Carry the World

by Susan Fanetti

  She was shivering cold but burning hot. He understood the way fever tore a body apart; he’d seen it time and time again. He’d watched it happen to his parents, his sister, his wife. He’d seen the pain in his daughter, but she’d survived.

  Because of the tonic?

  He didn’t know. But he had to do something.

  He was halfway to the door, on his way for the bottle, when he remembered.

  This isn’t a cure, but it will help her sleep, Ada had told him when she’d brought the tonic. Let the cold run its course, she’d said.

  Ada didn’t need help to sleep. She needed to wake. The tonic wouldn’t help her do that, or cure the illness inside her.

  This was illness was brought on by injury; maybe it didn’t need to run its course. Maybe it could be helped. He could find his way down to Red Fern Holler in the morning, leave Elijah to watch over Ada and Bluebird, and ask Hez Cummings to send for the doctor. And get word to Ada’s kin as well. He couldn’t do this alone. He needed help.

  In the meantime, he had to do what he could to ease her suffering.

  There was one other thing. He’d done it for Grace, when the fever had racked her like this. His impulse then had been purely love, nothing but desperate, terrified love, and burgeoning, devastating grief, but it had eased her in her pain.

  Jonah sat on the chair beside the door and pulled his boots off. He shed his suspenders and undid his trousers, leaving him in nothing but his union suit and socks. Then he climbed into bed, under the heavy mound of quilts and blankets. He eased himself to Ada’s trembling body and turned her gently, bringing her against his chest, and wrapping her in his arms.

  She shook so hard he had to clamp his jaw so he wouldn’t bite his tongue as his body picked up her quakes. Oh, she was so horribly hot. Like he held a live flame in his arms.

  “Shhh,” he breathed. “Shhh. It’s alright, darlin’. I got you. Stay with me. Don’t you go.”

  It might have been a few minutes that passed, or an hour, but finally she began to settle, and when she did, he could feel her breaths become a bit deeper. And then he felt her hand move. It was caught between them, pressed to his chest, and he felt it turn, and the fingers curl. Her nails scraped lightly on his skin. She’d hooked her fingers into the placket of his underclothes, where the buttons were open at his throat. In the first movement she’d made since he’d found her that might have been intentional, she’d taken hold of him.

  “I got you.” he whispered again.

  Ada seemed to sleep calmly the rest of the night, but she never cooled, and shortly after Jonah left the bed in the morning, she began to thrash. It was different from the shivers but still ghastly familiar to him. He thought it was pain, now, that unsettled her so. Maybe it meant she was closer to wakefulness, but it hurt to see her hurt.

  Leaving Elijah in charge, he went down to Red Fern Holler at the first light of dawn, and moved as quickly as he could. The washed-out trail was bad, with another, smaller slide farther down, but he was able to get around it and make his way to the store.

  Ada was known in Red Fern Holler, and well liked. Hez sent down for the doctor, and with word for Ada’s kin, at once, and sent Jonah back up with bandages and a salve from Esther, as well as a few sweets for the children and a pot of chicken broth for Ada, once she was strong enough to take it.

  The doctor came that afternoon—Doc Dollens, the one who’d given Ada the tonic. He was weary and filthy, but he washed up and had Jonah take him straight to her. She was still insensible and hot. Her skin that had been so awfully pale was now red and shiny, which was even more awful to see.

  The doctor had a black bag with him. While Jonah leaned against the wall by the window, watching carefully, within one step of Ada should she need him, the old man spread a cloth across the bedside table and laid out an array of strange instruments.

  “How long’s she been like this?” the doctor asked. He spoke a bit like Ada did, with some schooling in his accent, but he’d kept more mountain in his words than she had.

  “I found her yes’day mornin’,” Jonah answered, “‘bout two miles down the way. She’d took a bad fall and got washed out in the storm, looked like. Maybe somethin’ worse’n that. Her horse took a hit from a bear, I reckon—I got her in the barn. I think Ada mighta done, too. She ain’t woke since I found her. She got the shivers bad last night, and been thrashin’ and moanin’ like this today.”

  The doctor nodded and focused on his patient.

  He tapped a little red hammer on her good knee, on her wrists and elbows. He put a contraption in his ears and set a metal disc attached to it on her chest, pulling the nightgown away to lay it right on her skin. He put a glass tube in her mouth and frowned when he took it out and studied it. He had a strange little device with a tiny bright light, and he opened her eyes and shone it into each one.

  “Has she voided since you found her?”

  Jonah didn’t understand the word. “Voided?”

  “Has her body done any business?”

  Oh. Jonah shook his head. The only soiling of the sheets so far had been blood and mud. “Not yet. But I ain’t shy ‘bout all that. I tended sick before. Don’t bother me none.” It might bother Ada, who was a lady, and not kin to him. He’d have to take care of her in intimate ways he’d normally have no business in, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d tend to her the way she needed, whatever that was.

  “Every day, startin’ now, I need you to try to get water in her. ‘Least a cup, more if you can. Her body needs to do its work. That’ll help her get this fever out. Even if you gotta squeeze water between her lips with a cloth, do that. It might make her sick. If it does, clean her up and keep tryin’.”

  “Yessir.”

  With another acknowledging nod, the doctor checked her wounds. “Did you close these up?”

  “Yessir. Yes’day. I tried to clean ‘em up good, and I used the medicine we got after I sewed ‘em up.”

  “What medicine is that?”

  Jonah answered with incipient shame. “Bag balm.”

  The doctor chuckled quietly.

  “Did I do wrong? Did I hurt her?”

  “I don’t think you hurt her, no. Bag balm’s a fine salve. Probably better than that goop Esther gave you. If you keep the pot clean, then I reckon you did her some good. And these stitches aren’t bad. Did you use a straight needle?”

  Jonah nodded. “One I use for mendin’ coats. And the balm pot’s clean. Doc, is she alright?”

  “No, Mr. Walker. She’s real ill. Her fever’s far too high, and that knock on her head is a bad one, in a dangerous place. It worries me she’s not been conscious in more than a day. But you didn’t make her this way. If she lives she’ll have you to thank for it, by the sound of it.”

  “If?”

  “She’s real ill, like I said. She needs to be in the hospital, but we can’t take her down the mountain, not till she’s much stronger. You’ve done a good job carin’ for her so far. If I give you some instructions and make a regular visit, you reckon you can nurse her?”

  Jonah didn’t hesitate. The thought of her going away from here in this state was far worse than the idea of tending to her. “Yessir. Jus’ tell me what to do.”

  Before Doc Dollens left, he wrote down instructions, and explained them in detail. It was a lot. Jonah had Elijah read them and make sure they both understood. Then the doctor checked the children over as well—the first time one had ever looked on them—and pronounced them in excellent health, though both a bit too thin.

  They all were always skinniest at this time of year. The garden hadn’t had a chance to yield yet, and winter stores had reached their end. This last storm had torn the patch up pretty bad, too, which boded poorly for the coming year. But Jonah couldn’t spare a thought for that problem yet.

  Before the doctor left, Jonah took down the dark bottle of tonic. “I got this here medicine. I had a thought to give it to Ada last night, but I didn’t know what it’d do. It helped Blue
bird when she ailed a while back.”

  The doctor took the bottle and peered at it through his spectacles. “This is one of mine.”

  “Yessir. Ada brung it up when sickness was goin’ ‘round. It gave my girl some ease. Should I give it to Ada?”

  “No! No, don’t do that. This slows down the body. It takes pain away and lets patients sleep, but right now, Ada’s body is workin’ too slow, and she’s sleepin’ too much. If you’d given this to her last night, she’d be dead right now.”

  Jonah’s breath stopped and swelled in his throat. He’d very nearly killed her.

  The doctor handed the bottle back, but Jonah stepped back, holding his hands up. “I don’t want that here.”

  “It’s got its uses, Mr. Walker. Just not this. No medicine’s a cure-all.”

  Jonah shook his head. “I don’t want it.”

  “Alright then.” He put the bottle in his black bag. “I’ll be up again day after tomorrow, early as I can. If there’s trouble before that, get down to the Cummings’ place, and they’ll get word to me.”

  “You got word to her kin?”

  “I did. They know she’s alive and recoverin’ someplace safe. I won’t tell ‘em much more than that for now, till she takes a turn one way or the other. Her folks are gettin’ up in years, she was a late-in-life child, and this worry’s takin’ a toll. But there’s lots of folks prayin’ for that sweet lady, all up and down this mountain.”

  Jonah could believe it. Ada Donovan made an impression.

  Ada didn’t wake all through the day, and she seemed in much more pain, but Doc Dollens had confirmed that her moaning and writhing was preferable to senseless stillness. If she could feel discomfort, she was close to consciousness, and there was hope.

  He squeezed cool water between her hot, slack lips. At first, it seemed like she’d take it fine. Then she sicked it up, all without waking, and started to choke. He turned her to her side until the spasms passed. Then cleaned her up and tried again, hoping at least some of the water was staying down.

  She had the shakes again that night. This time, Jonah didn’t hesitate. Already stripped to his union suit, lying on the floor beside the bed, he rose and went to the other side to climb in with her. He didn’t bother to light a candle.

  This time, he had to mince his steps so that he didn’t stomp on his children. They could hardly bear to be away from Ada and both had begged desperately to be allowed to sleep in this room. He’d been unable to think of a reason they shouldn’t, and it gave him comfort to have them here as well. Maybe it helped Ada, too. Maybe she could sense she wasn’t alone.

  He got into bed and eased her into his arms. As the night before, she shook hard for a while and then finally found some quiet.

  “George,” she murmured, and Jonah almost missed it.

  Or had she said Jonah?

  “Ada?” He leaned his head back and tried to see in the dark. “Ada, you with me?”

  She didn’t answer. Jonah held her close and gave her all the warmth and strength he could.

  Chapter Eleven

  Oh, she hurt. Fire and ice gushed through her in alternating waves, carrying sharp blades of pain.

  Sometimes those blades would close around her arms or legs, would grasp her and move her, shift the flow of fire and ice.

  But always there was pain, flashing light and dark, hot and cold. Always pain.

  Hurt thumped through her from her head to her legs. Every beat of her heart was an explosion. Ada tried to move, but she couldn’t. Not even her eyelids would obey her commands. She tried to speak, to call out for help, but the sound that left her slack mouth was little more than a mewl.

  Shh, shh, darlin’. I got you.

  A man’s voice. George’s? Was she with George?

  George was dead. Was she dead, too? Was she lost? Had he found her?

  Mustering every ounce of energy she could find in this terrible dark, she managed to form his name but barely had the breath to utter it. “George?”

  The dark swallowed her up before she could listen for his answer.

  Ada realized that her eyes were open. She didn’t know how long they had been. The world was dark, except for the red pain pulsing in her head. She was weak and hurt everywhere, and the world was pitch black, but she was in it. She was hot, too hot, but not on fire. She felt a strange kind of agonized calm.

  She tried to move and found that her body was in her control again—but the pain was too much to bear. Even the blink of her eyes was like claws digging in. And she was constrained in some way—not paralyzed but bound. Was she a prisoner? Was the pain from someone hurting her? A shock of fear grabbed her, but ebbed away almost as quickly.

  Not bound. Held. Strong arms around her. Breath riffling her hair. A heartbeat, steady and sure.

  Had George found her? Was this Heaven?

  She found her hand and managed to move it despite the keen ache of the attempt. She brought it up to her chest, pushed it into the narrow space, where she was pressed against that strong heartbeat. A chest. A man’s chest. George? Spreading her hand on the warm body against hers, she tried to speak his name, but no sound came. Her mouth was dry and cracked as a baked brick.

  Suddenly, she knew it wasn’t George who held her. This chest was different. Hair tickled her fingertips. George had no hair on his chest. This chest was harder than her George’s, and she had a sense that it loomed over her. This man was bigger. The scent was different, too. Not George’s. But familiar, somehow. Safe, somehow.

  Finding the energy to move again, she tipped her head back—oh, it hurt so much—but the world was black as pitch, and she couldn’t see.

  She didn’t know who this was, or where they were, but there was no danger here. The man who held her was a tether, she was sure of it. He held her to this world.

  Did she want to stay? What if George was looking for her on the other side? She’d felt him close by, only moments ago, it seemed. What if all she had to do was let go, and she’d be with her husband again? Her sweet, kind man, who’d been with her for too short a time.

  Did she want this world?

  Or the next?

  Ada came back to daylight. This world, not the next. She opened her eyes and sealed them shut again at once. Sunlight streamed over her and stung. Fire still burned all through her, but it was deep, like the core of the earth. She didn’t feel the flames licking her skin anymore.

  In fact, she felt a brush of cool over her leg.

  Prepared now for the bright, she opened her eyes again. Her sight was foggy with lack of use, but she blinked, and blinked again—her eyelids felt singed by the heat of her eyeballs—and details came into focus. She was in a room. Faded flowers danced across the walls, disappearing now and then under white curls. Wallpaper. Old and peeling.

  She was in a bed. A bedroom.

  Another brush over her leg, warm and soft, then cool, like a breeze. “What?” Her voice croaked.

  The brushing stopped. “Hey there.” A man’s voice. “Hey.”

  Ada closed her eyes, summoned her focus, and opened them again. Mr. Walker crouched beside the bed. He held a twist of wet cloth in one hand. With the other, he pulled covers over her bare legs.

  “You in there?” he asked.

  “Mr. W—Walker?”

  He smiled. The expression was surprising, as if she’d never seen this man smile before. Had she?

  “Jonah. That’s my name.”

  “I don’t ... what?”

  Jonah Walker set the cloth aside. Ada heard a soft splash when he did. Then his hands—big and coarse, sweetly cool and a bit damp—scooped her hand up, and he leaned close and spoke softly. “You got real hurt in the storm some days past. You recall?”

  Her mind was a muddle. She knew him, and herself, but could not possibly conceive why she was where she was, or even begin to find a memory of something that might have happened.

  She tried to shake her head, but the movement blasted white-hot agony through her neck and a
round the side of her head. A moan crawled up from her chest as she squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Easy now,” he murmured. His voice was so gentle, so deep and slow. “Don’t push.”

  “Hurts.”

  “I know, darlin’. I’m sorry.” One of his hands left her. “You think you can try to take a drink? Got some good fresh water right here.”

  “I don’t ... know.”

  Her throat felt like it was full of steel wool. Oh, she wanted water. But the thought of lifting her pounding head horrified her. She eased her eyes open and found him right there, his eyes full of kind concern. He’d always looked on her with such cold wariness before, when he met her eyes at all. But she’d seen this look in his eyes for his children.

  Bluebird and Elijah. Where were they?

  “Let’s try,” he said and set a cup on the table beside the bed. Moving gently, he slid an arm under her shoulders. It hurt, and she cried out, but he could not have been more gentle, and he didn’t pull back. He eased onto the bed, using his body to support hers, and brought her up enough that she could take the cup he offered. She rested on his chest. Broad and firm.

  The first trickle of cool was like fire rolling down her throat. But the second was bliss, and she fixed her mouth to the metal side of the cup and swallowed as much as she could. She tried to lift her hand to hold the cup, but something vicious bit her side, and she winced, but still tried to drink. Water spilled at the corners of her mouth.

  “Hey, hey,” he said and firmly, yet gently, forced the cup from her lips. “You been havin’ trouble keepin’ it down. Best take it slow.” He slipped from the bed and eased her back to the pillow. Somehow, he’d managed to slide another in, and she was propped a bit higher.

  “How’s that settin’?”

  He meant the water. Actually, it was sloshing around in her belly like it couldn’t find a place to be. “Not sure.”