If only human beings were so cooperative.
Oscar was waiting for her by the gate, nearly bouncing in his eagerness. He handed her up into the driver’s seat and plopped down beside her, jostling the carriage with his weight. Johanna urged Daisy into her fastest pace.
The man was still lying where she’d left him, but his condition was considerably worse. Instead of resting quietly, his lean body was shaking with unmistakable tremors. He’d flung her mantle off into the grass.
Delirium tremens. She had no doubt of it now. He could become very dangerous if he began to hallucinate again. She was profoundly grateful for Oscar’s dependable strength.
“This man is very sick,” she told him. “We have to take him to the Haven to get well.”
Oscar wrinkled his nose. “He stinks!”
“Yes. We’ll have to clean him up later.” She knelt beside the stranger and took his pulse again. It was racing. He might come out of unconsciousness at any time.
Her hand brushed a bulge beneath his coat, and she felt underneath. A heavy leather pouch hung from a strap over his shoulder. She opened the flap at the top. The purse was bursting with coins, both gold and silver, and a tightly rolled wad of bills. A great deal of money indeed, especially for a man who should have been robbed long since.
She closed his coat. “We’ll put him in the back of the buggy,” she said to Oscar. “Can you lift him gently, by the shoulders, while I take his feet?”
Oscar did as he was asked, taking great care to be gentle. The inebriate was heavier than his frame would suggest; there must be solid muscle behind it. Johanna had lifted or restrained her share of male patients in her time; she remembered Papa’s indulgent pride in her sturdiness. “My Valkyrie,” he’d called her.
She ignored the stab of pain at the recollection and helped Oscar maneuver their patient into the back of the buggy, where the rear seat had been removed for the carrying of supplies and patients. This time she’d come prepared. She adjusted blankets beneath and over him, made certain that he was breathing without difficulty, and took the reins again. Oscar twisted in his seat to stare at the man.
“Who is he?” he asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll find out when he wakes up.” If he lived. Many patients didn’t survive the delirium. But with a flash of the intuition she’d learned not to dismiss, she guessed that he wasn’t one to lie down and die easily.
Remember… he’s just another patient in need of medical attention—and a drunkard at that. They hadn’t accepted inebriates at the old asylum in Pennsylvania. Could the treatment she and her father had developed be used to illuminate the causes of a drunkard’s need for alcohol?
She shook her head. Papa had been the one for wild flights of theoretical fancy and unorthodox schemes. Her business now was to keep this man alive.
Careful to avoid the worst ruts in the path, Johanna guided Daisy at a walk back to the house. Most of the Haven’s residents were watching for her return, alerted by Oscar’s earlier warning.
Irene leaned on the porch railing, patting at her dyed red hair with a beringed hand and posing to display herself to what she considered her best advantage. God knew what she’d think when she saw the new patient.
May, the Haven’s youngest at fourteen, hovered at the edge of the porch, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. The former reverend, Lewis Andersen, stood like a rigid sentinel, his face set in its worn lines of disapproval and misery. Harper, of course, wasn’t there. It took far more than this to awaken him from his inner world.
She and Oscar eased the man from the buggy and carried him to the porch. Lewis stared at the stranger’s face and backed away as if he’d seen the devil himself.
“Stinking of damnation,” he muttered. His gloved hands sketched out the meaningless, repetitive patterns he adopted when he was upset.
Irene gave a high-pitched giggle and angled for a better view. May peered at the newcomer and took a step closer, as if she felt real interest in him. Then, just as abruptly, she skittered out of sight around the corner of the house.