The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [312]
“Jefe!” the aborigine wailed, beginning to weep. “Señor Picton, no! No!”
The sound of El Nino’s grief caused Mr. Picton to turn his head ever so slightly, a movement what appeared to cause him great pain. As he glanced up to see the Doctor, Lucius, and Miss Howard working on his wounds, he tried to get enough spit into his mouth to speak.
“My God …” he gasped, “that’s a hell of a noise, for such a little man to make …”
“You’ve got to keep quiet, Rupert,” Mr. Moore said, as he and Marcus frantically tore their shirts into bandage strips. The sight of his old friend lying there so badly wounded seemed to move our journalist friend to the point of tears; but he ground the reaction away with his teeth and just kept ripping. “You’re going to be all right, but for once in your life, please keep quiet!”
Mr. Picton choked out a small chuckle, at that, then winced once hard. “I’m sorry, John,” he breathed. “I’m sorry I always talked too much…. I know it embarrassed you sometimes …”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Mr. Moore said, having a harder time, now, keeping the tears back.
“And the Doctor …” Mr. Picton went on, glancing at the man who was feverishly trying to bind his wounds and stop his bleeding. “You always wanted to … to know, Doctor … why I was that way … my context …” A sudden cough brought a splatter of blood up and onto the Doctor’s chest, but he kept working on his patient. “I was going to tell you …” Mr. Picton went on. “I meant to tell you …”
“Mr. Picton, you must listen to John,” the Doctor answered. “It’s imperative that you remain quiet.”
“Heard that before …” Mr. Picton breathed. Then he took in one or two desperate gulps of air, his chest going into some kind of a spasm; it seemed to subside, though, and as it did, he let his eyes drift over to the guard Henry’s body. “I’ve … been lying here … watching him …” Another small laugh got out. “The idiot… how many stories … true and fictitious, Doctor … would you imagine involve jailers being … seduced by their captives …?”
“Please, Rupert,” Miss Howard said, herself seeming close to tears. She reached up to put two bloody fingers to his lips, then smiled weakly. “Do try to lie still. I know it’s difficult for you—”
Mr. Picton pulled his head away from her fingers, then smiled back at her. “Sara … I would prefer … as little interference … with my death scene … as possible …” Looking at Henry again and taking another difficult, wheezing breath, Mr. Picton went on, “I… would calculate that there are hundreds … of such stories…. It’s a measure … of the man’s illiteracy, you see…. That’s what’s so interesting…” He began to cough up blood again, and this time the action caused him much more agony: he grabbed at the lapel of the Doctor’s jacket, eyes bulging wide, and pulled hard. “It wasn’t… her …” he gasped, blood now pouring from his mouth and drenching his ginger beard. “She told him … to kill me…. But the pinheaded fool… couldn’t even manage that properly …” Sitting back as his face went terribly pale, Mr. Picton added, “Then she killed him… over an hour ago…. She’s got the jump on you, Doctor…. You’ve got to go… go …”
“Rupert, in the name of heaven, shut up!” Mr. Moore said, the tears now out of his eyes and streaming down his cheeks.
Mr. Picton smiled over at him once more, then tried to look around to the rest of us. “You’ve all… I want to thank you …” Taking hold of the Doctor’s lapel again, he whispered, “When they bury me, Doctor… look at the graves … my family … a clue