“Sorry about that,” Lynn said, after the body hit the ground. “There’s no nice way to get her down in there.”
Lucy shrugged. “’S okay,” she said, but the awkward angle of the body, dead or not, hurt her heart. Lynn’s hand, crusted with dirt, rested on Lucy’s shoulder and she reached up to take it.
As a child Lucy had believed Lynn could protect her from everything, call down the rain, and keep the coyotes at bay. Lynn had done all these things, but her face was grim at the thought of a threat she couldn’t fight with her gun.
“So it was polio?”
“Your grandma thinks so,” Lynn answered. “Seems there’s different types, some worse than others. She wants to talk to us about it, when we’re through here.”
Lucy looked back at the crumpled white bundle. “Right,” she said. “When we’re through here.”
“You gonna be okay with this? It’s different when it’s one of your own.”
“Sounds like maybe it’s something I need to get used to,” Lucy said.
Lynn reached for the gas can at her side, dousing the body from the edge of the pit before tossing the match, her mouth a thin line. “No getting used to it.”
The black pillar of smoke rose behind them as they walked to Vera’s cabin to find Maddy’s mother cringing on a stool in the corner.
“I need to know when she first got sick,” Vera was saying. “Think hard about anything she said to you about feeling poorly.”
Monica had stayed away from Maddy’s bed as she died, unable to handle the sight of her only daughter smothering to death. Now her gaze was stuck to a spot on the floor, as if she might find answers in the pine knots there. When she finally spoke, her wisp of a voice was nearly lost in the creaking of the branches outside. “Sometime yesterday, maybe.”
Maddy and her brother, Carter, made no secret of their mother’s fearfulness. Carter had told Lucy once that even during good times Monica looked for the bad to come, and during the bad she was more likely to hide than face it. Now Monica’s shoulders seemed to slump under the weight of blame.
Lucy approached her friend’s mother cautiously, as if she were a half-wild kitten discovered in the grass. “You don’t have to feel bad about not knowing she was sick. Even if you’d brought her sooner, it wouldn’t have helped.”
“That’s true,” Vera said. “There’s no cure for polio, and this strain moved quickly. That’s why I need to know when things first went wrong. If the incubation period is as fast as I fear, we don’t have much time.”
Behind her, Lucy heard Stebbs mutter to Lynn, “If it’s as fast as Vera thinks it is, time’s already run out.”
Lucy moved closer to Monica, took the woman’s trembling hand. “How bad off was she when you brought her?”
“Pretty bad.” Monica sniffled, and a runner of snot was sucked back into her nostril. “When she came back from swimming with you and Carter, she said she had a headache. But it’s the first real hot times of the spring, and her diving into the cold water, I didn’t think much of it.”
“What was the first indication it was more?” Vera asked.
“She woke up in the night, crying something awful. Carter and me, we came running.” Monica used Lucy’s sleeve to wipe away the fresh tears coursing out of her eyes. “She was having spasms, and she thought it was a charley horse, you know? So she got out of bed to walk it off, and she—she—”
“She what?” Lynn broke in, patience expired.
Stebbs put a hand on Lynn’s shoulder. “She couldn’t walk?” he asked.
“When she tried she just fell over, said her legs weren’t working right. So her brother picked her up and ran her over here.”
“Carter brought her about two or three in the morning,” Vera said. “What time did you go swimming?”
“It was after we planted the seedlings,” Lucy said.
“About two o’clock, by the sun,” Lynn added.
“Twelve hours,” Vera said softly. “Twelve hours to beginning paralysis and twenty-four to death.”
“Is that fast?” Stebbs asked.
“Too fast to do anything about. Whatever source Maddy picked it up from, anybody who came into contact with it is already infected.”
The pale hand holding Lucy’s clenched in fear, and her own heart constricted at the words. “What about Carter?” Monica asked. “What about my son?”
“If he’s not symptomatic by now, he should be okay,” Vera said. “Which means you’re all right too, little one.”
Lucy let out the breath she’d been holding along with the woman next to her and nodded, any worries she had for herself only small drops on the wave of worry that had crashed over her at the thought of Carter being sick.
“You feelin’ all right?” Lynn asked. “No headaches or anything funny with your legs?”