Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [240]
He waved absently at me with the remnants of his muffin.
“Dinna fash,” he murmured. “I’ll manage the pig.” He took his eyes off the book long enough to glance over the table at the empty dishes. “Are there no more eggs?”
“There are, but I’m taking them up to our guest at the corncrib.” I added two slices of bread to the small basket I was packing, and took up the bottle of infusion I had left steeping overnight. The brew of goldenrod, bee-balm, and wild bergamot was a blackish green, and smelled like burnt fields, but it might help. It couldn’t hurt. On impulse, I picked up the tied-feather amulet old Nayawenne had given me; perhaps it would reassure the sick man. Like the medicine, it couldn’t hurt.
Our impromptu guest was a stranger; a Tuscarora from a northern village. He had come to the farm several days before, as part of a hunting party from Anna Ooka, on the trail of bear.
We had offered food and drink—several of the hunters were Ian’s friends—but in the course of the meal I had noticed this man gazing glassy-eyed into his cup. Close examination had showed him to be suffering from what I was convinced was measles, an alarming disease in these days.
He had insisted on leaving with his companions, but two of them had brought him back a few hours later, stumbling and delirious.
He was plainly—and alarmingly—contagious. I had made him a comfortable bed in the newly built and so-far empty corncrib, and forced his companions to go and wash in the creek, a proceeding which they plainly found senseless, but in which they humored me before departing, leaving their comrade in my hands.
The Indian was lying on his side, curled under his blanket. He didn’t turn to look at me, though he must have heard my footsteps on the path. I could hear him, all right; no need for my makeshift stethoscope—the rales in his lungs were clearly audible at six paces.
“Comment ça va?” I said, kneeling down by him. He didn’t answer; it was unnecessary, in any case. I didn’t need anything beyond the rattling wheeze to diagnose pneumonia, and the look of him merely confirmed it—eyes sunken and dull, the flesh of his face fallen away, consumed to the bone by the fierce blaze of fever.
I tried to persuade him to eat—he desperately needed nourishment—but he would not even bother to turn away his face. The water bottle by his side was empty; I had brought more but didn’t give it to him right away, thinking he might swallow the infusion from sheer thirst.
He did take a few mouthfuls, but then stopped swallowing, merely allowing the greenish-black liquid to run out of the corners of his mouth. I tried coaxing in French, but he was having none of it; he didn’t even acknowledge my presence, just stared past my shoulder at the morning sky.
His thin body sagged with despair; plainly he thought himself abandoned, left to die in the hands of strangers. I felt a gnawing anxiety that he might be right—surely he would die if he would take nothing.
He would take water, at least. He drank thirstily, draining the bottle, and I went to the stream to fill it again. When I came back, I drew the amulet from my basket and held it up in front of his face. I thought I saw a flicker of surprise behind the half-closed lids—nothing so strong as to be called hope, but he did at least take conscious notice of me for the first time.
Seized by inspiration, I sank slowly down onto my knees. I had no notion at all of the proper ceremony to employ, but I had been a doctor long enough to know that while the power of suggestion was no substitute for antibiotics, it was certainly better than nothing.
I held up the raven’s-feather amulet, turned my face skyward, and solemnly intoned the most sonorous thing I could remember, which happened to be Dr. Rawlings’s receipt for the treatment of syphilis, rendered in Latin.
I poured a small bit of lavender oil into my hand, dipped the feather in it, and anointed his temples and throat, while singing “Blow the Man Down,” in a low, sinister voice. It might help the