Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  Well, so that was that. There he went. Good.

  Her throat felt as if she’d swallowed a mousetrap, and her breath tasted like it too. Her skin felt hot and clammy, worse than a dose of poison ivy. Likely the whole family would come down with this contagious thing, and since she had it first, guess who’d be the nurse? She turned her head to the wall and tried to block out the sound of Abby’s cough, rasping like sandpaper on a rough board. She sniffed, reached for her used and rumpled white handkerchief, grimaced at the stains, and called for Sarah to bring her a clean one.

  When Sarah returned to the kitchen, Abby shook her head. “S’ partly what’s wrong with that girl.”

  “What?” Sarah lifted innocent eyes to her neighbor.

  “She coulda got her own handkerchief.”

  “But she’s sick.”

  “I don’t care. She’s grown up. Let her get her own or use her soiled one.”

  “Well.” Sarah didn’t know what to say to this.

  “That tone of voice comin’ from that bedroom door? Makes me feel like takin’ holt of them sheets and rollin’ her outta bed!” Abby’s eyes glittered, her mouth in a firm line. “She needs to be stood up to, Sarah. Yer ways with Mose was okay, but this girl ain’t yer husband. She needs to know you ain’t puttin’ up with none of her mouth.”

  After Abby took her leave, Sarah foundered, unsure about anything as far as Hannah was concerned. She’d thought it best to love her and leave the rest to God, but now she wasn’t so sure. She respected Abby, loved her, and took her advice seriously. Well, one thing for sure, she had a very irate patient to look after, so perhaps true wisdom would be given her.

  As it was, the whole family came down with the German measles, except Sarah, who’d had them when she was thirteen.

  Hannah was left with red, flaky skin, the rash driving her wild with its cruel itching, like bugs crawling lightly over her skin. Her fever left, her throat healed, and her appetite returned. She cooked oatmeal and ate huge portions, fried bread in the cast iron pan and ate it with raspberry jam. She ate prairie hen gravy on new potatoes, green beans, and applesauce.

  Color bloomed in her cheeks, her dresses became tight across her chest, her teeth shone white when she smiled, which was quite frequent, for Hannah.

  Goat grew into a sleeker, fatter version of himself. His thin neck filled out and his ribs became rounded with flesh. The long, miserable hair hanging on his stomach disappeared. His strength rebounded and his stamina returned.

  Manny couldn’t stop talking about it. He said if teeth made so much difference in horses, why did every ranch for miles around not know this? He’d get Jerry to teach him and they’d supplement their income, at least enough to stock up on supplies before winter.

  Hannah turned a deaf ear, pretended she hadn’t heard. She’d never once acknowledged any difference in Goat. She ignored it all, including Manny’s talk.

  She strode around the house caring for Eli and Mary, rocked Abby when she cried with the fever and painful red rash.

  They received another letter from their grandfather. They would not arrive until next spring. Complications had risen between Emma, Rachel, and Lydia, although he did not go into detail. Sarah fretted and worried and longed to speak with her father. What had happened? Why hadn’t he gone into more detail?

  Manny came in for the evening meal, his face blazing with fever, his eyes unnaturally bright. He staggered to the couch and flopped onto his back, one hand thrown across his forehead. “I am so sick,” he whispered.

  Alarmed, Sarah and Hannah rushed over to him. His face was dry and radiating with heat. His lips were cracked and peeling. His nostrils were distended as he breathed shallow breaths.

  They bathed him in vinegar water to bring down his fever. He seemed to be fairly comfortable after that and fell into a deep sleep, allowing them time to care for the little ones.

  With the heat during the day and interrupted sleep at night, Sarah and Hannah were exhausted, moving around the house half-awake, perspiring and quick to take offense.

  Eli’s rash appeared quickly, which seemed to alleviate his fever and sore throat. He was cheerful, propped up on pillows, writing and drawing on his small slate with a piece of broken chalk.

  Mary lay in a deep sleep, her fever alarmingly high. But after the red rash appeared, she too felt much better.

  Manny, however, seemed to languish in the grip of a fever they could not break. When the red rash did not appear after the fifth day, his tossing and moaning increased. Sarah sent Hannah to the Klassermans to use the telephone to summon Doc Brinter from his office in Pine.

  Hannah saddled Pete, obedient for once and seriously alarmed. It was unthinkable that something might happen to Manny. God wouldn’t allow it. He was not that cruel.

  She knew Pete was slower than Goat would be, but there was no reason for her to accept the new version of him, which would prove Jerry right. She rode Pete hard, lashing him with the ends of the reins, her breath coming in shallow jerks, her mouth dry with fear. They’d been so worried about cattle thieves, which proved to be nothing, and now here they were, stricken with this illness in the middle of another champion drought.

  Now, though, she thought along the same lines as everyone else. They were homesteaders, facing things head on. Gladiators of the plains. Fearless. Hadn’t they already proved themselves? Already they sounded like Hod and Abby, talking to the new families who’d come to live on their claims.

  Hot puffs of wind smacked her face as she rode. All around her the brittle grass rustled, a brown gray mass of dried out vegetation that rolled away to meet the hot sky at the horizon. Hannah loved the dry season now that she knew the cattle would always have something to eat, and the windmill would always pump cold well water for them. She could never get enough of watching the calves turn into sturdy little replicas of their mothers, and she couldn’t help but count the pounds they were adding into dollar bills.

  She rode up to the Klassermans, summoned the doctor, and after a drink of yeasty, sour-smelling homemade root beer, she was on her way home. She allowed Pete his head and his pace as well. The day was warm, so she’d have to take it easy, after the mad dash to the neighboring ranch.

  Doc Brinter’s car chugged up to the low ranch house only minutes after she’d unsaddled Pete. This was frightening in a way she herself didn’t fully understand. How could he have driven all that way in so short a time?

  She let herself in through the wash house door. The smell of soap and vinegar was strong in the stifling heat of the low house. She placed her bare feet carefully, her heart in her throat, listening to low voices from Manny’s room. She walked to the door, stopped to listen to the doctor’s voice, and then her mother’s soft, rasping whisper. She could hear Manny’s shallow breathing.

  “You do understand, German measles are a virus,” the doctor inquired. There was no answer from her mother.

  Hannah watched Sarah’s face, fearful of her mother’s features set like stone, as if her submission had been stretched too far, turning into anger that God would allow this, her oldest son, her sweet Emmanuel, to be taken so sick with this horrible, fiery, skin-altering disease.

  The doctor stayed for a long time, working to bring down Manny’s fever, talking in quiet tones to Sarah, who remained in that odd realm, as if she could not fully comprehend anything that was happening.

  Finally the doctor, kindly though he was, spoke to Sarah sharply. “You are his mother, Mrs. Detweiler. You need to pull yourself together and listen to what I’m trying to tell you. You are responsible for him.”

  He showed her a small white envelope filled with aspirin, white tablets to be crushed on a spoon and given in pudding or applesauce for the fever. A liquid medicine for pain, in a dark glass bottle with a stopper. To be given every three hours, as long as he can swallow.

  Sarah’s head jerked up and her eyes widened. “What do you mean, as long as he can swallow? You mean the time will come when he won’t be able to? You’re
trying to tell me my son will die?”

  Hannah was frightened to hear her mother’s voice rising to a hysterical pitch, her face contorted with something Hannah had never seen.

  Doctor Brinter was no longer young. He had seen plenty cases of German measles, and he knew all too well the lingering high fever, the red rash so long awaited that never appeared, followed by a slow, painful end.

  “We’ll have to wait and see. The rash should have appeared by now. If you want, we can transport him to the hospital in Dorchester.”

  “Can they help him there?” Sarah asked, her words like ice picks. Hannah looked at her sharply.

  “They can keep him comfortable. As I told you, this is a virus.”

  “Answer my question!” Sarah shrilled in a high, unnatural voice that drove fear into Hannah.

  Dr. Brinter turned and beckoned Hannah to follow him, then spoke in quiet tones, left a packed of pills for Sarah, who was showing signs of shock and instability. He told her, kindly, his eyes never leaving her face, that there was a real possibility that Manny would not live if the rash did not appear. Hannah swallowed, blinked, and struggled to remain composed.

  “Just keep a constant vigil. There is a possibility of seizures if his temperature goes too high. If the measles, the lesions from the virus itself, do not appear within the next few days, he will probably not survive this. By all appearances, your mother is unfit to accept what I must tell her. So you are the one to keep watch.”

  He reached out to lay a heavy hand on her shoulder, patted a few times. “You appear to be a strong young woman. Bear up for your mother and the little ones.”

  “What … what about the hospital? Wouldn’t it be best to take him there?” Hannah asked, laying a hand on his arm.

  The doctor hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss, but no. With the cost, I doubt it would be best. The hospital in Dorchester is famously understaffed, so it would be better to keep him here.”

  The overwhelming responsibility lit on Hannah’s shoulders with a crushing weight, turning her breathing into shallow gasps. How could she sit by Manny’s bedside, waiting for a rash to appear? What if seizures overtook him? What about Mam?

  She stood at the window, looking out, watching the doctor leave as he carried his black bag and stowed it in the trunk of his car, opened the door, and slid behind the wheel. He started the car and slowly drove away, a cloud of gray dust swirling up behind him.

  Oh, God.

  Hannah wasn’t aware that she had called on a Higher Power as she groaned under the weight of this heavy calamity that had fallen upon them, just when things were going surprisingly well. If something happened to Manny, she wouldn’t be able to go on.

  Alone, standing in the heat and dust of the drought-stricken day, Hannah clamped her jaws shut like a vice. Manny would live. He had to. She hadn’t come out here only to be flogged and beaten back by circumstances she couldn’t control. She would get him better. She had no choice.

  The heat shimmered in a rippling haze that spread across the land. Manny’s fever would never come down unless they could cool him off. She made her way to the door of his bedroom, where he lay moaning and turning his head from side to side, his tanned face flaming with the elevation of his body temperature. His hands plucked at the thin sheet covering him, then threw it off as if the light touch burned his skin.

  “Manny, don’t!” Sarah screamed, her voice high and unnatural. A shot of pure anger coursed through Hannah’s veins. There was her mother, the one who should be shepherding them through this, slowly losing control, acting like a child.

  Hannah drew back a well-muscled arm and delivered a ringing smack to her mother’s face, sending her head to one side, almost knocking her off the low chair on which she was seated.

  “Stop it, Mam! Get ahold of yourself!” she shouted. Sarah slid off the chair, a crushed, crumpled heap lying inert, staring at Hannah in disbelief before she curled up in a pitiful fetal position and began to sob.

  Hannah had often seen her mother cry, but she had never heard anything like the deep primal wail that tore out of Sarah’s throat.

  She had survived so much. Now, when she could touch and taste joy again, now to be dealt this blow of Manny’s sickness and questionable survival. It was her undoing. It left her battered, exposed, and vulnerable, pushing her to the brink of insanity.

  Hannah left the room.

  Manny’s anguished moans melded with her mother’s hoarse sobs, and there wasn’t much she could do about either one. A bucket of cold water. Some rags. Vinegar for a fever.

  First, she went to speak to Eli and Mary, telling them how sick Manny was. Mam was tired but she would soon feel better. She promised them molasses cookies and milk if they would take care of Abigail and stay quiet.

  “Is Manny going to die?” Eli asked, his eyes liquid with fear.

  “No. He’ll get better.”

  Mary sighed, “Good.”

  Hannah pressed a cold cloth to Manny’s forehead, but he immediately clawed it away, writhing and calling out, mumbling words that made no sense. Hannah put the cloths back in the bucket, then pulled up a chair by his bed. She reached out to stroke the long, dark hair away from his face, alarmed at the absence of perspiration or tears, his lips hot, chapped, and dry.

  He needed water.

  After repeated attempts, the white pills and all the water except the small amount that dribbled down his chin, remained in Hannah’s hand.

  “Manny. Please listen. You have to take these pills.” Hannah spoke in soft tones, begging him to drink the water, but his teeth remained clenched.

  Hannah sighed, reached out to set everything on the night table and watched her mother’s form silently heaving in her agony. She thought this weakness of her mother was unnecessary, walked over and touched her shoulder, said, “Stop it now, Mam.”

  Sarah pushed herself up with both palms, her white covering sliding sideways, her dark hair pulled away from the severe bun on the back of her head, her eyes swollen from the force of her weeping. She sagged against the wall, ashamed, a creature of despair and lost hope.

  “Forgive me, Hannah. Did the doctor leave pills here for me?” Hannah nodded and handed them over, watching as her mother swallowed the pills with the glass of water that should have gone to Manny.

  CHAPTER 13

  Long into the night, Hannah sat alone. Her mother had taken not one pill, but two, and lay now in a deep sleep, a small figure beneath the thin cotton sheet covering her.

  From time to time, Hannah ran her hands lightly across Manny’s arms and chest, searching desperately for a sign of the red rash that should be appearing, the one single thing that would ease his pain and misery. His skin remained smooth and dry, the heat so frightening toward morning that she could no longer bear to touch him.

  The doctor arrived early, dressed in his immaculate black suit, his tie slipped behind his buttoned vest. Already the sun was hot, the house retaining yesterday’s heat. He soon produced his white handkerchief and wiped at the beads of perspiration that formed on his upper lip.

  Hannah’s dark eyes searched the doctor’s. Seeing the hopelessness, her spirit shrank within her, as a promise his regained health folded.

  Sarah moved softly, like a ghost, into the room, wringing her hands in anguish, her face without color or expression.

  Hannah felt the calm and saw it in her eyes, knowing she had reached out and found the all-seeing, benevolent Father who directed her life and kept her in the palm of His Hand. If this was God’s will, she would bear up beneath it.

  “Mrs. Detweiler, how are you this morning?” the doctor inquired.

  Sarah nodded, “I’m all right.”

  “Good. Good. I understand you lost your husband in the not too distant past. I extend my condolences.”

  Sarah nodded again and asked, “Is my son still doing all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we possibly get him to a hospital?” Sarah asked.

  �
��We can do that if you wish. But to move him might be an effort. The ambulance from the hospital would have to transport him. You have no telephone, I gather?”

  “No.”

  “Then I will use one, if you will give me directions to the nearest ranch.”

  “I can accompany you to the Klassermans,” Sarah offered.

  Hannah gazed steadily on Manny’s face, serene now, in a deep sleep. She agreed to let her mother go, knowing the anguished vigil would be too much for Sarah.

  After they left, Hannah cared for Abby, changed her diaper, dressed her, combed Mary’s hair and made breakfast for the children. She set the kitchen right, swept the floor, washed dishes, and wiped the countertop and table. She gave Eli and Mary instructions on feeding the milk cow and checking the level at the water tank.

  When she returned to Manny’s room, he lay as before, his face without color. Panic seized her. She bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out.

  Surely not.

  But his face was warm.

  Warm? Not as hot as before?

  Hannah tore off the sheet and bent to peer at his chest, his stomach, and his legs, with the dark hair growing over them. She rushed to the window, grasped the heavy window blind and yanked with too much force, sending it crashing to the floor. A blaze of hot, morning sunlight illuminated the room. Without attempting to replace the fallen window blind, Hannah retraced her steps to the bed and bent over Manny.

  Was that a red welt appearing on his shoulder? Yes! It was!

  Without thinking of his pain, she grasped his shoulders in her strong hands and pulled him forward like a limp doll. His head fell sideways. She reached behind him to prop him up, bent her head and saw that his back was covered with red pustules, the scaly, disfiguring rash on his skin like a beautiful, long awaited sign.

  Manny’s eyes flew open. Irritation crossed his face. “Put me down,” he said hoarsely.

  But Hannah was crying, her eyes squeezed shut as tears ran down her cheeks. Her lips quivered and a glad cry escaped her lips. “Manny!”