Hurricane Nurse (16 page)

She ran into Hank at the north end of the hall.

"I thought I heard something down here," he explained. "I guess I didn't. Those boys, you know, Dusty Hosey and his crowd, have a room down here, and I don't trust those young bums not to pull the plumbing up by the roots. We've had refugees do that. During the last storm, a crowd like that unscrewed every desk from the floor. I don't know why they thought such a monotonous job would be fun, but evidently they did."

She smiled in the darkness. "Maybe it's the natural rebellion of the young against being molded into better citizens. Do you remember how you used to think when you were little that when you were grown you wouldn't make your children bathe every night before they went to bed? Or come in out of a rain when your shoes felt so delectably squishy when you wiggled your toes? I think it's something of the same kind."

Hank lifted his flashlight and studied her face. "You know, Donna, you do have some strange notions."

She felt dampened. She had thought her notion simply human. "Yes, I guess I have," she said lightly. "Mary went upstairs for the night, didn't she?"

"Last night, too," he said. "But don't think she's shunned her responsibilities. She's been wonderful with the little children. Even the mothers have said so. Mary's a wonderful girl, Donna. I'm not sure I ever appreciated her until this storm."

Donna was able to be more enthusiastic on this subject. "She is, Hank. I hope we'll be better friends after this is over. I hardly knew her before."

"I did. That's why I can't make it out," he said in a puzzled tone. "I used to be right crazy about Mary and then, for some reason I don't remember, I started going with somebody else and sort of forgot what she was like. Then when I was thrown with her again here—" He broke off as if his mind were lost in wonder.

Donna grinned, glad that it was dark enough to do so. Hank, on the subject of Mary, sounded very much like a cigarette ad that was always telling how somebody had discovered his old brand and how he'd never be led astray again. "She's a loyal, devoted sort of person," she said, hoping that she wasn't being too unsubtle.

"Well, good night, Donna," he said, and went on his appointed rounds.

Donna returned to the main hall. She would find her two chairs and surely be able to get a short nap this time. If only another child didn't wake crying with stopped-up nose and sore throat.

About halfway to her destination, she saw a man leaving the room where the card game was going on. His uneven steps and wavering flash told her that he was anything but sober. He passed her with a muttered "G'd evenin'," and disappeared behind a door on her right. Donna hoped that he had found the right door. A wrong one might bring about a real hurrah. Then she found her chair, put her feet up, sighed, and settled down.

She was on the very edge of sleep, neither conscious nor unconscious, but something of each, when she began to hear voices. Voices which grew loud, then louder. They were male and female, each inspired with fury. She resolved to do nothing about it. She wouldn't listen. She would close her ears and pretend that it was part of the storm. The man was profane. The woman was no less so. Invective was tossed back and forth. Donna learned that the husband had cashed his monthly check just before they came here for protection from the storm and that he had drunk and gambled it all away, and what was it to the woman, anyway? It was his money, wasn't it? She learned that the woman spent everything her husband gave her on extravagant groceries and then served them up in a way a hog wouldn't eat them. And a hog she was, for didn't she keep their house like a sty? And who knew who she was making eyes at when she was waiting on tables at that joint every night? Accusations were from probable to improbable to impossible.

And then there was the sound of a crash, followed by a woman's shrill scream which turned to cursing. "You get your dirty Hands off me, you low-down beast. You leave me alone, George Crandall. I won't take your beating me another time. Not once more."

The sharp sound of flesh on flesh replied. "Help! Somebody help me. He's going to kill me. Help!" the woman's voice screamed.

Doors opened. Flashlights popped out like lightning bugs on a summer evening. People crowded into the hall, milling about the door, which suddenly burst open. A half-naked woman ran screaming through it.

The man, lurching drunkenly, followed, struck her resoundingly on each cheek, then hit her with his fist, with force enough to lift her from her feet. She fell several feet away, whimpering, accusing, begging somebody, anybody, to save her from being killed.

None made a move. They only stood, their lights fixed like footlights on a theatrical scene. Hank had come running. He elbowed his way to the front row of the watching crowd. George Crandall moved menacingly on his wife, still uncertain on his feet, but his intentions clear.

Hank stepped in front of the cowering woman. George clenched his fists and swung, first with one hand and then with the other, missing his target, almost throwing himself from his feet. Hank moved closer and sent a blow against the other man's chin with all his might. George crumpled. Something like a snore issued from his loose lips.

Hank was entirely unprepared for what happened next. The frightened Mrs. Crandall turned in a wink from a frightened victim to a virago. She wrenched a heavy flashlight from a woman who stood beside her and swung, catching Hank on the crown of his head. Once, twice. The school principal fell over her recumbent husband.

"I'll teach you to pick on my husband!" Mrs. Crandall shouted at him.

Donna had not meant to be drawn into the curious crowd, but she was there, hand over her mouth, her eyes big with horror. She did not move to Hank's side. It remained for Mary to push through and kneel beside him. Mary's hands trembled, but they were gentle as they touched the bloody mess that was the top of his head. What she said was indistinguishable, but its intent was plain. Those agonized murmurs were love.

Cliff spoke at Donna's elbow. "If you want that guy, you'd better move in quick. A man may be crazy about a beauty or admire brains, but it's sympathy that gets him."

Donna stammered. "B-but he wasn't trying to save her. I don't understand it."

"Don't ask me to explain the curious workings of the female mind, Donna. I can't. But I learned a long time ago not to interfere in a family fight. The outsider comes out at the little end of the horn every time."

"But Mary was asleep upstairs. How did she get here?"

Cliff laughed. "It's time for daylight and I think there's something like tattletale gray outside, dark as it is in here. It's my guess she was simply getting up for breakfast."

"Do you think the storm will be over today? Do you think we can go home?" Donna asked.

"This afternoon, I'd guess," Cliff told her.

She shrugged. "I'd better get my bag. I've still got some bandage, and Mary may want help in binding up Hank's head."

It was nearly eight o'clock, and the day was even darker than the one before. The rooms had a thick twilight, but in the hall it was wise to continue to use the flashlights. Donna went close to the front door and listened, as if her ear could actually measure the difference in sound from the day before. Finally she shook her head in admission that she couldn't.

Cliff came down the stairs just then. He and Mary had helped Hank up to the teachers' room, where he had been ordered to rest against possible concussion. Mary would shortly bring him breakfast.

"Is it ever going to let up, or are we stuck here for the rest of our natural lives?" There was a shade of irritability in Donna's voice.

Cliff came to her and put his arm about her shoulders. Without conscious intent, she sagged against him. Every muscle in her body ached and her eyes felt as if someone had thrown a handful of grit into each. She sighed.

"Poor baby," Cliff murmured. "You've had only about three hours' sleep in—forty hours?"

"Longer than that," she decided after a moment for consideration. "I was up at six-thirty day before yesterday and came to school. But you'll have to figure out how long that is; I never was good at math even when I was awake."

"Why don't you go up to the upstairs teachers' room, too?" Cliff suggested. "You're dead on your feet, and three makes a chaperone."

"I can't. I couldn't sleep." She rubbed her eyes and straightened up again. "I'm worried about these sick children. If one of them were to die, I'd feel—"

"—responsible," he broke in. "And you shouldn't. You've done everything you could. Even if you were a doctor, some of your patients would die. You can't take everything on your shoulders."

"I can at least go around and take their temperatures again." Then, remembering, she changed her mind. "No, I can't even do that. I can't sterilize the thermometer." She burst into exhausted tears.

Cliff offered her his handkerchief. "You've earned a rest. Get some sleep if you can. Only, I think we might eat first."

She raised a tear-wet face with an embarrassed smile. "That might help. I'm not usually such a crybaby. All the food is in my office, and we've turned that into an infirmary."

He puzzled about that problem for a moment. "Suppose you go in there and put what we'll be using for breakfast into a box and we'll take it upstairs and have breakfast with Hank and Mary? Okay?"

She held out his handkerchief to him. "Very okay. I won't be a minute."

But she was wrong there.

Seven-year-old Lurline Worth was vomiting, her mother holding her head and a pan. This was something new in the way of symptoms, and Donna paused, frowning over what it might portend. As she had kept reminding herself, there really wasn't anything she could do to make even those not affected by nausea more comfortable, since water and aspirin were beyond her. Still, she was moved by the whimpering of young Sammy and paused beside his cot to put her hand on his forehead. The room was still half-dark and she almost missed the most startling thing about the young man. It was the fact that his forehead was rough, as well as hot, that made her look more closely.

The rough feel of his skin wasn't its only phenomenon. It was scarlet. Donna drew a deep breath and looked again. Bumpy and scarlet! She went to the window and raised the Venetian blinds which hadn't been closed. The light wasn't much increased, but a little more of it filtered into the room. Donna took the small boy into her arms and carried him to the window. Her eyes studied the thin little face carefully. Slowly, she grinned.

"Mrs. Worth," she began, "have you looked at Sammy recently?"

Mrs. Worth was impatient. "With Lurline sick like this? Besides, the whole place is dark. Has something new happened to him?" She sounded hopeless.

"I'd stake my reputation as a nurse that measles has happened to him." Donna chuckled. "He's all broken out. Very pink bumps. I guess that's what's the matter with all the children."

Mrs. Worth groaned. "Not all of them. A lot haven't got it yet, but they will have. They were all playing together that first night. Some of that crowd that have nearly danced their heads off were around with the little ones, too. We're going to have a real epidemic around here, see if we don't." She wiped Lurline's mouth with a dampened cloth and laid her gently down.

Donna was more serious now. "I know. It's bad enough. But I didn't know what was the matter with them, and measles is about the last thing I thought about. I must say, I'm relieved. I think I'll go along and see if any of the others have broken out."

By midmorning, nearly all the sick had taken on a rosy hue and five more showed symptoms that the others had had earlier. Donna was busy, but no longer distressed.

She was just leaving one of the newly ill when she ran into Dusty Hosey in the dusky corridor. "Sorry, Miss Ledbury," he said. "I didn't see you."

She laughed. "You were lost in your thoughts, a million miles from here. A penny for them?" She made a show of hunting in her pocket for the penny.

He did not meet her mood. "No'm, Miss Ledbury. My thoughts was right here at Flamingo." He looked as if he might go on his way without saying anything else.

"If there's anything I can help with, Dusty, I'm willing," she offered. "I don't know whether a woman—"

"No'm. It's man's business, and maybe too big for me. That's what I'm tryin' to figure out. It's my gang, an' I got to do somethin' about them before — Well, it's my business because it's my gang, see?"

She nodded solemnly, not because she saw, but because something was evidently worrying the boy. She fixed her eyes on his face, saying nothing.

Almost at once, he went on again. "You reckon Mr. Warrender'd listen to me an' not think it was my gang's fault? I don't want them landin' in jail."

Donna hoped with all her heart that she was saying the right thing. "He didn't land you in jail that time you stole the car, did he? And the way you told it to me, that was your fault."

"No'm, it wasn't. Not exactly, anyhow. Seemed like I just had to drive that car. Like I couldn't help myself. Like something taken over and made me do it. Mr. Warrender, he seen that. Maybe—" He stood rubbing his chin and thinking deeply, a frown between his brows. "Yeah, I got to tell somebody. Might as well be Mr. Warrender, I reckon. Mr. Fincher's a nice man, but he's one of them that sees ever'thing right or wrong. And you know what, Miss Ledbury? Round here where Mr. Warrender used to live they ain't many things like that. Most things are sort of in the middle. You see?"

"I see. Mr. Warrender's—"

But Cliff joined them before Donna could tell the boy where he was.

"Did I hear somebody taking my name in vain?" he asked, his eyes twinkling. "It isn't nice to talk about a man behind his back, Miss L." Then, seeing how solemn their faces remained, he grew serious, too. "Sorry. I don't seem to have hit the right note. What's the trouble now?"

Dusty opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He cleared his throat and stared at his feet. He twined his fingers and cracked his knuckles.

Donna once again rushed in where no wise woman would have dared. "Would telling you about something be—I believe the term is splitting to the police? I think that's what Dusty's trying to ask you."