by Debra Diaz
Ethan said, after a moment, “I don’t know whether to laugh or punch you in the face, Reverend.”
The priest smiled.
“I think that Sister Ruth must have told you a few things I said to her.”
“Not at all. She said only that you were a fine man, but you seemed troubled.”
“It has always troubled me to see the innocent suffer.”
“The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
“You know what I mean, Reverend.”
“Ah, yes. I know what you mean. And I will tell you a secret, Dr. Carey. It troubles me, too. I suppose we could look at this in a number of different ways. Perhaps God is punishing us for something, and so many times the so-called good get punished along with the wicked. Or perhaps Satan alone is responsible for it, and God has allowed it to test our endurance. Or, he has allowed it in order to bring about a greater good. You’ve seen, no doubt, the way people have responded to this calamity. The telegraph has informed practically the whole world, and even other countries are sending help to us.”
“I’ve heard all those theories, and I suppose I even accept them. But there’s something missing. Like a link out of a chain, or a piece out of a puzzle.”
“Well, who can know the mind of God? We’re rather like worms trying to read a book, aren’t we?”
“Now there’s a thought,” Ethan said wryly. “Someone else once told me something like that. In fact, it seems that several people have been trying to impress that upon me.” He got wearily to his feet and held out his hand. “Thank you for your candor, Reverend White. You have given me some things to think about.”
“We will pray for your wife, Doctor. I hope you find her. And that … God … will see fit to spare her life.”
“Thank you. I hope with all my heart that God will see fit to spare Sister Ruth.”
“As I said before, she is in his hands. And that, to me, is the greatest comfort. May it be so to you, if that time should ever come.”
* * * *
Genny lay very still. She could hear people talking, but it was as if they were in some far distant place, and it had nothing to do with her. The voices were familiar, but she couldn’t think to whom they belonged.
“She’s dying,” said Vann.
Tobe was sniffing; unabashedly he wiped a tear from his wrinkled cheek. “How much longer is she gonna live?” he asked.
“A few hours at the most. I’ve cleaned her up as best I could and washed her hair. I spread it out and brushed it dry … I hoped that might wake her. She doesn’t seem to be in pain. But she’s fading…there’s nothing else I can do.”
“Be daylight in a few minutes. I’m goin’ to get Dr. Carey.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The soft glow of dawn shone through the window, revealing the rich color of the mahogany bedposts and the fine polished tables. The great bed was still in shadow, and upon it Ethan lay exactly as he had fallen only a few hours ago … after another day and night of searching. As always, he’d been tortured by images of Genny in various stages of the disease, wondering what she was going through, wondering even if she were still alive or if she were lying in a pine box somewhere, waiting to be buried. He discovered he’d never known real fear, until now … had never experienced this feeling of helplessness, this sense of emptiness and futility.
He’d already made plans for the day; he would go to the telegraph office to see if the mysterious Vann ever went there to send telegrams. Someone had given him a description of her. And there were a few postal workers left; he wasn’t sure if mail was still going out. A lot of nurses wrote letters to send home. He wished he’d thought of it sooner. And because he and those who were helping him had been through the entire city, he was going to start searching the outlying areas, and planned to head out in a northeasterly direction…
He roused at the sound of knocking. He jumped out of bed and went swiftly to the door.
“Tobe!”
“Dr. Carey, I promised I’d stay with her to the end, and the end done come.”
“What do you mean?” Ethan demanded, his heart lurching.
“Miss Vann — the nurse — say she about to die. I come to take you to her, sir.”
Without another word Ethan hurriedly dressed; they ran outside and Ethan saddled his horse while Tobe unhitched the other horse from the wagon and led the way. Tobe had no trouble staying on; he’d learned as a youth to ride without a saddle, and besides, the old horse was thin and easy to cling to, and it refused to go faster than a trot.
Ethan tried to keep his mind a blank. Tobe said she was dying but she couldn’t be dying — not beautiful and vibrant Genny, who had just learned to trust, and to love. It wasn’t fair…and he caught himself. Who was he to determine what was fair? Over the years he’d nearly driven himself mad by the question of fairness. And so he tried to think of nothing at all but getting there before it was too late, so he could see for himself … and tell her goodbye.
The deserted buildings cast great, cool shadows on the street. All of a sudden a figure ran out, grabbing at the reins of his horse. It was a young woman, her face contorted with hysteria. Her dress was stained; her chestnut hair hung loose and wild about her shoulders.
“Oh please, you must help me!” she cried, as Ethan struggled to keep his horse from rearing up and trampling her. He stopped and dismounted, holding tight to the reins.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I cannot – ”
The woman screamed as though he had struck her. She went down on her knees before him and grabbed his legs.
“Please help me!” she begged, sobbing. “My husband is dead — he hangs half off the bed and I cannot move him. My three children are thrashing on the floor. I can’t help them! I don’t know what to do! Oh, God, is there no one who will help me?”
Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, a timeless moment of resolution that required all the strength of will he possessed. He bent and removed the woman’s hands from around his legs, and pulled her gently upward.
“How far is it? What is your address?”
“It isn’t far – a few blocks.” She gave a number and a street.
“Tobe,” said Ethan, “go and find a doctor or a nurse, or both, to go to her house — as quickly as you can! And tell them to send an undertaker. Gartner will probably come, if you can find him.”
“Yes, sir!” Tobe turned his horse in the opposite direction.
Ethan helped the young woman onto his horse, climbed up behind her, and off they went at a gallop, her long hair flying. She continued to sob uncontrollably.
“What is your name, ma’am?” he asked, in an effort to distract her.
The woman tried to calm herself, giving a kind of gulp. “It’s Katie Jarratt.”
“I’m Dr. Carey.”
“You’re a doctor? Oh, thank God!”
“I’m sorry about your husband. How long … when did he die?”
“Yesterday. I couldn’t leave the children to get anyone to help me. He wasn’t sick very long. I — I did the best I could. And then this morning, I knew I had to do something! The children…”
“All your neighbors are gone?”
“Gone, or dead. Except for the ones across the street. They won’t come out.” The young woman’s voice changed. “I knocked and knocked and yelled for them. I saw the curtains move. I helped with their child when she was sick. And they won’t come out.”
Ethan made no comment. Then the woman cried, “Do you think I took the fever back to my family? I never thought of it! I wasn’t sick, so I never thought — ”
“No,” Ethan said. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s not contagious from person to person.”
“Then what — ”
She didn’t finish, for they had reached the small, red brick house. Ethan noticed the neat shrubbery and carefully tended flowers, now wilting for lack of water, and felt, as he always did, a keen sense of the heartbreak that had struck here. He helped
her off the horse and they went inside the house.
Everyone was in one room; the husband was indeed hanging half off the bed, head down, black vomit covering the bare wood floor. Three small boys, perhaps seven, five and three years of age, were crawling around the floor, crying and screaming. Mrs. Jarratt must have indeed been in a bad way to have left such a scene … but at least she had gotten help.
The first thing he did was remove the children to the parlor. A quick examination revealed that only one was sick, the youngest; the other two were simply terrified. He told Mrs. Jarratt to take the sick child into another bedroom and quiet him. Then he set about trying to calm the other two boys. He hadn’t a lot of experience with children but they had always seemed to like him. He sat in a rocking chair and they climbed at once onto his lap; maybe he reminded them of their father, for he had been a tall man with dark hair.
Ethan moved the rocking chair gently and said, “Everything will be all right now. There’s no need to be afraid. Your mother won’t leave you. She only went to look for a doctor.”
The boys were sweating and hiccupping. “Has my daddy gone to heaven?” the older one asked, his freckled face streaked with tears.
“Yes,” said Ethan. “He’s been very sick, and now he’s gone.”
“Are we sick? Are we going to die, too?”
“No. Your little brother is sick but I don’t think he will die. If people are taken care of when they first get sick, they usually don’t die. You must try to help your mother take care of him.”
“I want my daddy,” said the other little boy, and they began to cry again. Ethan tightened his arms around them, letting them cry, and rocked slowly until they grew quiet. They fell asleep. It was hot in the room but he kept holding them and rocking; he had to stay until Tobe got back. “Genny,” he thought, leaning his head back, and incredibly he, too, went to sleep.
He woke almost at once, unwilling to give in to his utter weariness. For some reason he began remembering the dream he had the night he walked to the riverfront. “The war is over,” Forrest had said, and Ethan had felt in himself that his own, inner war had been over as well. But it hadn’t been, not completely. He had only half begun to surrender.
It sank in deeply now that he had no control whatsoever over what happened to Genny. He would just have to trust in a greater power, and wisdom, than his own. He felt tears burn his eyes, and pure desperation surged through him. Please let me get there in time…
Mrs. Jarratt walked quietly into the room. He saw that she had changed her dress and put on a long apron.
“I’ll take them now, sir. Timmy’s gone to sleep.”
She picked up the younger boy and he rose with the other in his arms. He followed her into a bedroom where there were three beds, one occupied by the sick child. She and Ethan removed the soiled clothes from the boys, put them to bed and pulled the sheets over them.
Ethan examined Timmy again and led Mrs. Jarratt into the hall. “His temperature is not very high now but it will probably climb. You must do all you can to keep it down.” He gave her instructions, trying to keep his manner as reassuring as possible. She had grown much calmer, but still looked fearful. He couldn’t blame her.
“I’ll see to your husband,” he said, and when she began to follow him he added kindly, “You’d better wait here.”
He could hear her weeping as he went into the other bedroom. Ethan turned the dead man and tried to straighten his limbs; it was difficult because he was a big man and rigor mortis had set in. He found a blanket and covered the body, thinking he’d leave the rest to the undertaker … if one could be found. He went back into the hall.
The young woman was waiting, holding something in her hand. “You might want to put on these clean clothes,” she said, in a muffled voice. “They were my husband’s. He was about the same height, just a little wider.”
Ethan realized his own clothes were stained with black; he thanked her, and went into the kitchen where he washed and quickly changed. The white shirt and dark trousers were long enough but hung more loosely than his own; he tightened his belt and walked back to the hall just as a knock sounded on the front door.
It was Tobe, with two nurses, a man and a woman. When they discovered only one child was sick the male nurse said he would go back to the Howard office. Ethan asked him to wait a moment; he said goodbye to Mrs. Jarratt, who threw her arms around him and cried, “I will thank God for you in my prayers, Dr. Carey. I think I was going to kill myself if I hadn’t found someone!”
“I know you wouldn’t have left your children alone, ma’am. You must never think like that. I’ll come back in a few days, if I can.”
He didn’t want to take the time to check on the neighbors, but he thought of the little girl who had been sick; it was possible they were all dead, or dying. But first he asked Tobe, “What about an undertaker?”
“The Howard people says they’ll send one. Might be tonight.”
“Will you make sure of it?” Ethan asked the nurse, who nodded. “And you might have some more food sent out here. I looked in the pantry and it’s getting low.”
The three men crossed the street. Ethan knocked loudly on the door of the house. When there was no answer, he called, “We’re concerned about your welfare! If you’re able to come to the door you’d better do it, or we’ll have to break in.”
Finally he heard the sound of footsteps and the door opened slightly. A young man with a prematurely balding head peered out at them.
“Is anyone sick here?” Ethan asked, unable to keep a certain hardness from his voice.
“No. It’s just me and my wife and daughter.”
“Your neighbor, Mrs. Jarratt, was concerned. She said she called for help and got no answer.”
The man had the decency to look ashamed. “No reason for her to be concerned. We’re just trying to keep the fever out. My daughter had it.”
“How is she?”
“She’s fine.”
“Mr. Jarratt is dead,” Ethan said abruptly. “Mrs. Jarratt has a sick child. The fever is not spread from person to person, so if there’s anything you can do to help her, I’m sure she would appreciate it.”
The man just looked at him. Ethan turned away, nodded curtly at the nurse, and signaled to Tobe that they should be on their way. He all but ran to his horse, with Tobe striving to keep up.
“How far is the house from here?” Ethan asked, wondering how much his patience would be taxed as he was forced to keep pace with the slower horse. Tobe was unable to give him directions but could lead him there; Ethan wouldn’t risk going ahead and losing track of Tobe altogether, and not finding Genny in time. Already it might be too late…
“We could be there in, mebbe, twenty minutes. Be a good place for you to rest a few days, Dr. Carey. Miz Pannell, she won’t mind. She’ll like the comp’ny.”
Ethan didn’t reply. They wound through the streets, crossing at several places the meandering Gayoso Bayou, which had sunk to a level of nastiness for lack of rain and smelled even worse than it looked. The houses became farther and farther apart until they were in the country, on dry, dusty roads that were little more than trails. He squinted into the late morning sun. The temperature had been cool the last few days, but it was warmer today. The first frost was probably still weeks away and he thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, How much more can this city stand?
The horse, sensing his state of mind, was nervous and pranced away from the edges of the narrow road. Sweetgum and oak trees full of virginia creeper and crossvine grew abundantly on both sides, with tulip poplars, dogwoods and loblolly pines. Birds and small animals skittered in the leaves covering the ground. They met an older woman walking in the opposite direction and Ethan tensed, thinking she would ask for help, but she never looked up. At any other time he would have stopped and asked if she needed anything, but now he went on.
At last Tobe said, “It’ll be the next house you come to, Dr. Carey. On the right’ll be a clearing, an
d you can see it from the road, but it’s way on out there.”
Without hesitation Ethan kicked his horse and rode hard, leaving Tobe far behind. When the whitewashed farmhouse came into view, he swung onto the long dirt driveway and galloped into the yard. Someone opened the front door as he was dismounting.
“I’m Vann, the nurse,” the woman told him, wiping her hands on her apron. “You must be her husband. Her room is upstairs, to the right.”
“Yes. Is she — ”
“There’s been a change, sir. I must tell you — ”
He didn’t wait to hear, bounding up the stairs and rushing into the first bedroom he saw as he turned the corner. For a moment his heart sank, she lay so still. But when he pushed a chair next to the bed and touched her wrist, her skin was warm but not hot, her pulse normal and steady. Her chest moved up and down in a regular rhythm. She looked thin, her cheekbones more prominent, her eyes circled by purple shadows. And though her face was slightly flushed, it was not yellow. His practiced eye told him she was not dying.
But this fever was treacherous. He had seen people seem to recover, and then die days and even weeks later. It was a truly evil and malignant disease, and if Genny survived there would be a long, hard road to climb.
* * * *
It was difficult to come out of so heavy a sleep, but Genny felt sure it was time to wake up. She could feel the sunlight on her eyelids. She could sense someone close, even leaning against the bed. Why should that be? Had she been sick? Certainly she felt as if she had been sick…her whole body ached, but she was ravenously hungry.
Her eyes fluttered open and tried to focus. The colored squares on the quilt that covered her were incredibly bright. Her gaze moved to the far wall, where light streaked through the open window and a sigh of wind stirred the ruffled white curtains. And there was someone … who was this man, his face unshaven, his dark hair tousled, his head bent with his hands clasped together across his forehead and half covering his eyes? Suddenly he was dear and familiar, and she knew…