Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism

Andrew didn’t know when he’d started work on the rope around his wrists. But he knew as the poor man’s legs twitched and shook and bent, and the keening whistling started up again—far louder this time, almost like a tiny scream—he’d managed to loosen a knot. Nothing dramatic—it was just looser, not untied, and there were other knots after this one before he’d be free. But although his fingers were numb and fat with his own blood, they were still a surgeon’s, and they knew what to do. They would get those knots, because if they didn’t—well, their doctor would end up on that rope. That was not how Dr. Andrew Waggoner was meant to leave this world. Even if he was slow to realize it, his fingers knew.

Luckily, the sheets seemed to have no idea.

Their victim raised high enough—maybe three feet off the ground—they tied off the rope, and came back to watch him die. Behind him, the cart-horse whinnied.

Andrew slipped the knot free. The second was not so tight, and he got that one going much more quickly. What was he going to do when he got them free? None of the men seemed to have guns, at least none outside their sheets. So he might just be able to run for it. Except he was cramped and sore and his rib felt like it could be broken. He could probably still outrun Robert Vernon with his bad knee. But the rest?

Andrew set his teeth. It was hard to think, with that whistling getting as loud as it was, so he just kept at work. How could that whistling be getting louder? The hanged man’s airway should be about shut. The noises he could make should have changed, become more strangled and quieter.

The sheets were thinking the same thing. One of them had his hands over his ears, while their leader was shouting something else, something like an instruction. Two of them moved to obey—if, that is, they’d been told to grab the dying man’s belt-loops and pull him down to break his neck. They grabbed tight, threw their own knees from under themselves and dangled.

The final knot slid undone and Andrew slid out of the ropes. He closed his eyes tight and gritted his teeth, blinked and pushed himself up. On hands and knees, he turned around, and with the fire in his rib making him want to weep, made for the wagon.

He didn’t get far.

Andrew gasped, and his arms slipped from under him, and he thought: I’ve been shot. Then he found himself rolled over. He was looking into the face of Robert Vernon. The sheet was off him now, and he held a stick—no, a handle for an axe. Instinctively Andrew raised his hand to ward him off. The axe-handle hit him in the elbow with a sickening crack!, and he clutched it, as Robert Vernon raised his club again.

There was another crack!, and Robert stood there for what seemed like a long time, weapon raised. Then Robert fell backwards into the dirt. The axe-handle fell against Andrew’s hip. The sky was empty but for early evening stars and a fat yellow moon rising on the horizon.

The high whistling continued, but Andrew thought it might have been joined by another sound: the barking of dogs, and the crack! crack! of gunfire.

That would be good, he thought, if it were true. Then his eyelids slid shut and he let himself rest a moment.

§

Andrew’s eyelids flickered as someone bent close. Not a sheet. Not a ghost. It had dark little eyes, though, a face bent the wrong way. It puckered its wide mouth, and leaned forward. It breathed out an awful smell, like formaldehyde, and looked up, started, and moved fast off to the right. Andrew felt the scant weight of it on his chest only then, by its sudden absence.

Someone screamed not far off, and Andrew blinked twice before he just gave up and closed his eyes.

§

“Dr. Waggoner.”

Andrew felt a sharp slap on his cheek, and another.

He coughed and blinked and opened his eyes.

This time the light of a kerosene lamp was nearer him, and there was someone else leaning in. Someone he recognized.

“Doctor,” said Sam Green. “You hear me?”

“I hear you,” said Andrew.

“Good. You know who I am?”

“Sure.”

Sam Green was the boss of the Pinkerton crew. He and Andrew went back—to October, when they’d met at the train station in Bonner’s Ferry some forty miles to the south of here.

Sam was wearing his bowler hat and what looked like his Sunday best. His normally ruddy face was crimson over the starched collar and tight-wound tie. Normally when he was on duty, Sam would wear something a bit more comfortable. But today was Sunday and unlike Andrew, he was a church-going man.

“That is good,” said Sam. “You haven’t been entirely addled by those bastards.”

“Those—” Andrew tried to sit up but the pain in his back and ribs was too

much. “Those bastards,” he said slowly, “are Klansmen. They hanged a man.”

Sam might have smiled under his thick moustache, or he might have grimaced. “They are piss-poor Klansmen if that is what they even are. Anyone can pull a sheet over their head.”

Andrew coughed again, and winced. God, it hurt.