The Midwife of Hope River

by Patricia Harman

  The placenta, with a short thick cord, was sitting on his little wet head like a cap. I could have died laughing. No rips or tears. Some extra bleeding, but penny-royal and massage quieted it down. The father, Mr. Mayo, came home a bit later and exclaimed, “Well, isn’t he a chipper chap!” That’s how the baby got his name, “Chipper.” Present, only Bitsy and I, and we didn’t do much. Paid one fat chicken and made it home by supper!

  Storm

  The garden is now producing plenty of good food. Our table is laden with peas, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, beans, yellow summer squash, new potatoes, and onions. The potatoes help to take the place of bread because we are again out of cornmeal and flour. We haven’t been to town for three weeks, but we’re tranquil, away from the news about the failing economy, the sights of the hungry men begging for work and the travelers hitching the roads with their scrawny kids and wives, all moving north and east, where they think they’ll find jobs.

  In the evening, since it stays light so long, Bitsy and I sit on the porch and laugh at the 1920s articles in the old Ladies’ Home Journals I found in the attic. Those were the boom times that everyone thought would last forever. Easy money. Easy women in their short flapper skirts. I wore those short skirts myself with silk stockings and garter belts when Ruben and I went to the jazz clubs in Pittsburgh. We danced all night in the loud smoky halls. I noticed in town that the hems have come down, along with the stock market and everything else.

  Moonlight has not yet delivered, but when Mr. Hester came over to check on her, he calculated that she would soon. Standing at the sink, washing his hands, he gave us instructions on how to tell when she goes into labor.

  “The first thing to watch for,” he lectured, “is restlessness. Keep her in the barn. If you let her out, she may wander into the woods. What she’s looking for is a safe place to calve.” I was jotting this all down on a piece of wrapping paper.

  “Next, her vulva will spring. This may happen a few days before the birth.”

  “Spring?”

  “Yeah, become loose, kind of open. Then her water bag will break. From now on, you probably should check on her a few times a day. Come for me if you think it’s time.”

  “You gonna be Moonlight’s midwife?” I joke. He doesn’t laugh.

  “I’ll be her vet.”

  All day, every day, the sun beats down. It’s so hot that Emma and Sasha hide under the porch and the chickens cover themselves with dust. A hundred and three degrees! That’s what the tin man-in-the-moon thermometer on the side of the barn says. Usually in the mountains, even in July, it only gets up to eighty. Poor pregnant Moonlight! Her vulva hasn’t sprung yet, but she’s definitely restless.

  We get up at six and weed the garden for a few hours before dawn, but by nine we just want to hide in the springhouse. By ten we’re finished, and then, as a reward, we walk Star down to the stream, play in the dwindling cool clear water, and pick raspberries.

  Today, around five, just as we’re drying off, a hot wind comes up and black clouds boil over the mountaintops.

  We both look up. Sniff the air like wild animals. “Bitsy, your hair! It’s standing on end!” (This is not a good sign; the atmosphere must be supercharged with electricity.)

  “Yours too!” she yells. I raise my hand and feel the loose strands springing out around my face. Then all hell breaks loose.

  First comes the thunder, rattling across the sky from the west, deep rumbling so close it makes the earth shake. We make it to the barn just as the sky cracks open and push Star through the doors. By the time we get to the house our clothes are soaked and our hair hangs in strings.

  From the front windows I watch the crooked bolts of lightning pierce the black clouds. One jagged bolt strikes a tree across the valley, and the crack echoes for miles. I glance over at my companion, who has pulled the flying goose–pattern quilt over her head.

  “Criminy!”

  Escape

  A few hours later, when the storm slows to a steady drumbeat and Bitsy and I are making supper, the blue door bangs open against the wall.

  “Help!” someone cries. Because of the rain, we’d missed the sound of the vehicle sliding up Wild Rose Road and the frantic knocks. Katherine steps in onto the braided rug, her short bob plastered down, her eyes red from tears, a crying child in one arm and a suitcase in the other. Outside, a dark sedan sits just beyond the picket fence.

  “Oh, Patience, Bitsy, hide me!” She paces the room like a fox in a cage. “He’ll come for me this time!” Bitsy takes the wailing baby and tries to soothe him. I pull Katherine’s wet silk middy off and wrap her in my kimono. We make tea, while our meal of fried potatoes and collards turns cold, and try to get the frightened woman calmed down.

  It isn’t until I sit next to her on the sofa that I notice the fresh bruises on her throat, four finger marks on each side. Katherine sees me staring and touches her delicate neck. “He grabbed me from behind when I was packing. Mary ran upstairs and was screaming at him to get off. She finally had to snatch my silver mirror off the dresser and hit him three times. The glass broke in shards all over the floor.” She starts to cry again.

  “I ran to the Stengers’ house just down the street, but no one was there, so I snuck back, took the keys off the hook in the kitchen, and stole William’s car, but there’s something wrong with it, one wheel is wobbling. I almost ran into a ditch.”

  I want to ask what started the row. Had Mr. MacIntosh been drinking again? Has this been going on since the last incident? But it doesn’t matter. She and baby Willie are here, and sometime tonight or tomorrow William will come to that conclusion.

  “Did Mary knock him out or just stun him? Was he conscious when you left?” I’m trying to figure out how much time we have.

  “He was just stunned but still drunk. Mary wouldn’t come with me. I begged her, but she wouldn’t. She just stood over him with what was left of the mirror . . . I need to get a train to Baltimore.” She looks wildly around the room, as if expecting a locomotive and coach to pull up on the porch.

  “I thought William would change . . . that his drinking and outbursts were the result of stress, but I’m beginning to think he has a mean streak and his troubles have just brought it out of him. I’ve seen him strike his men in the past; now he’s turning on me. I’m going back to my family. This is it. I’m done trying.”

  The rain starts up again, slashing the house at an angle. It roars so loud we have to raise our voices. With the storm it’s not likely that the angry husband, with or without the sheriff, will come tonight. We just need to get Katherine out by morning.

  I take a deep breath. “Can you eat, Katherine? We have food on the stove. William won’t come for you until the rain stops. The weather’s too bad. By the morning, we’ll get you somewhere safe.” I say this authoritatively, but am I so sure? Who knows what the enraged man will do?

  “We’re getting ourselves in way too deep,” Bitsy mumbles after moving the car into the barn, out of sight. We are sitting at the kitchen table eating our reheated fried potatoes. Katherine is upstairs exhausted, sleeping in my bed with little Willie.

  “What?”

  “Black folks don’t need to get involved with the law.”

  “Well, we can’t just send Katherine and the baby out in the storm.”

  Bitsy shrugs. “She should have stayed at the Stengers’ or run to the sheriff. This isn’t going to end good.”

  I’m surprised and a little miffed at this turn in my friend. “How about your mom? She didn’t hesitate to help. Mary hit Mr. Mac-Intosh in the head to save Katherine.”

  “You think she’ll have a job tomorrow? She’ll be lucky not to be arrested for assault. A black woman beating on a white man?” Bitsy pushes her chair back, drops her plate into the sink, and stomps upstairs, each footstep a warning.

  More Trouble

  All night, I lie wide awake on the sofa, staring at the crack in the ceiling, trying to figure out what to do. We’ve got William’s car, bu
t Katherine says it’s not running well and I’d be afraid to drive it to Torrington. What if we lose control and run into a ditch? There’s that bad place along the river with the steep bank. Can I ask Hester for a favor again? Who else is there? Where will we hide Katherine if the law comes?

  The rain fades, then stops. Lightning flashes far off to the east. Dawn. The sound of the dogs barking. The distant roar of a vehicle. Damn! MacIntosh didn’t waste any time. I fumble for my glasses, wipe what little sleep I got out of my eyes, and step to the window. Far down Wild Rose, passing the Maddocks’ place, a black sedan churns slowly uphill. It slides back and forth, rolls into a muddy ditch, and comes out again, relentlessly chugging on.

  “Bitsy, Katherine! Wake up! We got company!” I take the stairs two at a time, throw open the bedroom doors. “Someone in a black auto is coming up Wild Rose Road.” The injured woman rubs her face as if coming out of one nightmare into another.

  “Come on! Come on!” I gently shake her arm. “Get moving.” Bitsy has already pulled up her slacks and is throwing Katherine and the baby’s things into the valise.

  “Take Katherine and little Willie out the back door and hide in the barn,” I order. “Watch through the cracks, and the three of you be prepared to head over the mountain on Star if someone comes out there. Ride fast, to Hazel Patch. Reverend Miller will protect you. Forget the car; whoever is coming will just chase you down.”

  Bitsy does what I tell her and has the mother and child through the back door and out of sight by the time the mud-spattered vehicle pulls up to the gate. It’s not William MacIntosh but the sheriff and one of the city lawmen.

  I straighten the quilt on the end of the sofa and scan for anything that belongs to Katherine. A baby blanket is on the floor, and I kick it under the piano. Then I open the blue door to meet the men as they step up on the porch.

  “Patience Murphy?” the sheriff begins. He’s a tall man with very blue eyes, the type who can eat as much as he wishes and never gain weight, clean-shaven with a scar straight across his chin.

  “Yes, I’m Patience.”

  “Sheriff Hardman from Liberty.” He opens his jacket and shows me a badge, though this is only a formality. We’ve seen each other in town. I turn to the other fellow, waiting for an introduction, but he’s silent as Mount Rushmore.

  “Is your colored girl here?” Hardman asks. This startles me. Why is he asking for Bitsy? Maybe she’s right, just being black makes you a criminal.

  “She lives here, yes.” I hate the way he asks for my colored girl, but I don’t make an issue of it. I have enough trouble without getting into that. “But she’s not at home.”

  “Can you tell me where I can find her? Mary Proudfoot, her mother, had an accident and was rushed to the doctor.”

  “An accident?” Where would Bitsy be this early in the morning? What’s my excuse? The sheriff doesn’t ask for her whereabouts.

  “Mrs. Proudfoot fell on the stairs at her employer’s home. Mr. MacIntosh found her unconscious this morning and brought her to the doctor. She appears to have collapsed during the night.”

  From the corner of my eye, I watch the other lawman step down from the porch, stroll around the edge of the house, and stare at the barn. Sasha and Emma start to growl. “Stand down,” I order, wishing I could signal Attack! The fellow retreats back to the bottom step.

  “An accident? Mary? Is she okay?”

  “We don’t know. The nurse just called and insisted I let her kin know she’s injured and confused. There’s a son too. Thomas Proudfoot.”

  “Bitsy went fishing early, down at Hope River,” I fib, hoping it sounds a little plausible. “Thomas lives at the camp at the Wildcat Mine.”

  Sheriff Hardman clears his throat. “There’s something else. Mr. MacIntosh’s wife, Katherine, and his young son have disappeared. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? MacIntosh told us you and her were friends.”

  “Not really friends,” I contradict. “I was her midwife . . . I haven’t heard from Katherine lately.” This is just a white lie. We have no phone, so we haven’t heard from her. That doesn’t mean she’s not hiding out in the barn.

  “Well, I have to get back. Tell the Proudfoot woman the doc said to come soon.” The two move toward their police van. “Oh, and let me know if Mrs. MacIntosh shows up. William MacIntosh is awfully worried.”

  Before they climb in, the city lawman with the granite mug stops. “You aren’t from Union County, are you?”

  “No, not originally. Why do you ask?”

  The man shrugs. “Your accent isn’t local.” I watch from the porch until the van disappears, a black stain in the mist by the river. Then I run—run for the barn.

  Flight

  Two hours later I am driving William’s wobbly Olds back into Liberty with Daniel Hester following behind. Katherine, Bitsy, and the baby ride with him. It’s still early and steam is rising off of the river when, behind the Texaco station, I tuck the keys under the seat of the mud-spattered vehicle and get in with them. Bitsy is going to see Mary, and the rest of us are on our way to Torrington, where Katherine can catch a train to Baltimore.

  “Give Mary a hug from me,” I tell Bitsy when, to save time, we drop her on Main. “We’ll be back late tonight.”

  Katherine, who is scrunched low with the baby on the Model T’s back floor, reaches into her brassiere and pulls out some folded green, part of her getaway cash. Without rising, she sticks her hand out the window and waves the money at Bitsy. “You’ll need this for the doctor’s bill,” she whispers. “And maybe food . . . Thank your mother from the bottom of my heart. I just know she fell trying to keep William from following me. I just know it.”

  Then Hester and I, in front, with Katherine and the baby staying low in the back, speed north up 92 toward Torrington. Everywhere there are leaves on the road, torn from the trees during the thunderstorm. Twice we have to get out to pull big branches off the road.

  “Thanks for helping us,” I whisper to the vet.

  He shrugs. “It’s nothing.”

  “I didn’t know where else to turn.”

  He repeats himself, flicking his gray eyes to my face and tightening his jaw as if he means business. “It’s nothing.”

  I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting to see William Mac-Intosh, or maybe the sheriff, hot on our trail, but there’s nothing back there except the empty two-lane blacktop.

  By dark we’re standing in the doorway of a one-room tourist cabin on the outskirts of Torrington, the last one available at the Riverview Travelers’ Lodge. We have just learned that the next train for Baltimore doesn’t leave until seven in the morning and are trying to make the best of it.

  Exhausted, Katherine collapses on the single bed and falls asleep nursing Willie. I pull the covers over them. The poor battered woman is dead to the world. My idea was that she and I would sleep together in the double bed and Hester would lie down on the single, but I hate waking her and making her move, and apparently so does the vet.

  “I guess I’ll take this,” he says quietly, indicating a battered upholstered easy chair next to the door.

  I wince. It looks really uncomfortable. He won’t sleep at all.

  “No, I’ll sleep there. I got you into this.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  I let out my air. I’m dog tired and in no mood for arguing. “Okay, let’s share the big bed.” I turn down the stiff sheet and red-and-black-striped cotton Indian blanket. “We can keep our clothes on.” The truth is, I’d feel guilty taking the bed while he sat up all night, and even if we traded halfway through, that would mean less than four hours of shut-eye for each of us.

  Hester looks dubious but then raises his eyebrows and grins. “Whatever you say. We’re already outlaws, helping Katherine sneak out of town with the coal baron’s baby. Sleeping together won’t sully our names any worse.”

  We remove our shoes but nothing else, and I use the tiny water closet to unfasten my brassiere. The vet rea
ches up and turns off the light. “Good night,” he murmurs, turning away.

  I swallow hard. It’s the first time I’ve slept near a man, since . . . since Ruben died, and Hester’s warmth comes clear through his clothes.

  Outside the small window, the neon sign winks NO VACANCY. Red, then green. Red. Green. Red. Green. Hester stirs in his sleep.

  Oh, Ruben! Why did we go to Blair Mountain? I wipe my face on the corner of the blanket and choke back my sobs, but the tears keep coming.

  31

  Lost

  “Do you think she’ll make it?” I ask Hester as we see the train off. Katherine is still waving through the Pullman car window, looking like any other mother and baby on a holiday. The sleep has done her good, and her color is better.

  “Yeah, I explained the situation to the porter, a nice guy, who says he knows Thomas Proudfoot. He promised he’d look after them. If the law doesn’t search the train at Cumberland, they’ll be okay.”

  “I hope she writes. I asked her to. I just want to know she’s safe.”

  The vet has been especially solicitous this morning, helping me on with my sweater, pulling out my chair at Minnie’s Breakfast Diner, opening the door for me. I worry that he may have heard me crying in the night.

  We’re halfway back to Liberty on Route 92, each lost in our own thoughts, when he poses a question that surprises me. “Have you ever been hurt by a man?”

  “Why do you ask?” He’s probably thinking about my tears in the night.

  “Some men think it’s their right.”

  “Not the ones I know. My men friends believed in equality between the sexes.” Except Mr. Vanderhoff, I think . . . but that was way back . . . and anyway, he wasn’t a friend.

  By the time we make it back to Liberty, it’s half past three. “Where to?” Hester asks.

  I shrug. “The hospital.”

  The two-story brick house, Dr. Blum’s clinic, sits back from the street on a tree-lined lot, and a woman in a white uniform and a little white hat sits at a desk in the front hall. Apparently nurses no longer wear aprons.