Chapter Twenty-Two
Jenny directed Jeremy to park in front of the bathhouse, which was a few doors away from the notorious Red Eye Saloon. They were already receiving odd and frequently shocked glances from passersby, no sense advertising their business was in the saloon. A few gentlemen, at least they were dressed as gentlemen, stopped mid-stride and immediately did an about-face, hats angled low as they practically ran in the other direction.
“I’ll go in while you wait in the buggy,” Janelle volunteered.
“No,” Jenny said. “I’ll go in the kitchen and ask for Charlotte.”
Letty, who had sat stunned during the ride listening to the story of Jenny’s short-lived saloon career and the harrowing incident with the Parsons twins, sat up stick straight and gave them a glimpse of the backbone that had kept three Jackson sons in line through their growing-up years.
“You will do no such thing, Jenny Jackson. We’ll wait here while Jeremy goes in and inquires.” Narrowing her gaze on Janelle, she said firmly, “Your behind will not move from this buggy, young lady, or I’ll paddle it myself.”
Janelle’s eyes widened. “We’re merely getting an address to help a sick woman. The guys can’t complain about that, can they?”
“Yes!” Jenny and Letty both said at once.
Janelle crossed her arms with a huff, her face in a near pout. “Stupid nineteenth century morality, I just wanted to peek inside the saloon to see if Hollywood got the Long Branch Saloon on Gunsmoke right. I guess that’s not happening.”
“You’re not missing anything,” Jenny told her with a slight tremor in her voice. Never had she thought to come near the Red Eye again.
Janelle shot Jenny a rueful glance, as if realizing she was being insensitive. “The important thing is getting your friend’s address and helping him, of course.”
Jenny nodded in reassurance. She was beginning to understand Heath’s remark about Janelle spending considerable time over her husband’s knee. She’d have to be careful not to let Janelle lead her down the same path, if she hadn’t already. Looking at Letty’s worried face, she imagined she was thinking along the same lines.
Heath’s rules came to mind. He’d been upset each time he’d found her out alone. This time she was in company of three others, one of them a man, the escort he’d required. She eyed Jeremy. Eighteen at most, he probably wasn’t exactly what Heath had in mind. Butterflies took flight in her belly as she imagined her husband’s reaction. He hadn’t ever told her to stay off Sixth Street. She stifled a groan, knowing how much of a stretch that was. Her mouth turned downward, mimicking Letty’s; she was getting a bad feeling about all of this.
She focused on George instead. If Janelle could help his mother, it was worth the risk.
* * *
The weathered and worn-looking clapboard house sat in the middle of South Town, one of the poorest areas of Laramie. It sat among hundreds of other shanties and tent houses crammed into the small strip of land between Grand Avenue and Spring Creek. As they exited the buggy, the smell of rotting refuse and raw sewage wafted in on a breeze from the nearby creek. With gloved hands and hankies to their noses, Janelle and Letty followed Jenny the short distance from the muddy lane that bisected the crowded shantytown to George Gleason’s front door.
“How do they live like this?” Janelle whispered, as Jenny rapped on the door. She held a linen square that Letty had liberally sprayed with perfume to her nose and mouth.
“They are desperately poor, dear, which affords them few other choices.”
George answered their knock. Upon seeing three ladies at his door, his jaw dropped. His gaze swept over them and locked on Jenny, her familiar face making his eyes flare ever wider.
“Miss Jen—uh, I mean, Miss Mary. What are you doin’ here?”
“It’s all right, George. They know.” She patted his arm. “May we come in?”
As he stepped aside to let them enter, an overwhelming smell of sickness hit them like a smack in the face. “I’m sorry about the place. Ma took a turn last week.”
“That’s why we came, George. Janelle knows about healing and I thought she could take a look at your mother.”
“Lead the way,” Janelle said without waiting for him to answer.
He walked to a curtained-off corner of the one-room shack and pulled it back.
“Caroline!” Letty gasped, reaching out to grab Jenny’s arm. “Dear God, she looks just like your mother did.”
Jenny froze, taking in the pallid, shockingly emaciated woman on the bed. Her skin had a familiar grayish cast to it and she had the same dazed look, dry ashen lips, and lank hair that her mama did at the end. It was as if she had lost all coloring in her hair and skin; even her eyes were pale, the irises appearing a dull, muted gray.
“Your mother’s eyes, George, have they always been that way?”
“No, Miss Jenny. They used to be blue like mine.” He looked sadly her way and Jenny saw his were as bright a blue as the Wyoming sky on a clear day.
“Has she been having seizures, George?” Janelle asked as she held the sick woman’s wrist for a minute, then shifted to check her forehead for fever.
“I don’t rightly know what that means, ma’am.”
“Fits. Do her eyes ever roll back and her teeth clench, while she’s shaking or trembling?”
“Yes, that started last week. That’s the turn I mentioned.”
“Could it be something contagious, Janelle?” Letty asked with concern.
“It’s possible. Or it could be…” She fell silent, her brows gathered and her lips pursed. “Arsenic,” she muttered under her breath. Her eyes sliced to George. “What has she been eating?”
“Nothing. The only thing she’ll take is her tea.”
“Dear God!” Jenny cried out. “Bring it to me, George.”
He hurried across the room and retrieved a jar from a shelf over the sink. Jenny recognized it instantly. ‘Chinese Herb Balls’ was written across the top. “That’s what mama used in her special tea. It must be—”
“Poison,” Janelle inserted. She opened the lid and sniffed the contents. “If I’m right, it contains arsenic. Which in small increments over time will cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and severe cramps. After a while of ingesting the foul stuff, seizures can follow.”
“Ma had all of those symptoms.” Jenny pointed at the can. “It had to have been that awful tea.”
“What about delirium or hallucinations? Those come with acute arsenic toxicity.”
“Mama had that in the end, too.” Jenny whispered. “Papa bought it from a medicine show that came through town.”
“That’s where I got ma’s tea. It was months ago. The doctor claimed it would cure her rheumatism.”
“That was no doctor, I’m betting,” Janelle grumbled.
“Papa got it for the same reason. Mama’s hands would ache and her fingers were beginning to draw. It seemed to help and she drank it nearly every day for months.”
“Ma, not so much,” George offered. “She drank a cup a few times a week, but she swears by it.”
“Medicine shows come through all the time. Lord knows how many people bought this toxic tea.” Janelle’s worried gaze swept the others. “We’ve got to let folks know.”
“We have to tell Aaron, right away. He can put a stop to this being sold,” Letty decreed with a definitive nod. “Then we need tell Doc and go to the papers.”
“Poison,” Jenny whispered in horror.
“Can you fix ma, Miz Janelle?”
“She’s very sick, George. It goes without saying, but no more tea. I’ll have to see if I can find anything about an antidote in my books, and we’ll ask Doc Morgan, of course. Until then, give her lots of water, George. Maybe we can flush it out of her system.” Janelle turned from the bedside, her fingers tapping along her cheek. Jenny could almost see her brain working as she sought a solution. Turning back, she looked hard at George. “Arsenic damages the kidneys, so we can’t overload her system or she’ll end up with a host of other problems. Start out with no more than six cups of water or clear liquid a day—weak tea, apple juice, chicken broth, that sort of thing. Anything you can see through. We’ll have to wait and see how she does. If it’s working, her urine will turn lighter in color. When was the last she had the tea?”
“Last night. She always drank it at night to help her sleep.”
“We’re past the point of ipecac then, Janelle,” Letty put in.
“I was thinking that same thing, Letty, but I suppose it’s a blessing. Her frail body couldn’t handle a violent purge.”
“Thank God you came today,” George whispered, near tears.
“Thank Jenny,” Janelle told the big man with a gentle smile. “She was worried about her friend.”
“Thank you, Miss Jenny. How can I ever repay you?”
She took his hand and squeezed it tight. “Your ma getting better is all the payment I need. Is there anything else we can help with? Miz Charlotte told me you lost your job. Have you got enough food?”
“Some, but we lose our house at the end of the month if I can’t pay the rent.”
“I won’t let that happen, George.” Jenny didn’t know how, but she wasn’t going to let anyone put George’s family out on the street. “We’re going to fetch Doc now, but we’ll be back.”
* * *
They rode in silence, taking in the squalor and poverty that pervaded the area. Founded along the Overland Stage Line and a bit north of the Fort Sanders army post, Laramie had started out as a tent city. It was sad to see that nearly twenty years later, many of the residents continued to live that way. Crowded together in rundown homes, living practically on top of one another, people milled about or huddled over outdoor cook fires. Some women waded through piles of laundry, boiling and hanging it on lines, which was obviously their source of income. At one point, they all jumped as what sounded like gunfire sounded nearby.
Jeremy sped up the team and in a few minutes, all four of them let out an audible sigh as they turned onto Main Street, leaving South Town behind. That didn’t banish the images of suffering they had seen. As they rode westward toward the jail, in hopes of finding Aaron, a bracing gust of cold wind cut through the open-sided buggy. Low-lying gray clouds had moved in since leaving the ranch. Anyone who had survived a Laramie winter recognized the ominous clouds rolling in. They heralded snow by nightfall. The women shivered, huddling close together for warmth.
“I’m freezing with several layers of wool on,” Janelle exclaimed, a troubled expression marring her pretty features. “How do they survive the winter in tents?”
“Some don’t,” Letty acknowledged sadly. “The ones that don’t are often the young, elderly, or infirm. The churches make regular rounds with wood, coal, and food—as much as they can afford. When the heavy snows come, they open their doors, as does the schoolhouse, but many don’t come. Out of pride, I suppose, or fear they will be robbed of the few precious belongings they hold dear. It’s heartbreaking.”
“Why do they stay?”
“For the work, at least the ones who are lucky enough to get a job in the glass plant or the mills. When the railroad came through, many found their jobs ended, but stayed for the steady work the new industry provided, like the brewery or the brickyard. They scrape by as best they can, but the pay is low, making it difficult to get ahead. Some have been living there for decades because they can’t afford to move and start all over again elsewhere.”
“Don’t they have poor folks in your day, Janelle?” Jenny asked.
“Yes. There were people out of work, scraping by, as you say. But we had programs to help them—shelters, soup kitchens, government assistance with food and housing, and winter fuel, things like that. Despite it all, we had homeless people living under bridges and on the streets. Somehow, it wasn’t as blatant as this tent town was. Something needs to be done about this.” Her words were impassioned.
“Certainly their conditions are deplorable,” Jenny began gently, “and I don’t mean to appear indifferent to their plight, but can we solve the arsenic tea crisis before we take on the challenge of ending poverty, hunger, and despair?”
Janelle huffed a laugh. “You sound like Aaron, the voice of reason when I get on a tear about some inequality or injustice. I need to be hauled off my soapbox sometimes.”
“To be moved by what we saw is natural, Janelle. That you want to get involved and try to fix it is admirable and not something everyone would do.” Jenny didn’t want her to think she was criticizing, but the scope of the problem was huge and it was going to take more than three Jackson brides to fix it.
“Aaron was blessed the day you came into his life, Janelle,” Letty beamed. “She’s going to make an excellent politician’s wife one day, don’t you think, Jenny?”
“What’s this?” Jenny questioned with surprise. “Aaron wants to the mayor or something?”
“Or something, I’d say,” Janelle confided. “He has much higher aspirations than mayor.”
“That boy always did.” Letty beamed as pride rang noticeably in her voice. “His pa and I knew the ranch couldn’t contain him.”
The buggy slowed and came to a stop in front of Doc Morgan’s office. Janelle jumped down unassisted and went to the door. It was locked.
“Let’s see if we have better luck finding Aaron at the jail,” she suggested while climbing back in a moment later.
They didn’t. Aaron was out, but Sheriff Bozeman listened to their story. Indulgent at first, he soon became concerned they could have mass poisoning going on in the homes of Laramie. “I’ll need to talk to the mayor and the marshal to see how we should handle this without causing a panic.”
“Doc should make a statement of some kind, with what to expect and what to do. Maybe print it in the Sentinel and on flyers about town.” Letty advised.
“Doc will have to be prepared for scores of patients at his office door with symptoms, some real and some imagined,” Janelle added.
“Imagined?” the sheriff asked.
“Some folks will present with vague gastrointestinal symptoms merely by hearing about them. Not intentionally, but out of fear. The mind is tricky that way. Simple post-prandial gas pains can easily become the severe abdominal pain of arsenic toxicity with the power of suggestion.”
His puzzled look revealed he didn’t understand half of Janelle’s medical jargon. Neither did Jenny, but she got the general idea. “Whatever is decided, it has to be done fast, before someone else dies.”
Three sets of sympathetic eyes cut to Jenny. She knew better than anyone what could happen with the slow insidious poison.
“It’s started snowing.”
The women turned toward the window at the sheriff’s observation. Small white flakes were swirling around in the brisk breeze, melting as soon as they landed on the planks of the boardwalk. It wasn’t sticking, but as night fell and temperatures dropped further, it likely would. She prayed it wouldn’t get bad and hinder the efforts of warning the community.
“You ladies need to get on home. I’ll take care of this.”
“It looks like we’re in for a heavy snowfall.” A long-time Laramie native, Letty would know. “We’re heading west, sheriff. Do you have someone who can see Janelle home?”
“Deputy Barnes is due back any minute. He can see you home, Mrs. Jackson.”
“Thank you,” Janelle said with a nod. “I’ll have time to write Doc a note and slide it under his door. That way, if he gets back to his office before you locate him, sheriff, he’ll know what we’re facing.”