The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [210]
It takes a long moment for their eyes to readjust from the spotlight beams of afternoon light to the cavern’s dim interior. While the two of them are blind, the trees, seeing her disappear, muffle their cantata to a murmur. She is aware of the quiet and the dark and the nearness of Nail. Then she sees him: he is making a great effort to get out of the bed. He has his feet outside the bed, on the ground, but the bed is not much higher than the ground itself, and he cannot rise up. Colvin Swain moves to him quickly and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Here there, boy, jist lay easy! Don’t ye try to git up.” The doctor forces him to lie back down but notices the dampness of the bedclothes and exclaims, “Woo, you shore wet the bed!”
“Sweat,” says Nail. It is his first word, but as he lies down he fixes his eyes upon hers and smiles. “Howdy, Miss Monday,” he says, with mock formality. “Glad ye could make it.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Chism,” she returns, with careful politeness. “I’m proud to be here.”
“Heck,” says Doc Swain. “I thought you two knew each other better’n that. Don’t ye even want to shake hands? I could turn my back, I reckon, if ye want to do more than that.”
“We can wait,” Nail says.
“Wal, let’s take yore temper-ture,” Doc says, and sticks a thermometer into Nail’s mouth. Then he begins his examination, palpating the spleen. After a while he removes the thermometer and studies it and says, “Hmm,” and begins asking Nail several questions. How many days now has he had this trouble? Has he had any diarrhea? Has he lost consciousness?
Viridis only half-listens to the conversation, the questioning. She is still trying to hear what the trees are singing, but it is soft and distant. She takes note of the careful array of supplies she’s left for him, all of them untouched. She opens the bag containing the spare bed linen and takes out fresh sheets, to replace the damp ones, and a fresh pillowcase.
“This is shore some layout ye got here,” Doc observes, to Nail. “You say you think you jist got here last night?”
Viridis explains, “I put all of this here, for him.” And she thinks to add, “With Latha’s help.”
“I see,” Doc says. “Been plannin a hideaway, huh?”
“He couldn’t very well go right straight to his folks’ house, could he?” she says.
“Reckon not,” the doctor admits. “The sherf would shore to haul him off to jail purty quick.”
“You won’t tell where we…you won’t tell anybody about this place, will you?” she asks.
“Wal now, that depends,” Doc says. “You’uns know that my dad is the justice of the peace, and I shore couldn’t tell my own dad a lie.” The doctor opens his gladstone bag, rummages around in it, brings out a pair of bottles. “These yere pills is for yore fever,” he says. “Take a couple of ’em whenever ye git to feelin too hot, but not more’n six or eight a day. Now, this here blue bottle is the quinine, and I want ye to take a spoonful…” (he turns to Viridis) “…is they a spoon here? okay, a spoonful ever four hours or so, till it’s all gone, and then you…” (he turns to Viridis) “…you come and git me and I’ll come and give him some more of it, if he needs it, and he probably will. Now, this quinine will probably make ye start hearin things, funny noises that aint real. It’s called tinnitus, and it aint as serious as it sounds, but I figured I’d better warn ye. You’d better jist rest and stay off yore feet and get good and well afore ye try to do anything.”
“Anything?” Nail says.
Doc Swain coughs. “Anything real strenuous. Anything that you’d have to git out of bed to do. You can do anything ye want as long as it’s in bed.” He coughs again.
“Right,” Nail says. “When can I go see my dad?”
“Not till I tell ye,” the doctor says. “I don’t want ye to go no further’n that white ash down the trail yonder till I give ye permission.”
All three of them glance at the white ash, whose pianissimo murmuring seems audible only to Viridis. She understands the significance of Doc Swain’s reference to it, and her eyes shift, as theirs do, from the white ash to the rifle lying atop the black bearskin.
“I aint