Page 59 of Bitter Heat
“Is he breathing?”
“I don’t know,” Fan said as Dax fell to the ground by the table where Charlie lay motionless, cradling his head in his hands and sobbing. Dr. Crescent continued to work on Charlie, until he yelled, “Janus, pass that babe off. I need your help, lad. We got nothin’ to lose.” He held up a thick tube attached to a machine of some sort with bellows.
Fan released Kerry and darted toward the stable, shedding his hat and gloves along the way. Taking the baby from Janus quickly, he headed back toward Kerry with a clipped step and wide eyes. Janus didn’t look Kerry’s way, joining Dr. Crescent over Charlie’s form and helping to hold his neck back and mouth open, while Dr. Crescent greased the tube.
“Inside,” Fan said, gripping Kerry by the arm. “Let’s take this wee one inside. There’s nothing we can do here. Dax is enough in the way as it is.”
Kerry straggled after Fan, casting worried glances back over his shoulder. Dax sobbed and rocked, and Dr. Crescent fed the tube into Charlie’s throat. Shuddering, Kerry stepped into the cool house and took the baby from Fan when he passed him over.
“Ellis is hungry,” Fan said, nodding to the baby who was whimpering and crying, chewing on his fist. “It seems Charlie’s milk went dry a few days ago.” He shook his head. “Why they didn’t come here when Charlie caught Ellis’s cough, I don’t know. Ashamed they can’t pay, maybe, but Charlie deserved better than this.”
Kerry put his nose to the top of Ellis’s head, breathing in that delicious baby scent, always a distilled, perfect sweetness that faded as the babe grew and developed his own, unique odor. The child inside kicked once, twice, and then grew quiet again. Kerry wondered if his own son would smell this good. He probably would. And how strange would that be? To loathe something that smelled like heaven?
“Now here,” Fan said, shoving a bottle with a fake nipple into his hand, and thrusting Kerry toward a comfortable chair by the fire. “Feed him.”
Fan went to stand by the window, watching what was happening outside for a long moment. “They’re using the bellows to push air into his lungs. Dax is standing up. Oh! Oh, no. Janus is pounding on Charlie’s poor chest.” Fan’s voice caught. “Why is life so hard?”
Kerry said nothing, watching the baby’s fat lips suck greedily at the fake nipple. After a few strong pulls, though, he pulled off and screamed, rubbing his eyes with small fists.
“Sit him up a little,” Fan suggested, coming to Kerry’s side. “He misses his pater’s scent.”
The sentence hung in the air between them, and they met each other’s eyes. Kerry’s lips trembled, and a horrible sinking sensation went through his gut.
“Now, none of that,” Fan said. “This one needs our strength.” He slipped his fingers over the baby’s glossy, straight hair, barely growing in over his baldness. “Eat, Ellis,” he whispered. “Then you can sleep until the worst has passed.”
“What will happen to him?” Kerry asked as Ellis accepted the bottle again, his small weight resting against Kerry’s belly as he ate.
“It depends on what happens out there.”
“They’reÉrosgápe.”
Fan nodded, his face pale and grim. “Just feed the baby. That’s all we can do right now.”
Sitting in the chair next to the one he’d put Kerry in, they were silent for what seemed like ages. The baby fell asleep, and the one in Kerry’s belly seemed to do the same. The room was warm, though the summer day outside was still mountain cool.
Finally, the door burst open and Janus ran in, his hair a mess and his eyes wild. He stopped in shock when he saw Kerry but then went on, rushing to the kitchen area and running water in the sink. “We need fresh water. Fresh…um, cold water, yes.” He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and, ignoring them both, rushed back out with it, yelling, “Bring more!”
Fan leapt up and grabbed a bucket from the corner and poured water into it from the sink. Kerry felt helpless and trapped with the baby asleep on him, but he didn’t want to wake him and add more screaming to the chaos outside because itwaschaos! He could hear it!
Men’s voices raised in shouts, Dr. Crescent’s orders, and the wails of Dax, and then Fan burst back into the room. “He’s breathing! He was dead, but now he’s breathing.”
“What?”
“Janus and Crow worked together and, somehow, they may have saved him.”
The door opened again, and this time Janus, Dr. Crescent, Dax, and three of the patients who had been waiting their turn for the duration of the dramatic revival appeared, carefully carrying little Charlie through the door and into the living room. Dax was still crying and sending up loud prayers to wolf-god.
“Sorry, dumplin’,” Dr. Crescent barked out, leaving the other men to handle Charlie while he went to open the door of Fan’s back room. “But we have to use your room for ’im. He’ll need to stay the night, probably the week.”
“I won’t leave him,” Dax said, muscling his way through.
“Wouldn’t expect you to,” Fan said, helping guide the men into the room, past where Kerry remained trapped in the chair by the sleeping weight of the baby, showing them where to lay Charlie on the bed.
Then the door slammed, leaving the other patients, Janus, and Kerry on the outside of it, and Fan, Dr. Crescent, Dax, and Charlie on the inside. Janus ran a hand in his hair and then turned, his attention going immediately to Kerry, not to the men who’d been waiting for hours for a doctor to see them.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, falling to his knees at Kerry’s feet, his hand coming up to press his palm to Kerry’s forehead. “Are you well? Is it the baby? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” Kerry said, the burning questions he’d had about the letter from Caleb dying in the face of the urgent worry shining from Janus’s eyes. “He’s going to live?”
