The Damned by John D. MacDonald

It made her think of pictures she had seen of a savage tribe where the skulls of infants are encircled by metal bands, so that in adulthood their heads are a shape of horror. Mrs. Gerrold, with the help of her husband’s escape, had managed to bind John’s emotions so that though the body became a man, the mind remained that of a clever child. Children never laugh at themselves.
    They had reached the far shore. The men worked furiously with shovels, and slowly the ferry was hauled closer until the planks could be set in place and blocked. The cars moved down the planks and roared up the winding road onto pavement that led into San Fernando.
    “She seems quieter,” John said. “God, the way her hands were! I’ll never forget it.”
    “She’ll be all right.”
    “And what do you think you know about it?” he demanded, his voice growing shrill.
    She could see him then, as a child, stubbing his toe on a chair, then kicking the chair with all his might, screaming at it. She was something to kick.
    “Don’t take it out on me,” she said softly.
    “I think you like all this. I think you hope she dies.”
    “That isn’t worth answering.”
    He looked at her, and the naked eyes filled with tears. “I… I don’t know what I’m saying.”
    They stopped at the public square. The guard smiled and said something in Spanish and made a gesture that said, unmistakably, “Stay right where you are.”
    He went into the building. He was back soon, with the doctor. The doctor was a small brown man with hollow cheeks and a lantern jaw. He said. “Please, you get out, I get in.”
    She got out of the car and stood on the cobblestones and watched through the window as the doctor, cricket-spry, hopped in beside Mrs. Gerrold. He put claw fingers on her pulse, moving his lips as he counted. With his free hand he thumbed up her eyelid, then laid the back of his hand against her forehead.
    He stepped out, smiling so gaily that Linda knew at once that the illness was not serious.
    Smiling, the doctor said, “Very bad. Seek.”
    “Is there a hospital here?” John asked, voice shaking.
    The little doctor pointed vaguely toward the second story of the building. “Is hospital. My hospital.”
    “What’s wrong with her?” John asked.
    Again he smiled so very gaily. “Have not English. A thing in here.” He tapped his forehead. “Very bad.”
    The guard talked to the doctor in brisk Spanish. The doctor kept smiling and nodding. Linda began to realize that his smile was one of nervousness, not gaiety.
    The guards went upstairs and came back down with a canvas stretcher. On the canvas was a great stain, a dark reddish brown. Linda felt her stomach turn over as she realized it was blood.
    They set the stretcher on the cobblestones. With the doctor still smiling, giving orders, the men carefully moved the woman out and stretched her out on the stained canvas.
    John said, “This is no good, Linda. They must have a phone in this town. I’ll get somebody down from Brownsville. A doctor and an ambulance. Why does he keep smiling as if it was all a big joke?”
    “Shall I try to phone?”
    “You go up with her and I’ll see if I can phone. What’s the word? Telefono?”
    “Teléfono, I think. There’s an accent on it somewhere.”
    He started off. She saw one of the guards catch his arm and take him over to the lead car, where the toadlike man sat in the back seat. She followed the stretcher up the flight of stone stairs to the office. To her surprise, the office equipment looked gleaming, modern, expensive. Through an open doorway she could see into a small ward where there were four beds. A child was in one, apparently sleeping. The doctor had the men hold the stretcher level beside one of the beds. A pretty pale-skinned nurse came to help. She stripped the bed back and they eased Mrs. Gerrold off the stretcher and into the bed while Linda watched.
    The men set the stretcher down, smiled at Linda, spoke to the doctor, and left.