Stone Dreaming Woman (18 page)

Helen Richardson, who had now lost two sons, sang an odd, breathy song as she prepared the body for burial. She had cut her hair in mourning the first time; now it was even shorter. Jenny signed her third death certificate, Shane provided the appropriate burial permit, and, as evening fell, another sad procession trekked up the hill to the burial ground. This time she followed the pine coffin, and before they were halfway up the hill, Shane fell in step beside her, looking pale and tired and seeming as numb as she herself felt.
If anything, he’s worked harder than I have
, she thought, finding a new measure of respect for him.

It seemed forever until they reached the top of the hill, but just at sunset Jimmy’s coffin was lowered into a freshly dug grave, and Father André’s Latin drifted around her like the sulky, cool wind that blew damp clouds before it. Unable to understand Father André’s accented Latin as well as Shane apparently did, she was left alone with her thoughts. She was not a crier; she tried in vain to remember the last true tears she had ever shed. However, it was a struggle against her tight throat and stinging eyes every time she thought of the thin, fever-worn boy whose life had been cut short so pathetically soon. He had been buried in his new boots, the scarcely used prosthesis in place.

Dear God, why?
her mind screamed.
Why? That death should never have happened! It was useless and it was senseless! These people are so crowded together here, their housing and sanitation is so bad, and they’re too poor and too uneducated to know the difference. That’s the real reason behind all this tragedy, this preposterous acceptance of the notion that you must bear two children to keep one.
Standing beside Shane, her short nails digging into her palms, she made a vow. The blood of the Old General that ran in her veins saw the enemy. It was ignorance. Well, if these people couldn’t lick ignorance alone, they could with her help.

The battle was joined. She said farewell to New York and to her dream of a surgical practice at Northtown, knowing now that Elk Gap had a grip on her heartstrings. It no longer mattered that she and her father would remain estranged. Her life was now here, among these people who so desperately needed her, and perhaps with a certain tall man in a red tunic. She came to as Father André said something that had the ring of finality to it. The service must be over, she concluded, as Shane had replaced his hat and two men were filling in the grave. The villagers filed off, one by one, while Helen Richardson and her elder sister, Renee LaPorte, remained by the grave a moment longer. She said farewell to Jimmy, vowing that his death would not be in vain. Shane, so observant that she found it eerie, noticed as she looked back over her shoulder.

“That was hard for you, wasn’t it?” he asked.

She turned her eyes up to him, surprised at his directness. “Well, a little bit. From a professional standpoint, I let myself grow fonder of Jimmy than I should have.” That admission came hard. He nodded, the serious lines of his face unrelieved.

“I understand. I saw it happening to you. It just means you have a heart, that’s all,” he said, giving her a sad half-smile, which seemed to be all he could manage at the moment.

When they reached the schoolhouse, two of the women who had not gone to the funeral had brought supper. Silently one of them gave Jenny and Shane bowls of some sort of fragrant stew that had large chunks of meat, carrots, and potatoes in it and handed them each a piece of fried bread. She sat at one of the benches, while Shane folded his long legs beneath him to sit next to her. For some time they ate in silence, both too tired for words. He looked especially worn, she thought. Even though he had been out in the cool air, his face looked pale, and the usual Irish ruddiness across the tops of his cheekbones had faded. With clinical eyes she watched him as he ate. He was one of those clear-skinned people who would not show a rash easily, but he seemed to have no difficulty swallowing. She set her concern aside. After all, he had told her he was immune to scarlet fever, and she had no reason to doubt him.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked.

Guiltily she flinched. It must have been obvious that she was watching him. “No, not really. I was just noticing that you look a little tired. What’s in this stew, anyway? It’s very good.” She could not have cared less about the stew. The comment was merely to deflect his attention.

He grinned wryly. “It’s bear meat,” he responded.

“Bear meat?” she echoed, staring at her spoon with suspicion.

“You haven’t eaten bear before?”

“No, but I guess it won’t hurt me,” she muttered, taking another bite and chewing deliberately.

“It’s good for you. I’ve eaten a lot of it in my life. The only thing is that it has to be cooked thoroughly.”

“Oh? Bears can carry trichinosis?”

“Of course they can. They’re omnivores, after all,” he replied with a shrug.

“Well, that’s logical,” she agreed, wondering why that fact had been left out of her medical training. Probably nobody in Arlington would ever see a medical practice where people ate bear meat. Finding it amusing, she smiled. “I’m really out on the frontier now. When I took parasitology, nobody ever mentioned bears.”

“Your education geared you to a civilized medical practice. How do you feel about the wild frontier now?” He emptied his bowl, wiping up the last of the gravy with his bread.

“These people need a lot of help they’re not getting now.” She felt the intensity of his eyes on her.

“Does that mean you’re staying?”

“For the present, yes.” Even his obvious bone-tiredness did not keep the broad smile off his face.

“I think Angus wants you to stay, too. His arthritis gets worse every winter, and you know how hard it is for him to answer calls in the outlying countryside.”

“I’ve no trouble with that, now that I’m learning my way around. Soon I won’t need a guide.” The front door interrupted their conversation. Renee LaPorte, her bear robe about her shoulders against the night chill, let herself in silently and crossed the room to sit beside the pallets of the three remaining children. Her soft moccasins made no noise on the plank floor, and she sank down cross-legged with the ease of a lifetime of practice. Jenny could not help but see beauty in her dignity and simple grace, and despite her age beginning to show, she was a handsome woman.

“Shane, didn’t you tell me she’s one of the village elders or something like that?” Jenny asked.

“She sits on the tribal council, yes. Why do you ask?”

“Everyone seems to defer to her judgment. She’s a natural leader. Is it unusual for a woman to be on the tribal council?”

“Among the Iroquois it’s actually quite common. The Council’s not hereditary or patriarchal or anything like that. People who have a reputation for intelligence and wisdom are just nominated by consensus of opinion.”

“Well, Madame LaPorte certainly fills that bill. I’d love to get to know her better. She’s fascinating.”

He rose somewhat abruptly. “I’m going to get more stew. Can I bring you some?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine. I should go check the rest of my patients before we turn the lights out.”

He paused, his long legs straddling the bench. “Do you think the epidemic may be running its course?”

“Well, perhaps. Aside from Jimmy, we haven’t had a new case in four days, and I suspect he was sick for a while and didn’t tell anyone. The incubation period is two weeks. Once we’ve gone that long with no new cases, the quarantine can be lifted.” He nodded, seeming a little pleased at her optimism.

Of her three patients, only one was still acutely ill. The other two had passed the crisis and would recover. One of them, a six-year-old girl, worried her. The youngest boy had bounced back, but though the girl’s fever had fallen, she remained lethargic and unresponsive. Brain damage was a definite possibility. Jenny had noted in the records that this case bore monitoring for some time. The girl’s dark eyes followed as Jenny tried to coax her to respond, but she acted as if she did not care what went on around her. Perhaps she was simply too weak to react yet, Jenny hoped, but her mind dredged up a catalog of possible aftereffects, including idiocy and deafness. At this point all she could do was wait and see. The third child, a slightly older girl, was at the height of her fever. Jenny would watch with her tonight, even though she had only managed an hour or so of sleep in the last twenty-four, and she would pray that this case would be the last.

Thick candles provided the only illumination in the schoolhouse. She had no quarrel with the kerosene lamps in Elk Gap, but these smelly deer tallow candles were a shade too primitive. They made it difficult to read her thermometer, but as she tilted it this way and that, the feeble light finally caught the ribbon of mercury. Good. Alice’s fever was down half a degree. She had thought the girl would throw off the worst of the illness tonight, and she was not disappointed. She checked once more to make certain all three children were snugly covered, then looked at her watch. It was nearly one o’clock, and the interior of the schoolhouse had become frankly cold. Doing up the top button of her cardigan, she opened the isinglass door of the old stove, laying five sections of alder into it as quietly as she could. She made a mental note to tell Shane they would need more wood by afternoon. After gazing into the fire for a while she closed the door, raising it carefully so the catch would not clatter.

After a minute or so, she concluded that her nocturnal perambulations had not disturbed Madame LaPorte, who dozed upright in a corner next to the children’s pallets, or Shane, who had picked the coldest and most remote corner of the whole room to spread out a blanket. Taking up her candle, she tiptoed across the room to where he lay, one blanket doubled beneath him and another tossed haphazardly over his body. He had taken off his Red Serge and folded it for a pillow, though he was still wearing the rumpled white shirt that went beneath it. He lay curled tightly on his right side, and as she watched he drew up his legs a little more.
He needs another blanket or two. It’s cold in here
, she thought, but she was hesitant to risk waking him. He needed his rest. This was the first night he had slept more than two hours since the beginning of the epidemic.

She watched for a few minutes more as the uncertain candlelight picked out the slight concavity beneath his cheekbone and shadowed his eyes. He looked as self-possessed in sleep as he did awake. When she had first met him, that unshakeable composure had irritated her past bearing, but long since she had moved past her desire to assail it. Watching him with Jimmy Richardson had shown her that he had a very sensitive heart indeed.

Even her heavy cardigan was inadequate in this end of the schoolhouse. She was certain he would soon awaken of his own accord unless he had more covers. Setting her candle holder on the nearest table, she took up two clean blankets from a stack on one of the tables, shook them out together, and draped them over him, settling them gently around his shoulders As she was fighting an irrational urge to smooth the jet black hair that hung awry over his forehead, he opened his eyes languidly and turned just a little to look up at her. She gave in to her impulse and gently stroked his tumbled hair back. He smiled.

“Thank you for the blankets. I was getting cold. How’s everything?” he asked in an undertone.

“Fine. Go back to sleep. I’ll come for you if I need you.” She laid a gentle palm on his shoulder, and his right hand emerged from the blankets to cover her fingers briefly. The print of his warm fingers remained on the back of her hand even after he settled himself back beneath the blankets. She noted again that his hands were always warm, even after he had been outside in the cold.

“Good night, Jenny,” he murmured.

“Good night, Shane.” Her hand lingered against his shoulder for a second more. She would have kissed him had they been alone; instead, she combed his unruly hair back from his forehead again, then stood and wandered back to the warmth haloing the potbellied stove.

She managed to nap off and on for the next few hours, awakening fully at dawn when a dog barked outside the schoolhouse. She sat up, stretching, and the first thing she noticed was that Shane was already gone, leaving his blankets folded neatly where he had slept. Madame LaPorte still sat cross-legged next to Alice; she looked up at Jenny and nodded. Helen Richardson, beside her, waited to acknowledge Jenny until her older sister had done so.

“All is well with her,” she said. Jenny was finding it easier to understand her oddly accented French. “The fever is nearly gone.”

“
Bien
,” Jenny replied, kneeling on the other side of the pallet. She did look better, and when Jenny pressed her palm against the girl’s smooth forehead, she felt the normal warmth of a sleeping child.

“Is the sickness over?” Madame LaPorte asked, turning her dark eyes to Jenny.

“Perhaps. We must wait to see. If there are no new cases in fourteen days, it will have run its course.”

“Until the next time,” the older woman added.

“God willing, there won’t be a next time. There are medicines, called vaccines, that can be given to children so they will not become ill, and there are other ways to prevent the diseases that kill so many of your babies. Madame, perhaps at one time it was necessary to have two children so that one would grow up, but that is no longer true. With your cooperation, I can teach your people how to keep their children healthy.” The Indian woman’s gaze was intense with an odd mixture of hope and disbelief. “I am telling you the truth, Madame. If I can only work with everyone here, to show them how to eat well and to keep clean, how to keep their drinking water pure, and if I can inoculate the young children…” Jenny broke off; from Madame LaPorte’s expression it was plain the last term had lost her completely. “I mean, give them medicine that will keep them from becoming ill. If I can do that, not nearly as many will die. But I need your help, Madame.” Jenny was overtly pleading now, and the more she spoke, the darker the other woman’s expression became.