He grinned at me. “Please do not call me ‘sir.’ I much prefer to be addressed as ‘J.B.’ Try it.”
I didn’t answer him for a while. I was not at all sure that I wished to call this tall doctor by the same initials as James Barry’s.
“I will try.” I said at last. “I will try, J.B.”
“That was not so difficult, was it?”
“No. But I once knew someone else with those initials, and I…”
“Ah. The infamous James Barry. Yes, I remember.”
“You know what happened?”
“I do, but let me refresh my memory. As I recall, you and Moses recognized an unusually shaped gold nugget stickpin. You suspected that the nugget had been stolen, because it was being worn by Mr. Barry, although Moses knew that it belonged to another man, Charles Blessing. How am I doing?”
“Your facts are correct,” I said. “So far.”
“When Mr. Blessing was discovered with a bullet hole in his skull, Mr. Barry departed the goldfields in great haste, leaving you hog-tied in a deserted cabin so you couldn’t warn the constables of his departure.”
I nodded. “Yes, that is what happened.”
Doctor Wilkinson looked hard at me before he continued. “A nasty experience for anyone,” he said. “You were also the person who identified Mr. Barry at the Alexandra Bridge. You were responsible for his arrest—I remember that well.”
I nodded again.
“Now,” continued the doctor, “James Barry was tried, sentenced, and hanged. He’s dead, been dead since August and it is now late in the month of April. Yet when I mention his name, your face pales and your eyes grow fearful. It is not too hard for me to venture a diagnosis. You dream of James Barry, do you not?”
“I should be going now,” I said, and stood up.
“Ted, sit down. Look at me. It is no crime to have nightmares, no failing to be afraid or to have those fears present themselves as dreams. But when you do not speak of your terrors, not even to your parents, then you give those fears great power over you. You were a young boy when you faced Mr. Barry. It is understandable that he would terrify you.”
“He does not terrify me,” I said.
“Is that the truth, Ted?”
“Yes. No.”
“Well? Which is it? Yes or no?”
I took a deep breath and the words seemed to tumble out of me. “In the daylight, I don’t think about him, at least I try not to. But when it is dark… the dreams won’t end. Night after night I close my eyes and know that it will be the same, that he will be there, waiting to settle his score with me. Sometimes I scream in the nightmare, sometimes I cry. I tremble and sweat with fear and then I can not sleep easily for the rest of the night. I can not end the dreams no matter how I try. They will not stop!”
“They will stop,” said the doctor. “I promise you. We will talk more about them, and drag them out of the dark of your sleep and into the bright sunlight so that they will wither and blow away in the wind and never trouble you again.”
“Will they? How can you be so sure? How can you promise me that?”
“Because I am a doctor, Ted! We men of medicine know these things.” He leaned back in his chair and hooked his thumbs through the suspenders he wore over his rough woollen shirt. The chair slipped and he teetered for a moment before regaining his balance and his dignity. His heavy work boots thumped on the floor as the chair righted itself and J.B. returned to a secure sitting position.
“You don’t look much like a doctor,” I said, trying not to smile. “You don’t seem old enough, and you dress more like a miner than a professional man.”
“Ah, you have stumbled onto my secret.” He cautiously leaned back in his chair once more, and tucked his thumbs through his suspenders again. “Truth is, I came to Barkerville to be a miner, giving up my years of medical training to follow the lure of gold. But I never did find the Mother Lode, not even a sizable nugget or enough gold dust to flour a bread pan. I did find, though, that Williams Creek, while well supplied with miners and those who would be miners, and those who had been miners, was poorly supplied with doctors. So I sold my claim and returned to my profession.”
“But not to your professional wardrobe,” I said.
“No, I find these clothes comfortable. They suit me, to indulge in a slight pun. I have no wish to wear the more formal attire of my colleagues.”
He stood up, reaching across the table to shake my hand. “We have made a good start, Ted, even though you proved very clever at changing the subject. However I must return to my surgery. I have patients who will, no doubt, be restless at my absence. We will talk again, we will talk a great deal. I, at any rate, will talk a great deal for I always do, and you will, perhaps, find it easier to speak to me now that you have made my acquaintance. But for tonight I will prescribe for you some medication which will assure you a dreamless sleep. Come with me and I will get it before I deal with my patient patients.”
“Perhaps they are impatient patients by now,” I said.
He laughed. “I like your wit, Ted. Now, to my dispensary where I shall dispense something to dispel your fears, dispose of your dreams and end your distress.”
What Doctor Wilkinson gave me was a small green bottle, tightly corked. I held it in my hand as I walked home, once in a while lifting it up to the sunlight filtering through the trees on either side of the road. The liquid inside glistened when the light struck it, and the bottle glowed like a jewel.
This road between Barkerville and Richfield was so familiar to me that I knew every wagon rut and every tree along the way. Here was the snag which fell last winter, blocking the road for a day. Here was the curve where the stage overturned during one rainy spring, and here, just ahead, was the tree where, half-hidden in the branches, James Barry had called out to me and I had first heard his laughter. No matter how many times I walked this road, I could never pass that tree without feeling my heart beginning to race.
But today was different. I deliberately slowed my steps as I drew nearer to the place, not speeding up to pass it quickly, the way I usually did. I had been afraid of him, of James Barry, from the moment I first saw him on this road. I had been frightened of him even before I learned, months later, that I had good reason to be afraid. But no more, no more.
I raised the small green bottle in my hand, held it above my head the way a soldier going into war would flourish his sword.
“Never again,” I shouted. “You are banished from my life and from my dreams, Mr. Barry. Can you hear me, Mr. James Barry? You will never frighten me again. Never!”
Three
My mother was leaving our house when I arrived home. She was wearing her bonnet and shawl, and she carried a basket, the one she takes to town when she shops.
“Where were you, Ted?” she asked. “You left without my knowledge, and when I needed more wood for the cook stove I had to fetch it myself as you were nowhere to be found.”
“I’m sorry, Ma. I went to the shop.”
“Your father sent you home again, I see. Which is just as well as I need the wood box filled. Since you will not be working with your father for the next while, I am counting on having a good supply of firewood split and stacked.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“You look more like yourself, Ted. Your trip to town has refreshed you. Perhaps it will do the same for me.”
“Shall I come with you to carry your purchases?”
“No, I can manage. Just tend to our wood