The drovers went to bed early that night in preparation for the long day ahead but Randall couldn’t sleep.

  He tossed and turned through the long, dark hours, wrapped in his wool blankets under the cover of a small canvas tent, listening to the gentle snorts and murmurings of the nearby cattle, but his mind wandered far afield, down twisting trails and through dark thickets he had not revisited in many long years.

  The last time he had spoken to his sister, she hadn’t wanted him to see her. She had pulled her blankets up over her head, he could see nothing of her but the rounded lump of a head under a patchwork quilt and the thin, pale, claw-like fingers gripping at the hem.

  “They’re sending me away, Poll,” he said, “They say I have to go so that I don’t get sick, too. Though it might already be too late.”

  The room was clean, but barren. The stale air smelled of death and disease. It even tasted wrong, thick with a musty, fetid taste and nauseating. Poll’s favorite doll, a little burlap pioneer lady with a home sewn bonnet, lay in a crumpled heap on the floor beside the bed where it must have fallen sometime in the night.

  Pollyanna’s voice croaked at him from under the blanket.

  “I heard they’re burning up dead folks,” said Poll.

  Randall couldn’t say anything. He just sat in a creaky little chair on the far side of the room, trying not to cry. It was as close as he was allowed to get.

  “Outside of town. They pile them up and burn them. Even kids.”

  It was true. The plague had been spreading out control for weeks by that time. Half the town was sick. The burnings had already started. Randall had been too young to fully understand what that meant, but he knew it was a bad omen of things to come.

  A little sniffling sound came from under Poll’s quilt. A sad little whine that wrenched Randall's heart.

  “I don’t wanna burn,” she whimpered.

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  Randall’s eyes stung and he clenched his fists. He glanced at the door. He didn't know how much longer he'd be allowed to stay with her. He felt a tremendous need to say something- anything- that would bring her some comfort.

  A coughing fit racked the small frame huddled under the quilt, sounding wet and painful, surely bringing up that pink tinged sputum that had recently become so common a sight in the Geets household

  “I don't wanna burn,” Poll said again. He could hear her voice cracking, almost see the tears pooling in those big- What color had Poll's eyes been? Green? Gray? Randall couldn't remember. He could never remember, no matter how hard he tried. He could only remember the disease, the pale skin, the lingering stench of bile and pus. And that small, sad, terrified little voice pleading for comfort that was impossible for him to give.

  He couldn’t take it any more. He stood up, his fists clenched and a thick lump in his throat. He took a step toward the bed but stopped himself. If he went to her he might infect her with his own grief. His own weakness.

  “You're not gonna burn, Poll,” he said, fighting to make his voice sound firm and manly, like his father's always had, "You're gonna get better. Soon, everything will get better and we’ll sit around the fire and you’ll be telling your stories again.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Sure I do,” said Randall, “I know it.”

  “No one else has gotten better.”

  “No one else is as tough as you,” said Randall, “Or as smart, or as funny. Or tells such good Indian stories. You’ll get better, Poll. You need to. I need you to.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “You just have to, that’s all.”

  “But what if I don’t, Ranny?” she said, her voice quivering, growing panicked, “What if they come and take me away and burn me up?”

  “Then I just won’t let them!”

  The room fell silent for a moment, save only for the sound of pitiful sniffling from Poll’s quilt.

  “Really?” said Poll, her voice croaking but with a tone of hope that Randall had not heard since she’d fallen ill. He grabbed that slender ribbon of hope with both hands and held on for dear life.”

  “Yeah!” he said, “I’ll tell them to buck out and go away. I won’t let them burn you, Poll, don’t worry on that account. Not Momma nor Poppa, either. I don’t care what they say, I won’t let them set a foot in this house.”

  More sniffles.

  “You promise, Ranny?”

  Randall couldn’t remember now if he’d known he was lying or not. Sometimes he remembered it one way, sometimes another. Sometimes he had been so full of righteous fervor that he actually believed what he said. Other times, perhaps more honest times, he remembered trying to swallow down the guilty lump of bile that stuck in his throat when he answered her.

  Either way, all he said was, “I promise.”

  Six days later, Pollyanna was dead.

  Just like everybody else.