by Susan Wiggs
Seven
In the coach yard, Iona stood holding a lamp and watching wide-eyed as Battle Douglas wrestled with the reins of the new gelding. Perched precariously on the high-sprung buggy seat, Battle shouted “Whoa!” and yanked with all his might. The horse backed the buggy up against a boxwood hedge at the side of the coach house.
“Hold him, Mr. Douglas, please!” Leah shouted.
“Can’t!” he hollered back. “Lord-a-mercy, I might as well try to hold the wind!”
The horse shot forward. The buggy lurched, and Battle Douglas toppled off the back and into the bushes. The runaway horse lowered its head. Ears flat, it raced toward the dark field beyond the road, the buggy clattering behind it.
“So that’s your new horse,” Battle grumbled. “He’ll do us a lot of good.”
Leah’s heart sank. She was no rider and didn’t even care for driving after dark. But it seemed Battle’s driving was limited to a well-behaved horse. Now, without the buggy, she had no fast way to reach Mrs. Amity, who’d had a troublesome pregnancy and was only eight months along.
Wishing she knew a few more swearwords, Leah helped Battle to his feet. “Half wild devil,” he muttered.
Then, out of the shadows near the house burst a huge black shape, spectral and swift as a night bird. Leah stumbled back, watching it take off in the direction of the runaway gelding.
“What in tarnation was that?” Battle asked, brushing off his clothes.
Hume Amity, the farmer, came running. “That was Underhill. Grabbed my horse’s reins from me, and off he went.” In the lamplight, he appeared pale and shaken, his face covered in sweat.
She experienced a strange thrill at the idea of Jackson leaping astride a horse and going to her aid. Wondering if Jackson had ever looked so young and lost as this man, Leah squeezed Amity’s hand briefly.
“Mr. Underhill will fetch the buggy back, and we’ll get to your wife in no time.” She had no idea why she spoke with such certainty. She’d never seen Jackson ride a horse or drive a buggy. Yet somehow she knew he would do it with the hard-driven competence with which he seemed to do all things. When it came to moving quickly and boldly, he had no match.
Moments later, they heard a clopping of hooves. Jackson sat astride Hume’s horse, drawing the gelding along behind him. “Get in the buggy, Doc, and tell me the way.” He dismounted and tossed the reins to Hume.
Slightly dazed by the speed with which Jackson had controlled the situation, Leah climbed up and took the lamp from Iona.
“You intend to drive?” Battle inquired. Relief rang clear in his voice.
Jackson glanced in the direction of the dark harbor. Leah wondered what he was thinking.
“Will we be back by early tide?” he asked.
Annoyed, she said, “People do not get well on a schedule. Now, are you coming or not?”
He hesitated, then said, “Yeah. I’ll come.”
“You be careful now.” Battle Douglas gave the horse a wide berth. “That gelding’s a devil. It’s like holding the wind, I tell you.”
“I’ve had practice at that,” Jackson said, a half grin flashing across his face before he flicked the reins and commanded the horse to go.
Leah knew she should lower the lantern and look away, but instead, she found herself staring at Jackson as he drove. He had dressed in haste, she could tell. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a muscular chest covered by a sheen of perspiration. The gleam of lamplight on his bare flesh created a discomfiting jolt in her. She dropped her gaze lower, able to see even in the swinging lamp glow that the top button of his denim jeans was undone.
The warmth that had flooded through her earlier came back. She was glad for the cloak of night, for she knew a blush stained her cheeks. It was completely inappropriate, undoubtedly unprofessional, but in the midst of a medical emergency, she was having lustful thoughts.
“Think the patient will live, Doc?” he asked in a lazy, almost-laughing voice.
Sweet heaven, he knew. He had guessed her thoughts. She blinked, snapping her head around to face resolutely forward.
He clamped the reins between his teeth and leaned back on the seat to button his jeans and shirt. When he finished, he called to Hume, “Is your wife in a bad way?”
“I think so, yes.” Hume’s voice wavered as he trotted ahead on his horse.
“Real bad?”
“Real bad.”
“Then why the hell are you holding that animal down to a trot?”
“So’s the buggy can keep up,” Hume said defensively.
“I’ll keep up,” Jackson promised.
Hume hesitated only an instant; then he kicked the horse with everything he had.
“Doc?” Jackson said as if only now remembering her presence.
“Yes?”
“Hang on.”
“Hang on?”
“Tight.”
Leah clutched her bag between her feet and gripped the seat rail with both hands. A snap of the reins sent the Morgan flying into the dark. The buggy bounced over ruts and potholes. Lamplight streaked past the fields of salt grass that lined the road. Long marsh reeds nodded and bowed to the wind created by their swift passage.
Leah could hear the breeze whistling through her hair, which was fast escaping its neat bun. The speed took her breath away; the sensation of hurtling into unseen darkness stunned her. Yet never once was she afraid. There was something about Jackson, some hard, dauntless competence that made her feel utterly safe, never mind that they were galloping madly into the night.
Within minutes, they had arrived at the farmstead, a little log house snug against the side of a hill, dark hulks of outbuildings on the slope behind it. The smell of manure and grain hung thick in the air.
Jackson drew back on the reins, and the gelding didn’t even think about resisting. It halted and stood, head dropped in submission while he tied it to a rail in front of the house. “I’ll walk both horses as soon as you get inside,” he told Leah.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to reach up and grasp her around the waist, to swing her down as if she weighed nothing, and then to hand her the bag. She found herself thinking, even as she rushed into the house, that with a driver like Jackson, emergencies on the island might be met more quickly.
The cabin consisted of a single room with a sagging curtain dividing the living area from the bedroom. Leah swept the curtain aside to find the area illuminated by a lantern hanging from a nail above the rope-and-timber bedstead. Marjorie Amity lay with her stomach distended, her back arched, her neck twisting at an angle. Her eyes rolled back in her head, yet she seemed strangely aware of Leah, for her hand reached out in supplication.
Convulsions, Leah realized, feeling her heart turn cold. She wished Sophie were here, but her assistant had been called away to Camano Island, where some of her people still lived. Sophie’s face had been grim and tight as she’d gotten into the canoe with the silent Skagit brave. Something bad had happened, but Sophie wouldn’t say what.
“Hume, I’ll need plenty of hot water,” Leah called over her shoulder. “Get started right away.” She knelt beside the bed, taking Marjorie’s flailing arm. “There now,” Leah said. “Let me give you something to calm your nerves.” Opening her bag, she measured out a quarter grain of morphine, thought for a moment, then increased the dose to a half grain. The convulsions were severe; she had to control them as quickly as possible.
The narcotic worked rapidly. How ironic that the substance that had destroyed Carrie could be used for good. By the time Hume came in to build up the fire, his wife lay peacefully on the bed. He paused, hugging an armload of wood to his chest. “Glory be, Dr. Mundy. You healed her.”
Leah stood, brushing off her smock as he stoked the fire beneath a huge iron kettle. She went to
a washstand, filled the bowl, and began washing herself up to the elbows with carbolic. “She’s not healed, only sedated.” This was the part of doctoring she despised—telling the bad news.
She concentrated on her washing as if it was the most important thing in the world. And it was, in a way, she reflected. Antiseptic practices had saved more lives than anyone could have imagined.
“What do you mean, ma’am?”
“I haven’t healed her.” Outside, she could hear Jackson dealing with the horses, probably walking them until the sweat dried. “I gave her something to control the convulsions. But I’m afraid the instructions in a case like your wife’s are to empty the uterus.”
“Empty the...” He stared at her, uncomprehending.
“The womb, Mr. Amity.”
“You mean, take the baby?”
“Yes.” Leah bit the inside of her lip, keeping her face carefully blank. Professionally detached.
“But it’s too— It’s early. She’s got another month.”
“I know that.”
Leah noticed he was shaking from head to toe. The man was surely no more than twenty; his wife didn’t look to be eighteen. She remembered what Jackson had told her about words as blunt instruments. She remembered his caution to her: Sometimes you use words like a sledgehammer.
“Hume, let’s go out on the porch so we don’t disturb Marjorie with our talk.”
Jackson came back from the barn, a long shadow in starlight. “Found the water,” he said to Hume. “Got yours all put up, and mine’s been walked and watered.”
“Obliged.” But Hume’s mind was clearly on what Leah had to say. Since she would need Jackson’s help with what was to come next, she motioned for him to join them.
“Even though it’s early,” she said, “I have to take the baby. You see, the convulsions mean that Marjorie is suffering severe stress to her kidneys. If the pregnancy goes on, the organs could cease to function altogether.”
“Is that bad?” Hume asked, though his voice hinted that he knew the answer.
“It’s extremely dangerous. Your wife could die.”
Hume made a strangled, hiccuping sound in his throat and turned away, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Leah wanted to go to him, to touch him, but she felt awkward. Before she could make up her mind what to do or say next, Jackson stepped forward, clamping his hand on Hume’s shoulder. “The doc knows what she’s doing,” he said gently. “Let’s just hear her out.”
Hume nodded, turning back as he dragged his sleeve across his tear-streaked face. “But...Margie’s labor ain’t started yet.”
“I realize that. There is a way to dilate the uter—the womb—and take the baby. It’s a serious procedure, best done in a hospital, but we’ll have to manage right here.”
“Now? Tonight?”
“Yes.”
Jackson gave the younger man’s shoulder a squeeze. “How about that? You’re going to be a papa tonight.”
“I’m scared,” Hume said.
“Don’t blame you,” Jackson said. “It’s a scary thing, bringing a baby before its time. But Dr. Mundy says it’s a lot scarier to wait.”
Leah looked at him curiously. What a fine manner he had with the young farmer, not patronizing his fear or talking over his head, but reassuring him that she’d chosen the best course of action. This sort of talk was something she’d never learned in her schooling. Strange that she was learning it from a man like Jackson.
She went inside and prepared herself in silence, praying that her skill and knowledge were equal to the task. Ideally, the baby should be taken in a hospital with an army of nurses dancing attendance. But here on the island, kitchen surgery was the order of the day.
The men came in, and she faced them calmly. “I’ll need your help.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hume almost dropped another load of wood, so violently was he trembling. She could tell he wouldn’t be of much use.
“Keep the fire going,” she told him, “and prepare plenty of hot water. Mr. Underhill, I’ll need you, too.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“But—” He broke off, cast a look at Marjorie, then nodded. “Just tell me what to do.”
After stacking clean linens by the bed and checking on the supply of hot water, then washing her hands again and again and insisting Jackson and Hume do the same, Leah squared her shoulders and struggled to clear her mind.
She hesitated, standing at the foot of the bed and looking at her patient. All that stood between the groggy girl and death were Leah’s skill and whatever luck happened to be passing by tonight.
Dear God, it didn’t seem to be enough.
“Doc?” Jackson came up behind her and whispered in her ear. He smelled faintly of the night air and carbolic. “Now what?”
She drew a deep breath. “Now...we begin.”
He never balked at doing anything she asked. She anesthetized the girl with chloroform rather than ether, which tended to explode in the presence of fire. Jackson held the mask in place while Leah set herself to delivering the baby.
The husband hovered nearby, keeping the fire stoked and hot water in good supply. Each time he started to look nervous, Jackson thought of some small task for him to do, keeping him busy. Simple tasks that didn’t require much thought, but that kept the hands occupied.
Leah draped Marjorie with a blanket and began a tentative exploration. The uterus contracted around Leah’s hand, the powerful muscles squeezing hard. Then she felt what she had dreaded from the start—the infant’s foot.
“It’s breech,” she said.
Jackson nodded, but made no reply. He seemed to know as well as Leah did that the position was dangerous for the baby and the mother.
With her hand growing numb from the contracted uterus, Leah managed to bring down, inch by inch, the tiny feet and legs. It took at least two hours. Hume paced a trench in the dirt floor of the cabin. Jackson said nothing, but followed instructions with the chloroform. A little box wall clock rang the time: Five in the morning.
Leah glanced at Jackson and saw him staring at the clock. “Early tide,” he muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, Doc. You go on with your work.” He tore his gaze away from the clock and concentrated on keeping the mask in place.
At last, it was time to deliver the head. Leah moved her arm past the baby’s legs and slipped her finger into the tiny mouth, which she could finally reach. It was a technique she’d heard of but never used.
The baby responded instantly, flexing its chin onto its chest and slipping right out. With a cry of triumph and relief, Leah caught it. A second later, the infant gasped for breath and let out a lusty wail. “Mr. Amity!” she said in a broken, jubilant voice. “Come and hold your daughter.”
With a crooked, weary grin on her face, she looked up at Jackson. To her complete amazement, he sat perfectly still, holding the mask and staring at the baby while a single tear rolled down his cheek.
* * *
“Long night, eh, Doc?” Jackson asked as they drove slowly through the dawn toward town. He still felt light-headed and giddy from the strange new experience of assisting at a birth. His every sense was heightened. With crystal clarity he savored the ocean scent in the air and the sound of the wind through the trees, the warmth of the small woman beside him and a sense of triumph so intense it was almost frightening.
“I’ve endured longer,” she said.
He heard the smile in her voice and slipped his arm around her shoulders. She stiffened, but didn’t pull away. Damn, it felt good to hold her. To hold a woman with no thought beyond holding her. So he’d missed shipping out on the Sea Fox. So what? She’d given him a reason to stay.
“Can I ask you something, Doc?”
; “You may.”
“How do you do that without fainting?”
“Deliver a baby?”
“Yeah.”
“If I faint, it does my patient no good at all. It certainly bodes ill for the baby. I don’t allow myself to faint.”
“So disciplined.”
“Being a physician requires it.” She gazed pensively at the lightening sky. “It requires everything you have.”
After Mrs. Amity’s ordeal, Jackson understood that. “But after you give it everything, what’s left for you?”
She yawned. Somewhere, an owl hooted, sounding almost human. “A crick in the neck from sitting up all night with my hand inside a uterus.” She laughed softly at the incredulous sound he made. “Surely you don’t expect polite conversation at this hour of the morning.”
“I guess not. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“What’s left for me?” She toyed with the fringe of her crocheted shawl. “I just saved that woman’s life. Her life, and that of her baby. I just saved Hume Amity’s world from collapsing. What other reward do I need?”
“I noticed you didn’t ask for a fee.”
“They’ll pay what they can, when they can. The boardinghouse will be swimming in butter and cream for the next year.”
Damn her. Why couldn’t she want more? Expect more? Dream of more? He wanted her to yearn as he yearned. To step out of her self-satisfied existence and see that there could be more for her if only she’d reach for it.
The eastern horizon had faded to a misty gray. To the north, the shadows darkened, seeming to move eerily. “All these lives you save, Doc. Do they ever make you wish you had a life of your own?”
She drew away from him on the buggy seat. “Damn you, Jackson Underhill—”
“Doc—” He felt the danger before he understood it. He had a sixth sense for it, could feel it like the crackle of air before a lightning strike. Without even thinking, he grabbed Leah and shoved her to the floor of the buggy, then ran the horse off the road into a glade of alder trees.