by Anita Mills
“You are a wonder,” he whispered, tracing the baby’s soft cheek with his fingertip. “A little wonder.”
Hours later, Laura stirred, painfully aware of her full breasts, then turned to look across the small room. The lantern was out, the fire was low, and the two windows were a solid white. Her gaze sought the rocking chair, and her question died on her lips. Spencer Hardin’s black hair was rumpled, his head arched back to touch the wooden rail, unaware the baby girl nuzzled his neck eagerly, her little mouth hunting for food. It was a sight she was sure she’d never forget
As she swung her feet over the side of the bed, she discovered she was almost too sore to sit. “I see you gave up watching,” she said, waking him.
“Huh?” His blue eyes flew open, and he felt the baby rubbing her face in his neck again. “What the? Oh. I must’ve gone to sleep,” he admitted sheepishly. “She didn’t seem to have any more trouble breathing.” His hand smoothed the soft, downy hair as he sat up. “If it’s breakfast you’re looking for, Jessie, you’re in the wrong place,” he murmured to the baby, “You want your mama for that.” Looking down as he lifted her to his shoulder, he discovered the wet circle in the middle of his shirt. “Yes, ma’am, you sure do want your mama.” Rising from the rocker, he carried her to Laura. “Her mouth’s not the only thing that works,” he noted ruefully, handing her over. “While you take care of business, I’d better find myself another shirt, then I’ll throw some more wood on the fire, he added awkwardly. “I expect you’re getting cold.”
“No, but I think it’d be a good idea,” she murmured, coloring.
After he placed two cottonwood logs on the coals, he spent a good ten minutes on his knees with his back to her, pretending he couldn’t get the fire going, so she’d have some privacy. When he finally stood up, a quick glance reassured him that the baby instinctively knew what to do with a nipple. Then he realized Laura was in obvious pain.
“What’s the matter?”
“It … it hurts,” she managed. “I’m too sore for this.”
“Let me see,” he said without thinking. Moving to the bed, he leaned down to touch the swollen breast while he tried to remember everything he’d read in medical school on the subject. As small as she was, that baby would have to eat every couple of hours, and if Laura couldn’t feed her, she’d be in real trouble fast “I guess maybe if we’d tried this a little earlier, you might not be so tender there. I’d say you filled up a little fast.”
Embarrassed, Laura turned her head and gritted her teeth as he rubbed her sore nipple between his thumb and forefinger, releasing a trickle of milk, while the thwarted baby cried shrilly. Closing her eyes, she managed to whisper, “It’s not supposed to be like this, is it?”
“Maybe she’s not strong enough yet to do much good for you,” he guessed. “I’m going to see if getting rid of some of this will make it any easier on you.” Straightening, he went to the cupboard and removed a ragged towel from the drawer. Returning to sit down beside her, he covered the breast with the towel arid gently massaged the nipple while she sucked in her breath and bit her lip. “Feel any better?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“If it does, she’s not been sucking hard enough.”
“She made enough noise at it.”
“But she can’t take very much.” Transferring the towel to the other breast, he released more milk. “All right—let her try again.”
Too mortified to meet his eyes, Laura nodded, then placed the infant against her nipple, and the squalling stopped.
“Any better?”
“Maybe.”
The rosebud mouth was sure working at it. Touching the baby’s lower lip with a fingertip, he could see the little tongue working, and Laura’s milk bubbling around it. “She’s going at it now,” he murmured. “Just keep at it until she wants to quit, and I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, alarmed. “How do I know when she’s had enough?”
“Outside—and she won’t take anymore,” he responded, answering both questions. “If I can get out, I need to make sure the animals are all right. With that wind still blowing, and the snow already up over the windows, I figure it’s going to get even worse. I need to see if I can even find the rope I strung between the door and the privy, because I sure don’t want to get lost out there.”
“No.”
“There’s no two ways about it, he added soberly. “You’ll have to use the chamberpot, so when I get back, I’ll try to rig up a curtain of some kind for you to get behind.”
Thinking she’d already lost most of her dignity, that he’d seen the most intimate parts of her body, she was nonetheless touched by his attempt to preserve that small corner of privacy for her.
“Thank you” she said sincerely. “I was getting worried.”
“I know. I thought you had about all you could handle already. Besides, if it’s as deep as I think it is out there, I may have to use it part of the time myself. We’ll just have to get used to living real close for a while, but I’ll do what I can to make it easier on you.”
“You already have, just by being here.”
“Well, we’re both kind of stuck here, so we might as well accept it. Come May, I expect you’ll be damned happy to see the last of me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way. I’ll probably be a little sad to see you go, because I’ll be used to your ways by then. I’ll probably be lonesome for a little while, to tell the truth. But we’ll do fine.”
“You just can’t stay here—there’s no two ways about it—you can’t winter out here again. I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to Nebraska in the winter. And if you try to follow the railroad, you’ll be in a worse place this time next year.”
“I don’t know—we’ll see. When she’s a little older, I’ll have a better notion of what I need to do.”
“Go back to North Carolina.”
“I aim to think about it. I’m going to do what’s best for her first, then worry about myself later.”
“I’m telling you what you ought to do.”
“But it isn’t up to you to tell me,” she reminded him. “I’m the one that has to live with what I decide, not you.”
“You watch out—that stubborn streak you’ve got just might take you to hell in a handbasket if you don’t stomp on it.”
Irritated because she never seemed to listen to good advice, he wrenched the door, trying to open it. It wouldn’t budge, and looking down, he saw why. The earlier sleet had thawed enough to seep underneath; then the force of that arctic wind had refrozen it into a ridge of ice. Inwardly cursing the folly of living in such a place, he found a knife and started chiseling the ice away from the door. Standing again, he pulled the wooden slab inward, and as the rest of the ice broke, it opened. A wall of snow as high as his shoulders collapsed, sending an avalanche of the stuff into the cabin, making it impossible to shut the door again. The wind filled the whole room with a burst of bitterly cold air.
“Get the baby under the covers,” he ordered tersely as he stared at the mound of snow. “It’s going to take me a while to dig out.”
Quickly bundling the infant, Laura tucked her under the edge of the top feather bed, then she rose to pull on a dress over her nightgown. “I’ll get the broom and help.”
“I’ll do it,” he muttered.
“Two work faster than one,” she declared, putting an end to the discussion. “You take the ash pan and start shoveling.”
They started digging and pushing with broom, shovel, and bare hands, fighting against that bitter, biting wind to get the snow outside. Finally, he broke through enough of the stuff to plunge into the icy maelstrom, while she finished clearing the threshold enough to force the door closed after him.
Afraid he’d lose his way in the blinding, swirling snow and freeze to death outside, she shouted, “Be careful!”
Shivering, Laura made her way back to
the bed, where the baby lay squalling so hard she quivered. Sitting down, she moved gown and dress out of the way, then cradled her daughter against her breast. The crying ceased instantly, and within five minutes the baby was sucking in her sleep.
For a long moment, Laura gazed on the delicate little face, feeling an intense sadness that Jesse would never see this beautiful little girl they’d made. He would have been a proud daddy right now if it hadn’t been for that terrible accident. As hard as he’d worked for the better life he’d wanted so desperately, he’d lost it all. Closing her eyes, she fought tears as she realized she didn’t even have a photograph of him to show her daughter. His child would never know what her daddy looked like. From now until she was grown, it’d be just the two of them. It was a daunting thought.
Alone with the baby in this rough little cabin, with a blizzard raging around it, she felt terribly vulnerable. Before, as lonely and desperate as things were, she’d been able to delude herself into believing she could survive, but now, as she cradled her child, she was painfully aware she had more than her own destiny in her hands. She couldn’t help wondering if she could give her daughter any kind of life at all, or if this little girl faced the same endless poverty she’d endured her whole life. It seemed now as though she’d worked as hard as she knew how for as long as she could remember, and she didn’t have much of anything to show for it. Except this baby.
Jessie. Jessie Spencer Taylor. Jessie Hardin Taylor. No, Jessica Spencer Taylor. It did have an elegant sound to it. Highfalutin, as they’d say back in Salisbury, North Carolina. Her fingertip traced the tiny cheek, the little nose, feeling the soft breath there.
“Dear God,” she whispered, “don’t let me fail her. Give me the means to take care of her properly.” And the wind seemed to answer, calming her fears. If the Lord wanted to test her mettle, He wouldn’t find her wanting. No matter how hard she had to work, she’d see Jessie got what she needed.
Western Nebraska: March 8, 1866
The clothespins caught in Laura’s mittens as she removed them from the laundry line. Holding them in her mouth, she pulled the stiff shirts down, letting them drop into the big wicker basket, sliding it along with her foot beneath the frozen clothes. Following behind her, Chen Li pinned up a load of long johns to the same line.
Even without that biting wind, it would be bitter cold out, but with it, her face felt raw. Since Chen Li never complained, she had to wonder if the winters were worse in China. They couldn’t be, she decided. Picking up the full basket, she hurried inside.
There was one good thing about doing laundry on a day like this, she told herself. No matter how chilly it had seemed inside before, when she came in, it felt downright hot for a little while. As she kicked the door shut behind her, she instinctively looked to the cradle. Jessie still slept.
Laying the frozen shirts on the table to soften, she pulled off her mittens and poured herself a cup of coffee, savoring the smell of the steam curling in the air above it. Two more loads to wash and hang, then she’d be ready to start the ironing this afternoon.
Carrying her cup with her, she went to the hearth to peek under a cloth at the rising bread dough. It wasn’t ready to punch down yet.
She still had to do the baking and start the ironing, and after Spence got back from camp with the cream, she’d be churning butter before she fixed supper. Fresh bread, butter, and potato soup were just the things for this cold weather.
Returning to the kitchen corner, she pulled out the potato bin, chose several, and was about to wash them, when Chen Li pounded on the door. As she opened it, the little Chinese man scurried past her to hold his ice-cold hands over the fire. His thin shoulders shook beneath that quilted cotton jacket he always wore.
“What you need is a good hot toddy,” she told him, crossing her arms and shivering to indicate how cold he was.
“You velly cold?”
“No, you are. A toddy’d warm you right up.”
“Li cold, too,” he said, nodding.
Unable to communicate any better, she decided to give him coffee instead. She didn’t know if he’d drink whiskey, anyway, she told herself as she filled his cup. She didn’t know much about him at all, and it wouldn’t do any good to ask where he came from or anything else. His English was so poor that she couldn’t carry on a conversation with him. But once she showed him how to do something, he did it well, and that was what mattered. “Coffee,” she said loudly, holding out the cup to him. “It’s good and hot.”
“Hot velly good,” Chen Lii agreed.
Spence came in with his arms full, elbowed the door shut, then stamped his feet, trying to warm them. Looking across the room to her, he said, “You just said cream, but since I was already down there, I went ahead and bought some other things, too. There’s sugar, a tin of arrowroot cookies, some hard candy, cooking chocolate, a bag of walnuts, and a bottle of cherry brandy in the gunnysack. Wagon came in just before I got there.”
“If I eat all that, I’ll be fat.”
“Not the way you work,” he answered, pulling off the heavy coat, mittens, and muffler, then bracing himself against the doorjamb to remove his boots. “Whooeeee, but it’s damned cold out—I’ll take Georgia any day over this.” Moving to join Chen Li by the fire, he told her over his shoulder, “Hawthorne said they were short on the rep track.”
“Oh?”
He wriggled his cold toes on the warm stones in front of the hearth, defrosting them as he added casually, “I told him I’d help out.”
“Spence, you didn’t—surely not!”
“Why not?”
Dismayed, she tried to keep her voice calm. “Well, if you think you’re cold now, you don’t even have a notion—you’ll be toting and hammering on cold steel fourteen hours a day, then trying to sleep in a drafty tent with that old north wind blowing right through it. It’s hard, dangerous work for a man not used to it—Jesse was killed doing it.”
“I’m not Jesse, and I won’t let them work me like that. Besides, I can use the extra money right now—I don’t know what’ll happen between here and California.”
“You know, I don’t need the room and board you’re paying. I mean, you do so much around here, helping out with the baby, carrying water, chopping wood—things like that—I don’t feel right taking it, anyway. I just didn’t want to insult your pride by refusing it, that’s all.”
“I need to do something. I just feel restless—it’s hell knowing I’ve got to be somewhere else when there’s no way I can’t get there. I feel like a caged animal in this one room.”
“Well, if it’s work you’re looking for, I could sure use help right here. There’s so much laundry coming in now that it’s almost too much for Chen Li and me to handle, and since word’s spread to McPherson, I’ve had to turn away customers.”
He could almost hear the panic in her voice. Sighing, he shook his head. “Doing laundry’s no kind of life for you, Laura. Look at yourself—at those hands—at the circles under your eyes—you keep this up, and you’ll be old before your time. You’re part of the reason I’m doing this if you want the truth of it,” he said.
“Me? Oh, now wait a minute, Spencer Hardin! I had a husband telling me that, in case you’ve forgotten, and I’m not about to bear that burden again! Jesse killed himself working for something he wanted me to have whether I wanted it or not—and now I’m a widow with a baby to raise by myself! No, sir—if you want to do something, you do it for yourself, because I don’t aim to live with the blame if anything happens to you!”
Stung by the vehemence of her words, he caught her arm, forcing her to look up at him. “Will you listen before you go off half-cocked?” he demanded, his own voice rising. “I’ve got enough to get myself to San Francisco, but—”
“Then go!”
“Let me finish, for God’s sake, before you start hollering in my face!” As her eyes widened, he strove to control his temper. “Look, I don’t want to quarrel with
you—I’m trying to help. I worry about you and Jessie, Laura. A couple of weeks’ pay will leave me with enough extra money to send both of you back to North Carolina with a few dollars in your purse to tide you over until you get settled. It’s where you belong, whether you want to admit it or not.”
For a moment, she stared incredulously at him, then found her voice. “You know, Dr. Hardin, once you get something in your mind, you just hang on to it. I guess you think all that education you’re not using entitles you to tell me you know what’s good for me. It just doesn’t seem to matter any to you that I’ve got a business out here, and there’s nothing for me back there.”
“You didn’t want to leave it,” he reminded her. “You told me that last May.”
“I wanted to stay on my home place. It’s different now—Jesse’s dead, and I don’t own the farm anymore. I’d be going back to nothing with nothing.”
“Carolina’s a better place to raise Jessie. What kind of life do you think you’ll give her out here? There’s bound to be better things for you to do back there than washing dirty underwear for a camp full of drunks and derelicts whose notion of a good time is spending a whole paycheck on cheap whiskey and cheaper whores,” he declared emphatically. “You don’t want to live like this—no woman would.”
“I’m not a whore, Dr. Hardin,” she said evenly. “I work with my hands and my heart—not my body.”
Vexed to distraction, he ran his hands through his hair, trying to think of some way to convince her. “I didn’t say you were, and you know it. All I was saying was there’s lots of things you could do besides this.”
“Oh, really? I’d like to have you name me one.”
“Well, you can sew … or teach kids maybe. Hell, that’s for you to decide, not me. But I do know a good Southern woman without a husband’s got no business putting herself at the mercy of a bunch of dirty ruffians.”