Jeff Hirsch - The Eleventh Plague

I looked from the window down to Dad, and that’s when what Violet said hit me. It was like I was in the middle of the ocean and my hands had slipped off the side of a lifeboat. I sucked in a deep breath. I had to be calm, like Grandpa. Strong, like Grandpa. This was reality, and I had to deal with it. How I felt wasn’t important. My fingernails dug into my raw palm.

I stuffed my hand into my pocket as the door opened again. Violet swept in and went directly to the wooden cabinet. She drew something out that I couldn’t see, then returned to Dad’s side.

“That was Caleb,” I said. “Will’s father.”

“That’s right,” she said.

“He doesn’t want us here.”

“I think that’s putting it mildly.”

“He’s why Sam wasn’t sure I should come here.”

Violet looked at me steadily but said nothing.

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him that if my family wanted to share our home and food with you, it was our business.” I watched as Violet lifted a needle into the candlelight and filled it with liquid from a small bottle. “But that I definitely, without a doubt, wouldn’t use any of our medicines.”

Once the needle was full, Violet flicked it with her finger, then slid it into Dad’s arm and pushed the plunger. When she was done she turned back to me.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she said with a wink. “These are antibiotics, in case there are infections and to protect against pneumonia.” Her brow furrowed. “He needs blood thinners because of the breaks but… we ran out months ago.”

“Why are you helping us?”

“When I was in med school,” she explained, “one of my teachers told me that my only job was to treat the patient in front of me. He said I couldn’t change the world, I could just treat what’s in front of me.”

Over the next hour or so, Violet fed Dad with a plastic tube threaded down his throat and then made some plaster and set his arm and leg in a cast, struggling to make the shattered bits of bone line up and lock into place.

I fell into a chair behind her, sinking into its deep cushions, while outside it slowly grew dark. A bright orange glow rose from the park. Maybe fifty men, women, and children converged around the bonfire. It had a large roasting spit built over it that Marcus and Sam were tending, turning the big deer around and around over the flame.

A string of about twenty small torches was set in the ground around the perimeter of the group, making flickering islands of light. The people milled around, laughing and talking, swimming in the glow.

“Who are you people?” My voice sounded strange and distant, like pieces of wreckage bobbing along on dark water. “What is this place?”

Violet smoothed a length of plaster-covered cloth across Dad’s knee, then gave me a kind and soft smile over her shoulder.

“There’ll be time for explanations later,” she said. “I’ll be done soon. When I am, we’ll get you cleaned up, and then I should get you something to eat.”

I shook my head. Violet persisted, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t being taken away from Dad.

Outside the window, people moved dreamily around the playground. Groups came together and apart, only to re-form again like beads of oil on water. All of them talking, hugging, throwing their heads back to laugh. All of it an eerie dumb show, silent to me in the house.

Violet continued working and I closed my eyes, surprised to find sleep overtaking me. I fought it for a moment, but it was too strong, too long in coming. I just prayed my dreams would find me back out on the trail with Dad, crashing through the grass with Paolo behind us, Dad talking a mile a minute, me bringing up the rear.

When I finally did sleep, though, I dreamed I was walking through the woods alone, late at night, my every step mirrored by an immense shadow with claws that lumbered by my side.

When I woke up, Violet was gone and there was a gnawing emptiness in my stomach. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had eaten. As I sat up, I saw a note sitting on a table near Dad.

We’re all at the barbecue. Come out and have something to eat when you get up. — Violet

Outside, the party had gotten smaller, but a group of twenty or so still milled around the fire.

There was some jerky in my pack, and maybe a few crumbs of hardtack had made it through. That would do. I looked around the room, but then remembered with a jolt that in my hurry to get Dad inside, I had left the pack outside. I could see it peeking over the lip of the wagon. Grandpa’s rifle leaned against it. The realization that I had left them both sitting out there in the open made me forget my hunger for a moment. I could feel the sting of the beating Grandpa would have given me if he had seen. Stupid. I wished I could just make my bed on the floor next to Dad and go to sleep, but I couldn’t leave my gear out there for anyone to take.

I struggled out of the chair, kneeling at Dad’s bed on my way to the door. The dirt and splashes of blood that had lingered on his face were gone and his skin wasn’t quite the waxy mask it had been. I tried to tell myself that he didn’t look any different than he ordinarily did when he was asleep, but there was a stillness there, an absence that seemed vast. I squeezed his arm and leaned down next to his ear.

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered before stepping outside.

The hairs on my arm lifted in the cool air, and the spicy smell of wood smoke and roasted meat made my stomach roar, pushing the last remnants of sleep out of my head. I crept down the stairs and across the yard, easing up to the wagon, hoping not to be seen. When I got close enough, I drew my bag toward me. Unfortunately I forgot that Grandpa’s rifle was leaning against it, so as soon as I pulled the pack away, the rifle fell with a clatter. My insides jumped.

“Hey.”

I looked down. Jackson and two others were sitting near the wagon’s tires, a litter of plates and half-eaten dinner all around them. There was a skinny kid with big glasses and another larger kid with thick curly hair. All of them were staring at me, three pairs of eyes burning in the dark.

“You get something to eat?” Jackson asked. I clutched my pack to my chest. “I have food.”

“We’ve got venison,” Jackson said. “And some potatoes Derrick’s mom made.”

“They suck,” the big kid, Derrick, said.

The kid with the glasses was sitting on the other side of Jackson. “My mom brought her blueberry pie,” he said, which for some reason caused the big kid with curls to shoot him a leering grin.

“Oh, I bet she did, Martin,” he said.

“Shut up, Derrick! That doesn’t even make sense!”

“Oh yeah? You want to know what makes sense?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Martin said. “My mom?” Jackson pushed Derrick away and stood up by the wagon. “Ignore Derrick. He’s obnoxious. You should stay and have some food.”

“I’m fine.”

I shouldered my pack and reached for the rifle, but before I could get away, Derrick leapt in front of me and started doing a spastic shuffle, jumping up and down and throwing his arms around at his sides like he was having a fit. I took a step backward.

“Uh… Derrick?” Jackson said, stepping up to my side. “What are you doing?”

“Well,” Derrick said, panting, “I figured, uh, maybe the problem was that he didn’t feel entirely at home yet, so I thought I’d perform the Settler’s Landing Dance of Welcoming.”

“You look like you’re having a seizure,” Martin said drily.

Derrick cackled and threw himself into the air, which I guessed was his big finish, since when he landed he swept his arms out in front of him and took a deep bow. Martin clapped sarcastically and Jackson laughed. When Derrick stood up again, he somehow had a plate of venison and potatoes in his hand. Where it came from, I had no idea, but when he held it out to me, the smell of it almost made me faint.