A shadow passed through his eyes as if he had reason to fear or distrust her and she could feel both of the Indians searching her face for a reason. What year is it, Edward? she asked again, fully recalling Paragraph Two of her textbook: ASCERTAINING MENTAL FUNCTION AFTER REGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS.

“1889,” Edward said, and his speech wasn’t slurred.

“Very good. And what is the name of your brother?”

“Which one?”

Clara smiled. She had forgotten Edward had two brothers, and the fact that he was remembering what she hadn’t recalled was a good sign.

“Raphael. And Asahel,” he said. “And your brother’s name is Hercules.”

“Excellent. Now I want you to follow the tip of my finger with your eyes.” He did, and so did the Indians, after which she asked him, “Are you in pain?”

He nodded briefly, glancing sideways at the Indians.

“Right hip.”

She touched him there. She could see from the angle of his legs and from the lack of blood that he might have landed on his buttocks.

“How bad is the pain?”

It was not a question, she realized once she’d asked it, that he would ever answer.

“I fear you might have broken some bones in the fall, Edward,” she repeated, “and I’m not skilled enough to diagnose or treat that condition so I need you to ask these gentlemen to go at once and fetch a doctor. Can you do that?”

Edward looked at the two Indians and nodded. They stood up.

“Wait,” Clara said. She looked at them, then back at Edward. “They understand English?” She looked at them again. “But you never do as I instruct,” she marveled.

“They take no orders from a woman,” Edward said.

Clara stood. “Before you go you need to help me move him. Off the ground into the house,” she instructed. “We’ll use those sheets hanging over there.” They nodded and went to the laundry line, returning with the sheets, onto which the three of them gently rolled him, mindful not to cause him extra pain, but doing so, she could see, despite their care. He made fists and a line of perspiration glistened on his forehead but he made no sound of protest. They lifted him inside the sheets and Clara led the way into her bedroom, turning back her mother’s hand-embroidered Belgian linen bedcover so they could lay him down. Clara drew aside the Indian who had had the fish innards and asked him, “Have you any remedy for pain?”

Again, by his masked response, she had the feeling she had asked another unanswerable question, that, although there might be some solution either she was not entitled to it or something else boycotted the reply. “Have you anything to help him?” she rephrased.

“Edward brave,” the Indian told her, as if she doubted it. “We go now,” he said.

“If you don’t know how to find a doctor, then find Asahel and tell him.”

“We know what to do.”

They left and she was alone with Edward in the house he’d built. He stared straight ahead. “What place is this?” he asked.

She sat near him on the bed and looked at him carefully, afraid that he might be lapsing into insentience again.

“This is the house you built,” she said, starting, very slowly, to straighten one of his legs and then begin to massage it, very lightly, with both her hands, feeling for alignment in his bones.

“I’ve never seen this room,” he argued.

“You have,” she told him, continuing to work to straighten both his legs. “Your initials are right over there, carved in that beam, see them? ‘E.S.C.’”

“No, this is different.”

“How?”

“This is not the room I know. Something is different. The walls. They’re white.”

“I painted them.”

“These pictures.”

“Those are my father’s paintings.” She unlaced his shoes and prised them off, keenly observing him for any register of pain.

“I tell you,” he said, still looking around, “I would not recognize this room as a place that I have seen before. Except the ceiling. I recognize the ceiling.”

“I’m going to have to cut you out of these pants, Edward—”

“No.”

“—to see where there is bruising.”

“You will not cut these pants.”

She removed his stockings and asked him to wriggle his toes. He did, in silence. The pants, she said. She laid a hand on one of his shins. It hadn’t escaped her notice that the pants were doeskin, nor had she failed to note how soft — almost sensual — they were.

“No cutting,” he repeated. “There’s a drawstring,” he proposed and started to untie the knot at his waist.

“No, don’t move,” she said, “I’ll do it. You lie still.” She unslipped the knot and slid the waistband open. She had never seen a pair of pants designed like these.

“They’re hand sewn,” he said.

“I can see that,” she replied and began to shimmy the fabric down around his hips. He looked away, toward a corner of the room as his naked body was exposed. “Whose sea chest is that?”