Bound by Blood and Brimstone (16 page)

“Okay, tell me what you want me to do.”

“First, we must find ways to keep the young one busy. She will be frightened and may do

something to hinder our work.” I always found it funny how Wonnie referred to Lorrie Beth as

“the young one,” since we were only minutes apart in age.

“You will have her boil water and get clean rags, twine, and scissors. Allow her to

prepare clean swaddling for the baby. You must reassure her, but keep her from the birthing

room if you can.”

I couldn’t see Lorrie Beth being left alone to wonder if the screams down the hall meant

sure death. I could all too easily recall the terror invoked by such an experience and wished to

spare my sister. “Don’t you think she’d be even more scared if we didn’t let her in the room with

us? Maybe we could let her stay as long as she promised not to get in the way.”

She considered, agreed I may be right, provided if Lorrie Beth lost her wits, it’d be my

responsibility to calm her down. There shouldn’t be a single careless word to steal Momma’s

attention from the work at hand, Wonnie told me.

I was chewing my lower lip, a myriad of jumbled thoughts tangling themselves in my

brain. She must’ve seen inside my head because she patted my arm and smiled broadly. “You

will do well, Running Dear,” she assured me. You have studied hard and listened. Your mother

will be fine. It is not yet time for her spirit to depart from her.”

That snapped me to attention. “How do you know that?”

Her slim shoulders popped up in a shrug and she replied simply, “I just do.” Sometimes,

Wonnie could be downright irritating. While I pondered that unfaithful notion, she stood and

paused for a stretch before heading back to the front room. “Make sure your herb bag is ready.

You will need it soon, but not before tomorrow morning, I think. Your mother must be kept

moving, on her feet until the last.”

She left me to read my book in peace, but without the presence of mind to do so. Giving

up on Nancy Drew, I cast my book aside and lay watching the spastic shifting of shadows thrown

on the ceiling by the oil lamp. I listened to the pounding on the roof and attempted to focus on

remembering everything Wonnie had taught me on our treks though the woods.

I
want you to promise you’ll take care of your Momma until
I get back,
Daddy had told

me.
I’m especially counting
on you
. I thought about those words and the promise I’d made to

Momma, trying to reconcile the two of them. I couldn’t. The last image in my head before

drifting off was of Daddy’s broad back as he disappeared that morning into the downpour.

I couldn’t have dozed more than a few minutes before I was nudged hard. I opened my

eyes to find Lorrie Beth looking down at me as she joggled my shoulder repeatedly.

“Get up, lazybones. Boy, some midwife you are,” she retorted. “Sleeping in the middle of

the day. Momma’s in the kitchen; she wants you.” Reality returned with a jolt, and I hurried into

the kitchen, figuring I’d find Momma panting and in the final stages of labor.

Instead, she was placidly stirring a pot on our wood-burning stove as Wonnie huffed in

through the back door, a quart jar of kraut in each hand. During her trip to the cellar, she’d

managed to get drenched and had the distinct appeal of a small brown mouse that has barely

escaped drowning.

“Much good a porch does at times like these,” she grumbled, wringing water out of her

hair. “May as well just jump right in for a swim.”

Momma glanced at her sideways, trying to suppress a smile, and just as she noticed me in

the doorway, bent over the oven to pull out a skillet of cornbread.

“Oh, there you are, Honey. I wondered if you’d mind setting the table for me.”

“Is that why you sent Lorrie Beth after me?” I asked, trying not to show my irritation.

“She acted like it was--oh, never mind. Sure, I’ll set the table, but what’s
she
doing to help?” I

realized I was being petulant, but felt powerless to stop myself.

Momma gave me an odd look as she slammed the pot lid over the beans. “I’ve already

told her she’s washing dishes after we’re done, and she’s helped me with my darning and with

getting the baby’s things straightened out.”

“Sorry, Momma, guess I’m just nervous,” I responded lamely.

She sighed and set the steaming bowl of beans on the table. “I guess we all are.” Wonnie

dumped the jar of kraut into a kettle of short ribs and was just dishing it all up when Lorrie Beth

came in to pour the milk.

Momma had the platter of corn pone in her hand when she froze in mid-step and looked

down. Gouts of liquid gushed from under the hem of her paisley print dress and spread in a

puddle at her feet. “Uh oh,” she said mildly. “My water just broke.”

Naturally, it was Wonnie who took charge, after ten seconds or so of sheer panic. Lorrie

Beth, who lapsed into hand wringing and wailing, was ordered to clean up the mess on the floor.

I, much to my dismay, was shoved out the door to milk the cow. I protested vehemently that this

wasn’t the time, but Momma insisted that it had to be done, and I was the best candidate.

“Your daddy milked this morning, but the second one has to be done. A baby on the way

isn’t going to change the fact that the stock has to be tended,” she said firmly. I looked to

Wonnie for assistance, but she was clearly not in my corner.

“There will be plenty of time before you are needed in the birthing room,” she promised.

By the time I got back, I was bedraggled, mud-spattered, and still grumbling. Wonnie had

settled Momma into bed, and even though Lorrie Beth had the distinct look of someone about to

swoon in a dead faint, she was at least steering clear of the danger zone. After sponging off the

mud and changing into dry clothes, I came to stand at the head of the bed to await Wonnie’s

instructions.

Momma smiled wanly and reached for my hand. “I don’t think it’ll be much longer,

Honey. I don’t want you to be afraid. I trust you completely.” Before I could muster a reply, a

pain slammed the breath out of her, and she fisted the sheet.

In the end, it was something I wouldn’t have missed if the world had come crashing

down around my ears. Wonnie declared it was one of the fastest and easiest births she’d ever

witnessed, perfect for a novice midwife. That’s not to say it was an easy thing, seeing my mother

in the kind of pain unequaled to any on earth. Surprisingly, the beauty of it was unequaled as

well.

Make no mistake. A baby being born is messy business, bloody business. But nothing on

the planet can quite compare to the sight of human life, fresh from the womb. Instead of being

appalled, I marveled at that wet, glistening body as it slid out into my waiting hands, the fluids

that had nurtured him, spilling over my arms.

With Wonnie as my silent coach and Lorrie Beth watching from the corner, I cut the

cord, washed him in a pan of water, and wrapped him in warm flannel. I held him first, even

before Momma, and was awed at his perfection. Samuel Ray Roberts wasn’t red and wrinkled

and misshapen like most newborns, but smooth and dusky, with thick hair that curled about his

ears. After uttering his first cry, he opened dark eyes that peered at me solemnly. I was had. It

was love at first sight.

“Ember Mae, you have to give him up,” Momma said, laughing weakly. “I want to hold

my son.” Reluctantly, I handed him over and turned to see Wonnie grinning at me like a possum.

“You are a fine midwife, Running Dear,” she said proudly. At that moment, a loud knock

on the front door reverberated through the house.

Momma struggled to sit up straighter in bed. “It’s William!” she cried, beaming. “He’s

made it after all, and just in time.”

I ran to the door and threw it open to find Sheriff Bates on the doorstep. Water ran off his

clothes in rivulets, and he was holding his hat. I peered through the dark and the rain and, seeing

no one with him, said, “Isn’t Daddy with you?”

He twisted his hat nervously and looked at his feet. Clearing his throat, he said in a

somber voice, “I need to speak to your Momma, Ember Mae.”

There was a dull ringing in my ears and my heart seized. “She’s in the bed; she just had a

baby. You can’t see her. Now, where’s my daddy?” I screeched.

That’s when I saw the tears in his eyes. “There was a cave-in at the mines this morning,

and he was trapped. He’s dead, Honey.”

The world as I knew it crashed and burned around my head. I was struck blind and mute.

I used to look back on that night and feel shame that I wasn’t any help to the rest of them, but if

not for the paralysis that washed me in darkness, I would’ve died on my feet where I stood.

Many times I wished I’d done just that and followed my daddy. God knows that would’ve been

easier.

Only the tidal wave of sound kept me anchored to the realm of this world: Momma’s

broken screams, the lull of Wonnie’s chanting prayers, Lorrie Beth’s babbling sobs, Baby Sam’s

wailing, the clump of Sheriff Bates’ boots, the slamming door, shutting us in together with our

torment.

It was days later before I discovered what happened, and then only second-hand through

Lorrie Beth. She told me Momma screamed so long she vomited on the bed and had to be

cleaned up by Wonnie, who prayed to her Great Spirit through the entire ordeal. She said

Momma flung Baby Sam away from her, and his tender skull would’ve cracked open on the hard

floor if Wonnie hadn’t caught him.

Momma had begged Wonnie to kill her so she could be with Daddy, and when Wonnie

refused, Momma grabbed the bloody scissors I’d used to cut the cord and tried to ram them into

her own chest.

“I was so scared of Momma, I tried to crawl into the corner away from her,” Lorrie Beth

told me in a tremulous voice, “but she came at me cursing and clawing. Can you believe that?

Momma cursing!”

Wonnie was our Gibraltar in the storm, for only she was able to calm Momma enough to

get her back in bed. Only she could cradle Baby Sam against Momma’s breast to nurse, holding

him there while Momma lay limp and spent. According to Lorrie Beth, I played no part in this

drama. The only clear memory I retained was of standing by the window until dawn, peering out

into the darkness, seeing nothing.

I had no idea when my sight returned, but I knew it was morning because the gray light

beyond the window revealed the swamp that had been our front yard. It was Wonnie’s face and

her steely grip on my elbow that dragged me back, against my will, to the world I so desperately

wanted to be free of.

“Come with me,” she said in a voice that left no question about compliance. The whites

of her eyes were streaked with red. The lines that bracketed her lips appeared to be deeper than

before, but no other visible sign evidenced her back-breaking grief. I was suddenly overwhelmed

with the desire to climb upon her small back and let her carry me the rest of my days.

She was my only anchor now in the torrents that raged within me. I longed to cling tight,

to ride out the current of my pent-up rage and sorrow against her thin shoulder, but all was caged

too tightly within my spirit, bottled and bound with a cork too swollen to remove.

I let her lead me to the kitchen, where she pulled out a chair and grunted as she pushed

my stiff body down onto the seat. A mug of steaming golden liquid sat on the table in front of

me.

“Drink it,” she ordered, taking the chair across from me. I grasped the mug handle, raised

it to my lips, and sipped. It was bitter and vile tasting, slamming my stomach like a hot anvil, and

I gulped and gasped to keep it from coming back up into my throat. “What is that stuff? It’s

awful,” I managed.

She merely waved a hand and nodded. “Just herb tea, brewed for strength, which you will

need. Now, drink, and listen to me, Child.”

I forced myself to take another cautious sip and fixed my gaze on her haggard face.

“There is no time for you to think of yourself now,” she admonished sternly. “No time for you to

grieve your loss. Too much must be done, and you must do it.”

For an instant I opened my mouth to protest, but her upraised hand stopped me. “You

must do these things because the others are too weak. Your mother’s will has gone, and your

sister must be led. It falls on you now. My grandson would have wanted it so.”

She faltered a moment and dropped her head. When she raised it again to look at me, her

chin was quivering, the only sign that betrayed her near loss of composure. “My only living

grandchild is gone,” she said thinly, “and until my Great Spirit, my Father calls me to be with

Him, I will go on and do what I must do. You must do the same.”

In another room Baby Sam began to cry, not much more than a whimper at first, then, a

deafening screech. It continued with no sign of abating.
Why is Momma letting him cry like that?