Chapter 15

Mary wasn't certain how to help. Having never before been placed in a position where she needed to nurse someone, doing the best she could think to do would have to suffice. Every hour or so through the rest of the day and into the evening she knelt at the side of the silent man and touched his forehead with her hand. In the cool of the night his skin beaded with moisture. He was racked with a fever that swung him from shivers one moment to body sweats the next time she checked. The only response she could think of that might help was getting as much water into him as possible. Perspiration soaked his shirt and pants. As ignorant as she felt about the skills of nursing, it seemed logical that body water lost through sweat needed to be replaced.

Once she'd come to that decision Mary attended her patient continually. She never left his side. By slipping her arm beneath his neck she helped him hold his head up enough to sip water from the dipper. Throughout the night she had him drink small amounts, and after each drink Mary gently wiped his face and neck with a cool, damp cloth. Between ministrations she simply sat at the stranger's side. It was all she could think to do.

After a glorious sunset of purples and roses cast against the underside of stray wisps of cloud, the dark of a moonless night descended. She sat opposite the fire from the poor, fevered fellow she had taken under her care. Firelight played over his prone body. In a fantastic, flickering dance, the light cast its glow past his body and into the back corners of the lean-to blanket shelter. Light and dark contrasted in so sharp and vivid a line that the hump of the man's shoulder erased his lower face completely. At the same time, the fire's glimmering highlighted the ugly, blistered skin of his upper face. For just one moment, Mary's breath caught in her throat. In the next, the chill climbing her back dissipated. Only an injured, fitfully sleeping man lay across the fire from her.

The night passed slowly, what with tending to the man's needs every so many minutes. Deepening to the hours far past sunset, yet long before dawn, Mary's thoughts drifted in the fire lit darkness. When they became entangled, she was uncertain.

It wasn't Lucifer and Mother bothering her this time. The voices were silent. It wasn't the sounds of beetles and bugs trudging along the ground, or a sharpness to the fire's light scorching her eyes. No. This was a new sensation, a different distortion of reality. As she sat watching the stranger sleeping beneath the blanket shelter, firelight shadows took on a life of their own, became shapes moving of their own accord, as if nothing around her was solid. The once sharp edges between light and dark blurred. The sound of the stranger's breathing echoed, vibrated inside her mind. There was no clear change from normal to eccentric sensation. Once realized, shaking her head did nothing to clear her perception.

She became frustrated at first. Mary pulled the blanket wrapped around her shoulders a little closer, stepped carefully to the stranger's side so as not to tumble into liquid ground as she dabbed moisture against his now bulging, then caving forehead. When the exhaustion of attempting to tend her patient despite the twists being thrown at her became overwhelming, she gave in. She allowed herself to relax. All at once, the space the air itself occupied became thick, with a texture she could almost feel. It took all of her concentration to keep her mental feet under her. Though nothing stopped the strangeness, if she remained perfectly still, that did seem to help somewhat. Having discovered a small deliverance, she remained on her log. The stranger would survive the night in any case. Every twitch of muscle brought such strange feelings, Mary was certain the only way to survive the night was to remain perfectly motionless.

As the sun lightened the eastern edge of the canyon, Lou woke. Somehow his awareness of his own surroundings released Mary to hers. She was no longer a captive of the twisting realities that had held her prisoner through the night. Sounds returned to normal. Shapes kept their known boundaries. With an audible sigh, Mary rose from her log by the fire and moved under the shelter, placing her hand against her patient's cheek. He was still fever hot. As she moved about, she was acutely aware of and thankful for a return to normalcy. The strangeness of the night had passed.

At her hand's contact with his blistered face, the stranger's eyes locked with hers. They were dull from the fatigue of fever and held little spark. The man worked his mouth and licked his lips to bring up enough moisture to speak. "Mam?" The word was spoken faintly, barely more than a whisper. Mary found herself kneeling to his side to hear him rightly. "Sure could use some water. I'm just about as dry as a body can get."

Breaking away from his eyes, Mary checked the spring water in her wooden bucket. There was only enough remaining for a half dipper. She cupped his head in the palm of one hand and raised him, carefully allowing that small amount of water to trickle into his parched body. As soon as his head rested against the blanket once more, Mary hurried to rise. She gripped the bail of the bucket tightly in her hand. "I'll have to go get some more," she said.

The air beneath the blanket draped shelter vibrated with impenetrable feelings. She could not define them, but something about the emotion beneath the lean-to raised a desire in Mary to flee. She'd had enough of strange feelings and stranger realities. Her head buzzed with the fatigue of dealing with them. At least this onslaught was nothing like the unsettling night spent imprisoned in non-movement. Last night the external world had quite gone insane. This was inside, this unnamable sense of something. Yet even as she dipped the water bucket into the cool, clear spring, she knew she wanted to look back and study the strangeness. The air of the shelter intrigued her. With her thoughts continuing to drift around this new puzzle, she lifted the wooden bucket back up. She'd learned to pull the weight with her arms and shoulders, saving the muscles of her back. Walking back towards the shelter, Mary firmed her decision. She would not run from whatever hovered beneath the blanket covering of the lean-to. She would discover its meaning.

Setting the water bucket within easy reach of the stranger, Mary said, "I'll fix us a plate of beans and some coffee. Won't take a minute." Her patient appeared a might more alert, a little less fevered now. He had even set up.

"I appreciate that. I can't rightly remember when I ate last. Before you found me, I mean."

"I'm sorry there's nothing to offer but beans and coffee. Patrick butchered a goat before he disappeared, but that spoiled a few days back." Mary knelt in the dust, her hands clasped in her lap. She wondered at the ease she felt conversing with this stranger Lucifer had warned her so strongly to turn away. "I'm afraid I don't know how to fix them for eating. Never took one from being alive to where a person can cook it. Patrick saw to all of that."

"That's too bad. Meat would taste right good. Might help me regain some of the strength I lost wandering the desert, too."

"If I could kill one, I would have done it. I'll tell you that." After a moment's pause, a thought sparked in her eyes. "Do you think you might have the strength? I could help. Just let me know how. I'm getting very tired of beans myself."

"Well now, guess I could, with some help. And we might as well get at it. Hotter it gets, the more work that butchering is going to be."

"Careful now. Not too fast." Mary pushed herself up and pulled as the man struggled to his feet. She pivoted and slipped beneath his arm, wrapping her own around his back and holding him up against her side. Where she pressed against him she could feel the fever still burning in him. He did seem a bit stronger than when she'd helped him to the blanket yesterday. The sleep, fevered as it had been, must have helped. Once he was standing with her tucked beneath his arm, they paused and looked at the small herd of milling animals.