“Someone will go to St. Mary’s,” Thomas said. “It’s thirty miles down the inlet. Or to Seattle. Someone must set out this morning. The pharmaceutical salesman won’t be through until the end of the month. We could wire the firm, but at least a month, nevertheless.”
“My brother will go,” Bertha Auerbach. “He can be back by Monday. I will arrange a list. And by the way…” She laid a hand on Thomas’ elbow. “Mr. Malone swallowed last night. He actually swallowed.” He looked at her for a moment, taking time to catch up.
“My word,” he said. “All of this, and Mr. Malone sails along in the middle of the battle, untouched and unaware.”
“Elaine is with him at the moment,” Bertha said. “Although there is no response, I think a tender touch and conversation must be helpful. The poor child needs much to do.”
“I wish I knew,” Thomas said, still thinking about the blasted brain of Sonny Malone. “But a swallow…that’s a good sign.” He turned to Hardy. “You’ve had a chance to look in on him?”
“I have. His body continues while his brain has simply ceded from the union, so to speak.” Hardy reached out and rested a hand on Thomas’ shoulder, steering him away from Deaton’s bedside.
“You heard about this?” And he dabbed his lip once more. Thomas cocked his head to look at the laceration. “It’s really nothing,” Hardy said. “My own tooth is the villain, and cut the inside of my lip. I would never have guessed that man was so quick.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t cut his throat, Lucius.”
“Had I a scalpel in my hand, I would have,” the physician chuckled, then the amusement left his face. “Patterson was obdurate, Thomas. Most eloquent for a man in such a rage.” He raised a forefinger to the heavens, imitating Patterson. “‘You shall not dump my wife into unconsecrated ground like so much offal,’ he shouts. ‘She is a Christian, and by heaven will go to her God as befits…’ and so on.” He sighed deeply. “I let him take her, Thomas. Maybe Winchell and the constable can talk sense to him.”
He lowered his voice. “With the child standing there, tears streaming down her face, I was not about to enter into a fisticuffs with this man, the two of us tearing at the mother’s remains like a couple of jackels. Berti and I made sure the corpse was wrapped in a sterile blanket and then…” He held up both hands. “Off he went, carrying her downstairs without benefit of the Otis, out into the night, sobbing and muttering to himself.” Hardy turned and looked toward the back of the ward. “Off into the night without a thought for his step-daughter.” He turned back to Thomas. “My friend, it’s as if the girl has ceased to exist in his mind.”
“We must watch over her, then,” Thomas said. “I was astonished to learn that Gert James went to the Pattersons’ as well, earlier this morning. What she can do for them, I don’t know. But during the night, she made off to the Pattersons’ home, just after Elaine brought word. Gerti fears for the two remaining children, I’m sure.”
“That’s not good. Look what she might be walking into, Thomas.”
“We must collect Constable Aldrich and Ted Winchell. With his wife’s remains, Mr. Patterson has just delivered the cholera to the church, if he hadn’t done so already. There must be no gathering for a funeral. If the children are ill, they must be brought here. If not, it would be wise to find less dangerous lodging for them.”
“Easily said, my friend.”
“We must make every effort, this very dawn. How are the others?”
Hardy dabbed his lip again. “Mr. Snyder will live, I am sure of it. In its own capricious way, the cholera has paid him little heed. What killed his wife in but a day or two is going to leave him just as surely, I believe. There will be a period of prostration, during which we will have to be vigilant.” He beckoned Thomas to follow him through the ward.
“Snyder sleeps, a bit fitfully, but sleeps nevertheless. The diarrhea has stopped, and he tolerated the iced champagne well, nearly five ounces of it. Even the borborygmi have settled. It no longer sounds as if there’s warfare going on in his gut.” He heaved a deep breath, holding up his ample belly for a moment, and then relaxed. “The brothers Bloedel present considerably more of a challenge, Thomas. And I see no lessening in the others. It’s to be a fearful day.”
Thomas scanned the ward. Gunnar and Carl Bloedel, in neighboring beds, were tended at the moment by Adelaide Crowell.
“I hold little hope for Ira Johnson,” he whispered. “The first mate of the Head? While his skin feels cold to the touch, we have recorded an internal temperature several degrees above the norm. The cyanosis worries me. Truly remarkable, Thomas. It’s as if every last vestige of water has been withdrawn, leaving his blood as thick as mud. We have been aggressive with infusions—more than aggressive, I think.” They turned at the clank of a glass and saw Bertha Auerbach still fretting with Howard Deaton.
Hardy dropped his voice even lower. “She works like a demon, Thomas. She has stayed, you know. The whole evening and now night. When Mrs. Crowell came in, I was able to convince Helen Whitman to go home for some hours rest. But not Bertha. At first, she came to be with Elaine, whom she obviously cherishes. And then with Howard. She takes the condition of each patient as a personal crusade. Simply wonderful. A lesson for those of us who might tend to sloth.” He patted his gut again. “If any of our patients survive, it will be a testament to your nurses.”
“I don’t think we can accuse you of sloth, sir.”
“I hope not.” He turned back and nodded at Buddy Huckla, in the first ward bed, who lay curled in a small, childlike ball. “Huckla would make a gambler nervous,” he said. “At first, I thought he would escape, despite the presence of the bacilli in his gut. There seemed to be no reaction. And then, in what seemed like a matter of minutes, he became thus.” Hardy shook his head in wonder. “So fast, Thomas. So fast. The same with Delaney. There is some sign that the infusions are easing the…what might we call it…the debt of dehydration that grows so savagely. We are hard pressed to keep the equipment claved. It is a constant thing.”
“And I slept through it all,” Thomas growled.
Hardy laughed grimly and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll need it, sir. Not to worry. Now that Mr. Patterson has joined the opposition, the battle is about to become pitched, I’m afraid. You know,” and he swept a hand theatrically through the ward, “when I first saw this—eight beds here, three small private chambers to the rear, and the same upstairs—I thought that your dreams may be exceeding the reality of this tiny village. And now I see the opposite.”
Thomas pulled out his watch. “We must confront Patterson. May I ask that you remain here?”
“You should not confront him by yourself,” Hardy replied, correctly guessing Thomas’ intent.
“Indeed not. I’ll have Constable Aldrich with me. And Ted Winchell. Two more stout men would be hard to find.” He tried to smile. “And Gert James is there. She’s worth any ten men. If nothing else, I must protect her if I can.”
Hardy nodded. “You’ll need them. I fear for the good pastor’s sanity, Thomas.”
“We have far more to fear from the cholera. Patterson is but words.”
“Uh huh.” Hardy dabbed at his lip again, amused.
“Two things,” Thomas said. “I will go to the church, and have Aldrich nail it shut. I fear for Eleanor and the other two Patterson children who remain in the house, not to mention the pastor himself. And then I want to visit the Clarissa. I don’t know why people are so slow to come to us at the first sign of the disease, but they appear content to just curl up into a ball and wait for death.”
“They work like slaves to clean the place,” Hardy offered. “Although burning it to the ground would be a good thing. I’m not sure I’ve experienced a filthier place since a visit to the Paris slums.” One of the sailors, Cyrus Collins, uttered a loud groan, and Hardy turned toward his bedside. Thomas caught his arm.
“While I am gone, if Alvi should come to the clinic…”
T
he sympathy in Hardy’s eyes was immediate.
“With Gert at the Patterson’s, Alvi will be with the child,” Thomas said. “If she is tempted…”
“If she comes here, I have an enormous favor to ask of her,” Hardy said. “From the moment she arrives, she will be busy in your office, preparing a copious list of supplies for Miss Auerbach’s brother. We need that, Thomas.” He regarded the gauze sponge. “And then someone must speak with Mr. Lindeman about a supply of fresh fruit, and certainly more champagne. More this, more that. Your lovely wife won’t have a moment for anything else.”
“Thank you, Lucius.”
As he stepped away from Thomas, Hardy added, “Be careful, my friend.” His eyebrows shot up then, and he nodded toward the front of the ward.
Horace James, looking as an undertaker should, stood deferentially in the door of the ward. How long he had been there was anyone’s guess. His enormous, knotted hands were folded at his chest as if caught in prayer. He took a half step forward as Thomas approached.
“Sir, Jake Tate was askin’ for the ambulances. Both of ’em.”
“Both, Horace?” His heart sank.
The man nodded. “I’ll drive one, him the other? That’s what I was thinking.”
“He’s here right now?”
“Yes, sir. Out in the stable.”
Thomas darted past Gert’s brother and sprinted to the side door of the clinic, where Jake Tate waited under the portico, smoking a cigarette.
“How many are ill, Jake?”
“Got five. Probably four by the time we get back out there. They sure need you, Doc.”
Thomas almost spun in a circle, trying to marshal his thoughts. “Listen, I’m going to give you syringes. Can you manage those?”
“Guess so. Seen you do it enough times.”
“Morphine to keep them quiet for the trip,” Thomas instructed. “Take fresh blankets for each. Mrs. Crowell will make sure you have the proper ones. Then get them back here as quickly as possible.”
“You ain’t comin’ out?”
“We have a problem at the church,” Thomas said. And Gert has walked into the middle of it. “The loggers must be treated here anyway. There’s nothing we can do for them out in the timber other than the morphine to keep them quiet. I’m depending on you, Jake. Horace is going back with you in the second ambulance.”
“All right.” The young man sounded resigned.
“And Jake…while you’re there, while you’re tending the men? Talk to them in the most cheerful terms if you can. Cholera is a fearsome thing, and it’s important that the men have hope. And if you can discover how the men came into contact with the others—that would be important for us to know.”
“Well, hell, I can guess at that, Doc. Come an evening, most of ’em gather in that chow hall. Biggest damn poker games you ever saw.”
Thomas closed his eyes, imagining the whiskey jug passing around the table, the spittle, the cards passing from hand to hand, the back-slapping, the card players wiping hands through their beards and dabbing at eyes irritated by the smoke, using shirt cuffs as napkins. “How many gather there on a night? I know there were but three from the Head.”
Tate shrugged. “I’ve been there when there was thirty, Doc. Smoke in the hall so thick you didn’t need no pipe to smoke. ‘Course, I don’t get up there much, work at the mill bein’ what it is.”
“And thank God for that.”
“Yep. Schmidt’s up there right now, too. He’s fixin’ to move the men maybe today. He’s going to burn the camp to the ground. Took care of the two shacks yesterday after you left.”
“Would that had been done before,” Thomas said. But before when, he thought ruefully. He saw Horace leading one of the teams out of the barn. “Not a moment to lose now, Jake. If any of the others are beginning to feel the first signs—vomiting, the running shits, pain in head or gut—they must come here immediately.”
“Might have a houseful,” Tate remarked.
“We already have that,” Thomas replied.
Jake pinched out the butt of his cigarette. A tightly knit, powerful man, Jake looked haggard. He forced a grin. “I’m going to be a popular guy, pushin’ all that dope.”
“If they hurt, give the injection. It quiets the gut. And waste no time coming back.”
Tate nodded and strode back toward the barn where the ambulances waited.
Thomas returned to the clinic, catching Hardy for just long enough to inform him about what was coming. “The beds may be pushed together,” he said. “There are more frames and mattresses in storage behind, where we keep the linens and blankets.” And then he grabbed his medical bag and headed out into the pre-dawn to find the constable and the coroner.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The gelding enjoyed his stall, since it was dark, quiet, and well-tended with food, while the night was so often wet, slippery of foot, and filled with all manner of odd sights, sounds, and smells. When Thomas swung open the stall door, the big horse stood quietly, his rump backed into one corner.
Still saddled and bridled, the animal took a deep breath as Thomas tugged at the cinch.
“Stop that.” The young man slapped the back of his hand against the sleek flank. Quickly lashing the medical bag, Thomas mounted in the barn, and then urged Fats out into the pre-dawn darkness.
Mist sifted against his face, but it was too early to forecast the day. Constable Aldrich was already up, his suspenders hanging off his shoulders. His affable greeting turned to resignation as he listened to the urgent request.
“You fetch Winchell, then,” Aldrich said. “We’ll meet at the church.”
Winchell was well into his day as well, stacking a load of select spruce planking in the shed behind his mortuary.
“You’ll need your rig,” Thomas said, and when he explained to Winchell where they were going, the undertaker shook his head in disbelief.
“He’s off his nut.” Winchell let his comment go at that. Thomas waited while he rigged the ambulance, and the two of them set out through the back ways to Angeles Street, paralleling the inlet. A quarter mile ahead, the church stood tall and dark, the slender steeple outlined against the sky, the first spot in Port McKinney to see the sun on those rare dawns when the gold burst over the inlet. Thomas saw no light in the church itself, although the dawn could play tricks.
“I saw that they started cleaning the back wall of the Clarissa,” Winchell called across to Thomas. The physician urged his mount closer to the hearse.
“And more than that,” he replied. “Schmidt’s pump is working, then?”
“After a fashion. A dozen times the pressure would be helpful, but we do with what we have.” The church loomed, and Thomas could imagine it packed with towns folks, all hugging and weeping, spreading contagion.
“How does the pastor handle funerals?” Thomas asked Winchell just as they started up the last grade. “You know him better than I. What will he intend with his wife?” When Alvi’s father had died, the ceremony had been a simple graveside service…without Roland Patterson officiating.
“Well, now.” Winchell relaxed the reins and allowed his team to pull without interference. “I don’t know what he plans now. In normal times, when he puts on his full funeral performance, he wants the customer right up front, ahead of the front row of pews. Even if it’s just a simple box.” He waved a hand toward the church. “That’s what most folks around here can afford. Nothing fancy. It works for me, since I do a good business with that. Once in a while, somebody gets all cushy and orders a proper casket from the city, but generally it’s the spruce box. Or fir. Sometimes cedar. That smells pretty good.” He grimaced. “Sometimes that’s important. The pastor puts the casket right at the head of the aisle. Then he can command the view from the pulpit.” He leaned toward Thomas, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial, gruff whisper. “Nobody gets to God without going through him.”
Thomas glanced at the undertaker, always surprised by Ted Winchell’s blunt manner
of speech. Winchell saw the reaction. “Yep, I’m a bloody heathen,” he said. “But you don’t need to spread that around. Patterson puts up with me. You get a job nobody else wants, what can they say, right?”
He pulled the horses to a halt in front of the Patterson’s house. The constable stood by the front gate, waiting. Lamps blazed inside, and as they approached, Thomas had seen a shadow pass in front of the window. The constable reached out and grasped the gelding’s bridle.
“You sure that Dr. Hardy doesn’t want to sign out a complaint?” Aldrich sounded almost hopeful.
“No. I can’t say I’d be as generous.” Thomas unlatched the gate, and it opened on well-oiled and properly adjusted hinges. A figure appeared in the doorway, and Thomas saw that it was Gert James. She wore black, with one of her starched white aprons—and even in the poor light, Thomas could see that the apron was splotched dark.
“You shouldn’t come in, gentlemen,” Gert said when they were close enough to hear her hoarse whisper. She held out a hand toward Winchell and Aldrich. “The little ones are ill, and I fear for the Pastor himself. But he’s in a fury. If he catches sight of you, constable…”
Aldrich settled his rump against the short porch railing and dug his pipe out of his pocket. “If he takes a swing at anybody, he goes to jail, Gerti. And that’s that.”
“He won’t strike me.” Thomas sounded more certain than he was. “Wait for me.”
Gert reached out a hand for Thomas as he passed through the door, then thought better of it, and clasped her hands together at her waist. “The children need to be at the clinic,” she said. “He won’t let them go.”
Thomas stopped short. “Good God, Gert, why ever not? What kind of madness is this?”
“He has his reasons.”
“Do you know them? The reasons?” Even as he spoke, he opened his medical bag and handed her a brown bottle of carbolic acid and another of alcohol. “Clean your hands, Gert. They must be disinfected often.”
Comes a Time for Burning Page 24
