The Captive Heart (12 page)

Chapter 16

M
iriam's school started on the same morning that her father left for Arteaga to pick up Ervin Kuhns, the minister, and his family.

Right after breakfast the new kids showed up for their first day of school. The five new families had formed a tent village across the valley between the Shrock and Hershberger farms, and sixteen new kids walked across the valley that morning, lunch pails in hand.

Miriam and Rachel cleared the breakfast table as quickly as possible, then hauled it out the door to the buggy shed and came back for chairs. Kyra showed up with her two boys to help.

As if things weren't chaotic enough, Ada sat in the middle of the living room floor the whole time, rocking and wailing. Ada had been doing better lately; she hadn't gone into one of her crying fits in months. This was an unexpected setback.

A half-dozen new kids came through the front door and Miriam directed traffic, shuttling the children around Ada, through the kitchen and out the back door toward the buggy shed. Ada, apparently feeling ignored, wailed louder and started banging her head on the floor. Flummoxed by all this madness, Miriam stood in the kitchen pressing her palms against her temples and trying to figure out what to do next.

“Mamm, isn't there anything we can do to quiet Ada?” she asked. “What's wrong with her anyway?”

Mamm was leaning at the kitchen counter, washing dishes in a galvanized washtub. She looked over her shoulder and said absently, “She has a sore throat. I'll see after her. You just go on with your school.”

Ada must have heard her mother, because she grabbed her throat with both hands and launched into a racking cough. When the cough died down she moaned and screamed louder than ever. Mary came in the back door, bringing her boys up from next door for school. She was carrying her newborn in one arm and Little Amos in the other. Amos's twin, Amanda, trailed along behind, sucking her thumb and holding on to her mother's skirts. Amos clung to his mother's neck and didn't even raise his head.

Kyra came right behind her, looking for more chairs for the school in the buggy shed. She lifted a kitchen chair and started toward the back door, but stopped when Ada let out a particularly loud howl. Still holding the kitchen chair in front of her, she asked Miriam in Spanish, “Is something wrong with Ada?”

“Sí,” Miriam said. “Her throat hurts and she has a fever.”

“I think she's coming down with a cold, that's all,” Mamm said. “I'll mix up some lemon and honey as soon as I'm done washing up.”

Kyra set the chair down and a look of concern came into her eyes. She tugged at Miriam's sleeve. “Light the lantern and let me look at her.”

Miriam put a kitchen match to the lantern, turned it up and followed Kyra into the living room.

Kneeling in front of Ada, Kyra tried to get her attention, but the big woman ignored her and rocked even harder, bumping her forehead on the floor, moaning. Kyra took Ada's face in her hands and held her still. Looking into her eyes she said, “Aaaaaah,” and yawned wide to show Ada what she wanted.

Ada snuffled a couple times, but she finally complied.

“Aaaaaaah.”

Miriam held the lantern close. As Kyra peered down Ada's throat, her eyes grew big and the worried look turned to fear. She closed Ada's mouth, patted her gently on the cheek and said, “Gracias.”

Mary, who had watched all this closely, said, “Something must be going around. Little Amos isn't himself either, and he says his throat hurts.”

Rising quickly, Kyra went to the kitchen, motioning for Miriam to bring the lantern. Gently, she turned Little Amos about in his mother's arm so that he faced her, pried open his mouth and used a wooden spoon handle as a tongue depressor. Miriam held the light close.

Little Amos squirmed and cried, wrenching his face free of Kyra's grasp, but not before she got a good look.

“I was afraid of this . . .” she whispered, her voice trembling. “This is no cold. It is the
strangler
.”

Miriam shrugged and shook her head, confused. “The strangler?”

“Sí. I talked to one of the women in the traveling show in the village last weekend. She said they had just come from Nuevo Laredo, where there were rumors of an outbreak on the American side. I didn't want to say anything because I did not think it would come here. I prayed it was not true.”

“But what is it? What are you talking about?”

“The woman said the gringo name for it, but I cannot say it. It was dip . . . dip . . .”

Miriam's eyes widened. “Diphtheria?”

Kyra nodded. “Sí. Diphtheria. That was the word.”

Their Spanish eluded Mamm, but she heard the word
diphtheria
. Her fingers bit into her prayer kapp and she moaned loudly, plunking heavily into the chair Kyra had left in the middle of the kitchen.

“Are you sure?” Miriam asked.

“Sí, I have seen it before. There was an outbreak near Agua Nueva last year and one of my little cousins died.” She wiggled a finger at her throat. “The strangler leaves a gray coating in the throat, like leather. Both of them have it.”

Miriam took a deep breath and tried to think. Her first duty was to her mother, so she knelt in front of Mamm and translated what Kyra had told her.

Mamm covered her face and began to wail, rocking back and forth in the chair, just like Ada. “Oh, what will we
do
?”

Miriam looked to Rachel. “Go get Aaron,” she said quietly. “He's in the barn.” In Caleb's absence, Aaron was the man of the house. As Rachel went out the door, Miriam turned to Kyra as calmly as she could, her hands clasped in front of her. She had no knowledge of diphtheria—only that it was very bad.

“What will happen now?” she asked, in Spanish.

“The fever will get worse and the throat will swell. Sometimes there are sores on the skin.”

Kyra averted her eyes then, and Miriam knew there was more. Something she did not want to say.

“And then?”

Tears formed in Kyra's dark eyes. “The throat swells shut and cuts off the wind. It is a terrible death.”

Miriam took a deep breath and fought for control, for her mother's sake.

“They will die?”

Kyra nodded slowly and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Perhaps Ada will live, but the little one . . . It is much worse for children.”

Miriam steeled herself, summoning strength she wasn't sure she possessed.
Think.

Aaron stormed through the back door and rushed to Miriam's side with Rachel right behind him. He reached out without a word and took Little Amos from his mother.

“Rachel said something is wrong with Little Amos,” he said. The boy wrapped his arms around his uncle's neck and laid his head on a shoulder. Aaron touched a rough hand to the forehead and a deep worry lined his face. “He's feverish. What is it?”

“Diphtheria,” Miriam said. “Little Amos and Ada both have it.”

Aaron's face blanched ash gray and his eyes widened in terror, but within seconds something came over him. It was a subtle thing, but suddenly he looked very much like his father—that iron resolve.

He spoke to Kyra in Spanish. “What must we do?”

Mamm wailed again. Without looking, Aaron reached back to squeeze her shoulder, and she quieted.

“
Think
, Kyra. Tell us what we should do.” His calm tone commanded focus.

Kyra took a deep breath and blew it out. “First, you must close the school, Miriam. Send the children home quickly. The disease is very contagious. Everyone should stay in their own house for a time and not move about. Boil water, wash everything, then iron it. Do not share dishes. Don't drink from the dipper at the well. Mary should leave Little Amos here, since the strangler is already in this house and there are no other little ones here. Your mother can care for him. Mary must keep her other children away.”

“But what can we do for
this one
?” Aaron asked. “How do we make him better? Surely there is a home remedy you or some of the other local women know about. There must be
something
!”

He was almost shouting. His eyes had grown hard and fierce, and everyone in the room fell silent because they knew why. He was thinking of the other Amos, his own twin brother whom he had loved more than life itself, who died of the Spanish flu. Aaron would not live through that again. He would move heaven and earth first.

Kyra shook her head and averted her eyes, unable to face his intense glare. “Not here. In the city there are doctors with medicine, an antitoxin that might save them, but by the time you get them to Mexico City or Monterrey it will be too late.”

“Another place then. There must be medicine someplace closer.
Think, Kyra.
”

Suddenly Kyra's face lifted, a ray of hope. “My cousin! Agua Nueva! There was an outbreak only last year, and there is a doctor in Agua Nueva. He has seen the strangler before, so perhaps he still has medicine!”

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

I
n 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.