Into the Wilderness (65 page)

Kitty
was wrinkling her nose. Curiosity took one look at her and led her out of
sight.

"Kitty
Witherspoon," she whispered. "I can surely use your help here. But
only if you don't let that woman think she's worse than dirt. You don' like the
way she live her life, but she do the best she can. Now, are you here to help,
or should I send you back home to your daddy like the child you are?"

At
first she thought that she had been too harsh, for the girl went pale and then
flushed. But the distance in her eyes went away and she blinked at Curiosity.

"I'll
open the windows."

"Good
idea," said Curiosity with a smile. "And we'll need water.

But
first come say how—do. She won't bite, you know. Not at this stage, at any
rate." She paused, and cast a knowing look at Kitty's middle. "Seems
to me your turn ain't too far down the line. That true?"

Wordlessly,
Kitty nodded, spreading her ring less hands over her waist.

"I
thought me so," Curiosity said with a nod. "You'll be glad of women
around you when your time come along."

"My
husband will attend me." Kitty's voice faltered.

Curiosity
said, "Will he now?" And watched the young woman blush.

"He
will be my husband."

Will he now?
But she could
be kind when it was called for, and so she didn't say it. She had watched this
girl grow, and it saddened Curiosity to see her juggled from man to man. Always
settling for a piece of what she thought she wanted. Julian's child in her, and
telling herself that Richard Todd would not know the difference.

"So
be it," she said quietly. "But one way or the other, you'll be glad
of your own kind."

There
was a moan, cut off suddenly.

"Miz
Southern. How is that child coming on?" Curiosity moved into the next room
with sharp little taps of her shoes.

"Slow,"
Martha Southern whispered. "Miss Witherspoon, I am surprised to see you here.
Thank you kindly for your help."

Kitty
cleared her throat and nodded.

"She's
a mite scared," Curiosity pointed out. But it's a chore we women have got
to share, ain't that so?"

With
eyes darting everywhere but Martha's belly, Kitty managed a nod. "I'm not
sure how much help I can be."

"Well,
settle in," Curiosity said, tying her apron into a tighter wrap around her
slender self. "And we'll find out the answer to that question. Now."
she said. "This is going to take a good while. Get over there, Kitty, and
help me get this woman out of bed. Ain't no way a child'll get down to business
while it's got such a easy life. What we got to talk about until the next pains
come on?"

Kitty
calmed after a while, putting her hands to whatever task Curiosity set her and
doing it well. When a pain came down hard on Martha, Kitty would sometimes
pause and blanch. But then she would carry on. Silent and watchful and grim,
she pressed her lips hard together and worked without complaint.

But
Curiosity could not move the girl to a talking frame of mind. It was an unusual
experience, for she had always had the knack for getting women to open up, but
Kitty was closed to the subject of what had gone on at the Albany courthouse.
Martha would have been an easier nut to crack if it hadn't been for Kitty. The
minute Curiosity raised the topic, she saw them glance at each other and then
away, united in their discomfort as they were in nothing else. As if she had
produced a rude noise or a bad smell and they were agreed that it would be rude
to draw her attention to it.

The
child got down to business just past midnight. Martha asked to be allowed to
set, but Curiosity pushed her a little further, encouraging her to walk between
them from one end of the small cabin to the other. With increasing regularity
and for longer periods, Martha would falter and sag between them. What had been
a thoughtful look on her plain round face turned more to pain, and then moved
beyond that, too.

"Don'
you hold your breath," said Curiosity. "Come on and talk to me, now.
Tell me, Kitty. Did I see you come back from Albany with a new bonnet?"

It
was straw, she was told. With a velvet ribbon. And then Kitty was silent again.

Martha
tensed suddenly and let out a low moan.

"She's
gone a gusher," Curiosity said, stepping around the puddle on the floor.
"Don't look so took back, Kitty. It's just her waters. The child getting
impatient now."

"Waters?"
asked Kitty.

"I
guess your daddy never told you much, did he? And why should he, probably
forgot the little he once knew about a woman's insides."

Martha
laughed out loud at that, and even Kitty grinned.

"Glad
to see you ain't lost your sense of humor," Curiosity said as they settled
Martha into bed. "It will stand you in good stead in the next hour or
two."

"Another
hour or two." Kitty looked suddenly panicked.

"Took
me three to push the last one out," Martha said. "But he was
oversized."

"It's
one of them mysteries," Curiosity agreed. "Takes no time at all to
get one planted and hours of hard work to make the trip in the opposite
direction. Kitty, we'll need that basin of warm water now."

While
the younger girl was in the next room ladling water at the hearth, Martha
gestured Curiosity to bend down to her in the bed.

"Yes
child."

"There
ain't nothing to tell you about Albany. We never was in the courthouse, never
saw the judge or anybody."

"Did
you hear Richard Todd talking to your man at all?"

Martha
shook her head, and put her hands to her belly. "Starting again," she
panted. When the contraction had let up its grip, Martha collapsed against her
pillow and blew a damp tendril of hair away from her face. "I like Miss
Elizabeth," she said. "I wouldn't do nothing to cause her
misery."

"You
wouldn't lie to the judge?"

"I
can say what I saw, but I wouldn't make nothing up."

Curiosity
grunted softly.

"Can
I have something to drink?"

When
she had finished sipping from the cup Curiosity offered her, she wiped her
mouth and glanced at the older woman fitfully. "But it weren't right, her
running off that way in the dead of night. I wouldn't have thought it of
her." She said this softly, but she meant it. Curiosity wasn't surprised,
she had heard it before in the village.

"We
do what we got to do," Curiosity said quietly. "Ain't that so, Miz
Kitty?"

Kitty
was standing at the foot of the bed with the basin in her hands. She watched as
Martha coped with the next pain, grabbing hold of the rope Curiosity had tied
to the foot of the bed so that the tendons on her lower arms stood out in
relief as she pulled. The bed creaked and groaned with it, and at the end
Martha put back her head and howled. The water sloshed in the basin as Kitty
took a step backward.

"You
come over here by her side," Curiosity said. "Help her sit up when
the pains come, so she can put some muscle behind her push."

Kitty
hesitated, and Curiosity shot her a sharp look.

"I
got things to do down on this end," Curiosity explained. "She cain't
keep her misery to herself anymore, and she will yell it out. A little noise
ain't goin' to turn you blue, now is it?"

"I
didn't know it hurts so much," Kitty said. "There's nothing I can
do."

"You
can stop whining," Curiosity shot back at her. "It's Martha here
who's got the hardest work to do. Don' you go running out on her."

Kitty
came forward reluctantly. Curiosity took the basin from her and set it down,
and then she took the girl by the wrist, startling her. She pressed Kitty's
palm against the bulk of Martha's belly.

"Feel
this child trying to find its way into the world."

There
was a sudden tightening and a ripple. Kitty's face rippled and changed, too.
Not in horror, but in sudden understanding.

"It
feels like a hand," the girl said, hoarsely.

Martha
moaned softly.

"Let's
hope that's a foot," she said to Kitty. "Otherwise we got our work
cut out for us."

Kitty
was looking between Martha and Curiosity. Her sleepiness was gone, the distant
look in her eyes banished for the moment. "Will you come to me when it's
my time?"

"I
surely will," Curiosity said. "If you want me there. Now will you do
something for me?"

"I
can't tell you about Albany and the court and Elizabeth," Kitty said.
"I promised Richard I wouldn't. He says it's important."

Curiosity
laughed. "Men got one kind of important," she said. "Women got
another." She was folding the nightclothes back, her slim, dark hands busy
and knowing as Martha's flesh bulged and buckled.

"It's
coming," Martha panted.

"So
it is," Curiosity agreed. "Whether it's got a mind to or not."
But her face was suddenly set in worry lines that she could not hide.

* * *

The
public house was a dark, small place, an extension tacked onto Anna Hauptmann's
trading post without attention to detail or comfort. It had once been a pigsty,
until her father claimed it for his own purposes in a fit of boredom. Axel
rebuilt one wall to put in a hearth, and he began to divide his day between his
daughter's place of business and the distillery he set up in the barn. There he
turned out a respectable ale and a clear schnapps that earned a reputation as
far away as Albany. He kept the secrets of the distillery close to the vest,
but Axel was soon forgiven this lack of generosity because he sold his products
cheap, as he was more interested in company and discussion than he was in
profits. Within a year the tavern was known up and down the territory as a
place a man could go after sunset and be sure of a welcome and a strong drink.
In the winter it was warm and in the summer the doors stood open, and it was a
rare evening that Axel had less than three men to entertain him. As the floor
was usually awash with tobacco juice, they were relatively safe from skirted
visitors, a situation which was not the least of the tavern's attractions.

Julian
Middleton had soon become his most reliable patron. The hunters and trappers
who came out of the bush to call had adjusted to Julian without any trouble,
once they had figured out that he could be ignored. He was the overdressed,
under worked son of a man who couldn't hold on to his money or govern his
daughter, but he had a gift for light talk and looking the other way and so
they tolerated him. Night after night Julian sat in front of Axel's fire and
took up whatever subject was offered to him while he drank warm ale or warmer
cider from a crusty old jug that had to be plucked out from among the cinders.
Some of the farmers came in, too, but only for long enough to toss back what
they weren't allowed at home, rarely contributing to the conversation.
Sometimes Julian chose not to talk; nobody much seemed to mind that, either.

For
his part, Julian saw the crude tavern as the only amusing spot in Paradise. The
drink was cheap and the company was anything but demanding. When he had money
to spend on schnapps, he applied himself to an appreciation of its rude
integrity. Since Lizzie had solved all their financial problems—or the ones she
knew about—there was a bit of swag in his pocket, and Julian had been making a
careful study of Axel's art.

This
evening there wasn't much company. Moses Southern had been turned out of his
home while his wife churned out a third or fourth child—Julian couldn't
remember how many he had; didn't care enough to ask. Perched on a stool in the
corner, Galileo sat whittling by the light of a pine knot. On occasion he
answered a question when Axel thought of something to ask him, but mostly he
kept to himself. Julian was glad to see Galileo there; he could drink what he
wanted and still be sure of getting home to his bed. He thought of offering the
man ale, but he looked at Moses and discarded the idea; he wasn't in the mood
to argue. He had had his fill of arguments for years to come—Richard Todd had
seen to that. Richard, who had never been much fun as a sporting man, was
turning out to be even less amusing these days, now that he fancied himself
wronged. Here or there, Tory or Yank, high or low, men you owed money to were
all the same, Julian noted.

Bonner
had paid off the family debts in good, hard cash, but Todd wasn't satisfied,
wouldn't be satisfied until he had a pound or two of flesh. There was more of
the savage in him than he cared to admit. Not that he didn't have cause to be
angry; Lizzie had publicly embarrassed him and he wasn't the kind to take that
lightly.

There
was no denying that his clever sister had saved the family from bankruptcy, but
she had set the village on its ear to do it. Who would have thought it,
virtuous, bookish Lizzie marrying a wild backwoodsman with a half—breed
daughter and a reputation for violence. It hadn't escaped Julian that she had
had an eye on Nathaniel, but he had put that down to a surprising bit of fun;
he hadn't really thought she would go as far as she had, or he might have done
something to stop it. The trouble was, he forgot that Lizzie was a woman, and
that she was prone to womanly weakness. If she hadn't handed the land over to a
bunch of Indians, he might be thankful to her for finally relieving him of the
family's scrutiny: her eloping had put the minor matter of his gambling debts
into perspective.