John pulled into his usual slot in front of the town hall and got out, Makala joining him.
Judy was actually the person who was the center of the town as the switchboard operator, having risen from the quiet role of a secretary. She knew every call coming in and out, lived at the office, and at night monitored the battery-powered radio, pulled out of the blue Mustang, listening for news from the outside, which she would then post each morning on the whiteboard outside town hall.
As he walked in he could see the latest, a report that Asheville supposedly had a reliable two-way radio link with Charleston. Four emergency supply trucks had arrived in Greenville, South Carolina, and one was promised to Asheville by the end of the week. She had not posted the news, though, when she had called into him just after dawn, that a helicopter had landed yesterday evening at Memorial Hospital, reportedly carrying a load of medicines.
That knowledge would trigger an attempt by those still capable of moving to get into Asheville, and he knew that Asheville would not let any of them through the barrier near Exit 53 that was now a permanently fortified position, definitely payback for their defiance regarding the refugees back in the spring. The few refugees from outside trying to get farther west were allowed through, but anyone from Swannanoa or Black Mountain seeking to cross the line to barter was blocked.
He walked into the office, Judy looking up from her switchboard.
“Hi, boss.”
“Judy, connect me to Memorial Hospital. Put it through to my line and the line in the conference room.”
“I’ll get on it.”
John went into his office, the office that had been Charlie’s. John had not changed it all that much, the only addition a framed Polaroid picture of the survivors of what was now called the First Battalion, Black Mountain Rangers. Eighty-one soldiers, standing in front of Gaither Hall, the picture taken a week after the battle. They looked twenty years older than the kids in another picture beside it, the annual graduation photo of all the seniors, taken just two days before “The Day.” Some were in both photos. The kids in the graduation photo looked fresh, ready to go out and take on the world with enthusiasm and joy. The rangers, they looked as if they could take on the world, by killing. The picture always made him think of a painting by Tom Lea, a combat artist of the Second World War, of a shell-shocked marine at Peleliu called
John lifted the rotary phone off the cradle and there was a crackling hum.
“Memorial Hospital.” The voice sounded faint, distant.
“This is Black Mountain calling,” Judy said. “Can you connect a call to the hospital director, Dr. Vance, from Dr. Matherson, director of public safety in Black Mountain?”
Makala had advised Judy to use John’s old title. Doctors of the M.D. kind looked down on doctors of the Ph.D. kind, but still, it would help to get through.
“Please hold,” came the voice from the other end.
John looked across at Makala, who was standing at the crank phone in the conference room.
Five minutes passed, then ten. He sat on his desk, waiting nervously, heart racing, the only sound static and then a distant voice.
“Vance here.”
“Dr. Vance. This is,” he hesitated, “Matherson, director of public safety for Black Mountain.”
“What do you want?”
He could hear the exhaustion in Vance’s voice. John looked over at Makala and nodded. He was afraid if he continued, emotion would take over, and the man on the other end had no time for emotional appeals.
John had sat in the same spot now since Charlie’s death. Decisions about who got rations and who did not. The condemning to death by execution of twenty-two people for looting of food, in one night fifteen of them had killed off two head of cattle, and, horrifyingly, one for cannibalism. Fortunately, he was now able to delegate that terrible deed to someone else, three people, one from Swannanoa, one from Black Mountain, and a professor from the college.
John had listened to so many appeals, and always he had to judge based upon what was fair, and fairness was who might be able to make it through to next spring and who was now triaged off.
“Dr. Vance, this is Makala Turner. I was head RN with the cardiac surgical unit at Overlook in Charlotte. I worked directly with Dr. Billings. I’m now head of all emergency treatment here in Black Mountain.”
That line was carefully prepared by her, to create a sense of equality and draw from the tradition of mutual professional respect.
“Billings, how is he?” And then a pause, a realization most likely of the absurdity of the question.
“Doctor, on the day things went down, I was coming up to Memorial to attend your briefing on the new cauterization method for control of P.A.T. arrhythmia.”
A pause.
“Seems like a million years ago,” and John could hear the voice on the other side soften.
Makala had thought this out well. He looked over to her, but her back was turned to him, avoiding eye contact. “Nurse Makala…”
“Turner,” she said. “Dr. Vance, we have a situation here I think you can address.”
“Go on,” and John could hear the tension come back into Vance’s voice. “We got word that a helicopter load of medical supplies was airlifted to your hospital last night.”
A long pause… “Yes, that is correct.”
“Dr. Vance. We have a girl, twelve years old, type one diabetic.”
“And she’s still alive?” There was an incredulous note in his voice.
“She’s been carefully monitored and is a tough kid. Her father was able to obtain enough insulin to last five months, but the stock has degraded and all potency is gone.”
“Amazing she lasted this long.”
John stiffened, again looking at Makala, the way she was now so clinically talking about Jennifer.
“Dr. Vance. Was any insulin included in that shipment?” There was a pause.
“Was there any insulin?” John asked, cutting back in, his voice tense. “Yes.”
A pause on the other end.
“How long has she been without insulin?” Vance asked.
Makala quickly turned, looked at John, and shook her head.
“Last injection four days ago.”
It was a lie; it had been over two weeks.
Silence on the other end.
“Blood count?”
“Three hundred and ten,” again a lie; it was over twice that now and still climbing.
“Dr. Vance?” Makala asked. “Yes.”
“We can send a vehicle to pick up a vial, just a thousand units. It will save her life.”
He sighed and with that sigh John knew. How many had heard him sigh in the same way before rejecting their tearful appeal for but one more bowl of soup or the release of but two or three pills of Cipro or the few precious Z-pac antibiotics locked away in a safe?
“Save her life for how long?” Vance finally replied. “A month? The insulin received might be all we’ll get for several months. It’s already been designated for those who can survive on far lower doses than type one diabetics need.”
“Dr. Vance, we can have her at the hospital in an hour. Just one injection to stabilize her. We’ve heard the road might be open down to Columbia and from there to Charleston; we’ll risk driving her down there if you can help us stabilize her.”
“You and I both know the road is not open. A dozen people from here tried to get through just to Greenville yesterday and were wiped out by raiders in Saluda Gap,” Vance replied, “and even if you did get through, there’s no chance she’ll be given more. The authorities in Charleston have listed insulin, along with a couple hundred other drugs, as A priority, meaning to be distributed in extreme need only to those under the age of forty-five and over eighteen with high probability of survival and the ability to work in some manner. They sent me exactly five vials.”
Frustrated, John thought of Don Barber’s plane.
