As Erik walked, he could hardly keep the bounce from his step. And why should he? Two calves when I expected one! And both heifers. A double bonus. Wouldn’t that be wonderful if Daisy delivered two babies, too? Then he sobered. His wife was too small to carry twins. But soon, they’d have the first of what he hoped would be a long line of children. Only another month to go.
He took a long step up to the porch, bypassing the two stairs, poured the water into the big pitcher set on a bench next to a basin, and set down the pail. He thought of washing up again, this time with soap, before dismissing the idea. Anxious to check on his wife, he tiptoed inside. Daisy was a light sleeper who complained if he woke her.
A quick scan of the room, half kitchen and half parlor, showed no wife. But a moan sounded from the next room, kicking his heart into fast thump-thumps.
He raced to the bedroom and saw Daisy on her back on the bed. She’d changed into her night shift, or maybe had never changed out of it. He didn’t know.
Her face was pale and perspiring, her breaths harsh enough to hear. One hand was raised over her head, clutching a bar of the iron bedstead; the other rested over her mounded stomach.
“Daisy, sweetheart? Is it the baby?”
She slowly turned her head. Her blue eyes were sunken in her oval face. “Where were you? I called and called.” Her voice sounded weak.
The accusation in her tone made guilt stab into him. He’d been so engrossed in delivering the calves that he hadn’t checked on his wife as he normally did.
He sat on the edge of the bed and brushed aside the sweaty wisps of blonde hair that had escaped her braid. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“The baby’s coming.”
“What! It’s too early! We have to get you to the doctor.” Erik bent, slid his arms under her back, and scooped up his wife. Seemed like a calf weighed more than she did, even with the baby inside her.
At the movement, she screamed and arched her back, kicking her feet. “No, no, no!”
Startled, Erik almost dropped her. He lowered her to the bed and gripped her hands, sitting down next to her.
Her face flushed red and crunched with effort. She squeezed his hand so hard pain radiated through his fingers. Grunting moans that didn’t sound human came from her throat.
He remembered the panting the cow had done. “Breathe, sweetheart. That will help.”
The contraction eased, and Daisy collapsed on the bed, panting. She started to cry. “I can’t do this. I can’t!”
Erik’s mind raced. What should I do? He couldn’t leave his wife and ride for the doctor. He’d be gone from her too long. Nor could he take her with him to town, lying in the wagon bed, bouncing over the ruts with those contractions. Might end up delivering the baby at the side of the road.
He released her hands and stood. I need to ride for Henrietta O’Donnell. But as Erik started to leave the room, he remembered his nearest neighbor telling him at the ice cream social that she was going home with her daughter Sally, who lived on the Thompson ranch with her new husband—on the far side of Sweetwater Springs. Henrietta had planned to visit for a few days and wouldn’t be back yet.
He doubted there’d be time to ride for their closest neighbor on the other side, either. Not that he knew what childless, elderly Mrs. Knapp could do anyway. But she was a woman, so surely she’d know something about childbirth. But what if she doesn’t? He couldn’t afford a wasted trip.
Erik moved back to the bed and took his wife’s hand. “Everything is going to be all right, dearest.” He tried not to betray his feeling of panic. “I’m leaving you for a bit to go to the O’Donnells. I’ll send Rory or Charlie for Dr. Cameron.”
“No!” Wide-eyed, she clutched his arm. “Don’t leave me!”
“Dearest, we need the doctor.”
Another contraction came, and Daisy screamed the whole time, her fingernails digging into his skin.
Helpless, all he could do was hold her hand and make soothing noises, realizing there wasn’t time to ride for help. With a sinking heart, he acknowledged delivering this baby was up to him.
“You did this,” his gentle wife growled. “You put this baby inside me.”
He tried to tease her. “I think we both made the baby, my sweet.”
“I hate you!”
Shocked, Erik released her hand and stood. Daisy had never taken to his humor, and, of course, she wouldn’t react well now to any attempt to tease her out of the seriousness of this situation. I’m such an oaf, he berated himself. Just stand and take the blame. She’s right that I was more eager for the act of making a baby than she was.
“You’ll never touch me that way again!”
Each word was a knife in his heart. They’d conceived this child in love. She’s in pain. I need to make allowances for her harsh words.
To give himself a few minutes to recover, Erik strode over to a blue shirt hanging on a peg on his side of the bed. He removed the filthy one he wore and changed into the fresh garment before hurrying to the porch to leave the dirty shirt in the laundry basket.
When Erik returned to the bedroom, he saw that Daisy kept her face averted. Nevertheless, he took a seat and picked up her hand, bringing it to his lips.
Still, she refused to meet his eyes. “You need to put the waxed cloth under me so we don’t ruin the mattress.” She pointed a trembling finger at the bureau.
Erik took the cloth from her drawer, moved to the bed, and lifted Daisy so he could slide the material under her. Afterward, he prepared a warm, damp cloth and gently wiped the perspiration from her brow.
“My back aches.”
“Turn over, and I’ll rub you.”
With a groan, she shifted to her side, presenting her back to him.
As Erik had so often in the past months, he massaged her tight muscles, pressing his thumbs into the knots.
She suffered his ministrations, seeming to relax. When Daisy finally turned over, she even offered a small smile. “Thank you. That helped.”
He sat in the ladder-back chair next to the bed and rubbed her hand. “Soon, we’ll be parents, dearest.”
Her smile was strained. “I can’t bear this, Erik.”
He didn’t know how she could, either. “Just keep thinking of holding our child in your arms.”
She squeezed his hand. Her eyes drifted closed.
Some time passed in silence. Daisy even dropped into a doze. Then another contraction hit, and she began to scream and thrash on the bed. As he tried to hold her down, Erik couldn’t help the clutch of fear in his stomach. I’m not sure we can get through this!
Long hours passed. Darkness had fallen, and Daisy labored throughout the night. As each hour dragged by without the baby’s appearance, his fear grew.
Through the window, Erik could see dawn smudge purple shadows around the house. His body felt heavy with fatigue, yet each contraction charged him with energy, only to leave him shaken when it passed.
Good thing all the calves were born, so I don’t have to go do the milking. The animals could wait on their feeding until the child came. “If the child comes,” he said out loud. Erik finally put into words the dread he’d struggled with for the last hours.
Toward dawn, Daisy had stopped moving. Even when a contraction hit, all she could do was moan. But something in those muffled sounds of pain frightened him more than her shrieks had. His wife had always been delicate, and the strength to battle childbirth had drained away.
Helpless, all he could do was hold her hand and wipe her sweating face. His coaxing, pleading, even ordering didn’t make any difference. “Please, dear Lord,” he prayed in a soft voice. “Let them make it through this ordeal.”
The pains started to come quickly, rippling across her distended stomach. He pushed up her nightgown and moved her legs aside. To his relief, Erik saw the top of the baby’s head. He gently touched the damp down. “Come on, baby,” he urged. “Come to Pa.”
Daisy lay still, her eyes slitted, half-open.
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br /> “Push, Daisy. You must push!” he demanded.
His wife didn’t respond.
“Come on, sweetheart. You can do this.”
Her eyes opened in response to his words. “Can’t,” she mouthed.
“You must.” He moved to the middle of the bed and placed his hands above the mound of her stomach. “I’ll help. You push. I’ll press on the baby. Together we can do it.” He kept talking, even as he saw her gather her strength to do as he asked.
She lifted her head, rounded her shoulders, and pushed. “ARRRRRGGGGHHH!”
He pressed, imagining himself pushing against the baby’s feet.
All too soon, Daisy collapsed.
Erik rushed to peer between her legs. More of the baby’s head had appeared, but not enough. “Again, Daisy,” he directed. With one arm, he lifted his wife’s shoulders, the other pressing against the baby.
His wife gave a halfhearted response before collapsing in his arms. This time, she wouldn’t move, no matter how much he exhorted her.
Desperate, he lifted her, then climbed on the bed so he could stand and pick her up, hoping the position would aid the baby in coming out.
Erik struggled to hold his wife’s deadweight in one arm while pushing on the baby with the other. Under his hand, he felt the baby move a bit. He shoved again and then another time.
The nightgown obscured his view, so he stepped off the bed, laid her back down, shoved up the material, and saw that enough of the head had come through. He pushed on her stomach with one hand and pulled the baby with another. The tiny body finally slipped free, followed by a gush of blood.
With awe, Erik held the slippery mite in his hands, noting that he had a daughter. “A girl!”
Thank you, dear Lord. Tears of joy pricked his eyes, and, unashamed, he blinked them away. He met Daisy’s gaze, seeing the joy on her pale face.
He used the damp cloth to wipe the baby’s face and nose, and then gave her a gentle smack on the tiny behind. She let out a feeble wail, and he laughed in relief. “That’s it, love, my Camilla.” Erik held the baby up so his wife could see, careful of the dangling umbilical cord.
Daisy watched the baby with dreamy eyes. Her lips moved in a slight smile. “Beautiful,” she whispered.
Erik turned back to the task of pinching the umbilical cord, severing it, and tying it off.
He wiped his daughter’s head, face, and body with a damp cloth, his movements careful. She’s so tiny and feels so fragile.
He started to lay the baby on Daisy’s chest, but something about his wife’s still body sent a jolt of fear through him. Cradling the babe with one arm, he saw the pool of blood between his wife’s legs. Fear shafted through him. Too much blood!
Erik set the baby on top of the blanket in the cradle in the corner next to the bed.
Camilla flailed her arms and legs.
Erik tucked the blanket over the baby’s body. Moving to the bureau, he grabbed two flannel diapers from the stack that Daisy had put on top and used one to sop up the moisture between her legs. Red soaked the cloth. If the bleeding doesn’t stop, she’ll die.
Time passed in a blur. Erik massaged Daisy’s stomach and kept changing the cloths as one became too sodden.
Daisy remained still, her lips bloodless, her skin as pale as marble. Slowly, the life light faded from her blue eyes.
Erik touched his hand to the side of Daisy’s neck and didn’t feel a pulse. Dropping to his knees by the bed, he placed an ear to his wife’s chest. He heard only silence, instead of the familiar thump-thump.
“Daisy!” Erik jumped to his feet and grabbed the hand mirror from the bureau, holding it to her mouth, hoping against hope to see fog from her breath.
Nothing.
“No!” Erik dropped the mirror, barely hearing it shatter as it hit the floor. He collapsed on the bed next to her, pulling her body to him. He gently closed her eyelids and kissed her forehead. “Come back, love. Please don’t leave me. Don’t leave our baby. She needs you. We need you.”
He hugged Daisy tighter, holding her for a long, sad moment. He lowered her to the pillow. “Thank you for our child, my love. I promise I will raise her to be a credit to you.”
A whimper made him leap to his feet, bend over the cradle, and scoop up the baby, blanket and all.
I need to get to town, to the doctor, or our daughter will follow her mother to the grave.
Antonia had been to Sweetwater Springs a total of three times. Once when they’d first moved to the vicinity of the town, and twice before Henri was born, when Jean-Claude had taken his furs to sell, and they had a chance to buy supplies. On those trips, she’d met no one, although she’d exchanged smiles with other women walking on the street or in the store. She vaguely recalled the shopkeeper, remembering the older woman as an unpleasant person.
Now, walking into town, leading the two mules, she was conscious of her grubby state and her Indian garb. She’d washed up at the last stream, but she still smelled like campfire smoke. The only dress she owned was from her girlhood and was threadbare and far too small, even with letting out all the seams. The other two she used to own had eventually worn out. Since they tended to spend summers with the Indians, it had been easier and more practical to adopt the clothing of the squaws—a long tunic that today she wore with leggings. Yet in this town full of white folks, she’d already drawn some astonished or condemning stares.
Feeling vulnerable, Antonia turned her face away from a man who leered at her, only to see a building under construction on the opposite side. The sounds of hammering slowed, and she didn’t dare look to see if the workers also watched her.
Where should we go? On the three-day walk to the town, Antonia had plenty of time to think about what she could do to support her children. If Jean-Claude were alive, they could get by for almost a year on the sale of the furs. But with paying for shelter, food she hadn’t grown or hunted, town clothing. . . . Cain’t last more than a season.
As far as she knew, jobs for women were scarce. She could cross off the list teacher or anything else that required an education. She couldn’t read or write. Washerwoman? Perhaps, although she had little practical experience with anything but using lye soap in a stream on the scant garb they wore that wasn’t leather. Seamstress? She glanced down at her tunic. She didn’t think there’d be much call for leatherwork in town. Saloon girl? Jean-Claude would turn over in his grave if she went anywhere near a saloon. What will I do?
Exhaustion weighed on her as heavy as her grief. Jacques had fussed much of the night, keeping her up trying to soothe him.
After the freedom of the mountains, walking through town felt uncomfortable, and Antonia had difficulty breathing. Even though the dirt street was wide, the buildings, both brick and the false-fronted wooden ones, seemed to press in on her.
“Maman,” said Henri, clutching his brother astride the mule.
Her son sounded worried. Antonia paused and reached up to touch his knee. “All will be well, mon fils.” She wished she could believe her words.
Antonia stopped in the middle of the dirt street. Although she should head toward the brick mercantile building to sell the furs, something about the white frame church drew her. Her childhood of following the army with her soldier father had made for a mixture of religious experiences, but in marrying Jean-Claude, she had become Catholic. Perhaps she could slip into the church and say a prayer, asking for guidance for herself and offering words for Jean-Claude. Maybe my prayers can make up for burying him without a priest.
She glanced up at the boys, sitting on the mule. Jacques slept in Henri’s arms, and her older son watched her with solemn golden eyes. He had a smudge of dirt on one cheekbone, and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose had popped out from the last few days in the sun, away from the tree-shaded mountains. They’d be fine by themselves for a few minutes while she went inside to pray.
Antonia led the mules toward the church, conscious of tiredness weighing her down and the numbness in
her heart. She stopped at a hitching rail at the side of the building. Before she could loop the reins over it, an elderly man in a black frock coat and clerical cravat strode up to her.
Antonia studied his austere, white-bearded face. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to pray in the church.
He stopped in front of her and gave a slight incline of his head.
Antonia braced herself. She’d be lucky if they weren’t run out of town for being heathens. She made to turn around, but the man held up a hand, and she stopped, unable to meet his gaze.
He lifted his hat in greeting. “I’m Reverend Norton. Were you looking for me?” He studied her with piercing blue eyes.
“I be hopin’ to go inside and pray.” She glanced up at the boys. “My husband. . .he died a few days ago. Killed by a grizzly, he be.”
His expression softened.
Antonia wondered if she’d misjudged him.
The man gestured to a small house behind and to the right of the church. “You’ve had a hard time of it, then. Why don’t you come to my home? My wife can provide a meal, and I can offer an ear, some prayers, and, if needed, some advice.”
At his kindness, sudden tears sprang to her eyes. She ducked her head to blink them away. “Mighty kind, preacher.” Her voice sounded husky. “I be Antonia Valleau. My older son be Henri, and the baby be Jacques.”
He smiled and tipped his head toward the little house, white-framed like the church. “Leave the mules and bring the children.”
Antonia lifted Jacques down from the mule. The baby stirred but didn’t awaken. He’d always been a good sleeper, something she was deeply grateful for.
The minister slipped his hands around Henri’s waist. “Down you go.” He lifted the boy to the ground.
Henri looked up at her for assurance.
“Follow the preacher,” she told him.
They traipsed up the stairs and into a small main room. A slight woman wearing a blue dress appeared, drying her hands on a spotless apron. She had a sweet wrinkled face and white hair drawn back into a tight bun. She gave Antonia a welcoming smile.
Healing Montana Sky Page 2