"Both of them?" she asked, and Charles looked down with amusement at his wife's expression. He knew she worried equally about Chance's headstrong ebullience and Hart's quiet shyness.
He sat down on the chair by the stone hearth and struggled to tug off the dirt-encrusted boots that felt as if they'd baked into skin and bone.
"Now, Halle, honey, there ain't no such thing as perfect in this world. Boys are boys. They got virtues and they got faults. You know as well as I do, the trick is to help them strengthen the one and overcome the other." Halle looked into her husband's honest face and saw both wisdom and goodness there. "With a father like you, my love, to be an example for them, I know they'll be just fine," she said, wrinkling her nose as the second boot fell to the floor and the tang of hardworking feet struck her nostrils. She sometimes thought the thing she missed most about her pampered childhood was the chance to bathe as often as she wished.
Her husband chuckled knowingly. "What say I carry in water for the tub tonight so these old feet of mine don't drive you into the arms of some other man at the party tomorrow?"
Halle laughed aloud. If ever there'd been a man born who knew he was loved by his wife and sons, it was Charles McAllister.
"Come on, bro." Chance's sharp whisper roused Hart's head from the straw in the wagon where he'd been dozing. He blinked at the night sky, trying to figure out what time it might be. The afternoon's races and games had finally worn him out enough to crawl into the wagon for forty winks; he wondered how long ago that might have been. Chance seemed wide awake. The cacophony of fiddle music and dancing feet still pounded inside the small building that served as Grange Hall for all the farms from two hundred miles in any direction. It wasn't often the far-flung farmers and their wives got together, but when they did, they put a lot of energy into having a humdinger of a time.
Chance tugged on his brother's sleeve.
"You're missing all the fun, bro. There's spooning going on in back of the livery and there's a card game about ready to start, if you'll just wipe the sleep out of your eyes and get a move on."
"How do you know about the spooning?"
Chance laughed.
"Have you ever known me to miss a trick, little brother?" Hart scrambled out of the wagon.
"Little brother, my eye," he said, picking hay out of his corduroys and tugging his plaid shirt into a slightly less wrinkled condition. Fifteen months younger than Chance, Hart was taller and considerably broader than his elder brother. If there was mischief anywhere in the neighborhood, he knew he could trust Chance to find it and drag him along. And since Chance wasn't above getting into an occasional scrap, it didn't hurt to have Hart's brawn to rely on. Hart thought the arrangement worked out happily for both—if they'd been more alike, they probably wouldn't have gotten on so well.
Mary Ellen McCarthy and Sarah Gentry were giggling just out-side the Grange Hall door as the boys walked by. Sarah at twelve was nearing womanhood and she'd had her eye on Chance for as long as she could remember—not unlike a great many of the other young ladies the two boys met at socials or church services.
Mary Ellen smiled shyly at Hart; her brown fingercurls bounced as she dipped her head away from his gaze.
"Evening, Chance," Sarah said, with a boldness that surprised Mary Ellen. "You looked real good in the footraces today."
Chance nudged his brother and turned his best smile on Sarah. The girls he met at Fourth of July picnics or Christmas get- togethers always seemed to remember his laughing blue eyes and confident smile.
"Evening, Sarah. You're looking mighty pretty tonight. Is that a new bonnet you're wearing?"
It beat all how Chance always knew what to say to girls, Hart thought. He always felt tongue-tied when they looked his way.
Sarah giggled flirtatiously.
"Come for a walk with us?" Chance suggested, sounding sure of himself.
Sarah wrinkled up her nose with disappointment.
"We can't move from this spot. It's way past our bedtime, but Mama said if we stayed right here by the door we could watch the dancing inside."
Chance breathed a sigh of relief. The card game where the older boys were gathered was where he really wanted to be; just the texture of a deck of cards in his hand made him feel like the world was his oyster. Only his brother knew he practiced by the hour when his chores were done, fingering the deck, cutting it endlessly to get a sense of each card. Chance had an intuition that if he handled the pasteboards enough, eventually he could make them do exactly as he demanded. Already he could tell the difference between the court cards and the others just by the weight of ink they carried—soon he'd be able to cut to near anything he chose.
Hart indulged his brother in his pursuit of gambling, but he frankly thought all the energy Chance lavished on the cards a waste of time. Given an hour's respite from work, he had more serious business. He would take his charcoal and what Scraps of paper were to be found, and sketch trees, skies, fences, birds, cows —whatever there was to see of the prairie life.
Chance winked at Hart knowingly and moved in closer to Sarah; he took the girl's arm confidently in his own.
"Maybe we could sort of wander over there back of the barn for a minute or two, girls, while your folks are dancing. If I'm not mistaken, that reel they're playing is about as long as any ever invented."
The girls giggled conspiratorially and, much to Hart's amazement, agreed to go. The reel was just long enough for a few kisses to be exchanged by Chance and Sarah in the shadows. Hart, too gentlemanly or shy to take advantage of the situation, contented himself with holding Mary Ellen's hand.
"What you don't seem to understand, bro," Chance chided his brother later, on their way to the poker game, "is that girls like to be kissed just as much as we like to kiss them. So all that gentlemanly stuff of yours is guaranteed to annoy a girl."
Hart wasn't sure if his brother was right, but it did seem Chance's way was a lot more fun than his own.
"Halle, honey, are you feeling poorly?" Charles stood beside his wife's rocking chair and touched her hair with concern. He had watched her hands dawdle over her knitting needles, in the embering firelight. It was unlike her not to work briskly, for there was always a new sock needed or an old one to be mended.
Halle raised her face to her husband's; her eyes were strangely bright and slightly hooded, as if it troubled her to keep them open.
"I think I might be coming down with something, Charles dear. My throat's been scratchy and raw all day and my chest hurts. I didn't want to worry you."
Charles' hands were large and seemed to him too awkward for anything delicate, but he brushed his wife's hair away from her face with so tender a gesture that she smiled up at him, wanting to soothe the worry she read in his face.
"I've always thought the color of your hair was like the wing of a grackle," he said unexpectedly. "Shining black, but with other colors hiding underneath that only show at times."
Halle, nattered and disturbed by the concern she heard in her husband's voice, replied briskly. "Now don't you go all sentimental on me, Charles McAllister! I'll be just fine if I dose myself with sulfur and molasses."
Chance, studying near the oil lamp in the corner, wrinkled up his nose at the thought, and looked over at his brother, who lay with an open book on the cabin floor. His own throat was feeling punk and he'd refrained from mentioning it all day for fear of being dosed with something nasty from his mother's medicine cabinet.
The sound of hoofbeats startled them. A horse whinnied at the hitching rail and hurried footsteps crossed the porch. Charles reached automatically for the Sharps repeater kept always in the chimney corner; both boys were on their feet before the door was opened. The McAllister homestead was miles from its nearest neighbor and travelers didn't wander by so isolated a farm after dark. A dust-covered circuit rider stood silhouetted in the door frame; he'd ridden far and hard, and lather from an overextended horse stained his shirt.
"Miz McAllister... Charles," he pan
ted without pause for pleasantries. "Cain't stay more'n a minute; got eight more families to warn tonight."
Charles and Halle exchanged alarmed glances.
"For heaven's sake, Zachary, what are you doing here at this hour of night and whatever are you warning us about?"
"Diphtheria, ma'am. An epidemic. Sarah Gentry's come down with it. And the Sinclairs. Morgans, too. Old man Moriarty and all the Shildkraut kids. Doc Hammer says to tell everybody that was at the social to dose themselves with tonic and swab their throats out with iodine on a feather. He says oncet you get it, cain't nobody do nothin' fer you but pray. There ain't a cure, just some gets well and some don't." Zachary Boggs stopped talking. This was the eleventh house he'd carried the news to—the faces that looked back at him had been all the same—white with fear.
"Surely you can come in for a cup of tea at least, Zachary," Halle persisted. "You look bone weary."
"No, ma'am. Thank you kindly, but I cain't do that. Doc says it's important we all stay away from one another best we can. Nobody knows who's got the sickness inkabatin'. Might be me and I wouldn't like to spread it to you and your family!" He tipped his dust-encrusted hat and was gone.
Charles stepped forward and instinctively took his wife into his arms. The boys saw her sag a little against her husband's ready strength; the fear in their eyes when they pulled away from each other frightened their sons.
Epidemics happened on the prairie—sometimes cholera, sometimes influenza. Near everyone they knew had lost folks to one or the other. All diseases were dreaded, but diphtheria was the worst for it killed quickly and painfully.
Hurriedly, Halle pulled the iodine bottle from the little cabinet Charles had made for her remedies. Her hands trembled slightly as she uncorked the bottle and Hart saw his father place his own large hand around her smaller one to steady it.
"A feather?" she murmured, looking up at him distractedly.
"I'll get one for you, Mama," Chance volunteered, already in motion. He had collected three eagle feathers over time, after his father had told him that the Indians considered eagle feathers signs of manhood.
"You first, Halle," Charles said, his tone brooking no argument. Meekly each of the family members submitted to having the caustic red poison painted gaggingly into their throats. Whatever they could do to save themselves they must do; the hard facts of prairie life meant there would be little chance of outside help if trouble came.
For the following three days, all four McAllisters went about their work, trying not to let the thought of diphtheria dominate them. On the fourth night after Zachary's visit, Hart awoke hours after the family had retired; the acrid stench of the iodine his father had been painting in their throats for days was still in his mouth and nostrils. In the cabin's dim light he could see his father's body outlined against the glow of the fire's last embers; the man was crooning soft words of encouragement to his wife as she lay in their bed.
Hart watched, frightened by the intensity in his father's concentration. He nudged his brother who was lying beside him in the bed and was startled to feel that Chance was sweat-soaked. The older boy merely groaned restlessly at Hart's touch and turned onto his side, but continued sleeping.
Hart carefully hooked his long legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He pulled his pants on hastily, along with a flannel shirt, then moved to his father's side.
"Is Mama sick, Pa?"
Charles looked up at his son and nodded; the boy could see tears glistening on his father's lashes. The woman on the bed tossed feverishly; she coughed a phlegm-filled rattling sound. Even in the darkness, Hart could see that her cheeks were flushed with fever, yet the rest of her face and the hand his father held looked strangely bloodless.
Suddenly, Halle sat bolt upright, her eyes wide and wild. She screamed out something unintelligible and tried to rise from the bed, but Charles restrained her.
"It's all right, love, I'm here," he crooned as to a baby. "I won't leave you for a minute."
Halle's eyes fastened on her husband and Hart was horrified to see she didn't recognize him.
"You'd best ride for Doc Hammer, son," Charles said steadily, his voice hoarse with anxiety, or could his throat, too, be filling up with the gluey death-phlegm of diphtheria? Hart pushed the thought aside roughly; his father was too strong to be stricken.
"I don't want to leave you like this, Pa."
"Do as I say, son. Get your brother up to help me with your mama before you go. I'm afraid if it's the diphtheria she's caught, she's got no chance without the doctor."
"Chance is sick, too, Pa."
Charles lifted his eyes directly to his son's; for the first time in his life Hart saw fear in their dark blue depths. The realization was too much for the boy and he turned his face away hastily. He pulled on his warmest jacket and picked up a handful of yesterday's biscuits from the bread bin; that, plus the jerky that hung by the stove, would serve as food on his long ride.
Hart started for the door, then stopped, hesitant.
"What is it, son?" his father called out to him, sensing the boy's confusion.
It was a moment before Hart replied.
"Could I kiss Mama good-bye, Pa? Before I go?" The father heard the note of controlled terror in his son's voice and understood the shape of the boy's fear, so very like his own.
"I'm sorry, son. It wouldn't be safe," he answered slowly, carefully. "This thing's real catching. But she'll be here when you get back, don't you worry none about that. I'll be making sure of that while you're gone. Just get old Doc Hammer here and don't you take no for an answer. Understand me?"
"Yessir. I understand."
The first bare glimmer of lighter blue tinged the Kansas sky as Hart saddled his horse in the frigid barn and turned his head toward the town eighty-six miles away. Even with luck and finding the doctor immediately, he was two whole days away from bringing help back home with him.
Hart's horse was flagging as he turned into the third house he'd been sent to. Everywhere he'd gone, Doc Hammer had been and left before him; the day was nearly spent and each hour left the boy more anxious about his mother's fate.
His clothes stuck to his hard young body, pasted there by sweat and trail dust. Hart knew his face and hands were filthy but didn't care; there'd be time for washing when his mother was out of danger. To his great relief, the doctor's trap was hitched with the other horses outside this house, but there was a white sheet hung over the door signifying quarantine, so he stood outside and shouted until the silver-haired doctor appeared from beneath the sheet.
"Your family, too, eh?" the man said without waiting for explanation.
"You've got to come, Doc! I think Ma's dying. Maybe Chance too." Hart tried to sound grown up and not as scared as he was.
"I hear you, son," the old man called to him, compassion under steely constraint in his voice. "But you better know right off I can't come with you. Folks are dying here, too, and they're close enough together so's I can see a lot of 'em. If I traipse almost ninety miles out to your pa's place to see one or two McAllisters, twenty folks'll die right here before I get back."
Hart fought down fear and failure—what if his mother died because he had not brought the doctor home?
"But it's my ma!" Hart called out simply, but with such pain in his voice that the old man pursed his lips as if struggling with something and shook his head.
"Wait here, boy," he called, and turned back into the house; a moment later he reappeared with a small bottle in his hand.
"Now you listen real good to me, son, because you'll have to do your own doctorin' and I ain't got time to say this more'n once. This here's quinine. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. This is what you got to know to do with it: you give a dose to anyone you still think you can save. Now, hard as it is to decide, boy, this stuffs precious. Don't you go wasting it on anyone who's bound to die anyway."
Hart swallowed hard and his eyes widened at the doctor's pragmatism.
"Dose '
em twice each day and try to get some kind of food down 'em. Soups, maybe a milk toast. They'll fight you, but you got to try. The disease takes 'em when a membrane grows over their windpipes. Sometimes as a last ditch, you can stick your finger down their throats and tear the phlegm right out of it— sometimes you just choke 'em to death trying. But if you got no choice, well then, you go ahead and chance it, Hart. If you bring anything up, just throw the stuff, rag and all, into the fire and scrub your hands with antiseptic for all you're worth before you eat anything yourself. Understand all I've said to you, son?"
Hart nodded, the true horror of what the doctor was saying squeezing the breath from him. The man wasn't coming because he expected Halle McAllister to die.
"I understand, sir," he said.
"You're a good lad, Hart," the doctor said with great seriousness. "Like your daddy, God help him."
Then he disappeared again behind the sheet and Hart was left in the yellow dust and sun with a tiny bottle in his hand.
Lather dripped from Hart's dun gelding as he clattered into the front yard. It was deep night and he felt weak from hunger, thirst, and the adrenaline of danger; a light flickering in the small window heartened him. He slid to the ground and nearly fell, for the strain of riding two hundred miles in two days had turned the muscles of his back and legs to rubber.
Hart pushed the door open and nearly drew back at the overwhelming stench of illness in the cabin. He could see his brother tossing feverishly on the corner bed, and through the door to the small bedroom, he saw that the two figures on his parents' bed were still. Hart moved tentatively toward them, pushing past a stack of soiled linens on the floor. Halle McAllister's slim body was nearly covered by her husband's and they were both asleep. Hart stood undecided for a moment—should he wake his father or let him rest? The sooner the quinine was administered, the sooner his mother would be well.