Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (44 page)

Even in the heavy humid heat, Cleo thrilled at his touch.
The last months with Chamard had somehow been both serene and exhilarating. She
wondered if she loved him. Her feelings for him were different from the way
she’d felt about Remy. Remy had been sweet and vulnerable, for all his pride.
He’d needed her, and she’d wanted to take care of him always. Chamard wanted to
take care of her, but she didn’t see that they needed each other.

She kissed the salty dew in the hollow at the base of his
throat. He slipped his hand under her chemise, and another hour passed before
he dressed to return to the resort on Lake Pontchartrain.

“I’ll see you in a week,” he said. “I don’t think I can stay
away from you longer than that.”

Cleo straightened his collar. “Gabriel is awake. Hear him?”

Chamard opened the door into the nursery and peeked at
Gabriel. He had one foot on the bar of the crib, escape clearly on his mind if
only he could get some leverage. “Ah ha,” Chamard said. “So it’s come to this,
has it?”

Gabriel beamed a guiltless smile and put his foot down. With
both arms held up, he appealed to Chamard. “Up,” he said.

“Did you hear that?” Chamard said to Cleo. “He said ‘up’ as
clear as day. Come here, my little man. Papa will rescue you.”

Chamard spent another half hour playing with Gabriel before
he left the house. He kissed Cleo good-bye and warned her, “Don’t neglect the
mosquito netting, and wear your veil when you ride through the streets after
dark.”

“I will.”

Cleo stood on the doorstep with Gabriel. “See?” she said,
and pointed to the big stallion in the shade of the oak. “See Papa’s big
horse?”

Chamard swung into the saddle, disturbing a cloud of
mosquitoes that had been sharing the shade. He dispersed them with a flap of
his hat and waved good-bye to Cleo and his son.

As Cleo turned to go back inside, she slapped at a mosquito
on the back of her neck.

The streets of New Orleans were almost deserted in the middle
of the day as Phanor rode through town on the way to Cleo’s cottage. Jean Paul
had asked if he could let Cleo know not to come in to
Les Trois Frères
–
they were closing their doors until the Yellow Jack ran its course for the
year.

Phanor’s path led him by the fever hospital. The sight of
bodies laid out in rows to await the burial wagon, the howls of fever-mad
patients, and the stench of death overwhelmed him. He covered his nose with his
kerchief and spurred his horse to hurry on.

Phanor heard Gabriel’s cries a block before he reached
Cleo’s house. Poor little tyke, he thought. He bet Cleo made him lie down for
nap, and he didn’t have time for that. If she’d let him get Gabriel up, he’d
take him for a ride.

Phanor became uneasy as he tied his horse to the rail. There
was a note in Gabriel’s cry that didn’t sound right. He knocked, and without
waiting, shoved the door open. The smell sickened him, but he hurried to the
bedroom and found Cleo barely conscious, her chemise blackened with bloody
vomit. He touched her forehead – hot as a stove lid, but she was alive. He
moved quickly into the nursery and found Gabriel standing in his crib,
red-faced, screaming.

“It’s okay, Gabe. Shhh.” Phanor pushed aside the mosquito
netting and lifted Gabriel out of the crib. His clothes were sodden and foul,
and he’d cried so much the tears no longer flowed. Phanor held him close and
rubbed his back. “It’s all right now. Everything will be all right. Shh.”

As soon as Gabriel released his grip around Phanor’s neck,
Phanor stripped him and took him to the well for a bucket of water. He helped
him drink from his own tiny cup until he’d had his fill, then found him a peach
and a scrap of bread to eat.

“Here, big boy. You stay in here and eat your peach. I’ll be
right in the next room.”

He left Gabriel naked on the floor with his cup and his
peach and returned to Cleo. She peered at him through slitted red eyes, but she
didn’t seem to recognize him. Her skin was yellow and hot, very hot, and dry.
Phanor pulled the chemise off and sponged her clean. He’d have to get some
water in her somehow. He held her up and tried pouring a cup of water in her
mouth. Unaware as she was, she swallowed greedily. He must have fed her four or
five cups before the sweat popped out on her fevered skin.

Phanor silently cursed the nanny. Likely she’d run off as
soon as she saw Cleo had the Yellow Jack. How could she have abandoned Gabriel
like that? If he ever saw her again...

Gabriel toddled in to the bedroom, peach juice running down
his bare tummy. He steadied himself against Phanor’s knee and gazed at Cleo.
“Mama,” he said, and lurched toward the bed.

Phanor lifted him to his shoulder. “See?” he said. “Maman is
sleeping. Let’s get you another peach. You’re a hungry fellow, aren’t you?”

Once he’d filled Gabriel’s tummy, he took him outdoors to
look for a pigeon feather near the neighbor’s dove cote. Back inside he smeared
some honey on Gabriel’s fingers, as he’d seen his sister Lalie do with her
baby, and handed him the feather.

He drew another bucket of water from the well and carried it
back into the bedroom. Cleo had vomited again while he’d been outside. She hung
half off the bed, her long hair falling into the bloody black pool on the
floor. Phanor pulled her back onto the bed. When he saw the trickles of blood
flowing from each eye and from her nose, he stepped back.

Cleo stared at him. At last, she said, “Phanor?”

He swallowed hard. The stench and the sight of the blood
nearly undid him. “I’m here.”

“Thank God,” she said, and closed her eyes.

He’d have to get a doctor here to bleed her, or maybe to use
the hot glass blistering cups. Some people swore the clysters pulled the poison
right out of you. He cleaned up the mess and sponged Cleo down again.

“I’m going for the doctor, Cleo. I’m taking Gabriel with me.
Hear me?” Cleo looked at him vacantly, her focus on some interior delirium.
“I’ll be back,” he said.

Gabriel had grown fretful with the sticky feather. Phanor
wiped the honey off his hands and tied a make-shift diaper on him. He hustled
him out to the mare and held him tight as he wheeled the horse around.

He’d find a doctor and beg, bribe, or threaten to get him to
Cleo’s house. As he approached the foul hospital again, he hesitated. He didn’t
want Gabriel in that place. He cut down a side street. He’d take him to Josie.
Cleo might still be afraid of her, but he wasn’t. Josie – well, he wouldn’t let
her if she thought of keeping Gabriel. But Phanor thought he knew her better
than that.

Gabriel clutched in one arm, Phanor pushed his horse through
the muddy streets. The sun hammered the top of his head, and he wished for the
hat he’d left on the floor at Cleo’s house.

Phanor knew exactly where Josie’s two kitchens were. He’d scouted
them out when he learned from Jean Paul she had set up business near the levee.
Twice he’d walked by, just out of curiosity, he’d told himself. The first time,
before the fever had come, he couldn’t see whether Josie was at the window of
either kitchen since both of her stands had a crowd of customers waiting to buy
pies. The second time he found her easily at the kitchen nearest the docks.
People stayed indoors as much as possible when the Yellow Jack was in town, and
only one man was at the window fishing for coins in his pocket as Josie wrapped
a pie in brown paper.

Phanor had watched her for a moment from beneath a shady
oak. The white cap on her head couldn’t keep all her hair tamed, and tendrils
of it framed her face. She was flushed from the heat, and she was much thinner
than she had been a year ago. But, he thought, she looked good. She smiled at
the man buying the pie, and laughed at something he said. She looked very good.

Now he rode his horse up to the very door of the kitchen
near the docks. No one was on the street in this heat, and the counter window
and the door were open. Gabriel gripped safely in his arm, Phanor slid off his
horse and peered into the dim interior. “Josie?” he called.

Josie stood up from bench at the work table. Her heart
swelled in gratitude to see him again. “Phanor!” She took in the lovely boy in
Phanor’s arms, his light skin and black eyes. “Gabriel?” she said.

“I need to get him out of this sun.”

Josie made a space for Phanor on the bench. “You’ll want
some water.” Gabriel fought Phanor for control of the cup. With the water
splashed all down his bare chest, Gabriel smiled in delight.

Josie could hardly take her eyes off him. She’d imagined how
big he must be as the months had gone on, and here he was, a beautiful child
who could hold his own cup.

“Cleo’s got the fever,” Phanor said.

The back of Josie’s hand flew to her mouth. She already knew
what the Yellow Jack could do. Not long after Kathleen died, Molly too had
succumbed. Josie had seen the awful vomiting and bleeding, the fever so hot it
seemed to burn her hand when she tried to cool poor Molly.

“Josie,” Phanor said quickly. “Not everyone dies of Yellow
Jack. Cleo will get well, I’m sure of it.” He watched her blink away the fear.
“I need you to take Gabriel.”

“But Phanor, Cleo won’t want me to – ”

“I’m asking you, not Cleo. She’s hardly conscious, and I
know you’ll take care of him.”

“I will, Phanor.” She held her hand out to Gabriel, hoping
he wouldn’t shrink from her. He grabbed her finger and pulled it toward his
mouth.

“You think he’s hungry?” Phanor said.

“He’s in the right place if he is,” Josie said. She reached
across the table for a small peach pie and handed it to him. When Phanor handed
him to Josie, he accepted the transfer without taking his attention from the
pie.

“I’m going after a doctor,” Phanor said. “I’ll be back in a
few days, when Cleo’s better.”

“Where is she? I mean, where does she live?”

“On Rue Noisette, off the far end of Rue Dauphine. The green
cottage with a persimmon tree out front.” He hesitated. “But you don’t need to
come. I’ll take care of her if you’ll take care of Gabriel.”

Phanor stepped into the glare of the street, and immediately
regretted his hat again. “I’ll see you soon. Don’t worry,” he said and mounted
his horse.

He rode quickly through the quiet streets, the heated air
still and stagnant. His horse’s hooves kicked up dust so dry and fine, it
seemed to hang above the street. Smoke from small piles of burning bones,
skins, horns, hooves – whatever people thought would drive off the infection –
hovered just above his head. Where was the rain, he thought.

At the hospital, Phanor found a shade tree for his mare and
approached the open gates. He shuddered at the sight of so many bodies laid out
in the courtyard waiting to be swaddled. The flies buzzed thick and black, and
in the corner Phanor caught the movement of rats. He averted his face and
crossed through the rows of corpses to the back gallery of the hospital.

The immobility in the courtyard hadn’t prepared him for the
noise and chaos inside the hospital. Men and women filled every cot and even
lay crowded on the bare boards. Basins of blood and foul liquid sat here and
there, alive with flies. Phanor held a hand to his nose and waited for his eyes
to adjust to the gloom.

Three nurses moved slowly among the horde of fever victims,
too fatigued and too hopeless to hurry. Across the room, one of the nurses
tried to restrain a man having a seizure. In a cot near Phanor, a young woman
in the grip of delirium cried out and flailed her arms. Her eyes, yellow and
glistening, seemed to swell out of their sockets. Phanor turned his head away.

He approached the nearest nurse, a white woman, who was
sponging a prostrate child with vinegar water. The woman looked up at him with
a face ravaged by sleepless nights and too much death.

“I need a doctor,” Phanor said.

The nurse stared at him. “You don’t need a doctor.”

“Yes. My friend has the fever. She needs a doctor.”

“So he can drain a little blood from her arm? Use the
clysters to make blisters on her back?”

“I don’t know. But she’s sick, she needs a doctor.”

“Look, monsieur. Do what I’m doing for this poor child. Keep
her clean. Wipe her body to cool her, give her clean water to drink, and pray.”

Phanor looked around the large open room. There were no
doctors in the hospital. The only men on their feet were the two who carried
the dead to the courtyard. The three women toiled alone for all these dozens
and dozens of victims.

“Where are the doctors?” Phanor said.

“With their rich patients, of course. Who are no more likely
to survive than this child here. I’ve seen your fine doctors bleeding their
patients to a pale death. You don’t need a doctor.” She reached into her pocket
and pulled out a small burlap bag tied with a string like the one she wore
pinned to her dress. “Here,” she said. The bag reeked of camphor, but Phanor
accepted it. “For you, not for her. Wear it around your neck.” She picked up a
cup to offer her small patient a sip of water, dismissing Phanor.

Phanor returned to the open gallery and breathed in deeply.
In the courtyard below, a tall light-skinned colored man hollered, “And keep
the damn cats out of here!” One of the orderlies Phanor had seen inside
murmured something and backed away from the man’s fury.

The angry gentleman wore the black frock coat and tall hat
of a doctor. He was not a white man, but Phanor had heard there were colored
doctors in town. He waited at the top of the gallery stairs for him.

“
S’il vous plait
,” Phanor said. “Are you a doctor,
Monsieur?”

“
Oui
.”

“My friend is sick. Will you come with me, will you see
her?”

“She has the Yellow Fever?”

“Yes. It’s not far, only a few minutes from here. You have a
carriage?”