Chapter 4
The shipment was finally ready.
Ethan held a copper bar out for inspection. From his tests, he knew it was the purest they had managed to create so far. He was quite proud of the work he and his men had done, especially considering that now Darren was down with the flu as well.
“You did it!” Andrew said, slapping his shoulder happily.
He didn’t look well. His eyes were red-rimmed and had a strange glossy sheen to them. His face was pale, and Ethan got the feeling that his friend and boss was only upright because his will wouldn’t allow him to fall.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked, putting a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. “I think you might need to take it easy.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Andrew insisted. “I’m just a little tired. You know, from all the … Oh no! What is he doing here?”
Ethan turned to see who had upset Andrew, but really, it was no surprise. He knew the figure making its way across the yard all too well. “Mr. Rossi,” he said with no enthusiasm. “Wasn’t he supposed to have left in December already?”
“I thought so,” Andrew said. “It seems that until his mother-in-law goes, he’s planning to stay.”
Tacking a false smile on his face, Andrew turned to Mr. Rossi as he reached them. Ethan did the same.
“Ah, I see that the shipment is finally ready,” Mr. Rossi said with a grin, which was only visible because he had pulled his scarf down a bit to reveal his face. “I was wondering what the hold-up was.”
Ethan could have slapped the bureaucrat.
He knew full well what the hold-up was. It took men to work in the mines, men to extract the copper from the rock, and men to turn it into bars that could be taken to the market in San Antonio and sold.
Since the flu had afflicted so many, it was a miracle they had managed to complete the shipment at all.
“Illness is always something we have to contend with,” Andrew said, more diplomatically than he usually spoke.
“Yes, I suppose so. Do you think the men can take another letter for me? It must be sent to Mr. Bernini with all urgency,” Mr. Rossi said.
“Yes, of course,” Andrew said.
“Good, good. I will prepare the package, and then your men can take it,” he said.
Andrew nodded without much enthusiasm. “Sounds perfect.”
Mr. Rossi turned and walked away.
When he was out of earshot, Andrew grumbled, “I can’t believe Mac is allowing this.”
“Has he replied to your letters yet?” Ethan asked.
Andrew shook his head. “Nope, but I am eternally hopeful that he will.”
With that, he too walked away.
It was a mystery to Ethan why Mac, their benefactor back in New York, would allow someone like Mr. Rossi to be poking his nose into their business for so long.
It was supposed to be a two-week inspection back in December, which had been extended indefinitely.
Having Mr. Rossi constantly looking over their shoulders, making notes and sending off secretive reports that no one got to see, was disheartening and distracting at a time when they needed to band together and focus on other things.
His constant presence was a thorn in many people’s sides, but one they couldn’t remove.
“Hi, Ethan,” Ben Dyer said. He was a burly man Robert had hired at the end of the previous year to help protect the shipments. “Pity the weather is so horrible. Still, maybe it’s better to get this lot out before it starts snowing.”
“You think it’ll snow?” Ethan asked.
Ben looked up at the sky. “Yeah, they look like snow clouds to me. Matt says I’m wrong though.” He looked over at his smaller companion.
Matt Davidson shrugged his thinner shoulders. “What do any of us know about the weather anyway?”
Ethan left them to get the shipment loaded onto the cart and on its way. He had other things to deal with. Most urgently, he wanted to go and find Diane and see how her day was going.
Wrapping his scarf around his face and burrowing into his coat, he hurried along the streets to the apothecary store. As he made his way, it began to first drip, then drizzle, making surfaces slick and slippery.
He was relieved when he reached the apothecary and could stand under the porch roof, out of the sleet.
“And I thought we’d seen the last of that,” Hector said, wiping his nose on a handkerchief. He had the glassy-eyed, red-nosed look of someone who was battling the dreaded flu.
Once again, Ethan thanked God that, however uncomfortable and inconvenient the illness was proving for everyone, it wasn’t turning out deadly like some flu epidemics.
Hector had been a low-level bandit in El Aguila’s operation. However, after the Unity folks had rescued all of the captives he’d been charged with looking after, he had come to stay in the town. Now he worked in the bakery with Grace.
“I know. I thought we were in for some spring weather,” Ethan said, nodding. “So, much for that.” He chuckled and peered in through the window. There was a long, long line of folks waiting to see Diane and Julie. “Gosh, that’s a lot of people.”
Hector nodded. “Yes, but what can we do? We need help. This illness is kicking us in the unmentionables. And even my mama’s chicken soup is doing nothing to make it better.” He coughed.
It was a rasping sound in his chest that made Ethan cringe inwardly.
He could handle complex mechanical and chemical issues, but he couldn’t stand mucus, and especially not phlegm.
Hearing it rattle around in Hector’s breathing pipes made Ethan want to grab a hose and pump some water through everything to clear it out.
That would work in his smelter, but probably not in a human body.
“Well, maybe I’ll come by later,” Ethan said. “Take care of yourself, Hector.”
“You too. This thing is catching.”
Heading down to Anita and Kevin’s restaurant, Ethan found the ground becoming treacherously slippery.
All around him, his fellow pedestrians grabbed for poles, posts, and others to help keep them upright in the sloshing, freezing mud.
He caught a young woman who was about to fall and steadied her.
She smiled at him, and he was surprised to realize that he had no idea who she was.
Another unfamiliar face in one day. Well, Unity was certainly growing. That was good.
“There you go,” he said, helping her up the steps to the restaurant.
“Thank you so much, sir,” she said and hurried away.
Ethan smiled and placed a foot on the bottom step.
It creaked, and he went up to the next one.
Perhaps his boot hadn’t quite gripped the slick surface because it slid out from under Ethan.
He was overbalanced, and as his leg went out behind him, he swung even further forward, throwing out his hands to catch himself.
Only the left managed to catch hold of something to stop his fall, the right slipping on the very same step.
It slipped and his chin came down, slamming onto the wooden surface.
His left ankle twisted as his left hand caught the wall, and he collapsed in a crumpled, awkward heap.
“Ethan!” Anita, one of the proprietors, came rushing out to him. “What happened?”
He was stunned, and he could taste blood in his mouth. “I slipped.”
“Yes, the steps are tricky,” Anita said, helping him up. “Come inside and we’ll see what we can do.”
He tried to put pressure on his left foot. It buckled under him, and he went crashing down onto the step on his knee this time. Anita went down too, landing on her rump.
They stared at each other.
“Tell you what,” Ethan said. “Open the door and I’ll crawl in. It seems safest.”
Anita got to her feet and opened the door for him.
Without any dignity at all, Ethan crawled up the steps and into the restaurant.
There were a few patrons inside, but he didn’t care how it looked.
He was finally out of the freezing wind, the sleet, and the slippery mess that was the restaurant’s stairs.
With the help of several others, Anita got Ethan to a chair at a table. His chin was bleeding and his wrist was painful, but the worst of his injuries was definitely the left ankle. It throbbed.
Ethan gritted his teeth and tried not to think about it as Anita hurried off to bring him a coffee. She took it upon herself to bring him a cup of soup on the house too. Then she showed up with an icy cloth that she wrapped around his ankle, and the pain seemed to numb a bit.
“I’m so sorry,” Anita said. “Are you ready for us to take that boot off to see the damage?”
Ethan shook his head. “I think that would be best done at the apothecary. Once it’s off, I doubt it’s going on again.”
Anita nodded. “I’ll get Kyle to get the buckboard. He can take you.”
“Oh, before you do that, could I order some food for Diane and Julie? They’ve got a lot of folks to see to, and I came here to get them lunch.”
Anita smiled. “Of course. I’ll ask Kevin to take it up to them, and while you wait, you can have something too. He’s running around with all these sick people, trying to take soup and bread to everyone.”
“Thanks,” Ethan said, although his appetite had dwindled thanks to the pain. “What do you mean, Kevin’s taking food to people?”
“Oh, it’s come to that now,” Anita said, looking sad. “There are so many who are simply too sick to cook. Kevin and I thought we could at least give them one meal a day.” She shrugged.
“That’s noble,” Ethan said. “If there’s anything I can do to help …”
Anita smiled. “Oh, Ethan, if only there were a way to deliver food to people without having to subject my poor husband to this terrible weather.”
“Yes, that would be good,” Ethan said, his mind instantly beginning to churn over the conundrum.
He ate while he thought but hadn’t found a really practical idea before Kyle arrived to take him to Diane.
Bundled into the buckboard, he and the food were driven up the street in the sleet. It was cold, damp, and horrible, with little visibility. Ethan wondered how the shipment was doing. Would they make it to San Antonio soon? He most certainly hoped so.
When Kyle had helped Ethan to the bench in the apothecary waiting area, Diane came out of the back. She spotted him and, after saying goodbye to her patient, hurried over.
“Ethan, what happened to you?” Diane asked, concern ringing in her voice. “You look like you’ve been in a war.”
“Only with a couple of stairs,” Ethan admitted, finding that he felt quite embarrassed by it. “I slipped.”
“Oh, you poor thing. How bad is it?” Diane asked.
“I’m relatively fine,” Ethan said, looking at the other people waiting to see her. “I can wait.”
He ended up waiting all afternoon. Each time another coughing, spluttering, sneezing person came into the store, he let them go ahead of him, feeling that a swollen ankle was nothing in comparison. It meant that by the time Diane had a moment to see him, his ankle was twice its original size.
“You should have come in when it was your turn,” Diane admonished him. “It wouldn’t be this bad then, I’m sure.”
“They all looked so sick,” Ethan said, seeing the parade of sad, desperate looks in his mind’s eye again.
Diane sighed. “You’re far too kind. Now, let’s get you fixed up.”
She helped him through to the examination room, where Julie was packing things away in boxes and drawers.
“Ethan, I understand we have you to thank for lunch,” Julie said brightly. Her face fell when she saw him hopping into the room, leaning on Diane’s shoulder. “What did you do?”
He explained again and Julie pursed her lips. “We’re going to see a lot more of these kinds of injuries if the weather persists.”
Diane nodded. “Let’s get him fixed up.”
They set to work. His chin needed three stitches. Ethan hadn’t even noticed it bled every time he moved. His wrist was merely tweaked, but the ankle was another story. Diane and Julie said it was badly sprained, and he would have to stay off it as much as he could for a week, maybe even two.
He couldn’t see how he would manage that. Walking was a major part of his work. How would he keep an eye on everything if he couldn’t stride up and down the corridors? And what if there was another problem like the other day when the sluice hadn’t closed?
“You’re our last patient for the day,” Julie said brightly. “Look at that—I’m going home before it’s dark. That hasn’t happened in weeks. Nancy will be glad to escape her babysitting duties early.” She donned her coat and was out the front door in a rush.
Diane and Ethan took longer. Antoinette was waiting to lock up.
“Do you have to ride back to the farm?” Ethan asked her. “We could get you a room somewhere.”
Antoinette smiled. “Thanks, but I’m staying with friends here.” She hurried off.
“Should I walk you to your house?” Diane asked. “I could get you settled and make you some dinner.”
Ethan considered that. “All right, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“I have to make sure you stay off that ankle,” Diane said. “You did a really good job of hurting it. No half-measures with you, are there?”
Ethan shook his head. “No. There are no half-measures at all.” He smiled at her.
Directing her to his house, it was only once they arrived and Diane took it in that Ethan realized that it might soon become their house. He was suddenly worried that she wouldn’t like it. “What do you think?” he asked.
Looking around at the neat kitchen, Diane looked pensive. “Well, that depends on what you have in the pantry.”
“Oh?” Ethan asked.
She went to the pantry door and opened it, peering in. Then she disappeared inside.
Waiting, Ethan began to fidget. What did he have in there? Was there a right way to set out provisions in a pantry? He hadn’t thought much about it when he moved into his house. He’d just been relieved to be out of the darn tent he’d lived in for years.
“There we go,” Diane called. “It seems we’ll be having canned beans and vegetables in a stew. It’s the quickest thing to make in the circumstances.”
As she set about making them dinner, talking as she moved around his kitchen, Ethan didn’t care how the meal turned out. He was simply thrilled to have her in his house, treating it like her own.
“I’m really glad you came here, Diane,” Ethan said.
Turning from the range, she smiled at him. “Me too,” she said.
Ethan felt his heart give a happy little quiver in his chest.