tion>The Doctor’s Apprentice
Also by Ann Walsh
Flower Power (Orca, 2005) By the Skin of His Teeth (Dundurn, 2004) Shabash! (Dundurn, 1994) The Ghost of Soda Creek (Dundurn, 1990) Moses, Me and Murder (Pacific Educational, 1988) Your Time, My Time (Dundurn, 1984)
Edited by Ann Walsh
Dark Times (Ronsdale, 2005) Beginnings: Stories of Canada’s Past (Ronsdale, 2001) Winds Through Time: An Anthology of Canadian Historical Young Adult Fiction (Dundurn, 1998)
The Doctor’s Apprentice
A Barkerville Mystery
Ann Walsh
Copyright © Ann Walsh, 2007
First edition 1998
Second edition 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Michael Carroll
Design: Jen Hamilton
Printer: Webcom
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Walsh, Ann, 1942-
The doctor’s apprentice / by Ann Walsh.
ISBN 978-1-55002-633-7
I. Title.
PS8595.A585D62 2007 jC813’.54 C2007-901097-0
1 2 3 4 5 11 10 09 08 07
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on recycled paper.
www.dundurn.com
This book is dedicated with much love and many thanks to Mauri Clemons-Braund, my sister and my friend
Acknowledgements
I owe many thanks to Dr. Alec Holley of Quesnel for lending me his treasured copy of The Physician’s Vade Mecum. Thanks also to Dr. Glenn Fedor of Williams Lake and everyone at Kornak and Hamm’s Pharmacy for their help with my medical research. I would also like to thank the British Columbia Arts Council for a grant I received during the writing of this book.
One
The heavy trap door of the gallows slammed against its supports, the crowd gasped, a woman cried out. “It is done,” said a man’s voice. “He is dead, hanged as sentenced by the judge.”
The August heat covered me, thick as a wool blanket, and I felt the sweat on my face as I listened to the sounds of death. The others who had come to watch the hanging had not noticed me sitting under a tree, hidden by its branches. Nor had I been able to see what was happening, although I had heard everything.
I wanted to go home, but my legs felt too weak to carry me down the road, away from the courthouse and the newly built gallows. I could not stand. I could not move.
From behind me, someone whispered, “Ted.”
I jumped, and my heart began to beat rapidly. Who was calling my name? I leaned my face against the pine tree, feeling the roughness of its bark against my cheek, and put both my arms around its trunk. I clung tightly to the tree, refusing to look into the shadows.
“Ted,” said the voice once more.
“Who is it?” I asked, my voice so low that I could scarcely hear the words I spoke. “Who is there?”
“A friend,” he said with a threatening laugh.
That laugh. I knew it well, knew who it belonged to. Against my will my hands loosened their grip and I felt myself beginning to turn towards the person who had called my name.
A tall man stood there, his hands outstretched in front of him, reaching for me. “Master Percy,” he said. “I’ve a score that I’ve not yet settled with you.” He took a step towards me.
“No,” I said. “Leave me alone. Please…”
The words trailed away and I stood in silence, staring at the tall figure of James Barry, murderer. He took another step and once more I heard the sound of his laughter, a sound I would never forget.
I saw around his neck the thick, tightly knotted rope of the hangman’s noose. Then I began to scream.
“Theodore Percival MacIntosh, stop this. Be quiet, son. Wake up.”
“Leave him be, Ian. Harsh words will not help to quell his terrors.”
My father’s voice. My mother’s. I was home, in bed. “You were dreaming, Ted,” said my mother, bending over me. “You are clutching your blanket to your face so fiercely you can scarcely breathe. Let it loose, son.”
“Ma?” I said.
“Aye, and your father, too,” said my Pa. “Now, if you don’t mind, I shall go and try to take some rest for what is left of the night. You have a fine voice for singing, son, but I can’t say that I care to hear it echoing through the house in the dark.”
“Leave the boy alone,” said Ma. “The dreams which trouble him cause him far more pain than we suffer as a result of broken sleep.”
My father grumbled something and left the room. My mother smoothed the covers around me, tucking them firmly under the mattress.
As she pulled the thick wool blanket from my hands, I realized that in my dream the blanket had become the trunk
