Through the crowd I catch sight of two men down on my lover. One has his hands around Ruben’s throat.
It wasn’t a bullet that killed my husband. The truth is much worse. I held the murder weapon, a rifle still wet with blood, that I’d lifted from a dead miner’s hands. One slashing blow, from the butt of the gun, used as a club and meant for the man straddling Ruben’s chest with his hands around Ruben’s neck, crushed my lover’s skull. Rage is contagious, and I meant to kill someone, just not my husband.
Ruben’s brown eyes go wide and snap shut as his life’s blood flows out of him, down around his red bandanna, onto the ground, and I collapse as if the blow had hit me.
“Lizbeth!” Nora yells and whips into action. She crawls forward, dodging bullets, grabs the rifle, and throws it like a red-hot poker; it skitters on the road among the men’s feet, and she drags me, screaming, back into the crowd.
Within hours we were hidden in the back of a Baptist preacher’s wagon, heading north toward Pittsburgh. Two hundred men died that day. Some say three hundred. I never saw Ruben again, and no one else knows what really happened but Mrs. Kelly, who’s under the ground, and Nora, four thousand miles away.
I untie my shoes and sink my feet into the cold creek water. For years I have carried that rusted tin box of guilt with me. Even if I trusted someone and explained that it had been an accident, who would I tell? If they’d never been in a riot or on a battlefield, experienced the chaos, the fear, and the guilt, how would they understand?
Oh, Ruben . . . I take a deep breath, blow away the sorrow. Above me a small bird in the naked branches preens in the last of the golden slanting light. Bitsy and I call her the “water bird” because of her song, like water in a brook running over the stones.
“Water bird,” I whisper, wiping my tears and pulling myself up on my knees, “these hands have killed and these hands have brought life into the world. If I were a religious woman, I would call upon God to ease my soul.”
I try to think what my prayer would be. Light of the World, take this sorry heart and cleanse it. Take my sorry self and make me new. Forgive me . . . forgive me for everything . . .
I hold my work-worn mitts up into the fading sunlight, then bend over and wash them in the clear, cold creek water, wash away the guilt and sorrow. I cup the cold water and wash my face, wash away the tears, all those tears. I once was lost, but now I’m found . . . I sing the words we sang at the Wildcat Mine cave-in, then I lean back and stare up at the evening star.
A few years ago, I would have been afraid to lie in the leaves alone in the darkening woods. Now I find peace.
40
October 5, 1930. Rainbow around the almost full moon.
Another delivery, Carlin Hummingbird, 10 pounds! The third son of Addie and Norton Hummingbird, the Indian family of Dark Hollow. The baby was born without fuss in their log cabin along the creek. Mr. Hummingbird stayed in the kitchen, and Addie was very self-sufficient. I just rocked in a chair and Bitsy tended to everything, then we did the delivery together. Very little bleeding. No tears. Mrs. Hummingbird gave me a beaded basket that will be very nice for my knitting.
Target Practice
It’s been a few cold rainy days, but around two, when the sun comes out, I see Bitsy, through the front window, lead Star out of the gate, heading, I imagine, toward the Hope River. She’s been strange lately, running over to the Wildcat Mine and to Hazel Patch nearly every day. Twice I saw her sneaking food from the cupboard wrapped in a white dishcloth. If she wants to take food to Thomas, she doesn’t need to tiptoe around. The fact is, though I haven’t really admitted this to her, I miss her company, her puttering around the house, the sound of her voice.
“Bitsy!” I lock my journal and stuff it under the cushions, then throw open the blue door. “Bitsy! Can I come?”
She shrugs. “Okay,” she says, surprised, and pulls me up on the horse behind her.
Cloudless blue sky, smell of fallen leaves, the sound of the Hope roaring over its banks in the distance . . .
We clop along Wild Rose Road, riding double, and I wave to Mrs. Maddock, who sits in her wheelchair on her front porch. She’s wearing her blank public face today, but she nods. If I hadn’t had tea with her a few weeks ago, I would never have guessed the warmth that’s inside her.
“Are you going to hunt?” I ask my companion, making reference to the gun balanced in its case over Star’s neck. “What for? Ducks? Geese? Turkey?”
“Just target practice. I don’t like to do it around the house. The sound of the rifle might irritate you.” She’s probably right. I have been a little snappy lately.
I surprise myself when I ask her, “Will you show me how?”
Since Blair Mountain, I haven’t touched a firearm and before that never, not even Ruben’s Colt revolver.
I can’t see my companion’s face because she is sitting in front of me, but her back softens, like a smile, against my chest. “Sure. I didn’t know you were interested.”
“I don’t know if I am. I just want to feel what you feel when you shoot. I know you like it, and who knows, someday I might need to hunt for myself.” Bitsy shrugs as if she can’t imagine such a thing, and that’s the end of it until we get to the dirt path that winds down to the raging water.
“I have targets set up along the bank.” We slide off Star’s back, lead her through the brush, and tie her to a small sycamore. On a rise where the willows thin out, my friend has nailed three old rusted signs to the trees: a red Coca-Cola sign with a soda jerk peeking out from behind the bottle, a green Case Tractor sign, and a Days Work Chewing Tobacco sign, all riddled with bullet holes. Scattered along the trunk of a fallen tree are tin cans, which we begin to set up.
“Where do you get these cans?” I break the silence. “We haven’t had any store-bought food since that Heinz soup Hester gave us when he was injured.”
“Mildred saves them for me.”
“Mildred Miller? She knows you shoot?”
“Sure, I bring them a rabbit now and then. She makes a stew almost like Mama’s.” This surprises me, as if Bitsy has another life, one I don’t know about.
“Okay,” I say, banishing my dark reflections and adjusting my wire-rimmed specs. “Let’s get going. What do I do?”
Bitsy is a patient teacher. She shows me how to load the rifle. She demonstrates how to stand sideways and aim through the sight. She shoots off a few rounds, perfectly knocking the cans off the logs.
“Now you try. Tuck the stock into your right shoulder where it fits.”
I experiment with a few places, but nothing seems right.
“Here,” she says and places the gun where she thinks it should be. “You’ll have to get used to it. Put your other hand under the body of the rifle, aim down the barrel, then pull the trigger.”
I squint, dreading the loud noise.
“Hold it tight against your shoulder! Don’t let it slip, or it will kick you in the arm.”
I swallow. Why is this so hard? It’s supposed to be fun.
Boom! The Favorite Sweet Corn can flips off the log!
“I hit it!” I’m dancing around.
“Hey, watch the gun!”
That clears my head. “Pretty good, huh?”
Bitsy smiles at my enthusiasm. “A born cracker shot.”
“Can I do it again?”
All afternoon, we take turns back and forth. My first shot, it turns out, was beginner’s luck. It takes eleven more before I hit another can. “We better not waste any more bullets,” I say, cutting short the practice. “You might need them for hunting.”
“It’s okay. Byrd will give me some more.” Byrd Bowlin again! I plunk down on the log, and Bitsy sits next to me, putting the rifle back into its case.
“It’s serious with him, isn’t it?”
She shrugs and gets a faraway look in her eyes. “He’s my family now.” That hurts a little. I thought I was Bitsy’s family. “Thomas isn’t coming back, and Ma has gone to the other
side.”
“Thomas is gone? I thought he was still hiding out in the mountains. Gone where?”
“Philadelphia. Last week Reverend Miller and I drove him to Torrington, where he hopped a freight train. He had a little cash set away and has already sent word through the reverend that he got a job driving electric streetcars.
“I told him the sheriff was probably going to drop the investigation after Katherine talked to him, but Thomas doesn’t want to come back. Says it’s too dangerous for any black man who wants to be something and mining’s no life for him anymore.”
Black men and white, I reflect as I pick burrs off my trousers, work side by side in the mines, but a black can never supervise a white or use the heavy machinery. Negroes get the same pay but worse work. If he stayed, he would be handpicking coal forever.
“Thomas wants Byrd and me to come east,” Bitsy goes on. “Says he can get Byrd a job like his with the Atlantic Railway.”
My heart sinks. Truly that hurts me, that I wasn’t included as one of the trusted few when Thomas left and that they are thinking of leaving, but I keep it to myself. “Do you and Byrd want to live in Philadelphia?”
“Maybe.” She stares toward the roaring Hope as a pair of mallards rise. “You could come too . . .”
For a minute I contemplate the idea. I used to think I’d do anything to go back to the city, but now I’m not sure . . . the noise, the crowded streets, the stench of the smoke from the factories.
“No, I lived in Pittsburgh and before that Chicago. I like it here now . . . the sound of the river, seeing the new leaves in spring, watching them turn colors and fly away in the fall.” This surprises me, that my exile is no longer a punishment. “So are you going? Going to Philly to live with Bowlin?”
“I’m thinking about it. I miss Thomas . . . And I have dreams.”
Dreams . . . I let out my air. She has dreams. Of course. Bitsy is young and smart, why would she want to live at the end of Wild Rose in someone else’s house forever? But what are my dreams? I’ve never had any. Just lived from one high or low, one triumph or catastrophe to the next.
Bitsy stands, collects her rifle, and unties Star as if ready to leave. “And it would be better work for Bowlin, driving a streetcar. I can’t help remembering the cave-in at the Wildcat. How the emergency siren went on and on, ripping the sky. I was so scared . . . I’m seriously thinking about it.” She turns for the road, expecting me to follow, and leads the horse back through the brush.
I just sit there. One of the bullets has gone through my heart.
41
Quarrel
Thursday, returning at noon from cutting hay all by myself in the back pasture (Bitsy is off to Hazel Patch again), I’m surprised to find, on the front porch, a cardboard carton with an envelope attached.
Thinking it must be something from one of the families we’ve helped or maybe another gift from Katherine, I tear the box open. What I find is a collection of medical equipment, a blood pressure cuff, some medicines whose names don’t look familiar, and a packet of gauze. There are also two medical books: Health Knowledge, which includes everything from care of infants to care of old people, and Pediatrics, the Hygienic and Medical Treatment of Children, volume 1. This must be something from Dr. Blum. I go back to the note, folded in quarters on lined paper and taped to the top. It’s from Becky Myers.
“Dear Patience, I waited as long as I could, but I thought you might have gone to a birth and I have to leave this afternoon. I’m on my way to Charlottesville to be Dr. Blum’s nurse. He wrote me a few weeks ago asking me to come, and I agreed to go because the state is out of money and has cut my funding. Apparently a public health nurse, in these hard times, isn’t considered essential. Anyway, it will be an adventure.
“I still worry about you. Please be careful!” She underlines “careful.” Always the worrywart, I think. “The mood in town is ugly. So many of the unemployed are just hanging around. You know what they say: idle hands do the devil’s work. I’ll send my address when I find out where I’m to live. Wish me luck driving over the mountains.
“All my best. Becky Myers.”
I kick the carton across the porch. What good is this stuff if I lose another friend? Katherine’s in Baltimore. Bitsy is thinking of moving to Philadelphia. Now Becky’s on her way to Charlottesville.
By evening Bitsy is still not home, so, in a glum mood, I milk Moonlight early and heat up leftover potato soup, all the while getting more aggravated. Around nine, I hear an engine whining up the road and look out the kitchen window to see Bitsy jump out of Byrd’s father’s truck. She kisses her lover, long and sweet, then trots into the house, just a little too bouncy.
“Have a good time?” I ask sarcastically, but she doesn’t get it. I’m itching for a fight; I just need a topic.
“You bet! I delivered a baby, and Byrd showed me how to drive a tractor! We were helping the Millers bring in the last of their hay.” She pulls out a two-dollar bill and proudly lays it on the table.
“What baby? Whose baby?”
“Oh, this lady from Cold Springs. You don’t know her, Fiona Lincoln. She was visiting Hazel Patch and this was her fourth . . . her third or her fourth . . . She’s Mildred’s cousin, not due for another few weeks, but the baby was fine and breathed right away. When her water bag broke, they called me in from the fields.”
“Bitsy, you can’t just go around catching babies whenever you feel like it! You aren’t even certified. What if something happened?” In my irritation, I ignore the fact that I’m no great expert. I was only certified a few years ago.
“And besides, you didn’t have any supplies. What if the cord was tangled around the neck? What if the feet came first? What if the mother hemorrhaged? You think this birthing business is a lark, but it’s truly life and death!”
“Mrs. Miller was there. She’s been to four deliveries, and I’ve read DeLee’s text on obstetrics cover to cover. Mildred boiled water and scissors and twine for the cord . . . What was I supposed to do? The baby was coming . . .”
There are tears in her eyes, and even though my attitude is unreasonable, I don’t care. I stand and throw my soup bowl into the sink, watching with satisfaction as it breaks and the potato gruel splashes up on the wall, then grab my work jacket and slam out the back door. “You were way out of line!”
Drunk with righteous indignation, I enjoy the hot rush at first, but the cool night air sobers me.
“Miss Patience,” I hear Bitsy calling into the black. “Patience?”
Maybe I should get on Star and ride somewhere . . . but where? To the vet’s? I don’t think so . . . instead, I head down across the pasture to the creek and sit on a flat rock, listening to the water. There’s the smell of the fallen leaves on the ground and frost coming. When my butt gets too cold, I wander back to the barn.
It’s not just that Bitsy did a delivery without me. She’s right, the woman needed her, and who am I to be so sanctimonious? It’s everything else . . . Shivering, I quietly pull open the barn door and seek the warmth of the hay.
“Miss Patience!” Bitsy calls out the back again. “Patience?” She sounds like she’s crying.
Prepared to sleep curled in the loft, I grab Star’s horse blanket and climb up the ladder. The real issue isn’t Bitsy doing a solo delivery; it’s that each day I feel her slipping further away. And why shouldn’t she leave? She has a community with the Hazel Patch folk. She has her brother Thomas in Philly. She has her lover, Byrd Bowlin!
I squirm and turn over to get comfortable. That’s when I feel it, not a kick or a thump, more of a tickle. It’s been over twenty years, but the feeling’s unmistakable. I place my hands on my lower abdomen. There’s something moving inside me, something alive.
Quickening
How could I have not noticed? But then I haven’t been stomach sick or any more tired than usual. And my periods, always irregular, when did I have my last one? The flutter inside happens again! No need to figure it out. There w
as only one night I could have gotten pregnant . . . Through the cracks in the barn walls, I see the lights in the house go off.
“Moonlight,” I whisper to the cow downstairs. “We’re going to have a baby!” For a few minutes, I lie in the dark, overjoyed, but that doesn’t last.
Fears swiftly besiege me like wasps dropping out of their paper nest. How can I tell the vet he’s going to be a father? But how can I not tell him? On the other hand, how can I raise a child alone? Despair follows fear. The shame of it! The gossip . . . I’ll be an outcast. My short-lived career as a midwife will be over.
Though it’s chilly in the barn, I wait a few hours, until Bitsy must be asleep, then sneak into the house, crawl between the warm covers, and lie staring out the window. Maybe Bitsy will help me. She likes kids . . . no, she wants to be with Bowlin. How about Becky Myers? No, she’s too proper, and anyway she’s far away in Virginia by now. Mrs. Maddock? Ridiculous! I’ve had one intimate talk with her. That makes us best friends?
In the morning, while Bitsy’s out in the barn milking Moonlight, I pore through my obstetrical textbook looking for a way out. I try to remember what Mrs. Kelly told me about tansy and pennyroyal, two herbs that might cause my period to start.
My recollection is that she once advised Molly Doyle, who already had nine children, to make a strong brew of both herbs and then drink it three times daily. “The tincture will sometimes restore regularity,” she told the frightened woman. “God will decide if you are to have another child.”
At the time I was shocked; they were both good Catholics. I asked Mrs. Kelly, in the self-righteous way that the young will do, “How could you, a midwife, a bringer of life into the world, make such a suggestion? You’re basically telling her how to have an abortion.”
“You could look at it that way,” Sophie responded, “or you could think of the mother as a person. Can the poor woman survive another baby? Catholic, Baptist, or Hindu, every woman has her limits. And can the family manage to absorb and nourish another child without becoming paupers? The herbs aren’t that strong. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. It’s up to the Lord who lives and who doesn’t.”
The Midwife of Hope River Page 31