As was the custom of her people, at fourteen years of age her family and another family had decided on her betrothal to one fifteen-year-old Ferka, a skinny, stupid boy that pawed her as soon as they were out of sight of any others. She had threatened to stab him with her knife, and then had told Baba Simza, who as the Phuri Dae held more authority than even her father, that she would never marry Ferka nor anyone else. Baba Simza had seen that Nadyha had her mind set, and she knew it was useless to try to make Nadyha do anything, anything at all, against her will. So Baba Simza and Nadyha’s father had called off the betrothal. Still, just about the entire vitsi had abused her, called her names, told her she would be a withered old woman at twenty if she didn’t marry. But Nadyha had remained stubborn, and now she was twenty and she was neither withered nor old. And she was still just as determined not to marry as she had been at fourteen.
At sixteen she had been just like all other young girls; and she had developed a crush on the younger son of the house, Christophe Perrados. He was eight years older than she was, and she thought he was the handsomest, kindest man in the world. He had taken very little interest in his family’s Gypsies, until Nadyha had begun to find excuses to seek him out. But even at such a foolish age, Nadyha was sharp and insightful. She had quickly seen that Christophe would indeed return her affection, physically. But she learned that he regarded marriage with a Gypsy with a sort of disdainful amusement. He had gone to war, and had died, and Nadyha had been grieved. But the memory of the painful experience had made her very suspicious of men.
Trying hard to understand her unease, her unquiet, she thought that perhaps it was because of her blood. The Romany were wanderers, they had been for ages untold. Her vitsi were one of the few exceptions to the rule. Perhaps she wanted a life of always moving, always leaving one place and arriving at another, each day new and different?
But Nadyha knew that wasn’t it at all. She would like to see other places, to experience different things, to learn of other lands and peoples. But she loved her home, at heart.
Wearily Nadyha then thought of God. Perhaps her restive soul needed to be close to Him, as Baba Simza was. But Nadyha couldn’t countenance that. Nadyha had a lot of anger in her, and much resentment, and bitterness because of many things, both personal and because of her despised race. She didn’t understand how, if God was so good, the world and people could be so very bad. It didn’t make sense to her.
Realizing that these ruminations were only making her more wakeful, she made herself lie still and began to try to formulate her new song. It was a poignant, bittersweet song about being a stranger, of longing for home and comfort. But neither the music nor the perfect words would come, and soon she fell asleep with the few notes in a minor key echoing in her troubled mind.
CHAPTER FOUR
Denny was much worse.
It had been two days since Gage had first realized that Denny had the measles, and in the last two nights Denny had steadily grown weaker and more listless. He had broken out in the characteristic rash. To Gage it seemed much more widespread than usual; you could hardly touch a fingertip to bare skin, and Denny complained that he itched terribly. His fever had been constant, and though it never seemed very high, Gage knew how much a two-day fever could sap the strength of even a healthy man.
But it wasn’t the fever or the rash that was affecting Denny so perniciously; it was the cough. Because of his cracked rib, combined with weakness, he was obviously in torturous pain every time the cough wracked him. Gage had watched him closely, observing the course of his illness, and he knew that there was a very good chance that Denny would go into pneumonia. Gage felt utterly helpless. All he knew, as far as nursing went, was to keep the sick person as comfortable as possible, bathe them in cool water when they had high fevers, and feed them weak broth or gruel. The day before, Denny had refused anything except occasional sips of water, complaining that his throat hurt too much to swallow food. Gage thought that he probably had the stinging white ulcers inside his mouth and throat that sometimes developed with measles.
Gage had risen and dressed and saddled Cayenne in the gray, cool predawn. As soon as the bright yellow sunlight seeped into their camp through the filtering trees, the air immediately grew hotter. Denny groaned a little and threw off his red Zouave shirt that Gage had used to cover him. Slowly his eyes opened, and he asked Gage in a hoarse whisper, “Can I have some water?”
Gage had to help him sit up to drink from the canteen, he was so weak. Then he began coughing, a thick wet sound. His face turned gray with pain and when the cough ended he fell back on his makeshift pillow, thick bundles of soft grass that Gage rolled up in some of the cotton he’d bought for Denny’s bandages. Gage thought that he seemed a little more comfortable in a half-sitting position.
“Listen, Billy Yank,” Gage said. “I’m going to go get us some fresh water. I’ll come back and make sure you’re okay, but then I’m riding into town to get you some medicine.”
It was a sign of how sick Denny was that he mumbled indifferently, “Okay, Johnny Reb.” For the last two days Denny had argued with Gage vehemently, either about trying to ride into New Orleans to a doctor, or for Gage to go for medicine. He kept insisting that as soon as the rash disappeared, he’d be fine. He had gotten it into his head that the rash caused everything else, and Gage had told him that the rash only lasted four or five days. Gage hadn’t bothered to disabuse him of the notion, there was no point in telling him he’d be sick longer than that. Now Gage could kick himself for not making Denny ride on into town as soon as he had seen that he had a disease. Gage felt he should have known that Denny was weak from being shot, and any illness, no matter how mild, might cause complications.
Denny coughed again, his eyes tightly shut, clutching his side. Gage laid his hand on Denny’s forehead and knew he still had fever. Denny seemed not to notice.
Gage picked up both of their canteens, hating to leave Denny without water in case he should want some. But both of them were almost empty anyway. Leading Cayenne, he walked straight east to the spring, the only fresh water source he knew of north of New Orleans. It was an underground spring, bubbling up merrily in a grove of tupelo trees. It must have been from a deeply buried water vein, because the water was barely cool even at the source. The other freshwater springs Gage had known had always been icy. It amused him as he observed that of course in southern Louisiana the underground springs probably ran warm.
He had visited the spring three times in the last two days, because he had no water containers other than his and Denny’s canteens. It was the first time he’d seen the spring since the summer before the war had broken out, and he had forgotten how beautiful it was. The source of the spring bubbled up merrily from a small hillock, and just beneath was a waterfall of about a foot, sprinkling and splashing over the tupelo tree roots. The stream running from the spring had cut a wide and deep V-shaped course for about half a mile before it ran down into the lowland swamp. All along it were the graceful tupelo trees, their shallow, thick roots tangled and writhing, but their torturous growth was softened by deep green moss growing on them. Several kinds of ferns, all with lacy delicate fronds, covered the steep banks of the stream. The spring was a shadowed, quiet, cool place, and Gage wished again that they could camp there. But the trees were too thick and so many of the roots were above ground, it would be impossible to find a comfortable place for Denny to lie down.
As they neared it, Gage said to Cayenne, “Better get you a nice, long drink of water, boy. We’ve got a hot fast ride ahead of us.” Gage went ahead slightly to the right, because he liked to fill the canteens from the spring itself, rather than downstream, though the water ran clear and clean all the way to the swamp.
He stepped out of the woods that grew right up to the head of the spring. Instantly he froze and, with a sharpshooter’s alertness and precision, took in the scene before him.
About six feet in front of him a young woman was standing in the middle of the spring,
bent over another woman who was lying in the small pool that formed at the fountainhead before it gurgled down the waterfall. The waterfall was pink with blood.
The young woman looked up, and her face grew fierce, her eyes narrowed, glittering. In her hand was a knife, she seemed to be trying to do something in the water with it, but when she saw Gage she lifted it to her waist and pointed it at him. Her mouth drew back slightly in a feral grimace.
Gage dropped the canteens and Cayenne’s reins and held up his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you, ma’am,” he said quietly. The woman didn’t move; her savage expression didn’t change. Gage went on, “I’ll help you, if you need help.”
The woman lying in the water sat up, her face a mask of pain, and she half-turned to look at Gage. She said something in a foreign language to the girl. Slowly the girl dropped the knife to her side and said to Gage in a low voice. “Her leg is caught in a trap, and I can’t get it off.”
Gage waded to them, his boots slipping on the mossy roots. The woman was wearing a long, gray skirt that floated lightly around her. A rusty, saw-toothed trap was closed on her right leg, just above her ankle. Apparently the girl had been trying to force it open with the knife, but either the knife wasn’t strong enough, or she wasn’t. Gage squatted down and took both sides of the trap in his fingers. Straining, grunting, he pulled with all the strength he could muster. Slowly, so slowly, the gap between the teeth grew apart; an inch, another inch, more and more, and the girl quickly pulled the old woman’s leg up out of the trap. Gage let it snap shut again, then picked it up and threw it far out into the forest.
The old woman lay there in the scant foot of water, panting short, quick animal grunts, her mouth a bloodless thin line. Gage, still squatting by her, looked up at the girl. “You have a camp near here?”
“Yes, just back there,” she waved to the west. She still stared at Gage suspiciously, though he noted now that she had put the knife back in a sheath on her belt.
“I can carry her,” he offered, “or if you don’t want me to, she can ride my horse. He’s very gentle.” The old woman was short, but she was thickly made, almost plump, and he knew the girl couldn’t possibly carry her, and the woman wouldn’t be able to try to limp along with assistance.
The girl looked at the old woman, whose eyes remained tightly shut. She looked down at her leg. The wound was terrible, a deep tearing on both sides of her leg that was bleeding copiously.
Reluctantly the girl said, “All right, but first we have to let the water wash out the wound.” Then she said something to the old woman, who opened her pain-dulled eyes to dark slits, then nodded. Looking back up at Gage, the young girl said, “Help me.” She slid her arm around the old woman’s waist.
Seeing what she wanted to do, Gage knelt behind the woman’s head and put his hands under her arms. As gently as he could, he lifted her and pulled her back toward him. The girl wanted to place the old woman’s ankle right in the fastest, strongest bubbling up of the stream. As they maneuvered her, the woman let out a closed-mouthed groan, almost a growl. The girl looked anguished. The woman was so tensed up with pain that she felt as if she were made of wood.
Worriedly the girl muttered, “It was rusty, and muddy.”
Gage knew she was talking about the trap. “Yes, ma’am,” he said regretfully. “Tetanus, that’s a terrible thing.”
She frowned. “What’s tetanus?”
Now Gage regretted mentioning it, but it was too late for that. “It’s—have you ever heard of lockjaw?” She shook her head. “It’s a disease you can get from wounds from something rusty, or dirty from animal droppings, things like that,” Gage said calmly. “But you’re right, letting this strong flow of water wash out the wound is the best thing for it.” That was true, he knew.
She looked miserably worried. “How long do you think we should do this? She’s bleeding so much.”
“Just give it another minute or two,” Gage answered.
As they sat there he studied the young woman covertly. She had a sort of beauty he had never seen before, exotic and strange to his eyes, with glowing skin colored like a fawn. Now that he was so close to her he could see that her eyes were unusual, a translucent brown-green hazel. Even in the deep shade her black hair gleamed like an onyx jewel. She was wearing a shapeless blouse that was so loose one side was falling down her shoulder, and a gray skirt that was tattered at the hem. The belt she wore was wide, and of gleaming black leather with an ornate silver buckle. Her movements were smooth and quick and feline. Gage thought that it had been as if he had blundered into a snarling tigress in the woods.
The old woman whispered, “Nadyha, it’s enough. Let the gajo take me home.”
Nadyha’s lips tightened but she looked at Gage and nodded. Smoothly he moved to the woman’s side and lifted her in his arms. “Follow me,” Nadyha said. “What about your horse?”
Gage gave a short, sharp whistle and said, “C’mon, boy.” Cayenne started wading across the stream, obediently following.
Nadyha turned and hurried off into the deep woods in the opposite direction from Gage’s camp. He carried the woman, who was still stiffened with pain. Her hands gripped around Gage’s neck like a vise. Her skirt dripped soddenly along the path, and blood ran steadily from her leg. Every few minutes a low whimper escaped her. Gage thought he could see her growing paler by the minute.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you, ma’am,” he said softly. “I really think I can help you, though. I’m sure going to try.”
Her dark pain-clouded eyes searched his face, as if she was trying to see inside his mind. Then she said with difficulty, “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.” Gage was amazed to hear her quote Proverbs; with the girl’s wild beauty and the old woman’s foreign features, he had somehow assumed they were some sort of heathen immigrants.
Nadyha walked quickly, tossing anxious glances over her shoulder, but Gage had no trouble keeping up. Though the woman was heavy, he felt as energetic and strong as when he had carried wounded men away from a battlefield. God gave a man superhuman strength when it was needed, he thought.
They walked about a half a mile, Gage guessed, and suddenly came out of the woods into a clearing. As always, his eyes took in the entire scene in mere moments, and he felt a sort of shock, not of pain but of bewilderment. It was like a bower, or a grotto. Woods and flowering bushes formed two sides of the enclosure, while a low-growing, gnarled weeping willow tree formed a seemingly solid curtain of green on the third side. Beneath his feet was solid, thick, ankle-deep green, and the stringent perfume of mint came strong to his nostrils. Standing end-to-end in a semicircle were three large, ornately decorated, brightly painted wagons. In the front and center of the wagons was a circle, cleared of the mint carpet, with a big fire crackling. Three pots were suspended over it on an iron framework. All this Gage took in and in a flash thought: Gypsies. But that wasn’t what amazed him.
On one side was a sort of hoop on a stick, only it was made of thick, twisted vines, and a hawk perched upon it, his predatory lidless gaze fixed on Gage. By the hawk’s perch sat a plump black bear, eating an apple, holding it with both paws. By the furthest wagon to his left was a mountain lion, lying Sphinx-like in a ray of sunshine. By the cougar’s side sat a black cat, unconcernedly washing its face.
A young woman came running out of the far right wagon, her face twisted with fear. She asked a question in a high, frightened voice, and Nadyha replied shortly in their own language. She motioned Gage to follow her and led him to the middle wagon. There were four steps leading up into the arched doorway. He followed Nadyha in, stooping a little because the roof was exactly six feet high. His impression was of color, dazzling colors of fabrics and paints everywhere. The young woman following them stopped and stood uncertainly in the doorway, wringing her hands. She was weeping silently.
At the back of the wagon was a bed beneath a long, open window with a windowbox full of a grass with s
mall yellow flowers. Nadyha stripped a bright multicolored coverlet from the bed, then reached down under the bed and came up with a thick roll of white fabric. Measuring out several lengths, she nicked it with her knife, then tore it. Folding it she placed it on the bed, then gestured to Gage. Gage laid the old woman down, careful to lay her bleeding ankle onto the pad Nadyha had made. As the old woman settled into the soft mattress she gave a shuddering sigh of relief.
Swiftly Nadyha knelt by her bed, took one of the woman’s hands, and asked a question. The woman grimaced and then answered huskily, “Willow bark tea, maybe. And Nadyha, I thank miry deary Dovvel for the elachi. Make a poultice.” The effort of speaking seemed to heighten her pain, for she gritted her teeth and then shut her eyes tightly closed. Her hands and arms began to shake slightly. Gage had seen wounded men’s entire bodies go into palsy tremors from extreme pain.
Nadyha said to the woman standing in the door, “Mirella, go get the willow bark, it’s in my wagon in a box, labeled. I put the elachi out to dry this morning, it’s right by the herb garden.” Mirella turned and hurried out of the wagon.
Nadyha rose and bent over the woman’s lower leg. She looked up at Gage with both uncertainty and suspicion. He said, “I’ve seen things like this before, ma’am. Can I help?”
Before Nadyha could ask the old woman or even glance at her, she whispered, “Hai, gajo. Please.”
Nadyha said something in a tone that clearly was an objection, but the old woman said, “No, Nadyha, it is right.” Nadyha looked resigned.
Gage bent over the wound, gently dabbing a pad of the fabric to it to clear up some of the blood. Then, with the lightest touch imaginable, he felt around and above and below the wound. Looking up at Nadyha, he said quietly, “Her leg is broken.”
The River Palace: A Water Wheel Novel #3 Page 6