Speak Through the Wind

by Allison Pittman

  “Are you going to go check on her?” Biddy asked each time Kassandra looked out the window.

  “She will know when to call me. I will be right there for her.”

  Then, a little over an hour after Gloria left the main house, Kassandra saw a light appear in her cabin’s little window. The snow was falling thick by now, and the pinpoint of light was somewhat obscured, but Kassandra knew it was a summons. She repeated the instructions she’d given the girls earlier about boiling water, finding clean towels, and making regular visits out to the cabin to check on Gloria’s progress. Then, wrapping Imogene’s shawl around her shoulders, she headed out into the yard.

  She paused in the clearing and held her head up to the sky. Snowflakes wafted down, landing on her nose and lips, bringing small stings of cold into her eyes. Nearly a year ago, on a night much like this, she’d stood in this very yard contemplating her disappearance into the woods, being lost forever, knowing nobody would know or care. Then she found Biddy. And Gloria. And Gloria’s coming baby. People who needed her. A purpose.

  “Father in heaven,” she spoke to the sky, not sure if her inner voice would be heard, “help me to—”

  “Saideeeeeee!”

  When she turned, she saw Gloria collapsed in the doorway of her cabin.

  The labor progressed well, considering it was Gloria’s first pregnancy. Months of Mae’s cooking had given her strength to endure the pain, and she was quick to comply with all of her instructions. Kassandra was surprised and comforted at how quickly she was able to recall all the aspects of midwifery—how to make Gloria feel more comfortable, how to measure the strength and endurance of the contractions.

  The two women were able to chat in bits and pieces along the way, but when the hardest part of the delivery arrived, Kassandra remembered Imogene’s advice to sing to the laboring mother. That same song she sang at the very first birth she attended had become her song of choice, and as the looming shadows of her deft movements dominated the tiny cabin lit by a single light, she reached inside of her to pull out those words again.

  “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow—”

  Before she could continue another line, her throat closed on her. When had she last praised God for anything? When had she ever?

  She had a cool, wet cloth—lately delivered by Biddy—which she absentmindedly dabbed over Gloria’s contorted brow. For the briefest of moments, her mind was torn away from the scene at hand, and try as she might to conjure up some sincere connection of praise to God for the miracle she was about to witness, she could not. She felt her heart constrict within her, puckering to some dried thing.

  Still, though, the occasion demanded a song, so she reached to a part of her memory more worthy of the person she had become. A song from years spent hearing drunken sailors staggering through the streets of the New York slums. The ideal summer at a beachfront paradise. Months on a ship, at the mercy of the relentless sea and sun. A city built on the docks of the opposite ocean, where ships choked the harbor.

  “Deserted by the waning moon,

  When skies proclaimed night’s cheerless noon,

  On Tower Fort or tended ground,

  The Sentry walks in his lowly round

  The Sentry walks his lowly round …”

  “Sadie?” Gloria’s voice spoke through the song.

  “Yes, honey.”

  “You’re singing?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never heard you sing before.”

  “I don’t do it very often.”

  “You should. It’s beautiful. What is it?”

  “It is just a song I remember growing up. Sailors sang it.”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “New York.” This was the delirium of labor. How many hours had they spent talking about Kassandra’s life?

  “How did you get here?”

  “Long story” Kassandra said, thinking of all the details she hadn’t shared. She gladly complied when Gloria asked her to sing again.

  “And should a footstep haply stray

  Where caution marks the guarded way

  Stranger quickly, tell a Friend

  The Word good night all’s well

  All’s well, all’s well …”

  The final, heroic push on Gloria’s part ushered a healthy, squirming baby boy into the room. Into the world. Kassandra caught up the tiny wet thing in a clean, folded blanket, and had to will her arms not to collapse under the onslaught of grief that infused her. How would her life have been different if Imogene had taken into her arms a living, breathing baby boy? How many lives were lost at the moment of Daniel’s silent birth? That, Kassandra believed, was the moment she herself died.

  Now she felt alive again, more alive than she had in years. It was as if she’d taken a deep breath high up a mountain and felt her ears clear of the pressure. A part of her wanted to run with this baby boy into the woods, to keep him as her own, to get back what she’d lost at sixteen. But Gloria was asking questions about the baby, her baby, and Kassandra realized her blessing would come from handing the child over to his mother.

  “He’s here,” she said to Gloria, and laid the squirming baby on his mother’s breast.

  She’d named the boy Danny, in memory of Kassandra’s own lost child, but his arrival did little to change the day-to-day life of the women of Jewell’s house.

  Nearly a month after his birth, Kassandra sat in Jewell’s parlor, pouring her third shot of whiskey into a glass and slamming it down before dealing another hand of cards. She rarely drank these days, if nothing else because each sip seemed to earn a disapproving glance from the ever-watchful Biddy. But tonight Biddy was out in Gloria’s cabin watching the baby so Gloria could get some sleep, and the amber liquid warmed her against the cold, wet draft that invaded the room each time the door opened. Outside, sleet hammered at the widows, and just the thought of its stinging made her shudder. One after another, men came down from the mountain, braving the conditions for a little companionship and to escape their leaking roofs. After a while there was a coziness in the little parlor, accented by lots of laughter and swiftly emptying bottles.

  “Where’s Biddy tonight?” The question came from a young man named Ben Danglars. The men in camp called him Buck, in reference to both his native Virginia and the fringed coat he wore. A handsome boy, he had hair the color of wet sand, and it would stick straight up from his head whenever he pulled off his hat.

  “She is with Gloria and the baby tonight,” Kassandra told him, sending a sly smile that caused him to blush and turn away

  Kassandra was just judging the hand she’d dealt herself when the front door to the parlor burst open. Filling the doorway entirely was Mr. MacGregan. He was soaked through from his walk down the side of the mountain, and droplets of cold rain dangled from the brim of his hat as a puddle formed just at the edge of Jewell’s imported Spanish rug.

  “I need you,” he said, directing his hooded gaze to Kassandra. “My wife. Somethin’s wrong. With her. With the baby.”

  The whiskey she’d been drinking fogged Kassandra’s mind just a bit, but not enough to block out the response she’d been given when she last offered to help MacGregan’s wife.

  “I don’t think so,” she said, reaching for the bottle and pouring another drink. “Your wife is a good woman. Good women have good babies all the time.” She downed the drink with a shaking hand.

  “I’m not askin’ for my wife.” He still hadn’t stepped foot in the parlor, and the room was growing colder with each passing minute. “I’m not askin’ for myself, either. But the baby. There’s just so much blood.”

  Kassandra set her glass on the table. “Blood? How much blood?”

  “I don’t know,” MacGregan said. “I don’t know about these things. But somethin’ just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Let me get a few things,” Kassandra said, rising from the table. “Wait outside. You are making a mess.”

  She hadn’t expected the cabin
to be so small, and given it size, she was surprised at its tidiness and functionality. It was, quite simply, a miniature house, with a plank for a kitchen, a plank for a table, two chairs, and a bed—all within a space so small it was impossible to move from one point to another without bumping into something or someone.

  Mrs. MacGregan didn’t look much better than she had that afternoon at the supply train, still pale and drawn … and still. Too still for a woman in labor. There were a few soft moans escaping, but nothing that would indicate the continuance of two healthy lives in that bed.

  When Kassandra pulled back the covers and lifted the woman’s gown, she saw the reason for the woman’s weakness. Blood. Something had ruptured. She had seen this before with Imogene, and the chance of the mother surviving was almost nonexistent. Not without a miracle anyway. But the way MacGregan’s lips moved in obvious prayer, maybe there was a miracle in store.

  In the meantime, she knew of only one way to save one life—that of the child—and she was glad to not have to be here alone. She directed MacGregan to get behind his wife and hold her somewhat upright as she turned to her supplies.

  “You must have put the water on before you came to get me,” she said, nodding toward the hissing kettle on the tiny stove.

  “She told me to.”

  “Smart woman.”

  Kassandra opened her bag and rummaged through the contents instinct had directed her to put inside. She was glad to have had the bracing walk from Jewell’s house as a chance to clear her head. She knew she would need both it and a steady hand as she took the knife out of the bag and held it over a bowl on the table-plank, pouring boiling water over its silver blade. Upon seeing it, the man began to pray aloud.

  When she moved to Mrs. MacGregan’s body and sat at the foot of the bed, she wished she had the chloroform Dr. Hilton had given her after the birth of her daughter. She could only hope that the delirium of the woman’s existing pain would be enough to mask some of what was to come.

  Mrs. MacGregan moaned. “Get that whore out of my house!” she said, accompanying her disapproval with a few thrashes and kicks.

  Kassandra was grateful to have the woman awake, though she knew she would never have the strength to push the child out on her own. Upon closer inspection Kassandra saw that much of the baby’s head was still hidden. The mother had lost so much blood already that her life was surely waning. If she died before the baby took its first breath, chances were it never would.

  Kassandra instructed MacGregan to place his hands on his wife’s stomach and, when he was told, help her push. At her command—over and over—both MacGregans seemed to yelp together, and Kassandra saw a bit of the baby’s head emerge. But it wasn’t enough.

  She’d seen Imogene do what she was about to do, but she’d never attempted it herself. Every time she watched the procedure, she had sworn to herself that she would never be capable. The mother and baby would just have to die.

  Never before had anything felt as heavy as the knife she held in her hand. She ran the blade across the soft skin below her thumb to be certain of its sharpness, took a deep breath, and made a tiny cut in Mrs. MacGregan’s flesh. Just enough to allow the safe passage of a beautiful, squalling baby.

  “It’s a little girl,” Kassandra said. “Leave your wife for now and come help me with the baby.”

  She handed the newborn over to MacGregan and instructed him on how to wash and wrap her. Then she lifted the frail woman—too weak to protest—and stripped her of the bloody gown. She found the cleanest parts of it, tore them into strips, and soaked them in the distilled witch hazel she’d had delivered on the last supply drop. She used these strips to pack the wound and found another gown in a trunk in the corner for Mrs. MacGregan to wear. Then she picked up a brush and began to run it through Mrs. MacGregan’s jet-black hair, chanting to herself, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, just as she had as a child, counting her own brushstrokes. She plaited the hair into one long braid and fastened it with a curling scrap.

  This, without the acute pallor, was how Kassandra pictured Mrs. MacGregan looking the night this new daughter was conceived. Somewhat pretty, waiting for her groom to join her in her bed. Kassandra led him there now and gave instructions on how to bring the baby to her mother’s breast to suckle.

  Then she packed her things back in her bag and left the little family alone. If the woman lived until dawn, she might be that little girl’s mother forever. If not, MacGregan would be back at her door, ready to fight for the life of his daughter … or to look for a place to dump her.

  When Kassandra came out of the woods and walked into the clearing, she found that the rain had stopped and everything was a cold, soggy mess. She thought back to Biddy’s statement that God had saved her life by bringing her here. What an unlikely place for such a rescue.

  he death of Katherine MacGregan was barely noticed by the residents of the Silver Peak camp. There had been a brief service, of course, attended by a few of the miners and the women from Jewell’s house. Gloria had stayed away, saying she wanted to keep her son out of the sharp, chill wind, but MacGregan stood at his wife’s graveside, holding his newborn daughter in one arm, dropping a handful of earth into the open grave with the other. Afterwards they retired to Jewell’s house for sandwiches and coffee—all but MacGregan.

  “Looks like she was loved most by those that knew her least,” Jewell said as the little party made its way down the path to the red-roofed house.

  “Hush that,” Kassandra said, nearly elbowing the woman off the path, but smiling a bit at the comment.

  As the weather grew warmer, rumors persisted that the lode at Silver Peak was about tapped out, but that didn’t stop a new influx of men who came to coax out what little might be left. With them came two new women to work in Jewell’s house—Yolanda, a lovely, dark-eyed Mexican girl, and Donna, a dark-skinned quadroon from the brothels of New Orleans.

  “That’s what we’re needin’ around here,” Jewell said, tickled at their arrival. “A little more color.”

  And the men couldn’t have agreed more. The simple, quiet evenings at Jewell’s house were soon a thing of the past. There was dancing to the music played on the piano that had recently made its precarious ascent up the pass. Whiskey and beer flowed more freely than ever, and more and more miners’ boots tramped up the parlor stairs to the second floor. It was obvious in no time that Yolanda and Donna would each need a room of her own, and Kassandra graciously took Biddy back into hers, if for no other reason than to protect her from an inevitable fate, given her fascination with the music, dancing, and increasing attentions of Ben Danglars.

  Mae moved in with Jewell under a fair amount of protest—surprisingly from Mae.

  One person not caught up in this new burst of life was John William MacGregan. And Gloria. He’d given over the care of his daughter to her, and according to the men gathered at Jewell’s, he’d been selling off a lot of his mining equipment, making trades for a wagon and a team of horses.

  “He is going to leave that baby here,” Kassandra hissed into Jewell’s ear one night after hearing that MacGregan had just purchased a leather driving harness. “How can he do that?”

  “When you find somethin’ better, you walk away,” Jewell said, pouring a drink. “You know all about that, don’t you?”

  But it turned out MacGregan wasn’t leaving. Not alone, anyway. One afternoon, after watching fitfully from Jewell’s kitchen window for MacGregan to leave Gloria’s cabin after his daily visit to his daughter, Kassandra ran across the yard to ask Gloria what his plans were.

  “We’re leaving on Saturday,” Gloria confessed after some attempt at being coy. Kassandra felt a pang of envy as she took in the news of Gloria’s life to come. Two beautiful children. A strong, caring man.

  “It’s not forever,” Gloria said, as if trying to comfort her friend.

  Kassandra felt immediate shame for not rejoicing in this, another life saved.

  “Nothing ever is.”

  Th
e rush to get everything ready for Gloria’s departure was unlike anything Kassandra had ever seen. Mae immediately took to making Gloria some new clothes from the bolts of calico that had been delivered on the last supply.

  “We don’t want her going off to Oregon looking like some tart he picked up at a whorehouse,” Mae had said, using her arm to measure out lengths of a serviceable brown sprigged print.

  “Oh, no. We would not want that,” Kassandra said, cutting her own bed quilt in half to make a soft lining for the babies’ baskets. She knew the scraps from Gloria’s new clothes would be made into a new quilt for her before the winter came.

  Biddy was beside herself with happiness, and she found every available bit of cloth to cut and hem into diapers for the babies. One night, as she and Kassandra sat up in bed, she whispered in the dark, “You know, I wish they would take me with them. I could be an awful big help with the babies—I’ve taken care of lots of them. I wouldn’t be any trouble at all.”

  “Have you asked her?” Kassandra couldn’t imagine a more wonderful means of escape for this child, who seemed to daily become more enticed by the life Jewell had to offer.

  “No,” Biddy said. “I figure if it’s God’s will that I go, He’ll lay it on Gloria’s heart to ask me.”

  Kassandra smiled into the darkness. “I would not bet on that, Liebling. I’m not sure Gloria has a heart for God to lay anything on.”

  “Of course she does. Everybody has a heart for God. She just hasn’t found it yet.”

  The night before Gloria was to leave, Kassandra, Mae, and Biddy squeezed themselves into Gloria’s tiny cabin for one last evening of chat like they used to enjoy before the new women came to turn Jewell’s house into Jewell’s dream. Mae brought over the new clothes, and Gloria tried them on right in front of the other women, transforming herself into a pioneer before their very eyes.

  “All you need now is a sunbonnet and a hunched back,” Kassandra said, laughing through a mouthful of one of Mae’s cookies.

  “Let me just take up the hem on this one,” Mae said, taking the brown skirt covered with scattered red flowers. “I don’t want it to get dragged through the mud and ruined.”