Home by Morning (26 page)

“Are you the doc, Fred Pearson?” Opossum Face asked. He looked him up and down, as if deciding whether he had anything of value worth stealing.

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s the one I seen at the depot,” the mal-odorous cretin confirmed.

“That would be
Doctor
Pearson. And my first name is Frederick, not Fred.” Why did he have to keep reminding people of the most basic etiquette in addressing him? “And you are?”

Opossum Face ignored the question and turned to his companion. “See, I told you it was the right room.”

“Fine, but I done thought it was at the other end of the hall.”

To Pearson the weedy one said, “We got your gear downstairs. You don’t travel light, do you, Doc? Whatcha got in them boxes, all your worldly goods?”

In fact, he did. Formal evening attire he would never wear in this village, tennis clothes, golf and riding togs—all to remain packed away. He clenched his jaw, eager to have his trunks brought up and to be rid of these—what had the nurse said they were? Grave diggers? “That is hardly your business. Just bring up the luggage, please.”

Opossum Face, disrespectful and cocky as hell, gave him a mock salute. “Whatever you say, Your Highness. The lady doc says you’re coming back with us.” He and his companion turned and walked back down the hall toward the stairs.

Frederick felt heat rush up his face to his eyebrows at the barbarian’s insolence, and he returned, morosely, to his seat on the bed. The pair returned shortly, bumping his expensive leather trunks along the stairs and against the walls with no regard for their contents.

“Will you please be careful with those?” he snapped. “There are fragile items packed in them.”

The barbarians ignored him and cursed the luggage like stevedores.

When at last they’d brought everything to his room, the rodent-featured man said, “Okay, Doc, let’s go.” Once more inciting complaint from the bedsprings, he rose and left with them. They led him through the streets for a couple of blocks to a building that bore no resemblance at all to a medical facility. Then he saw the inscription above the entrance.

Powell Springs Union High School

Pearson stopped at the foot of the concrete stairs. “What is this place?” he asked.

Opossum Face, whose name he’d finally determined was Bert, replied, “It’s the infirmary.”

“Where’s the hospital?”

“Hospital—this is it. People leave here one of two ways, either on their own steam, or out the back door with Winks and me to the cemetery behind the building.”

The old sot named Winks nodded in agreement, showing off his three teeth in a half-grin.

Things were growing worse by the minute. Pearson followed his guides up the stairs and through the double doors. They led him to the gymnasium, where he recognized instantly the smell of an influenza ward.

Jessica was leaving Jeremy’s cubicle when she saw Frederick Pearson standing in the doorway, still dressed in his expensive clothing, gaping at the room. He took in the rows of beds, the basketball hoops, and the makeshift supply cabinets bearing the signs that reminded everyone they were on loan from Hustad’s Fine Furnishings.

“Doctor, I see you found us.”

His stunned expression almost made her laugh. “You have no hospital? Even in Omaha they had a hospital!”

“Powell Springs isn’t Omaha. It’s a small town. Until this epidemic erupted, there were never enough patients to justify a hospital. Because of the emergency, the town council arranged for me to use this gymnasium.”

“There are no operating rooms, no laboratory, no orderlies, no qualified nurses?”

Jess intertwined her fingers like a welcoming maitre d’, pleased to have the upper hand for a moment. “In your correspondence with Mayor Cookson, did he tell you that we have all those things?”

His mouth was still agape as his head swiveled to inspect his surroundings. “Not specifically, but I was certainly given the impression that Powell Springs is more than the
backwater
it appears to be. In fact, its merits seem to have been grossly overstated. It has none of the modern medical advances I enjoyed on the East Coast.”

“No it doesn’t, does it? I worked in New York for some time, myself. But I’ve learned to adapt. I had to.”

“How are you feeding these people? Bathing them? Managing the laundry?”

“As best we can.” Briefly, she detailed Granny Mae’s cooking and her role as the local folk medicine specialist and occasional veterinary consultant. She also told him about the fire that burned the contents of chamber pots, and the boiling kettles of sheets. “Granny Mae prefers traditional remedies to science, but she has unbent a little. And some of her advice has been rather helpful, although I did draw the line at letting her put sulfur in the patients’ shoes to ‘burn’ the illness out of them.”

He continued to stare in moderate horror. Jessica didn’t want to scare him off, but it was a pleasure to watch his gasbag attitude deflate a little.

“Obviously, this influenza epidemic is an unusual situation. Once it passes”—if it passes, she thought—“things will return to normal.”

“Normal—but what about surgeries, such as cholecystectomies and bowel obstructions? Real emergencies?”

She permitted herself a smile, thoroughly enjoying every moment of this. “Oh, well, those you’ll handle in the back room of the office. There is no operating table, but I’m sure you could order one. My father was the doctor here before his death, and sometimes he performed caesarian deliveries and such on a kitchen table if the patients couldn’t travel to him.”

Frederick Pearson’s face acquired such a scarlet, pinched appearance, Jess thought he looked as if he’d either swallowed a box of alum or was having an apoplectic fit.

“Are you all right, Doctor?”

He uttered an incomprehensible sound.

“I gather that you’re not accustomed to a more modest practice style.”

“Hardly.” It seemed to be the only word he could choke out.

She brightened. “Oh, I just remembered—the medical office does have a telephone. Unfortunately, most other people here don’t, and it’s only operational during daytime hours.”

“Hmm.” He managed a very sour smile.

“I’d offer to take you on rounds and update you on the current patient census here, but I’m sure you must be tired after your long trip. Shall we meet again tomorrow morning?”

“Yes—tomorrow. That would be better.”

Frederick Pearson walked back to the hotel with dragging steps and climbed to the second floor where his room was located. Once inside, he planted his generous posterior on the worn cushion of the wing chair, wishing all the more desperately to be delivered from this provincial grease spot on the map.

He was so offended and outraged by what he’d seen and heard so far, he thought his head might explode. Surely, Charon had ferried him across the Acheron into Dante’s first level of hell.

He wished yet again that he had never been forced to leave his civilized Connecticut for the savage, gauche wilds beyond the Eastern Seaboard. He missed desperately the Pearson manse in Hartford, with its large, manicured grounds, its deferential, efficient servants, and other such basic amenities he’d not known since his hasty departure.

He yearned for the pleasant summers spent at the Pearson cottage in Newport, Rhode Island.
Cottage
was the foolish but endearing term for the grand homes of marble and gilt owned by the best families, where he’d enjoyed the convivial company of other summer vacationers such as the Vanderbilts, the Berwinds, and the Astors. The winter season brought concerts and the theater, elegant Christmas soirées, smart dinner parties and weekly salons, and trips into New York City. That life of refined comfort was just a memory now, one that he fervently wished to make real again. And it seemed that the farther west he’d traveled, the more primitive the country became. It wouldn’t surprise him to see cowboys and Indians whoop down the muddy street beneath his hotel windows.

He stood and walked to the coat tree that held his jacket. From the inside pocket he withdrew a silver flask which contained the last of the cognac he’d carried with him across the country. Searching the room, he found not so much as a plain drinking glass, so he was forced to drink the choice French brandy straight from the flask. Glum, he flopped into a slick horsehair wing chair that had seen far better days.

Although it wasn’t in Frederick’s nature to look on the bright side of irremediable situations, he could acknowledge the fact that through his father’s political connections, a particular senator had permitted him to be spared from the army and thus the war. So at least he wasn’t in some French field hospital, working under even worse conditions than those offered by Powell Springs.

Of course, no good deed went unpunished. To his misfortune, he hadn’t realized that in exchange for this boon, he’d been expected to accept the matrimonial hand of the senator’s eldest and most socially awkward daughter. So unattractive and lacking in grace was this female—despite a score of tutors, dance instructors, and finishing schools, and an incalculable number of suitors who’d escaped—at age twenty-eight, she remained unmarried. The good senator’s wife had even gone so far as to “let slip” the spinster’s engagement to him, which of course, Frederick found intolerable. After an ugly scene that had included the renewed threat of military service—as an infantryman—Frederick Pearson had agreed to leave the East for any available position in a faraway American locale.

In his correspondence with Mayor Cookson, he had been led to believe that Powell Springs was a thriving community immediately adjacent to Portland, where timber barons and newspaper tycoons lived in the luxurious style to which he was accustomed. But Willets, the hayseed stationmaster, had told him that the city was a good fifteen to twenty miles west, with not much between but farmland and a few other towns just like Powell Springs. From what little he’d seen, Powell Springs itself was nothing more than a country hamlet.

“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’” he muttered. Then he took the last swallow of cognac from his flask, letting the drops run out onto his tongue.

Adam Jacobsen sat on a rocker in Laura Donaldson’s parlor, facing Amy Layton. He balanced his clipboard on his knee, which held a sheaf of papers. He had made this call to secure the older woman’s signature on his petition. She’d given it gladly and invited him to lunch.

“Do you have enough names, do you think?” Amy asked him. Though dressed, she reclined in an overstuffed chair with her feet propped on a needlepoint stool. She wore a large pale-blue shawl draped around her shoulders and looked very much the convalescent.

He tapped the pages of names. “Not yet, maybe, but I’ll collect more at tonight’s town meeting, and I’m sure those will give us more than we need. Anyway, now that Dr. Pearson is here, it really should be only an administrative matter.”

He’d had a visit from Whitney Gannon about the property damage that had occurred at the medical office. Of course, he couldn’t condone that kind of violence, and he’d been annoyed that James Leonard had done something so stupid. It would only hurt their cause, not help it. He’d assured Sheriff Gannon that he’d do everything possible to keep his followers from committing further vandalism. In return, Gannon said he wouldn’t arrest Leonard, but only fine him with the provision that he pay for the repair. Besides, that office would soon be occupied by Dr. Pearson, and what good would it do to break the windows?

Adam put on an expression of regret. “It’s a shame that your own sister, a woman from a fine family, has proven to be so immoral and faithless. This must all be very distressing for you, Amy, especially since you’re still recovering from your illness. To discover that Jessica and Braddock have been consorting behind your back while you were in your sickbed—well, I can imagine that it’s a bitter blow.”

“And the lies they accused me of—sending a forged telegram to Jess to steal Cole away from her.” She pressed her palm to her forehead. “You can’t begin to know how that crushed me. But then, she was unfair to you, too. I can’t understand what happened to the sister I remember. Those years back East must have changed her. She said they did—I just didn’t realize how much.”