The Cry of the Wind

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “The girls are ill,” she said. “They have both come down with a fever and a sore throat.”

  With closed eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly through pursed lips, controlling his nausea. “A fever and a sore throat,” he said. “A common child’s complaint. It is certainly no reason to turn around.”

  “I fear it may be more than that.”

  He motioned toward the vastness around them. “And what will turning around do for us? Even if we could convince the captain to do so, it would still be nearly three days before we returned to Cadiz. They will probably be recovered by then.” He burped and his face contorted at the taste of it. He laid his head back against the chair’s cushion and closed his eyes once more. “Don’t be foolish. They have caught a summer chill. It happens to every child.”

  Neither his words nor his attitude pleased her, but she couldn’t argue with him. Likely, it was just a common fever.

  “Where is One Who Flies?”

  “Now don’t you go and trouble him about this.”

  “No,” she said innocently. “It is just that I haven’t seen him since we departed.”

  Alejandro pulled his watch from his pocket and opened the case. He peered at the numbers. “He should be sitting down to brunch about now. He tends to rise late, these days.”

  She stood. “He is not drinking, is he?”

  Alejandro squinted up at her. “Not that I know. And you’ve seen him. I don’t think he has had a drop, not since that one night at El Escorial.”

  “Yes,” she said, then pointed toward the bow. “In the dining room, you said?”

  “Yes, dear. If not, he is in cabin number eight. Ocho.”

  “Ocho,” she repeated. “Thank you.” She rose and headed forward.

  The dining room was broad and with a low ceiling of dark wood. At night, the lamps on every table were lit to give the room a warm glow, but now, during the day, long windows let the sunshine stream in. The tables sparkled as clean daylight glinted from crystal glasses, silver utensils, and gold-rimmed china painted with buxom roses, but most of the chairs stood empty. Waiters in bright linen doublets stood to the side, and one—the man who had helped her earlier—came forward.

  “Would you care for a seat, Madame?” he asked her in his accented French.

  She spied One Who Flies, sitting across the room with his back to the light. His face in shadow, it was made grimmer yet by the scowl he wore. He stared at his steaming cup of coffee, shoulders tight, hand flat on the tabletop.

  “I think my friend is expecting me,” she said.

  “Of course, Madame,” he said, and ushered her across the room.

  “Good morning,” she said in Cheyenne.

  One Who Flies looked up as if slapped.

  “May I join you?” she asked.

  He gestured to the seat opposite. The waiter pulled the chair out for her.

  “Coffee?” the waiter asked. “Tea?”

  “Water, if you please.”

  The waiter bowed and left.

  They sat in silence as the waiter returned with a goblet and pitcher, set the former down and filed it with still water from the latter. When he retreated, they remained silent. It was a longtime custom among the People for guest and host to enjoy long moments of stillness, visiting without words, but this was not such a moment. The tension in One Who Flies shouted through his quietude. She could hear his spirit cry out, howling, raging against the bastions of his control. That this man, the man in whom so much of her past and even more of her future was entwined, that he should be clouded over with such anger for her made her heart ache, but before she could think of words to say, One Who Flies spoke.

  “What do you want?” he asked, and in that small phrase, she heard his bitterness and anger.

  “What makes you think I want something,” she asked in reply.

  “You always want something from me,” he said.

  The denial was on her lips, nearly spoken, when she thought about it and relented. “I suppose that is true,” she said, but her accession did nothing to mollify One Who Flies.

  “So, what do you want?” he asked again.

  He was obviously not in any mood to grant requests or help her in any way, but to not ask was not an option. “I want you to convince the captain to turn the ship and head back to Cadiz.”

  “No.”

  His refusal, though expected, surprised her with its speed and simplicity. “Don’t you even want to know why I want you to do this?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You refuse then because it is I who ask it.”

  “No.” He leaned forward and looked at her directly. “I have done everything you have ever asked of me, and more. You and your People. I have done it regardless of whether I thought it could be done, or whether it could be done at all.” He leaned back again, but held her with his gaze. “I have learned, finally, to pick my battles with greater wisdom. This thing you ask, perhaps someone could do it, but not I. The captain will not listen to me. And that is why I refuse.”

  Still not meeting his challenging gaze, she asked him, “And you do not care the reason?”

  “The reason is irrelevant,” he said. “It has no bearing on my ability to succeed, only my pain at failing.”

  She looked up into his blue eyes, so pale, so unlike her own. “To not try, is to fail.”

  He smiled, but it was not a pleasant thing to behold. It was a weak thing, twisted and full of loathing. “Then I have failed you again, Madonna.”

  She looked away, unable to face his wrath. “Do you hate me that much, then?”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Not you. Only me.”

  His self-pity emboldened her, and she looked up at him again. “What is wrong with you?” she asked. “You used to be so fearless, so strong. I could feel the power in you. And now you do nothing but whine and mope. ‘Poor me. Poor One Who Flies.’ Eya. You sound like an old woman, and not the man who fell from the—”

  He raised a warning finger. “Don’t say it. Do not speak of visions or Thunder Beings or of my falling from any cloud.”

  “What?” she asked, taken aback. “Why not?”

  “Because it is not true.”

  “It is.”

  “No.” He put his hand back down on the table, subsiding. “It is not. It is a story created to fit a dream, no truer than the story of the Madonna of the Swallows.”

  “I see,” she said. She pushed back her chair and stood. The waiter came forward to assist her. “There was something else I wanted,” she said to One Who Flies. “I wanted to tell you that Blue Shell Woman and Mouse Road have taken ill.”

  For the first time she saw an emotion other than anger or bitterness cross his face. He looked up, eyes filled with genuine worry and care. “Mouse Road? She is ill?” He looked back down at his hands. “I hope it is nothing serious.”

  “Yes,” Speaks While Leaving said. “Hope that, will you? Surely you cannot fail in doing that.” She walked away then, her heels pounding the deck through the softness of her moccasin soles.

  She stole back within the room. The two of them still slept—the best remedy they could take at this point—and she sat at the bench and table so as not to disturb them. She lay forward, resting her head upon her arms, and listened to the ship.

  Out in the hallway, she heard the light-hearted words and passing conversations of fellow travelers as they strolled to and from their rooms. Between them were the efficient steps of the crew, walking with purpose, delivering laundry or tea or other services with a sharp, double-rap on the door.

  When they had gone, there were only the sounds of the three of them, breathing, the sound of her own heart in her ears, and the constant yet variable sounds of the moving ship.

  She heard the rumble of the engine, pushing them forward into the wind. She heard the brassy creak of the gimbaled lamp and the subtle groan of wood and metal as the ship rose and fell through green water. Prow-waves curled back from the bow, their shish blen
ding with the hum of lines that held up the empty masts. Beyond that, she imagined the mew of distant terns, the gossip of porpoises, and the silent dreams of fish scything their way through the cold deep. The porpoises swam closer; they were right alongside the ship, laughing and playing just beyond the hull, chattering, chattering.

  She awoke. The chatter was a baby’s plaintive cry. Blue Shell Woman was on her stomach, up on her elbows, looking toward her and crying weakly in short, gasping bursts of anger and misery.

  Speaks While Leaving rose and went to her. Mouse Road moaned and stirred in the other bed. Speaks While Leaving felt her daughter’s forehead. Still feverish. She chided herself again for not bringing her medicines and herbs. A little willow bark would help lessen her daughter’s suffering. Mouse Road, at least, could be told that it would be fine; the baby knew only her pain and discomfort, and took nothing from her words of encouragement. She went to dampen a fresh cloth.

  When she removed her daughter’s diaper, she saw at once that the rash had spread. Her heart quickened. The blotches had grown, merged, reddened, and now covered her thighs, groin, and belly. She pulled her clothing farther up. The rash glowed angrily across her round belly, up her chest. She pulled her daughter’s shift over her head, and Blue Shell Woman’s cries became bellows. The rash flushed the skin of her armpits and spilled down her arms. Mouth dry, Speaks While Leaving moved to the other bed and began untying the laces at the shoulders of Mouse Road’s dress.

  “What?” the young woman complained in a croaking voice.

  Speaks While Leaving pulled at the leather ties, baring her sister’s collarbone and breast.

  “Stop,” Mouse Road demanded, but Speaks While Leaving pushed her fever-weak arms away and pulled the dress down to her waist. Mouse Road’s skin raged with the rash’s fury, bright as paint on her arms and torso. She stared, not wanting to believe what she saw, then leapt up and lifted the oil lamp from its gimbaled sconce. Mouse Road was staring at the rash that covered her, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “We have—”

  “No,” Speaks While Leaving said. “No.” But when she brought the lamp close and raised the wick, she knew that her denial was a lie. In the lamp’s white glow, she could clearly see the rash’s scarlet color and the skin’s rough, sandy texture.

  “Red fever,” she breathed.

  Red fever. As a member of the Closed Windpipe band, a band that dealt frequently with vé’hó’e at the trading posts along the Big Greasy, Speaks While Leaving had been exposed to the red fever early in her youth. Mouse Road, however, was of the Tree People, a band more reclusive than hers, and she probably had had little exposure to sufferers of the disease.

  But I gave her that chance, she berated herself. Mouse Road and my daughter both. I brought them here. This is my doing.

  Mouse Road looked up at her and the fear was wide in her eyes. “Will we die?”

  “No,” Speaks While Leaving said, praying that this denial was not a lie. “No. Many live through the red fever. I had it as a tiny girl, myself.” She forced a smile onto her face. “You needn’t worry.”

  “But Blue Shell Woman,” Mouse Road said.

  The smile faltered. “Yes,” she said, “she is in danger.”

  Willow bark would not help this fever. What she needed was bloodroot and the bark of the black-cherry tree, but all she would be able to hope for was what was available from the ship’s stores. She went to the door.

  She called to a passing steward and asked him to bring water and fruit as quickly as possible. He bowed and left to comply, and Speaks While Leaving turned back to the room and her two charges.

  Red fever, with its sore throat and scarlet rash, was a killer, weakening the heart and torturing the kidneys. It filled the body with poisons and, absent any bloodroot or the diuretic properties of black-cherry bark; her only hope was to flush her patients’ bodies with fluids. She picked up her naked daughter and held her as she whimpered against her shoulder. Her red skin was dry and rough where the rash burned. She took a dampened cloth and daubed it at the baby’s cheek and forehead. There was nothing else she could do.

  A double-rap sounded at the door.

  “Sí,” she said, and it opened.

  The steward came in with a small tray on which were a bowl of cut fruit, two glasses, and a small carafe of water.

  “No,” she said, trying to remember the Spanish words she needed. “Más.”

  The steward, a small man with a thick moustache, stared at her in concentration.

  “Más agua. Mucho más agua, por favor.”

  He nodded in comprehension, and then took a step back as he noticed the baby. Recognition and fear spread across his features. “Sí, señora,” he said. “Sí.” He left hurriedly.

  Speaks While Leaving only hoped he would bring the water.

  She took the small carafe, filled the glass half-full, and then handed the carafe to Mouse Road.

  “Drink,” she told her sister-in-law. With the glass, she entreated her daughter to do the same. Mouse Road cried out in pain as she swallowed against the fever’s sore throat.

  “I can’t,” she said and handed back the carafe.

  “Drink,” Speaks While Leaving ordered her. “You must. I know it hurts, but it will help to flush the fever from your body.” She turned back to the task of trying to convince her daughter to drink, but Blue Shell Woman knew nothing of flushing a fever. She knew only that her throat hurt, and that drinking made it hurt more, and so refused the water.

  “Come, Little Pot Belly,” she said. “You must.”

  There was another knock on the door.

  “Sí,” she said, but the door did not open. She went and opened it herself.

  A tray with two pitchers of water and a pitcher of fruit juice stood outside the door. The steward was nowhere to be seen. Unable to blame him for his fear, she put Blue Shell Woman on the bed and retrieved the liquids, silently thanking him for doing what he had.

  Blue Shell Woman adamantly refused to take any water, but the juice the steward brought was sweet, and, with patience and some spillage, Speaks While Leaving was able to get some fluid into her. Mouse Road was a better patient, drinking when requested to, and taking care of her own needs as best as possible.

  The rash soon covered the whole of their torsos, upper arms, and thighs. They lay in fitful misery, red as blood up to their necks, hot and cold in stages as they fought the fever through the night.

  It was early the next morning, when Mouse Road was shivering beneath a blanket and Blue Shell Woman was turning her head away from the prospect of swallowing more juice, that there was another knock at the door.

  “Sí,” she said, hoping it was the steward with some more water, but this time the door opened and she looked up to find One Who Flies standing in the doorway, Alejandro at his back. One Who Flies wore a frown of concern while Alejandro, pale from another stint at the leeward rail, looked befuddled.

  “Water,” One Who Flies said to Alejandro. “Water, towels, a large basin. Ice, too. Chipped. And get the physician. What was his name?”

  “Garcia-Fuentes?”

  “Yes. Get him.”

  “It’s awfully early,” Alejandro said.

  “I don’t care. Wake him,” One Who Flies said with force, and Alejandro disappeared.

  One Who Flies went first to Mouse Road. He felt her forehead and cheek, and put fingers to the pulse in her neck. “Why didn’t you tell me they had scarlet fever?” he said as he turned to Blue Shell Woman and felt her skin as well.

  “I did not know then,” she said quietly. “Would it have made a difference?”

  He stood, removed his jacket, and tossed it on top of the luggage. “Of course,” he said as he rolled up his cuffs. “My sisters had scarlet fever when they were young, when my father was away on campaign. I helped my mother get them through it. I can help you get these two through it, as well.”

  She looked up at him. He was wide-eyed, alert, and full of purpose. He w
as transformed from the stiff and stony man she had seen the previous day. He tossed a cloth into the basin and upended a pitcher of water over it. This was once again the man she knew, the man she had seen in her visions.

  Then she looked down at the daughter she held in her arms. In contrast, Blue Shell Woman was listless, groggy, and weak. Mouse Road was no better, incoherent with the fever.

  “I mean, are you sure you want to try this?” she asked him. “Are you sure this is a battle you can win?”

  He paused in his ready movements, halted by her words: by his own words.

  “I was wrong,” he said without turning to face her. “There are some battles that must be fought, whether they can be won or not.” He glanced over his shoulder, toward the sleeping Mouse Road. “Some things are worth the battle alone.”

  A knock sounded at the door and One Who Flies rose to open it. Alejandro stood outside, and with him was a rounded man dressed in shirtsleeves, trousers, and a dressing gown. Alejandro ushered him within.

  One Who Flies shook the man’s hand. “This is Senor Federico Garcia-Fuentes,” he said, introducing the man to her. “He is a physician, and he has agreed to see if there is anything he can do.”

  Speaks While Leaving stood. “Muchas gracias,” she said.

  Garcia-Fuentes bowed. “I only hope I can be of help,” he said in perfect French. He carried a black satchel, which he deposited on the bench behind the table. Speaks While Leaving saw him look about the tiny room, his sharp eyes taking in the ewer, the basin, the pitchers of water and juice, the glasses near the bedside, One Who Flies standing with the wet towel in his hand, and even Speaks While Leaving herself; considering all else before moving forward to the two patients.

  “You have done well,” he said. “I couldn’t have done more in your place.”

  “Thank you, señor.”

  She watched as he examined Mouse Road, pushing aside the sheet and blanket here and there to inspect her skin, yet mindful of her modesty. He pointed to his bag and One Who Flies brought it to him. He pulled out a long flared tube, one end of which he put to Mouse Road’s chest. Leaning over her, he put his ear to the other end. She moaned as he gently listened to her breathing and pulse. Then he turned and came to Blue Shell Woman.