Sixteen and Dying

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Fearfully, Anne stared at her bleeding hand.

  Morgan reached beneath her, lifted her, and placed her safely away from the hay and its invisible weapon. “Let me see how bad you’re cut.”

  “It’s nothing,” Anne said, keeping her hand close to her body. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’re bleeding. You may need stitches. Let me wipe it off and examine it.”

  Her eyes widened, reminding him of a deer trapped in headlights. “No! Don’t touch it!”

  “Why? I want to help. I’ve seen blood before.”

  “Stay away! Please, don’t touch me.” She was shaking all over.

  “At least let me wrap my handkerchief around it to try to stop the bleeding.” He fumbled in his jeans pocket.

  “No!” She darted backward. “My father and I’ll take care of it.”

  “But—”

  “Please—you don’t understand. I-I can’t explain. Just don’t touch it.” Wild-eyed, panicked, she spun, and clutching her hand to her side, she bolted from the barn.

  Dumbfounded, Morgan watched her run back toward her cabin.

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  Published by

  Dell Laurel-Leaf

  an imprint of

  Random House Children’s Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  Copyright © 1992 by Lurlene McDaniel

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-77633-4

  RL: 5, ages 10 and up

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  One

  “ANNE, DOES THE ranch measure up?” her father eagerly asked.

  Anne Wingate stopped unpacking and smiled. “Give me a minute, Dad. We just got here an hour ago.”

  Her father leaned against the four-poster bed where Anne had opened her suitcase. “Is your room as large as mine?” she asked. “Why don’t you go unpack?”

  “My room’s fine. I’ll unpack, but I want to be sure you’re happy with everything first. No use staying if you don’t like it.”

  Anne shook her head, controlling her urge to tell him to stop worrying so much. “The Broken Arrow Ranch seems to be just what the brochures promised,” she said. “Wide open spaces, terrific luxurious cabins, and plenty of horses. Did you see how blue the sky is out here? The Rocky Mountains in the distance are awesome.”

  “Sure it’s great, but I miss New York’s skyscrapers!”

  “Oh, Daddy, New York City isn’t the only place in the world. I’m actually tired of concrete and smog, and of never seeing the sky. I’ve wanted to come to a place like this all my life. Remember, now that we’re here, you promised to forget about the city and the university and everything back home. Start having a good time.”

  She wasn’t angry. She knew her father only wanted her to be happy. Taking the summer off from classes as a history professor at New York University, closing up their apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and traveling out to Colorado to a dude ranch simply because she asked him hadn’t been easy for him. Especially under the circumstances.

  “If you have a good time, I’ll have a good time,” her father assured her. “You know I’ve only seen and ridden horses in Central Park, but I’ll do my best.” He watched her a few minutes longer, then asked, “Do you want anything? Can I help?”

  “Dad, I’m sixteen. I think I can manage to unpack a suitcase by myself.”

  “I know, but it’s been a long trip. I don’t want you getting tired out.”

  Anne paused, observing her father. He was the one who looked tired. They had flown out of La Guardia at seven A.M., changed planes in Chicago, and landed in Denver. Now they were on Mountain Standard Time, but it was six o’clock in New York. Then, they’d been greeted by Tom Green, a representative from the Broken Arrow, and driven another hundred miles out to the ranch. Anne walked over to her father and put her hands on his chest. “Stop worrying about me. I feel just fine,” she said softly.

  “I can’t help it. I—”

  “You promised me we could have these few weeks to have a good time—just you and me.”

  “I know what I promised.” Wearily, he raked his hand through his crop of fuzzy brown hair. “I’m a man of my word. I won’t ask you any more questions.”

  Anne dropped her hands, glancing away, unable to tolerate the look of sadness on his face. She didn’t want to be sad. She only wanted to finish unpacking and take a tour of the ranch. “Did you see the corral when we drove in? I want to walk down and get a look at the horses.”

  “I thought you were unpacking.”

  “There’s plenty of time for that.”

  “Mr. Green said that dinner would be at six. You don’t want to miss out on dinner in the mess hall.”

  “I’m sure I’ll hear the dinner bell,” Anne said. “Right now, I’m changing into jeans and going down to that corral.”

  Once she had changed, Anne left the small cabin she would be sharing with her father and hurried outside. She breathed the fresh, sweet-smelling air. She thought it was both wonderful and intoxicating.

  Quickly, she got her bearings. She jogged past the cluster of cabins where the guests stayed, past the main lodge where guests and ranch hands shared meals, to a barn and a large corral where several horses milled about. Their hooves kicked up dust, making her cough. Anne boosted herself up onto the railing and peered over the top at the animals. She’d always loved horses, always wanted one of her own, but keeping a horse in the city was impractical. Over the years, she’d read books and collected pictures and horse figurines. She’d gone riding around Central Park, but that was never satisfying enough.

  Anne held out her hand toward one of the horses. “Hey, fella,” she called softly. The bay’s ears pricked forward as she cooed to him. “Come on over. I won’t hurt you.” Anne wished she’d brought along a lump of sugar to tempt the animal closer.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  The harsh male voice startled Anne, and she almost lost her balance on the fence. She half jumped, half fell the few
feet to the ground and whirled to face an angry-sounding young man with broad square shoulders, black hair, and cold blue eyes. “Don’t you know these premises are off-limits to you tourists?” He pushed his Stetson hat back on his head and gave her a withering look.

  “I was just looking,” Anne stammered, completely intimidated. The angry voice belonged to a handsome face. His denim shirt was soaked with perspiration, and his jeans looked dusty and well worn. He wore brown boots, caked with dirt and mud.

  “These are range ponies,” he added sharply. “They’ve been out on the range for months and have just been brought in. They’re mostly wild. You could get hurt.”

  She didn’t like being yelled at by someone who looked close to her own age. “I was being careful,” she insisted. “I wasn’t going to crawl over the fence, you know.”

  His blue eyes swept over her arrogantly.

  “My dad and I got here about an hour ago from New York.” Anne wasn’t sure why she explaining anything to him, he was acting so unfriendly.

  “Well, New York, the Broken Arrow is still a working ranch. The tourists’ horses—the tame ones—are over in the other direction, on the far side of the cabins. You’ll be safer petting one of them.”

  He made it sound like she was foolish—looking for a puppy to play with. Anne lifted her chin. “Well, Colorado, I’ll use my compass next time so I can navigate to the other side of this place.”

  She saw his mouth twitch at the corners. He crossed his arms and held her gaze. “The name’s not Colorado,” he said. “It’s Morgan.”

  “Like the breed of horse?” she asked.

  He looked surprised that she could name a particular breed of horse. “That’s right.”

  “Name fits you,” Anne snapped. “Like the back end of the same.” She spun and trooped off toward the cabins before her insult had time to register.

  She hadn’t gone far when he caught up with her. “We’re responsible for visitors’ safety,” Morgan said, stepping in front of her, blocking her retreat. “An accident could cost us plenty in insurance.”

  She noticed that his tone didn’t sound quite so condescending and that she’d become a “visitor” instead of a “tourist.” “I didn’t mean to go into a restricted area. I just got here. I guess I’ll hear the guidelines tonight, so I won’t get into the wrong place at the wrong time again.”

  Morgan stared at her until she began to grow uncomfortable, then asked, “What’s your name?”

  Anne wanted to ignore him, step around him, and return to her cabin. She didn’t have much experience with boys, and he seemed unpleasant. “Why? Are you going to report me?” she asked.

  His curious expression gave way as he sarcastically added, “Forget it, New York. I really don’t care who you are. Just be careful. This isn’t some spa—it’s a real ranch, where people work. I wouldn’t want you to chip a fingernail or something.”

  Anne watched him turn and march back toward the corral. She wanted to slug him. He was arrogant and rude, and she hadn’t come more than a thousand miles to be insulted by some cocky cowboy. This was supposed to be her special summer with her father. A summer with no thought of what lay ahead for her.

  She had selected the Broken Arrow after poring over dozens of brochures about dude ranches. The place seemed perfect. Why should she let a rude ranch hand ruin it for her? Anne turned her face skyward and took several deep breaths to calm her seething anger. The smell of hay and dust made her throat feel dry and parched, but was strangely exhilarating.

  With a sigh, Anne welcomed the warmth of the sun on her skin, the feel of the breeze in her long, brown hair. Then, with a start, she realized that the beauty surrounding her, the quiet of the June afternoon, even the encounter with Morgan, had distracted her completely. Just for a little while, she had completely forgotten that she was dying.

  Two

  THE THOUGHT OF her problem left her shaken, as it always did, when it came upon her unexpectedly. Dying. That’s what the doctors had told her in April. Anne walked slowly to the cabin but decided not to go inside yet. Her dad was probably taking a much needed rest. She sat down on the porch steps and watched the afternoon shadows grow longer, until shade covered her back and shoulders. Absently, she hooked her arms around her knees and allowed herself to remember.…

  Nagging tiredness had drained Anne for months, no matter how much sleep she got. There were other problems too: her vision blurred while she was doing schoolwork, her appetite was poor, and she was losing weight. Eventually, her father noticed and insisted she get a checkup. A routine physical revealed nothing, but her family doctor suggested she have tests taken at the hospital.

  Anne protested, but in the end, she spent spring break in St. Luke’s Hospital while her friends went off on vacations. “We need to find out what’s wrong,” her father had said, trying to console her.

  “But I’m missing all the fun!”

  “We’ll do something special this summer,” he said.

  Anne scoffed. “That’s what you say every year, but then you end up teaching a summer course, and I end up taking enrichment classes.”

  “Anne, you should take extra classes. You’re brilliant, and you’ll qualify for a scholarship anywhere you want to go when the time comes. Don’t worry about missing your break. I’ve already told the dean that you and I are going to be in Oxford next summer.”

  “Dad, England obviously has a lot to offer, but I’d prefer to go out West, someplace where there’re horses and mountains and wide open spaces.”

  “Hang around smelly horses?” He feigned horror. “Wouldn’t you rather walk along the Thames? Walk with Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley?”

  Anne shared her father’s love of books and had found comfort in poetry and novels ever since her mother’s death, when she was ten. “You’re not playing fair,” Anne said, half pouting. “You know I look forward to going to England with you, but that’s over a year from now. It seems like forever.”

  “The impatience of youth,” her father kidded. “None of you kids can wait for anything. Trust me—next summer will be here before you know it.”

  Anne now looked back on that day and remembered it as the last carefree day of her life. That evening, Dr. Becksworth and Dr. Stevenson came into her room. She noticed their serious expressions. Her father, who was visiting with her, took her hand, as if to ward off their foreboding presence.

  “Anne, we’d like to ask you some questions,” Dr. Stevenson began without preamble. “They might sound odd, but it’s important that you answer truthfully.”

  Wide-eyed, she glanced at her father, but nodded. “All right,” she said, wondering why they’d think she might lie.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” Dr. Becksworth asked.

  “No. I’m not really into dating.” She felt color rise to her face. The question seemed completely off the subject. She didn’t date at all. Not that she didn’t want to, but the few boys who’d ever asked her out also attended her small private school, and she considered them boring and not really attractive. She’d rather not date at all than spend time with someone who didn’t appeal to her.

  “What’s Anne’s social life got to do with her medical problems?” her father asked. “Tell us the results of all those tests you’ve been running.”

  Dr. Becksworth gazed at Anne solemnly. “As a hematologist, I specialize in diseases of the blood.”

  Anne felt herself growing queasy. The idea that she might have some serious disease frightened her. “Do I have cancer?” she asked. She knew that leukemia was a blood disease.

  “No,” he said, giving her a momentary sense of relief. “But according to your blood test results, you’re HIV-positive.”

  Anne strained to make sense of his words and heard them echo in her head. “HIV-positive.” She recalled that a famous athlete had announced that he was quitting pro basketball because he was HIV-positive. The announcement had shaken the country and caused a furor in her school. The administra
tion and faculty had organized an awareness program about HIV and how it was transmitted, as if the kids didn’t know already.

  “Are you saying that my daughter has AIDS?” Anne’s father demanded incredulously. “That’s impossible! Absolutely impossible.”

  Anne was so taken aback that she couldn’t speak.

  “Please, Dr. Wingate,” Dr. Becksworth said. “I’m not making any accusations. I’m simply trying to tell you what we’ve found and then figure out how Anne acquired the virus.”

  “I have AIDS?” Anne finally found her voice.

  “No,” Dr. Stevenson replied. “You have the virus that leads to AIDS.” Anne couldn’t sort out the distinction. The doctor continued, “I’m sure you know that AIDS is an immune-deficiency disease. The virus, HIV, attacks the body’s T4 cells, which are the master programmers of the immune system. Without natural immunities, infections run rampant. Many illnesses are possible.”

  “According to your chart, you went to see a gynecologist a few weeks ago.” Dr. Becksworth flipped through pages on a metal clipboard.

  Anne felt her face redden. She gave her father a guilty, sidelong glance. “I didn’t tell you, because it was … personal.” Despite their closeness, there were some things Anne found difficult to share with her dad. If only her mother were still alive. She looked back at the doctor. “My gyn told me I had an infection and gave me some medicine.”

  “You still have the infection,” Dr. Stevenson said. “The fact that it hasn’t cleared up, combined with your other symptoms and blood results, is a signal of HIV.”

  “But Dr. Segal never said a word about that!”

  “HIV is diagnosed only through a blood test. Very frankly, she would never have considered HIV in your case. There are other ways of getting this type of infection.”

  “I don’t like your insinuations,” Anne’s father said quickly. “Your lab has messed up on my daughter’s blood work. It’s that simple.”

  Dr. Becksworth shook his head. “There’s no mistake. I wish there were.”

  Anne felt tears stinging her eyes. “How could I have gotten HIV?” she asked. She felt trapped in some nightmare, caught in some awful, bad dream from which she couldn’t wake up.