Comes a Time for Burning (25 page)

“I fear for her,” Gert whispered in Thomas’ ear.

“For them all,” he replied. “Eleanor, can you stand for me?” The girl remained inert, focused far, far away. He rose to leave the room and was confronted by Patterson, who had sagged against the wall in the hallway. “Get out of my way, sir,” Thomas snapped, and to his surprise, the man did.

Outside, the air tasted so wonderfully fresh that he paused for a moment to drink in half a dozen breaths.

“Bad?” Winchell asked.

“Indeed. He has laid out his wife’s corpse in the parlor, awaiting a proper funeral. His son is dead. The smallest child…she looks but five or six…is alive but desperately ill. Eleanor has collapsed in a state.”

“This does not surprise me,” Aldrich said. “I saw her earlier. A desperate young woman. For a time, she was wandering down at the hotel. It looked like she wanted to help in some way, but couldn’t. Piteous, I think. What about Patterson?”

“He is also ill, although still ambulatory. It won’t be long.”

“What must we do?” the constable asked.

“First of all, the three of them must be taken to the clinic—the surviving child, Eleanor, and the pastor. There is nothing for it but that.”

“You’ll hog-tie him?” Aldrich asked, only half in jest. “He will not listen to you.”

“Then he can stew in his own juices until he is too ill to complain,” Thomas said. “The wife and son must be buried with all dispatch. A deep grave, heavily treated with corrosive sublimate, as you’ve been doing.” He held out his hands. “That’s what must be done. Whether the Pastor approves or not.”

“And if he stands in the way? This is the man’s home, after all,” Aldrich said.

“We must do what must be done.” Thomas looked off toward the rest of the village. “When news spreads of Mrs. Patterson and the child, half the village will be trooping down here to offer condolences. They’ll hear Patterson’s nonsense that the disease is not exactly what it is, and bolstered by that, they’ll bring food.” He lowered his voice so Gert couldn’t hear. “That’s what people do. And we’ll have hands mixing and kneading and feeding and being oh, so helpful. The bacilli will have a grand old time. The cholera will not have to find them. They will come to it.”

Chapter Thirty

“My suggestion was permanganate of potash,” Ted Winchell said. He regarded Thomas with his habitual amused expression. How he could find the light-hearted aspect of each dreadful situation, Thomas could not fathom, but he appreciated the undertaker all the more for it. “See, I thought that would give the hotel’s cedar siding a nice purple hue, don’t you know. Damn fashionable.”

He yawned and glanced at the wall clock. Much of the morning had fled since their visit to Patterson’s, and the time had been a blur. “We don’t have much permanganate,” Winchell continued, “but Lindeman’s got sacks of Perlman’s Privy Purifier, and that’ll sure as hell work. Mostly chloride of lime, if I remember right.”

The undertaker lounged in the doorway of the clinic’s dispensary, watching Thomas compound yet another supply of what had come to be called “gut brew”, the concoction of chamomile infusion, tannin, laudanum, and gum arabic. From his demeanor, one might guess that the man had spent a day of complete leisure, rather than behind the hammer, saw, and then shovel.

“Schmidt says it’s going to ruin his pump, but he says that’s okay,” Winchell added. “What’s the count now?”

“Four more brought in from the camp,” Thomas said, decanting the brew carefully into the large amber bottle.

“Will they live?”

“You want an honest answer, or a hopeful one?”

“Hopeful doesn’t help me any,” Winchell replied.

“Continue your carpentry and your digging, then,” Thomas said. “Of the four, I am willing to gamble that two will survive.” He glanced at Winchell. “We have four more from the Clarissa—a fisherman and three of the ladies. But you knew that already.”

“Yes.” Winchell’s face went sober and tired.

Thomas stopped pouring and closed his eyes. “Mary and…” He shook his head in despair. “God, she was taken ill, died, and I can’t even remember her name.”

“Constance.”

“You knew her, then?”

“If I say yes, you’ll wonder about me,” Winchell replied. “But yes…a delightful young lady. Both she and Ida Jorgenson.”

“Ida is hanging on,” Thomas said. “My understanding is that she worked in the kitchen.”

“Yes. That’s not good, is it.”

“No,” Thomas said. “It’s not good. In fact, it’s as bad as it gets. And Ted, this is what irks me.” He inserted the bottle’s stopper and brought down the wire bale. “I am convinced that had they received treatment from the first sign of discomfort, the prognosis could be entirely favorable. As advanced as their condition is now, they
must
have been suffering symptoms at the very moment when you and I and the Constable were at the Clarissa. Their rooms were empty. When we found them downstairs and spoke with them, they confessed to no ill feelings.”

“Yet Lucy is still with us.”

“Lucy Levine is a remarkable young lady.” Thomas glanced up at Winchell. “She sleeps most of the time now, and that’s good. The trick is to keep the vital systems fortified. We can do that even as she sleeps.”

“Little Janie Patterson?”

Thomas grimaced. “She is a tiny thing, Ted, without the natural resiliency.” He straightened and rubbed his back. “I fear for her. She has little more resilience than her brother. The autopsy on the boy was hurried, but enough to show that he had a damaged valve in the heart, you know. I’m surprised that he reached his fifth birthday, Ted.”

“Damn shame.” The undertaker stretched, joints popping, and patted his gut.

“And how are you, by the way?” Thomas regarded the undertaker critically.

“Sound as oak,” Winchell said, expelling a loud breath.

As Thomas turned, he caught a characteristic bouquet from Winchell’s clothing. The undertaker saw the wrinkled nose and chuckled.

“They have pots of sulfur smoking in all the rooms, just like Doc Hardy told ’em. Most God-awful thing I ever smelled. Couple hours of that and I wouldn’t think there’d be a thing alive on that floor…man, rat, or bacilli.”

“You’d be surprised, my friend. The sulfur is good for this,” and he tapped his head. “People are encouraged to see such a thing. But the smoke cannot reach into the fabrics, the rugs, the furniture, into every crack and cranny. That must be tackled by hand. As long as everyone who works on the hotel understands the dangers and takes appropriate precautions.”

“Eleanor still wanders?”

“Most puzzling.” Thomas sighed. “She lies in bed, staring at the ceiling.” He shrugged. “Perhaps she will find the answers there. I don’t know. Her sister tends her, as Elaine does so many others.” He started to pass Winchell, who stepped to one side.

“What else can I do?” the undertaker asked.

Thomas smiled ruefully. “Keep up with us. Who works with you?”

“Jake has assigned four from the mill to me,” Winchell replied. “They work the laundry with him, and for me when I need them. Everyone works without question or complaint. Well, not exactly without complaint, to be honest. The last thing those brawny boys want right now is to be digging holes in the ground. But they do it. And that’s all I can ask.”

Thomas nodded. “Did you see this?” He stepped across the dispensary and picked up a poster printed on rough, brown paper. Winchell took it and nodded.

“Aldrich has posted these all over town,” he said. “You can’t turn around without seeing them.” In enormous, florid print, the poster announced:

Constable George Aldrich’s name had been added to the bottom of the poster, underneath Thomas’ own.

“Do I always speak in exclamation points?” Thomas mused, and Winchell laughed.

“Maybe it attracts attention that way. By nightfall, there won’t be a single person in Port McKinney who doesn’t know of the cholera. We will know who is ill, and who is not. And of course,” Winchell added, “there won’t be a ship that stops, or a coach that approaches within fifty miles.”

It all sounded so optimistic, Thomas thought. Still, he always felt better after talking to the gregarious undertaker, and when Winchell left the clinic, the young physician took a moment with his notes. Scientific journals would demand an accounting report, and he set about the work with diligence.

If Thomas’ mood had been buoyed by Winchell’s visit, it was dashed shortly after seven that evening.

Chapter Thirty-one

No threat of disease prevented Maurice Frye from pounding on the door of the clinic. Adelaide Crowell happened to be passing through the men’s ward when the ruckus began, and she opened the front door to find Maurice wide-eyed and panicky, hopping from one foot to the other, face so drained of color that the nurse’s first thought was that another victim of the cholera had made it to their doorstep.

The dirty towel wadded around his wrist was thick with blood. “I don’t think it’s too damn bad,” he said without any assurance, and Mrs. Crowell let him in, ushering him straight to the surgery.

Thomas, who had heard the man, joined them just as Mrs. Crowell turned the gas jets up so high that they sputtered. The twenty-year-old shrank back at the physician’s touch.

“The bandage, young man,” Thomas coaxed, and he lifted an end to see that the wrap was nothing but a piece of filthy, grease-laden rag. The moment the rag was released, blood flooded across the man’s hand and into the basin that Mrs. Crowell had anticipated. “Your name, son?” He hadn’t seen this fellow out at the camp or in the timber.

“Name’s Frye,” the young fellow groaned.

“Well, Mr. Frye, what have you done to yourself?” Thomas pushed the flannel sleeve out of the way, and shifted so that the light from the nearest gas sconce illuminated the wrist. The jagged slash started on the swell of muscle below the right thumb and sliced in a nasty fashion down into the tendons of the wrist. Three inches of undamaged tissue marked where the tool had then skipped before inflicting a final slash on the man’s underarm.

“How did you manage this?”

Between clenched teeth, trying to look away from his own arm but inexorably attracted to the sight, Maurice Frye whispered, “Fell on the damn thing.”

“The thing being?”

“I was just sharpening the saw. That’s all I was doing. Got up to stoke the stove so I could make some coffee, and damn.”

“Off with the shirt, sir,” Thomas said. He slapped a clean linen bandage over the wrist. “Hold this now. Hard.” Then he helped Mrs. Crowell with Frye’s damp woolen shirt. The wound was more frightening in appearance than reality, with no major vessels lacerated, and no tendons cut. But the flesh gaped enough that the moment Thomas removed the pad, young Frye’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed backward.

“Quickly, now,” Thomas said, and he scrubbed out the wound thoroughly, nearly finishing before Frye groaned back into consciousness.

“Will you want an injection?” Mrs. Crowell asked. The question was asked with more than a hint of weariness, as if she didn’t care whether he wanted the needle or not, and he glanced up at her.
Too tired
, he thought.
Everyone is too tired
.

“Indeed. Morphine, half a grain. Otherwise he won’t enjoy the stitching.”

He finished cleaning the wound and frowned at the counter behind him. “We are lacking in dressings,” he said. “We must rectify that tonight. We have been fortunate these past few days.” As Mrs. Crowell handed him the sterile, charged syringe, Thomas leaned sideways a bit, looking the blanched Frye in the eye. “You’re going to be fine, young fellow. A few stitches, and you’ll be on your way. No serious…” He jerked his head around at the sound, a deep, prolonged borborygmus from Mrs. Crowell’s gut.

“Oh, pardon me,” she said, but this time, looking closer, he saw more than mild embarrassment on the woman’s face.

“Where is Doctor Hardy?” he asked gently even as he gave the young man the injection in the heavy muscle of his upper arm.

“He is with the women’s ward,” she replied. “I saw him there last.”

“You will go there immediately,” he ordered, straightening up.

“Oh, but…”

“Mrs. Crowell, I will
not
be debated on this. You will take the Otis and find Dr. Hardy this instant. I will finish here. If your distress is a mild gas bubble, he will ascertain that soon enough. If it is more than that, well, then.” He felt a wash of sympathy as he saw the fear creep across her face. “Right now, Mrs. Crowell.”

“Really, Doctor…”

“Mrs. Crowell,” he said again. “Please.” He dropped the empty syringe in the pan. “I can manage here. And then I’ll be to the ward.” The nurse stood as if her shoes had been nailed to the floor. What a terrible thing to face, he thought as he watched the range of emotions play across Mrs. Crowell’s lined face.

“As you wish, Doctor,” she said finally, and Thomas watched her leave the surgery, her step with none of her characteristic bustle.

“She sick, Doc?”

“We would hope not. Now, the morphine burns?”

“Like hell, Doc.”

“Does the arm hurt?”

“No.”

“Well, it will, Mr. Frye.” The logger winced with alarm. “But not that much. The worst has been done while you were away.” With the wound spritzed with ether, he began with the sutures, and after the second, Maurice Frye cooperated by fainting again. The remaining ten closed the wound. By the time the logger was alert and could focus his eyes, the arm was bandaged and the thumb splinted immobile.

“Now, sir,” Thomas said, and stopped when Bertha Auerbach entered the surgery. “Mrs. Crowell has reported to Dr. Hardy?”

“She has, Doctor. She denies feeling ill.”

“Don’t they all, early on. I hope that I’m wrong. If I am, then nothing is lost beyond a little peaceful sleep. If I’m correct, all might be gained.”

“Will you need assistance here?”

“We’re finished,” he said, slapping Frye’s bare shoulder. “Dr. Hardy will need you, Berti, without doubt. Elaine hardly has the experience.” He realized what he’d said, and added, “She has two
days
experience, in fact. I’ve come to think of her as part of the medical staff.”

Bertha helped the young man don his shirt. “Keep it absolutely clean, Mr. Frye,” Thomas said. “You will do well to avoid the sort of activity that might reopen the wound. I want to see you…” He turned to Berti. “What day is this?”

“Still Saturday, Doctor.”

“Ah. Perfect. You won’t work tomorrow in any case. I want to see you on Wednesday next, then, Mr. Frye. Do not allow this to become wet, do not take off the bandage and pick at the wound.” The image of one logger who’d prematurely taken out his own stitches with a skinning knife came to mind. “Do not play with the stitches, even should they itch.”

“I can’t work with this thing on,” Frye complained, holding up the wooden splint that projected beyond his fingers.

“Indeed you can’t, unless you find one-handed work. The wound must be allowed to heal, sir. If not, we cut it off first here,” and he made a sawing motion across Frye’s wrist, “and then here,” and moved his hand to the young man’s elbow, “and finally here,” and he touched Frye’s shoulder. He frowned severely at the ghastly expression on the logger’s face. “I’m not making sport with you, Mr. Frye. Keep it clean and dry, keep it immobile, and come to see me on Wednesday. That’s simple enough. You can manage it.”
Perhaps
, Thomas thought. Buddy Huckla had managed an hour before tugging off his wrap—but scarce difference that made to him now.

“Man’s got to earn a livin’. Can’t do that sittin’ on my ass, Doc. How much is this going to cost me?”

Thomas tipped his head judiciously. “This part is ten dollars, sir. If there are no complications, that’s all it will cost. If you don’t do as I say, it may well cost you more than you ever want to pay. Amputations start at thirty. Beyond that, I don’t recall what Mr. Winchell charges. You understand my meaning?”

The logger swore, then realized Bertha Auerbach was standing at his side, and he blushed. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Where are you living, Mr. Frye?”

“Got me a camp up on Tillis Creek.”

“You and a crew?”

“I work by myself.”

“Well, good for you. That’s commendable. How did you get here tonight?”

“My mule.”

“Ride carefully going home, then. And good luck to you.” He kept a hand on Frye’s elbow as the man slid off the table. “Wednesday next.”

They watched Frye walk a bit unsteadily out of the surgery. “And don’t bother stopping at the Clarissa for a whiskey,” Thomas called after him. The man paused halfway across the waiting room. “They’re closed until further notice.”

“How’d you know I was going to do that?” Frye asked.

Thomas tapped his own skull. “I am a soothsayer, Mr. Frye. Promise me that you will go home and collapse into your own bed. You have a bottle for the pain?”

“Nope. That’s what I was going to get.”

“Then here.” Thomas stooped and opened one of the cabinet doors. He found the bottle he wanted and handed it to Frye. “It’s not bad,” he said. “Wrap yourself around it tonight.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Frye managed a smile and headed out the front door.

Thomas gazed at the tray of surgical implements wistfully. “It feels as if it’s been years since I tended something as simple as that,” Thomas said. “A few stitches, and there we are. I’m afraid our world has become one of rectal tubes and other unpleasantries.”

Bertha didn’t offer a smile. “Janie Patterson has passed, Doctor.”

He felt as if she had punched him, and he could think of nothing to say.

“She awakened, feeling cold. The last evacuation had been nearly two hours, with little gut distress. But she complained of chill, and said that her back ached terribly. We drew a hot bath, and Elaine was tending her. She simply closed her eyes and stopped breathing.”

“Elaine is with her now?”

“Yes. We lifted her out of the tub and wrapped her in clean linen…such a wisp of a thing. I don’t think the child weighed twenty-five pounds.” Bertha’s mouth pursed, and Thomas could see the lines of every muscle in her jaw. “I don’t know why, Doctor. I don’t know why she died.”

“Nor I. There must be at least a cursory post mortem to discover the answer.”

Bertha sighed. “I dread that.”

“It must be done.”

“I know, Doctor. I know. It just seems like the final insult to such a wonderful little creature.”

He reached out a hand and rested it on the nurse’s shoulder. “If it can save another wonderful little creature, it’s worth doing, Berti.”

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head in dismissal. “I agree with you completely, Thomas. It’s just so…so
sad.”
He realized with a start that this was the first time that Bertha Auerbach had addressed him by his given name.

“Indeed it is. Eleanor is aware of her passing?”

“Elaine and I told her as best we could. Poor Elaine—she is such a rock, but I fear there is so very little left of her reserve.” Bertha put a hand on either side of her head, rocking it from side to side. “And Eleanor has just gone somewhere, Thomas. I mean her thoughts have flown away, and where we don’t know. When told of her sister’s death, she simply nodded. Just a little nod. Nothing else.”

“I’ll talk with her,” Thomas said. “You’ll assist Dr. Hardy with Adelaide? If there’s a way to stop the contagion…that is what baffles us, isn’t it.” He followed her out of the room and around to the stairway. “That’s what baffles us,” he repeated. “It is as if the cholera bacilli have their sport with us.”

Half way up the stairs, they paused when they saw Eleanor Stephens appear on the landing. She was dressed in her nightgown, with a robe drawn close. Her arms were wrapped around her middle.

“You shouldn’t be up,” Berti said, but Eleanor just smiled at her and took her time with the stairs.

“Eleanor, I’d like to talk with you if I may,” Thomas said. He intentionally blocked the stairway so that the girl would have to make some sort of decision. She stopped and moved her hand to the railing.

“I must inform Pastor Patterson about Janie,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “He will want to know.”

“Of course he must know. But I don’t want you walking down there by yourself, Eleanor.”

“Am I ill?”

“I don’t…you have no gastric symptoms? None whatsoever?”

“No.”

“Gert James is with your step-father. You mean to help her with the house and church?”

“I will do what I can,” Eleanor said. She gazed at Thomas with an expression of complete resignation, as if in her mental travels during the past few hours, she’d seen something far worse than what now gripped Port McKinney, and had returned to take on the lesser of two evils.

“You’ll do what you must,” he said finally. “Might I suggest proper clothing if you’re going out?”

“Of course.”

He stepped to one side to let her pass, then hurried after Bertha, who waited for him at the top of the stairs.

“She shouldn’t be allowed to leave the clinic,” she whispered.

“How can I stop her?” Thomas said, holding out his hands. “She answers now as if all rationale has returned. She is well, I think. And after all, Berti, she is not a child. We have other matters to attend to. In a few minutes, I will walk down and check on her. And on Gert.” He hesitated. “And on Roland Patterson. Would that
his
rationale would return.”