Darkness

Natchez

Samuel Duncan

I am so grateful to have the boarding house to use for the patients. Gregor’s men are very helpful, first in transporting the patients down Under-the-Hill for me, and then in assisting with the tasks which are needed in tending the sick. They have brought fresh linens, emptied basins and chamber pots, delivered messages to the family members of the patients, and performed dozens of other small services.

Word of the yellow fever infirmary has apparently gotten around town quite rapidly, for by the late afternoon, we had another two patients delivered here by their family members. I had not even been aware that these individuals were ill, but a quick examination confirmed that they had contracted the disease and were sick enough that they should stay here.

So we now have nine patients ensconced in the boarding house extension. I am quite certain that when Gregor’s crew was constructing this building, he had no idea that this would be its first use. So far, none of the patients seem critically ill, but they have varying levels of discomfort.

When I have everybody settled into their rooms, and it seems that there is a lull as dinnertime is approaching, I decide to head up the hill. I need to go to my office to get the rest of my supplies, and probably stop by the mercantile to see what else they have that I might be able to use. If I can get everything I want, it will be more than I can carry. Hm.

I leave the little office which I have been using at the boarding house, and look around to see who is available. David is near the kitchen, talking to Polly. “Say, David?” I ask. He turns to face me. “I need to get some supplies from town. Could you bring a wagon up there? Meet me at the mercantile?”

“Of course,” he says immediately, and nodding a goodbye to Polly, he lopes out the front door.

I spend a few minutes rummaging around in my office, gathering equipment to bring with me. I create a stack by the front door, where we can retrieve it on the way back from the mercantile. I can’t find one of my texts that includes information about yellow fever, and it takes me a few minutes to remember that I had brought it upstairs to read a few nights ago.

So I go around to the stairs behind the building to retrieve it. When I get inside, I grab it from the little table next to the sofa in the front room, and it is only as I am turning to go back outside that I glance into the bedroom and see the lump under the covers.

Ben is here! I would not have expected him until later, especially since I know that Gregor hasn’t returned from Homochitto, so I would think he’d want to stay at the house to help out.

I move into the bedroom, and it takes a second for it to penetrate my thick skull to wonder why he is sleeping in the middle of the day.

Uh-oh.

Sure enough, when I sit down next to him on the bed, and lay my hand on his forehead, he is burning with fever.

The touch wakes him up, and he inhales sharply and then squints up at me. “Hey Sam,” he croaks out, and starts trying to sit up.

“No no no,” I chide him, holding my hand on his chest to press him down. “Why didn’t you send for me?” He shrugs stubbornly. I start conducting an examination, checking his breathing and skin tone. Yes, this is definitely yellow fever.

“Well, wait here a minute,” I tell him. “I’ll be right back.” I lean down to press a kiss to his forehead. It burns my lips.

I dash down the back stairs, all thoughts of supplies or books or shopping forgotten. I rush around the building and up the street to the mercantile, where I see the wagon out front. I’m sure David is waiting inside, probably chatting up everybody in sight.

I go into the mercantile, and sure enough David is in there yakking with Uncle Henry and Rosy’s mother Edith.

“Hello, Samuel,” Henry smiles at me. “How are all the patients doing? David says you’re here for supplies.”

“Change of plan,” I say, “I need your help with a new patient, David.”

“Oh?” he says, and starts moving towards the door. “Who?”

“Ben,” I say.

David

Well, shit! My best friend has managed to get himself sick? “Is he at Gregor’s?” I ask Sam, figuring that’s where I’ll bring the wagon to fetch him.

“No, he’s at home,” the doctor tells me, “in our rooms over my office.”

“Ah, all right.” I move over to the wagon. “Here, hop on,” I tell the doctor. Might as well both ride back over there together.

I stop the wagon out in front of his office, tie the horse to the post there, and Sam leads me around behind the building up the stairs. I’ve never been up to their rooms before.

When we get in, we go through a front room into the bedroom in the back. Ben is lying in bed there, looking miserable.

I grin at him. “You look like crap, friend!” I announce.

He tries to smile, but it doesn’t work at all. Sheesh, he really must feel awful. “What’re you doing here, David?” he mumbles.

Sam sits down on the bed next to him and lays his hand on Ben’s forehead. “He’s here to help me get you to the boarding house,” he says.

Ben tries to shake his head under Sam’s hand. “No, I’ll just stay here,” he says.

Ugh. I know how stubborn Ben can get. “How rude!” I tell him. “Sam and Gregor went to all the trouble to get the infirmary all set up, and you think you are too good for it? I can’t allow you to display such bad manners. Up you get!”

Sam gives me a strained grin. “Listen to your friend,” he says, and puts his arm back behind Ben to lift him up.

Ben shakes his head, but arguing was never his strong suit, so he just gives up and comes with us. We get him out of bed, shaky but upright, and help him walk over to the door. It’s only as we’re leaving the room that I glance around behind us, and realize - only one bed?

Huh. Well, whatever.

Ben is weak enough that we have to support him getting down the stairs, and it’s hard for him to climb up into the back of the wagon. The doctor climbs in next to him, and sits next to his patient as I guide the horse down the hill.

When we get to the boarding house extension, the other men on sick duty with me today are waiting, and when they see a new patient arriving in the wagon they come over to help unload.

“Ben!” one of them says.

I grin over at him as I tie the horse off to a post, and they start helping Ben get out of the wagon. “Figured we’d find a way to get him to finally visit us Under-the-Hill again,” I say, and they’re laughing as they help him slowly walk inside.

Samuel Duncan

I care for all of my patients, of course, and am as diligent and attentive as it is possible to be with every single one.

But I have never felt this way with any patient before. I have never loved one of them. It feels very different, to be tending to a patient whose life is so entangled with my own. I see the families, I know how worried they are over the illness of their loved ones, and I have understood that. I realize now, though, that my empathy for their concern was always entirely theoretical.

I never knew how that feels until today. Having my beloved Ben fall ill fills me with an anxiety, a very personal and tangible apprehension that does not normally touch me during treatment. It is hard to remain focused and calm as I tend to him.

But of course I do it anyway. When he is settled into one of the rooms, he looks up at me as I lay a cool cloth on his forehead. He has already had some willow bark tea, and I am waiting for it to take effect. There is a basin nearby in case he needs to be sick. I have done everything I can for now, but I don’t want to leave his side.

He looks up at me, squinting through the headache pain, and gives me a heartbreaking little smile. He lifts his hand to mine, where I am holding the cloth to his head. “Thanks, Sam,” he says. Then he adds, “All right, you have me here, I’m fine, you run along. I know you have other things to do.”

He’s right, and I know he’s just trying to distract me. He’s worried about me being worried about him. There isn’t another patient here in the room with him, not yet, but at the rate things are going, I’m sure we’ll have to fill the other bed soon. So I lean down close to his ear, and whisper, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he murmurs. “Now go.” He takes the cloth out of my hand and makes a vague shooing motion.

“I’ll be back soon,” I tell him, and force myself to leave the room.

I have ten patients now, and twelve beds made up. Only two to spare. I go into the parlor, and duck my head into the kitchen where I find David giving Polly a hand with something. David asks, “How is he?”

“Miserable, but I’m glad that he’s down here now where I can keep an eye on him,” I say honestly. Then I continue, “I think we might need the rest of the beds,” I tell them. “We should anticipate more patients in the next day or two. Can you send to the other boarding house for the bedding?”

He nods and goes, and I return to the patients, to make another round. I’ll have to go back up to town for those supplies later. I do know one thing. I’ll definitely be able to focus better with Ben down here, than I would if he were at home and I couldn’t check on him constantly.

I know we’ll get through this.