The Crossing(109)

Sí señor.

Y traiga un vaso de aqua potable.

Yessir.

Él debe tomar agua. Me entiendes?

Yessir.

Y deja abierta la puerta. Necesitamos afire.

Yessir. I will.

He came back carrying the chair upside down over his arm by the rung and he had a clay olla of water in one hand and a cup of wellwater in the other. The doctor had risen and he had donned a white apron and he was holding a towel and a bar of darklooking soap. Bueno, he said. He folded the soap in the towel and stuck it beneath his arm and took the chair from Billy carefully and righted it and set it in the floor and turned it slightly in the place he wished for it to go. He took the olla from Billy and set it on the chair and he bent and sorted through his bag and came up with a bent glass straw and stood it in the cup Billy was holding. He said for him to give his brother the water to drink. He said for him to see that he drank. slowly.

Yessir, Billy said.

Bueno, said the doctor. He took the towel from under his arm and rolled his sleeves up each another turn. He looked down at Billy.

No to preocupes, he said.

Yessir, said Billy. I’ll try.

The doctor nodded and turned and left to go wash his hands. Billy sat on the pallet and leaned forward and held the cup and the straw for Boyd to drink. I can pull these covers up, he said. Are you cold? You aint cold are you?

I aint cold.

Here you go.

Boyd drank.

Dont drink too fast, Billy said. He tilted the cup. You looked like one of these dirtfarmers in that rig.

Boyd drank deeply through the straw and then turned away coughing.

Dont drink so fast.

He lay getting his breath. He drank again. Billy took the cup away and waited and then offered it again. The glass pipe rattled and sucked. He tilted the cup. When Boyd had drunk all the water he lay getting his breath and he looked up at Billy. There’s worse things to look like, he said.

Billy set the cup on the chair. I didnt take much care of you did I? he said.

Boyd didnt answer.

The doctor says you’re goin to be all right.

Boyd lay breathing shallowly, his head back. He stared at the dark vigas of the ceiling overhead.

He says you’re goin to be good as new.

I didnt hear him say it, Boyd said.

When the doctor came back Billy picked up the cup and rose and stood holding it. The doctor was drying his hands. Él tenía sed, verdad?

Yessir, Billy said.

The woman came through the door carrying a pail of steaming water. Billy went to her and took the bucket by the bail and the doctor gestured for him to place it on the hearth. He folded the towel and laid it by his bag and laid the soap on top of it and sat. Bueno, he said. Bueno. He turned to Billy. Ayúdame, he said.

Together they turned Boyd on his side. Boyd gasped and clutched about in the air with one hand. He seized Billy’s shoulder.

Easy pardner, Billy said. I know it hurts.

No you dont, wheezed Boyd.

Está bien, said the doctor. Está bien así.

He gently pulled away the stained and blackened sheeting from Boyd’s chest and lifted it free and handed it up to the woman. He left the black and weedy poultices in place, the one on his chest and the larger one behind his shoulder. He leaned over the boy and pressed the poultices gently each in turn to see if anything should run from beneath them and he tested the air tentatively with his nose for any hint of rot. Bueno, he said. Bueno. He touched gently the area under Boyd’s arm between the poultices where the skin was blue and swollenlooking.

La entrada es en el pecho, no?

Sí, said Billy.

He nodded and took up the towel and soap and dipped the towel in the olla of water and soaped it and set about cleaning Boyd’s back and chest, washing carefully around the poultices and under his arm. He rinsed the towel in the olla and squeezed it out and bent and wiped away the soap. The towel where he turned it was dark with grime. No estás demasiado frío? he said. Estás cómodo? Bueno. Bueno.

When he was done he laid the towel by and set the olla inthe floor and leaned and took from his bag a folded towel which he laid on the chair and opened carefully with just his fingertips. Inside was a second towel cured in the autoclave and done up in a bundle fastened with tape. He gently pried loose and lifted away the tape and holding the edges delicately between thumb and finger he spread the towel open upon the chair seat. Inside were gauze squares and squares of muslin and cottonballs. Small folded towels. Rolls of cloth bandage. He lifted his hands away without touching anything and he took two small enameled pans nested together from his bag and one he laid near the bag and the other he leaned and dipped partly full of hot water from the bucket and then conveyed it carefully in both hands to the chair and set it at the edge of the chair away from the bandages. He selected from their fitted compartments in his case his tools of nickel steel. Sharpnosed scissors and forceps and hemostats some dozen in number. Boyd watched. Billy watched. He dropped the instruments into the pan and he took from the bag a small red bulb syringe and placed that in the pan and he took out a small tin of bismuth and he took out two small sticks of silver nitrate and unwrapped them from out of their foil coverings and laid them on the towel beside the pan. Then he took out a bottle of iodine and loosed the cap and passed the bottle up to the woman and he held his hands over the pan and instructed her to pour the iodine over his hands. She stepped forward and took the cap from the bottle.