The Totem

His legs gave out again. His chest constricted. The pain shot through his left arm, and he was praying. He thought about his wife. He thought about how she had said she loved him, and he wished that he had said it back. He thought about so many things. Just before he fell, he singled in on one small portion of the guts, staring at them, disappearing into them, and noticed a detail so horrible that in his death at last he understood.

SEVEN

They found him in the morning where he lay on the floor by the table, one fist full of guts that he had taken with him as he fell. That was shortly after seven. The men who found him phoned a doctor, but it wasn't any use. The doctor came and knelt and checked him and just shook his head.

By then the old man's wife was there. She had waited up for him, but then, in spite of all her good intentions, she had gone to sleep. She had wakened early and had missed him, searching through the house. She'd seen that the car was gone and phoned the office, but there wasn't any answer. She had waited half an hour before going into town.

She came around the corner and started ru

The medical examiner was there to see the last of it. He waited while they led her down the hallway. Then he checked the body, doing more or less the same as what the doctor had, but taking more time, making notes. He straightened, putting pad and pen together, turning toward the open double doors as behind the people there he saw the police car pulling up. He waited while the driver's door was opened and the big man got out, putting on his hat. The uniform was tan, the hat a Stetson. Even with the people there the policeman's face could be seen above the crowd, burly, craggy, strong-boned with high cheeks, just a little puffy near the eyes, the medical examiner assumed from too much beer. What the hell, if you worked the hours he did, you'd be puffy near the eyes as well, never mind the beer.

The policeman's name was Slaughter, and that had meant he almost didn't get the job. He had settled here five years ago, and when the old chief had died, Slaughter had asked the town council for the job. At first the council was reluctant, but Slaughter had showed them his credentials, and they couldn't pass him by. Twenty years a policeman and detective in Detroit, trained in every ma

As the medical examiner kept watching, Slaughter started, big and solid, through the crowd, talking to them, his hand pressed down around his gunbelt, bullets showing, that was shoved a little low around his waist. Then the crowd was in back of him, and he released the hand from his holstered gun. Instincts from the city. Among the few that Slaughter still retained. Standing there in cowboy boots and cowman's hat, a toothpick in his mouth, he looked about as local as a person could become. Not because he wore them, but because he wore them with a certain pride and made the townsfolk proud to see him and to speak with him. That faint inflection in his voice that he had picked up since he'd come. To see him grow to meet the town had made the town aware of what it was. He had added to it.

Now he paused and glanced around. Taking the toothpick from his mouth, he walked across and frowned down at the body. "Old Doc Markle?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. I know how you felt about him."

Slaughter didn't answer.

"Heart attack," the medical examiner said. "His wife was here to see him. She's just down the hall."

Slaughter looked at him.

"She had to be sedated."

Slaughter shook his head. "She'll have it rough from now on." His voice dropped with sorrow. He tried to distract himself by paying attention to details. "What time did he die?"

"I don't know yet. Rigor's set in. That means several hours."

"Some time in the night?"

"It had to be. Otherwise somebody from the office would have seen him."

"Maybe. Let's find out for certain." Slaughter glanced around. He saw the people by the open double doors and went across to talk to them. They listened, saying something back to him. He spoke again. They nodded, slowly breaking up to go away. He turned and saw the people in the green lab coats standing by the wall. He waved to them to follow him as he walked back toward the table.

"You all work here. Anybody see him just before you closed?"

They shook their heads. There were six men and two women. One, the youngest woman, twenty, maybe slightly more, began to cry. It was clear, the way her face and eyes were red, that she'd been crying earlier as well. They were looking at the body, then away, then in a moment back again.

"No," one man was saying. He was red-haired, freckled, maybe thirty-five, thin and going bald. "I came through to lock the place, and Markle wasn't here."

"You check all the rooms?"

"Yes. In case someone forgot to lock them."

"What time did you check?"

"Shortly after six."

"Were you the last to leave?"

The red-haired man nodded.

"Anybody else? You've got ke

"I did." The older woman, maybe thirty-five as well, short but solid, her hair cut to just below her ears. "A little after ten. The doctor wasn't here then, either."

Slaughter looked at her. "The doctor? He said Markle," pointing to the first man.

"He's a vet. I just work here."

"That means Markle came in after ten," the first man said, "and died a little after."

Slaughter glanced at him and shook his head. "I don't know. You're the one who found him?"

"That's right."

"Did you change anything?"

"I turned the lights off."

"What about the doors?"

"Well, they were open."

"Then it wasn't after ten," Slaughter said. "When I sent all those people home, I found a man who's got a room in a building that looks down on here. He was out till well past midnight. He came home and checked his window, and he's sure that everything was dark down here. If the doors were open and the lights were on, he surely would have seen it. No, the doctor came here after one. Now I know you people put in heavy hours the same as all the rest of us, but one o'clock, I can't believe that's normal."

No one answered.

"What about this steer? Tell me what's the story on it."

"I don't know." The vet came around the table, looking at it. 'You can see that it was dead before he brought it in."