Dances Naked

by Dani Haviland

  I gulped, nodded, and hurriedly finished her sponge bath. Evidently, Sarah had poured a healthy dose of whisky into the tea; I could smell it on Rachel’s breath. Rather than try to comb or brush her hair though, I let her run her fingers through the first layer of snarls and tangles. It was too much of a challenge for me right now. If she had been my daughter, I would have cut it all off and let it grow out again. But, long hair was the standard in this era and a short haircut would have been an insult to her character.

  As it was, her coif was a non-issue; what I cared about was her smell and hygiene. She was clean now and didn’t stink—well, not much. There was still the lingering smell of something dead around her. We all smelled it; I could tell by the sniff, sniffs that all of us had done before we realized what it was. But, no one said anything. Jenny had started to make a remark earlier, but I quickly distracted her with a chore. “Would you please take care of the babies? I didn’t get a good burp out of Wren or, um, the new baby boy.”

  “Okay,” she said very willingly. “But, what’s the baby boy’s name? It can’t be Baby Boy, can it? Hey, can I give him another name? He can have two names, one for when he’s at home, and one for when he’s here. Huh, can I?” she begged.

  “Absolutely!” I declared. Now, she was both distracted from the source of the stink, and could come up with another name for the boy. Any name would be better than the one his, ugh, father had given him.

  3 The Unwelcome Stranger

  Pomeroy’s Place,

  August 12, 1781 early afternoon

  allace decided to call the job done—he had whacked enough weeds for the day. He walked in from the back of the garden, admiring its progress as he approached the house. A smug grin of satisfaction settled on his face as he replaced the hoe into the tool rack. He had to set a good example for Jenny. She was easily distracted and tended to go from one task to another before cleaning up after herself. He had moved the tool rack down two feet lower just so she could reach it without a stool. It was hard to believe that she had been in their lives for less than two weeks. She had fit in with all of them from the very beginning, the thumb in the glove of his family.

  Suddenly he heard an unfamiliar sound. It was a man coughing—a hoarse, rattling cough that ended with a wet sounding discharge. He looked over at the source of the noise. Next to the barn was a gangly stranger, his hands busy as he walked along the north wall, picking up the nesting boxes, peering under and around each one, and then setting it back down. The raggedy man was unknown to him and was being a bit too familiar with his investigation of the Pomeroy property. Neighbors and travelers always approached the house and announced themselves before going to the barn. He tried his best not to judge a person, ever, but especially not before speaking with him. But, he didn’t like this man. There was something sinister and uncomfortable about him.

  Wallace walked toward the barn and the stranger. He looked back toward the house to verify that his little family was safe. He saw Jenny holding Wren and Evie with another baby. What? That wasn’t his child—it was too big. Or rather, it was too long. His babies were shorter but nice and round and filled out. This one was scrawny and had a very red face. Oh, there she was—the other mother. A sad faced young woman, very pregnant and obviously tired, was leaning against the doorway. Sarah was tending to the kitchen fire. By the scowl on her face, it looked she was getting ready to get busy. The snooping man must be part of that little family. Regardless whether or not he liked the looks of the man and his nosy attitude, his own sense of propriety dictated that an introduction was in order.

  Wallace walked over to the man who was now inside the barn, lifting a coil of rope off the wooden peg. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself, “Hello, I’m Wallace Pomeroy-Hart. May I help you?”

  The scruffy man looked down at the offered hand then back up at Wallace. “Do you live here?” he asked, foregoing the handshake and ignoring the question.

  Wallace brought his hand back to his side, surreptitiously wiping his palm on his pants. The proximity of the man made him feel dirty. But, Wallace wasn’t a small man in any respect. He would turn the other cheek at the man’s snub. He pulled himself up to his full six foot five inch height and answered the man. “This place belongs to my father and his family. I live here as does my wife, four children, father, and mother-in-law. What business do you have here, sir?”

  The man looked up at Wallace, squinted one eye and snorted, “Hmph,” then walked outside, once again dismissing Wallace’s question by ignoring it.

  The man’s attitude was one Wallace had never encountered. It was more than rude and beyond disrespectful. And, this man obviously didn’t have an ounce of courtesy or respect for another person’s property, either. Now he was walking over to the grain storage shack. “Excuse me, sir,” he called after the nameless stranger. “There’s nothing in there for you.”

  “Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t,” sneered the man. He grabbed the crossbar and jerked on it, trying to pull it out of its brackets. Wallace leaned back against the fence post and grinned. The man didn’t know about the locking pins, hidden on the bottom of the supports. No Name spat on his hands and tried again, grunting and sweating more and more with each attempt. Wallace sighed loudly, but didn’t say anything. “Well, it’s the wrong time of year for the whisky anyway,” the man said as he turned away from the locked door, admitting defeat with his sour grapes explanation.

  Wallace walked behind Mr. Rudeness as he headed toward Sarah and the fire pit. The stranger stood right in front of her and demanded without preamble, “Where’s the meat you promised?”

  Sarah lifted her arm and wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. Wallace could see that she was trying hard not to lose her temper—she was biting her bottom lip as she composed her thoughts. When she realized Wallace had walked up to join the conversation, she relaxed her clench. Her son-in-law nodded to her that he could handle the situation, so she let him do the talking. “We’ll be having meat on the spit this evening. You and your family are welcome to join us, Mr…”

  The stranger turned sharply and glared at Wallace then turned his attention back to Sarah. “You didn’t say we’d have to wait for nightfall. Give me the food for the road then, and we’ll leave right now. We have a long ways to go.”

  Sarah inhaled deeply which, rather than having the calming effect of composure, seemed to fuel her fire of impatience. She wasn’t going to let this man intimidate her, even if he was a master of that black art. She had Wallace here for protection if the scum did decide to get physical, although he seemed the type who worked with words only. “Your sister won’t be able to go anywhere for a few days,” she said through clenched teeth. “She’s going to deliver the baby tonight. If you want to eat, you’ll just have to wait a bit longer. I can offer you bread and ale for now, but the meat will be a few hours more.”

  Sarah looked up and behind the man to Wallace. He once again gave a slight nod. She didn’t have to tell him what was going on. He knew childbirthing was neither a quick nor an easy task. He looked at her again to make sure she understood that yes, he would tend to the meat for dinner and anything else that was needed.

  “Where’s the whisky?” the man demanded. “You said there’d be whisky.”

  “I, I did not!” Sarah blurted out with exasperation. “I told you we had ale. Wallace,” Sarah was biting her bottom lip again, trying to contain her steadily increasing rage at the man’s rudeness, “would you get mister…what is your name?” she demanded. He wasn’t going to get anything else until she at least knew his name.

  “Mr. Grant MacLeod, if you really need to know, which you don’t,” he said as he looked up toward the sun, apparently trying to gauge the time of day.

  Sarah and Wallace looked at each other quickly then broke eye contact. Sarah bent back down to the kettle with the muslin bags of black cohosh root, juniper berries, slippery elm, and rue. Wallace looked over at Evie, making sure she was okay. Did she know who this
man was, or at least his family name? Yes, she probably did. She was frowning and staring down the road to the mill, rubbing her left shoulder, the shoulder where she had been shot less than two weeks ago by that worthless excuse for a man, Captain Atholl MacLeod. Wallace looked back to the pregnant woman. He saw her gaze at his children in the playpen, a slight smile trying to crack her stone countenance. Then she put her hand on the top of her swollen belly and the chance at happiness glow was gone, a hard, angry look replacing it.

  “Well, where’s the ale?” groused Grant. “I’m thirsty!”

  Wallace shifted his eyes over to the ungrateful guest. Something was very wrong with this scenario, but he would have to wait to find out more. He wasn’t going to speak with Sarah or Evie about it until this man was out of hearing range. “Why don’t you go sit down under that tree in the shade? I’ll bring you a bottle of ale and a bit of bread. Would that suit you?” Wallace asked with only a slight hint of disgust.

  “Better make that three bottles—I don’t want you havin’ to run back and forth all the time,” he replied, ending his comment with sinister laugh that made both Sarah and Wallace shudder.

  “How did you wind up with him?” Wallace asked Sarah as they headed to the springhouse.

  “Lord only knows,” she replied sharply. She looked over at the practically catatonic mother who would have to deliver a dead baby later. “Yes, the Lord does know,” she said, this time with determination. “And I’ll do my best to save the mother. The baby’s already dead.” Wallace’s eyes widened with shock. “Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t know. The baby has been dead for a few days. We have to get it out before she dies, too. Her other child is in rough shape but can bounce back with good care. Wallace, the baby is Atholl MacLeod, Jr. The woman is Rachael and she said that, that ‘Grant’ is her brother. Do you think…?”

  “Hey, where’s the ale?” hollered Grant. He had pulled a quilt off the clothesline and was wadding it up to use as a pillow.

  Wallace gritted his teeth. He swallowed his rising anger and counted to ten in Latin before he spoke. “I’ll be right there,” he called back. He put his hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “I’ll get back to you on that,” he said softly, then headed to the springhouse for the ale.

  I had heard the shouting about ale and realized that the brother would probably want something to eat, too. Hopefully, he was the type who would eat and drink then fall asleep. Well, we didn’t have that much ale so that wasn’t likely. I looked over at the covert stash of painkillers that I had brought back with me from the 21st century. Nope, I’d better not. It would be too easy to slip a ground up Percocet into a sandwich with hopes that the creep would fall and stay asleep until the birthing was over.

  “Wallace, I’ll make our guest something to eat,” I called out. He waved his hand in acknowledgment.

  “Sorry ‘bout this, Lord” I said softly as I looked skyward. “I’m just conserving our provisions and helping the man get a good nap.”

  Hey, what can I say? Sometimes we decide to take the easy way out. I had four babies and a pregnant woman I was going to have to contend with this evening. I’d rather have Wallace helping Sarah and me than kowtowing to a belligerent sot.

  I scraped off as much ham as I could from the bone that I had held back for the pot of beans. I combined the meat and two pulverized pills into some grated cheese, fought back the impulse to spit into the mix, and then smashed the works into a heel of bread, making a little ham and cheese pasty for the greedy man. This would have to do him until supper, if he was even awake by then.

  I looked over and saw Jenny was with the babies and Rachel was seated on the porch bench again. She really was pathetic but I could only help her body right now. The mind healing would take longer and would probably involve Divine intervention. “I’ll be right back, Jenny.”

  “Can I have some, Mommy?” she asked when she saw the sandwich.

  “Not this one; I’ll make you one when I get back. Why don’t you get our lady guest a drink of milk?”

  “Okay,” she answered, then quickly jumped up and ran to the barn, eager to help. Rachel sighed as she watched my little girl, happy and healthy, bound across the yard in front of her.

  “Your son will be healthy soon, too,” I remarked. “And you can eat solid food after we get the, after the delivery.” I gulped at the awkwardness of the remark then returned to the task of serving the grump his snack.

  “Well, what took you so long?” he asked with an insincere smile and a stare that took me aback. Oh, God—it wasn’t a smile—it was a leer!

  “Here, enjoy it,” I said as I dropped the plate in his lap and left in a hurry, almost running. I didn’t care if I had made a mess or not. If he was hungry, he’d eat it. I wasn’t going back to within three yards of him again without an escort, an armed escort. He may be just the brother-in-law of that asshole Captain MacLeod, but he gave me the same creepy, crawly feelings.

  Wallace ran to catch up with me as I scurried to the house. “Hold on,” he said as he pulled me away from the porch steps, away from Rachel and Jenny who were sharing a big mug of milk. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “That, that…creep! God! Are you sure he’s only Rachel’s brother? He, he, he leered at me just like Asshole!” I was wiping my arms with my hands, trying to erase the feeling of insects crawling all over me.

  “Her name’s Rachel?” he asked, “Rachel MacLeod?”

  “I guess. I mean, I know her name is Rachel, and her baby is Atholl Grant MacLeod, Jr., but I don’t know if she is, or was, married to him. I didn’t ask, but that seems to be the usual way of doing things around here, I mean now, shoot, you know what I mean!”

  I was getting exasperated and he knew it. He put his arm around me and held me tight despite the heat. I didn’t care either—I hugged him back even tighter. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “It has to,” he added as he let me go. “But I have to tell you. The man’s name is Grant MacLeod.”

  “What?” I exclaimed too loudly. I looked over and saw Jenny and Rachel looking over at us. “It’s okay,” I lied to the women. “What?” I repeated to Wallace, softly this time but with just as much curiosity and amazement.

  “Well, it looks like the three of them are siblings. At least that’s the only way I can see that Rachel and Grant are siblings and the baby is, um, ‘A.M.’ junior. Lord, how old is she? She looks like a child.”

  “She’s only fourteen and this is her third baby. I don’t think I want to know what happened to the first one. But, I do know that we’re here to help her with this third one and also the second one. He has an infection, but I’m sure cleaning him up and keeping him that way will help. Rachel will get milk again after she delivers this baby, the dead part doesn’t make a difference, and then she can bring the boy back up to speed.”

  “Huh?” Wallace asked, not recognizing the 21 century slang that I had lapsed into.

  “I mean, he’ll catch up on growth and weight gain with nursing if she eats right and gets rest. She was on her way to live with a relative in New Bern when Sarah saw them on the road. Hopefully, she’ll get rid of Grant along the way. Please, don’t leave me alone with him, not even for a second.” I realized that I was subconsciously rubbing my still tender left shoulder as I asked, rather begged. Time may heal all wounds, but there hadn’t been nearly enough time for the emotional and physical wounds of being intentionally shot by a lecherous child molester to even scab over my injuries.

  4 Delivery

  o, what do we do now?” Rachel asked glumly. “I want it to be over with. Ooh,” she groaned as she suddenly grabbed her stomach and leaned forward. “I think it’s starting. My belly hurts now.”

  Sarah cut a glance over to me, a trace of fear in her eyes. I doubt that the tea had had a chance to work yet. That meant either Rachel was losing the baby on her own or there were complications. The words ‘detached placenta’ flashed into my mind. I reached out and grabbed Sarah’s hand with my right and Rachel’s with my
left. “Lord, please help us in this, this procedure. We know you have the baby with you now, but please keep Rachel safe here on earth. She has the other baby to see to still. Thank you in advance for taking care of all our needs; in Jesus name, Amen.”

  I breathed a deep sigh of relief. “There, now I feel better. Everything’s going to be fine.” I turned to Sarah. “Excuse me, but if you don’t need me, Sarah, I’ll go get dinner started.”

  “Thanks. Go ahead—I’m fine for now. Rachel, would you lie down here, please. Let’s see what’s going on.” She patted and prodded her patient and talked softly to her as I gathered up the plates and utensils to take outside. I didn’t want to get too close to the woman emotionally. I already felt like I knew too much about her and her perverted brother.

  I got dinner under way and came back to talk to Sarah. Something was bothering me and I had to share it. I pulled her outside and asked discreetly, “Do you think that a little whisky might be a good idea? Not so much for the pain but for the shock of the, well, you know.” I didn’t want to say that it would be so Rachel didn’t freak out when she saw her dead baby, but Sarah knew what I meant and obviously agreed.