The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [74]
“Goddamn that fucking dog!” he yelled, hopping and inspecting his foot at the same time. “Goddamn that fucking woman!” The local woman heard him from the road and walked faster.
When he returned to his desk, Fred opened the wound and picked the shard of glass out with a toothpick. He pulled an ice cube from his glass and placed it on the cut.
“That bitch doesn’t know who she’s fucking with!”
She didn’t break the glass, Fred. You did.
“Now this will have to get ugly.”
Sure, Fred, ugly.
“Stop fucking mocking me! I’m serious!”
You certainly are, Fred. You certainly are.
Fredrick, stop with that swearing! I taught you better than that, his mother scolded.
“Shut up, Mother.”
Don’t you talk to me that way, young man!
“I’ll talk whatever way I want, you fucking old whore. You’re dead. Why don’t you just piss off?”
Piss off? he answered. Why are you telling me to piss off? I’m on your side!
Fred took the handcuffs from the desk and twirled them around on his index finger. “Will you all just PISS OFF?”
Emer awoke to the sound of sailing. In the dim candlelight, she could make out only the nearest things: a basin of water and a cloth, a pair of wrist cuffs, a small, brown, corked bottle, and a bottle of rum. She reached out for the stool next to the bunk, but her arm flopped down to the planks beneath her instead.
She looked down at the shape of her body and tried to move her legs. Great pain rose from her right calf as she bent her knees and grabbed them, hugging them to her chest. She moved the blankets until her right foot appeared, swollen and discolored and wrapped with layers of white absorbent rags. Blood seeped through where her two toes used to be. She tried to wiggle the remaining ones, her big and middle, and her smallest, with no luck. They didn’t move at all, not even when she tried her hardest.
Moving slowly, balancing as the Chester broke through fast waves, Emer reached for the rum and took a swig. She tried to remember where she was, what had happened, and whose care she was in. She drank two more swallows of rum before someone unlocked the door and opened it.
A man appeared, a short man wearing a round spectacle. He smiled when he saw she was awake and asked, “How do you feel?”
“What’s wrong with my foot?”
“Your foot should be fine in a few weeks. Just a bit of gangrene is all.”
Emer looked down. “It doesn’t look fine.”
“Trust me. I’ve been a doctor for twenty years and I know my business.” He reached into the darkness beyond the candlelight. “Are you hungry?”
He brought the tray and placed it on the stool. Emer gagged at first, but then picked up a biscuit and brought it to her mouth.
“How long have we been at sea?”
“Four or five days. Only a few more to go, in this wind.” He inspected her foot and applied some liquid from the brown medicine bottle.
“Where are we going?”
“You worry about resting and eating,” he said, turning toward the door. “I’ll tell Captain you’re awake. He’ll be quite pleased.”
He locked the door behind him and Emer propped her head with a feather pillow. She looked around for anything sharp, but there were nothing but blunt things. The best weapon she could find was the rum bottle. She worked to empty it, thinking she could hide it in her bed and strike when the Frenchman wasn’t paying attention, then escape to the deck and kill everyone. She sat up and when her foot hit the floor, she cried out in agony, fell back into the bed, flushed, and passed out again.
When she woke up, her candle had gone out and she was in total darkness. The ship swung violently from side to side, causing items to shift and crash onto the floor. She held on to the sides of the bunk as the ship tacked one way and then the other, repeatedly. This was the movement of battle, for sure. Minutes later, she heard someone yelling orders and the gunners running above her from cannon to cannon. She felt the forecastle cannon fire and her heart thumped.
Emer wished she could stand up. She tried again, but could not get past the pain in her right foot. She lay