Untamed Journey (34 page)

“Harder, Ruth,” Sue insisted. “I’ve seen the
doctor do it harder, and tilt the child more toward the floor.”

Ruth did as Sue suggested and pounded more
forcefully on the baby’s back. She prayed with all her might, until
she heard the faintest mewling sound. She stuck her finger in the
baby’s mouth and cleared its airway, giving one last slap on the
back until she heard the crying that meant they had a living,
breathing child to welcome into the world.

At the sound of the newborn’s cry, Meghan’s
husband burst into the room, a look of abject relief on his
face.

“Are they all right, Miss Sue?” He
whispered.

Jackson was right behind Tom, doing his best
to keep the man calm.

“Jackson, get him out of here,” Sue ordered.
“We’re not done with his wife and you’re not cleaned up.”

“It’s a girl, by the way.” Ruth added with a
tired smile.

Jackson did as she ordered and dragged the
father out the door, reassuring him that things were looking
fine.

Sue immediately cut the cord and took the
baby Ruth handed her for a quick bath.

Ruth took a heated poker from the fireplace
and quickly seared the end of the cord, worried sick that the
mother had lost too much blood. Her father normally stitched a
patient, but only when there was time. He still insisted that
searing had its place when time was a factor, so Ruth made the most
frightening decision of her life and did just that.

Meghan was not moving, so Ruth quickly
listened for her heart, and nearly sagged to the floor in relief
that it was still beating. “She’s alive,” Ruth announced. “I think
she just fainted again from the pain. Let’s clean her up a bit,
then see if the baby’s nursing won’t wake her up.”

Sue wrapped the baby in a tight bundle, and
set her snugly in a dresser drawer. They struggled with the
mother’s weight, as they changed the sheets on the bed and cleaned
her once more with the remaining whiskey.

They settled their patient under several warm
blankets, then placed her new baby at her breast, hoping more
smelling salts would not be needed.

“Wake up, Meghan. Your baby is here.” Ruth
shook the tired woman firmly. That, combined with the tugging and
crying baby, brought their patient back.

Sue helped the little girl find milk, while
Ruth stroked their patient’s head, keeping up a steady stream of
talk so she wouldn’t pass out again. “It’s a beautiful girl. She
has a healthy set of lungs and seems hungry enough to me. You’re
both going to be just fine.”

Their patient let out a small sliver of a
smile and thanked them both in a bare whisper of a voice. “Where’s
my husband?”

Ruth had almost forgotten about the three
waiting males in the other room, and quickly opened the bedroom
door to motion them in to meet the new arrival. Ruth’s welcoming
smile said everything to the terrified husband. He shook her hand
roughly before brushing past to kneel at his wife’s side, where he
cried in exhausted relief.

Jackson knelt down next to the little boy,
who likely had never seen his father cry. “He’s just happy your ma
and little sister are all right. It’s the body’s way of letting go
of all those worries.”

The little boy let a few tears fall at
Jackson’s kind words and hid his head on the Marshal’s shoulder.
Jackson hugged him tight, and then matter-of-factly wiped the
child’s eyes and nose. “Okay, now go on in with your Pa, so you can
kiss your Ma and say hey to your new sister.”

Johnny did as the Marshal instructed, and
Ruth quietly closed the door to give the family a few moments
alone.

They all collapsed to the floor and grinned
in relief. No words seemed sufficient, so Jackson grabbed the last
of the whiskey from the fireplace mantel and passed around the
bottle. “To life,” he toasted.

Sue and Ruth both laughed in joy and drank
their fill. They were too relieved to move off the dirt floor or so
much as wipe the blood and muck from their tired faces.

“To life,” they saluted.

“L
et him up. Let my
boy up!” the agonizing scream of a mother was lost on the hardened
faces of three masked men, holding a nine-year-old boy to the
ground, boot to tiny neck.

The boy’s tear-streaked face was covered in
dust and blood smears from the small cuts along one side of his
cheek. He struggled in vain against two full grown men, trying
desperately to reach his screaming mother and sister.

The man on the boy’s left was a mulatto,
escaped from Federal prison while it was under Confederate attack.
He had lost one eye in a knife fight, but the hollowness in his
soul was clear for all to see in the one remaining. His good eye
didn’t so much as blink as the boy’s mother continued to scream and
cry, while the Mulatto’s partner sharpened the family’s own axe –
slowly and within clear sight of the boy and his mother.

“Now, Ma’am, you must understand that we have
nothing personal against you or your boy,” the partner said,
smoothing his perfectly manicured mustache. “But I only get paid if
I deliver your land over to my boss. If taking the boy’s hand will
do that, then so be it.”

At a nod from the speaker, the Mulatto took
the newly-sharpened axe and held it against the boy’s outstretched
wrist. It wouldn’t take much to sever such a skinny arm, he knew.
Doubt the boy would live long, the Mulatto thought idly, seeing as
there weren’t any doctors within one hundred miles of this stretch
of farm land.

“Please, let my boy go,” the weeping mother
begged. “He’s just a child. I can’t sign the papers. It’s my
husband who owns the land.”

The mother’s frantic pleas had no visible
effect on either outlaw.

The Mulatto thought she would have learned by
now, seeing as they’d already raped her and the girl many times
throughout the night. The father lay in a bloody pool, passed out
cold from the beating they had given him.

The Mulatto couldn’t understand all this fuss
over a piece of dirt. He’d grown up on one just like it – an orphan
bought to work as slave labor for the meanest son of a bitch in New
Mexico territory. He had spent every waking moment of his childhood
plotting an escape. And here were these pathetic folks risking
their lives to stay put. He gave his dirty beard one good scratch
before carefully adjusting his grip on the ax handle.

With the mother unable to take action, and
the father a useless heap on the ground, the Mulatto looked over
his shoulder at the man with the money. Frank Masterson was calmly
sitting on his thoroughbred a safe distance away. The Boss gave the
nod.

The Mulatto gave the farmers one last chance,
before he quickly and efficiently severed the right thumb of the
frightened child.

The boy passed out from pain, or maybe just
fright. He was a farmer all right, the Mulatto thought, truly
perplexed that such a small injury would take the boy down. He had
suffered much worse at the hands of his first and only master.

Now reduced to weeping hysterically, the
mother struggled to reach her child.

The Mulatto’s partner moved across her path,
blocking her way to the boy. “Now, Ma’am, be reasonable. I was
downright merciful there, seeing as your boy is left-handed. He can
still sit a cow pony and shoot a bastard like me someday when he’s
a bit older. But next time, I’m taking his whole hand. Even if he
survives the blood loss and gangrene, he’ll be near worthless. Sign
the damn papers.”

Having awakened at her brother’s cries, the
boy’s sister crawled to her feet and limped past her mother. She
stepped up to the outlaw and held her delicate hand out to him.

She took the papers and knelt next to her
mother. “It’s Okay. Pa will understand you had to do it. He won’t
beat you much. We’ll find somewhere else to farm. You’ll see.”

The girl gently brushed the tangled hair out
of her mother’s eyes. The child put her fingers around the pen in
her mother’s hand, and guided her signature across the bottom of
the deed to their livelihood.

The Mulatto calmly let go of her brother, who
slumped to the ground, still out cold.

S
ue stretched her
weary arms above her head and motioned to Jackson to take Ruth
home. As Ruth started to protest, Sue cut her off. “Now, don’t
argue. I have Catherine coming by within the hour to spell me and
cook up breakfast for the family, here. I promised Meghan I’d stay
with her and feed her men for the first few days. She’s a bit shy.
So even though you’re becoming one of us, she won’t be nearly as
relaxed with you here.”

Jackson had learned long ago not to argue
with Sue about her caretaking tendencies. With no children of her
own, she thrived on watching over the women and children of their
motley group. Jackson brushed off his chaps and reached down for
Ruth’s hands. “Come on, Ruth. No point in arguing with this
cousin-of-a-mule. Let’s head home and get cleaned up.”

“You’ll let us know how the baby does?” Ruth
called over her shoulder.

“Of course,” Sue promised. “I’ll send little
Johnny over after supper with news.”

“Let the boy know what supplies you need,”
Jackson said. “I can bring them over tomorrow. And I’ll send one of
the hands over to help Tom cut some extra wood. His wife will need
a bit of his time, I imagine.”

Jackson lifted Ruth up behind him, before
kicking his mount into a brisk walk. As they headed in the
direction of home, Jackson smiled in pure satisfaction. He had not
only found a naturally sensual woman to call his own, but one with
the guts to take on her first human birth with calm and
determination.

“Come on, Doc. We’ll get you home and into a
tall cup of hot coffee in no time.”

Ruth blushed at Jackson’s teasing words, not
feeling much like the doctor her father had been. She was proud of
her success none-the-less. She cuddled up against Jackson’s broad
back, not much caring at this point who saw them. She hoped most
folks would attribute her familiarity to exhaustion from the birth,
rather than to the very intimate truth that was hovering between
them. She absently wondered if anyone else noticed such a thing, or
if it was just her own passionate feelings reflecting back at
her.

As they rode up to the barn, Jackson waived
his hat to the handful of men breaking horses in the corral. “It’s
a girl – healthy and near ugly as her Pa.”

Ruth slapped Jackson on the thigh in outrage
on behalf of her little angel, as Jackson and the men laughed in
relief. The new parents were not only respected, but well-liked by
all. No one wanted to see them go through the pain of losing a
child.

As Jackson had hoped, everyone was so busy
with winter preparations and the added strain of a difficult birth,
that they did not pay any mind to him or Ruth. Jackson quickly took
care of his horse, then escorted Ruth around the back of the house
and into the kitchen.

“Sit here,” he said. “If you can stay awake a
little longer, I’ll heat water for a bath. With Sue being out for a
few days, the men know they’re on their own for meals. You’ll have
the place to yourself.”

Except for the six feet of muscled male
standing before me, Ruth thought.

As if he had guessed at her thoughts, Jackson
grinned. “The bath can wait if you’re too tired.”

Ruth’s exhausted mind was lured by the
thought of a feather bed, but then memories of her recent actions
there had her body perking up. “I’ll have that bath now, thank
you.” She sat on the edge of the kitchen chair, suddenly more alert
than she thought possible after such a long night.

“If you can start the oven up – there should
be wood inside already – I’ll start bringing in water from the
pump. This winter I was thinking of drawing the plans for indoor
plumbing. We wouldn’t be able to lay the pipe from the well to the
house until after the ground thaws. But if we have everything
planned and the parts made ahead of time, we should be set up no
later than the first week of spring.”

Ruth stood up to light the stove, but turned
around at the mention of indoor plumbing. “You’re serious? Our
neighbors had it back home, but it broke down and there was no one
to repair it for all the years of the War.”

Jackson strained to drag the huge copper tub
closer to the woodstove before answering. “You don’t think I want
to haul this many buckets when I’m old and grey, do you? And what
if we have half a dozen girls? I’d have to hire a full time hand
just to carry water for the lot of you.”

“I’m not sure I could handle even one, after
seeing what Meghan just went through.”

Ruth paused at her own words
.
What
was she thinking, playing along with a fantasy life she knew she
could never have? She admonished herself for leading Jackson on,
when the truth had yet to be spoken between them. She knew she
wasn’t being fair to this man, who was good at heart and deserved
better from her.

A sprinkle of warm drops shook Ruth out of
her gloomy thoughts. She looked up to meet Jackson’s smiling
eyes.

“It’s ready,” he announced. “I can leave you
alone or wash your back for you?”

He said it with such blatant guile that Ruth
couldn’t take offense, even though proper society dictated she
should. She reached for the towel, then watched as he bowed and
turned toward the back door. She was embarrassed at the thought,
but practicality soon had her calling him back.

“Wait. Can you help me with my laces?” She
blushed at her bold request, but then remembered he had seen much
more than her naked back. And she desperately wanted this bath.

Jackson halted in his tracks. He took several
deep breaths, promising himself he would maintain control, but
knowing he was fooling himself.

Loosening his grip on the kitchen door, he
slowly turned around. He made no attempt to hide the naked desire
in his eyes.