The Hinterlands (11 page)

I counted and squeezed my eyes shut and seen the stars overhead that must be out over the roof and painter and trees. The stars was so close and big they shined like falling snow all around me. If the earth was round I was in the middle of stars swishing and spreading and passing.

When the pain weakened I got up. The painter was scratching around the top of the chimney. Bits of sticks and dried mud kept dropping into the fire. Bits of soot and mud had fell into my beans. I didn't want no beans anyway. I moved the pot off the hearth. When I stooped down to move the kittle closer to the flames, I thought I seen the face of that painter up the chimney. Now I don't think I did. The chimney was too far up for me to see unless I was right in the fire. But I thought I seen that devil looking at me. I had a gourd with some grease in it hanging by the chimney, and I throwed that on the fire. The flames leaped up, and I heard the painter growl and jump back. The smoke and flames must have singed him hard for I heard him fling back on the roof to the ground. The burning lard smelled terrible and
smoked up the cabin a little. But I laughed to myself thinking of that cat getting grease flames in his face.

I put the last of my wood on the fire. Even the kindling Realus had split from fat pine was gone. It seemed past midnight and so cold outside I heard a poplar crack. But I wasn't cold. I was sweating. My hair stuck to my forehead and my dress was damp. The worst sweating seemed to be down my back. I don't know why a woman birthing sweats so down her back.

Something scratched at the door, high where a man could just barely reach. The door shook and the big hickory bolt in its slot rattled. Your Grandpa had made it strong, but it couldn't hold the weight of that big cat if it lunged at the door. I pushed the bench hard against the door.

The first ladder peg to the loft pulled out easy when I twisted it in its hole. But the second and third stuck hard. I'd need an ax or sledgehammer to break them off. They was meant to hold a man's weight.

That left only the bench to burn, and the cradle your Grandpa had made. That cradle was so pretty it broke my heart to think of burning it. The sides and ends was made of wide poplar he'd smoothed with his knife, and with a piece of glass. The wood shined from the oil rubbed in it. All fall your Grandpa had set by the fire at night smoothing and rubbing that wood before he pegged it together. Now the rockers was made of chestnut. They say rockers out of chestnut won't ever creep, no matter what kind of floor they rock on. Something about the chestnut wood just grips the floor. 'Course that wasn't a problem since we didn't have no floor then. But a good cradle will last a family, and can be passed on through the generations.

If I burned up the bench I wouldn't have nothing to hold the door with, and if the painter broke down the door bolt, me and
the baby would die. It wasn't even a hard decision. When the time come I'd break the headboard across the bench and feed it to the fire.

As the painter fumbled around over the door I could hear things fall. The gourds I had hung up, and the hoes, and the horseshoe your Grandpa had tacked there. He had some nails in a bag, and I heard them go flying every which way. Nails was hard to get, unless they was a blacksmith to make them. But a lot of smiths wouldn't make nails. Too much hammering to fashion the little things.

To make the wood last I'd have to measure it out through the night. It must be after midnight, but that still left six hours to go. When you tend a fire it's almost like you're growing a plant or feeding some kind of animal. It's all a matter of pace and timing, not putting on too much wood and not letting the flame die down too far.

When a fire tries to talk to you it'll drive you crazy to figure out what it's saying. You lean close, while you're mending the flames with a poker, turning over a log so sparks shoot up the chimney, and hear a kind of hush and whisper. The blues from wet bark, and the greens, will play around the edges of the flames like pieces of the northern lights. You'll hear what sounds like another word, or just a hiss and puff. But I never did know how to interpret a fire.

When I look into the fire I see all these mountains way back yonder, and shining valleys as far and many as you might imagine. I can see trails leading off into hollers, and houses and bright meadows where you could just keep on walking way out toward some other kind of world you dreamed about when you was a little kid.

The painter was on the roof again. I felt the cabin shake when
he jumped back up. More crumbs of dirt dropped into the fire, and I knowed he was pawing around the chimney.

What do you mean, did I pray? Of course I prayed. But I didn't have no time for lengthy prayers. I knowed I had to help myself, and I got on with it. I had to fight.

That night I wished I had a drink to calm my nerves. They was tearing pain inside me and I jumped back from the fireplace. That was the first time I felt the baby shift inside me. It was like the baby turned and dropped. A fire went through my belly and thighs. I was sweating something terrible, and I thought
I can't do this. I can't go through with it.
At the same time I knowed I didn't have no choice. That baby was coming out, and they was a rightness to it. It was like I had felt this terrible pain before. I knowed this desperate pressure and work. Maybe from the time I was born myself.

As the pain scorched through me they wasn't nothing I could do but hold onto the mantelpiece. I looked at the stumps the bench was pegged to. They was white oak, and seasoned by standing near the fire. If I could break them off and use them they'd burn for an hour or more and keep that cat out of the chimney.

Soon as the worst of the pain faded I pulled the bench away from the door. It was a heavy thing, and scraped up the dirt where it went. I kicked it over in front of the fire and pushed on one of the stumps. It was pegged tight to the boards. Your Grandpa had done his work real good. I couldn't just push the bench in the fire 'cause I needed something to prop the door.

When you're scared you take on the strength of two or three ordinary women. I set down on the upturned bench and kicked with both my feet to knock the stump loose. At first it didn't give. Them sourwood pegs held solid. I swung around and kicked at
the other stump but it wouldn't budge either. It seemed impossible to loosen the heavy pieces. I set there thinking the next pain might hit me any second. I had to prepare myself if I wanted to survive. That's when I got mad at your Grandpa. It was your Grandpa that left me with not even a gun and no firewood to last the night, and no granny woman to help, and nobody to explain what I needed to do. It was your Grandpa that took me off into the wilderness and got me with a baby and then didn't find a midwife.

My frustration come to a point right then. I seen that stump like it was your Grandpa's head, and I hauled off with both legs and kicked it. It was like I gripped the boards with my back and kicked. I would have killed Realus had he been there. But I felt that stump give a little. I kicked again and the pegs broke and the stump rolled off by the hearth.

Quick as I could, I swung around and kicked the other stump until it give way. Then I rolled both stumps into the fireplace. I couldn't put one stump on top of another. They was too heavy to lift, and they wasn't room anyway. They liked to smothered the fire, and some smoke come out into the room. But the coals was still hot, and they caught the stumps even through the bark.

I picked up the heavy boards of the seat and braced them against the door. It was all I could do to lift the heavy planks. And I tried to dig the other ends into the dirt floor so they wouldn't slide back.

While I was doing that, the next pain hit and I really felt things tearing loose inside me. I dropped back on the bed and rolled over, but nothing would stop the pain. It was like something sharp was going through me. I held my belly and pushed. I pushed inside.

You can't do this, I said to myself. You can't never do this on your own. I propped my legs against the bedposts and pushed,
near beside myself with pain. My eyes was full of tears and sweat, and I guess I was hollering. All I could think of in the heat and terrible strain was, this is what it takes to be alive.

My back rolled around on that bed. It was like I was thrashing around in the dirt even though I was on the bed. I had took my best quilt off the bed, the one my Mama had give me, and left nothing but old sheets and blankets on it. I pushed against them sheets so hard it's a wonder they didn't tear.

The big stumps must have caught for they was more light in the room, as well as the candle beside the bed. I guess the room must have warmed, but I was sweating too much to tell. The pains was almost steady. It was new pains, and new levels of pains coming. Every time I thought I couldn't stand it they would come another pain and it would be worse. I didn't know they was such pain. Every pain just kept opening into a bigger one.

I squeezed my eyes closed and pushed against the bedposts, and I pushed against the burden in my belly. It was like a nest of knives was pushing through me. And yet, at the worst moment, they was this solid thing down there that put a deep, sweet feeling inside the awful pain that was working out through me.

I reached down there into myself and felt among the blood and water this greasy thing coming through like a bud out of a seed. That's when I pushed the hardest ever, because I knowed then it might work, that I might on my own get this over with. That was my main wish then, to get it over and done with.

The last push was the hardest. It was a wonder I didn't break down the bedposts. I pushed so hard I could have pushed the cabin up the hill, or pushed the whole earth an inch or two back if I'd had a place to grab hold of it. I squeezed my eyes and pushed away from the fire, and it was like I shot myself through a tunnel of pain and the baby come out in the opposite direction.

I felt down there and held what was coming through. It wasn't no bigger than a Wolf River apple, all slick and greasy. I pushed again like I was trying to push the whole future ahead by a second. I partly set up and pulled on the little head. I still couldn't see nothing. But it was like the baby flopped inside me, worked its back through like a weasel coming out of a burrow.

Then the little shoulders come through and I could see in the mess of blood the little arms. It was the wonderfullest feeling, to see that it had all worked inside me, that the little human being was complete and real. I reached down and took hold of the little feller. He was all slick and covered with the buttery stuff babies is covered with. And the dark cord was all twisted around, attached to the belly and coming out from inside me. I pulled at that thing, and most of it come out, but it didn't come loose from him. They wasn't no way to get it free. So I leaned far as I could and bit that bloody thing in two. And I seen among the blood and all that sticky stuff that it was a boy.

There I was, with the blood and stuff all over me, and coming out of me, and this red little animal of a baby in my hands. I didn't know if he was alive, and I didn't know what to do next. I couldn't get up because I was too weak and I couldn't slap the baby on his bottom like I'd always heard about, 'cause I had to hold him with both hands. So I just shook him a little. I shook him like I was listening for a rattle or a sign. And he started crying. He sounded like a little sheep and got louder. It was a cry that seemed to fill the whole cabin. I was so tired I just set there and held him for a minute while he cried.

We don't need to go into all the details about how I finally laid the baby on the blankets and cleaned myself up a little. That was when I noticed the painter again, still up there on the roof growling. He must have smelled the blood and the baby. The stumps was still burning, and the fire was hotter than ever.

All the mess I wiped up, and put the dirty sheets in a bucket. I poured hot water in a pan and washed myself off. I was almost too sore to touch myself, and was shaky from the strain. The real cleaning up would have to be done later. I just did what had to be done. I washed the baby off careful and wrapped him in a blanket. Then I took us both to the bed and covered us with the big blanket. That's when I felt the soreness and itching in my breasts for the first time. They hurt, but they also itched. I put the baby up next to me, and his mouth just naturally grabbed hold of a nipple. I was tired to death, but I wasn't sleepy.

Of course, I did go to sleep. I dropped off with the baby at my breast. I didn't even know I was asleep. It seemed I was laying there and the cabin was warm and I thought it was summer and green. It was so warm I could take the baby out with me when I went to the spring. It was like I could remember the painter and winter, but it was already blossom time, and birds was fussing in the stubble. They was a scratching somewhere.

Then I realized I had been asleep, for the scratching was coming from the chimney. Dirt and pieces of sticks fell in the fireplace. The stumps had burned down low and the painter was leaning over the top of the chimney. He could smell the milk coming from my breasts. I got up gentle as I could and laid the baby on the blankets. I was so weak my hands shook, and I like to fell back. That woke me up, and I grabbed hold of the bedpost.

They was nothing else to burn but the cradle, and the planks propping the door. If I took down the planks the cat could knock the door down. But at least they was two of the boards. I unstuck one from where it was jammed against the bolt. But I had no way to chop it up. That board was eight feet long and wouldn't fit in the fireplace except if you poked it in longways. The danger was the fire would spread back on the board before the end was burned up enough to push the plank in further.

But I didn't have no choice. I pushed that board in the fire on the coals. I figured if the painter come down the chimney I'd pick up the end of the board and shove it in his face.

Just when I got the plank in the fire, the baby started crying. I had to pick him up and hold him while I watched the plank.