Margaret Brownley (14 page)

. “Is that right?” If true that was encouraging news.

“Yep. Like Ah said, Ah’ve gone through this twice already. Ya giving her

‘nough boiling water?”

“Every twenty minutes or so.”

“That should do the trick.”

Upon hearing her call his name, Logan said a hasty good night and

hurried inside. “What is it, Mrs. Summerfield?” he asked anxiously. He rushed to her bedside and dropped to his knees, ignoring the pain that shot through the one. He couldn’t think about his bad leg. Not tonight.
“I didn’t know where you were.” She whispered so softly he had to lean over her to make out the words.

“I’m right here,” he whispered back. He brushed a lock of damp hair

from her forehead. In the soft glow of the oil light, she looked exhausted and pale. Her eyes were bright, almost feverish in appearance.

“I’m afraid for the baby,” she said through parched lips. “It’s taking so

long.”

“It’s supposed to take this long,” he said. “I have it on good authority. What you need is more bone softener.”

Her pains came at five-minute intervals for the rest of the night. At first Logan thought he’d imagined the regularity by which the pains struck. But when he started timing them, counting off the minutes in his head, he discovered he’d been right; the pains were exactly five minutes apart. It was absolutely amazing.

Toward dawn, the pains grew worse and were coming at three-minute intervals. Her disposition had changed considerably in the last hour or so. She was downright ornery. Not only did she refuse to drink the hot water; she kept kicking off the covers.

He did his best to keep her calm, but her strength amazed him. Both of his arms were black and blue from where she’d pressed her fingers into his flesh during the night.

No wonder men stayed away during birthing. It was down-right dangerous. After one particular painful onslaught, he handed her a rawhide strap and told her to bite down on it.

He used the increasingly short time between each contraction to best advantage. He sponged her damp forehead with cool water and straightened the pelts around her. He added more wood to the fire and checked the wall for drafts, plugging up even the tiniest crack with pieces of fur or rawhide.

Now that the rain had turned to snow, the ceiling was no longer dripping. But puddles of water still dotted the floor, making it difficult to walk.

She dozed between contractions, but as soon as her body began to writhe, he rushed to her side and took her in his arms. Holding her, he rocked her until the pain subsided.

“Make it go away,” she cried out after one particular painful contraction.

“I wish I could,” he said, feeling inadequate and as useless, as Jim Bridger would say, a four-card flush. It had been a long time since he wanted anything as much as he wanted to make her pains go away.

By midmorning, snow covered the streets of Deadman’s Gulch. He made his way to the creek behind his cabin, stepping over the patches of ice that had formed along the banks. Filling his bucket with freezing cold water, he carried it back to the cabin, his moccasins sinking into the new-fallen snow.

For the last two hours, Mrs. Summerfield’s pains had been only a minute or two apart, giving her little chance to rest in-between times. It didn’t seem possible that a human body could endure such torture. He stood by her bed and feared for her life.

It suddenly occurred to him how very little he knew about her. She could die in his cabin and he wouldn’t even know who to write to, or where to send her pitiful few belongings. It had not occurred to him to ask her about her family, or what to do should something unforeseen happen. She seemed so vital, so alive. So unlike Catherine who had seemed fragile from the start. It didn’t seem fair that something as natural as birthing could put a young woman at such risk. Why didn’t God prepare women better?

She moaned and called his name. “Mr. St. John….”

“Call me Logan,” he said softly, kneeling by her side and taking her hand. “Do you want more water?”

“Mercy, no!”

He couldn’t help but smile at the stubborn and determined look she gave him. She still had some fight left and that was encouraging. His spirits lifted, and he squeezed her hand.

“Mrs. Summerfield…”

“Call me Libby.

“Libby.” Her name felt good in his mouth, good to his ears. “Where you’d get a name like that?”

She smiled. “My name is Elizabeth, but my sister couldn’t pronounce it so she called me Libby. I’m afraid it stuck.”

“It’s a nice name,” he hastened to assure her. “I never knew a Libby before.”

“I never knew a Logan.”

“I was named Kwatoko by my Indian mother. It means eagle.”

“How did you get Logan out of Kwatoko?’

“My father was a terrible speller.” He grinned. “He also had a hearing problem. He swore to his dying day that my mother called me Logan.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” she pleaded.

“I’m sorry.”

“Logan.” She tugged at his shirt, drawing him closer. “If anything happens

to me—” She stiffened and shut her eyes.

Watching the shadow of pain darken her face, he wrapped his arms around her. She gripped his hands until he thought the bones in his fingers would break. Her earlier moans had long since been replaced with loud cries. But this last pain brought a gut-wrenching scream. Finally, her body stilled and she loosened her grip on him. “Should anything happens—”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Please…the baby?”

He searched her face, hoping he’d misunderstood. He hadn’t considered the possibility that the baby might survive all this, even if Libby did not. That he might be left with an orphan to care for.

What did he know about a baby? What did he know about anything? He’d lived thirty-six years and suddenly he realized how little he knew about life.

“Would you take care of…of my baby?”

He stared at her. It was as if she were holding back the pain until she had his answer. What could he say to her? Yes, he would take care of her child? Him? A mountain man? A mountain man with a bad leg and no future?

Another pain gripped her and he sensed that this one was different from the others. Why he thought this, he couldn’t say. But he did, and as her body lashed back and forth and the cries seemed to claw at the walls like frantic talons, he leaned toward her and whispered in her ear.

“I’ll take care of your baby.”

No sooner had he spoken the words than something quieted inside her. A smile touched her pale lips, fading slowly as she escaped into sleep.

Knowing that he had only a minute or two until the next pain, he quickly wrung out a cloth in tepid water and wiped the beads of perspiration off her forehead. Her hair was soaked; her dress clung to her body.

He rubbed his hand against the two-day growth on his chin. It seemed like he should be doing something more for her.

He felt the same frustration now as he had years earlier when he was fifteen and his father lay dying from the wounds suffered from a grizzly attack. With the invincibility of youth, he’d been convinced he could save his father. What a jarring experience it had been to face the truth.

He’d felt utterly alone that long-ago night watching his father die in his arms. Alone and helpless. He felt just as alone and just as helpless several years later watching his young English bride fade away before his very eyes.

The daughter of a British businessman who purchased pelts from Logan, she’d been captured by Paiute. Catherine’s father was an honest, hardworking man who preferred Logan’s prime pelts to the less expensive lower grade ones peddled by some free trappers. When he asked for Logan’s help in rescuing his daughter, Logan didn’t hesitate a moment. He knew the chief and his Indian blood from his mother’s side made him close enough to the tribe to give him bargaining power. It cost him an entire season’s worth of prime beaver pelts, but he’d made the trade. Unfortunately, Catherine had already been ravished by several braves. Knowing that she would be marked a fallen woman, she refused to return home.

At the time Logan felt he had no choice but to marry her. Indeed, wanted to. He never thought of her as anything but a perfect lady. She was not responsible for what had happened, and he never understood how anyone could think otherwise. But even she blamed herself. She’d been accosted by a band of braves in their prime, and she berated herself for not putting up more of a fight!

He knew from the start that she married him out of gratitude and desperation. He also suspected that she thought she deserved no better than a wild, uncivilized mountain man. He never had a chance to prove himself more. Truth to tell, there never was more, and, in her eyes, considerably less.

She’d hated the wilderness, hated the home he built for her, hated the isolation. Out of desperation, he agreed to move to St. Louis but, strangely enough, they were as isolated in the city as they were in the wilderness. No respectable citizen would think of socializing with a woman married to a mountain man, and ravished by savages.

Much to his horror, she grew thinner and more listless each day, until even her eyes lost their luster.

Alarmed, he booked passage on an ocean liner, thinking to take her back to London. She’d rallied during the preparations for their trip, and he thought the worst was over. He thought wrong. She died en route, and some said it was from a broken heart. He was convinced she willed herself to die.

A knock at the door brought him out of his reverie. He brushed his hand across Libby’s forehead before leaving her side. It was McGuire again.

McGuire looked embarrassed. He waved his arm to indicate the small gathering of men in front of the cabin. Sharkey staggered as he gulped from a flask. Next to him, the man named Shakespeare blew on his hands to keep warm.

“Me and the boys were wonderin’,” McGuire began awkwardly, “how ya woman is.”

“She’s not my….” Logan stopped. “I don’t think she can hold on much longer.”

“That’s a cryin’ shame.” McGuire tucked his cold, chapped hands beneath his armpits. “Seems especially sad, this bein’ Christmas Day and all.”

“I guess there’s no good day for dying,” Logan replied grimly.

“Guess not. Ah just want ya ta know that out of respect for ya woman, the boys and me will make sure there’s no shootin’ off of guns or whoopin’ it up.”

“I’m mighty obliged.”

“It’s the least we can do.” McGuire turned and rejoined the group of huddled men.

Logan closed the door and returned to Libby’s side. Christmas. He thought about the story Libby had read from the Good Book. He recalled the soft faraway look in her eyes as she spoke about Christmas in Boston.

He’d never celebrated Christmas in his life. Catherine had made mention of it, but during that one dismal December they’d spent together, they’d been snowed in, and she had taken to her bed with fever. He never really understood what all the fuss was about until Libby read that story to him.

He reached over and picked up the worn little Bible that lay on the whiskey-keg table by her bedside. As he sat fingering the thin leather cover, an idea began to form.

He replaced the book just as she began thrashing around. “Hold on, Libby,” he said. He held her until she grew still again. He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Today is Christmas.” And when she didn’t respond, he tried again. “Did you hear what I said, Libby? It’s Christmas Day.”

“Christmas?” She repeated the words softly, and a half smile touched her lips before she drifted off to sleep. He sat back on his chair and rested his chin in his hands.

What did he have to lose? Making a quick decision, he jumped to his feet and tore open the door. The men were still standing out front, huddled together to ward off the cold, their faces looking grim and forlorn.

“McGuire!”

McGuire broke away from the huddle and hurried to the door. “Is

she--?”

Logan shook his head. “You said today was Christmas.”

“Yeah”

“I think that Christmas is important to Libby.”

McGuire didn’t seem a bit surprised by this. “It’s important ta a lot of people.”

“Is there something I can do? To let her know what day this is. I told her but…I think I need to do something that would comfort her in some small way.”

McGuire thought for a moment. “Ah have an idea.” He pulled out his mouth organ and beckoned the men to come closer. To Logan, he said, “Ya go inside and leave everything to me and the boys.”

Logan nodded his thanks. Shuddering against the cold, he shut the door and added another log to the fire. Outside, the strident harsh voices of the miners lifted in song. “’O come, all ye faithful…”

Logan grimaced. It was the worst singing he’d ever heard in his life.

Would it ever end? Libby tensed as the pain began to build again. Like a volcano erupting inside, the pain shot from some inner source and held her in its relentless grip until it seemed that her last breath had been wrung from her. She had nothing left to give, yet the pain remained relentless in its taking.