Only one more day until the release of What Shows the Heart! And to reward myself for waiting almost a week before posting the cover again . . . .
Now on to the excerpt. This one, a nice long excerpt (though I've omitted a bit in the middle) from Chapter 11, concerns what most of us view as either a childhood disease or a disease eliminated by modern vaccination practice. But it was a considerably bigger deal in the 1870s, as there was no vaccine available and more people caught it in adulthood.
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“We come from the same home town. Back then, he wasn’t the kind to live on the road — but back then, he wouldn’t have been able to handle that cowboy. Not even close.”
Clara took that in and then asked, “And you? What kind were you, back then? How did you come to know each other?”
Mamie let out something between a snort and a laugh. It hurt her throat. “Not through my present trade, nor that of my girls. In fact, little as anyone in town would have credited it, I was a virgin. But my mother had a reputation, and I had a body ahead of my years, and plenty of people in town put the two together and decided I must be cut of my mother’s cloth. That gave some of the boys the idea of bragging that they’d been with me, when their pizzles’d probably have shrunk down to straws if they’d got close to a girl’s pussy.”
“And Jake believed you?”
Mamie sighed. “Better than that — he guessed the truth somehow, though I’d given up denying the lies. Once he told me that — and he had a hard time putting tongue to it — I owed it to him to tell him he was right. We’d already ended up friends, somehow, and better friends after that. He was pretty much the only friend I had. He had a brother and they were pretty close, I think, but Ethan and I never really took to each other.”
Clara picked up a river birch leaf, yellow and fallen ahead of schedule, and twiddled it. “And Jake was the settled sort then? And less physically capable?”
Mamie’s arms ached enough that she lay back on the tarp, careless of her bonnet touching the ground. “His pa and grandpa were both ministers. His grandpa’d been to a college for it, away in Bloomington — we lived in Indiana, but a ways further south. They wanted Jake to become a preacher, and he seemed inclined to go along. He sure read the Bible enough — and believed it, for all I could tell, no matter how I teased him about it. Which seemed fitting for a skinny twig of a fellow, who might as well hope for help from Jesus when he couldn’t help himself in case of trouble.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. That hurt too. “But he tried, one time. That is, he didn’t try to help himself. He tried to help me. A few of the boys had caught up with me and surrounded me, calling me — well, you can guess the sort of names they called me — and kind of shoving me from one to the other like it was a fine new game. He came up and hollered at them to quit it, and when they ignored him, he grabbed one of the boys — and not even the smallest one, the damn fool — and tried to tug him away from me.”
Clara was sitting up straighter now. “I assume that didn’t end well.”
“It ended with Jake sprawled on the ground with a split lip, a bloody nose, and a broken wrist. I didn’t know then about the wrist, though. I left town that day.”
She shut her eyes. Clara didn’t say anything for maybe a minute, which left Mamie wondering what Clara was thinking about the way Mamie’d cut and run, without even seeing how heavy a price Jake had paid, let alone thanking him. But what Clara said had nothing to do with Jake or the past. “You don’t look well. How are you feeling?”
Mamie opened her eyes. The sun was on her face, and it hurt her head to look anywhere near it. She rolled her head to one side and said, “Not so good. My head aches, and my throat’s sore, and I have other aches here and there. And chills. I must’ve got some kind of fever, though I don’t know how.”
Silence again, and then, “You lie still. I’m going to touch the sides of your neck. I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
Her touch was gentle enough. It felt more strange than painful, as if Clara’s fingers sank in farther than she’d have expected. She heard a click that might have been Clara’s teeth coming together as her jaw set. Then Clara’s hand made its way under Mamie’s head. “I’m going to help you get up, and we’re heading back to town, slowly. We’ll go by my house, but neither of us will go in. I’ll call to Joshua and tell him what I’m seeing, and find out if his thoughts run the way mine do. But first — do you know if you ever had mumps?”
Once Clara got her sitting up, she started to shake her head and stopped when that hurt too. “Not as I remember. No one around me took much notice when I got sick, and I took as little notice as I could.”
Clara hoisted her to her feet. “Did you have siblings? Did you spend much time around other children?”
She’d spent more time dwelling on the past today than she had in years. Maybe that’s why her head hurt this much. “I had one sister, a lot older. She was married and living away from us by the time I was maybe six years old.” And that one visit to her, two towns away, had been Mamie’s first hint that life could be different. “Shiftless as my folks were, there weren’t many children allowed to get near us. I went to school for a year or so, but I got lice and they stopped me coming after that.”
They were walking now, Clara’s arm supporting her. “You must have done a great deal of study on your own, to speak and write as well as you do now.”
It was swallow another lump or start crying. She swallowed. “Jake taught me some. Enough that I got the taste for it, and kept up on my own when I had the chance. Especially once I decided I was going to make something of myself, not just stay a whore in one dirty hookshop or another.”
Clara replied quietly, “I don’t know how much time you and Jake spent together when he came through town, but it seems highly likely that he was proud, as well as pleased, with what his old friend has accomplished.”
That did it. She couldn’t not cry. At least she had a handkerchief in her pocket. She held it to her face, covering up as much as she could, as they made their way into town.
[. . .]
Mamie slumped down and let the sun warm her, which felt good only as long as the chills lasted and then had her sweating. She waited, not even trying to identify the bird calls, only letting them hold her attention until she heard footsteps leaving the house and then stopping. She opened her eyes to see Joshua just outside the back door. He called out, “Can you hear me clearly from here?”
She smiled weakly. “So far.”
He had no smile for her in return. “I’m afraid I agree with Clara that you most likely have mumps. It’s quite contagious to those who’ve never had it. Are any of your ladies unwell?”
Mamie tried to think. “Not that I know of. But most of them would tend to keep it to themselves, rather than miss working and the pay that comes of it. There’s only two or three who’d play it up as a chance to be lazy.”
Joshua stroked his chin before going on. “It’s largely a childhood illness, but you’d be surprised how many adults have never had it — including me, worse luck. It posed quite a problem during the war, almost as much as influenza. And while most cases come and go without any permanent effects, there can be complications. One common symptom, whose emotional impact on men I’m sure you can imagine, is swelling of the testicles.”
Mamie stared and then laughed, steadying herself with both hands when laughing made her wobble. “I certainly can. I’m to keep my distance from my customers, then.”
Joshua lowered his eyebrows. “I’m afraid it means more than that. Mamie, you have to close down for a while. Until we know that any of the ladies who are going to get it have done so, and gotten past the infectious stage.”
Mamie’s jaw dropped. “And how long is that?”
“From the time the first symptoms start — which can be fever, headache, muscle pain, or loss of appetite — until about five days after the swelling beneath the ears starts. If we assume, for the sake of caution, that you’re the first to fall ill, it could take two weeks or more for the other ladies to show the first signs. We’ll see what develops, but you may have to close for close to a month.”
Mamie jumped to her feet, almost falling over sideways, barely catching herself on the wall in time. “I can’t do that! Do you know how much money I’ll lose, and all the while having the usual expenses?”
Joshua took one small step closer. She’d never before seen him look stern, and could hardly have imagined it. If she’d known, would she have been so quick to assume he could never be the kind of man to attract her? He didn’t raise his voice, but spoke slowly and clearly. “Mamie, if you don’t shut down, I’ll fetch the sheriff from the county seat and have him ensure that you do. I don’t like to think of how that might affect your future relationship with him. Or with me. But I cannot have you spreading mumps among men who may be vulnerable to it. One of the complications can be impaired fertility or even sterility.”
Mamie dropped back down onto the wall and covered her face with her hands. Clara came back over and sat down beside her. “Most men would find the swollen glands unattractive. You wouldn’t want word to get around that your ladies were odd-looking.”
“No, it’s better they should spread the word that my girls are diseased. I’ll be ruined.”
She let her hands fall away as Clara patted her shoulder. “We’ll just have to come up with a less discouraging cover story.”
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