Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

Dr. Sumner Delano

Saturday April 6, 1935

There's something to be said for being in the president's inner circle. It's exciting to take private trains and tag along as part of the motorcade. Franklin is a distant cousin by way of the Delano family. We went to school together. But it's at Eleanor's request that I'm in Boise City, Oklahoma.

I've just come from Ohio, where I organized medical aid to the coal mining community. People would be shocked by the deprivation mining families endure. I couldn't imagine such deplorable conditions outside of war. Between dangerous work in the mines, malnutrition, and the amount of coal dust in the air, there's widespread illness, not just affecting the miners but also their families. Women with hopeless eyes, half-starved children, and men with incurable lung disease still haunt my dreams. Trust Eleanor to see that and make a start in addressing it.

Now, dust storms in the Great Plains are causing similar lung problems in the farming community, especially among the very young and very old. Here in the panhandle, the patients far outstrip the ability of the few local doctors who are left to care for them. The Red Cross is building makeshift hospitals across the region. With the aid of private fundraising, I'm in charge of turning an old mercantile store into a health clinic.

I know what you're thinking. Why would I sacrifice my time and my talents for a charity when I could have a nice office in Manhattan? America suffered a terrible, far-reaching blow in 1929. It seems like a terrible waste of my life to sit in a luxurious office, diagnosing ulcers for the very bankers and stockbrokers who caused the mess in the first place.

At any rate, I cut my teeth as a doctor in the Great War. Like a fool, I went to France long before America even joined in. As a confirmed bachelor, I don't mind picking up stakes and going where I'm told, if I'm needed. And cousin Eleanor is happiest telling me where I'm needed. I've got an ambulance, three nurses, about sixty boxes of donated supplies, and two days before we open to the public.

We'll have an exam room, five army cots for the infirmary, and a small dispensary for medications. My plan is to help the people who need outpatient care and move those who need more to one of the hospitals the Red Cross is setting up for long term care. I hope people will come if they have need, but I learned a hard lesson about pride in Ohio. Some people refuse help unless they have something to offer in payment. I've been paid in eggs, canned green beans, pipe tobacco, knit scarves, and once, with a fine blue glass marble.

My three nurses—Marie, Beryl, and Rose—are old hands. They know how to talk to people who would rather be anywhere else and do anything else other than ask for help.

"Dr. Delano, I'm ready to hang the curtains between beds." Marie is a hearty country girl with permanently flushed cheeks and thick brown hair. Like a lot of nurses, she accepts no nonsense on my part. I don't doubt she'd climb the ladder and fix the curtain rods to the ceiling herself, but I need to be a gentleman about this.

"Excellent. Let me get the ladder."

She frowns. "I'll do it."

"I need the exercise." Marie is working up to an argument but Beryl interrupts.

"They're awfully wrinkled. Shouldn't we iron them?"

"I doubt our patients will care if they're wrinkled," I point out.

"The wrinkles will hang out." Marie speaks quietly, but with great determination. "From what Mrs. Andersen says, we'll no sooner put them up than they'll need to be washed again."

Mrs. Andersen, the pastor's wife, has been a blessing to our endeavors. She found a local boy to help us with the heavy lifting, and he stayed to clean for two bits. It's past dinner time, so he's gone home, but I bet he'll come back tomorrow. He liked earning money, and I'm sure I'll find more chores for him to do.

I take the ladder and start climbing up. Rose hands me the screw hooks and points out where she thinks they should go. It's a poor system. If anyone places even the slightest weight on the curtain, they'll pull the hooks out, but it's what we've got for the moment.

The old wooden ladder is unstable, and my mechanical skill limited, but eventually, we get all four of the curtains up. We place cots and low tables on either side. The room brings back memories of field hospitals and privation. For a moment I'm lost in the past, drowning in the scent of blood and scorched flesh.

The drought has sucked all the color from this place. Once gold with wheat from horizon to horizon, the area is now hardpan covered beneath dunes of drifting dirt and grit. There are tufts of dying grasses and more tumbleweeds than I've ever seen.

If there's a bleaker place in the world than this, I don't know what it could be. In Ohio, people brought my patients flowers, even if they were picked on the roadside. Even in war, there's color; there's fire and blood. When I close my eyes, the clinic falls away to be replaced by the rumble of distant artillery, the scent of decomposition, and the screams of dying men.

I clear my throat. "I think we're done for the day. Anyone care for a celebratory drink?"

"Me, me!" Rose waves her hand.

"It's always the quiet ones." Beryl shoots her a smile.

I go upstairs, where I shuffle through a couple of my personal boxes to find the bottle of whiskey I packed in with my shoes. I head down to the kitchen.

"Here." I've learned not to bring out the good stuff. If I do, the nurses think I'm a snob. We pour my adequate whisky into four enameled tin cups and hold them up for a toast.

"Slainte," Beryl offers.

"In like a lion, out like a lamp," I say, and then I drink mine down.

Rose knocks hers back. She collects my cup with a sour face. "That's foul. I'll wash these."

"I'll get them." I try to take them but she's a tall, athletic woman, and she outmaneuvers me with a sideways twist and graceful swish of skirt.

"You still need to set up your living quarters, Dr. Delano," says Marie. "Need any help with that?"

"No but thank you." To these modern young women, I'm a relic. An avuncular, gray bearded old man who was born in the last century, so I must be both helpless and dependent on women for my care. I'm not as old as they think, but I rather like the way they see me. "I'll probably fall face first into bed and worry about it in the morning. I'm an early riser."

"Don't expect me before noon." Rose grins at Beryl and Marie's mock disapproval. "What? Tomorrow is Saturday. I doubt we'll get a lot of time to ourselves after we open on Monday. Rest while you can. That's my motto."

"Rose is right," I say. "We made huge progress today, so there's not much left to do until we know what we're up against. Come in when you can over the weekend."

Rose laughs. "Calvin will be back for more chores, because you paid him."

Beryl and Marie collect their things. They wait for Rose to finish washing up, and then they leave together for the boarding house where they'll stay while they're here. My quarters are not nearly as nice, but I don't care. There's a makeshift kitchen and a full bath downstairs. A small apartment above. I'll be fine.

"It never hurts to have helpers." I will need to secure a lot more helpers in the future, particularly drivers, to take people to the Red Cross hospitals if necessary.

"Did you see Calvin's arms?" Marie asks. "He's awfully thin."

"I saw." All the locals look thinner than the men in bread lines.

"Our work will be cut out for us." Rose puts the cups away. She surveys the kitchen. "This will be useful. Goodnight, Dr. Delano. See you tomorrow."

"See you, ladies." I tip an imaginary hat, which makes them laugh.

When the door closes, I'm alone again. I make my way around the building, checking locks, making sure windows are closed and latched. While I'm partial to fresh air, Mrs. Andersen was quite specific about the amount of dust we'll have inside if we leave windows open. The old building is drafty as all hell anyway. We'll have to scramble to keep patients and equipment clean whether we leave the windows open or not. But I'm not deterred by a little dirt. I've worked in worse conditions.

A jaw cracking yawn stretches my mouth.

This kind of work—moving and lifting and shuffling supplies—is harder at forty-seven than it was when I was twenty-nine and fresh from my residency at Johns Hopkins. In those days, I could work seventy-two hours at a stretch with only twenty-minute naps to brace me for the next wave of casualties.

Best not to think back on that time. I do as medical professionals and soldiers—and those who've had the misfortune of being both—have always done. I save my energy for the next battle. I clean my teeth and wash my face before I spread out a blanket and fall into my unmade bed.

Confusion and terror fill me when I'm awakened from deep sleep by someone hammering on the kitchen door. Who's here at this hour? I stagger down the stairs to answer the summons in wrinkled trousers and shirt. We're not open yet. Standing in the alley, a large man in sweat-stained workman's clothing waits. Behind him in the street, a battered truck idles.

"You're the doc?" He wipes his hands on his dungarees and offers to shake.

We exchange a handshake while I still have drool on my chin. "I'm a doctor. We're not exactly open?—"

"We found this man on the side of the road." As he speaks, two more men hop into the truck bed. Between them, they slide someone wrapped in a blanket over the metal tailgate. They take care not to jostle whoever it is as they leap lightly down, one at a time. Then they bring the injured man to me.

I get a look at his face. There's bruising, friction burns, and some lacerations. He's pale and clammy. Someone sure worked him over. "What happened to him?"

"Don't know what happened. You can see he's all banged up."

"My clinic isn't open yet." Not that I'd turn anyone away. I wasn't expecting anyone so soon.

One of the other large men—muscles like an ox—speaks in a low throb of a voice. "The preacher's wife said we should bring him to you on account of there isn't another doctor within fifty miles."

"Fine." I stand back to allow the three of them to bring the injured man inside. "Bring him over here."

They follow me to the infirmary and place him in the first cot they see. The man who knocked removes his hat and holds it between his hands. "You think he'll be okay, Doc?"

"I can't say." The world slows down when I look at the unconscious man. He's bruised bloody, and wrapped in a drab, torn, and dirty army blanket. Something else to remind me of a past I'd like to forget. Boys, crying for their mothers…

"Are you all right, Doctor?"

I slump against the wall behind me. "Sorry. You woke me."

"We didn't know where else to take him." The first man worries his hat some more.

"It's fine. The older I get, the harder it is to wake up ready for action." I gather myself and lean over my patient. His face is a mess of dirt and dried blood. Pine needles and duff stick to his hair and clothing. I expect a broken nose at the very least, maybe an orbital bone fracture, or shattered jaw, but as I lightly feel for damage, everything seems intact. Pulling up his shirt, I see more bruising. Maybe his injuries aren't from a fight. He might have been struck by an automobile.

"You found him like this?" I ask sharply. Any of the three large men could have inflicted this damage. They could have run him down. Except if they had, they wouldn't bring him to me.

"I swear on my mother's life." I notice there's no blood, bruising, or cuts on his hands to indicate he's been in a fight. "He was on the side of the road like that. We found him and figured if we took him to the preacher?—"

"We didn't do it." The bigger man insisted. "We didn't do nothing."

"I'll need your names in case the sheriff asks."

Should I notify the sheriff? Without a phone, that means having someone track him down.

"No need to be nosy." The silent one finally speaks. His big-knuckled hands seemed fine as well. "We don't need no trouble."

The hat crusher lowers his gaze. "We're with the carnival. Folks don't take kindly to carnies anyway. If they think we did this?—"

The low-voiced man gets between me and his friends. "We don't care who he is, and we don't care where he come from. We didn't want to leave a man to die on the road. Call the sheriff on us if you gotta."

I look into his coal-dark eyes and see myself reflected there in more ways than one.

I whisper, "No."

I hold my hand out to shake, the man presses a silver dollar into my palm, and they walk away. I stare at it, stupefied. It's a fortune for a man like this. For anyone in this bleak damn landscape. A family could eat for a week on a dollar.

"Wait—" I chase after them. They're getting into their truck already. "Are you sure?"

"It's not blood money or nothing. We won't be coming back around." The man at the wheel jerks a nod in the direction of my new patient. "Take care of him."

Shame washes over me as the truck roars away.

I hurry back to my patient. He winces when I run hands over his ribs, but as far as I can tell, nothing is broken. There's no sign of internal bleeding. I need to undress him to clean him up. I start with his loafers, which are well-made. He's wearing no socks, which is odd, but perhaps he had to leave somewhere quickly and didn't bother with them. Guessing from his looks—or what I imagine he'd look like without all the blood and swelling—he was unsuccessful in his escape from an angry husband.

His trousers are strange. They fit him like a bullfighter's. If he had a dime in his pocket, I'd be able to read the date. A fine cotton shirt with an attached collar and French cuffs that are rolled to his elbows complete the picture.

Dear lord, his shorts are unique. They're made of jersey fabric, skimpy as a whore's panties, and tighter than an unripe banana peel. He's not even wearing an undershirt. The effect is beautiful and brutal. Like Leyendecker's Arrow Shirt Man, only brought into the modern custom of shirts with collars attached.

Did he fall off a train from New York to Hollywood? He could be a movie star or a big-city gigolo. Whoever he is, he's bending the rules of fashion. Is it just to see how far he can go before they break? I'm curious. This is all very strange.

I get water and a cloth to clean the blood from his face and arms. As I do this, my past intrudes on the present and I'm forced to live in both at once. They called the condition soldier's heart during the civil war. They named it shell shock in my time. No matter how we try to address it, those of us who suffer from it live with our memories and our dead, because though we're alive, we are never alone. We walk with the ghosts of war.

When he wakes, I see my patient has hazel eyes—not brown and not green. People with little imagination consider hazel eyes inferior to blue, but they miss the subtlety of the creator's art. Hazel is not merely another shade of brown. It's a sunset over the woods in fall. A fawn, darting out of a thicket. It's all the subtle colors that poets and artists miss while they rhapsodize over icy gray lakes, clear blue skies, and the lush green of Irish pastures. The only man I ever loved had a ring around his pupils the color of expensive bourbon. Some alchemy of nature blended that amber shade into sage toward the edges of his irises.

I lost him, not to the war, but to the influenza that followed. Christ, could this dark night of ghosts and pain get any worse?

"I'm a physician," I tell my patient. "You're safe, I promise."

This man's eyes flutter closed again. I can't tell if he hears me. There's nothing to do but give him fluids, wipe him down with cooling cloths, and wait for his mind to clear. He mutters nonsense words, turns his head sharply, and twitches in sleep. He doesn't wake again.

I watch over him all night. Exhaustion and the painful past sit with me.

I'm not superstitious, but it seems like this could be a good omen. If in this dying land I'm able to help one man, it will bring good luck. It will be a sign that maybe, finally, things are looking up.

I could use a win.