asked.
What could he tell her? Yeah, I feel great? He felt like mist about to be blown away. 'I'm not too well,' he admitted.
She waved toward herself. 'Lean forward,' she told him and felt his forehead. 'You got a fever. You want me to drive you to the hospital?'
'No!' he said, too abruptly. He modulated. 'No, no thanks, I just want to sleep.'
'All righty. Let's get you all tucked in.' The keys clinked pleasantly.
As soon as they stood outside the door, Jonathan remembered the room number: 225. The lights were still blazing. Angel opened the door, and everything was just as he had left it: sealed. The room smelled like a headache.
'There's some aspirin in the medicine chest,' she said. 'If you need anything, just press nine.' She pointed to the telephone.
Jonathan couldn't make sense of the words, so he nodded and smiled. Oh, yeah, I'll be fine, he thought he had said. She nodded and closed the door and Jonathan went into the bathroom and retched blood. The droplets spread on the surface of the water of the toilet bowl like stars spinning away from galaxies. Jonathan drank some water from the cold tap of the basin and that promptly bounced back out like sheet rubber.
I can't keep down water, he thought. His stomach burned. The tips of his fingers buzzed. Shivering, he peeled off his clothes. There were patches of sweat on them. The stale, warm air made his tender skin rise up in goosebumps. The sheets felt freezing and he curled up on them, his bones quaking in spasmodic jolts.
There was a knock at the door. 'Can I come back in?' Angel asked.
She unlocked the door and looked at him. 'Do you want someone to sit up with you?'
Jonathan couldn't answer the question. He didn't know.
'I just thought maybe it would help you sleep if someone read to you.'
Jonathan thought that sounded pleasant. 'You don't have to.'
'It's okay. I got to be on call, kinda, anyway.'
'Thanks,' said Jonathan.
She sat down primly on the chair by the desk. 'What you want me to read?'
'I have some photocopies,' he said, trying to think where they were. He had left the papers somewhere on the bed.
'I don't see any,' said Angel, leaning forward on her knees.
'That's funny.' Jonathan sat up, holding the sheet modestly in front of himself. He didn't want her to see his ribs. Dismay came. 'They were just here!'
He went weepy. 'They were just here!'
'Ssh ssh ssh,' she said. 'It's okay, I got them.' She coaxed the papers out of a fold of the quilt, thrown on the floor. She tapped them neatly back into order on the desk. 'Righty-ho,' she said, lightly.
'I'm losing everything,' said Jonathan, lying back down.
He told her where to start reading. The memoirs began again. 'Pioneer Beauty.'
It seemed to him that he was not being read to. It seemed to him that the author of the memoirs was speaking to him with her own flat, plain voice. He thought he heard the crackle of a fireplace.
' 'In those days,' ' she read, ' 'Manhattan was abolitionist, but St. George was pro-slavery. There were rival gangs, many of them from far afield. Once my father was traveling to Topeka to bear witness to the treatment of the Indians on the Council Grove reservation. He agreed to travel for part of the way with a friend who had an ox team. The friend assumed that my father would travel faster than himself, and so left early, the plan being that my father would catch up with him on the road.
' 'On the road, my father was stopped by a gang of men. Judging them to be from Missouri, he told them he was from near St. George. 'Well,' the ruffians replied. 'It's a mighty good thing you are from St. George or the same thing would have happened to you as happened to that damned man from Manhattan.' The gang let my father have his freedom. Further along the road to St. Mary, he found what he was dreading, the body of his friend. He had been murdered and his team stolen.' '
The author remembered orchards of cherries, crab apples and winter apples. She remembered the more uncertain crops of peaches, plums and pears. There were native plums as well, and wild grapes in tame arbors. The fruit had to be canned or dried. Jellies and pickles were made. Paper coated with white of egg would be laid over the contents. Pickles were put up in earthen jars or crocks with a large plate inverted over them and a scrubbed stone placed over each plate for weight.
Jonathan saw woodpiles. Cottonwood, cobs, chips for a quick fire. Blackjack for a steady burn. He smelled apple-scented carbon dioxide, exhaled from fruit in barrels.
Suddenly he was awake. Angel was at the door.
'Oh darn, you were asleep, I'm sorry.'
'Stay,' he croaked. He was scared. He felt very odd indeed.
'I can read you some more.'
'I can't follow it,' he said. 'Just stay with me.'
She sat down again. 'So why don't you tell me why you came to Manhattan?'
He told her he was looking for Dorothy. Dorothy of Oz, she had really lived, she had lived near here, she knew Frank Baum.
