Wish You Well

by David Baldacci

  Louisa grabbed some things and put them in a lard bucket, slipped a small packet of cloths in her pocket, bundled together a number of clean sheets, and started for the door.

  "Louisa, I'm coming with you," said Lou.

  "No, ain't a good place for you."

  "I'm coming, Louisa. Whether in the wagon or on Sue, but I'm coming. I want to help you." She glanced at Billy. "And them."

  Louisa thought for a minute and then said, "Prob'ly could use another set of hands. Billy, your pa there?"

  "Gotta mare gonna drop its foal. Pa said he ain't coming out the barn till it born."

  Louisa stared at the boy. Then, shaking her head, she headed for the door.

  They followed Billy in the wagon. He rode an old mule, its muzzle white, part of its right ear torn away. The boy swung a kerosene lamp in one hand to help guide them. It was so dark, Louisa said, a hand right in front of your face could still get the drop on you.

  "Don't whip up the mules none, Lou. Ain't do no good for Sally Davis we end up in a ditch." "That's Billy's mother?"

  Louisa nodded, as the wagon swayed along, the woods close oji either side of them, their only light that arcing lamp- To Lou it appeared either as a beacon, true and reliable, or as a Siren of sorts, leading them to shipwreck. "First wife die in childbirth. His children by that poor woman got away from George fast as they could, afore he could work or beat or starve 'em to death." "Why did Sally marry him if he was so bad?" " 'Cause he got his own land, livestock, and he were a widower with a strong back. Up here, 'bout all it takes. And weren't nothing else for Sally. She were only fifteen."

  "Fifteen! That's only three years older than me." "People get married quick up here. Start birthing, raising a family to help work the land. How it goes. I was in front of the preacher at fo'teen." "She could have left the mountain." "All she ever know. Scary thing leave that." "Did you ever think of leaving the mountain?" Louisa thought about this for a number of turns of the wagon wheel. "I could'a if'n I wanted. But I ain't believe in my heart I be happier anywhere else. Went down the Valley one time. Wind blow strange over flat land. Ain't liked it too much. Me and this mountain get along right fine for the most part." She fell silent, her eyes watching the rise and fall of the light up ahead. Lou said, "I saw the graves up behind the house." Louisa stiffened a bit. "Did you?" "Who was Annie?"

  Louisa stared at her feet. "Annie were my daughter."

  "I thought you only had Jacob."

  "No. I had me my little Annie."

  "Did she die young?"

  "She lived but a minute."

  Lou could sense her distress. "I'm sorry. I was just curious about my family."

  Louisa settled back against the hard wood of the wagon seat and stared at the black sky as though it was the first time she'd ever gazed upon it.

  "I always had me a hard time carrying the babies. Wanted me a big family, but I kept on losing 'em long afore they ready to be born. Longest time I thought Jake be it. But then Annie were born on a cool spring evening with a full mane'a black hair. She come quick, no time for midwife. It were a terrible hard birth. But oh, Lou, she were so purty. So warm. Her little fingers wrapped tight round mine, tips not even touching." Here Louisa stopped. The sounds of the mules trotting along and the turn of wagon wheel were the only noises. Louisa finally continued in a low voice, as she eyed the depthless sky. "And her Utile chest rose and fell, rose and fell, and then it just forgit to rise agin. It t'were amazing how quick she took cold, but then she were so tiny." Louisa took a number of quick breaths, as though still trying to breathe for her child. "It were like a bit of ice on your tongue on a hot day. Feel so good, and then it gone so fast you ain't sure it was ever there."

  Lou put her hand over Louisa's. "I'm sorry."

  "Long time ago, though it don't never seem it." Louisa slid a hand across her eyes. "Her daddy made her coffin, no more'n a little box. And I stayed up all night and sewed her the finest dress I ever stitched in my whole life. Come morning I laid her out in it. I would'a give all I had to see her eyes looking at me just one time. It ain't seem right that a momma don't get to see her baby's eyes just one time. And then her daddy put her in that little box, we carried her on up to that knoll, and laid her to rest and prayed over her. And then we planted an evergreen on the south end so she'd have her shade all year round." Louisa closed her eyes.

  "Did you ever go up there?"

  Louisa nodded. "Ever day. But I ain't been back since I buried my other child. It just got to be too long a walk."

  She took the reins from Lou and, despite her own earlier warning, Louisa whipped up the mules. "We best get on. We got a child to help into the world this night."

  Lou could not make out much of the Davis farmyard or the buildings because of the darkness, and she prayed that George Davis would stay in the barn until the baby was born and they were gone.

  The house was surprisingly small. The room they entered was obviously the kitchen, because the stove was there, but there were also cots with bare mattresses lined up here. In three of the beds were a like number of children, two of them, who looked to be twin girls about five, lying naked and asleep. The third, a boy Oz's age, had on a man's undershirt, dirty and sweat-stained, and he watched Lou and Louisa with frightened eyes. Lou recognized him as the other boy from the tractor coming down the mountain. In an apple crate by the stove a baby barely a year old lay under a stained blanket. Louisa went to the sink, pumped water, and used the bar of lye soap she had brought to thoroughly clean her hands and forearms. Then Billy led them down a narrow hallway and opened a door.

  Sally Davis lay in the bed, her knees drawn up, low moans shooting from her. A thin girl of ten, dressed in what looked like a seed sack, her chestnut hair hacked short, stood barefoot next to the bed. Lou recognized her too from the wild tractor encounter. She looked just as scared now as she had then.

  Louisa nodded at her. "Jesse, you heat me up some water, two pots, honey. Billy, all the sheets you got, son. And they's got to be real clean."

  Louisa put the sheets she had brought on a wobbly oak slat chair, sat next to Sally, and took her hand. "Sally, it's Louisa. You be just fine, honey."

  Lou looked at Sally. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her few teeth and her gums stained dark. She couldn't be thirty yet, but the woman looked twice that old, hair gray, skin drawn and wrinkled, blue veins throbbing through malnourished flesh, face sunken like a winter potato.

  Louisa lifted the covers and saw the soaked sheet underneath. "How long since your water bag broke?"

  Sally gasped, "After Billy gone fer you."

  "How far apart your pains?" Louisa asked.

  "Seem like just one big one," the woman groaned.

  Louisa felt around the swollen belly. "Baby feel like it want'a come?"

  Sally gripped Louisa's hand. "Lord I hope so, afore it kill me."

  Billy came in with a couple of sheets, dropped them on the chair, looked once at his ma, and then fled.

  "Lou, help me move Sally over so we can lay clean sheets." They did so, maneuvering the suffering woman as gently as they could. "Now go help Jesse with the water. And take these." She handed Lou a number of cloth pads that were layered one over the top of the other, along with some narrow bobbin string. "Wrap the string in the middle of the cloths, and put it all in the oven and cook it till the outside part be scorched brown."

  Lou went into the kitchen and assisted Jesse. Lou had never seen her at school, nor the seven-year-old boy who watched them with fearful eyes. Jesse had a wide scar that looped around her left eye, and Lou didn't even want to venture to guess how the girl had come by it.

  The stove was already hot, and the kettle water came to a boil in a few minutes. Lou kept checking the outside of the cloth that she placed in the oven drawer, and soon it was sufficiently brown. Using rags, they carried the pots and the ball of cloths into the bedroom and set them next to the bed.

  Louisa washed Sally with soap and warm water where the baby would be coming
and then drew the sheet over her.

  She whispered to Lou, "Baby taking its last rest now, and so can Sally. Ain't tell 'xactly how it lies yet, but it ain't a cross birth." Lou looked at her curiously. "Where the baby he crossways along the belly. I call you when I need you."

  "How many babies have you delivered?"

  'Thirty-two over fifty-seven years," she said. " 'Member ever one of 'em."

  "Did they all live?"

  "No," Louisa answered quietly, and then told Lou to go on out, that she would call her.

  Jesse was in the kitchen, standing against a wall, hands clasped in front of her, face down, a side of her hacked hair positioned over the scar and part of her eye.

  Lou glanced at the boy in the bed.

  "What's your name?" Lou asked him. He said nothing. When Lou stepped toward him, he yelled and threw the blanket over his head, his little body shaking hard under the cover. Lou retreated all the way out of the crazy house.

  She looked around until she saw Billy over at the barn peering in the open double doors. She crossed the yard quietly and looked over his shoulder. George Davis was no more than ten feet from them. The mare was on the straw floor. Protruding from her, and covered in the co-coonish white birth sac, was one foreleg and shoulder of the foal. Davis was pulling on the slicked leg, cursing. The barn floor was plank, not dirt. In the blaze of a number of lanterns, Lou could see rows of shiny tools neatly lining the walls.

  Unable to stand Davis's coarse language and the mare's suffering, Lou went and sat on the front porch. Billy came and slumped next to her. "Your farm looks pretty big," she said.

  "Pa hire men to help him work it. But when I get to be a man, he ain't need 'em. I do it."

  They heard George Davis holler from the barn, and they both jumped. Billy looked embarrassed and dug at the dirt with his big toe.

  "I'm sorry for putting that snake in your pail."

  He looked at her, surprised. "I done it to you first."

  "That still doesn't make it right."

  "Pa kill a man if he done that to him."

  Lou could see the terror in the boy's eyes, and her heart went out to Billy Davis.

  "You're not your pa. And you don't have to be."

  Billy looked nervous. "I ain't tell him I was fetching Miss Louisa. Don't know what he say when he sees y'all."

  "We're just here to help your mother. He can't have a problem with that."

  "That right?"

  They looked up into the face of George Davis, who stood before them, equine blood and slime coating his shirt and dripping down both arms. Dust swirled around his legs like visible heat, as though mountain had been shucked to desert.

  Billy stood in front of Lou. "Pa. How's the foal?"

  "Dead." The way he said it made every part of Lou shake. He pointed at her. "What the hell is this?"

  "I got them to come help with the baby. Miss Louisa's in with Ma."

  George looked over at the door and then back at Billy. The look in his eye was so terrible that Lou was sure the man was going to kill her right there.

  "That woman in my house, boy?"

  "It's time." They all looked toward the door where Louisa now stood. "Baby's coming," she said.

  Davis shoved his son aside, and Lou jumped out of the way as he stalked up to the door.

  "Gawd damnit, you got no business here, woman. Get the hell off my land afore you get the butt of my shotgun agin your head, and that damn girl too."

  Louisa took not one step back. "You can help with the baby coming, or not. Up to you. Come on, Lou, and you too, Billy. Gonna need both y'all."

  It was clear though that George wasn't going to let them go. Louisa was very strong for her age, and taller than Davis, but still, it would not be much of a fight.

  And then from the woods they heard the scream. It was the same sound Lou had heard the first night at the well, but even more horrifying somehow, as though whatever it was, was very close and bearing down on them. Even Louisa stared out apprehensively into the darkness.

  George Davis took a step back, his hand clenched, as though hoping for a gun to be there. Louisa clutched the children and pulled them in with her. Davis made no move to stop them, but he did call out, "You just make sure it's a damn boy this time. If'n it's a girl, you just let it die. You hear me? Don't need me no more gawd damn girls!"

  As Sally pushed hard, Louisa's pulse quickened when she first saw the buttocks of the baby, followed by one of its feet. She knew she didn't have long to get the child out before the cord was crushed between the baby's head and Sally's bone. As she watched, the pains pushed the other foot out.

  "Lou," she said, "over here, quick, child." Louisa caught the baby's feet in her right hand and lifted the body up so that the contractions would not have to carry the weight of the baby, and so as to better the angle of the head coming through. She knew they were fortunate that after so many births, Sally Davis's bones would be spread wide. "Push, Sally, push, honey," Louisa called out.

  Louisa took Lou's hands and directed them to a spot on Sally's lower abdomen. "Got to get the head out fast," she told Lou, "push right there, hard as you can. Don't worry, ain't hurt the baby none, belly wall hard."

  Lou bore down with all her weight while Sally pushed and screamed and Louisa lifted the baby's body higher.

  Louisa called out like she was marking water depth on a riverboat. Neck showing, she said, and then she could see hair. And then the entire head showed, and then she was holding the child, and telling Sally to rest, that it was over.

  Louisa said a prayer of thanks when she saw it was a boy. It was awfully small, though, and its color poor. She had Lou and Billy heat up cans of water while she tied off the cord in two spots with the bobbin string and then cut the cord in between these points with a pair of boiled scissors. She wrapped me cord in one of the clean, dry cloths that Lou had baked in the oven and tied another of the baked cloths snugly against the baby's left side. She used sweet oil to clean the baby off, washed him with soap and warm water, and then wrapped him in a blanket and gave the boy to his mother.

  Louisa placed a hand on Sally's belly and felt to see if the womb was hard and small, which is what she wanted. If it was large and soft, that might mean bleeding inside, she told Lou in a small voice. However, the belly was small and tight. "We fine," she told a relieved Lou.

  Next, Louisa took the newborn and laid it on the bed. She took a small wax ampule from her lard bucket and from it took out a small glass vial. She had Lou hold the baby's eyes open while Louisa placed two drops inside each one, while the child squirmed and cried out.

  She told Lou, "So baby ain't go blind. Travis Barnes gimme it. Law say you got to do this."

  Using the hot cans and some blankets, Louisa fashioned a crude incubator and placed the baby in it. His breathing was so shallow she kept sticking a goose feather under his mouth to see the ripple of air graze it.

  Thirty minutes later the last contractions pushed the afterbirth out and Louisa and Lou cleaned that up, changing the sheets once more and scrubbing the mother down for the final time using the last of the baked cloths.

  The last things Louisa took out from her bucket were a pencil and a slip of paper. She gave them to Lou and told her to write down the day's date and time. Louisa pulled an old windup pocket watch from her trousers and told Lou the time of birth.

  "Sally, what you be calling the baby?" Louisa asked.

  Sally looked over at Lou. "She call you Lou, that be your name, girl?" she asked in a weak voice.

  "Yes. Well, sort of," said Lou.

  "Then it be Lou. After you, child. I thank you."

  Lou looked astonished. "What about your husband?"

  "He ain't care if'n it got name or ain't got one. Only if' n it a boy and it work. And I ain't seed him in here hepping. Name's Lou. Put it down now, girl."

  Louisa smiled as Lou wrote down the name Lou Davis.

  "We give that to Cotton," Louisa said. "He take it on down the courthouse so's
everybody know we got us another beautiful child on this mountain."

  Sally fell asleep and Louisa sat there with mother and son all night, rousing Sally to nurse when Lou Davis cried and smacked his lips. George Davis never once entered the room. They could hear him stomping around in the front for some time, and then the door slammed shut.

  Louisa slipped out several times to check on the other children. She gave Billy, Jesse, and the other boy, whose name Louisa didn't know, a small jar of molasses and some biscuits she had brought with her. It pained her to see how fast the children devoured this simple meal. She also gave Billy a jar of strawberry jelly and some corn-bread to save for the other children when they