Quarantine: A Novel (40 page)

“No,” Leander said. “It’s the shit and vomit.”

“Ah.”

Leander entered the supply tent and unloaded his sacks. He

followed the line of men out into the rain and in his turn was

loaded with two more sacks. When he walked past the front of

the wagon, Horseshoe said, “That little maid you fancy, she’s gone from the house now.”

“Yes,” Leander said, “she’s free.”

The next time he returned to the wagon, Horseshoe said,

“Probably working the streets down at waterside. Them girls

always end up on their knees.”

“She prays for your salvation.” Loaded with two more sacks,

Leander walked back to the pest-house gate.

R

322

q u a r a n t i n e

Eli Bradshaw leaned over Giles and said, “You have the fever.

You know you do.”

“Perhaps,” Giles said. “Maybe it’s a reaction to the amputation?”

“No, the boy did a good job. The leg is clean. It doesn’t have

that smell that suggests infection.” Bradshaw leaned down even

closer. “Giles, how is it you have the fever? You said you had it during the war, down south.”

“I must have been mistaken.”

“You never had the fever, and you knew you never had it.”

Dr. Bradshaw straightened up. “Well, it’s early and if we proceed now, we may stave off the worst of it. It has worked with others.”

Giles looked at Marie, who was on the other side of the cot.

She understood that he wanted water and she raised a cup to his

mouth. His thirst was unquenchable, but swallowing was painful.

When she took the cup away, he whispered to Bradshaw, “No

lancet. No bleeding, Eli. Stones. Bring the hot stones.”

“You are stubborn.” Bradshaw removed his spectacles, folded

them, and tucked them in the pocket of his vest. “You’ll die trying to prove me wrong.”

“I’ll die if it’s my time.” Giles tried to raise himself up on the cot but could only lift his head slightly. “Eli, listen to me. I think I know how this fever is conducted from one victim to the next.

Look—look at my arms.” Reluctantly, Bradshaw gazed down at

Giles’s forearms. “Those welts—they’re mosquito bites. They bite an infected person, drawing in a bit of blood, and they go and bite someone else, leaving the tainted blood.” Bradshaw glanced at him skeptically. “Look around us,” Giles said. “This weather, it’s hot and damp. And all this standing water—that’s where they breed.

Out on the marshes, along the riverbank, in every neighborhood

in Newburyport there are stagnant pools of water. The mosquitoes are so thick it’s like walking through a haze much of the time.”

“A tiny bug?” Bradshaw said. “You’re talking about an infini-

tesimal amount of blood.”

“I believe that’s all it takes.”

323

j o h n s m o l e n s

“But what’s in the blood that makes it ‘tainted’?”

“I don’t know, only that it’s powerful and once it mixes with

someone’s blood the fever will take root.” Bradshaw sighed—he

didn’t want to debate with a sick man, which angered Giles. “We

have to do something about the water,” he said. “Reduce the mos-

quito population and you reduce the chance of the fever spreading.

And pray—pray that we get cool weather. Pray for winter.”

“There is no scientific evidence to support this, Giles.”

“And you think there is evidence that these epidemics are

caused by volcanic eruptions?”

“It’s the fever,” Bradshaw said. “You’re—”

“There’s nothing wrong with my mind.” Suddenly Giles was

gripped by a fit of coughing and Marie held a cloth to his mouth.

Each cough caused a searing pain to rip through his chest. When

it subsided, she removed the cloth, and he said, “The stones, then some laudanum.”

Bradshaw glanced at Marie. “Very well.”

He turned to leave, but Giles said, “Anything to repel the

mosquitoes. Smoke. Some of these oils and ointments that farmers and fishermen put on their skin. These may be a deterrent.”

Bradshaw looked at him sympathetically, nodded his head,

and left the tent.

Giles tried to smile for Marie. “I did not expect him to seize

this idea with enthusiasm.”

R

Leander had been told by Dr. Bradshaw to bring a cart of stones

to Dr. Wiggins’s tent.

Alone.

Leander hesitated when he raised the tent flap. Marie was

wrapping the doctor in fresh linens. The man seemed so frail,

his shoulders narrow, his remaining limbs insubstantial. And he

had eyes that were large and rheumy with the fever. Leander had

324

q u a r a n t i n e

seen it so often in the past few hours. For many it was a look of harrow, but Dr. Wiggins’s gaze seemed fierce with determination.

“Hurry,” he said. “Lay them on.”

Leander pulled on the leather gloves and used the tongs to pick

up one of the stones from the pile in the cart. He approached the cot and said, “I’m sorry, Doctor. You know it will hurt.”

“Just be quick now.”

Leander placed the stone on the doctor’s chest—he shifted

under the weight, caught his breath, and released a gasp. After a moment, he closed his eyes and said, “Another, farther down.”

Leander got another stone from the cart. When he came to

the cot, he looked at Marie, whose eyes were wide with fear. He

could not believe she was the same woman he had pulled out of

the Merrimack, for she too now seemed gaunt and exhausted.

“The intestines,” Dr. Wiggins whispered.

Marie’s eyes were moist, but her mouth was set as though

she herself were bracing for the hot weight of the stone. Leander placed the next stone on the doctor, who now seemed rigid, as

though he were already dead.

“You see, Leander,” Dr. Wiggins said without opening his

eyes. “One must bear the weight of his convictions.”

Leander looked again at Marie and said, “More?”

“Oui,”
the doctor said. “More.”

325

Thirty-One

Rain drummed on the carriage roof as it rolled out on

Sumner’s Wharf. After the team halted, the door was pulled open.

A salty east wind came off the river. Fields reached in and offered his hand as Miranda stepped down into a puddle. Benjamin held

an umbrella, and the two men escorted her toward the warehouse

door. Inside, there was the smell of tanned leather and the odor of grain stored too long. The building was illuminated by one lantern, which cast long shadows against the stacked crates and barrels.

As Miranda led Fields and Benjamin toward the light, she said,

“This quarantine doesn’t end soon, most everything will rot and

be worthless.”

When she neared the lantern, she could see Samuel and a gray-

bearded man sitting on small kegs at a table. There was a bottle of rum, and they were drinking from pewter tumblers. The old

man got to his feet as she approached, but her grandson remained seated, smiling stupidly at her.

She stood before her grandson and when he continued to smile

up at her, she slapped his face. Stunned, his eyes watered. She

slapped him again, harder.

326

q u a r a n t i n e

He raised a hand and rubbed his jaw. “We escape the pest-

house and you punish me?”

“You’re lucky they didn’t hang you as soon as you were taken

off your father’s ship. You would have deserved it.” She then

regarded the old man. “And you are this scoundrel from Boston?”

He bowed with mock formality. “Uriah Clapp, Madame.”

“It’s one thing for my imbecile grandson to get mixed up with

prostitutes and gamblers in Paris, but you, sir, are something far worse, and you’re much closer to home.”

“But had we succeeded,” Mr. Clapp said, “we would have

turned a good profit. Does not everything worthwhile require

some risk? Samuel has told me of your concerns regarding his

father’s financial status. My only intention was to provide an

opportunity to ease your concerns for your family fortune.”

“How kind of you, Mr. Clapp.” She took hold of Samuel’s

earlobe, causing him to rise from his chair. “Now I am making

arrangements to get him smuggled out of here, up to Portsmouth,

where he will board a packet bound for Halifax, and from there

take a ship back across the Atlantic.” Her eyes never left Mr. Clapp’s face. “But what are we to do with you?” She let go of her grandson and he backed away from her, rubbing his ear. “What should we

do with the man from Boston who concocted this entire scheme?”

Mr. Clapp shrugged. “I’d appreciate it if you’d just let me go

home.”

“Put you on a horse and send you down the turnpike—”

“A horse, Madame, in this weather? I’d prefer that you spirit

me away in a dry coach.”

“I’m sure you would, and avoid the mob that wants to get

ahold of both of you.” She looked around her. Horseshoe and two

of the men who worked in the blacksmith shop were standing

back in the shadows. “No, I’ll have to think on what to do with

you, Mr. Clapp,” she said. “First, I must get my grandson out of Newburyport, so until that is assured we’ll keep you right here, safe from any mob.”

327

j o h n s m o l e n s

“Under the circumstances,” he said with a slight bow, “I accept

your hospitality.”

She turned away from him. Looking at the two men next to

Horseshoe, she said, “I’ll leave them to see to your every comfort.”

Then she started back through the dark warehouse to the door.

“Horseshoe, you return to the house.”

R

Slowly, the nature of the pain changed. It deepened, and some-

thing about the heat from the stones seemed to open him up,

allowing the pain to radiate through his bowels and in his chest, where his lungs felt heavy and sodden. He lay perfectly still,

breathing very carefully, fearful of drowning. His joints were

inflamed and his ribs felt crushed. The linens wrapped tightly

around his body were soaked through with sweat.

Marie gave him sips of water. They didn’t speak—to do so

would require too much effort. He knew the fever had reached

a point where it would either continue in its effort to claim his body, or it would begin to recede. The next few hours would tell.

By dawn he would either be dead, or he would begin to push the

fever back.

Marie understood this, too. It was in her eyes, the set of her

mouth. At times her lips moved and she whispered prayers in

French. It was a beautiful sound, her prayers, while above them

the rain beat relentlessly on the canvas tent.

He closed his eyes and tried to think only of the sound of the

rain, of Marie’s prayers.

R

As Leander left the Mall, he saw someone rushing along High

Street in the pouring rain. It was Horseshoe. Leander walked

across a wide puddle and stopped in front of him.

328

q u a r a n t i n e

“How’d you do it?”

“A few coins changing hands, that’s all.”

“Where’d you take them?” Leander said.

Horseshoe grinned.

Leander punched him in the nose and he went down in

the mud. As he tried to get up, Leander hit him again. Drop-

ping to his knees, Leander took hold of Horseshoe’s head and

shoved his face down into the puddle. Horseshoe struggled,

and Leander finally lifted his head up. “You tell me or I will

drown you here and now.” He pushed Horseshoe’s face into

the water again until he began choking—and again yanked his

head up by the hair.

Horseshoe’s face was covered with mud. He coughed, blood

running from his nose and mouth. “The warehouse,” he whis-

pered. “Sumner’s Wharf.”

Leander punched him again, this time in the stomach. As

he got to his feet, Horseshoe curled up on his side in the mud

gasping for air.

R

The carriage halted at the gate before the Essex-Merrimack

Bridge. One of the guards bearing a lantern came to the window.

Rain poured off the brim of his hat. “We have a horse waiting on the other side, Ma’am,” he said. “I have two men who will escort Mr. Sumner up to Portsmouth harbor.”

Fields removed a small leather pouch of coins and held it up

to the window.

The guard hesitated before he took the pouch and then opened

the door.

“Grandmother?”
Samuel said.

“Stop puling like a dog,” she said without looking at him.

“Save it for Paris.”

“But I don’t want to go,” he said. “Can’t I stay in Newburyport?”

329

j o h n s m o l e n s

“I’ve always hated this pleading tone of yours.” She nodded to

Fields, who took another pouch from inside his cloak and handed

it to Samuel.

“Please.” Samuel leaned toward her but she still would not

face him.

“If I’m fortunate,” she said, “I will not live long enough to see you again in this world.”

Samuel climbed out and the guard led him away. After a

moment, Miranda looked out the window toward the bridge and

watched the swinging lantern slowly disappear in the rain.

R

The rain had stopped.

There was the sound of water, dripping off the canvas tent,

and there was Marie’s voice, whispering close to his left ear. He could not open his eyes—it would take too much effort, too much

concentration.

And there was the penetrating heat, the weight of the stones.

R

As he walked through Market Square, Leander found a pile of

brush near a butcher’s stall, to be used for the fires to smoke meat.

He pulled a good heavy stick from the pile and continued on across the square toward the waterfront. The stick was fairly straight—like the tithing stick Goodman Boylston had used at the meeting-house services during the collection. If a man didn’t produce a coin for the basket, his shoulder would be prodded with the stick. It was an embarrassment his father and mother would never suffer, no matter how hard the season. And Sarah, blind Sarah, she was always alert to the sound of Goodman Boylston’s stick, tapping on the floor