Hurricane Nurse

by Joan Sargent

  "Poor baby," Cliff murmured. "You've had only about three hours' sleep in—forty hours?"

  "Longer than that," she decided after a moment for consideration. "I was up at six-thirty day before yesterday and came to school. But you'll have to figure out how long that is; I never was good at math even when I was awake."

  "Why don't you go up to the upstairs teachers' room, too?" Cliff suggested. "You're dead on your feet, and three makes a chaperone."

  "I can't. I couldn't sleep." She rubbed her eyes and straightened up again. "I'm worried about these sick children. If one of them were to die, I'd feel—"

  "—responsible," he broke in. "And you shouldn't. You've done everything you could. Even if you were a doctor, some of your patients would die. You can't take everything on your shoulders."

  "I can at least go around and take their temperatures again." Then, remembering, she changed her mind. "No, I can't even do that. I can't sterilize the thermometer." She burst into exhausted tears.

  Cliff offered her his handkerchief. "You've earned a rest. Get some sleep if you can. Only, I think we might eat first."

  She raised a tear-wet face with an embarrassed smile. "That might help. I'm not usually such a crybaby. All the food is in my office, and we've turned that into an infirmary."

  He puzzled about that problem for a moment. "Suppose you go in there and put what we'll be using for breakfast into a box and we'll take it upstairs and have breakfast with Hank and Mary? Okay?"

  She held out his handkerchief to him. "Very okay. I won't be a minute."

  But she was wrong there.

  Seven-year-old Lurline Worth was vomiting, her mother holding her head and a pan. This was something new in the way of symptoms, and Donna paused, frowning over what it might portend. As she had kept reminding herself, there really wasn't anything she could do to make even those not affected by nausea more comfortable, since water and aspirin were beyond her. Still, she was moved by the whimpering of young Sammy and paused beside his cot to put her hand on his forehead. The room was still half-dark and she almost missed the most startling thing about the young man. It was the fact that his forehead was rough, as well as hot, that made her look more closely.

  The rough feel of his skin wasn't its only phenomenon. It was scarlet. Donna drew a deep breath and looked again. Bumpy and scarlet! She went to the window and raised the Venetian blinds which hadn't been closed. The light wasn't much increased, but a little more of it filtered into the room. Donna took the small boy into her arms and carried him to the window. Her eyes studied the thin little face carefully. Slowly, she grinned.

  "Mrs. Worth," she began, "have you looked at Sammy recently?"

  Mrs. Worth was impatient. "With Lurline sick like this? Besides, the whole place is dark. Has something new happened to him?" She sounded hopeless.

  "I'd stake my reputation as a nurse that measles has happened to him." Donna chuckled. "He's all broken out. Very pink bumps. I guess that's what's the matter with all the children."

  Mrs. Worth groaned. "Not all of them. A lot haven't got it yet, but they will have. They were all playing together that first night. Some of that crowd that have nearly danced their heads off were around with the little ones, too. We're going to have a real epidemic around here, see if we don't." She wiped Lurline's mouth with a dampened cloth and laid her gently down.

  Donna was more serious now. "I know. It's bad enough. But I didn't know what was the matter with them, and measles is about the last thing I thought about. I must say, I'm relieved. I think I'll go along and see if any of the others have broken out."

  By midmorning, nearly all the sick had taken on a rosy hue and five more showed symptoms that the others had had earlier. Donna was busy, but no longer distressed.

  She was just leaving one of the newly ill when she ran into Dusty Hosey in the dusky corridor. "Sorry, Miss Ledbury," he said. "I didn't see you."

  She laughed. "You were lost in your thoughts, a million miles from here. A penny for them?" She made a show of hunting in her pocket for the penny.

  He did not meet her mood. "No'm, Miss Ledbury. My thoughts was right here at Flamingo." He looked as if he might go on his way without saying anything else.

  "If there's anything I can help with, Dusty, I'm willing," she offered. "I don't know whether a woman—"

  "No'm. It's man's business, and maybe too big for me. That's what I'm tryin' to figure out. It's my gang, an' I got to do somethin' about them before — Well, it's my business because it's my gang, see?"

  She nodded solemnly, not because she saw, but because something was evidently worrying the boy. She fixed her eyes on his face, saying nothing.

  Almost at once, he went on again. "You reckon Mr. Warrender'd listen to me an' not think it was my gang's fault? I don't want them landin' in jail."

  Donna hoped with all her heart that she was saying the right thing. "He didn't land you in jail that time you stole the car, did he? And the way you told it to me, that was your fault."

  "No'm, it wasn't. Not exactly, anyhow. Seemed like I just had to drive that car. Like I couldn't help myself. Like something taken over and made me do it. Mr. Warrender, he seen that. Maybe—" He stood rubbing his chin and thinking deeply, a frown between his brows. "Yeah, I got to tell somebody. Might as well be Mr. Warrender, I reckon. Mr. Fincher's a nice man, but he's one of them that sees ever'thing right or wrong. And you know what, Miss Ledbury? Round here where Mr. Warrender used to live they ain't many things like that. Most things are sort of in the middle. You see?"

  "I see. Mr. Warrender's—"

  But Cliff joined them before Donna could tell the boy where he was.

  "Did I hear somebody taking my name in vain?" he asked, his eyes twinkling. "It isn't nice to talk about a man behind his back, Miss L." Then, seeing how solemn their faces remained, he grew serious, too. "Sorry. I don't seem to have hit the right note. What's the trouble now?"

  Dusty opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He cleared his throat and stared at his feet. He twined his fingers and cracked his knuckles.

  Donna once again rushed in where no wise woman would have dared. "Would telling you about something be—I believe the term is splitting to the police? I think that's what Dusty's trying to ask you."

  Her effort at gangster slang brought a brief smile to both male faces. Cliff's eyes searched Dusty's serious young face. "Is that the sort of thing that's bothering you, boy?"

  Dusty shuffled his feet and cleared his throat again. "Looks like I got to tell somebody, only— they're my gang, Mr. Warrender. They expect me to look after them, you see?"

  "And they're up to something they ought not be doing?" Cliff pressed him.

  The boy nodded, his wild black hair flopping over his forehead, then back again. "But they ain't to blame, Mr. Warrender. Honest, they ain't."

  "You see, things aren't usually black or white, but somewhere in between," Donna interpreted. "This is like that."

  "Like your taking the car, Dusty?" Cliff probed.

  "Nossir," Dusty decided after thought. "That was me doin' wrong, even if I never planned it that way. This—Mr Warrender, grown folks ought to leave kids alone."

  "Yes. Often they should," Cliff agreed. "Who is it, Dusty? Who's bothering your gang?"

  "That Mr. Eustace, Mr. Warrender. You see, I wasn't in there with them much last night an' — That Eustace—"

  He didn't go on. Cliff's eyes were anxious on his worried face. "Eustace what, Dusty?"

  "It's them cigarettes. Marijuana. Come from Cuba, don't they?" he said with difficulty. "But they're just kids, Mr. Warrender. It's fun to try things if you don't know too much about it, an' I wasn't there to punch Eustace in the nose." He seemed to be apologizing for his absence.

  "Eustace gave them marijuana cigarettes?" Cliff repeated through gritted teeth.

  Again Dusty nodded. "You remember my pop, Mr. Warrender. He taken stuff. Whatever he could get. He was a drunk, too. An' he's dead from it. I wouldn'ta let my boys smoke t
hem cigarettes if I'da been there, an' they— It was just somethin' they never tried. You know how it is when a thing sounds like—" He was at a loss for a word.

  "Fun? Adventure?" Cliff offered.

  "Yes sir. A grown man hadn't ought to give kids stuff like that. 'Specially when he knows what it's like. Mr. Eustace, he—"

  Donna had not dreamed that Cliff could look so grim. His lips were thin, his jaw sharp. "Let's see your boys, Dusty. Now." He strode down the hall toward the room to which the boys were assigned.

  Dusty trotted at his heels. "I never meant you to take it out on my boys, Mr. Warrender. It ain't their fault; not rightly speaking, it ain't."

  Donna, running at Dusty's heels, put her hand on the boy's arm. "You leave it to Mr. Warrender, Dusty. He'll fix it up right."

  Cliff turned his head and gave her a brilliant smile without slowing his progress. His face was stern again as he turned into the boys' room.

  The shades had been pulled down and the room was dark. The boys slept. The resiny odor of marijuana filled the room. Beneath that was the sour smell of unwashed bodies. Cliff, still taking long, angry strides, crossed the room and flung up the shades. The boys' faces were pale behind their young beards. There were blue shadows under their closed eyes. Their lips were gray and dry.

  "Where's Eustace?" Cliff asked, and he made a nasty thing of the name.

  "Down other end of the hall, I reckon," Dusty answered. His eyes were big and he watched Cliff as if he were seeing a stranger.

  Cliff had not really waited for the answer. He was out of the room before either of his companions realized his intention. Then their eyes met and they went after him, almost running to catch up.

  Even so, he reached Eustace's room before them. Like the boys in the first room, Frank Eustace was asleep. Like that room, this had a sweaty, sour smell, but the resinous odor of the cigarettes was not here. Donna watched, fascinated, horrified, as Cliff jerked the older man up by his tie and shook him as a playful dog might a rag. Eustace's eyes opened, then closed as if their own weight made keeping them open beyond him. His head bobbed about like a cork in rough water.

  "Eustace," Cliff shouted at him. "Eustace, pull yourself together! You've gone too far this time. Boys! Hell itself is too good for you."

  Eustace opened his eyes again. Donna felt the whole scene was something out of a television play, the two unshaven men, Cliff's face contorted, Eustace's stupid, almost unconscious. Then Eustace managed to draw himself up. Little by little, he became the man she had seen in the hall the afternoon before, superior, contemptuous.

  "Mr. Warrender, I believe. Welcome to my temporary abode, Counselor."

  Cliff shook him again. "Boys!" he shouted at the other man. "You don't have to foist your bad habits off on children, Eustace. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to break your neck." He sounded as if he meant every syllable of it.

  Dusty was convinced. "Don't do that, Mr. Warrender. I'll straighten my gang out. He ain't worth killin', Mr. Warrender."

  Donna's hand went over her trembling mouth and she moaned, "Oh, Cliff, no."

  Eustace, too, was convinced. "I—I couldn't help myself, Mr. Warrender. You don't know how it is when you've got to have a fix. You don't know how it is. You'll do anything. Anything."

  "But you had that hundred dollars. You got your stuff. Why did you give the boys cigarettes? Why?" He jerked the man so fiercely that he choked.

  Then Eustace gasped out, "He took it from me, that money. He's got it. Gave me only one needle and laughed when I asked for more. Laughed! Laughed at Frank Eustace, the scum!"

  "Who?" Cliff demanded. "Who?"

  Not quite all the fight had gone out of Eustace. "You know I'm not going to tell you that, Counselor. I'd never get another one."

  Cliff's hands fastened about the thin neck. Once more, he jerked the small head. "Who, Eustace?"

  Donna took a deep, ragged breath. Cliff had no patience with serious crime, with criminals whom he couldn't help.

  The addict had gone limp. His lips moved, but no sound came.

  "Poague?" Cliff questioned. "Monte Poague?"

  The sound was hardly a whisper. "Monte Poague." Eustace's face was very white. He seemed to be having difficulty breathing. "I'm ashamed, Mr. Warrender. Really ashamed. You know that paper you've been wanting me to sign? I'll sign it now. Not boys, Counselor. I don't want boys in my predicament."

  Cliff dropped him back on his pallet. For a minute or two, he lay there sobbing. Then the sobs turned to heavy breathing and then silence. Donna listened. The silence was deafening. There was no screaming wind beyond the rainswept windows.

  Her lips trembled so that she could hardly speak.

  "The storm. I-it's over. Isn't it?"

  Chapter XVII

  The storm was over.

  It still rained. There was wind, but quiet, harmless wind.

  But the three days at the school were not over no matter how tired or sleepless those in charge might be.

  Dusty was the first to leave the building. "Like the dove Noah sent out," Donna told Cliff as they watched from the front doors of the schoolhouse. He had two errands to run. The police came first and took Monte Poague and Frank Eustace away. Then the funeral directors the Wards had chosen came for them, backing the ambulance up close to the building so that no rain fell on their bodies.

  Donna wept a little once more against Cliff's broad shoulder. It was a very fine place to be, she decided, in Cliff's arms, her nose against the tweed and tobacco smell of his coat. That thought dried her tears. And just then, Hank, his head white-turbaned, came down the stairs. He didn't seem half so disconcerted by what he now saw as he had been by her dancing. Maybe there was some hope for his turning out to be human after all, she thought, drawing away and wiping her cheeks on the back of her hand.

  "We've got our work cut out for us," the principal began. "We've got to check out every single soul who came into the building. A lot of them are going to want to go at once."

  "They can't take these sick children out in weather like this," Donna protested. "Not with measles. Oh, I hope we aren't going to have to be here another night."

  "That will depend on how much damage has been done to their houses," Cliff told her. "We can back cars up the way they did the ambulance and get the kids home dry enough. The men will probably go out first, to see what their places are like."

  But it was Miss Baby LaRue who appeared at the door of the office of the principal just then. She carried her parrot cage with its mangy and grumbling bird boldly now. Her round face was as highly colored, her hair as brassy, as when she had arrived. Her dimples were out and her voice was richly affectionate.

  "Been as much fun as a county fair, hasn't it?" she chirped. "Time I went home, I s'pose. You kids take care of yourselves."

  "But, Baby, suppose your house has the roof blown off? You'd better wait until somebody checks it for you," Cliff protested.

  She laughed until her rounded belly danced. "Let me tell you something, boy. That house's stood a heap of hurricanes, and it ain't about to give up the ghost now. Firm, she is. I don't come here because I'm scared of what the hurricane will do. I come because I like all the excitement. You never know what's going to happen at a hurricane shelter. 'Course I never saw much of it this year, havin' a baby an' all, but somebody came in there and told me. Looks like to me, we had a little more'n usual. But that's to make up for not havin' one last year. See you next hurricane."

  She got as far as the door, turned, cocked her head to one side and fixed her bright eyes on Hank. "Mr. Fincher, you gonna quit flittin' from girl to girl an' settle down with that Miss Mary Hendley? You'll not do better, an' it looks better if a teacher's married, a man teacher, I mean. Dealin' with all them women all the time, it looks better."

  Hank's face looked redder under his white bandage than it really was. "Yes, Miss LaRue. When school's out next summer, we think we'll get married and go to summer school together."

  Donna groaned inwar
dly. Summer school! If that was Hank's idea of a honeymoon, he hadn't improved after all.

  Baby evidently agreed with her. "Shoo!" she said disgustedly. "What're you waitin' for? To get old enough? Christmas is comin' up. You got ten days then, an' you can go to Nassau for thirty-six dollars apiece. You get married Christmas. Goodbye, all." The little woman trotted out into the rain.

  They all laughed at her, a gentle amusement, appreciative of the earthy goodness of the former stripper.

  "I'm glad Mary wasn't here for that little exchange," Hank said, looking ill at ease. "She'd have been embarrassed."

  Donna looked at him in wonderment. "Not Mary. She's been wearing her heart on her sleeve for ages, not caring much that everybody knew she was carrying a torch for you. And Baby's right, Hank. You marry her Christmas. Time's awastin'."

  "A lady sets the date," Hank reminded her a bit stiffly.

  "When her suitor is importunate," Donna insisted. "You be importunate about Christmas."

  Cliff took pity on the embarrassed principal.

  "Everybody thinks he has the right to run a teacher's life, Fincher. Don't let 'em run over you."

  Hank had recovered his aplomb. "You know, I believe they have something. I believe I'll go look up Mary right now."

  The men were beginning to leave the building to make an exploration of conditions. Donna and Cliff, from the roofed entrance of the school, looked over the grounds. Most of the planting of which the school had been so proud had been uprooted. Several trees were down and others had broken limbs. There would be broken windows. But the school had stood strongly against the storm without.

  "It'll be worse inside," Cliff prophesied. "It's absolutely amazing how much rubbish the human race can leave behind it after such a short time."

  "Litterbugs by nature," Donna murmured.

  Back inside, everybody was packing up again. Donna went about warning mothers to see that the children with measles didn't get wet on their trips home. But now that they knew what was the matter with their offspring, and home was in the offing, nobody really had time for her.