The Moon by Night (13 page)

Finishing his cup of coffee, he jumped up and did some busywork again, just to have something to do. He checked the horses' feed and water, he checked the injured horses' cuts and bandages, he cleaned his and Cheney's tack, he built up the fire in the stove. He checked his watch. “One thirty-nine,” he grunted. “Yep, it looks like we're gonna be here all—”

Shiloh heard a heavy cart rattling by up Seventh Avenue and then turning into the stone-paved drive of the hospital's emergency entrance. He also heard a lot of yelling, screeching, singing, catcalling, and cursing. Hurrying to the stable doors, he went outside to see what the spectacular ruckus was about.

A policeman was driving a paddy wagon with Officer Sylvester Goodin riding shotgun, and it was jam-packed with drunks, both men and women. They pulled up to the emergency entrance, and Officer Goodin jumped down and went to the rear of the paddy wagon. Shiloh and Officer Goodin had met several times when Shiloh had come to ride home with Cheney. He liked the young policeman and was glad that Goodin watched out for Cheney.

The drive up to and surrounding the emergency entrance of the hospital was well lit, with six gas lamps on each side of the drive. Shiloh could clearly see Officer Goodin open the paddy doors, shove some people back with a billy club, and help two women get out. Then he slammed the doors shut, locked them, and helped the two women into the hospital.

Shiloh watched somewhat wistfully until he realized what he was doing. With effort he gazed up at the sterile full moon.

No concern of his.

He whistled, unaware that he was whistling, in perfect tune and with no errors, “Shadow Song,” which poor mad Dinorah sang while she danced with her shadow in the light of the full moon.

He went back inside and poured himself another cup of coffee.

He stared at the fire in the fat stove.

He checked his watch. “One forty-eight,” he mumbled.

He heard the paddy wagon go back up the avenue.

Finally, with a growl of impatience, he jumped up, closed the doors on the stove, and headed to the hospital.

The nurses' station was located in the center of the hospital at the intersection of the two ward hallways and facing the dispensary/emergency department. At the west end of the dispensary were the operating rooms, and at the east end was a short hall with curtained cubicles on each side. As soon as Shiloh hurried through the emergency entrance, the din assaulted him.

Somewhere an infant was wailing with that particular siren noise that quickly drives any adult who is not his mother insane. Mr. Renaldi and Mr. Bertoli were standing and arguing right in the entrance to the hallway leading to the cubicles, while Mrs. Bertoli was shouting at the eight children in a high nasal Italian screech. Down the hall a man was yelling, “Get away from my little girl. If you touch her again, I'll knock you down. I swear I will, even if you are a female!”

Shiloh took all this in on one level of his mind, but what drew his immediate attention was the tableau directly in front of the nurses' station. Carlie Yates was the midnight shift attendant, a hardworking, sweet-natured eighteen-year-old who had been born with a clubfoot and was mildly retarded. He stood between a young male doctor, who Shiloh assumed must be Dr. Marcus Pettijohn, and Dr. Lawana White.

Dr. Pettijohn was obliged to shout to make himself heard above the bedlam around them, and Carlie, standing between them, had his head down, his shaking hands gripping the push handle of one of the rolling clinic supply carts. Dr. White, though her cheeks were scarlet with embarrassment and she looked as if she were about to cry, said in a tremulous voice, “But, Dr. Pettijohn, Carlie knows where everything is in the storage rooms, and it would only take him a moment—”

Dr. Pettijohn interrupted her. His loud voice was not particularly angry. “This is precisely the reason I want Carlie to stay with me. He can keep me supplied promptly as I work in this infernal hole. I understand that you need supplies, but I can assure you, Dr. White, that if I keep Carlie to assist me, I can probably finish with more patients than you can see all night. And this is the last time that I give you any sort of explanation. You must learn that you are a student, and you follow physicians' orders. So go find your own linen, Dr. White. Do you understand?”

Dr. White met Dr. Pettijohn's critical gaze steadily as he dressed her down, but when he finished she dropped her eyes and murmured something Shiloh couldn't hear.

Dr. Pettijohn grimaced, and now his frustration sounded clearly as he was obliged to yell, “Very well! But before you do so, please make yourself useful and go shut that baby up before we all run stark raving mad! Carlie, stop whimpering and come with me right now!” He whirled and stalked down the hallway. Carlie gave Dr. White an apologetic look and pushed the supply cart, limping hurriedly after Dr. Pettijohn.

Shiloh came closer, and for the first time Dr. White noticed him. “Oh, hello, Mr. Irons-Winslow,” she said as cheerfully as she could manage. “Are you—” She stopped when she saw the look on Shiloh's face.

“Was that Dr. Pettijohn?”

“Yes, sir,” she said reluctantly. “Were you—were you looking for Dr. Duvall, Mr. Irons-Winslow?”

“Yes. Are she and Dr. Buchanan still down in the lab?”

“I expect so,” she answered, dropping her eyes. “Um—Dr. Pettijohn has specifically instructed the staff not to interrupt them.”

“Yeah, I've heard him give his specific instructions, and I'd like him to come instruct me,” Shiloh muttered ominously.

The frantic note in the baby's rhythmic wails shot up half an octave. “I…I must go, sir. If that's all?” Dr. White said anxiously.

“Sure, Dr. White. You're all right, are you?” He searched her face. Her delicate cheeks were still flushed, but she didn't look too upset.

“I'm fine, sir. Thank you for asking. And there's no need to worry Dr. Duvall, you know, sir. This is really a matter—It really is not—”

Shiloh shrugged. “If you're asking me not to say anything to her, then I won't.”

Her cheeks colored again, but she lifted her chin and said, “I must learn how to handle these kinds of situations myself, sir. Just the way Dr. Duvall has learned.”

He managed a small smile. “You sure don't look tough, but the doc says you are.”

“I'm not yet,” she said, clenching her jaw, “but I will be. I must be.” She turned on her heel and marched off toward the baby's yells.

Shiloh stood still, thought for a minute, then slowly walked down the hall. He passed the passionate Italians, the man bending over his little girl, whose eyes were open, and one very young very pregnant girl who was drunkenly clinging to the cubicle drapes and looking in at the small bed. Dr. Pettijohn stood there, his effeminate mouth twisted with distaste, winding a bandage around the arm of a short, coarse-looking woman. Shiloh saw that Dr. Pettijohn's left hand had dried blood on it. It wasn't from this patient, because this woman didn't appear to have any open wounds. She did have what looked like a second-degree burn on her right arm.

She was wearing a cheap low-cut purple cotton dress, and one side of it was singed. Her face also had a first-degree burn, and on the right side of her head some of her brindle-colored hair had been burned. Shiloh could smell the unmistakable reek of cheap gin. The woman was cackling and saying to the younger girl, “That stupid ol' Walt fair knocked me right into that candle, and you know Ruthie spilled that sloe gin all over both of us, and whoosh! it just went up like Chinese fireworks.”

Dr. Pettijohn turned as Shiloh paused by the cubicle. When he saw Shiloh he quickly smoothed out his features to a polite expression of inquiry. “I'll be with you in a moment, sir,” he said.

“…tryin' to teach us that stupid ol' dance,” the woman chattered. “What was that stupid ol' dance, anyway—well, well, hello there, darling ducks! Now you are one tall handsome thing, ain't you? My name's Wilhelmina, and that's Geraldine. We both have nicknames too—mine's Willing Wilhelmina. And that poor little mite of a thing, we just call her Gerry. Can you guess why my nickname is Willing Wilhelmina?”

“I probably could, ma'am, but—”

The little girl tried to squint up at Shiloh's face, but she fell against him as she reeled drunkenly. Shiloh said firmly, “Here, Miss Geraldine, why don't you come over here to the next bed.” He yanked the dividing curtain aside so that the cubicle was now a two-bed room.

Apologetically Dr. Pettijohn said, “Sir, you may wait up at the nurses' station so you won't be bothered by these women. I'm Dr. Marcus Pettijohn, and I'll be with you in just—”

Shiloh, taking the girl's arm and practically lifting her bodily up to the bed, interrupted in a tight voice, “I'm Shiloh Irons-Winslow, Dr. Duvall's husband. I don't need your help.”

“You don't?” he said mildly, winding an oil-soaked lint of linen around “Willing Wilhelmina's” arm. “Then I assume you must be looking for Dr. Duvall and have gotten turned around in some way. The stairwells that lead to the laboratory are down the halls on either side of the chapel.”

Shiloh frowned darkly as he watched him attend to the woman's arm. Dr. Pettijohn was using what appeared to be charpie, or surgical lint, an inferior thin material of cast-off linen that physicians had used for centuries for dressings. Shiloh knew that Cheney and Dev despised the stuff, for it did indeed have lint that always dug into an open wound. Many physicians still didn't believe that charpie caused any problems. Generally they were the same practitioners who didn't believe in Lister's antisepsis theories and still thought that a surgeon's bloody coat and needles with sutures stuck in bloody collars were a badge of honor.

Also, Shiloh knew for certain that Cheney disapproved of using sweet oil, or butter or any other greasy substance, for first- and second- degree burns. She believed in keeping them as clean and dry as possible and letting the body heal itself.

However, Shiloh once again reproved himself, for he did not know the rules of this hospital. He only knew Cheney's rules. And he wasn't a member of the administration, even though, oddly enough, he was listed on the charter as an owner of the hospital. But to Shiloh, this did not give him any standing at all to interfere. It was the same as with his ship,
Locke's Day Dream
. Though he owned it, he would never dream of interfering with Captain Starnes's authority or questioning his decisions.

Finally he said in a more conciliatory tone, “Yeah, I know where they are. I just came in to introduce myself because you're the only staff member I haven't met.”

“I'm pleased to meet you, sir, though I am sorry it's under such regrettable circumstances,” Dr. Pettijohn said with cool courtesy.

“Yeah, it is,” Shiloh agreed glumly as he watched the young girl swaying back and forth as she sat on the bed. Her hair and fingernails were dirty, her dress was torn, and the sour liquor smell surrounded her like a cloud. Shiloh sighed. At any given moment there were probably hundreds of girls like this on the streets of Manhattan Island. Politely he said, “Good night, ladies. I hope Dr. Pettijohn can help you feel better. Good night, sir.” He stepped outside the cubicle and pulled the curtains closed to allow them some privacy.

“Ooh, who was that dream of a gentleman?” Wilhelmina asked.

“That was no gentleman,” Dr. Pettijohn said calmly. “If you weren't so low and common yourself, you would know the difference.”

“Huh?” Wilhelmina grunted, squinting drunkenly up at him.

“Never mind. Dispensary times are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from noon until six,” he said curtly. “I doubt you'll be able to remember such a complicated schedule, but if you do, come back on Wednesday to get the dressing changed.” He turned on his heel and swatted the curtain aside. “Leave your name at the nurses' station. I know you'll never pay a single penny, so you and your friend just move on out of here so that we don't have to change the sheets.” He hurried away.

Wilhelmina made a horrible face at his back, then looked craftily around. Pulling the curtains closed again, she quickly stripped the snowy white cotton pillowslips off the pillows on both beds, stuffed one down the bodice of her dress and one down the bodice of Geraldine's dress. Then with the swiftness of a longtime thief, she stripped the sheets off the two beds, folded them into flat squares, and handed one to Geraldine. “Here, stuff that down your tummy, love. No one'll never know it's not just more baby. And no one ever looks at ol' Willin' Wilhelmina anymore, so they won't notice my potbelly.”

Grabbing Geraldine's arm, Wilhelmina hauled the younger woman to her feet. Together the two of them staggered down the hall, unnoticed with all the commotion still going on. No one was at the nurses' station to take their names, and Wilhelmina didn't know how to write, so the two women just slipped out and disappeared into the cold night.

Dr. Devlin Buchanan gently eased Mrs. Carteret down to lie back against the mound of pillows, all covered with lace-trimmed satin. Her bedclothes were the softest of glazed linen, edged with Battenberg lace. The bedcovers were of the finest matelassé, several in different pretty pastel shades. The windows of the ladies' suite at St. Luke's looked out on a small rose garden with stone benches on each side of a graveled path between the beds. Now, of course, there were no roses, only snow, and the benches looked as if they had fat pillows of frost on them. The late evening sky had a faint pinkish cast, almost the same shade as one of Mrs. Carteret's coverlets. It was a cold scene out that window; but the suite was warm, for a sweet-smelling fire crackled cheerily in the generous fireplace at the far end of the room. On each side of the fireplace were matching gold velvet settees with plump rolled arms, and between them was a gleaming tea table.