Chapter 9: The First Fever
The shift from autumn to winter in the foothills of the Cascades didn't happen by degrees; it dropped like an iron gate. By Tuesday night, the wind had swung around from the north, whistling through the gaps in the cedar siding of the Maple Street house and carrying the smell of wet snow off the high peaks.
Around two in the morning, I woke up with the kind of cold certainty that only comes from living alone too long—the house had gone dead quiet, the kind of quiet where you can hear the frost cracking the sap in the orchard trees down the lane.
I pulled on my boots without lacing them and walked down the short hallway from the kitchen to the small back bedroom where Leo was sleeping on an army cot Clara had lent us. The room was freezing; the little iron stove we’d stoked with cedar chunks at sunset had gone completely gray in the draft.
Leo was curled into a tight knot under three heavy wool blankets, his breathing coming in shallow, ragged hitches that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete. When I laid my palm against his forehead, it felt like touching the side of a cast-iron skillet left too long on a low burner.
"Leo," I whispered, shaking his shoulder gently. "Hey. Wake up."
He didn't open his eyes, but his head thrashed sideways against the pillow, his lips dry and cracked. "The bike's... the wheel's coming off the chain, Jax..."
I didn't wait to find a coat. I scooped him out of the cot, blankets and all, feeling how light he was—too light for an eight-year-old boy who should have had some meat on his ribs by now. His skin was burning through the thin cotton of his pajama shirt, damp with cold sweat that smelled sour and sharp.
In the next room, Sarah was awake, sitting up in the dark with her hands wrapped around a cold mug of water, her eyes huge and white in the gray light of the window.
"Jackson?" her voice was a dry rasp. "What's wrong with him?"
"He's burning up," I said, heading for the front door with the bundle in my arms. "Keep the stove fed. I'm taking him down to the clinic in Black Rock."
"The clinic's closed at night," she whispered, her fingers clutching the edge of the blanket. "Dr. Vance—"
"Dr. Vance is seventy-five and lives over the hardware store," I said, kicking the door open with my boot heel. "He's got a telephone and a bottle of whiskey. We're going."
The Harley was cold, sitting under its tarp by the porch with a skim of white frost over the saddle. I didn't waste time trying to kick-start it three times; I pulled the choke out, leaned my full weight onto the kick-starter, and let out a string of old curses until the twin cylinders caught with a sharp, explosive bark that brought a light on in Clara's kitchen across the street.
I strapped Leo to my chest with an old webbed tow strap I’d grabbed off the workbench, wrapping his small, burning arms around my neck and pulling my heavy leather jacket over both of us. His face was pressed right against my collarbone, hot and damp through my shirt.
"Hold on, kid," I muttered into the dark as I dropped the transmission into first with a heavy, sickening clunk. "We're going for a ride."
The road to Black Rock was four miles of winding blacktop cut through the timber leases, slick with black ice where the runoff from the logging roads crossed the tarmac. I kept the bike in third, letting the heavy rear wheel drift wide on the corners, my boots dragging the shoulder to keep the tires from washing out. The wind off the river felt like a handful of needles thrown against my face, but I didn't feel it; I could feel only the small, rhythmic thud of Leo's heart beating against my ribs, irregular and too fast, like a bird trapped in a tin can.
By the time we hit the main street of Black Rock—three blocks of false-front stores and a single blinking amber light at the crossroads—the clinic windows were dark except for the green neon sign over the pharmacy next door.
I didn't bother with the bell; I hit the heavy oak door with the flat of my hand until the glass rattled in its lead cames. A minute later, the inner bolt slid back with a dry clack, and Dr. Sterling stood there in his stocking feet, wearing a flannel shirt with the tail hanging out over his trousers and holding a kerosene lantern that smelled of sulfur.
"Jackson Vance," the old man said, blinking against the glare of the headlight still idling in the empty street. "If this isn't an emergency, you're paying for my night oil."
"He's burning up," I said, pushing past him into the disinfectant-smelling hallway. "His chest sounds like a gravel sifter."
Sterling didn't ask any more questions. He set the lantern down on the oilcloth table in the examination room, pointed at the narrow vinyl table, and told me to unstrap him before the kid went into convulsions.
The next twenty minutes were a blur of cold metal instruments, the sharp smell of alcohol swabs, and the low, muttered swearing of an old country doctor who’d pulled half the kids in the valley through scarlet fever and croup. I stood by the door with my hands jammed deep into my pockets, watching the way Sterling's large, liver-spotted hands moved over Leo's chest with surprising gentleness, listening to the small rasp of the stethoscope against the boy's ribs.
"It's not pneumonia yet," Sterling said finally, straightening up and wiping his glasses on his shirt tail. He looked over his wire-rims at me, his eyes sharp and tired. "He's just worn down to the nub. Poor nutrition, living in a damp cabin with no heat for three weeks, and a constitution that’s been running on grit and river water. Give him a week of real milk, keep that stove in the parlor burning pine instead of wet willow, and he'll be right as rain."
He walked over to the wooden counter, pulled a brown paper bag from under the shelf, and dropped two small bottles of pink syrup and white tablets into it.
"And you, Jackson," the doctor added, handing me the bag without looking at my face. "Start sleeping indoors. You look worse than the boy."
We rode back before dawn, the sky turning the color of a wet slate shingle over the ridge. The wind had dropped, leaving the timber silent and heavy with frost. When we got back to Maple Street, the kitchen window was still lit, and Sarah was standing on the porch wrapped in her quilt, watching the empty road with her hands clenched in front of her.
I killed the engine fifty yards out and coasted up to the gate in silence. I untied the tow strap, lifted Leo out of the saddle—his skin was cooler now, the fever breaking into a thin, steady sweat—and carried him up the steps past Sarah without a word.
She didn't try to take him from me. She just followed us into the small back room, pulled the heavy wool blankets up over his shoulders, and stood there for a long time watching his chest rise and fall in a slow, regular rhythm.
"Is he going to be okay?" she asked, her voice shaking just a little bit as she reached out to brush a stray lock of hair away from his forehead.
"Sterling says he's tough," I said, setting my helmet down on the floor by the cot. "Gets it from his mother's side."
Sarah looked up at me then, her eyes catching the pale gray light coming through the frost-feathered window. For a second, she looked like the girl in the faded photograph on the counter—younger, harder, standing by the side of the highway with her thumb out and her bag packed.
May you like
"Go on back to the garage, Jackson," she said softly, turning back to tuck the blanket tighter around his chin. "We're all right here now."
I didn't go back to the garage. I walked out into the small kitchen, sat down in the wooden chair by the cold stove, and waited for the sun to come up over the pines.
