Daunting Days of Winter (24 page)

The woman lay on the bed with her back to the door, her arms secured behind her with rope, her hands purple and swollen. Bloodstains marred the sheets, and when Rose leaned forward, she could see that the woman’s face was swollen and bloody, and a sock had been stuffed in her mouth.

“What a nightmare this must have been for you,” Rose whispered softly as she carefully extracted the sock. The woman took in deep breaths, but otherwise continued to lie passively on the bed, reacting very little to Rose’s presence.

Rose’s knife lay on the carpet outside the door, and she grabbed it to slice the bands from the woman’s arms. “Do you have clothes here?” Rose asked, scanning the room for anything that looked feminine.

The room smelled of sweat and filth, and Rose found the odors difficult to stomach. “Let me get something to wipe your face,” she said. She left the RV and walked quickly to her horses, where she knew some rags were tucked away in Blitz’s pack, taking long, deep breaths as she walked. She wet the rags with water from a canteen, then returned to the RV. The woman still lay on the bed in the same position, but with her freed hands in front of her, rubbing her wrists.

“What’s your name?” Rose asked, sitting down beside her. The woman didn’t answer. Rose warmed the cloth in her hands before dabbing at the wounds on the woman’s face. As she wiped, the woman flinched at her touch, and Rose wondered whether it was the temperature of the rag, the pain of her wounds, or the shock of a tender hand. Rose kept wiping, being as gentle as she could possibly be.

“I’m Rose. I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. It must have been terrible, but it’s over now.” The woman gave no indication that she heard and was seemingly unaware that she was free, other than rubbing her freed hands in front of her face.

“You hungry?” The woman didn’t respond, but Rose still went in search of food, finding only some canned goods and a little dried meat in a cabinet. She noticed clothes on the bunk over the driver’s seat and grabbed some items that looked like they might fit the woman. “Here you go,” she said as she set a blouse and a pair of pants on the bed.

“That’s mine,” the woman mumbled, her voice parched and weak. She extended a bony arm and grabbed the shirt, pulling it towards her. As she struggled to rise, Rose helped her into a sitting position, turning her on the bed so she could brace her back against the headboard.

“You seem pretty weak,” Rose commented, feeling the bones of the woman’s ribs as she propped her up.

The woman nodded. “No food,” she said. “Just a little water.”

While the woman slowly pulled her blouse on, Rose leaned back, noticing for the first time that the woman had long brown hair and light colored skin. Her face was swollen and bruised, her body skinny and emaciated, making it hard to tell if she was an older teenager or a young retiree.

“I’ll try and find you some water and some shoes,” Rose said. She returned to the bunk where she’d found the clothing, finding, to her horror, five pairs of women’s shoes and some other changes of clothes. She grabbed them all, stopped in the kitchen area to find some water for the woman to drink, then returned to the bedroom and set the things down beside her. “Do you have a name?”

“Alayna,” the woman finally replied, her voice lifeless. She reached for the water with weak arms and took a long drink.

“How long have you been here?”

Alayna stared at Rose with hollow eyes, nearly swollen shut from abuse, her expression vacant. “I don’t know.”

“You’re free now. You can go home.”

The woman flinched. “I don’t have a home anymore. They killed my husband.”

Rose looked away. “I’m sorry. Can I do anything to help you?”

Alayna wrapped a thin blanket from the bed around herself, her hair hanging in long, dark clumps across her face. “You don’t need to stay…you can go,” she said, her voice wispy and weak.

“I do need to go,” Rose said, eyeing the setting sun. “I really don’t want to spend the night anywhere near here. Will you be alright?”

Alayna stared right through Rose and didn’t acknowledge the question.

Rose rummaged quickly through the cupboards, searching for anything that might be of value. She found blankets and dirty clothes and a few more cans of food, but nothing she couldn’t live without. “I’m going to leave now,” she said, slipping back to the bedroom where Alayna sat semi-comatose on the bed. “Are you sure I can’t do anything for you?”

Alayna shifted her eyes and looked briefly at Rose, then silently averted her gaze.

“Good luck then,” Rose offered feebly. “The dead man outside has a gun on him. I’ll leave that for you so you’ll have something to defend yourself with. I don’t know if it’s loaded, but even empty it has some value.” Rose wanted to do more, but what could she possibly do, she asked herself. Society was broken down, and everyone was in a fend-for-themselves reality. No one was looking to take on a psych case if they could avoid it, Rose included. She turned and headed for the door, stepping around Mantle’s body, and exited the RV.

A chilly wind blew from the west, and Rose estimated there was only an hour until sundown. After that, unwilling to push her horses any harder than she had to, she thought it would be too cold and pointless to proceed.

Rose rubbed Blitz and Smokey’s noses reassuringly, then checked the loads, tightened her saddle a notch, and mounted up. As she swung Smokey around to the West, she heard a noise at the motorhome and saw Alayna, still wrapped in the blanket, exit the vehicle. “It’ll be dark soon, and it’s cold. You should put something on,” she called out.

Rose prodded Smokey with her heels, encouraging the animals forward. They hadn’t even made it past the first vehicle when the sound of a gunshot exploded through the crisp, cool air, startling the already skittish horses and sending them dancing sideways. Rose fought to regain control of Smokey, then turned, expecting to see Alayna, gun in hand, standing over the body of the monster who lay dead in the street. Instead, Alayna’s crumpled form lay on the road beside him.

“Dammit, Alayna,” Rose cursed as she leapt from the saddle. She rushed back to Alayna, kneeling quickly on the ground beside the body and avoiding the blood that drained from a gaping wound in the woman’s head. “That’s not why I left you the gun!” she yelled, clenching her fists.

“Why?!” Rose yelled, grabbing Alayna by the shoulders and knowing the answer even as she uttered the question. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed her own mind, fleeting as it might have been, and she was doing well compared to this poor woman. A dead husband, days or weeks of being brutalized, no one to help her deal with the hell she had just barely survived, plus nightmares and memories that would torment a person for years. What was there for Alayna to live for?

Rose let go of the woman’s shoulders, gently brushed the hair from her face, and saw a peace in her still-open eyes that hadn’t been evident in the last hour of her life. “I hope there’s a God up there for you, Alayna,” she whispered. “If anyone deserves or needs His love right now, it’s you.”

Rose covered Alayna’s body with the blanket that she had been wrapped up in, took the handgun that had fallen from her lifeless hand, and searched Mickey’s coat pocket for extra ammo. Then, newly supplied, she hurried away.

Mounting Smokey in one quick motion, Rose once again drove him West, refusing to let herself look back at the carnage she knew she would be seeing in her nightmares for years to come.

CHAPTER 31

Tuesday, February 7
^th

Deer Creek, MT

“Aahhhh!” Heather groaned through clenched teeth as she puffed in and out in short bursts, trying to manage the pain. “It hurts so much. Isn’t there anything I can take?”

“Hang in there, Heather,” Jane said, holding the girl’s hand and rubbing her arm. “My first baby was born natural. I know how bad this hurts, but you’ll get through it.”

Carol squeezed Heather’s leg reassuringly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything to give you. You’re real close though,” she said. “You’ll just have to tough this out.” Carol dipped her hands in the bowl of hot water, then dried them on a towel draped across her legs. “Let me check you again. Maybe we can have you start to push.” Carol reached under the blanket spread across Heather’s legs to check the dilation.

Heather locked her eyes on Carol, anxious and exhausted. “What do you think? Can I push yet?”

Carol looked hopeful. “I think,” she said, trying to sound confident, “that you’re not going to get any more effaced than you already are, and you seem fully dilated.”

Jane flashed a smile at Heather, while Jennifer let out a whoop.

“Thank heavens,” Heather said, relaxing a little and feeling a huge sense of accomplishment. “I never thought you’d say that. What do I do?”

Carol pulled the thin blanket, which was only needed for privacy since David had successfully heated the house to over eighty-five degrees, off of Heather’s legs, then positioned a stack of towels nearby and lit two additional candles. Ty had found the LPN at home, too sick and weak to be able to assist, leaving just the women of the house upstairs with Heather, while Ty and Jane’s husband, Gordon, waited in the basement with the children, ready to be called on if needed.

Carol moved quickly to arrange things around Heather’s legs. “Let me get set up. It should just take a minute or two. Once I’m ready, I’ll have you start pushing when you feel the next contraction coming on. If all goes well, we should have this baby delivered in just a few minutes. You excited?”

Heather groaned as another contraction began. “I’m excited to… have the pain…be over. Being a m…mother scares me…right now.”

Carol wiped her own forehead with a wet towel. “This will be nice having the patient tell me what’s going on and be able to help. Usually my patients just moo a lot or try to kick me.” She tucked a shower curtain liner under the end of the box spring, placed a bowl of water to one side, towels on the other, said a quick prayer, and smiled. “Alright, Heather. I’m ready. Tell me when the next contraction begins, then start to push, but not too hard to begin with. I’ll have you push along with the contractions. Alright?”

Heather nodded in relief and waited. “Okay, I can feel it beginning.”

Carol felt Heather tense up. “You’re doing fine. You know how hard your contractions have been. Match your pushing to the contraction, so you’re pushing the hardest when the contraction peaks, then ease back with it.”

Heather grunted and began to push, panting hard as she did so.

“That’s good, Heather. I can feel the baby’s head coming towards me.”

Heather bore down for thirty seconds, then held it. “The contraction’s ending,” she gasped. “What should I do?”

“Ease back on your pushing, okay. And take some good, deep breaths. Pushing like that is hard work.”

Carol coached Heather through a few more contractions, until the baby finally descended enough for her to grasp the baby with her fingers. She used both hands and tried to gently pull. “Just a little bit more, alright.”

“Aaaahhh!” Heather yelled again at the end of a contraction, sweat running in streams down her face. “It’s so hot in here.”

“The head is crowning, keep doing it. I think I can deliver the head with the next contraction, but it’ll require another good, hard push from you.”

Heather nodded, and waited, taking a sip of the water Jennifer offered. Ninety seconds later she felt another contraction building. “Here it comes!”

Carol guided the baby’s head as Heather tensed. “Remember, a long, hard push on this one.” Heather’s legs flexed, and Carol once again felt the baby descending through the birth canal. “You’re doing great,” Carol encouraged. “It’s coming! Keep it up.”

Jennifer and Jane knelt on either side of Heather, encouraging her as she struggled with the pain of the delivery. “I can’t do it,” Heather blurted, her strength giving out.

“You don’t have a choice,” Carol said sternly. “The nose is out, push hard!” she demanded, her voice rising to a shrill pitch in the otherwise quiet house.

Heather tensed again, took in a deep breath, gave a powerful push, and held it as long as she could.

“You did it!” Carol cheered. “The head is out; you can relax.”

Heather sunk back into the pillows, breathing hard, unable to talk. Jennifer once again held the cup to her lips. “Here, drink this,” she said. “You’re doing wonderful.”

Carol used a clean rag to wipe blood and fluid from the baby’s face. Gray, waxy vernix matted the baby’s hair tight against the scalp, and she dabbed at that while waiting for the next contraction to begin. “The hard part is over, Heather,” Carol said, smiling at the new mother, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead. “The baby looks small. I think we can get it all the way out on the next contraction.”

Heather closed her eyes. “This is so hard,” she mumbled. “Is it a baby or a basketball?”

Jane laughed and rubbed the girl’s hand. “It hurts like the dickens, doesn’t it? You’ll forget the pain though and probably have a couple more kids. I did.”

Heather shook her head. “This cured me. You’re looking at an only child.” She caught her breath and grimaced. “Contraction!” she said.

Jane and Jennifer both leaned in to help support Heather as she bore down, and Carol described the birth as it happened. “I’ve got one shoulder…doing good…other one’s out,” she said as she carefully pulled on the child as it emerged. “I see the cord…now it’s coming out. I’ve got him!” she said triumphantly. “Oh, wait. I mean I’ve got her. You have a baby girl. Congratulations!”

Heather collapsed back in exhaustion, too tired to speak. She smiled and tried to see the baby in Carol’s arms.

“She’s beautiful, Heather,” Jennifer said. “You should be so proud. You’re our first new mom since everything happened.”

“You told me if it was a girl you wanted to name her Madison,” Jane said. “Is that still what you want?”

Heather nodded weakly as Carol worked on the crying baby, its tiny, frail cries filling the living room. Jennifer slid over and helped cradle the baby while Carol wiped her clean, then wrapped her in a blanket before handing the bundle carefully to Heather. “The cord is still attached, so don’t pull too hard.”