Streams of Mercy (20 page)

Mr. Stetler laid a hand on Thorliff’s shoulder. “And they’re not your dogs. Most towns have a pack of strays. You needn’t apologize.”

“It’s wonderful to have the circus visit, though.” Ingeborg straightened. “I had no idea you’d be here. I haven’t seen posters or anything.”

“This is not a scheduled stop. We heard you have a fine hospital and several of our troupe are quite ill—a strange disease of some sort. We canceled our next engagement and came here so they can be looked at and treated.”

Ingeborg frowned. “There are bigger hospitals in bigger towns.”

“But not hospitals with the reputation yours has. Two of our jugglers and several of our children are extremely ill. We fear for their lives. We have heard that if anyone can save them, your facility can.”

“That is flattering.” Ingeborg didn’t have to think very long. “Mr. Stetler, it was my pleasure to meet you. Now, if you will excuse me.”

Mr. Stetler tipped his hat again and smiled.

She turned and headed for the hospital, at a fast walk. She’d done enough running for the day. A mysterious illness that was too strange for larger hospitals to tackle? What was going on here? This was just as weird as an elephant in her yard.

When she arrived at the hospital, she went directly to the examining rooms. No one there. She tried the private room. A man with a nasty cough lay on the table with two student nurses hovering over him. Was his skin really bluish, or was he someone from the circus’s freak show who was naturally that blue? One of the nurses dabbed at his brow with a wet compress as the other applied carbolic acid to a large open sore on his leg.

He was having difficulty breathing. He gasped, “I’m cold.”

Abigail, at his head, said, “I’ll bring you another blanket.” She hurried off.

Ingeborg stepped up to the woman working on the leg. “That is an ugly lesion.” It was the size of a silver dime and deep enough to expose muscle tissue. It was surrounded by a wider circle of sloughed outer skin, revealing the bright pink of the skin layer below.

Gasping, he groaned and jerked his leg.

“I’m sorry, sir, but it is infected,” Sandra told him. “We have to clean it out. I’m very sorry I’m hurting you, but this must be done.”

“No. No more.” He seemed to be sinking into a restless sleep. He murmured, “I can’t breathe. I can’t juggle.” His gasps were getting louder, coming more frequently. “I can’t juggle. I’m done now.”

“What does Astrid say?” Ingeborg asked.

“She says she’s never seen this before.”

“Neither have I.”

Abigail returned and tucked an additional blanket around the poor fellow. She picked up a clean dressing from the tray and held it close to the man’s leg, ready to cover the wound as soon as Sandra was ready.

Ingeborg turned away and headed down to Astrid’s office. She rapped lightly and opened the door. There sat Deborah, Miriam, Astrid, Elizabeth, and Dr. Commons, the resident intern.

Astrid was on the telephone. “Yes, I know he is in lecture. I need him. Is Dr. Brokaw available?” Pause. “It is an acute emergency. We have people dying here.” Another long pause. “I’ll wait.” With her phone at her ear she stared blankly at Ingeborg.

She hasn’t even noticed me. Please, God, help us here. Help us!

Astrid scowled. “No, we need it now. Right now. Very well. I’ll be waiting.” She reached up to the wall, stretching, and cradled the phone. “Dr. Brokaw cannot be found, and Dr. Monroe is in lecture. The receptionist promises that the first one she finds will call me.”

Dr. Commons nodded. “Dr. Brokaw is a contagious disease specialist, and Dr. Monroe treats primarily lungs and hearts.”

Miriam looked grim and drawn. “They start with a fever, a sore, raspy throat, and a cough. Then they develop difficulty
swallowing and breathing. Mr. Morris, the juggler in our private room, turned blue before they brought him in. His heartbeat is irregular.”

“I saw the open sore.”

Miriam nodded. “Now he has trouble controlling his right arm. A juggler needs very precise control. I’m afraid he will just give up if he can’t use the arm.”

Elizabeth looked just as grim. “They brought in a small child, a darling boy. He said his neck hurt, and then he said he was very tired. He fell asleep soon after he came in and did not awaken. He just faded away. We wrapped the poor little body in a sheet and returned him to his mother. Now she has a sore throat. He was not much older than Roald. Ingeborg, I’m terrified! What is this thing?”

“I am going to check on Mr. Morris. Mrs. Bjorklund, please take my chair.” Miriam left, closing the door behind her.

“Mr. Morris. The juggler.” Ingeborg crossed to Miriam’s vacated chair and sat down. She also felt very discouraged and weary. Probably the hard run following the elephant had something to do with it. Probably also was the fact that she had not eaten yet.

Elizabeth really was terrified. It showed in her face. “Astrid, we should have sent that train on down the track. We have just exposed this whole town to a disease about which we know nothing. Nothing! Not even how to ease its symptoms.”

Astrid stared at her. “Are you saying turn away people who desperately need medical care?”

Elizabeth was almost shouting. “Medical intervention! Medicine that will help them. We don’t have that! We can’t help them, but they can devastate us!”

The phone rang. Astrid grabbed the receiver off the hook. She listened for a moment. “Oh, thank God!”

Ingeborg listened closely, but she could not hear the voice on the other end. Astrid was nodding, grunting, saying an occasional yes. Whoever was on the other end had gone into some sort of lengthy discourse.

Was Elizabeth right? Was this the one time they would be wise to refuse the urge to help, to send desperate people to some other town? She had certainly made an excellent case for doing that. Ingeborg had no idea what to do, even which way to start moving. Elizabeth and Astrid, well-trained doctors, were flummoxed. Miriam had no idea, and she grew up in the big city.

A sudden heavy pall of gloom dropped down on Ingeborg, turning her whole world dark. What if little Inga got sick, or Emmy? Manny was doing so fine, growing in wisdom. What if he succumbed? Innocent children, cut short?
O God, no!
But everyone in Blessing was suddenly vulnerable, exposed to a hideous danger that no one could control.

O God, please, no, no, no!

“Yes!” Astrid said to the telephone receiver. “Oh yes! I agree. Thank you.” She listened. “Yes, we’ll do that. Thank you!” She hung up and flopped into her chair.

“Well?” Elizabeth was on the edge of her seat.

“That was Dr. Brokaw. He says the symptoms suggest diphtheria. Doctors managed about twenty years ago to isolate and identify the bacterium that causes it. They have developed an antitoxin to counteract it, an antidote, but you have to administer it before the symptoms appear.”

“What good is that?!” Elizabeth sat back.

“It keeps the person who receives it from developing the disease. He is sending a shipment of the antitoxin to us as quickly as possible.”

Deborah asked, “But what can we do for the sick people?”

“He explained about intubation, which is inserting a breath
ing tube put down the throat of a person who cannot breathe well. You have to sedate the patient first, of course. The tube lets air past the tonsils, which develop a thick membrane that blocks air passage. Dr. Brokaw is sending us a supply of the correct size of stiff rubber tubing. Both things should be on the train tomorrow. We’ll get them the next day.”

Astrid sank back, looking very tired. “Dr. Brokaw also told me this. Do you remember in the news that President Cleveland’s daughter—the former president, you know, Grover Cleveland—his daughter, Ruth, died a couple years ago? What started out looking like a sore throat and tonsillitis turned out to be diphtheria.”

Elizabeth looked stricken. “Astrid, I remember that. She was dead in less than a week.”

Ingeborg’s whole soul seemed to just shrivel up. “How can you tell a diphtheria case from a simple sore throat?”

Astrid studied her desktop for a moment. “We all know Mr. Morris’s symptoms. But they are apparently advanced. Every sore throat that comes in, we must immediately examine the tonsils using a tongue depressor. If you see any gray substance starting to grow on the tonsils, put the person in quarantine. Also, Dr. Brokaw said if a child—or an adult too, I assume—has a strangely swollen neck, that is a sure sign. He called it ‘bull neck’ because it looks like the overly thick neck of a herd bull.”

Ingeborg was also staring at Astrid’s desk. “The disease is easily communicable, right?”

“Right. Unless you’ve had the antitoxin to counteract it.”

She nodded. “If more people in the circus get sick, we won’t have room for them here. If the disease spreads into the community, we won’t have room for our own. We should somehow set up a ward or facility on the train and go to them rather than having them come to us.”

Deborah nodded enthusiastically. “Good thinking, Ingeborg.
I agree. We might even set up a facility in town, at the school or boardinghouse, if some of our people get sick.”

Elizabeth hopped to her feet and crossed to the bookshelf. She ran a finger along the book spines and pulled out a massive tome. She sat down, plopped it in her lap, and consulted the index. “Diphtheria. Diphtheria. Here.” She opened the book and flipped several pages. She read for a moment with her lips pressed into a tight line. “It mentions fatigue, headache, and a foul nasal discharge. Does Mr. Morris have those?”

Astrid picked up a chart on her desk and scanned it. “They are not recorded here. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have those, of course, just that he didn’t mention them and we didn’t notice them.”

Ingeborg couldn’t think. This was just too much. “I suggest one thing, though.”

Inga! Emmy! Manny! All the other innocent
children.

“Let’s keep all the children home, in their respective homes, to protect them. How long is the incubation period—the time from when you get the germs until the first symptoms show up?”

Elizabeth paused, then read, “‘Symptoms appear two to seven days following exposure.’”

Astrid nodded. “Mor, with school out, we need to contact the families. Reverend Solberg knows all the families and can get the word out quickly. I think keeping the children close to home for a week or so is better than taking risks. Also, let’s ask him if we can set up the school rooms as an infirmary. If this diphtheria becomes an epidemic, we will need a central place to house and care for the sick.”

“I will.” At last. Something to do about this horror. Ingeborg stood up.

Miriam appeared in the doorway. She looked drained, stricken. “Mr. Morris, the juggler, has died.”

C
HAPTER 16

W
e need to go from house to house and tell everyone to stay away from the train, and tell children to remain at home.” Reverend Solberg looked ten years older. He sat in the spare chair in Thorliff’s office, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

“I’ll get some flyers printed so we can post them.” The circles under Thorliff’s eyes, he knew, spoke of lack of sleep even more than the stoop to his shoulders did. He looked to John Solberg. “Don’t you think God is letting down on protecting us?”

Solberg smiled gently with a heavy tinge of sadness. “I know it seems that way, but we must trust Him. He promised He is right here with us.”

“With three dead already? And yes, those are all people from the train, but the antitoxin will not arrive until the day after tomorrow, and we already have people here exposed.”

“We’ve kept the exposure to a minimum, thanks to the wisdom of our doctors.”

Thorliff nodded. “At least we have tried to. I’d better get this set so we can get them out. Thomas, would you be willing to help me?”

Off in the corner leaning against the wall, the cheerful Irishman grinned. “Aye! I feared ye’d never ask.”

Thorliff smiled in spite of himself. “John, you can pick up the flyers in about an hour. We all better be praying for protection for everyone.” He didn’t add
if God is listening
, but he thought it. Last year the grain elevator blew up, and now half the town could die. God may not have turned His back, but was He listening? Thorliff was not convinced. He was pretty certain God had at least lost His happy smile. That was for sure.

With a nod, Reverend Solberg put on his hat, said good-bye, and left.

Devlin flopped into the chair the reverend had vacated. “Ye might start, I suggest, by allowing only people who are immune to venture near the train and mill.”

“How do we know who’s immune?”

“People who have survived diphtheria—’tis no death sentence, I assure ye—and once ye’ve had it ye cannot fall ill with it again.”

Thorliff grunted. “Where did you hear that?”

“From yer darlin’ wife, who read it aloud from a book.”

Thorliff thought about this a moment. “What if someone decides not to take that advice—to stay away from the train? I wonder if there is some way to force them to obey the edict. We’ve never bothered too much with ordinances in this town. People are generally quite thoughtful and kind. But what if?”

Devlin frowned at the desk in thought.

Thorliff picked up the phone and cranked it. “Hello, Gerald. Thorliff. Can you connect me to Charlie Becker up in Grafton?” He listened. “Of course.” He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and explained, “Charlie Becker is the new sheriff in Grafton. Used to be Clyde Meeker, but he moved to Minneapolis. Clyde hauled our bank robbers off to jail a while back. But Charlie will know what’s legal and what’s not.”

It took Gerald several minutes, but the sheriff’s jovial voice finally boomed. “Thorliff! Good to hear from you. How’s it going out there in the woolly farmland?”

“Not good. We have a circus train parked behind the mill with a number of sick people. Diphth—”

The jovial voice turned startled. “They surely didn’t stop there in Blessing! Those . . .” and he used a word Thorliff had not heard for years. And it wasn’t Norwegian.