Chapter 57
“The farm is east. We’ve been walking west since we left,” Sophie said.
Rachel stared at her. East meant nothing for a moment.
She tried to picture the Keller farm, with the porch, barn, pasture, and tree line, but the image wouldn’t connect to a direction.
Then the truth reached her through the fever.
She didn’t know which way was east. Sophie saw the confusion on her face.
Fear tightened the girl’s mouth and widened her eyes.
It wasn’t her usual guarded caution. Rachel recognized something raw in it.
“Just rest. I’ll figure it out,” Sophie said.
Morning brought a short reprieve. Rachel woke from broken sleep and found water within reach.
Most of their supplies were gone from the classroom floor.
Sophie had hidden the food somewhere Rachel couldn’t see from the blanket.
The revolver remained untouched in Rachel’s pack, exactly where she had stored it.
That told her that Sophie understood the danger better than Rachel had realized.
Sophie stood in the doorway with her hood up and her hands empty.
She watched Rachel for a long moment, then turned without speaking and left through the front entrance.
Rachel heard the door close. After that, only the rain remained, along with the distant groan of the hand pump whenever the wind shifted.
Rachel drifted in and out. Time slipped away from her and seemed to move somewhere beyond the classroom.
She thought about Hannah and Caleb. She tried to picture Walter’s face, but it shifted into Thomas Keller’s, then the railroad supervisor’s, then nothing at all.
The door opened. Rachel couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but Sophie waited just inside the door, with wet hair stuck to her cheeks.
An older woman stood behind her with a fireplace poker in one hand. She studied Rachel from the threshold.
“This is her,” Sophie said.
The woman stepped into the classroom. She was in her sixties, with gray-streaked hair pulled into a loose bun and work-worn hands wrapped around the poker. Her gaze moved from Rachel to the exposed wound beneath her lifted shirt, then back to Sophie.
“Describe it again,” the woman said.
“It’s red, swollen, and hot. There’s a split where it reopened. The bandage had yellow fluid on it. She’s been shaking and sweating since yesterday,” Sophie said.
“I was a nurse. Show me,” she said.
Carol Avery gave her name before she kneeled beside Rachel. Her hands were cool and dry against Rachel’s forehead, then her wrist, then the swollen skin around the wound. Fever dulled each touch until the examination felt distant and unreal.
“Your temperature’s high. Probably a hundred and three, maybe higher. Your pulse is fast and weak. The wound’s infected, and it’s spreading into the surrounding tissue. Those red lines mean the infection is moving through your lymph system,” Carol said.
Rachel heard the words without fully taking them in.
Infection. Spreading. The clinical language belonged to a world where hospitals still worked, and antibiotics waited on pharmacy shelves.
That world was gone. She tried to focus on Carol’s face, but the edges blurred until gray hair, careful eyes, and classroom shadows ran together.
“I have antibiotics. Sealed bottles from the medical office in town. I helped hand out what we could during the first week and kept a few for my household. We’ve got elderly people and children, and things happen,” Carol said.
“How many?” Sophie asked.
“Enough for one full course. Maybe two if I stretch them. They’re not replaceable. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, and winter hasn’t started yet.”
“What do you want for them?”
Carol went quiet. Rachel felt the pause even through the fever. It was the silence of a woman deciding how much need she could afford to answer when her own people were running short.
“I don’t bargain with children,” Carol said.
“I’m not asking you to bargain. I’m asking what you need,” Sophie said.
Rachel’s awareness slipped, then caught again. The classroom tilted and steadied. Water poured into a cup. Sophie helped Rachel drink, and the cool iron taste spread across her tongue before she sank back against the blanket.
“Water purification. Tablets, filters, anything that makes bad water safe. Rain gear that keeps water out. Preserved food. Protein if you have it. The people in my house are running out of choices faster than I want to admit,” Carol said.
Rachel would’ve refused if she’d been strong enough to.
She knew it as clearly as she knew her own name.
The purification tablets couldn’t be replaced.
Winter was coming, and clean water would get harder to find.
The rain poncho was one of two. Their food would last days, not weeks.
Giving any of it away meant accepting risks she had spent weeks trying to avoid.
Sophie opened the packs. Zippers rasped, waterproof bags rustled, and supplies landed on the floor one by one.
Rachel tried to protest, but her throat only gave a weak sound.
“Most of the tablets. One poncho. Half the beans, the preserves, and two potatoes. It’s not protein, but it’s food,” Sophie said.
“That’s more than I expected,” Carol said.
“It’s what we have. She needs the medicine more than we need dry feet or another day of food.”
Rachel couldn’t see the trade, but she heard it. Carol gave instructions about dosage, timing, and taking the pills with food if Rachel could keep any down. Her voice had the clear rhythm of a nurse who’d explained medicine many times before.
“There aren’t any guarantees. The infection may have gone too deep for oral antibiotics to reach it well.
She may get worse before she gets better.
The fever could spike, and delirium is likely.
If the red lines keep spreading or she starts having trouble breathing, the antibiotics won’t be enough,” Carol said.
“I understand,” Sophie said.
“I’ll check on her when I can. It’s not safe to move her like this, and my household can’t take another person. Not with what we’re already managing.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank yourself for paying what it cost,” Carol said.