Ashfall

“I work with what I have. All those people in the clinic have scurvy—it’s caused by vitamin C deficiency. We’re all going to get it if we can’t find anything to eat other than pork. It simply manifests in children and seniors first.”

“And breakfast cereal has vitamin C?”

“Yep, exactly. We found a whole truckload of it abandoned up on Highway 11. I’d have preferred a truckload of multivitamins, but I’ll take what I can get. Don’t know what we’ll do when we run out, though.”

“How is it that you’ve got pork to eat?” Darla asked.

“Factory hog farms. There were three of them near Warren. Had better than ten thousand head of hogs. Whole town pitched in to butcher them and preserve the meat. Still, most of it would have spoiled if we hadn’t gotten this cold weather so early. Saved our bacon, so to speak.”

Darla groaned. “At least you don’t have to worry about getting enough to eat.”

“You don’t have to worry, either,” Max said. “We’ve only run out of food twice, and that was before you got here and built the corn grinder.”

“Yeah,” Darla said, “But with your dad hurt, we won’t be able to dig up as much corn. And losing that greenhouse—”

“It’ll be okay,” I said. I didn’t want Max to worry about the food situation, although truthfully, I was a bit worried myself.

“Turn here,” Max said, and Dr. McCarthy cranked the wheel over, turning down Canyon Park Road. A few minutes later we stopped in the road in front of the farm’s driveway. We had only shoveled one path in the snow from the house to the road, nowhere near wide enough for the Studebaker. All four of us jogged down the driveway toward the house. Aunt Caroline and Rebecca left the damaged greenhouse and joined us.

Uncle Paul’s skin was gray and sweaty. A

“How’s it look, Jim?” Uncle Paul asked.

“Not bad. Wish I could X-ray the break, but I think it should set fine.”

“Good, good.” Uncle Paul exhaled heavily.

“I’ll get to work, then. Now the good news is that I still have some fiberglass casting tape.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“We’ve been out of painkillers for weeks.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“I need a pail of water.”

“I’ll get it,” A

Dr. McCarthy took a thin stick wrapped in leather from his bag. The leather was dented and scarred with tooth marks. A deep frown creased Uncle Paul’s face, but he reached up and took the stick from the doctor, put it in his mouth, and chomped down.

“Let’s have the adults hold his arms and legs,” Dr. McCarthy said. “The less he moves around, the better.”

I wasn’t sure who he meant at first. Aunt Caroline knelt and took hold of one of her husband’s arms. Dr. McCarthy was looking at me, so I grabbed my uncle’s other arm.

“Who’s the strongest?” Dr. McCarthy asked.

“Alex,” Darla said.

“Darla,” I said.

“Well, one of you should hold his left leg above the break. I need it immobilized while I set the bone.”

“You do it,” I told Darla.

Darla held Uncle Paul’s thigh, and Max grabbed his unbroken leg. Dr. McCarthy gently ran the fingers of his left hand along the break. With his right, he took a firm grip on Uncle Paul’s ankle. A low moan escaped Uncle Paul’s lips around the stick. Rebecca and A

“Everyone ready?”

I nodded.

Dr. McCarthy pulled back on the ankle, straining with the effort. Uncle Paul screamed, a trumpeting sound muffled by the leather-wrapped stick locked in his teeth. All his muscles clenched, and I had to lean forward, using both hands and all my weight to keep his arm forced against the floor. His face turned into a flaming rictus mask of pain. Even over his scream, I could hear the bones grind as Dr. McCarthy straightened his leg.

The scream ended abruptly and Uncle Paul’s arm went slack in my hands. “Check his breathing! Make sure his airway is clear,” Dr. McCarthy ordered.

I bent lower and put my cheek against his mouth. I felt a puff of breath against my skin. “He’s breathing fine.” I put my fingers against his neck. “Pulse feels strong.”

“Okay, good.” Dr. McCarthy had straightened the leg and was wrapping it in a cloth bandage.

Aunt Caroline swayed. I grabbed her upper arm. “You okay?” I asked.

“A little woozy,” she said.

“You should lie down.” I helped her stretch out on the couch.

Dr. McCarthy ripped open a foil packet and removed a bright purple strip of fiberglass tape. He dunked the tape in water and wrapped it around the break, over the cloth bandages. Darla helped, holding Uncle Paul’s leg off the floor to make it easier to wrap. Dr. McCarthy wrapped three more strips of fiberglass tape over the bandages, completely immobilizing the leg and ankle.

“That should do it,” Dr. McCarthy said as he repacked his bag. “If you see any red streaks or if the leg starts to smell bad, come get me again. Aspirin or willow bark tea would help with the swelling, if you can manage it.”

“Thanks for coming,” I said. “How do we pay you?”

“Pay me with whatever you can. I need medical supplies, gas, lamp oil, batteries, flashlights, candles, and the like. Vitamin C tablets are worth more than gold, on account of the scurvy. Food would be welcome also, so long as it’s not pork. Only reason I’ve been able to keep practicing is that folks have been so generous. Some of them even bring supplies when they’re not sick.”

Uncle Paul was still unconscious, and Aunt Caroline’s eyes were closed. “I’ll get some supplies,” I said.

I went to the kitchen and gathered a dozen duck eggs, two small goat cheeses, a bag of cornmeal, and some kale. “This is all we can spare right now,” I said when I returned to the living room. “We’ll bring more stuff later.”

“That’ll be fine.” Dr. McCarthy pulled a purple leaf out of the bag. “Is this kale?”

“Yeah. The greenhouses are too cold to grow anything else.”

“It’s a member of the cabbage family, right?”

“I think so,” Darla said.

“And none of you have scurvy?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Dr. McCarthy reached toward my mouth. “Mind if I look?”

“No, go ahead.”

He peeled back my lower lip and looked at my teeth. Then he repeated the process with my upper lip. “No sign of scurvy at all. I bet that kale is loaded with vitamin C. How much of it do you have?”

“Not enough. That storm last night ripped up one of the greenhouses, and a bunch of it froze. It’s all mushy— really only good for the goats.”

“No, no, no. Mushy or not, it’ll treat scurvy fine.”

“I didn’t feed the goats yet,” Rebecca said. “I’ll go get the buckets of frozen kale.”

“Now look,” Darla said, “we appreciate your help, and we’ll give you all the kale we can spare, but we’ve got to eat, too. We don’t have a lot of extra food—we need most of the kale ourselves.”

“That’s no problem,” Dr. McCarthy said. “We’ve got plenty of pork in town. I’m sure the mayor will agree to give you all the pork you need in return for your kale.”

“We’ll trade,” Darla said, “ten pounds of pork for one pound of kale.”

“Darla,” I whispered. “He said he’d keep us supplied with pork. And we should help out, anyway.”

“What if the greenhouses fail?” she hissed back. “We need to have a supply of stored food in case something goes wrong.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said out loud. “We’ll give you all the kale we can now as payment for your help, and then as we harvest more, we’ll trade it for pork.”

“I’ll have to confirm it with the mayor, but that sounds fine,” Dr. McCarthy said. “Why don’t you ride back to town with me, and I’ll set you up with as much pork as you can carry. Call it a down payment for future kale harvests.”