“This ain’t right,” Mirabel grumbled, “what are you thinking child, having these.---”
“Ohhh! God it hurts.” Miss Casey bit her lip drawing blood.
Mirabel needed to examine her but she couldn’t look at Miss Casey’s private area with men in the room. She wasn’t one to be humbled easily, or blush, but this was a very delicate situation and it had to be done.
She cleared her throat. “Err, ma’am, I need to look… err, to see if....”
Casey got her meaning and even in pain she didn’t miss the fact and so did the preacher who blushed beat red. He began picking imaginary lint of his black coat, trying not to let on he had heard. She glanced at Blake sensing that even that rugged cowboy was a little uncom-fortable.
“Put a sheet over me and Mag Pie can hold it up while you peek underneath. Blake and the preacher will be too busy going ahead with my wedding to pay any attention to you and what you’re doing. Now gentlemen if you would be kind enough to... Owww!” She grabbed the brass bars at the head of the bed and dug her heels into the mattress. God, give me strength to get through this. Never feeling so much physical pain in her life, she’d never complain about her monthly cramps again. Someday, little one, your mama will tell you what you put her though.
Blake quickly sat and clenched her sweaty fist. “I wish I could take the pain for you.”
Casey snorted. “It’s a good thing I’m in pain, or I’d have a good laugh.” She saw the hurt in his eyes, but didn’t care. He was not an innocent bystander.
“Darling, are you sure you want to do this now?”
She misconstrued his question and snorted. “I think your child has the say in the matter.”
It took a moment for him to get her meaning and he retorted, “Not the baby, the wedding. Are you sure you..?” Her stare was his answer.
He sighed. “All right. Preacher you heard the lady, marry us.”
Preacher Gersitz opened the black leather-bound book and turned to a dog-eared page, clearing his throat. He said a few words, asking if any one had any objections to this union. Casey snorted. The man of the cloth grunted knowing it was a foolish question.
“Do you Cassandra take this--?”
“Ohhh, God, if you ever touch me again,” she snarled through gritted teeth, “I’ll kill you.” Of course that absurd remark rewarded her with light laughter.
“Blake?”
He shook his head. “Would I laugh at you at a time like this?” And he managed to look convincingly offended.
“I doooo!” she screamed.
“Ahem, Oh, yes,” gulped the preacher and continued. “Do you Blake take Cassandra for your lawful wedded wife to have and to--?”
“Damnation! Say I do, already,” cried Casey.
Blake wiped his brow with his shirt sleeve, hesitating and gulped. “Y-yes, I mean…I…d-do.”
The words stuck in his throat too long and Casey gave him a dirty look thinking he was having doubts, which pained her more than what she was experiencing now. The next pain made her squeeze his hand hard.
“Whoee! Ouch! Damn Casey, you almost broke my fingers. Pregnant women are certainly strong.” If he was trying to lighten the situation with a little humor, she didn’t appreciate it and rewarded him with another dirty look.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” said Preacher Gersitz, swiftly snapping the book shut. “This will be the last marriage I’ll perform if a baby was on the way.” He left the room in a blur.
“Push,” The muffled command came from under the covers and Blake once again had his hand gripped until the pain shot up his arm. Well.., you did say you’d take the pain for her. Be careful for what you wish for. His mother’s words came to him.
“Push, harder,” instructed Mirabel.
Casey grunted and pushed, “I am. Jeezeeee! If I push any harder my innards will be lying along side of the babeeeee!”
This time Blake had to clear his throat to camouflage a chuckle that escaped of its own will.
“Hold the sheet still, girl. You’re shaking like a leaf in a wind storm,” snapped Mirabel at Maggie. He heard Maggie gulp, looking mightily peeked. She was standing, behind the cook, so the young servant couldn’t help but see. She cried, “Oh, Lawdy! She gasped. “It’s comin’. Oh, Lawdy… Lawdy---”
“Stop blubbering,” snapped Mirabel and now Blake whished he had followed the reverend out of the room. Without warning, Maggie fainted dead away and the sheet fell over Casey’s head.
“Okay, child, the baby’s head is crowning. Now that the vows are said and the preacher, I assume is gone, I’m pushing up the sheet. Blake, you can stay and I don’t give a fig anymore. Proper or not, the baby is on the way. C’mon girl, push again. That’s it.” Out came the baby in a gush of fluid and blood. “Whew, it’s a wee girl,” Mirabel informed. A few light taps on its pink behind brought forth a loud wail and a loud groan from the floor.
Mirabel let out a relieved breath and looked down and saw the black girl opening her eyes. “I’ve no time for a silly girl’s swooning. Get yourself over to the window seat and sit there until your head clears,” she ordered. The poor servant moaned again and did as she was told, swearing she’d never have a baby of her own. Although he was a male, he could understand the black girl’s comment.
The cord was cut with a kitchen knife Mirabel had in her apron pocket. She then placed the baby in the mother’s waiting arms. “I have to get the afterbirth out. It will be painful again for a few minutes while I press on your tummy.”
By now Blake was feeling mighty queasy himself and the new mother screamed making Mirabel jump.
“Land sakes, child, I didn’t even touch you.”
She looked down and Blake saw a worried look etched on the servant’s face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing serious,” she answered. “I think another is on its way.”
“What!?” Two shocked voices snapped at her.
“Blake?” Casey gave him a harried look and a warning that he couldn’t exactly read in her eyes. But he prayed it wasn’t what she had threatened. “Sorry,” he shrugged and kissed her brow.
“I don’t think you look sorry enough. And wipe that silly expression off your face.” He did when his wife screamed at the next pain.
A second little girl was placed in Blake’s arms. He looked totally pleased with himself, as if Casey had nothing to do with all of this. His creation delighted him more than words could express. They were God-awful funny looking. Wet and wrinkled like day-old prunes, but they were his and they were beautiful in his eyes, nevertheless.
He was filled with so much love and pride for these little girls and his wife. Wife? The new responsibilities awed him. In a little time, he had gained a wife and two babies, who were flesh and blood, part of him and her. It was a little scary. He turned to look at the new mother. Her pretty pink mouth upturned in a smile, she was sleeping with the other twin in her arms. Pushing back a soggy lock of her hair from her flush and sweaty brow, his heart swelled with overwhelming love again. God, I hope she didn’t mean what she had said a while back.
He could never stop making love to her anymore than he could stop a locomotive.
EPILOGUE
Casey lived in Georgia in the house Blake’s grandparent’s built. Her husband continued to raise cotton, making a profitable living. But cotton wasn’t the only crop they raised.
Maisie and Melissa, the seven-year old twins ran happily through the fields behind their father. Watching her twins scatter and play with their younger brothers, Marcus and Josh, she sat on the porch and wondered where the last eight years had flown. She often thought about her Indian friends and her brother. She missed him the most, but they wrote. The letters were few and far between because he didn’t travel often to the trading post. His last letter held promise that he and Summer Wind would visit with their two daughters and son.
Patting her swollen stomach, Casey waited patiently for the arrival of another child,
conceived in love. She looked up seeing a blonde head bob up over the high cotton. She was happy that Blake had surprised her the way he had settled down and became a family man. He was still so handsome. Her husband came up to the porch carrying the two younger children, who giggled from their father’s antics. Maisie and Melissa weren’t far behind.
“Hi, little mother,” grinned Blake. “How’s my beautiful bride?”
He placed a loving kiss on her cheek and patted her tummy tenderly.
“Still kicking, but the baby is doing most of it,” she answered him.
Blake sat down beside her on the porch swing. Putting his arms around her shoulders, he asked, “Happy?”
“What do you think my handsome cowboy?” She sighed and rested her head on his broad chest.
“Honey,” she rubbed her swollen belly. “I received a letter from Hunter stating that Star Gazer has met a white woman.”
Blake chuckled. “I bet Dasodaha is turning over in his grave.”
Casey laughed also.
“But my brother mentioned something strange. A white woman fell from the skies in a big balloon. The woman insisted Star Gazer take her to the nearest fort, to return home. The brave did and has not been seen since. It’s as if he vanished from the planet.”
Blake shrugged. “Maybe she was only acting crazy, fearing the red-man. Women can be very strange when they want to be.” He grinned, teasingly, but it earned him a poke in his ribs.
“Men,” she snorted rudely.
He raised a brow in question. “Yes, I know we’re all horse’s behinds.”
One of the children heard his remark and giggled, her dimples deepening. Casey prayed that laughter of small children would be heard that day and for many years to come.
THE END
The saga continues in the next novel called, Stargazer
BIO
About the Author
Because I am dyslexic, I find writing a challenge, but my love of writing has inspired me to write more than sixty children’s stories, over two hundred poems and thirty-seven Romance Novels. I have also illustrated two story books used by primary teachers and students as a part of a vocal hygiene program at University of Arizona’s Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences.
My credits also include four stories published by McFadden Publishing Co. in NYC. I wrote, illustrated and published two books of poetry used as fund-raisers by the Leukemia and Multiple Sclerosis organizations. I wrote illustrated and published in one book, forty-two children’s stories.
I had an exhibition at the King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, Fl of my pen and ink drawings of animals. Recently, I have had three E-Book Romance Novels and a book of short stories published on the Spangaloo.Com website and another on the Smashwords.Com website. I make my home in Melbourne, Florida where I continue to write and illustrate.
Thérèse A. Kraemer
You can find more of her books here
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ThereseAKramer
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