Dark Coup
sometimes get stomachaches and have trouble sleeping when things weren’t going well at school.  It might just be the stress.”
    …
    Jean came back from the laundry to find April on her cot and inside her sleeping bag.
    “Change your mind,” she asked with raised eyebrows–until she heard her daughter’s teeth chattering.  It was easily in the mid-seventies outside, which meant that April must have quite a fever to be shivering like that.  Jean hurried to her daughter and felt her forehead.
    “Oh, honey, you’re burning up!”  Jean tried to keep the panic out of her voice and was thankful, for the umpteenth time today that they weren’t on the road anymore.  “Stay here, honey; I’m going to go get the doctor.”
    April just nodded weakly and coughed a couple of times as Jean left the tent, and almost ran smack into the doctor on her way out the door.
    “Doctor…,” Jean looked for the nametag on his shirt but couldn’t find it right away and couldn’t remember his name off the top of her head.  She recognized him, though, as the man who had cleared them for entry into Promised Land.
    “Novak, Ma’am,” Ty answered for her.  “I just came from the Bryant’s.  It’s Ms. Oliver, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.  It’s my daughter, April,” Jean said as she turned around, and they both walked into the tent.  “She was fine this morning, but she came back from playing with some of the kids and now her fever is back.”
    April was coughing frequently, and shivering hard inside the sleeping bag, despite sweating profusely.
    After putting on gloves, Ty felt her forehead and then took her temperature.  After checking the digital thermometer he cleared it and took it again; 103.2.
    “April, I know you are shivering but I need to listen to your lungs, honey,” he said.  “We’ll get you back under the covers as quick as we can.”
    April nodded and sat up slowly. Ty listened to her breathing, which was growing more rapid, when she wasn’t coughing, and made a bit of a face.
    “Ok, lay back down,” he said, and took her pulse.
    “Ms. Oliver?”  Ty said, and nodded towards outside.  Ty wanted to let April try to get some sleep.
    “Ma’am,” Ty started.  “April has been on the antibiotics for four days.  By now, the cough should have cleared up, and she really shouldn’t have a fever of any kind unless the infection is resistant to what we gave her.  Since you said she wasn’t allergic to penicillin, I put her on something in that family.”
    Ty stopped speaking as April had a coughing fit. He wanted to listen to how it sounded.  “As bad as that sounds, at least she isn’t wheezing.  Unfortunately, what sounded like an upper-respiratory infection a few days ago, and should have been responding to antibiotics, has settled deeper into her lungs.”  Ty said.  “I’m worried about pneumonia at this point, and I think we need to change the antibiotics.  I’d like to move her to town, where we have a more permanent clinic, as well.”
    Jean nodded, “Whatever you say.”
    “I’ll go talk to the Major and get everything arranged,” Ty said, and then reached into his bag and pulled out a packet of ibuprofen. “Give her these while I’m gone, we need to start getting the fever down.”
    “Thank you,” Jean said.
    “Just doing my job, Ma’am,” Ty said.
    …
    “This is Dan,” he said as he answered the radio.
    “Dan,” Ty said.  “Have you got a minute?”
    “Um, sure,” Dan said, a little taken aback to receive a call from the doctor after their run-in this morning.
    “We may have a situation developing,” Ty said, “and I need to know if you’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary in town.”
    Dan leaned forward and rubbed his eyes.  “Nothing’s come up over the last week or so, no,” Dan said.  “It doesn’t have to do with the group that just came in does it?”
    “Possibly,” Ty said.  “I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
    “Aaaaand

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