JoAnn Wendt by Beyond the Dawn

while Obadiah Collins fought for his life did not surprise her. Each family had its share of misery, and in the past weeks she herself had helped sew many an infant or small child into a pillowcase before the stricken parents consigned the small bundle to the dark cruel sea. And the latest outbreak was raging now—dysentery.
    Obadiah lay burning with fever. Tossing and heaving about the bunk in his delirium, the big man kept casting off the cool wet cloths Mab placed on his brow and chest.
    “Mother, be we halfway?” he demanded, not waiting for an answer but raving on, repeating the question over and over.
    In the flickering light, Flavia met Mab’s terror-filled but determined eyes. Flavia and Mab had made a pact. Obadiah was not to know the halfway point had been passed two days before.
    Mab took a deep breath of the foul sickly air.
    “Course we ain’t halfway, y’big dummox! Now bey’ silent and git well, hear?”
    Mab’s roughness was sham. Flavia knew Mab was straining to behave normally so as not to raise Obadiah’s anxiety. For a few minutes it worked. The big man’s hands ceased their delirious fidgeting. His breathing seemed to ease. But Flavia was alarmed. With such fever, he should be oozing sweat. Obadiah, however, lay hot and dry as a desert baked in noon sun. Each breath he drew was echoed by a watery whistle-like sound from his lungs.
    To hide her mounting fear, Flavia plunged into helping Mab.
    “Mother?”
    Obadiah knocked away the cup Flavia was holding to his parched lips. He reared up, searching for Mab’s face and not finding it, although his wife hovered only inches above his head.
    “Mother? Be we halfway?” Mab choked off a cry. Shaking, she jammed the knuckles of her fist into her mouth and bit them until they bled.
    Flavia struggled with the man, urging him to lie down. He seemed unaware of her. Blindly, Obadiah continued to seek his wife.
    “Y’been a good wife, Mother. I’ll not have y’ saddled w’ servin’ my indenture. If I’m to go, I’ll go now—before—before—” Burning with fever, he lost his train of thought. He sank back on the hot pillow. “Before—before—the spring violets does poke up theys bonny heads b’hind the barn—”
    Mab was weeping openly now. Great huge tears rolled down her thin cheeks, carving clean channels in the permanent grime of her face. She swiped at the tears, then grabbed her husband’s hand. She flashed a fierce look at Flavia.
    “You be talkin’ pig shit, Obadiah Collins! Now you git well or y’ll git the back o’ my tongue, the likes you never heard afore, nor want to!”
    At her familiar scolding, a fleeting half-smile played over the big man’s face. He seemed to drift into peaceful sleep. But only seconds later, he resumed his restless tossing.
    “Be we halfway?” he demanded, and then, “Mother, read t’ me!”
    Mab shivered violently. With visible effort, she pulled herself together.
    “Y’know I can’t read, y’ big stupid ox.” Her voice softened. “Jane be here. Jane, she kin read good.” She nodded at Flavia, and Flavia drew Obadiah’s Bible from beneath his pillow where he always kept it. She knelt beside the bunk, close to the big man’s head. The dim light of the captain’s begrudged “sick” lantern flickered upon his flushed skin.
    Softly she whispered, “Obadiah? What will you have me read?”
    For a long time he made no answer. Then, just as Mab and Flavia nodded to each other, acknowledging his sleep, Obadiah’s mouth twitched.
    “Isaiah,” he whispered weakly, “the twenty-fifth chapter.”
    Flavia thumbed through the worn Bible, seeking her place. She began to read, softly and without haste. As she read, the big man’s breathing grew more and more labored. When the ominous wheeze began to accompany each whistling breath, Mab seized her husband’s hand and thrust it to her heart, holding it there as though to will him the strength of her own sound young body.
    Flavia choked. She