Anita Mills (20 page)

“About what?”

“Hiring somebody to help. There’s a Chinese man Mr. Russell sent out to help me fix the door and some other things after you left. I didn’t understand a word he said, but he did everything I showed him to do.”

“Russell’s not too impressed with the Chinese he’s got working for him.”

“So I gathered. I guess he gave up on this one, anyway. When I took the laundry down yesterday, one of the others who speaks better English told me he’d been let go, and he was taking it hard. I don’t guess he’s earned enough to get him home, and it’s too late for him. to go, anyway.” Turning back to face him, she told Spence, “Since you think it’s beneath you to wash clothes, I’m going down to see if I can find him. If I don’t, he’ll starve.”

“I’d be damned careful about who came up here.”

“You’ll be here,” she reminded him. “I figure the way business is going, I can afford to pay him enough to survive on. They seem to get by on next to nothing, you know. The rumor keeps going around that they eat bugs so they can send what they earn back to their families.”

“It’s your money.”

“Yes, it is, but I wasn’t worried about the money so much. Most of the white men around here have a lot of contempt for the ‘heathen Chinee,’ as they call them. Since your people owned slaves, I was wanting to know you’d tolerate Mr. Chen before I hired him. If I thought you’d treat him like a dog, I wasn’t going to do it.”

“Mrs. Taylor, I’ve never treated anybody like a dog in my life. Slaveholder or not, Bingham treated the Negroes on his place like family. Truth to tell, that was probably why he never sold or bought any.”

“I didn’t mean to get your dander up—I was just asking how you felt, that was all.”

“You’ve got no business going down there yourself,” Spence declared flatly. “Just give me the name, and I’ll fetch him up here. Maybe if you see I haven’t skinned and tarred him, you’ll believe I don’t give a damn what he is.” Lurching to his feet, he reached for his coat. “His name is Chen—right?”

“Chen Li—or Li Chen. I’m never sure which name is supposed to come first. But you can’t miss him.”

“I suppose I ought to ask why,” he muttered.

“He’s only got the right eye—the other one is missing. He lost it in an accident last month.”

As the door closed behind him, she sat down at the table again to close the money jar. If Chen came to work, there’d be two men up here during the day, and maybe some of the talk would stop. If he spoke better English, he could go back and tell the rest of them just how the living arrangements were before things got out of hand. Right now, nobody could seriously believe Spencer Hardin was sharing her bed, but after the baby came, talk could get a lot worse.

T
he wind howled, rattling the panes in the window frames, shaking the fragile rafters, while melting sleet dripped down the chimney to sizzle on the burning logs in the hearth. The last time Spence had been out to the privy, he’d strung a rope up to guide them to it if the norther brought heavy snow. Right now, it was just slicker than wet oilcloth outside, but the way that wind was blowing, it was going to get a lot worse.

There was so much ice on the windows it was difficult to see much from them, but he didn’t guess it mattered, anyway. There wasn’t much to see, just a gray sky pouring freezing rain. Expecting the worst, he’d already secured Dolly, Clyde, and Sally in the lean-to he and Chen Li had built next to the privy. They’d put it there so anybody going out could take care of everything in one trip.

Laura was quieter than usual. She was in the rocker with a blanket wrapped around her, reading one of her books. Restive in the silence, he rose to get himself some coffee, then stood at the window to drink it. It was as though the world had shrunk to this one small room, and he was trapped in it. It was going to be a long winter, he could see that now. Dispirited, he turned back to his prison, wondering how he could last until May.

His gaze shifted to the woman in the chair, and he wondered how she could stand being cooped up in here with him. She was a remarkable woman, no question about that. Honest. Forthright. Hardworking. Wise beyond her years. As lovely inside as out. In a lot of ways, she reminded him of Bingham. He had to wonder if Taylor’d had any idea how rare she was.

Not that she wasn’t vexing. She had a stubborn streak nearly as wide as his own, and when she got something set in her head, she clung to it, turning it into a crusade. And she didn’t always know when to stop, he reflected soberly. There wasn’t a day he’d spent in this little cabin that she hadn’t managed to find some. way to talk about medicine, and it just plain made him feel pushed. And it was the same with their differences in class. He was supposed to feel some damned obligation to do good because Bingham had been rich enough to send him to medical school, because he hadn’t been poor. He just didn’t feel it anymore.

He didn’t feel much of anything, except hatred for Ross, frustration with his own lot, and a yearning for a little boy he didn’t even know. And there wasn’t much he could do about any of those things right now. His whole life was in abeyance, held hostage by things he couldn’t control. But the damned weather was the worst of it. It had kept him from going on. It had trapped him in this cabin. It had thrown him into the company of a woman with problems worse than his own. It had given him too many hours to brood on the emptiness of his life.

He didn’t know how Laura could face the world with such determination to survive, how she could get up each morning and face the day ahead, knowing all she could truly depend on was herself. Indomitable spirit, he guessed—a will to survive.

She was looking a little peaked, even frail, he realized with a start. And the book in her lap was closed. Her hands were gripping the arms of that rocking chair so hard her knuckles were white. She was rigid with fear.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she gasped. “I’m going to be sick, I think.”

He grabbed the washbasin and held it under her chin. “Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten that sausage this morning.”

“No.”

He could see the beads of sweat on her forehand, the cornered look in her eyes—like an animal about to die. Alarmed, he gripped her shoulder. “What is it?” he demanded urgently.

She swallowed hard. “The pain…and it’s too early…something’s wrong.” Closing her eyes against it, she cried, “Something’s wrong…it’s not my time!”

“My God—are you sure?”

“Yes—it’s not something I could forget! The baby’s coming early!”

“Just calm down now. There’s such a thing as false labor,” he reassured her. “Just lie down—I’ll help you to bed.”

“I can’t lose this baby … I just can’t … he’s all I’ve got of Jess!”

“Hysteria won’t help anything,” he said, trying to sound calm. “Come on—you’ve got to lie down.”

“I can’t! I’ll ruin the bed!”

“Breathe easy—don’t get ahead of yourself. We’ll put my bedroll under you—now, come on—everything’s going to be all right.” Bending over her, he got a hand under her arm and lifted her to stand. Bloody water gushed down her legs under her dress, soaking the rug at her feet. His first instinct was to go for the railroad doctor, but he didn’t want to leave her alone like that. “Come on,” he said again. “It’s going to be all right. You’re young and healthy.”

“I was young and healthy the last time, Dr. Hardin,” she managed.

“I’m going to help you.” Even as he said it, the words seemed ludicrous. Putting his arm around her, he tried to walk her toward the bed. He could hear her gulping for air. Something was wrong, all right— the pains were coming too hard too fast. She grabbed her distended belly with both hands and held on. Afraid she would collapse on him, Spence swung her up into his arms, staggered awkwardly, then made his way to her bed. Easing her onto the side of the mattress, he put one of her hands on the bedpost. “Hold on,” he ordered. “I’ll get my bedroll.”

When he came back, he could see the stain spreading along the hem of her dress. Dumping his blankets on the bed, he spread them out, doubling them in the middle. While she held onto the post, he knelt to unlace and remove her shoes. Rolling down the black cotton stockings over her garters down to her toes, he managed to get them off, too. Her plain white drawers were soaked clear to her knees.

“We’ve got to get you undressed.”

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t move.”

She was panicked, that was all, he told himself as he worked the drawers down to her ankles. Noticing for the first time the puffiness there, he asked quickly, “You haven’t been having trouble passing water, have you?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say something? You should have told me!” Shouting at her served nothing, he told himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his voice.

She closed her eyes again, this time to hide from him. “It didn’t seem proper,” she managed.

She was sweating, but her skin was warmer than his. “All right. Losing one baby doesn’t mean you’ll lose another. The last one was breech, that was all.”

“It was early—this one’s early, too.”

“But the circumstances are different. You’ve got to get hold of yourself, Laura—I’m right here with you. We’re going to do our best to help the baby. I’m going to help you, but you have to tell yourself this is going to turn out all right—you understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He was surprised by his own calmness now. He’d trained as a surgeon, not as a practitioner, and if she’d needed a limb amputated, this would be easy. Instead, she was in labor and showing signs of kidney problems. “All right,” he repeated matter-of-factly. “Let’s get to work. I’m going to get you out of these clothes so I can see what’s going on. Then you’re going to lie down, and I’m going to get my bag in case I have to make this a little easier for you.” Scanning her face, he could tell she was mortified. “Look—it’s all right. I’m a trained physician.”

Another contraction doubled her over, sending blood down her bare leg. He could see how hard it tightened her belly, and he knew it wasn’t normal. It was as though her body was trying to rid itself of the baby in one painful contraction. Reaching up under her dress, he felt between her legs for the head. It wasn’t down there, and she wasn’t wide enough yet to deliver.

Silently cursing the excessive clothing women wore, he worked feverishly to undress her, then swung her legs onto the bed. She rolled onto her side and drew up her knees as he searched for his medical bag. He was out of nearly everything, but there was no sense in letting her know it. “Jesse didn’t have any whiskey, did he?” he asked, coming back to her.

“He liked beer.”

Beer. “Do you still have any of it?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s not that important,” he lied. “Anything with alcohol in it?”

“Cough medicine. He…he…Clutching her stomach, she held on until the pain eased. “He had a cough last summer … I made some.”

“With what?”

“Honey…lemon…mash whiskey … I borrowed some—”

“Where is it?”

She hurt too bad to think. “Cupboard.”

She had a lot of stuff on those narrow shelves, but he found a bottle of something. Opening it, he took a whiff and smelled the whiskey in it. “There’s half a bottle here, Laura—I want you to drink all of it down,” he said, lifting her shoulders to keep her from choking.

She gagged as it went down. She felt her whole abdomen convulse, bearing down, but she could tell the baby wasn’t going anywhere. “It’s not moving, Dr. Hardin—it’s not!” she cried.

“Then there’s a reason. We’ll just have to compensate for whatever it is.” Moving to the kitchen again, he washed his hands in lye soap and cold water. “We’ve got time to fix it.”

“How?”

“Close your eyes. I’m going to find the baby.” Placing one hand on her abdomen, he palpated it, trying to feel the head. It wasn’t in the birth canal. “This could be false labor,” he lied again.

“Not with the water,” she gasped.

“Maybe.” It didn’t seem possible that it could happen twice, but the baby was lying transversely. “We’re going to give it a little longer to move down to where I can reach it, then I’ll have to turn it into the canal,” he told her frankly. “Don’t worry—I’m not letting this go on for days.” Reaching for her hand, he squeezed it reassuringly. “We’ll make it.”

“I hope so.”

Sitting on the bed beside her, he reviewed his options silently. If he could turn it, he expected the labor to progress normally. If he couldn’t, he was a surgeon, he told himself. He could get it out of her, but that wasn’t anything he wanted to do. The baby would almost certainly die, and she’d never have another. No, he had to turn it, even if it came out breech again. If he didn’t let her get too weak, she could deliver it. “I’m not going to let you get too tired,” he told her again.

As the hours wore on, she lost all sense of modesty or dignity. It no longer mattered that she was naked, or that his hands touched the most intimate part of her body. Between contractions, his voice soothed her; during them, his hand gripped hers.

Every labor he’d seen in medical school had been without complication, but as he sat there in the waning hours of the afternoon, he called to memory the textbook cases that exceeded the norm, reviewing everything he could remember. His hands followed the progress of the child within her until he knew she’d done all she could without help.

Despite the risk of hemorrhage, he decided to attempt turning it into the birth canal manually. With one hand outside, pressing downward, and the other in the canal itself, he moved the baby. Blood gushed down his arm, forcing him to hurry. Finally, he felt the head tilt downward; then his hand touched the small cranium. Reaching behind him, he retrieved a scalpel and cut the tautly stretched perineum to give the child more room.

“The next hard one, bear down with everything you’ve got left, and we’ll know if we’re going to make it, he told Laura.

She took a deep breath, holding it against the coming pain, and when the gut-wrenching contraction hit, she pushed so hard she thought she’d split open. Somewhere a scream pierced the air, shattering it.