4
We got the mosquito netting and used it, just in case. Nigel said Weylin didn't really mind letting us have it. He just didn't want to hear any more damned nonsense about mosquitoes. He didn't like to be taken for a fool.
"He's as close to being scared of you as he's ever been of anything," said Nigel. "I think he'd rather try to kill you than admit it though."
"I don't see any sign of fear in him."
"You don't know him the way I do." Nigel paused. "Could he kill you, Dana?"
"I don't know. It's possible."
"We better get Marse Rufe well then. Sarah has a kind of tea she makes that kind of helps the ague. Maybe it will help whatever Marse Rufe has now."
"Would you ask her to brew up a pot?"
He nodded and went out.
Sarah came upstairs with Nigel to bring Rufus the tea and to see me. She looked old now. Her hair was streaked with gray and her face lined. She walked with a limp.
"Dropped a kettle on my foot," she said. "Couldn't walk at all for a while." She gave me the feeling that everyone was getting older, passing me by. She brought me roast beef and bread to eat.
Rufus had a fever now. He didn't want the tea, but I coaxed and bullied until he swallowed it. Then we all waited, but all that happened was that Rufus's other leg began to hurt. His eyes bothered him most because moving them hurt him, and he couldn't help following my movements or Nigel's around the room. Finally, I put a cool damp cloth over them. That seemed to help. He still had a lot of pain in his joints—his arms, his legs, everywhere. I thought I could ease that, so I took his candle and went up to the attic for my bag. I was just in time to catch a little girl trying to get the top off my Excedrin bottle. It scared me. She could just as easily have chosen the sleeping pills. The attic wasn't as safe a place as I had thought.
"No, honey, give those to me."
"They yours?"
"Yes."
"They candy?"
Good Lord. "No, they're medicine. Nasty medicine."
"Ugh!" she said, and handed them back to me. She went back to her pallet next to another child. They were new children. I wondered whether the two little boys who had preceded them had been sold or sent to the fields.
I took the Excedrin, what was left of the aspirin, and the sleeping pills back down with me. I would have to keep them somewhere in Rufus's room or eventually one of the kids would figure out how to get the safety caps off.
Rufus had thrown off the damp cloth and was knotted on his side in pain when I got back to him. Nigel had lain down on the floor before the fireplace and gone to sleep. He could have gone back to his cabin, but he had asked me if I wanted him to stay since this was my first night back, and I'd said yes.
I dissolved three aspirins in water and tried to get Rufus to drink it. He wouldn't even open his mouth. So I woke Nigel, and Nigel held him down while I held his nose and poured the bad-tasting solution into his mouth as he gasped for air. He cursed us both, but after a while he began to feel a little better. Temporarily.
It was a bad night. I didn't get much sleep. Nor was I to get much for six days and nights following. Whatever Rufus had, it was terrible. He was in constant pain, he had fever—once I had to call Nigel to hold him while I tied him down to keep him from hurting himself. I gave him aspirins—too many, but not as many as he wanted. I made him take broth and soup and fruit and vegetable juices. He didn't want them. He never wanted to eat, but he didn't want Nigel holding him down either. He ate.
Alice came in now and then to relieve me. Like Sarah, she looked older. She also looked harder. She was a cool, bitter older sister to the girl I had known.
"Folks treat her bad because of Marse Rufe," Nigel told me. "They figure if she's been with him this long, she must like it."
And Alice said contemptuously, "Who cares what a bunch of niggers think!"
"She lost two babies," Nigel told me. "And the one she's got left is sickly."
"White babies," Alice said. "Look more like him than me. Joe is even red-headed." Joe was the single survivor. I almost cried when I heard that. No Hagar yet. I was so tired of this going back and forth; I wanted so much for it to be over. I couldn't even feel sorry for the friend who had fought for me and taken care of me when I was hurt. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself.
On the third day of his illness, Rufus's fever left him. He was weak and several pounds lighter, but so relieved to be rid of the fever and the pain that nothing else mattered. He thought he was getting well. He wasn't.
The fever and the pain returned for three more days and he got a rash that itched and eventually peeled …
At last, he got well and stayed well. I prayed that whatever his disease had been, I wouldn't get it, wouldn't ever have to care for anyone else who had it. A few days after the worst of his symptoms had disappeared, I was allowed to sleep in the attic. I collapsed gratefully onto the pallet Sarah had made me there, and it felt like the world's softest bed. I didn't awaken until late the next morning after long hours of deep, unbroken sleep. I was still a little groggy when Alice came running up the steps and into the attic to get me.
"Marse Tom is sick," she said. "Marse Rufe wants you to come."
"Oh no," I muttered. "Tell him to send for the doctor."
"Already sent for. But Marse Tom is having bad pains in his chest."
The significance of that filtered through to me slowly. "Pains in his chest?"
"Yeah. Come on. They in the parlor."
"God, that sounds like a heart attack. There's nothing I can do."
"Just come. They want you."
I pulled on a pair of pants and threw on a shirt as I ran. What did these people want from me? Magic? If Weylin was having a heart attack, he was going to either recover or die without my help.
I ran down the stairs and into the parlor where Weylin lay on a sofa, ominously still and silent.
"Do something!" Rufus pleaded. "Help him!" His voice sounded as thin and weak as he looked. His sickness had left its marks on him. I wondered how he had gotten downstairs.
Weylin wasn't breathing, and I couldn't find a pulse. For a moment, I stared at him, undecided, repelled, not wanting to touch him again, let alone breathe into him. Then quelling disgust, I began mouth to mouth resuscitation and external heart massage—what did they call it? Cardiopulmonary resuscitation. I knew the name, and I'd seen someone doing it on television. Beyond that, I was completely ignorant. I didn't even know why I was trying to save Weylin. He wasn't worth it. And I didn't know if CPR could do any good in an era when there was no ambulance to call, no one to take over for me even if I somehow got Weylin's heart going—which I didn't expect to do.
Which I didn't do.
Finally, I gave up. I looked around to see Rufus on the floor near me. I didn't know whether he had sat down or fallen, but I was glad he was sitting now.
"I'm sorry, Rufe. He's dead."
"You let him die?"
"He was dead when I got here. I tried to bring him back the way I brought you back when you were drowning. I failed."
"You let him die."
He sounded like a child about to cry. His illness had weakened him so, I thought he might cry. Even healthy people cried and said irrational things when their parents died.
"I did what I could, Rufe. I'm sorry."
"Damn you to hell, you let him die!" He tried to lunge at me, succeeded only in falling over. I moved to help him up, but stopped when he tried to push me away.
"Send Nigel to me," he whispered. "Get Nigel."
I got up and went to find Nigel. Behind me, I heard Rufus say once more, "You just let him die."