All emergency personnel in the parish were mobilized to deal with the situation. Three hundred people on the neat Clarendon grounds, enhancing the charm of the gardens with uncontrollable diarrhea and intermittent vomiting. Omar would have laughed, except that he was hip-deep in the action along with everyone else, trying to keep the patients hydrated and alive with Dr. Patel’s emergency solution of glucose and salt.
Thirteen people died. Six were elderly, and five were children. The remaining two, healthy adults, were just unlucky.
Miz LaGrande got sick as well. Omar hoped she’d croak, but the old lady hung on. Omar figured she was too worried about her guests stealing the silver to actually die.
Omar wasn’t feeling so good himself. Some days he could barely drag himself out of bed. Sometimes his stomach pained him so much that it felt like a wolf eating his vitals. He tried Alka-Seltzer, Maalox, and aspirin. Nothing seemed to help.
There were certain advantages to the emergency. Omar pulled all his regular deputies into town to deal with the situation. He could only keep a skeleton crew of special deputies at the A.M.E. camp, because everyone else was trying to treat the outbreak of dysentery. It gave him a plausible excuse for not being around the A.M.E. camp, for not knowing officially what was going on there. He put the whole place in the charge of special deputies, all Klan or Crusaders. The only actual Spottswood Parish deputy he placed there was Jedthus, whom he instructed to rely on Micah Knox’s advice.
Jedthus, Omar reckoned, was his most expendable deputy.
The outbreak at Clarendon was traced to the water supply. The Emergency people had sent water purifying equipment, but this had been taken to the municipal water supplies of Shelburne City and Hardee for the use of the taxpayers. Since the city main that led to Clarendon had been wrecked, Mrs. Ashenden had uncovered a pair of old wells on the property in order to keep her refugees in water. But neither she nor anyone else had been careful about keeping the camp’s latrines at a safe distance from the wells, and now they were all paying the penalty.
It was just, Omar thought, like the War Between the States.
TWENTY-NINE
This morning, at about 9 o’clock, a friend of mine, Captain Franklin, Miss Webster, and myself, had just sat down to breakfast, when Captain F. observed, “What’s that? An Earthquake!” at the same instant, we felt as if we were in the cabin of a vessel, during a heavy swell. This sensation continued for one or two minutes, possibly longer. For although I had the presence of mind to take out my watch, I felt too sick to accurately observe its duration. The feeling was by no means tremulous, but a steady vibration. A portrait, about four feet in length, suspended from the ceiling by a hook and staple, and about five eights of an inch from the side wall, vibrated at least from eighteen inches to 2 feet each side, and so very steady, as not to touch the wall. My next neighbour and his daughter felt the same sensation about the same time. The father supposed it was the gout in his head. The daughter got up and walked to a window, supposing the heat of the fire had caused what she considered a faintness. Two others that I have seen mentioned to have felt the same, but none of them had thought of an earthquake. The two last being mechanics, and up late, mentioned that they were much alarmed at about 11 o’clock last night, by a great rumbling, as they thought, in the earth, attended with several flashes of lightning, which so lighted the house, that they could have picked up the smallest pin—one mentioned, that the rumbling and the light was accompanied by a noise like that produced by throwing a hot iron into snow, only very loud and terrific, so much so, that he was fearful to go out to look what it was, for he never once thought of an earthquake. I have thrown together the above particulars, supposing an extract may meet with corroborating accounts, and afford some satisfaction to your readers.
P.S. —The lightning and rumbling noise came from the south—I have just heard of its being felt in several other houses, but not any particulars more than related.
“Heaven-o there, Jason.”
Jason—sitting crosslegged on the ground, resting his muscles after a day of hauling feed sacks, and waiting for the Samaritans to be called for dinner—looked up at the Reverend Frankland. “Uh, hi,” he said.
“I want to talk to you for a minute, boy,” Frankland said.
A shiver of fear ran up Jason’s spine. He wondered if the Reverend had heard about him talking to the gate guards about where the weapons were stored. Or others about how the guards were set, and who set them, and whether they walked regular rounds or just wandered at random.
Maybe he was just going to get chewed out for kissing Arlette. He had got the impression, from what some of the other boys in the Samaritans had said, that they took race pretty seriously here in Arkansas. Maybe as seriously as they took religion.
A smile beamed down from Frankland’s face, its effect marred by the split lip and bruising that Olson had inflicted on him. That and the lack of chin.
“There’s a story, Jason,” Frankland said, “that you brought some kind of nuclear device into the camp.” A nervous laugh broke from Jason’s throat. Looking into Frankland’s searching gaze, he concluded that this was no time to stretch the truth.
“It’s a telescope,” he said. “But if I told the other kids it was a telescope, they’d play with it and break it. So I made up something to keep them away from it.”
Little amused crinkles broke out around Frankland’s eyes. “That’s a good one, son!” he said. One big hand patted Jason on the shoulder.
“Uh, thanks,” Jason said.
“But you shouldn’t tell stories that scare people,” Frankland said. Jason looked up. Tried to make his face vulnerable. “It’s the only thing I have to remember my father by,” he said. “I didn’t want to lose it.”
Sympathy settled into Frankland’s bruised face. He patted Jason on the shoulder again. “If your telescope is valuable, bring it to me when I’m free, and I’ll lock it up for you in the big storeroom. You can get it back any time you like.”
“I’ll do that, sir,” Jason said. “Thank you.”
“And maybe some night you can bring out the scope and give a show for the boys and girls. It’ll be good to keep their minds occupied with so much time on their hands.”
“I don’t know much about the stars yet, ” Jason said. “But I’ll tell them what I know.”
“Great!” Frankland was already rolling away. “Heaven-o, Jason!”
“Uh,” Jason said, “bye.”
Jason thought for a moment. He didn’t want to let his telescope go, but on the other hand it would be interesting to see what was in Frankland’s storerooms, and how it could be got to. And it wasn’t as if he’d been stargazing much, anyway.
Jason told Nick about Frankland’s offer later that evening, after supper, as they were walking by the perimeter fence with Manon and Arlette prior to Garb’s evening service. It was about the only encouraging news Nick heard all day.
He’d spent the previous day sweating and sorting through the rubble at the Bijoux along with the rest of the Thessalonians, and talking to Tex and the other workers when their guide Martin wasn’t listening. All he’d managed to find out was how tight Frankland had Rails Bluff sewn up.
The guns Nick had come with, and all those belonging to the others in the camp who weren’t part of Frankland’s clique, were all in a concrete-walled bunker, with a concrete slab over them. A tripod and tackle were required to lift the slab, so there was no reasonable hope of getting firearms from anywhere in the camp before they made their run for freedom.