Mammoth (Dawn of Mammals Book 5) Page 18

Claire said, “I was plenty aware of it when I stole from that shed.” To Hannah, she said, “It was unlocked. We explored residential neighborhoods. Dixie found the clothes drying on a line, and we found the one unlocked shed where we got this other stuff. Then a dog barked, and we left.”

  “We ran. I wouldn’t mind getting a sweater next time,” Ted said.

  “Probably better if you let the women do the stealing,” Hannah said. “They’d suspect us less, and they would probably punish us less if they caught us and we gave it back and cried a little.”

  Claire nodded and then said, “I can’t believe I’m thinking like this.”

  “I know, but it’s temporary,” Hannah said. “We just want to survive, right?”

  Rex said, “Are you leaving for the hospital now that they’re back?”

  “It’s late, so tomorrow morning.” She explained to the others that she’d promised Bob that she’d visit.

  “How will you get there?”

  “Walk to town like you did and then hitchhike, I suppose.”

  “Hitchhiking is supposed to be dangerous,” Nari said.

  Hannah smiled at her. “I doubt there’s a 20th century animal I couldn’t take down, human animals included.”

  “Right,” Nari said. “Though you also can’t exactly travel with a spear.”

  “I’ll take the new knife, if you guys don’t object,” she said, bending down and picking it up. She marveled at the concept of a handle, a technology they’d not been able to replicate on their own. Nice.

  They had a lot to talk about before supper, which included a loaf of smashed bread Claire had kept aside for those who had stayed behind. Mammoth sandwiches were marginally better than plain mammoth.

  “Could use some mustard,” Ted said. “I wouldn’t mind taking a few bottles of mustard and ketchup with us.”

  In the morning, Hannah left at dawn. Ted and Laina walked partway with her. They turned aside to hunt. Everybody was ready for something other than mammoth meat. “Don’t worry if it’s a couple weeks before I’m back,” Hannah said. “It depends on how Bob is and if I can get a ride easily or not.”

  The day was relatively warm, and Hannah was glad of it when she arrived at town. At first, the place overwhelmed her. Old-time cars—new or old, she couldn’t tell the difference—and a few horses and wagons still shared the street. A milk wagon passed her, with a dappled horse pulling a white wagon. She watched as the driver emerged, opened his truck, and pulled out glass bottles of milk. He jogged up a driveway and put the new milk in a silver-colored box, and then he came back carrying empty bottles in a rack.

  Hannah had the weird sensation that she was watching the opening to some historical movie. But she wasn’t, because she could smell the horse when she drew close, and she heard the strange honk of a car horn, and the voices of people greeting each other in the distance. Also, everybody she saw looked normal, not Hollywood gorgeous, and no one had blindingly white teeth. One guy who was yawning had only a few teeth, period. So not a movie with actors. Reality.

  She found an alleyway and darted into that, both to get a break from the noise and people, and to spy from a safe place. It was behind a row of shops, and in a break between two of them, she saw the diner across the street. She might take a moment to dumpster-dive herself over there before she hit the road. She found an open rear door and peeked in. It led to a staircase up, maybe an apartment over a store. There was a second door down to a basement, and she pulled it open, curious. But it wasn’t a basement. Just a closet, empty, dusty, apparently unused. She took off her hide cape, which she suspected was drawing glances from strangers, and tossed it in there. It’d probably still be there when she returned.

  There was a second reason she had done it. A woman in only a blouse, in this cold weather, would engender more sympathy from drivers. She watched the world of 1934 from the alley for several more minutes, until the sounds and sights of the town weren’t so frightening and strange, and then she ran across a break in the morning traffic and slid into the alley behind the diner. There wasn’t anybody back here, so she followed her nose to the place and looked inside the trash cans, round metal ones, behind the back door. Trash must have just been taken away. All there was inside was another newspaper. She pulled it out. It smelled a bit of sour food, but reading it’d give her something to do while she waited for a ride.

  She walked to the end of town, stopping one older gentleman to make sure this was the way to the city where Bob was. “Just keep going on this road, but it’s more than forty miles. Young lady, you aren’t wearing a coat.”

  “It was stolen,” she said. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

  She walked all the way out of town before she began hitchhiking. Twenty minutes later, she was offered a ride by none other than the milkman with the horse. “I’m only going six miles, if that helps you,” he said.

  “Every little bit helps.”

  It took her four rides to get to the city with the hospital. By the time she was half done, a farmer had given her an old flannel shirt to wear. She thanked him several times for his kindness, and again when he let her off, but he waved off her thanks. “Don’t want you catching your death.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Bless you, young lady, you and your father.” She had told him she was trying to get to her dad in the hospital.

  “Thank you for that, too,” she said, and she waved as he drove off.

  Her last ride was her only iffy one. She managed to fend off the guy’s inept advances by talking enthusiastically about fossils, using every complicated term she’d picked up from the work at the park and from M.J. She figured that a smart woman would put him off, and she talked so steadily that he didn’t have a chance to say much, and that got her safely to the city.

  She had a strange thought. If he attacked her, she had the knife. She’d kill him and take his car. And then she’d have transportation of her own. That she didn’t feel much guilt at this thought brought into sharp relief how uncivilized she had become. The willingness to steal had only been the half of it. It would take a while to see a human attacking her as any more deserving of respect or life than an entelodont attacking her. That attitude was one she had better work on changing if she wanted to fit in here.

  If the town had overwhelmed her, the city made her want to hide behind a bush. So much noise! Had she ever lived this way? She had to laugh at herself, for the city wasn’t even that big. Forty thousand people, according to a sign on the road. And there wasn’t a building over four stories within sight. But after so long in the wilderness, she thought it a cacophonous, confusing, terrible place.

  “I’ll adjust,” she muttered. A woman passing by glanced at her, took in her flannel shirt and dirt-stained pants, and her expression grew sour. Hannah reminded herself to go to the river tonight and wash her pants—just as soon as she could steal other pants or a blanket to wear while they dried.

  A hospital might be a convenient place to steal a blanket. She asked the next fellow she saw where it was. He gave her directions that involved references she couldn’t understand, like “Where Ace Miller used to have his place,” which helped her not at all. But she had grasped the general direction by the time he was done and walked until she found someone else to ask. By the time kids were hitting the streets, let free of school, she had found the hospital. She hoped it was still visiting hours.

  The place wasn’t what she thought of as a modern hospital. For one thing, there were no security guards. The front room was hushed, not noisy with a lot of intercoms and electronic stuff. It was probably more healing this way, come to think of it, than the sterile white busy places she knew from her old life. She asked a lady at a desk about Bob O’Brien and explained that she was his daughter. The lady hardly had to glance at a hand-printed list and told her it was 213D. “I was wondering if anyone would come see him.”

  Chapter 23

  “I was miles away,” Hannah said, realizing the woman wanted some sort of exp
lanation, “and I had a responsibility to his students. Trust me when I say that I’ve been really worried about Dad this whole time. Where is the elevator?”

  “The stairs are over there. Second floor,” she said.

  Hannah trotted up the stairwell and emerged into a hallway. She looked in the first door and saw it was not a private room but a big ward with a dozen beds. Two doors later, she saw 213 and entered. Another ward, with half the beds full. She realized “D” must mean the bed, and in a moment, she was at Bob’s side. His eyes were closed.

  “Bob,” she whispered. A nurse walked by, frowning at her. “Dad, I’m here,” she said, more loudly. “It’s your Hannah.”

  The nurse passed by just as Bob’s eyes flickered open. “Hannah,” he said. “Where did you get that awful flannel shirt?”

  “Wait until you see the blouse,” she said, opening the shirt and showing him what Dixie had stolen for her.

  “Flowers. Doesn’t seem much like you.”

  “Seemed better not to wear a hide tunic into town. Bad enough I’m wearing pants that haven’t been washed in a month.”

  “Where did you get the clothes?”

  “The flannel shirt was a gift from a nice farmer. I hitchhiked to get here and he was one of my rides. Sorry it took me so long.”

  “Be careful hitching,” he said, and then he immediately looked rueful. “Silly thing to say. Tell me, how is everyone?”

  She told him everyone was fine, that they’d checked out the nearby town, and that they were comfortable and safe back at the camp. “But the important thing is, how are you? What do the doctors say?”

  He glanced around first to make sure they were alone. “They don’t have the diagnostic tools they will. They have me on some pills. I suggested aspirin too but they looked at me like I was crazy.”

  “If the pills they’re giving you aren’t blood thinners, I can smuggle you in some aspirin.”

  “They aren’t very forthcoming about what the pills are—or about anything. I hadn’t realized how irksome doctors and nurses of this time were. It’s like it’s all a big secret from the patient. Maybe they’ll tell you what they won’t tell me.”

  “What’s your doctor’s name?”

  “Mackie or something. McKay?” He put a finger up as he remembered something else. “And they give me oxygen three times a day. Forgot about that.”

  “Can’t hurt you,” she said. “Are they trying to push you out? What about money?”

  “They seem to trust me on the money, my being a professor at a decent state college in Iowa and all,” he said.

  “Picked one out of thin air, did you?”

  “Pretty much. They say twenty-one days’ minimum stay, and that’s only if my family is able to drive me home. They want me in bed at home for six months after that.”

  “Absent real treatment, it might not be a bad idea.”

  “I sure do sleep a lot.”

  “Good. Rest up.”

  “You know what date it is? I do now,” he said.

  “Yeah, I have a newspaper here from yesterday.” She pulled the folded-up paper from the back of her pants. “Here.”

  The nurse came back through the ward, checking on patients. Hannah and Bob fell silent. When the nurse came to the bed, she snatched up the newspaper. “None of this,” she said.

  “Why?” said Hannah. “I’m sorry, let me introduce myself. I’m Professor O’Brien’s daughter, Hannah.” She nearly offered her hand but figured women might not be shaking hands with each other in 1934. It was like being in a foreign country, with rules she didn’t know. She didn’t want to mark herself as a weirdo by breaking them.

  “No bad news for our patients,” the nurse said, giving the newspaper a little shake. “It’s not good for a heart patient.”

  “Oh, I see. Can I have the paper back and read him the good news?”

  “Is there ever any?”

  “A little. I promise to not tell him about bad news. Sports should be okay, right? The social column?”

  The nurse looked doubtful. “If you promise.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” Hannah said, hoping that was something people said now. She was glad she’d spent six months watching her language for the teenagers. If she f-bombed anywhere today, anyone in listening range would likely faint from the shock.

  The nurse returned the paper to Hannah. “All right,” she said, shooting Bob a stern look.

  Hannah said, “When can I see the doctor? Mackie, is it?”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No, I wanted to ask him about Dad,” Hannah said. “Mom is gone, so I’m the woman of the house. It’ll be me taking care of him later. So I have questions, naturally.”

  “He’ll do rounds in about two hours,” the nurse said, pulling out a small watch on a chain. “He might have a minute after that.”

  Hannah stayed with Bob, talking, keeping vague about many details so no one overheard them and moved them both to the psych ward, if there was such a thing these days. She read most of the paper to him, even the bad bits, which were mostly economic. One article was about the big new song hit, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Mussolini was posturing over something or other, a harbinger of the war on the way. There was an article about King George, and they tried to work out who that was, the stuttering guy or someone else with the same name that came before him.

  “Too bad we both stink at world history,” Bob said.

  “Except for your imaginary expertise in pioneer days.”

  “Not so imaginary now. Not the skills part, at least.”

  “And the war coming up. I know a bit about that.”

  The doctor finally came through the ward and listened to Bob’s chest. He nodded politely at Hannah. She asked him about having five minutes of his time when his rounds were over. He looked at his watch and said, “Possibly.”

  When he left, a different nurse came by and hooked Bob up to oxygen. Hannah excused herself and walked around the hospital. As she saw carts and cabinets and closets, she realized that this was a good place to burgle. She could put together an excellent first aid kit to take back to the others. When she stuck her head in a closet and saw shelves of linens, she realized she could take a sheet for bandage material and the blanket she’d already thought of for herself for the night. She’d be sleeping out without the benefit of hides, so she’d need it. There was a rear staircase, and she might be able to sneak down that with an armful of stuff. Just a blanket or two tonight. After that, she might be able to pilfer a few things for the first aid kit every day and not be caught. If they didn’t take careful inventory, it wouldn’t even be missed.

  By being persistent, she finally did get her five minutes with the doctor. She quickly got the sense he was irritated at her not being more deferential, and she tried to adapt. Perhaps faking being a woman of this era was going to be harder than she anticipated. Or maybe it was a doctor thing, expecting a more worshipful attitude. She worked at adopting one and did finally get him to cough up the sort of drug he was using on Bob. It was a mild barbiturate, in a dose so small it worked as a tranquilizer. She’d be able to sneak Bob some aspirin too, with no chance of the two interacting badly.

  With enforced bed rest, and the oxygen, and perhaps even the tranquilizer helping, Bob might heal. She wouldn’t approach him with the idea of staying here in this time right now, but she would in a week or two. If he wanted to join her, she’d be glad for the company. If not, she’d understand. He wanted to be with his family.

  She left only when the evening nurse booted her out. There was an orderly in the hallway, so Hannah slipped into another ward and waited there, peeking out until the hallway was clear. Then she snatched a blanket from the linen closet and ran down the rear stairs. The stairs led into a bare hallway on the bottom floor that held the smell of food coming up from a lower level, making her hunger flare. With the blanket in hand, she didn’t want to risk stealing any food here today, but next time she would see if there was an
y way to steal a tray of food for herself.

  She exited the hospital’s back door and chose a random direction to walk. She was looking for a diner to dumpster-dive. When she turned a corner and saw a large stone church, she had a better idea. She read the sign in front. It was a Catholic church. She wasn’t Catholic, but she hoped it wouldn’t matter. The door was open and she tiptoed into the vestibule, lit dimly. She saw a sign for the ladies’ room and went in to wash up and drink her fill of water. It was the first toilet she’d used in half a year. The waste of the water flushing away when she yanked on a chain was as shocking as it was familiar. She folded her newly pilfered blanket and crammed it into the drawer of a small table holding a wood-framed mirror. She finger-combed her hair. Looking slightly more presentable, she went looking for a priest.

  She found one, young and handsome in a sort of 1930s way, and she dredged up what little ability she had at charming men and told her invented story.

  “So you need a place to sleep.”

  “Until my dad gets better. I’m more than willing to work in exchange for food and board, but I also want to spend as much time with him as I can, so I can’t promise regular daytime hours. Early morning or evenings, I’ll do whatever work is asked of me.”

  “I tell you what,” he said. “I’ll let you stay here tonight in the office, on a sofa. And if you come back tomorrow about this time, I’ll see what I’ve found for you.”

  “Bless you,” she said, which seemed the right thing to say. It was a kindness he had no obligation to show her, a stranger. She honestly hoped such men were blessed, rewarded somehow for their charity.

  “Looks like you could use a change of clothes too. I’ll try and find something from our donations right now for you.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “You look done in. Why don’t you rest, and I’ll be back with you soon.” He led her into his office and settled her on the sofa she was to use as a bed.

  When he was gone, she breathed a sigh of relief. It felt so strange to be lying and begging and stealing, but she couldn’t see any other way through the situation she found herself in. If it was summer, she’d be able to sleep in an alley or park, but she needed to stay warm. She certainly wasn’t going to be able to build herself an igloo in the middle of town.