Lydia Schoch

Just tuning in? Catch up with parts one, two, three, four,  five,  six,  seven, eight, nine, ten , and eleven of this story.

Daphne heard her left knee click as she gingerly stretched her legs and crawled out of bed. It was even more stiff and painful than usual, but the only strenuous activity she’d indulged in the day before was moving the drying racks from one end of the yard to the other.

She groaned and steadied herself against the wall before continuing on to the kitchen. Every step sent a flicker of pain deep into her joint. The boys would have to help Paige on their own today.

Ephraim and Isaac insisted on setting her up with a pitcher of water and assembling a cold breakfast for her first. They left her sitting in her favourite chair in front of the house with Lemon curled up sleeping beside her.

“How many bodies did you bury with Doc Porter?” Isaac asked once they’d rounded the bend. The last time a serious epidemic had hit Mingus Mountain he’d been too ill to attend the mass funerals and too young to dig graves even if he had been healthy.

“None,” Ephraim said. “There was one guy with a bad leg infection who is probably dead now, but all of the Docs patients were still alive when he sent me home.” Unlike his brother, Ephraim had seen a dead body before it was prepared for the next life once. Old Man Winterson’s nonsensical prophecies had once been the talk of the community. He claimed to speak for the gods, but once Daphne realized that the old man’s message swung from vivid predictions of mass starvation to peaceful descriptions of wolves nuzzling wild hares depending on how recently he’d  found something to eat she told her sons to ignore his ramblings. Isaac listened, Ephraim did not. It was because of his interest in Old Man Winterson’s conflicting messages that Ephraim discovered him curled up beside the courthouse, his favourite place for impromptu sermons, one afternoon while bringing a message to one of the adults inside the building. The old man was caked in dust and sweat, but in death his face has lost its fearful, angry edge. If this was peace Abraham had found it.

Isaac was a little disappointed by his brother’s response. The thought of wrapping up a dead baby and burying it creeped him out a little. Yes, it was sad that he died, but this sort of thing happened to almost every family eventually.

The Davenport’s yard smelled like stale urine and rotting vegetables. Ephraim shouted a customary hello as they approached the front door, but no one answered them. The stench grew stronger when they entered the dark, still house. Now a new scent tickled their noses: stale blood.

No one had banked the fire the night before, and the overflowing ashes were cool to the touch. Once their eyes adjusted to the dim light Isaac noticed a small bundle wrapped in a dirty blanket lying on the kitchen table.

“Hello,” said a small voice. Felix’s greasy curls hung limply over his pale face.

“Hi Felix,” Ephraim said as he slid his knapsack to the floor and kneeled down to greet the boy. “We’re here to help your grandmother with something. Can you tell us where she is?”

“Everybody’s sleeping,” he said with a shrug as he motioned to the bedroom. Ephraim felt a chill shudder down his spine as he exchanged nervous glances with his brother.

“Isaac brought you some lunch. Why don’t you two go out into the yard and eat while I wake them up?”

“Ok,” said Felix. He’d long since finished the last of the bread, and when the fire ran out of fuel he couldn’t figure out an alternative way to crack open the small, hard nuts that were all that remained of the family’s larder.

Ephraim rummaged a small lamp from the kitchen, lit it, and opened the bedroom door. He waited for his eyes to adjust before entering the small, stifling room, but immediately he heard the slow crackle of someone struggling to breathe. Nevaeh’s glassy eyes stared through him as he slowly circled the room.

“We’re here to help,” Ephraim said. She didn’t seem to notice he was there. It wasn’t until he knelt down to tuck a blanket around Lucio  that he noticed the young father’s blue lips and cool skin. He wiped away a dribble of blood on Lucio’s cheek and gently lifted the blanket over his head. Delphine and their three-year-old daughter, Wilma, were emaciated and sleeping so deeply Ephraim had trouble rousing them, but they were breathing much more easily than Nevaeh. Paige woke up startled when she heard Ephraim talking to the living in a low, steady voice. She was momentarily disoriented, but her fever was mild and her breathing steady. It was funny how this fever tended to affect the young and healthy much more severely than other groups.

Ephraim and Isaac had only intended to stay for an hour,but It took all morning to scrub down the kitchen and quickly bury Lucio and little Malachi. After breakfast and a much-needed bath Felix curled up next to his sister. Ephraim knew the sick should be quarantined, but there were no other safe places for the boy to sleep while the adults worked. If he’d survived this long without catching it he probably wouldn’t get sick anyway.

“They’re dangerous ill,” Ephraim quietly confided to his brother as they lugged the final jugs of dirty water to the edge of the yard and tipped them out. “And I don’t want to risk bringing this disease home to mom. I know this fever doesn’t seem to spread like normal diseases, but the gods could change their minds about that at any point.”

“What will we do, then?”

“We could bring the boy home with us temporarily. He’s healthy and strong for his age even if he’s two-souled.”

“And leave the rest to die?” Isaac couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Ephraim was usually the more sensitive twin.

“No, we’d visit them every morning with food and water before we went out to finish the harvesting. No herb can save them, and if we don’t breathe in too much of their poisoned air we probably won’t get sick.”

“I don’t like the sound of this plan. What if coyotes attack or there’s a fire? They’d never be strong enough to get away from it.”

“Well, what do you suggest we do then?”

Photo by Mike.

Just tuning in? Catch up with parts one, two, three, four,  five,  six,  seven, eight, nine, and ten of this story.

“The house is clean,” said the man as he walked out of Daphne’s house. “Their only weapons were a few hunting knives, and we found no evidence of extra people living here.” The woman standing outside the door nodded.

“Call off your dog and we’ll leave,” she said. When Daphne clicked her tongue Lemon looked up expectantly. He still hadn’t figured out where the strange man was hiding his cheese, but he could smell the remnants of it. Isaac wrapped his muscular arms around the dog’s neck and gently tugged him away. The motley crew slowly dribbled away from the house, but as they walked down the dusty path to the main road one of the youngest soldiers turned around to stare at the woman and boys who were watching them leave.

There was something off about this family. If only they’d found some scrap of evidence to warrant further investigation. As they walked away his commanding officer slowed down her pace until he caught up with her.

In a low, quiet voice she gave him his orders for the next few days.

*****

Paige limped up the path to Daphne’s house, her long, white hair slowly wriggling free of its braid. She wore a tunic smeared with a dry, light brown substance Daphne couldn’t quite identify, and she leaned heavily on her walking stick as the younger woman approached her. It was quite unusual for Paige to walk this far at all, much less on her own at the hottest part of the day. Nevaeh normally travelled with her mother on the rare occasions that she needed to walk more than a few miles.

“Would you like some water?” Daphne asked, a little surprised that anyone would come looking for her at her home during harvest time. If not for her tender knee, Daphne would have been digging up the harvest with her sons this afternoon, but there had been so few visitors lately that no one knew it had been bothering her again.

The woman nodded. Daphne ushered her inside for a cup of warm, stale well water. Lemon was  sleeping soundly underneath the kitchen table, but he opened one groggy eye and thumped his tail in recognition of the family’s closest neighbour.

“No one’s sick here,” Paige said with a note of surprise. She’d always held a sneaking suspicion that the gods were just. Surely they would show more mercy to a woman who worshipped them and followed even their most heartbreaking rules than to someone who did not.

“No, we’ve been lucky so far,” Daphne said as she set the cups down. “How are you?”

“We need help,” Paige said. The sickness had struck her household particularly harshly. The baby had slipped away quietly. While his father, older brother, and sister seemed to be on the mend, Paige could not say the same thing for her daughter or granddaughter. She described her long, gruelling days caring for a house full of sick relatives as her grandson-in-law staggered through the harvesting process. Only one other neighbour had been within walking distance for an old woman with a bad hip, and he had been too overwhelmed with his own sick family and overripe harvest to offer any assistance. As much as she privately disliked Daphne, Paige had no choice but to ask for help.

Daphne listened to Paige’s story quietly. Last year she and her sons had finished their harvesting and food preservation with time to spare, but now only two of them were physically able to carry those heavy baskets home. Once her sons came home this afternoon she’d be busy drying and preserving everything as quickly as possible before insects or mould snatched away months of hard work.

“We can’t help with your harvest until ours is finished,” Daphne said. Food shortages were on the way, and if she didn’t look out for her own family they’d starve over the summer. “But we can help you bury the baby.”

“How soon will you be finished?” Paige was in no position to argue.

“A few weeks,” Daphne said. “Although once the harvesting portion is completed I’ll be able to spare one of my boys while the other one helps me preserve the rest of our provisions.”

Would her crops hold? Paige could only hope so. The pitiful amount she’d managed to put away so far wouldn’t keep her family alive for more than a week.

*****

Melvin Watts inched the notebook out of his boot as the old woman walked by and dutifully jotted down a description of her. He was too far away to hear their conversation, of course, but she was the first visitor this house had seen in the past two days. Before he heard her hobbling up the path Melvin had been resting his eyes in the shade of the rocks he had wiggled in between. His dusty uniform and naturally light brown hair blended in well with his surroundings. It wasn’t quite camouflage, but it was difficult to see him if you weren’t expecting to find a tall, thin boy lying down in the dirt.

Melvin’s commanding officer had insisted this family was hiding something, but so far his surveillance had turned up nothing. Privately he doubted the two old women were in cahoots but orders were orders, and it was better to earn a sunburn through boredom than on the battlefield.

Photo by Jim Schoch.

Just tuning in? Catch up with parts one, two, three, four,  five,  six,  seven, eight, and nine of this story.

Daphne’s knee was on fire by the time she arrived at the creek. The long walk to collect water had been shrouded in stony silence. Even Lemon sensed the heavy mood in his pack, and he managed to avoid chasing almost all of the rabbits who bolted across their path.

“What did the snail say when he hitched a ride on the turtle’s back?” Ephraim asked as they lowered their jugs. Daphne and Isaac exchanged puzzled glances but said nothing.

“Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Ephraim said with  a grin.

“Ugh,” Isaac said. “That’s your worst one yet.”

“It’s funny, though!”

“No, it’s dumb. Mom, tell him it’s not funny.”

“What? Snails are hysterical. I even saw your mouth twitch once your pea brain understood the joke.”

“Yes, I was amazed at your stupidity. Mom must have dropped you on your head when you were a baby.”

Daphne sighed and shook her head. “Boys,” she said, “We have five large jugs, and you can see how shallow the stream is this time of year. Stop arguing.”

“I was just trying to lighten the mood,” Ephraim grumbled. Three more people had died of the mysterious disease in the last week. Dozens more were ill, and all community functions had been cancelled while families cared for their own. Nevaeh’s visits had slowed to a trickle once her daughter and newborn grandson grew ill, but on her last visit she’d shared curious stories about soldiers who had shown up at the courthouse just after Daphne left.

They were looking for the man who died in the flash flood earlier in the year, and their leader was disappointed when Lucio showed them where he was buried and the few, waterlogged possessions he left behind. Rumour has it they were going from house to house to see if what Lucio told them was actually true. Daphne wasn’t sure if she should be relieved that the mysterious stranger would be mourned by someone or annoyed that soldiers would soon trample through her house in search of clues that didn’t actually exist.

Daphne grimaced as she lifted the last jug out of Shade Creek. Pain shot through her leg as she attempted to lift it.

“I can’t do it,” she admitted. She knew it was foolhardy to run all the way home last week, but her knee really should have improved by now. Not counting the original injury she’d never been incapacitated more than a few days after pushing herself too far.

“You’re getting old, Mom,” Ephraim said with a wry smile. “Leave it here. I can always come back later to pick it up.”

“I’m not old, I’m tired,” Daphne said.

“Is that why you have so many grey hairs?”

“Ephraim Galen, you know I have a sore leg.” Isaac’s top lip quivered before he turned his head away and pretended to adjust the straps on his jugs.

“I’m joking, I’m joking!”

“You’re not supposed to tease people about these things,” she said as she rubbed her knee and took a slow, hesitant step east. The pain had settled down to a dull roar. She would pay dearly for it tomorrow, but today she just might be able to make it home.

*****

Two people in dusty, brown uniforms were milling outside their house when Daphne and her family arrived at the small house her grandfather had built so many years ago. Lemon barked in glee and ran up to greet them.

“That is one terrible guard dog,” Isaac said quietly. “I thought he was supposed to keep you safe when we’re away?”

“He does,” Daphne said. “He chases all of the mice and rabbits away and licks every visitor to death if they show the slightest interest in petting him.”

“Greetings!” the shorter soldier said with a bright smile. “Your neighbours told us you were out drawing water and should be home soon after dinner. The People’s Republic of Utah has ignored rural concerns for far too long. We’re here to fix that.”

“What does that have to do with you searching my home?” Daphne asked cooly.

“We’re looking for evidence that will lead us to some very dangerous people. I assure you that none of your personal belongings will be harmed in any way,” came her cheerful reply as Lemon finished licking the stranger’s hands and began sniffing the pale, nervous man standing next to her.

“I’m not hiding anyone or anything,” Daphne said as she straightened her spine to take advantage of all of the five feet, two inches of her height. “You don’t have the right to do this.”

“Oh, we’re not illegally searching your property,” the woman said as Lemon’s nose inched between the man’s legs. “The constitution specifically states that any search is warranted if it is carried out as part of a legitimate police investigation. Look, I have the paperwork right here.”

The last few drops of color leeched out of the frightened man’s face as he crushed himself against the wall.

“Call off your hell beast,” he said with a squeak. Ephraim and Isaac sniggered until a sharp look from their mother wiped the smiles from their faces.

“Private Sutter, it’s just a dog,” the woman said as she unfolded a long, dirty sheet of paper.  An idea was forming in Daphne’s mind.

“I have had some training issues with him,” Daphne said. “If he thinks you’re a threat, there’s not much I can do to stop him.” Private Sutter gasped and closed his eyes as the dog began licking the man’s hands.

“Why do you think your soldiers haven’t found any other animals on the property? Even the mice know what he’s capable of,” Isaac said. If nothing else, he had inherited his father’s ability to spin the truth in so many circles it fainted under the pressure of weaving lies and and the truth into one seamless garment.

“It is odd that they don’t own livestock,” said an older man as he walked out of the front door. Two skinny teenagers in uniforms several sizes too large for them quickly followed him. “They’re the only family in the valley that doesn’t have any sheep, chickens, or goats, and I’ve seen what can happen when an uncontrolled dog thinks you’re threatening her family.” Daphne wondered when he would realize Lemon was neither female nor dangerous.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” the woman said. Every other family had read her orders and given in. It was odd that this one put up so much resistance  but she was determined to get to the bottom of it. Maybe they’d finally get somewhere in this investigation?