OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 53: The Southern Strategy (Lillabit)

I patted his arm--which, I should note, was wrapped in soft, dirty union suit, because he'd given me his shirt before returning to work. Odd, how the dirty part didn't bother me. Like bug bites and callouses, dirt was just part of this real west experience. "Well I'm fine. Claytey's probably fine. But he shouldn't feel guilty if Amos isn't. Amos breathed a lot of water, and if he gets an infection...."

Jacob frowned at that word, not understanding and not liking his own ignorance.

"If he takes fever," I translated, and he nodded. "Back home it would be easier, but here, I'm not sure what I can do. Schmidty has some garlic we harvested a few days back--you remember when Sundae's milk went all garlicky? Maddie's book says garlic has some antibiotic... I mean, some fever-busting properties. But I don't want his life hanging on garlic. She wrote that Echinacea would be better--at least until someone invents penicillin. Have you seen any purple coneflower while you're out...?"

My husband stared at me, clearly trying to piece some of that together. "Yer pa did some doctorin'," he guessed. "Or yer grandfather."

"No. I told you, my father was a pilot." He could hear that and think watercraft, so that shouldn't confuse him further. "He died young. My grandfather worked for the city."

"You knew how to save Amos."

"That wasn't doctoring, it was first-aid. It's called artificial resuscitation. I breathed for him."

"How."

I stepped up to Jacob, planted a hand on his cotton underwear shirt, took a deep breath, and rose onto my tiptoes.

He hesitated, suspicious. But he didn't pull away when I pressed my lips to his.

Then I exhaled, hard, into his mouth.

He feinted back, coughing, eyes wide.

"Like that," I told him.

He coughed again and said, his voice hoarse, "That would do it."

"Only because I got to do it right off. If Amos had gone any longer without oxygen to the brain--I mean, without air--he'd be brain-dead and he wouldn't come back."

"Brain dead." Yet another concept he'd never heard of.

"Let's just say dead."

His lips twitched, as if he maybe thought I was joking with him now. "Lungs that need air, not brains."

This was basic, second-grade stuff, in my time. But we weren't in my time. "Lungs send the air to the brain."

"Send it," he challenged--teased, really. "By parcel post or express."

"The blood carries the air to the brain."

"Ain't no air in blood." He looked like he wanted to pat me on the head. "Blood's wet."

"But it carries the oxygen molecules...." This was ridiculous. Why should I try to teach this to someone who had never in his life even heard of a microscope, much less looked in one?

It didn't matter that he didn't understand. He wasn't stupid.

But I kind of resented him thinking I was stupid.

"Never mind," I said, instead of trying further. "Just... ask the boys to keep their eyes open for purple coneflower. If they find some, I need as much of the root as possible... unless you think it's safe enough for me to go looking?"

"It ain't."

"But nobody's said a thing about Slade Callahan lately. Maybe he isn't following us."