The Captive Heart

by Dale Cramer

  Aaron nodded firmly. “Agua Nueva is only thirty miles over the mountains to the west. We can be there before dark. Rachel, you’ll go with me to take care of them while I drive. Pack food and water, some blankets and whatever we need for Little Amos while I go and hitch our fastest horse to the surrey. I will drive that horse to death if I must.”

  ———

  Ten minutes later a long trail of dust hung over the road in the west end of Paradise Valley. Aaron leaned forward in the driver’s seat, his wide-brimmed hat shoved low over his eyes as he white-knuckled the reins, shouting, willing his best horse up into the mountains at a hard trot. Rachel sat in the back holding a coughing, sweating child on her lap and keeping an arm around Ada, who leaned against her and moaned constantly from a fire in her throat that she did not understand.

  Over and over Rachel muttered the only prayer she could think to pray.

  “Please, Gott, help us. Please.”

  Chapter 17

  In midafternoon the surrey rolled down from the heights above Agua Nueva, hurried across the railroad tracks and turned onto the main street of the ramshackle mountain town. A few poncho-clad peasants stopped and stared, and two mangy dogs harried the exhausted buggy horse right up until Aaron pulled back the reins and stopped in front of the train station.

  Rachel leaned out and shouted at a portly woman on the boardwalk. The old woman wore a colorful scarf on her head and carried a canvas bag in her hand. Her other hand was on the door, about to enter the station, but she stopped when Rachel called to her.

  “Por favor, señora, tell me where we can find a doctor. We have a sick child.”

  The woman pointed. “Two streets down,” she said. “Past the blacksmith shop.”

  “Gracias,” Aaron shouted over his shoulder, already rolling. When he found the place he didn’t even tie the horse, but jumped down, grabbed Little Amos and helped Ada down out of the surrey.

  “See to the horse,” he said to Rachel without looking back, almost dragging Ada up across the boardwalk, where he banged on the doctor’s door.

  The horse was badly lathered, drooling foam around his mouth and panting heavily. Rachel took the reins and eased him around to the stables behind the blacksmith shop. The smith showed her to a stall, where she gave that fine animal food and water and rubbed him down before she left. It was about then that she noticed her own throat was getting sore.

  ———

  Rachel let herself in through the front door and nosed around until she found them in a back room. Ada and Little Amos lay on separate cots on opposite sides of the room with a little dresser against the wall between them—the only furniture. Afternoon light slanted through a window on one side, and there were two unlit lanterns hanging overhead. The place was clean but spare. To Rachel, Dr. Gutierrez looked to be no older than Aaron, a slight man dressed in khaki, his shirttail hanging out. Standing over Ada, the doctor raised a hypodermic and gave it a thump with his middle finger.

  “You must be Rachel,” he said without looking. “Your brother told me you would let yourself in.”

  Aaron stood flat against the wall by the door, waiting, staying out of the way.

  “I’m afraid your friend was right, Señorita Bender, it is diphtheria. It is good you brought them so quickly, but it may already be too late.”

  The doctor had already undone the shoulder of Ada’s dress, but when he leaned over with the needle, she realized what was about to happen and went all wild-eyed, screaming and crabbing away from him until she overbalanced the cot and crashed to the floor in the corner.

  Aaron calmly lifted the cot out of the way and knelt over her. He spoke to her with a lowered voice, the way he would have calmed a spooked horse, and she quieted. Gently but firmly he wrapped her in a hug that hid her face and trapped her arms while leaving her shoulder exposed for the doctor. The prick of the needle sent her into another fit of kicking and screaming, but Aaron had her now. When the doctor backed away, finished, Aaron kept holding her, talking in soothing tones until she finally calmed down, then righted the cot and helped her back into it. Only after he had returned to his post by the door did Aaron reach up and rub the little parentheses of blood seeping through the shoulder of his shirt where Ada had bitten him.

  Little Amos did not fight when Gutierrez injected his behind, though he began crying softly. As soon as the doctor moved away Aaron sat down on the cot and picked up the child. Amos wrapped his arms around his uncle’s neck and laid his head on the same shoulder Ada had bitten.

  Rachel had missed most of the conversation, and she wanted to be sure about the antitoxin. “Doctor, was that the medicine my friend Kyra told us about? Will it cure them?”

  Gutierrez’s head bobbed side to side, ambivalent. “Sí, señorita, it is the antitoxin. But you must understand, this is not a cure.”

  “But Kyra said . . .”

  Gutierrez shook his head. “No. To put it simply, diphtheria cells make poison and put it into the blood. The antitoxin will counteract the poison, and sometimes it is the difference between life and death, but the disease will run its course. This boy was already very sick and the swelling may not have reached its peak. The disease is not done with him yet, señorita. He will have to fight it off in his own strength.”

  “No,” Aaron said quietly. “He will fight it off in the strength of Gott.”

  To Rachel, this was unsettling news. It seemed the end was still not clear.

  “Will they live?” she squeaked. Aaron flinched, so bluntly had she voiced his fear.

  The young doctor shrugged weakly. “I don’t know. This one, she is a grown woman and I think she will make it. But the boy . . . it is too soon to tell. We will know in the morning. I suppose your brother is right—his life is in God’s hands.”

  Aaron was rubbing at his shoulder as Gutierrez talked, and the doctor noticed.

  “Is that blood on your shirt, señor?”

  Aaron nodded.

  “Your sister bit you?”

  “Sí, but it is nothing.”

  “Nothing? Señor, diphtheria is very contagious. When your throat begins to swell, then you will not think it is nothing. Do either of you have a sore throat?”

  Rachel coughed, nodded. “I do,” she said.

  The doctor prepared antitoxin for both of them. “If it is given early enough, sometimes the effects of the disease are milder,” he said.

  “Well then,” Aaron said, “is there any way you could come to Paradise Valley and give it to the rest of our people?”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know . . . over a hundred in our settlement alone. More than that at El Prado.”

  The doctor shook his head. “I don’t have that much antitoxin, but I know a doctor in Saltillo who does. There is a telegraph office in the train station. As soon as I can I will wire him and inform him of the outbreak. I’m sure he will send someone to your valley.”

  Squeezing Rachel’s arm to administer the shot, Gutierrez said to her, “You are a strong one, señorita, and we caught the disease very early. Perhaps it will not be too bad.”

  Then he asked Aaron if they had a place to stay. “If you don’t, I can offer you a cot in the other room, but you will have to give it up if a patient needs it.”

  “I will stay here,” Aaron said. His eyes pointed to the pine plank floor next to Little Amos’s bed.

  “But, señor, you are welcome—”

  “I will stay here.”

  Ada squirmed on the narrow cot. Her eyes, white with terror, were glued to Rachel’s face. She was whimpering still, but under the circumstances she was doing better than Rachel expected.

  “I will stay here, too,” Rachel said.

  The doctor nodded slowly, smiling a little. “I see. Well then, we will try to make you comfortable. My wife and I live upstairs. She will bring you something to eat at dinnertime, but it may not be much. I am only a poor country doctor; most of my patients pay with chickens and corn.”

  “You
heal this boy, Doctor,” Aaron said, “and I will find a way to pay whatever you ask.”

  Rachel slept fitfully that night on the pallet the doctor’s wife made for her on the floor beside Ada’s bed. In the middle of the night she awoke to the sound of thrashing, and then a voice in the darkness.

  “What’s wrong?” Aaron shouted, and she knew by the desperation in his voice that he was talking to Little Amos.

  “Rachel, light the lantern, quick!”

  Scrambling in the pitch-black for the matches, she managed to find a lantern and light it. Aaron was sitting on the cot holding Little Amos, who was flailing about with his arms and kicking his little feet. His mouth was open as if he wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

  “He’s burning up,” Aaron said.

  She held the lantern close. “His lips are blue,” she said. “He can’t breathe.”

  “Get the doctor!”

  Rachel’s curly red hair hung loose about her shoulders but she was fully dressed; she’d been sleeping in her clothes. She lit the other lantern and ran to the stairs. In less than a minute she came back, trailed by the young doctor. His hair was tousled and he was just now fastening a pair of pants under his nightshirt. He knelt by the cot and put a stethoscope to Amos’s chest while Aaron held him. The child’s chest heaved and his arms and legs tightened with it, fighting with all his strength to draw breath through his swollen throat. Even in the last few minutes they had seen his struggles growing weaker.

  “His throat is closing,” the doctor said.

  Aaron leaned toward him, fire in his eyes. “Do something.”

  “Lo siento, Señor Bender, but there is nothing more I can do.” There was grief in his eyes, and his hands shook as his face sank into them.

  Aaron reached out and laid a hand on the young doctor’s shoulder. His voice came out soft and full of compassion.

  “Please, Doctor. You must know something. There has to be a way.”

  Gutierrez raised his face. He looked away for a moment and his eyes narrowed in thought.

  “There is one thing,” he said. “It is possible to cut a hole in the throat, only I have never done it before.”

  Aaron shrugged. “But you know how it is done?”

  “I think so, but I have never even seen it done, and it is dangerous because the child is so small and I would have to sedate him.”

  Aaron studied his face. “Will he die if you don’t do it?”

  The doctor stared at Little Amos for a moment and the grief returned to his eyes. He nodded.

  “He will not see the dawn.”

  “Then do it,” Aaron said. “No matter the outcome, I will thank you for trying.”

  Gutierrez rose to his feet, the decision made. “Señor Bender, I think perhaps your resolve is more contagious than diphtheria. How much does he weigh?”

  “About thirty pounds,” Aaron said.

  It didn’t take long. Gutierrez went away for a minute and came back with a tray covered by a white cotton cloth on which lay a scalpel, scissors, glass tubes and bandages he would need, carefully lined up. Rachel held the tray while he gave Little Amos a shot to put him to sleep and then held his own breath for fear the boy’s strained, fragile breathing would stop.

  A minute later he swabbed iodine on the little cleft at the top of the breastbone and made a cut with the scalpel. Amos lay flat on the cot, his breath now coming in hard spasms. Aaron knelt on the other side of the cot, holding the child’s head and knees firmly, his lips moving in silent prayer.

  The doctor parted the flesh and found the trachea, then without hesitation made a small incision. The boy’s chest heaved and there was a little suction sound as he drew air and blood through the hole. Quickly, Dr. Gutierrez plucked a glass tube from his tray and inserted it into the hole.

  In mere seconds the child’s breathing leveled out, his chest rising and falling normally. The rasping disappeared, air now bypassing his constricted throat. Soon the blue began to fade from his lips and some of the color came back into his cheeks. The doctor drew a great quaking breath of his own and sat back on his haunches wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his nightshirt.

  “It is working,” he whispered, wide-eyed, as if it was a complete surprise to him. As if it was a miracle. Then he shook himself out of his reverie and set about taping the tube in place and bandaging around it.

  Aaron had not moved. His stoic expression had not changed. He said nothing, and Rachel was careful not to stare at the tears tracking his cheeks.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Ada. At bedtime the doctor had given her something for pain, which apparently knocked her out. By Gott’s grace she had slept through the whole ordeal, and until now Rachel hadn’t even noticed the snoring.

  ———

  By the next evening the swelling in Little Amos’s neck had gone down and his fever had abated. The day after that, Gutierrez tested his throat by placing a finger over the end of the tube. Amos breathed normally, through mouth and nose. This was a great relief, considering that Aaron and Rachel had been taking turns holding him round the clock to prevent him from pulling the irritating tube out of his own throat. The doctor sedated him one more time, removed the tube and stitched up the hole.

  By Monday morning Ada was feeling much better, Rachel’s symptoms had nearly disappeared and the incision on Little Amos’s throat was healing nicely with no sign of infection. Dr. Gutierrez reluctantly acquiesced when Aaron insisted it was time to go home.

  Aaron paid the blacksmith, hitched the horse and brought the surrey around, then went inside to settle up.

  “How much do we owe you?” he asked, bouncing Little Amos in his arms.

  The doctor chuckled. “I have only been a doctor for a year, Señor Bender, and I have not yet learned how much to charge. Most of the time it doesn’t matter because the people I treat have no money anyway. Just do what they do—pay me whatever you can, whenever you can. Whatever you think it is worth.”

  “I can’t do that,” Aaron said with a proud glance at his nephew. “I won’t ever have that much.”

  Chapter 18

  They sang as they bumped along the rocky road at the crest of the long ridge coming back from Agua Nueva. The sun shone brightly, the high mountain air was cool and clear and their faithful buggy horse was sound, well rested and eager to work after three days in the stable. Aaron and Rachel were too jubilant to contain themselves, so they sang old hymns to pass the time. Little Amos occasionally blew an off-key note on his harmonica, and it made Aaron laugh every time. Even Ada felt well enough to sing along with them. It had always seemed strange to Rachel that Ada could sing better than she could talk, but then again it didn’t require nearly as much thought. A song came with its own memory, and the words were always the same. Ada loved anything that was always the same.

  They were about halfway home, still riding the ridgetop above the tree line, when Aaron heard something, stopped singing and leaned out to look behind them. When he turned back around the smile had gone from his face, replaced by terror.

  “Bandits,” he said. He snapped the reins and hurried the horse, but it was a futile gesture. Within a minute a dozen bandits swarmed past both sides of the buggy. One of them swept in close and grabbed the reins by the horse’s neck and hauled back. The horse’s head turned sharply and he pulled up, slowing to a stop.

  The others turned and trotted back toward them, led by that unmistakable Appaloosa. El Pantera dismounted in front of them and ambled casually back to the buggy.

  Rachel cringed. Maybe it was the white eye with the jagged scar angling down across it, the hollow grin or the patently false air of civility, but something about this man reminded her of a coiled snake, ready to strike without warning. He made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Two of his men stood holding the bridle of the buggy horse while several others dismounted and sauntered over to stand behind their leader. Half of them remained in their saddles, leaning to get a better look. At her.

>   El Pantera stopped a few feet away from the buggy and touched a finger to his slouch hat.

  “Buenos días, amigos! My friends and I heard singing and we wondered who these pilgrims were who traveled our road so happily on this fine bright day.” He was smiling as gaily as if he were about to break into song himself. “What is your name, señor?”

  “Me llamo Aaron Bender.”

  “Bender! The name is familiar to me. I know your father. You are friends with young Domingo, no?”

  Aaron nodded, reluctantly. “Sí. Domingo is our friend.”

  The smile faded from El Pantera’s lips. “You should choose your friends more carefully, Señor Aaron Bender.”

  Rachel was sitting directly behind her brother and she could see his breathing quicken. She shifted Little Amos off her lap and eased him down between herself and Ada to make him a little less visible, but the movement caught the bandit leader’s eye. He craned his neck and peered into the back of the surrey.

  “What is this? We have a niño? Oh, he is a fine-looking boy!”

  El Pantera took a half step toward the buggy and Aaron tensed.

  “Leave the boy be,” Aaron said evenly. “He is not well. The strangler is on him.”

  El Pantera’s eyebrows rose and he recoiled a step. His men murmured among themselves.

  But Little Amos knew nothing of bandits and paid them no attention at all. He raised his harmonica to his lips and blew a note, then burst into laughter. Rachel snatched the instrument from his hand and shoved it into his coat pocket.

  El Pantera shook a finger at Aaron, grinning. “I think you try to trick me, Señor Aaron Bender. Anyone can see this boy is not dying, and if he were, you would not have been singing so happily, would you?” He turned to his men, palms up. “Why does everyone lie to us and treat us as if we are outlaws? We are not such bad men. Come, let me see the niño.”