The Boston Snowplough

by Sue Rabie

  David dropped his hand to the table. ‘It was from before,’ he replied.

  She touched his hand lightly as if in concern.

  Her lashes were very long over her deep blue eyes. He studied her fine nose, the way her mouth turned slightly upwards at the corners.

  ‘When you found me?’ she asked. ‘You hurt yourself when you broke the window of my car to get me out?’

  ‘I’ll replace it,’ he said.

  The warmth of her touch on his arm left a tingling sensation.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘It’s you whom I can never repay.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he told her uncomfortably. The moment was very intense – her touch, her closeness.

  ‘It’s not nothing,’ she said. ‘Just like Jake’s outburst is not nothing.’

  It was a few seconds before David could respond.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Michelle tilted her head towards him, her long hair lightly brushing his shoulder. ‘I don’t think he likes you,’ she told him. ‘I think he feels threatened.’

  She squeezed his hand as if in solace, but there was a strange smile on her face.

  Pleading almost. Seductive.

  Her touch was electric, her blue eyes begging him to protect her.

  ‘Are you afraid of him, David?’ Michelle asked.

  He was taken aback by the question, his mind swirling with mixed messages. ‘I’m not afraid of him,’ he told her. ‘I’m afraid of what he might do.’

  Her hand was still resting in his.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t let anything happen …’

  ‘Ah … excuse me?’

  Mark was back.

  He glanced from David to Michelle and back again. David quickly let go of her hand and stood up.

  ‘The others are getting ready to move out …’ Mark said hesitantly. ‘Are you both ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ David told Mark hurriedly.

  ❄

  ‘Fool!’ David breathed to himself as he went outside and busied himself checking the grader. ‘Stupid fool!’

  Why had he let her touch him? Why hadn’t he explained the situation to Mark?

  He waded though the thick snow around the grader and checked the horsebox to make sure everything was still secure. His fingers stiffened almost immediately as he ran his hands over the chain. He slipped his gloves back on then tucked his hands underneath his armpits to keep them warm as he waited for the others.

  He thought about the girl again, about how her touch had sent shivers through him. What about May? Only that morning he had left May’s hospitality behind. Was this girl’s touch so electric that he could forget how he felt about May Jordaan?

  Don’t think about it. He longed for the routine of the petrol station and the lack of time it offered to think. Out here there was too much silence, too much to dwell on.

  He wished all this was over … wished he could forget …

  A snort from his left.

  A horse poked its head out from its stable and nickered softly at him.

  There were four horses in the stables, the names carefully painted on the doors announcing them as Mowgli, Fats, Annie Bee and Tom. They were part-breeds from what he could tell; strong hardy animals.

  David walked over and glanced in at Mowgli’s hay net. It was almost empty, and there was a thin coating of ice on the water in the half-empty bucket. David walked down the row and checked the other stables. Fats’s hay net was completely empty. He went into the last stable that passed as a feed and tack room and started refilling the hay nets. He spoke to the horses as he worked, cracking the ice on their water buckets as he hung each net.

  ‘Everything all right here?’ Mark said, poking his head into Mowgli’s stable where David was tying the last net to the wall. ‘The horses okay?’

  ‘They’re fine,’ David told him as he gave Mowgli one last pat. He tried to sound casual, as if nothing had happened, as if Mark hadn’t come into the kitchen and found him holding Michelle’s hand. ‘Home and dry,’ he said.

  ‘Which is what we can be as soon as we leave,’ Mark replied with meaning. ‘Once everyone’s in Boston it’ll be better,’ he continued as he fell into step beside David as they trudged back to the grader. ‘Malan and Du Plessis will take care of the passengers and we’ll finally be rid of him.’

  Jake had emerged from the house and stood watching them from the stoep as they walked towards him.

  Mark thought David was worried about Jake, was worried about what he would do. Well, David was worried about Jake, was wary of the man’s temper, but in truth he was more concerned about what would happen when they got back to Boston, about where he would find more supplies for the people at Elandskrans. But before he could voice his concerns, Anri appeared on the stoep, a worried look on her face.

  ‘What is it?’ Mark called out with slight trepidation.

  Anri glanced briefly over her shoulder at the house. ‘It’s the boy,’ she said as they approached. ‘There’s something wrong.’

  Eight

  ❄

  Miriam sat on the side of the bed beside the boy. He lay motionless with his eyes closed. His face was flushed, a faint sheen of sweat evident on his skin. Miriam reached for the bedside table and wrung out a cold cloth before draping it once again over his forehead.

  The boy coughed.

  It was a raking cough, harsh and grating and loose in his chest.

  ‘We gave him some syrup for the cough,’ Anri said as Mark and David followed her into the room, ‘but it didn’t seem to help and now his temperature is even higher.’

  Miriam studied the men as they stepped in. She liked them both, especially the quiet one, but she didn’t get up to greet them as was the custom. They did not expect it of her and she didn’t want to disturb the child.

  ‘He can’t keep anything down,’ Anri continued in a hushed voice, ‘and he’s complaining his chest is sore.’

  Anri and her husband came to stand over the boy while David hung back, a strange expression of reluctance on his face.

  ‘Is it a fever?’ Mark said. ‘Maybe it’s something he ate?’

  Anri shook her head and David silently agreed with her.

  It was serious, but he couldn’t help. He restrained himself as he watched Anri and Mark standing over the boy, held back as he watched Mark tell Anri that they would take care of him in Boston.

  ‘There won’t be anyone at the clinic in this weather, Mark,’ Anri argued. ‘We’re cut off from any help and there’s no way we can make it all the way out to Doctor Wilson’s place, certainly not in this snow anyway.’

  Doctor Wilson was the nearest medical man in the area. A retired general practitioner, he came into Boston twice a week to make his services available from an old house next to the cash store. The rest of his time he spent alone on a smallholding ten kilometres further on on the other side of the village.

  David doubted there was much Doctor Wilson could do for the boy other than medicate him. All anyone could hope to do was to keep the boy warm and try to fight the fever with antibiotics.

  He watched them as they fumbled for an answer. You’ll only get yourself into more trouble, he told himself. Especially if Du Plessis found out. But he felt Miriam’s eyes on him, and when he turned towards her the look on her face was almost an accusation. It wouldn’t hurt just to help, he told himself. No one had to know.

  He sat down on the other side of the bed. Miriam smiled at him. He ignored her and concentrated on the boy. He had come awake, was looking up at David trustingly. ‘Hello again,’ he said to the lad. ‘I hear you don’t feel well?’

  The boy nodded solemnly as Anri and Mark carried on arguing behind him.

  ‘Do you mind if I take a look?’ David asked the boy.

  The boy shook his head slowly and David took his wrist to check his pulse. His skin was hot to the touch, the hand clammy and moist. The pulse was fast. David slipped his hand under the boy’s jaw. The glands were sw
ollen and when David asked him to lift his shirt and felt under the boy’s arms, the glands there were swollen too.

  By this time Anri and Mark had stopped arguing and turned to watch.

  David ignored them and carried on with the examination. It felt strange to do it again, felt good and at the same time wrong. The guilt returned, but he continued regardless.

  He did not have a stethoscope to listen to the boy’s chest, but he didn’t need one, the phlegmy rattle he heard as the boy coughed was evident of the build-up in the lungs.

  ‘Your chest hurts?’ he asked the boy.

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Here and here?’ David asked. He touched the base of the boy’s ribs where the coughing would have caused the strain.

  The boy nodded again and David pulled his shirt down neatly. He smiled, patted the boy’s leg reassuringly and told him he’d be just fine.

  He had told Janey that once.

  She had believed him too.

  David stood.

  ‘David?’ Anri asked carefully. ‘Where did you …?’

  He didn’t let her finish. He didn’t want her to ask. He beckoned them to leave the room instead. They followed, gathering around him as he stopped outside the door.

  ‘He has pneumonia,’ he told them. ‘He needs medication.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Miriam asked, her face drawn.

  ‘Your son needs antibiotics,’ David told her.

  Miriam frowned. ‘He is not my son, Mr David.’ It was more of a question than a statement. A surprised one.

  Anri and Mark stared at her in equal surprise.

  ‘He was near me on the bus,’ Miriam said. ‘We sat together when the cold started getting very bad.’

  David felt the weight of responsibility settle heavily on his shoulders. ‘Well,’ he said, eventually, ‘he’s quite sick. Only antibiotics can get rid of the infection in his lungs. And he certainly won’t be able to travel in his condition.’

  ‘He can stay here,’ Anri said. ‘I’ll look after him until you can get back with the medication.’

  ‘Then I will stay too,’ Miriam said.

  David glanced at her, wondering why she felt such an obligation to the little boy.

  ‘I can also stay. If you need me?’

  They all looked around to see who had spoken.

  It was Michelle. ‘I can help,’ she said. ‘I trained as a nurse.’

  ‘It should be all right …’ David began to thank her.

  ‘Two women and a sick boy on their own in a snowstorm is asking for trouble,’ Michelle cut in. ‘Let me help,’ she added. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  It made sense, and David knew that Anri and Miriam might well need her.

  ‘Where will you get antibiotics in this weather?’ Anri asked.

  ‘Du Plessis can let us into the clinic,’ Mark said. ‘We can get the antibiotics and come straight back.’

  David didn’t argue. ‘Keep him warm,’ he told the women. ‘We’ll be back as soon as we can.’

  ❄

  They left soon after, the bus passengers once again crowded reluctantly into the horsebox. Jake was the last one in, glowering in David’s direction. David took no notice of him as he climbed up onto the grader. He was thinking of Miriam, who had stayed inside to be with the boy.

  She’ll manage, he told himself. They’ll be fine.

  He watched Mark kiss his wife, before making his way to the horsebox.

  The trip took longer than expected. The snowfall was thicker, the settling drifts deeper, the cold much worse. David struggled to find his way along the snowed-in roads. Twice he had to stop and get out to check for familiar landmarks. Once he felt the plough begin to sink to the side and knew he was about to drive into a roadside ditch. He stopped again, then trudged around the grader trying to find the hard edge of the road so he could angle the vehicle back in the right direction.

  What hindered them even further was the encroaching darkness. After delivering the supplies to Elandskrans, David and Mark had arrived at the farm in the early afternoon, but the boy had taken up their time. The decision about what to do with him had delayed them, and now it was late, the low clouds promising heavier snow to come.

  When they finally made it back to Boston it was already dark. David was relieved when he saw the lights of the country club in the distance and for that reason he drove straight to where he knew the other passengers would by now be billeted, bypassing the cash store and the small house Doctor Wilson ran his clinic from twice a week.

  The rest of Boston was quiet; the shops silent and unlit. The looming farmers’ exchange was ghostly as they passed. David wondered whether he would be able to get the extra supplies he needed for the people at Elandskrans from there. He had nothing left at the garage. Malan at the club wouldn’t give him much, what with the extra mouths from the stranded bus to feed. David also doubted May would have much food left, certainly not after feeding the first lot of passengers.

  He would go back to the farmers’ exchange later. He knew there would be meal and flour there. There would also be anthracite, which he knew Jethro Miller stocked to supply folks on outlying farms who still ran donkey boilers to heat their water.

  He carried on past a stranded car that was a mere hump in the snow, worrying about Anri, Michelle, Miriam and the boy. He tried to tell himself to focus on the here and now, to just get past one hurdle at a time, and not to think about everything that could possibly go wrong, but at the back of his mind his suspicions about Jake and Kyle were deepening.

  How would Jake be when they got back to the club?

  Would Alex Kyle be able to control Jake’s temper?

  ❄

  The Boston Country Club had been built many years ago. David suspected it may even have started out life as a church, with its sharply pitched roof, steeple and the dilapidated graveyard nearby. It stood above the road, with a short driveway and parking area in front of its main doors. Jacob Malan had purchased it in the hope of attracting the locals with the sports facilities and the small hall that could be used for theatre productions, weddings and dinners, but the reality had fallen short of his dream and the tennis courts were weed-encrusted, the squash courts attached to the back of the hall neglected.

  The members of the Boston Country Club were not big on sport.

  The only sport that was successful at the club was played on the pool table.

  Malan had been disappointed, but his disappointment hadn’t stopped him making a tidy profit. He was a demanding man, as David had quickly found out in his dealings with him at the garage, and stubborn at the same time, but he could also be generous. David drove up to the small front porch with that in mind.

  Du Plessis and Malan opened the doors as David drove the grader up to the porch and turned the engine off. A wide flight of stairs led down to ground level where in summer the cement tables and benches were usually put to good use, but now all that was evident of the tables and benches were bulging shapes in the snow. No path had been cleared to the stairs that were also packed with snow, but Malan made a cursory attempt at clearing them with his foot as he and Du Plessis came outside. Constable Potgieter appeared moments later as David clambered stiff-legged from the grader and Mark began ushering people out of the horsebox and up towards the light.

  ‘You’re here,’ Du Plessis said, a hint of frustration in his voice despite the clear relief visible on his face.

  Constable Potgieter was not as polite. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he began, hounding David who was helping an elderly woman hobble up the snow-packed stairs. ‘What the hell took you so long?’

  David clamped his jaw shut.

  ‘Potgieter, sometimes I wonder how you ever became a cop,’ Mark said, glaring at him.

  ‘We were stuck here, Mark,’ Du Plessis said, defending his constable. ‘Without David no one can get anywhere in this weather.’

  ‘Without David these people would be dead,’ Mark hissed.

  David flashe
d a warning glance at Mark, the look cautioning him not to alarm the woman he was helping.

  They didn’t realise, David thought, how close to death they had really come. Not even Du Plessis knew. It was only by chance he had found Michelle in her car, only by chance he and Mark had found the passengers in the bus and then the others at Elandskrans.

  He needed help to get the passengers safely into the club, needed Du Plessis to keep his constable in hand.

  ‘Could you help Mrs Ndlovu inside, sergeant?’ he asked, passing the elderly woman over to Du Plessis. ‘Then help with Mrs Peta.’

  He turned to get the three teenage girls up the stairs and into the warmth of the club, only to find Potgieter already there, the constable suddenly a picture of politeness as he took the oldest girl’s arm.

  David sighed in frustration, resisted the impulse to brush Potgieter off the girl, and turned to help the others instead.

  The last passenger was a tall, elderly gentleman, who did not speak until spoken to, did not make eye contact, and never complained. In fact, David could not remember having heard him speak. David wished his life could be so simple, that he could restrain himself like Owen Dlamini and not show his emotion. It seemed that lately he was always tense, always on edge, close to lashing out.

  It was the tiredness, or the cold, or the people that seemed to want so much from him.

  Once more he pushed the emotion away, and with his temper in check reached for the side door of the horsebox.

  The small groom’s door was old and rusty and had a tendency to swing shut when not propped open.

  Just as David leant forward the door flew open and slammed into his face.

  He stumbled back, then lost his footing as a concealed bench caught him behind the knees. He went down heavily and lay there, slightly dazed.

  Blood dripped brightly onto the snow.

  Jake came over to stand above him. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, grinning.

  It was he who had kicked the door open, purposefully waiting for David to get close enough to the horsebox.

  David rolled over onto his side to face Jake. There was a rush of snow behind him. Mark had arrived. ‘David!’ Mark exclaimed. ‘What happened?’