Mercy Me (12 page)

I slowed down. “Aren't we going to your place?”

He just grunted.

It wasn't much of a road, only two good ruts. It looked to be the same road Clara took by mistake the day we brought stew beef and rice to Elijah. I remembered now how we rocked along in them ruts until we landed alongside the railroad trestle above Elijah's place. That's where we first saw those little children.

“Something happened to them kids?” I asked Elijah.

He shook his head.

In a few minutes we pulled up alongside the siding with the boxcar on it. “Stop right here, Missy,” Elijah said, so I did. Those three children were all sitting in the open door of the boxcar, eating Vienna sausage out of the can. As soon as they saw Elijah, they scrambled down and came running to the car. Elijah got out and picked up the little girl. By the time I got out the car, the boys had wrapped their arms around his legs and didn't look like they would let go anytime soon. Elijah looked back at me and motioned with his head.

I followed him to the boxcar. He put down the little girl and disengaged himself from the boys. “She's in here,” he said.

“She?”

Elijah grabbed hold of the side of the door opening, swung up, and reached a hand down to me. The boxcar was dark, and I couldn't see nothing for a minute or two. Then I made out what looked like a pile of rags in the corner.

“This lady is real sick, Missy. I'm scairt she's a-fixin' to die.”

“Who is she, Elijah?”

He didn't say, but it was plain to me she was the mother of those little children.

“What's her name?”

“I dunno, Missy.”

I felt her forehead; it was hot as blue blazes. I tried to wake her up. “Lady? Lady?” But she kept right on breathing shallow and sleeping. I lifted one of her eyelids, and that eyeball looked like glass. Then I felt for her pulse
but couldn't find it. Upon my word, her wrist was no bigger around than a broomstick.

“We got to get this girl to emergency quick as we can.” I looked up at him. “Who is she?”

“I don't rightly know, Missy. Them's her chillun.”

I had gathered that much, but I figured this was not the time to find out all I wanted to know. We had to get moving!

“Elijah, help me get her to the car.”

With so little meat on her bones, she was light as a feather. While I climbed down out the boxcar, Elijah held her in his arms, then lowered her down to me. In the daylight she looked like somebody out of one of them concentration camps, her eyes sunk back in her head, her lips drawn back over her teeth. She was a young woman, but the sickness aged her in the face. And all that lifting and carrying her to the car didn't rouse her one bit.

We managed to lay her down in the backseat. “The children can ride up front,” I said, and we piled in. Elijah put the oldest boy in the middle and the other two children on his knees. None of them were old enough to go to school. I figured she must've had one baby right after the other.

As we eased down the rutted road, my mind was racing. The nearest hospital was twenty miles away in Carson City. We'd have to drive like crazy to get there. The woman would not have insurance—I didn't even have a name to give them at the desk. Without some kind of ID, medical information and such, the hospital would
never admit her.
That is, if we make it to the hospital in time. We could lose this girl before we get to there.

I looked back to see if she was still breathing. She was. Then I looked at the children. They were dark skinned and had black eyes—just about the prettiest little things I ever seen. The youngest of the three, the girl, was nestled against Elijah's right arm, sucking her thumb, and the boys were teasing each other. Elijah laid his hand on one boy's head, and the teasing stopped.

Once we got down the dirt road and turned onto the highway, I gunned it! Believe you me, I pressed the pedal to the metal, and we were flying with me leaning on the horn passing every car, truck, and vehicle on the road. I was thinking,
Lord, I hope Dr. Elsie is making rounds in the hospital when we get there.

As we were coming into Carson City, I had to slow down for an intersection. I glanced back and could see the woman was still alive. “Elijah, tell me what you know about this situation.”

He waited until the light changed and I was weaving in and out of the traffic before he answered. “Well, Missy, they just straggled along that trestle one day, this young lady and her little'uns. Found that old boxcar and set up in it.”

“Where's the daddy?”

“I never seen a man about.”

“You don't know her name?”

“No'm. Don't none of them speak English.”

“Must be Mexicans. Was she working in town before she got sick?”

Elijah took so long to answer, I thought he didn't hear me.

“I say, did she work in town before she got sick?”

“I reckon she did,” he said and clammed up so as to discourage me from asking anything more. But I had to know.

“What do you mean, you reckon she did?” I asked.

“Well, Missy, she worked nights.”

“At night? Where?”

Elijah turned his face away from me toward the window.

“You say she worked at night, Elijah?” I pressed.

“Well, Missy, before she got down sick, of an evening, after the chillun were asleep, she'd slip out and be gone till almost daylight.”

That's all I needed to know. The woman laying on my backseat was none other than that streetwalker!

“She'd leave those children up there all by theirselves?”

“She knew I was close by. I looked in on them from time to time.”

We were getting near the hospital. “I guess she slept all day?”

“No'm. She didn't sleep a lot. Stayed awake as long as she could lookin' after the chillun, but here lately she's been so sick, they been playin' around my place.”

When we pulled up at the emergency entrance, I hopped out of the car and went in to get a wheelchair. An orderly and a nurse were dispatched to bring in the patient, while I stood at the desk to fill in the papers.

I had to make up a name. The only Spanish name I could think of was Carmen Miranda, so I wrote that and gave her age as twenty-three.
What difference does it make?
I thought. I didn't have time to answer a lot of questions.

“Does she have Blue Cross?” a big fat nurse asked me.

“I can't tell you that, and the patient's too sick to say, but don't worry about the bill, it'll be paid. Just get Dr. Elsie in here quick as you can. I got to make a call.”

An orderly and the other nurse had rolled the wheelchair inside and were lifting that poor sick girl onto a gurney. I glanced out the door to see if Elijah and the children were okay, and they were. He had them sitting on a bench. Looked like he was entertaining them with a piece of string, making a cat's cradle or something. I knew I would have to move the car directly, but right then I had to get in touch with Pastor Osborne.

The phone rang until the answering machine came on. I hate them things! I left a message, then called Clara.

“Clara, this is Esmeralda. We got a sick woman over here at the Carson City General emergency room. I want you to put her on the prayer chain right away. I got no time for questions, just get her on the list. . . . What's her name? I don't know, but she's the mother of them three children we saw on the tracks. I got to go now. I got to hang up.”

The next call I made was to the Spanish teacher, Lucy Mangrum. I figured that if this sick woman became conscious, we might get some information if we had an interpreter. Quickly I explained the situation, and Lucy said
she'd come right over. But I told her to wait until she heard from me again.

As soon as I hung up the phone, it came to me that Lucy ought to be at the hospital right away. If Carmen woke up, she might not stay awake but a few minutes, and we'd lose the chance to find out what we needed to know. But I couldn't call her back—the security guard was looking in the door to see whose car was parked at the entrance. I started walking over to move it.

Well, I changed my mind again—I didn't much care if I got a ticket. I had to check on Carmen, who was still laying on the gurney. I felt her face—it was dry as a bone. “Nurse!” I yelled. “Get an IV going here. This woman is plum dried out!”

Seeing the big fat one was getting off her chair to see about it, I headed for the door. She called after me. “Who is this Carmen Miranda?”

I stopped, leaned against the door, and looked back at her like she was the dumbest person on the planet. “You don't know who Carmen Miranda is?” I shook my head in disbelief. “Honey, Carmen Miranda is the most famous singer and dancer in the whole U.S. of A.!”

With eyes wide as saucers, that nurse turned to the other nurse, all excited. “Do you know who this patient is? She's Carmen Miranda!”

I was out the door.

By the time I found a parking place and got Cokes out of the vending machine for the children, Pastor Osborne had driven up. He hurried toward me, and we stood outside a few minutes while I filled him in on the situation.
Before he went inside, he spoke to Elijah and gave the children some gum.

Dr. Elsie must've been in the hospital when they paged her, because when we walked in, she was already beside the gurney, her stethoscope on the woman's chest. Seeing us, she put the stethoscope in her pocket and motioned us over as she called to one of the nurses, “See if you can find a room for this patient.”

Fat as she was, that nurse fairly skipped to the phone. “Yes, ma'am, I'll get her a room right away,” she said with stars in her eyes over having a celebrity for a patient.

Dr. Elsie reached down to read the name on the armband. “Carmen Miranda,” she murmured. “Hmm.”

“Carmen who?” Pastor Osborne asked.

He got no answer from either of us, and I was sure as shooting hoping he was too young to know who Carmen Miranda was.

Dr. Elsie scribbled orders and handed them across the desk, then turned to Pastor Osborne and me.

The doctor is a woman of few words. She told us that until they ran tests, she could not determine what was wrong with the patient. “This elevation of temperature we may be able to bring down, but the illness is not something that has come on her suddenly. Whatever it is, this woman has been sick for some time. Her lungs are in bad shape, and she's as dry as a bone. We can do something about dehydration, but if it is as serious as I think it is, she's too far gone for help.”

My voice trembled a little. “Dr. Elsie, she has three little children . . .”

“Three children?”

“Three, two boys and a girl. The girl is about three years old, I'd say, and the boys are maybe four and five.”

Dr. Elsie looked grim. “Where are they?”

“Outside with Elijah.”

The nurse put down the phone and turned to us. “As soon as we can move a patient, Dr. Elsie, we'll have a private room for Miss Miranda.” She was so pleased with herself, she looked like she might sprout wings. “Three nineteen, third floor,” she said. “That's a corner room with windows on two sides—the best room in the hospital, I believe.”

She had hardly finished telling us this when the room became available. The two nurses must've argued over which one would go with Carmen, because I heard the one with the weight problem say, “Well, I made the call!” She must've been the winner. The orderly started rolling the gurney toward the elevator, and she chased after him.

As the gurney rattled down the hall, Dr. Elsie asked Pastor Osborne to come to her office so we could pray.

As always, that man knew exactly how to pray—not like he was delivering a professional duty but like he was an awestruck man full of worship. He addressed the Great Physician and thanked him for whatever he was going to do for Carmen. Then he prayed for Dr. Elsie to be given good judgment and for me and Elijah to know how to help and have the strength to do it. Then he prayed so tenderly for those three little children, I had to squeeze back tears.

When he was done praying, I could see his eyes were watery too. Dr. Elsie reached up and patted him on the shoulder. “There's nothing more you and Esmeralda can
do here right now. You need to go take care of those little ones. I'll walk you to the door.”

Seeing the children all curled up on the bench with Elijah, Dr. Elsie shook her head. “It doesn't look good, Esmeralda. We'll know something in a day or two. We'll do everything we can for . . . for Carmen Miranda.”

That's the only time I ever saw Dr. Elsie wink.

14

After seeing to Carmen, the next thing we had to do was find a place for the children. That wasn't hard—Pastor Osborne said he would take them home with him. I knew this would tickle Betty Osborne to death.

I helped Elijah put the kids in the backseat of the pastor's car. Then Elijah crawled in the front seat while I held the door open. “Pastor Osborne will take you home, Elijah.”