“This is the take-out for kayaks. We have one for you, down by the water. You’ll be safe. Guard Soldiers will follow you, but not too closely. You need this, Rachel.”
“Is this ‘physician heal thyself?’”
“No, it’s ‘you can’t take care of the rest of us if you don’t take care of yourself.’ You have always done your best thinking on the water, my love, so get out there and think.”
The river was muddy and slow moving. The sky shown a pinkish light. The chocolate colored water sloshed lazily against Rachel’s kayak. The familiar feeling of being carried made Rachel’s eyes water with relief. In all these weeks, she had not cried, not for the victims nor out of sheer frustration. When this is over, she promised herself, I’ll flood this river with my tears. Now, it was time to let the rhythm of the waves relax her and the sound of the wind in the old cottonwood trees sweep through her mind.
At 5:30 the next morning, Osborne sprang up in his bed. The night before, he set his cell phone volume at its highest level and put it under his pillow. He checked the number. It was Rachel.
“Good morning, doctor. I saw you last night … .”
“Never mind. Eva had a little house somewhere. I was in it when I was a little girl, after my father’s plane crashed.”
“OK. Yeah, she had a place she did healing ceremonies out in the canyon. Calvin called it her medicine house. I don’t know if it’s still there. The foundation, maybe.”
“Take me there.”
“OK, get me through the guards at your building, and I’ll be there in half-an-hour.”
“Look out your window. Put on some pants, and get out here. I’ve got coffee.”
Osborne was glad to borrow the National Guard’s Jeep. He was still driving the rented Camry.
“How did you get away?” Osborne asked.
Rachel patted the dash of the Jeep. “GPS. Ever hear of it? We are also being followed by a helicopter up there, somewhere.”
“Sweet. Hang on, honey. We’re going way off the beaten path.”
Rachel thought Osborne was enjoying the trip too much. Everything was an adventure to him. He treated his scholarship, his relationships, and even the pandemic as part of a big action film, in which he was the handsome star. What was that, Rachel wondered. Immaturity? Or was it a deeper wisdom that all of life was a game on some giant cosmic screen? Rachel rejected that idea as too sophisticated for Osborne. He was an adolescent, invincible, and insatiably curious.
The sun was still low when they reached Eva’s canyon. On the opposite side of the cliffs, the canyon was in shadows. Osborne walked slowly through the scrub, until he found a circle of pounded earth, surrounded by a broken orb of rocks. Rachel looked up toward the cliffs from where Eva’s medicine house stood. She had definitely been here before.
“This is it,” Rachel said. “Now, you go back to the Jeep. Stay inside, and I’ll see you back there in a little while.”
Osborne was disappointed. Whatever Rachel had in mind to do out here, he wanted to be part of it.
“Go!”
Rachel gathered up a few of the fallen stones and set them back on top of each other. She was nervous but focused. Seating herself on the beaten earth, she opened her backpack. She removed a thick, black plastic bag with the red symbol indicating biohazard. She opened the bag with a pocket knife and removed one of Eva’s small pots. It still held some of the sand and dirt from when Rachel removed it from the caves above the place where she now sat. Rachel held the bowl under her chin and inhaled deeply. She picked up a pinch of the dirt and placed it in the open palm of her other hand. The wind blew it behind her. She breathed deeply. If the answer to the virus was in her, Rachel would coax it out by infecting herself as Eva had done long ago.
All Rachel’s faith was in the kachina now. Eva saved her once before in this place. Rachel was certain that the message of the kachina was that she would be saved, again. She felt no fear, as she breathed deeply the air of the ancient canyon. Is it still a sacrifice when the one giving herself is certain that she will be saved? Rachel let the rhythm of her breathing relax her. Deep in her lungs, the virus became part of her.
The sun was centered over the canyon when Rachel returned to Osborne in the Jeep. They drove back to Albuquerque in silence. Osborne was aware that something profound happened, but he did not ask Rachel about her experience in Eva’s little hovel. Rachel was becoming spooky and serious, like Eva. By the time he dropped Rachel back at the Basic Medical Science building, Osborne made up his mind. When this pandemic thing was over, he would get back to his digs, to his undergraduate students, and to the happy life of a brilliant under-achiever.
Chapter Forty-Two
Rachel stood outside the Basic Medical Science building and stretched her arms over her head. Her hamstrings felt like she’d been running, but she knew it was just from riding in the Jeep. The evening air was chilly; soon, it would be cold. She wanted to stay outside another minute or two, to let the brisk air blow through her hair.
Just as Rachel talked herself into turning to enter the building, a black Grand Cherokee pulled up opposite where she stood. The SUV crossed over to the left side of the street to be next to the curb. If there had been any traffic moving, the SUV would have been headed in the wrong direction.
Rachel’s peripheral vision caught the movement of one of the building guards stepping forward. Rachel stared at the dark tinted glass of the driver’s side window, unable to see the faces of the people inside. They could see her clearly, of course. They had been watching her and following her since she arrived. She wasn’t afraid, any more, especially not with armed National Guard soldiers at her back. She was angry, though. Rachel stepped toward the curb and waited for the window to descend.
The jowly driver of the Grand Cherokee glared at Rachel and said nothing. He sat patiently, matching Rachel’s steely stare from under his bushy eyebrows, waiting for her to make her first move.
“What do you want?” Rachel demanded through clenched teeth.
The driver surveyed the armed National Guard soldiers surrounding the hospital and within a few yards distance of Rachel. “We can’t leave because of the quarantine. You shouldn’t leave the city either. The canyon isn’t safe for city dwellers. There are snakes and spiders, and rock falls.” He sliced his eyes toward Rachel and gauged her nerve. “Lots of bad things can happen out here.”
“Have you been following me?”
“Stay away from Eva Yellow Horn, too. They say she has strong medicine. Not your kind of medicine. She has powers.”
“Who are you and why are you following me?” Rachel’s knees began to tremble.
The driver did not answer. Rachel stepped back away from the curb. One of the Guard Soldiers stepped in front of her just as the driver sped away.
“What did he want?” asked the soldier.
“He wanted to scare me.” Rachel said. “He succeeded.”
“I’ll put someone out here on the sidewalk. If he comes around again, we’ll snatch him up and put him in jail.”
“I hope you can.”
“We’re under martial law here, doctor. We can do anything we want.”
“Tell him, please,” Rachel said as she pointed toward the vanishing SUV.
She shivered and walked back inside.
Chapter Forty-Three
Rachel felt a weight on her chest, and she awoke startled. She was instantly aware that she could not move. She was being crushed. She opened her mouth, but her throat would not open to admit any air. She gulped air like biting food suspended in front of her mouth, but her throat would not open and admit the air into her lungs. Her chest began to burn. Her eyes widened. She gasped, still trying to fill her mouth with air. Maybe, with enough air in her mouth, her throat would be forced open. She kicked her legs. Maybe, movement in another part of her body would open her throat so she could breathe. She tr
ied to talk and scream. Maybe, that was the way to open her throat.
In the top of her vision, Rachel saw blackness. The darkness was lowering like a curtain coming down on players at the end of a show. She kicked her feet, against what? Nothing would open her throat and allow air to enter her lungs. Her chest was burning. Rachel felt she would die any second. She tried coughing to dislodge whatever was holding her throat closed. Nothing moved. The dark curtain continued its descent.
Finally, Rachel’s body went limp. Her legs stopped kicking. The burning in her chest cooled instantly. She felt herself moving up, as if hands were lifting her toward the ceiling of the room, which was right before her eyes. She could see into the tiny holes of the acoustic tile. Then, Rachel turned and looked below her. A woman stood behind the head of someone lying on a narrow bed. The woman was bent over the body.
Suddenly, the burning in Rachel’s chest ignited again. Her body shuddered as wind blew into her lungs. Her throat felt stretched, and her head throbbed with pain as blood rushed toward her face. Rachel’s chest relaxed. Her diaphragm pushed hard against her lungs. Then another rush of air flowed down, pushing back against the diaphragm.
“I’m in,” said the woman at the head of Rachel’s bed. She held the end of a tube between her fingers. The other end of the tube was in Rachel’s left lung. The woman, a nurse whose face was covered in a mask, quickly screwed a small egg-shaped plastic container on the end of the tube. Attached to the container was a bag. The nurse squeezed on the bag, and Rachel felt the rush of air expanding her lungs. It surprised her, because the inhalation was not her own action. Her diaphragm pushed back to expel the air. Rachel was a passive conduit for the air coming into and out of her lungs. The breathing was done by the nurse squeezing the bag, and her diaphragm pushed back to its natural position. As the rhythm of the movement of the air became more reliable, Rachel relaxed. She let herself breathe. The terror of suffocation was overcome by the burning of a fluid entering her body through the inside of her arm. Then, the burning passed as well. As Rachel drifted off, she heard a voice singing.
Poor little girl fell from the sky.
No one left to love her but the baby goat and I.
* * *
Rachel woke up in a colorful park. Helmeted children rode bikes on the grass. They waved to children riding on a small train, sticking their heads out of open windows, as smoke from the engine sailed off to join fluffy clouds circling a snow-capped mountain. Rachel turned her head, and an enormous dragonfly, with veined, purple wings, swooped in low next to her head. She ducked, and the dragonfly missed her. Over her head, clouds like puffy bunnies and pandas floated in the windless blue sky.
Rachel tried to turn to see the picnickers sitting on a checkered blanket. Maybe, she knew them. She wanted to say, “Hello.” Rachel’s leg hit metal. Was she in a wagon or a sidecar? Why were there bars on either side of her? When she turned, a light, brighter and closer than the sun, hit her eyes. When she looked back at the children on the bikes, they were like reverse images of black outlined by a white light.
Rachel was in a room on the pediatrics floor. The park was painted on the walls around her, and the fluffy clouds hovered below the ceiling. The light that temporarily made her see negative images was the light over her bed. In an instant, the reality of her situation filled Rachel’s mind. The train now looked flat and out of perspective. The giant dragonfly’s body was so large compared to its wings that it could never become airborne. The pink-nosed spaniel chasing a squirrel had only three visible legs. Rachel, the scientist, was back.
The hospital accepted only adult patients. Specific research was done on children in Santa Fe, and the medical center stopped taking pediatric patients. All the brightly painted rooms now held adults, isolated, in various stages of dying. Only one patient had not declined in the twenty-four hours after admission. Only one patient was able to breathe without a ventilator or without having oxygen administered through a positive pressure mask.
Rachel admitted herself to the medical center forty-eight hours before, and her temperature at admission was 102.2°F, very high for an adult. Now, it hovered around 100°F. Her joints ached, and she had a croupy cough that shook the lines from her IVs. Her blood pressure dropped to 90/56, but it came back on its own to a more acceptable 102/70. So far, there were no signs of internal bleeding.
The door to Rachel’s room opened, and she noticed there was no courtesy knock. She opened her eyes and saw someone in a National Guard uniform. Rachel could not tell if the soldier was male or female. He or she was short and squat. The buttons on the soldier’s shirt were struggling to stay in their buttonholes. She was definitely a female. She was also very out of shape for a soldier, even a reservist. Since National Guard troops had been used extensively in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, they tended to keep themselves in good physical condition. Desert deployment was hard on someone who was overweight. Rachel held up her palm to the soldier. She had no business in a patient’s room without a gown, mask, and gloves.
The soldier moved closer to Rachel’s bed, still without saying a word. Standing at the foot of Rachel’s bed, the soldier pulled off her cap and wiry gray hair fell over her shoulders. Eva Yellow Horn. Who else could it be? She had to disguise herself because her picture was in the hands of all the law enforcement officials in the state, including the National Guard.
“How’d you get a uniform,” Rachel croaked out of her raw throat.
“I changed into a tarantula and scared a soldier out of his room. Then, I changed back into a human being and stole his uniform. Nothing to it, if you know how.”
Rachel smiled. What an old, unrepentant liar Eva was. Still, getting into the hospital and stealing the uniform required cunning, if not outright shape shifting. Maybe, the old woman did have some power. Rachel understood why her father liked Eva.
The old woman unbuttoned her shirt. She reached into her cleavage and pulled out a small leather bag on a cord. The little bag was beautifully beaded and very worn. Eva had probably worn this medicine bag all her life. Maybe her mother wore it before her.
Eva opened the pouch and removed a small packet made of folded paper. She laid it on the table by Rachel’s bed and re-buttoned her shirt. She wrapped her hair in a coil on top of her head and put the cap back on.
“We will make tea,” said Eva.
Rachel understood that Eva needed to go back into the hall and look for hot water.
“Outside the door… box of masks. Put one on,” Rachel croaked.
“Don’t need no mask. I don’t get the bug.”
“For disguise,” Rachel whispered.
Eva nodded. Everyone in the hospital wore a mask. If Eva walked around without one, it would not matter if she had on a National Guard uniform or not; she would be stopped by someone.
Eva returned in a few minutes with a Styrofoam cup of hot water. She opened the paper packet and took a pinch of dry powder. She sprinkled it in the hot water and stirred it with a tongue depressor. Eva lifted Rachel’s head and helped her sip the hot, bitter brew.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
“Powdered pleurisy root. From the milkweed family.”
“Is that what you take?”
“Don’t need it. I’m immune. You need it. You only have a little immunity. A drop.”
“How do you know that?” asked Rachel.
“How did you know?” Eva shot the question back at her.
“I didn’t. I don’t.”
“You infected yourself,” Eva reminded her.
“Yes. I was compelled… desperation,” said Rachel. She nodded toward the cup, and Eva gave her a few more sips. The tea felt good on Rachel’s parched throat. Her chest started to feel warm, too.
“No, the white bear led you,” said Eva.
“The kachina? How did you know about that?” Rachel asked.
“I sent her.”
“You are the white bear, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes. The white bear is the dreamer and the nurturer. She sleeps through the winter, and she dreams. The ancestors speak in her dreams. She cares for her young alone, for a long time. She’s a good mother. The bear will starve to feed her cubs when food is scarce.”
“Tell me about my father,” Rachel whispered.
Eva pulled a mask up over her face. She pointed to the cup of tea. “Soon. Now, finish the tea. I’ll be back.”
“We need a sample of your blood,” Rachel said.
“Ain’t happenin’,” said Eva, without turning around to face Rachel.
“Why not?” Rachel pleaded.
“Smallpox. Measles. Payback’s a bitch, little white eyes.” Eva turned and pulled down the mask. She smiled at Rachel. “The answer is in you. Drink the tea. I’ll be around.”
“That’s it. Hundreds of people dead, children dead, and you call it ‘payback’?”
Eva stuffed her hair back into her camouflage cap. “I’m sorry for the kids. They didn’t deserve any of this. I sing to them in the desert, and they know I love them.”
Chapter Forty-Four
In 2012, there was no drug that would kill hantavirus. The main treatment was mechanical ventilation and supplemental oxygen to allow the lungs to rest while they healed. Sin Nombre 2 did not even respond to that treatment. Hospitals and the FDA stopped buying, borrowing, and scavenging ventilators and respirators from Canada, the EU, and South America. Most patients died before a mechanical device could be located, anyway.
For years, the focus of research for a hantavirus vaccine in the U.S. had been on the Sin Nombre Virus, because it was one of the most virulent of the HPS strains. It was believed that protection against Sin Nombre would provide cross-protection against other epitopes of the hantavirus, because all the strains had similar genomes.
Rachel divided the research between two teams. One worked on inducing cellular immunity to the virus. The second team worked on inducing the presence of an antigen. This was the humoral approach, from the old pre-medical term “humor” meaning secretions inside the body. Here, the G1 and G2 glycoproteins would be made in the lab and purified. They would be administered to the patient through a nasal spray, going directly to the pulmonary system. The improved G1 and G2 would attach to the hantavirus, delivering their load of antigens to the virus and killing it.
Blood of the White Bear Page 19