The Wings of Morning (30 page)

“That did not happen here. But Dr. Morgan told me it has happened in Boston.”

“Will it spread?” he asked her abruptly.

“The doctor had this house quarantined all week,” she responded quickly, “but Emma is better now.”

“No, but will it spread?”

Lyyndaya wanted to say she didn’t know. But she felt that would be a lie. “Yes, Pastor King, it will spread.”

His gaze was steady, but troubled. “The doctor tells us we shouldn’t gather for worship until this is past. And that we should consider wearing masks as they do in the city.”

“It might be something for the leadership to discuss, something that might be done for a month or two,” Lyyndaya said, trying to be careful not to speak out of turn. This was, after all, more fitting if it came from Dr. Morgan.

“A month? Two months?” Pastor King grew agitated and his dark eyes gleamed. “How will people be encouraged if they cannot meet together for prayer and worship? If they cannot break bread together? Who will shepherd them?”

“Lyyndaya.” Bishop Zook was coming down the hall from the staircase with her black overnight bag. “These are your things. I think my wife found all of your items. If there is something missing, please let us know.”

“Thank you.”

“No, no, I thank you,” he said, putting the bag in her hands. “And I thank God for his mercy in leaving us one of our children to bless us.”

Lyyndaya saw his struggle to control himself and a dampness came to her own eyes as she saw his pain. “It is a great mercy. And for myself also, for Emma is a friend and—like a sister—” She stopped, thinking of Ruth and how swiftly the illness could affect someone. “I must leave. The doctor is waiting.”

The bishop gently took her by arm. “Is there someone else?”

Lyyndaya looked away. “There may be, I don’t know.”

“Who?”

“In my own house…Ruth…”

“I am so sorry. We will pray. Perhaps it is something else.” He didn’t let go of her arm. “Of course you are in a hurry to get out the door. I do not wish to detain you any further, only…” Lyyndaya watched him try to form the words he wanted several times. Eventually he blurted, “Hosea said some things before he went to be with the Lord. Some things I need to tell you. I do not understand completely. But I shall come by your house.”

Despite her urge to rush out the door and into the buggy, Lyyndaya held back. “What things? What did Hosea tell you?”

The bishop shook his head. “It is not easily said. I shall come by your house.” He released her arm. “Please go to your family. It was not my wish to upset you further. I promise you we will talk. Go to your family now—and may Christ be with you.”

Lyyndaya was torn. Something told her that Hosea’s words had been important and that she needed to know them, but right now the image of Ruth perhaps hovering between life and death compelled her to leave.

Dr. Morgan drove his two-horse team and carriage almost at a gallop through the rain that was now coming down heavily and beating against the roof. His carriage wasn’t built after the Amish style—it was brown in color with brass accents and could travel much faster. As they neared the Kurtz home, lightning tore at the sky a few miles south, followed by a sharp crack of thunder.

Minutes later Lyyndaya’s father and mother were waiting at the door as she and the doctor hurried up the steps. Her mother was crying.

“Has something happened?” asked Lyyndaya. “Is she in her room?”

Mrs. Kurtz waved her hand, unable to speak. Dr. Morgan looked at Lyyndaya’s father. “What is it?”

Lyyndaya’s father cleared his throat and tried to speak twice before he found his voice. “She is…coughing so much, so violently…and there is now a blue color…in her face and on her…” But he could not finish and looked away.

Lyyndaya and Dr. Morgan were quickly up the staircase and into Ruth’s room. She was sitting in bed, leaning back against pillows piled against the headboard. Lyyndaya put her hand to her sister’s forehead while Dr. Morgan pulled his stethoscope out of his bag.

“She’s burning up!” Lyyndaya said.

Ruth opened her mouth and whispered, “So we have not spoken all week—not since we quarreled—and that is the first thing you say to me?”

The doctor was warming his stethoscope in his hand. “Your parents said you had been coughing.”

“Not for…the last half hour.” She opened her hand and showed them a bloody cloth. “I am glad because…it hurt my stomach…so much…”

The blue on her face and arms was unmistakable, but not as dark as Lyyndaya had feared. There was a basin and wet cloth on the bedside table, and she began to gently touch the cloth to Ruth’s face and throat.

“That feels so good—thank you—I just didn’t have the strength to lift my arm anymore.”

Dr. Morgan held up a finger for quiet while he listened to Ruth’s chest. Lyyndaya mouthed the words
Ich liebe dich
in German and Ruth smiled slightly and mouthed
I love you
back in English.

The doctor straightened. “There are some beneficial teas I will have your mother brew. Lyyndaya, as you know well, it is important your sister drink as much as possible. And a mustard plaster for the chest. You remember the ingredients we used with Emma?”

“Mustard powder and seed mixed with the white of eggs and flour,” recited Lyyndaya. “Placed within flannel cloth.”

“Exactly. Remove it every thirty to forty-five minutes, wait a quarter hour, then apply it again. Exchange the ingredients for fresh ones every couple of hours.”

“Yes. I know.”

“You might want to feed her my recipe of garlic, chives, and red onions. Do you like chives, Ruth?”

“I like chives…I am not so sure…about garlic.”

“It may very well help you. Also steam. This can open up the lungs and airways.” He was looking down at Ruth. “We will use everything we know to help you.”

“Do I…have it?”

“Yes.”

“Why do they call it…the Spanish influenza, the Spanish flu?”

“Because there was so much of it in Spain this past spring,” Dr. Morgan explained.

“What started it? What caused…it?”

“We don’t know.”

“Can you cure me…sister?” She weakly reached a hand out to Lyyndaya, who took it in both of hers and squeezed gently.

“We healed Emma,” she responded. “With God’s help.”

Dr. Morgan patted Ruth on the arm. “Leave the cure to us and to divine providence. I will go and ask your mother to make up a tea for you. Lyyndaya, we will require the mustard poultice.”

“Of course.”

“But let me have five minutes alone with your father and mother first.” He slipped out the door, shutting it softly.

“Such a silly argument we had last Sunday,” murmured Ruth.

“It was the heat.” Lyyndaya smiled.

“You think so?”

“I do. We shouldn’t have been out in the sun for so long.”

She continued to hold one of Ruth’s bluish hands between the two of hers.

“What do you hear…about your knight in shining armor?” Ruth asked.

There was a chair by the bed and she sat down in it. “Jude is a captain now. Commanding an entire squadron.”

“He has not been hurt?”

“No.”

“And he has not hurt another…?”

Lyyndaya smiled. “No, he has not, and he never will.”

“But he fights—to keep his men fighting.”

“He fights to keep his men alive.”

Ruth sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Such faith you…have. In this boy. In the God…you pray to for this boy. I wish we all had your trust…your innocence.”

“But I don’t think of it as innocence,” Lyyndaya responded softly. “I think I have seen too much this past year to call myself an innocent. I prefer to think of myself as hopeful.”

“Like—Christian’s companion in
Pilgrim’s Progress
.” She turned her pale eyes on her sister. “Lyyndy, do you think—I’m going to die?”

“No.”

“Will you give me a kiss on the cheek? My Hopeful? But…I will understand if you are afraid…”

Lyyndaya leaned forward across the bed. “I’m not afraid. I was in Emma’s room for a week. Perhaps I’m immune.” She kissed her sister on one side of her face, then gently kissed her on the other.

Ruth managed to get her arms around Lyyndaya’s neck. “Why would you be immune…and no one else?”

“I don’t know. Is it because God wants me to nurse others that are precious to him back to health?”

Ruth laughed quietly. The pain of the laughter made her wince, but she couldn’t stop herself from laughing a second time. “I am precious. Emma is precious. You don’t think you are precious? You don’t think God cares about you…as much as he does for those who are sick?”

Lyyndaya shrugged.

Ruth patted her on the cheek. “My sweet sister. I know one person who thinks you are precious—who counts you as more precious than even I do.”

Lyyndaya kissed her sister a final time on her brow and then sat back, amused, a smile playing about her lips. “
Ja
, and who is that? Mama? Papa? Edward at the post office?”

“You know who it is. He adores you. Every time I saw…the two of you together it was in his eyes. Even when Emma was hovering around and flirting.”

“Oh, stop, Ruth—you exaggerate, he could never make up his mind between Emma and me.”

Ruth made a small flicking motion with her hand. “That’s what you thought…and Emma thought. Maybe he thought it too sometimes. But I never believed it. When my eyes looked, I knew. When I prayed, I knew. Sick and dying, I still know.”

“You’re not dying.”

Ruth closed her eyes. “I know what you do not know…because in this one thing you would not permit yourself to hope…or to believe. Jude, your Jude, your crazy boy…he would gladly give his life for you.”

T
he sky was a flat blue calm. It reminded Jude of lakes he’d seen in Minnesota when he was eight or nine and his father had taken him to visit an uncle who lived in the north of the state.

He rubbed his gloved hands roughly up and down over his nose.

Lucille was cruising at twenty-two thousand feet and the September air was sharp and clear with a good bite to it.

He checked his watch. His men were late. They were supposed to be flying formation below him by now. Jude glanced toward Nancy. There was a cluster of black dots rising from the green and brown earth. That would be them.

A look toward Metz revealed nothing. Visibility from the cockpit of a SPAD was not all Jude could have wished, but he was certain no German plane was in that vicinity. Still, he hoped his squadron might pique some interest as they moved closer to enemy lines. Perhaps a
Jagdstaffel
might appear and challenge them. Then perhaps even Schleiermacher might show up with the German fighters. Or, as was his preference, haunt the edges of any ensuing air battle, hoping to catch a solitary target off his guard.

He drifted over into German territory. “Archie”—antiaircraft fire—burst angrily in red and black far below him. When his squadron finally arrived and crossed over, the shots were above and below and all around them. They ignored the bursts and carried on at sixteen thousand feet. Jude counted the squadron craft, recognizing each different camouflage scheme of light greens and forest greens and earth browns, knowing each number by heart, connecting each plane with a face and a man he realized he loved dearly—Zed, Billy, Tex, Sam Baker from Wisconsin, Timmy Erwin from Louisiana, Jack Ross from Nevada—even Ram Peterson, Flapjack, who’d escaped from the German camp where he’d been held. He had spent a harrowing week crawling through no-man’s-land hoping he wouldn’t be shot by French, British, or American troops. In the end, it was the Canadians who’d rescued him and driven him to Nancy and the aerodrome, fed, cleaned up, and in a fresh set of clothes, the red flannel shirt making the flyer complain the Canucks had dressed him up like a lumberjack.

“You’re Swedish, aren’t you?” Billy Skipp had pointed out.