“You know a lot,” he said.
“Sam Green told me,” said Jason. “I don’t know much otherwise.”
Andrew pushed open the door and guided Jason to one of the examination rooms, where they lit a pair of lamps. At Andrew’s instruction, Jason sat down on the examination table. Andrew took a chair with wheels on the legs, and that made things better. He could roll back and forth looking for the things he’d need: primarily, a bottle of iodine and a sterile needle and thread. As he pulled that out of a cabinet, he caught Jason looking at it apprehensively.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve done this before.”
Jason motioned with his bloody hand. “With your arm like that?”
Andrew smiled. “Well no,” he said, “not with my arm like this. But I can manage. This is simple work. Unless you want to wait for Dr. Bergstrom in the morning?”
“Hell no!”
“All right then,” said Andrew. “Hold still. I’m going to clean your cut out first and that might sting. Try not to shout.”
Jason didn’t shout as Andrew splashed iodine on his hand, but Andrew could tell that the boy wanted to.
“Very stoic,” Andrew said, dabbing the wound clean. “Now tell me—how’d you happen to cut yourself in the middle of the quarantine this fine spring night?”
“Bergstrom did it to me.”
“Dr. Bergstrom cut your hand?”
“No. Bergstrom locked me up in there—on account I might be infectious, even though I got no symptoms.”
“Infectious?” Andrew put a wad of cotton on the wound and pressed down. “Infectious with what?”
“Fever,” said Jason. “The fever that killed my mama and took about all of my town this winter past, I expect. But that’s bunk.”
“Wait a moment. A fever killed all of your town?” Andrew rolled back on his chair, and started to thread the steel needle. “Over one winter?”
“Over one week, more like,” said Jason.
Andrew frowned at Jason. “Are you making up stories?”
Jason shook his head. “Wish I were,” he said.
“Before I start, you want a little whiskey? It helps dull the pain.”
“No sir.”
“Then why don’t you tell more about this sickness that had you locked up in quarantine tonight? It’ll help distract you—and I’m curious.”
“All right.”
And so, as Andrew took the boy’s hand and started to draw the thread through the wound, Jason Thistledown told him his story. He teared up almost immediately. And Andrew wasn’t sure whether it was the pain of the stitches or the sadness of the memories that made him cry.
“Well. I am sorry for your loss,” said Andrew. “It’s a lucky thing your aunt happened by.”
Jason nodded. “I thank the Lord every day. I just wish she’d stopped Dr. Bergstrom.”
“All right, this is the last one.” And he pierced the skin at the very inner edge of the cut. Jason flinched more this time—as though he’d been holding it in until now.
“Can—can I have that bit of that whiskey now?”
“Sure you can.” Andrew wheeled back to the cabinet and got the little whiskey bottle. He poured a capful and handed it to Jason, who slugged it down and coughed.
“This supposed to help?” he finally managed.
“Get enough whiskey into a man, you can saw his leg off.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
Andrew chuckled at that. “Don’t worry, Jason.” He wrapped the wound in gauze. “I’m done for tonight.”
Now that he was done stitching and bandaging, Andrew got a good look at the boy, assessing him as something other than a patient. He was most of the way to being a man, tall and lean with none of the awkwardness that came on a lot of boys at that time of life. His eyes were pale in the light, but they had a cast to them that Andrew had not often seen, like they looked right through a fellow. Overall, Jason Thistledown just looked strong, and Andrew thought he must be.
This boy, if he were to be believed, had survived an outbreak of something worse than cholera, worse than yellow fever, maybe as bad as Black Plague… Some sickness that had killed everybody in a town this past winter. Not a third or a half, but everybody. Everybody but one.
What kind of fever did that?
“Jason,” he asked, “can you tell me what the symptoms of the fever were?”
Jason handed back the cap, and Andrew screwed it back onto the whiskey.
“I only know what happened to my mama.”
“Tell me that.”
Jason nodded. He was quiet for a moment, looking down at his re-bandaged hand. Then he drew a breath, and started talking.
“She started getting sick a day after we got back home from Cracked Wheel. It was a clear day, all right for travel we figured. We were laying in some more supplies, was all. First thing she complained about was a headache. Then she had trouble with the runs, you know what I mean? Then she got all hot with fever, and she said ‘Why, Jason I think I shall lie down a moment.’ She had a hard time getting up after that, so I saw to her.”
“You feel anything during this part?”
“Not symptoms if that’s what you mean.”
“That is what I mean.”
“After that, things took a bad turn. She told me her stomach hurt, and she was sweating something terrible, and when I went to clean her off I saw that she was bleeding.”
“Bleeding? Where?”
“From her nose for a bit, and also—also from the skin around her fingernails.”
“And then—”
“Well,” said Jason, “she got worse and worse, until she seized up—and died.”
“Were you able to take her temperature? With a thermometer?”
“No.”
“Was she bleeding from anywhere else?”
“I don’t know. I think there was some around her toenails, and her eyes were awfully red.”
Andrew sat back and thought about what he’d told him. It was nothing he’d ever encountered—not clinically, certainly, and not even in the case studies that he’d read in Paris.
“And you didn’t have any symptoms.”
“Like my aunt says—I’m immune.”
“And you haven’t had symptoms—for how long?”
“About two months.”
“During which time, you got on a train, and on another train, then made your way up here to Eliada. Meeting all sorts of people at every stop.”
“That is right.”
“So why, I wonder, did Dr. Bergstrom order you into quarantine tonight? It seems as though your aunt’s right—you’re immune. You’re not carrying it either or others would have surely come down with it. So why lock you up now?”
“That is what I want to know.”
Andrew was about to ask his next question when he heard a gentle rapping at the door.
“Dr. Bergstrom?”
“Annie?” He turned his chair around to face the door. “Come on in.”
“Dr. Waggoner.” Annie Rowe stepped in. “What are you doing up? Oh,” she said, looking at Jason. She blushed and averted her eyes. “Hello, young sir.”
“Nurse Rowe, meet Jason Thistledown. Jason, cover yourself, would you?”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Jason, pulling the sheet over himself.
Annie Rowe raised her eyes and got a better look at the blood-slick sheet. “What happened here?”
“It is not as bad as it looks,” said Andrew. “The boy cut himself. I saw to it.”
“You should’ve called someone,” she scolded. But it was not heartfelt. She peered at the boy. “He doesn’t look well.”
Andrew cleared his throat. “You know what you might do? Could you find Jason a robe or some clothes—something to cover him up better?”
Annie stood straight. “All right,” she said, “as you please, Doctor.” She spared Andrew a tight smile. “Good to see you back practising so soon.”