Gap Creek (2 page)

“What can we do to bring his fever down?” Papa said.

“We can rub him in alcohol,” Mama said. We stripped the clothes off Masenier and rubbed him all over with alcohol. The room was filled with fumes and you would have thought it would freeze him to death. But after all that sponging he was hot as ever.

“I’ve heard you’re supposed to wrap up a body that has the fever,” Lou said.

“He’s been wrapped up all day,” Rosie said.

“There’s nothing else to do but bathe him in cold water,” Papa said.

I went down to the spring and got a bucket of fresh water. It was a cool night with a full moon, and the water was near freezing. “This is liable to give him pneumony,” I said.

“If we can’t bring it down the fever’ll cook his brain,” Mama said.

Now I’ve heard that somebody in a high fever sees visions and speaks wisdom. I’ve heard you’re supposed to gather round a fever patient to hear a message from heaven. But while we peeled Masenier’s clothes off and bathed him in cold water, he didn’t say a thing that made sense. When we put him in the tub of cold water he screamed, “It’s the haints with no eyes!” That’s all he talked about, haints with no eyes.

“There’s no haints,” Mama said to him. “There’s nothing here but
us.” But it didn’t do no good. He kept his eyes wide open and jabbered on about what he could see.

It scares you when a fever keeps going up. It’s like watching somebody slide toward a brink and you can’t stop them. Masenier was so hot it burned your hand to touch him.

“We’ve got to make him sweat,” Mama said.

“How do you make him sweat?” Papa said.

“By wrapping him in quilts and putting pans of hot water under his bed,” Mama said.

“That’ll just make him hotter,” Papa said.

“Sweating’s the only thing that’ll cool him off,” Mama said.

We got nigh every blanket in the house and piled them on Masenier. And we heated kettles of water on the stove and in the fireplace and poured boiling water in pans, which we slid under the bed. It got so hot in the house we was all sweating. I lifted the covers and looked at Masenier. It was like his skin had closed tight and he couldn’t sweat.

“He’s going to die if we don’t do something,” Papa said.

“What else can we do?” Mama said.

“We can make him drink hot lemon tea,” Papa said.

Rosie and me squeezed some lemon juice into hot water and they tried to make Masenier drink a cup of that. But he wouldn’t wake up enough to drink anything. His eyes was closed and he wouldn’t rouse.

“Drink some of this, darling,” Mama said and patted his cheek.

“Maybe he should drink something cold,” Papa said.

“I don’t think he can drink anything,” Mama said. She held the cup to Masenier’s mouth, but his lips was closed.

“If we was to pour it down his throat he might strangle,” Papa said.

It got to be midnight and Papa wound up the clock on the mantel. As he turned the key he looked at Masenier, and you could tell
how worried he was. Papa was still weak hisself from the lung sickness. “I’ll carry him to the doctor,” Papa said.

“You can’t carry him to the doctor in the middle of the night,” Mama said.

“I’ll carry him down the mountain, and Julie can hold the lantern,” Papa said. Papa always did depend on me when he needed something. If there was a hard job to be done, it just had to be me that done it. I didn’t know but what Masenier had a catching sickness. I was near about afraid to touch him.

“Why does it have to be me?” I said.

“Because you’re the strongest one in the family,” Mama said. “And because everybody has to do what they can.” Mama always did know how to make me ashamed when I tried to get out of a job.

“All right, I’ll do it,” I said, as I always did when they expected me to do something they didn’t want to do.

IT WAS A cold, clear night with the moon shining when we started out. We didn’t even need the kerosene lantern in open places, but I lit the wick anyway and carried it like a pail of light down the path in front of Papa. He toted Masenier on his right shoulder wrapped in a blanket. Sometimes Masenier groaned, but he was so asleep he didn’t know what was happening.

When we got to the woods we needed the lantern, and in the hollers where the moon didn’t reach it was black as a Bible. The woods smelled different at night, and I kept thinking as we picked our way down the trail how I could smell rotten leaves and water in the branch. And I thought how it was almost time to find sprouted chestnuts, where they fell in the fall and got covered with leaves and was beginning to sprout now. Nothing is sweeter than a sprouted chestnut. It cheered me up a little to think of chestnuts.

I heard a dog bark somewhere off in the woods near the Jeter
place. And then something up on the mountain squalled, like a person in terrible pain.

“What is that?” I said.

“Nothing but a wildcat,” Papa said.

The scream come again, this time closer. “Must be following us,” I said.

“Just a wildcat,” Papa said, and I could tell from his voice he was nigh out of breath.

“Here, I’ll carry Masenier,” I said.

“You carry the lantern,” Papa said. “I’m all right.”

But Papa was winded. He was ashamed to admit it, but he was winded.

“Won’t do Masenier no good if you get wore out,” I said.

“I can carry him,” Papa said. He kept walking a little further, too stubborn to admit he was tired, and then he had to stop to catch his breath.

“Here, let me take him,” I said. I set the lantern down on the trail and turned and took Masenier from Papa. Papa was so weak his arms trembled when he handed the boy to me. Masenier didn’t feel all that heavy, except he was limp as a sack of flour. I was afraid to touch him, but didn’t have any choice. I slung him up against my shoulder and followed Papa down the trail. It took us over an hour to make it down the mountain.

DR. PRINCE LIVED in one of the big houses down in Flat Rock. He was the son of the old Judge Prince that had founded Flat Rock, and he lived part of the year in Charleston and part in the mountains. And when he was in Flat Rock he doctored the mountain folks same as the Flat Rock people. Sometimes he rode his horse with a doctor bag slung behind the saddle out on the ridges and to the far coves beyond Pinnacle.

I knowed the doctor had a big cur dog that he kept in a fence in front of his house. Everybody had seen the cur dog. I didn’t know what we would do when we got close to the house, for the dog was supposed to be mean.

Though Masenier had not felt heavy when I took him on my shoulder, his little body got weightier and weightier as I stumbled down the trail. It was like somebody was adding pounds to him the further we went. I stiffened my back and locked my arm around him and followed Papa swinging the lantern. I was still mad that I had to carry him and that give me more strength.

When we come out of the woods into the open country around Flat Rock, the moonlight was so bright it seemed like day. I could almost see the green in the grass along the creek and the windows of houses made you think there was lights inside them. Dew on the fields sparkled like beads. I was so tired my arms ached and my legs trembled by the time we got to the gate of Dr. Prince’s house.

Sure enough, the dog set up a growl and a bark. He come running from the porch and stood behind the gate snarling. He would have eat up anybody that come through that gate.

“You holler for the doctor,” Papa said.

“Let me catch my breath,” I said, and shifted Masenier to my left shoulder and called out, “Dr. Prince!”

The dog set up an even bigger fuss. And I heard a noise in the house.

“Hey, Dr. Prince!” I shouted.

A light was lit somewhere inside the house and a door opened. “Who is there?” a voice called.

“This is Julie Harmon and her papa. Masenier is bad sick.”

“Is he with you?” the voice called.

“We carried him down the mountain,” I said.

The doctor called the dog back and held him on the porch
while we climbed the steps and went inside. The cur growled as we passed him. It was a big fancy house with high ceilings and lots of mirrors and lamps. The doctor led us into his study, which was lined with books. Rich folks’ houses always smell like toilet water and some kind of soap.

We laid Masenier on the table in the middle of the room and Dr. Prince brought a bright lamp over and looked at him. Dr. Prince had a big mustache like the German Bismarck. He pulled the blanket back and felt of Masenier’s pulse. “How long has he had the fever?” he said.

“He got hot two nights ago,” Papa said.

Dr. Prince bent down and sniffed Masenier’s breath and listened to his heart. “Could he have milksick?” the doctor said.

“Too early for milksick,” Papa said.

“Then it must be typhoid,” the doctor said.

I was going to say hadn’t nobody else on the mountain had typhoid, but I didn’t. Who was I to argue with Dr. Prince?

Dr. Prince went to a shelf and got a bottle of something that looked like reddish syrup. “Let’s give him a dram of this,” he said.

I had to hold Masenier’s head up and Papa pried his mouth open with his fingers. But I don’t think Masenier knowed what was happening when the doctor poured the spoon of syrup in his mouth. Some dribbled out of the corners of his mouth, but I guess a little went down his throat. Masenier was too deep asleep to know the difference.

“You’ll have to watch him closely,” the doctor said and handed Papa the bottle of syrup. “Every fever is different.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have no money,” Papa said.

“You can pay me later,” Dr. Prince said. It was the way the doctor said it so quick that told us he was rich and didn’t need our money.

“I’ll bring you a dollar soon as I sell some chickens,” Papa said.

“That will be fine,” Dr. Prince said. He showed us to the door and held the big cur dog by the collar while we walked to the gate. I never did see any of the doctor’s servants.

I know Papa was tired before we ever started back up the mountain. I was wore out myself in my legs and in my back, and my arms was sore. We had four miles to walk still, and they was up the mountain.

“Let me carry Masenier,” I said.

“We’ll take turns,” Papa said.

“I should carry him now on the flat ground,” I said. “And you can carry him when the trail gets steep.”

“We’ll both get wore out,” Papa said.

“I can rest while you’re carrying him,” I said. I took Masenier from Papa. The boy was dead asleep. His head laid on my shoulder. I prayed, Lord, let us get Masenier home. Don’t let him die out here on the trail in the damp night air. I had never prayed with such a will.

It was the prettiest night you ever saw, with the moonlight slanting on the creek and dew sparkling in the grass. The mountains rose like shadows ahead of us. It must have been three o’clock in the morning, and the mountains was so still and peaceful you would have thought the Millennium had come and all our trials was over. It was the first time I ever noticed how the way the world looks don’t have a thing to do with what’s going on with people.

I locked my arm around Masenier like I never meant to let go, and I stomped the ground hard to make my steps firm. If I had to carry him all the way up the mountain, I could. I was determined to get this over and done with. There was strength in me I had never called on, and this might be the time I had to use it.

Papa lit the lantern when we got to the woods and started climbing. It was so still I could hear our breath and the flutter of flame in the lantern. Sometimes a twig or an acorn dripped off the trees. I had never seen the woods that quiet. There wasn’t even a dog barking
anywhere, and the wildcat must have found its mate, for I didn’t hear any more squalling.

When you make extra effort a numbness sets in, like your legs are walking on their own and you’re not willing them to. But as I kept going a throbbing started in my back, and every step hurt, like I had cramps in my back and arms.

“Want me to take him?” Papa said after we had gone maybe a mile.

“I’ll take him a little further,” I said. I figured if I could get to the bench on the mountain where Riley’s spring was we could rest and give Masenier a drink of cold water. Then Papa and me could take turns carrying him the rest of the way up the mountain.

“You are going the extra mile,” Papa said.

The extra four miles, I thought, but didn’t say it. When you are straining you have a short temper and a sharp tongue. Mama liked to say, “It weakens you to feel proud of yourself.” Better use your breath to fight against the trail, to fight against the mountain, I told myself.

We had got a little further up the trail, up to where the beds of moss growed below the laurel thicket, when I felt Masenier stiffen in my arms. I thought he must be waking up and stretching, that the syrup the doctor had give him was having a good effect. But his back arched too stiff and fast. “Are you awake, little feller?” I said. I started to pat his back, but felt his whole body stirring.

“Is he awake?” Papa said.

“Must be,” I said, for Masenier was twisting in my arms like a baby that will jump even while you’re holding it. But there was something wrong, because the stirring continued, and his back kept jerking. “Hold the light here,” I said to Papa.

Papa brought the lantern up close and the first thing I saw was Masenier’s face. His eyes was open like he had seen something terrible and his mouth was drawed back in a scream, but no sound
come out except the gnashing of his teeth. He looked like he had seen the awfullest thing and it had scared him to death.

“Is he dying?” I said.

“He’s having a fit,” Papa said.

Masenier’s feet was kicking now and his whole body heaving. I didn’t know what to do. Should I lay him down? Or hurry on up the trail toward home? Should we turn and go back down the trail to the doctor’s house?

“Put him down here,” Papa said, and held the lantern over a bank of moss beside the trail. I knelt down and laid Masenier on the ground, and it was the worst sight to see him twist and kick with both legs. I’d never seen anybody have fits before.

“What can we do?” I said and held his head off the cold moss. I felt helpless. It was like the night was crushing down on top of me.