Road is bad.
he wrote.
Then we go slow.
Snow coming.
Then we go now.
No doctor.
Clara stared at him.
Then pointed at the bloodstained cloth.
He looked away.
She wrote:
You told me I could choose everything after the wedding.
His eyes came back.
Clara continued.
That promise goes both ways. You can refuse treatment. But I can choose not to sit here pretending this is nothing.
He stared.
A trace of reluctant amusement appeared in his face.
He wrote:
You argue unfair.
Clara smiled.
I learned from you.
He almost laughed.
Then pain crossed his face again.
That ended the argument.
They left before noon.
Silver Junction lay nearly thirty miles east across roads that were little more than wagon tracks beneath snow.
Elias drove at first.
After six miles Clara noticed his hands trembling.
She touched his sleeve.
He looked toward her.
She pointed at herself.
Then the reins.
He shook his head.
Clara folded her arms.
Elias stared ahead for several seconds.
Then surrendered.
They changed places.
Clara had driven farm wagons since she was thirteen, but never through mountain snow with a feverish husband beside her and a piece of possible evidence wrapped inside her coat.
Every mile felt longer than the last.
Elias slept twice.
Both times his head fell forward and jerked awake when the wagon struck ruts.
Clara kept one hand near his shoulder without touching.
By dusk, lights appeared through the snowfall.
Silver Junction.
The doctor who answered the clinic door was younger than Clara expected.
He had wire spectacles, rolled shirtsleeves, and the exhausted expression of a man who had been awake too long.
He took one look at Elias and waved them inside.
Clara explained the ear pain.
The blood.
The metal.
The doctor listened without interrupting.
Then he washed his hands, brought a lamp close, and examined both ears.
His face gradually changed.
“What happened to him when he was a child?”
Clara looked toward Elias.
She wrote the question.
He responded:
They said fever. Lost hearing.
The doctor frowned.
“Scarlet fever?”
Clara wrote.
Elias shook his head.
Don’t remember fever.
The doctor examined the right ear again.
Then the left.
“How old was he?”
Clara wrote.
Elias held up seven fingers.
The physician stepped back.
“That isn’t what fever damage usually looks like.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“What does it look like?”
The doctor hesitated.
Then addressed Elias directly by writing on a separate pad.
Your hearing loss is old and permanent. But the scarring looks like physical injury.
Elias read.
Nothing changed on his face.
Clara saw his fingers tighten around the paper.
The doctor continued:
Something appears to have punctured both ears from outside.
Elias looked toward Clara.