Texas Bride: A Bitter Creek Novel

by Joan Johnston

  “Can I get you something to eat?” Miranda asked.

  Gretta shook her head. “My mama tells me it is not good to eat once labor begins. I will eat after.”

  Miranda thought how fortunate she was to have this experience. Not that she wasn’t a little frightened, but she was learning a great deal about childbirth she hadn’t known. Perhaps her mother would have told her all about it at some point, but Gretta’s experience seemed very different from that of Miranda’s mother. Now she would see for herself exactly what childbirth was all about.

  What if something went wrong?

  Miranda didn’t mention that possibility to Gretta, who remained cheerful over the next four hours as her labor progressed, happy to crochet between contractions. The pains did in fact begin to come closer together and they were longer and stronger, too.

  Miranda hadn’t seen Jake since he’d brought the couple to the house that morning. He hadn’t come in for breakfast or lunch. She wanted to be sure he would be available to help if there were any problems when the baby started to come.

  “Would you mind if I leave you for a little while?” Miranda asked the young German woman.

  “I am—” Gretta stopped speaking, dropped her crochet needles and the tiny cap in her lap, and gripped the arms of the rocker so hard Miranda thought she might break them in half.

  Miranda stood mesmerized as the contraction went on. And on. She heard a low groan issue from Gretta’s throat that also went on. And on.

  “That was a hard one,” Gretta said after the contraction ended. “It will not be long now. I think I will get in the bed.”

  Miranda helped Gretta into the bed, on which the young woman had instructed her to lay newspaper. “My mama said there will be blood. We do not want to stain your sheets.”

  At the word blood, Miranda felt the inherent danger of the situation for the first time. “I need to speak with my husband,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. If you need help, just yell.”

  The German girl grinned. “I will.”

  Miranda found herself grinning back. The sweat on Gretta’s forehead proved that labor was hard work, but the girl also made the pain of labor seem manageable. Her eyes, however, looked less certain than they had several hours ago. In fact, they looked a little frightened.

  “I’ll be right back!” Miranda called over her shoulder as she ran down the stairs. She was still running when she reached the kitchen.

  Heinrich leaped up from his seat at the kitchen table and caught her arm before she reached the back door. “Is my wife all right?”

  Miranda managed to smile and say, “She’s fine. Her labor is progressing normally. It won’t be long now.” She tried to take another step, but Heinrich wouldn’t release her arm.

  “Are you sure everything is okay?” he demanded.

  “I believe so, yes,” Miranda said. “Please, I need to speak with my husband.”

  Heinrich seemed to realize he was still holding her arm and let her go. “I am sorry,” he said. “I am worried.”

  She smiled sympathetically. “I would tell you if anything was wrong. It isn’t.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Miranda hurried out the back door before he could ask her any more questions. Too late, she realized it was still drizzling. She hadn’t brought a shawl or anything else to cover her hair. Once it was wet, it tended to curl even tighter. She began to run.

  Miranda felt her feet sliding out from under her and tried to stop her momentum by leaning forward, then backward again. Her body was too unbalanced, and she quickly realized her only choice was whether to fall forward or backward. She landed on her rump in the mud, breaking her fall with her hands.

  She lifted her muddy hands and stared at them.

  “Are you all right?”

  She looked up to find Jake standing over her. He reached down and pulled her upright.

  “I’m fine. Just a little muddy.”

  “A little?” he said.

  She shook her hands to sling off the extra mud, then wiped them on her skirt. “I was coming to talk to you.”

  “I figured that. Let’s get out of the rain.”

  He opened his rain slicker and pulled her inside and headed back toward the barn.

  She grabbed his belt in back and stopped walking, bringing him to an abrupt halt. “Why don’t we go back to the house to talk? I need to get cleaned up.”

  “You can clean up in the barn.”

  He slid an arm around her waist, and she found herself being swept in the direction of the barn again. She didn’t fight him. His body was as taut as the barbed wire that fenced Three Oaks.

  The barn smelled of manure and hay and horses, a smell she’d come to like. He led her to a pump at one end of the barn and pumped water into a pail. “You can wash up here.”

  “Jake,” she said as she stepped up to the pail and began rinsing her muddy hands. “I can’t deliver that baby without your help.”

  “How far apart are the contractions?”

  She stared at him, surprised by the question. “About five minutes, I guess.”

  “Then what are you doing out here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That baby’s not going to wait much longer to be born.”

  “That’s why I’m out here,” Miranda said. “I don’t know what to do, Jake. You do.”

  “I’ll tell you what to do, but I’m not going in there.”

  Miranda turned to him, wiping her hands dry on a clean spot on the front of her skirt and said, “Jacob Creed, I’m only going to say this once. You are coming into that house and you are going to help me deliver that baby. Do you hear me?”

  “It would be hard not to, since you’re yelling.”

  Miranda’s face flared with heat. “This is no time for joking. Gretta’s life may depend on your experience with childbirth. You are not going to cower out here in the barn and let her die. And that is that!”

  “All right.”

  Miranda had been expecting him to fight her. Having him agree took the wind out of her sails. “All right?”

  His face had never looked so grim as he said, “I’ll help deliver the damned baby.”

  Jake had spent a miserable morning in the barn reliving every detail of his first wife’s final hours. Reliving his futile efforts to help his child be born. Reliving his frustration and despair as he tried to breathe life into his lifeless son.

  It did no good to remind himself that Anna Mae had been born with no trouble at all. Priss had woken up in labor, and before the sun had set, she’d presented him with a wailing baby daughter. He’d sent for help, but it hadn’t arrived in time.

  He was the one who’d caught the tiny little girl in his hands as she slipped from his wife’s body. He was the one who’d tied off and cut the cord. He was the one who’d handed their daughter to his wife, both of them laughing and crying at the same time. Finally, he was the one who’d wrapped the afterbirth in newspaper and removed it to be buried behind the house.

  He’d expected the second birth to follow the same course, with the same happy ending. But Priss had labored and labored and the child had not been born. When at last, exhausted, she’d expelled the child, the cord had been wrapped around its neck. The perfectly formed little boy was blue.

  Jake had known his son was dead, but he’d tried to breathe life into the child anyway. It hadn’t worked.

  He couldn’t bear to go through anything like that again.

  All morning he’d been telling himself that this wasn’t his child. If it died, he might be sad, but his heart wouldn’t be torn from his chest. It did no good. Whenever he thought of going anywhere near Gretta Mueller, his hands trembled and his body shivered and he felt as though he was going to throw up.

  He felt Miranda grasp his hand and twine her fingers through his. As they stepped onto the back porch, she turned to him and said, “You can do this, Jake. I’ll be there to help. Heinrich is a little anxious, though.”
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br />   Jake opened the back door and found himself greeted by a man who was beside himself with worry.

  “I want to see my wife,” Heinrich begged.

  Miranda looked to Jake for guidance.

  “You should wait down here,” Jake said flatly. If things went wrong, it would be better if Heinrich wasn’t in the room. “We’ll call you if we need you for anything. Come on, Miranda.”

  This time Jake grabbed her hand. He needed to hold onto something, or he thought he might turn around and run as fast as his legs could carry him back to the barn.

  Miranda pulled him into the bedroom behind her and announced, “I brought Jake.”

  “I thought you forgot about me,” Gretta said.

  Jake was surprised to see Gretta still sitting up in bed with a pillow behind her, rather than lying down. She’d definitely been laboring hard. Her brown hair was plastered to her brow with sweat, and her hands were twined in the sheets as though she’d been gripping them tightly.

  “How far apart are the pains?” he asked.

  “Close. Oh, no. Here comes another one,” she said with a moan.

  “Close the door,” Jake ordered Miranda. No sense having Heinrich hearing his wife’s agony as she brought their child into the world. Jake shut out the sounds she made, giving orders to Miranda about what he would need to deliver the child when it came.

  She’d already put newspaper on the bed under Gretta, but he sent her to find a knife to cut the cord and string to tie it off and hot water to wash mother and child after the birth. “I’ll stay here with Gretta,” he said.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and waited until the powerful contraction passed. “You can scream if you want,” he said.

  “It would only frighten Heinrich,” she said breathlessly.

  Before she got the sentence out, she groaned again and reached for his hand. He was amazed, as he had been with Priss, at how mighty this small woman’s grasp became as she fought against the pain of childbirth. He watched her belly ripple as her body contracted to expel its burden, and the baby moved within her.

  He knew he needed to check to see how far along she was, but he didn’t want to embarrass her. “I need to look,” he explained, “to see how the baby is doing.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Let’s get you comfortable first,” he said as he rearranged the pillow, then scooted her down in the bed. He’d barely gotten her settled when she was gripped with another powerful contraction. She grabbed the sheets and waged war with the pain.

  “Don’t fight it,” he said.

  He watched her grit her teeth and growl and realized she was starting to push. “Wait,” he said.

  “I caaaannnnn’t!” she yelled. Her feet were flat on the bed and her back was arched like a bow.

  He shoved the sheet up. There was no time for modesty now. The baby was coming … or it was not. He needed to be ready in case the child’s nose and mouth needed to be cleared.

  “Miranda!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  She arrived at the door in the next instant, carrying all the supplies he’d asked for. “I’m here!” She stopped cold when she realized he had the sheet pushed up, exposing … everything. Her eyes went wide in shock and, he thought, a little in horror.

  The baby’s head had crowned. The sight had frightened Jake the first time he saw it. He knew it meant the birth was imminent. “Put that pitcher of hot water on the chest beside the bed, then bring everything else over here,” he said brusquely.

  “It’s coooommmmmming!” Gretta grated out as her body contorted.

  “Set those things on the bed and be ready with the towel,” Jake ordered Miranda.

  He saw the baby was coming headfirst and facedown, which he knew was good. Maybe it was going to be all right. Maybe there would be no difficulties. Maybe this baby would be born alive and well.

  Despite Gretta’s prediction, the baby didn’t come. Contractions continued wracking her body at short intervals, but the baby’s head didn’t move.

  “Is the baby stuck?” Miranda whispered to him.

  He didn’t want to say it, because he didn’t want it to be true. It was his own personal nightmare come to life.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Miranda asked.

  “What’s wrong?” Gretta said. “Why are you—” Her body was wrenched with another contraction so hard it cut off speech.

  When the contraction passed, Jake tried to tell whether the baby’s head had moved. He wondered how long the infant could stay like this without suffocating. He wondered whether the cord might be wrapped around its neck.

  “I have to do something,” he said.

  “What can you do?” Miranda asked in a frightened voice.

  “Give me the knife,” he said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Give me the damned knife, Miranda.” His hand was shaking when he took it from her. He’d thought about doing what he was about to do when his wife had been in so much trouble. He’d talked himself out of it, telling himself everything would be fine. He wasn’t going to take that chance this time. There was something he could do to help the baby be born. He just needed the courage to do it.

  “Go get a needle and some thread,” he said.

  “Now?” she asked skeptically.

  “Now!” He didn’t want Miranda to see what he was about to do. If it worked, as he hoped it would, she would need to sew up the cut he was about to make. He met Gretta’s frightened gaze and said, “I’m going to make a small cut, so there’ll be more room for the baby’s head. I think maybe it’ll help. I don’t have anything to deaden the pain.”

  “It cannot be any worse than the pain I am enduring now,” she said, panting as another contraction began. She bit down on her lip to stop a scream.

  And Jake used the knife to cut a wider opening for the baby’s head.

  The timing must have been right, or maybe the baby had just needed a little bit more time before it came into the world. In any case, as Gretta bore down, the baby’s head slid out of her body, followed by the shoulders, arms, and legs.

  “It’s a boy,” Jake said. His shoulders were hunched as he waited to see whether the baby would take a breath. He shoved a finger in its mouth and came away with a ball of mucus. He held the boy up by his legs and heard a tiny wail.

  He grinned. “He’s got good lungs.”

  Gretta smiled tiredly.

  Miranda appeared in the doorway, needle and thread in hand. “I heard a cry. Is the baby—”

  “He’s fine,” Jake said as he wrapped the baby in the towel Miranda had left open on the bed. He laid the baby in its mother’s arms, then crossed to Miranda. “I had to make a cut. You’ll need to sew it back together as soon as she delivers the placenta.”

  Gretta’s feet were still flat on the bed, her knees holding up the sheet, revealing Jake’s handiwork. He watched closely to gauge the look on Miranda’s face when she saw the small cut he’d made. It was bleeding, but not very much.

  “Oh, Jake, what a good idea,” she said, looking at him, her eyes bright with tears. “You saved the baby.”

  Jake felt a painful knot form in his throat. Maybe he had. Maybe the baby would have come anyway. He was just glad both mother and baby were fine.

  He waited for the afterbirth and wrapped it in the newspaper and set it aside. “I’ll leave you to do your sewing. When you’re done, come down and get Heinrich.”

  Jake left the room and headed downstairs. He met Heinrich at the bottom landing and said, “You have a son.”

  “Can I go upstairs now?”

  “In a few minutes,” Jake said, putting a hand on Heinrich’s shoulder. “Miranda is making Gretta pretty for you.”

  “Are they both all right?” Heinrich asked. “Mother and baby both?”

  “Both are fine,” Jake reassured him. “I have to go outside for a minute. Miranda will call you when you can go up.”

  Jake hurried outside and barely made it past
the porch before he leaned over and lost the contents of his stomach. Not that there was much in it to lose. He hadn’t eaten all day. He went to the pump and rinsed his mouth out.

  Then he headed for the stable. He hadn’t finished mucking out the stalls. Maybe the work would help the trembling to stop.

  He hadn’t been working long when he heard Miranda call, “Jake? Are you in here?”

  “Here,” he called from one of the stalls.

  “Why aren’t you in the house? Heinrich has a bottle of champagne in his wagon. He wants to celebrate.”

  “I hope you got a good look at what you’ll be subjected to if you get pregnant,” Jake said.

  “It was miraculous,” she gushed.

  Jake knew she was still basking in the glow of happiness she’d seen on Gretta’s face when the new mother had held her son in her arms.

  “She could have died and left her husband a widower with a baby to raise,” Jake said.

  “But she didn’t,” Miranda pointed out. “They have a son, Jake. A son to love and raise into a fine man.”

  “You just don’t get it,” he said in disgust.

  “I get it, Jake,” she said quietly. “I know there are risks. Oh, but the rewards, Jake. The rewards are worth it.”

  “You say that because you aren’t going to be the one left behind to mourn. You aren’t going to be the one—” He couldn’t finish. His throat had swollen closed.

  She took him in her arms and pulled his head down beside hers and crooned words of comfort in his ear as he fought back tears.

  His arms tightened around her. He didn’t want her ever to get pregnant. No child was worth the risk of losing her. Somehow, she’d found her way into his heart. He wasn’t just in love with her. God help him, he loved her.

  Miranda thought her sisters must be worried sick. She’d been in Texas for nearly two months, and she still hadn’t sent them a letter telling them that she and the boys had arrived safely and that she was married. She’d never imagined how difficult something as simple as posting a letter would be.