by Carole Howey
"II can't see them." A simple statement. No hint of despair.
He drew her hand up to his parched, cracked lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
"You will, Mrs. Muldaur." He knew it was true, just as he knew his love for her, and hers for him, was as steady and unfailing as those stars above their heads. "Oh, you will."
Missy's hand cupped his jaw, and she propped herself up until he could see not stars above him but her own sweet face, streaked with soot and tears.
"I believe you, Daniel Flynn Muldaur," she murmured, and her face drew nearer to his.
"Aw, you two oughtn't act all mushy like that in front of me," Gideon growled in the darkness, discomfited more, Flynn guessed, by their tender scene than by the broken leg that presently crippled the boy.
Missy, unheeding, tasted Flynn's mouth. He wanted to hold her to him forever.
"It's part of what it is to be a man," she said to Gideon, but her lips otherwise concentrated on Flynn. "And you couldn't learn the lesson from a better one."
Flynn knew better than to contradict her.
PART FIVE
NIHIL DESPERANDUM
Epilogue
January, 1893
Missy drew the blanket more tightly about her shoulders and Flynn's. He was asleep beside her in the straw. He snored. He didn't believe her when she told him, so she'd stopped arguing with him and contended herself to nudge him whenever he did. Not in the ribs; they were still tender, she knew, and slow to recover from the repeated bruising they'd taken last summer.
The summer seemed so long ago.
There had been a time when Missy, blind, had wondered if she would ever see the beauty of a Dakota snowfall again, but the stark, crystalline splendor of this latest blizzard had long since been overshadowed by tragedy. The mare Artemis had labored to bring forth a dead foal late last night while the wind sang a requiem. The bereft dam now stood on the other side of the wall, neighing mournfully. Nearly five months gone with child herself, Missy recognized and respected the sound of a mother in despair.
To make matters worse, Glory now travailed before them in the birthing stall, brave but fitful, having some difficulty Missy was loath to label.
It had been a pure miracle that Glory hadn't lost the foal in the aftermath of her terrible fright in the fire, Missy knew. That had been one cause for rejoicing amid the dark days that followed. Another, of course, had been the fact that no one save for Seamus had been lost in the blaze, not even a single horse.
Flynn's injuries had been exacerbated and he was still recovering. Missy's sight had been slow to return, but return it had, thank God. Gideon's slow and sadly incomplete recovery had been cause for great concern; the doctor was of the opinion that the boy would carry a limp with him for the rest of his days. Then there was the memorial service for Seamus, during which she and Flynn, both still badly injured themselves, had been obliged to lie, telling the world that he'd died trying to save them.
Except for finding Flynn, it had not been a good year. Missy laid her head against his breast and listened to his soft snore.
Finding Flynn, she realized, snuggling closer to him, made everything else bearable.
Glory neighed softly, twitched, then lay still again. Missy stayed where she was but scanned the mare sharply. If there was to be any change, she guessed, it would be rapid. She would have to take the foal. She had to be ready.
''Is she all right?"
Gideon sat up beside his horse. His blanket covered them both. His dark eyes were puffed and glassy; Missy doubted he'd slept either.
"I don't know, Gid." She sighed. Flynn's child kicked in her belly as if to mock her ignorance. "I'm afraid she may be bleeding inside."
Gideon frowned. "What's that mean?" he asked, stifling a yawn.
It means she might die.
Missy avoided his gaze, ransacking her weary brain for a more encouraging response to give Glory's devoted equerry. Just as she despaired of finding one, Flynn stirred beside her, fumbling for his pocket watch.
"Almost two." His baritone was gruff with sleep. "She's been at it for nearly three hours. Any change?"
Three hours was two hours too long. Artemis had foaled in 40 minutes.
"She needs our help." Missy started to rise.
"Oh, no, you don't." Flynn pulled her back to him with a gentle but firm hand. "I'm not about to risk you getting kicked, in your condition. You ought to know better than to think I would. Gid, go fetch Micah. Tell him it's time."
Missy could only watch as Flynn, Micah, and Gideon worked over the mare for what seemed an interminable time, yet was actually perhaps half an hour. At the end of it a big colt, as chocolate brown as Sheik himself, lay in the straw beside his mother as Gideon, enthralled, toweled him dry.
"Look at him, Miss!" Gideon was flushed with excitement and wide awake, despite the late hour and his lack of sleep. "Ain't he fine? Gol, he's a big'n, too, ain't he? And strong. Look how he wants to try and stand already!"
Missy was delighted by the colt, who looked utterly healthy in all respects, but one glance at Flynn's and Micah's grim faces tempered her joy. Flynn cast a hooded look her way. "Something's not right," he reported tersely. "I'm going to check her again."
He slipped his fingers, then his hands and arms, into Glory's swollen birth passage, his gaze fixed on nothing, his lower lip pinched in his teeth.
"My God!"
"What?" Missy edged closer.
"Get away!" he ordered her sharply. "You saw her kick me a while ago! There’s you’re not going to believe this, but there's another foal in here."
Twins! Gideon hooted with glee, but Micah, wiser, frowned. Missy did not know whether to be overjoyed or terrified, but she suspected the latter to be the more prudent sentiment. Twins were uncommon in horses, especially in thoroughbreds. Delivery was nearly always fatally stressful even on the most fit of mares, and Glory had labored excessively long already. If the twins went to term, usually one of them was born dead. Sometimes they both died shortly after birth. The colt looked robust, though; he even seemed to enjoy Gideon's rapturous attentions.
Missy gritted her teeth: she could tolerate another stillbirth if the one colt survived. If by some miracle of heaven Glory survived, it would make the night nearly perfect. She didn't dare hope for the healthy passage of the colt's younger sibling.
"It's coming!" Flynn's voice shook.
Missy's heart pounded, and she felt warm with excitement despite the chill in the stable.
Glory fishtailed, knocking Flynn sideways. He muttered an oath and righted himself. Gideon left the colt wrapped in his sheltering towel and scrambled over to Glory's head.
"Easy, girl," he intoned, stroking her sweating, steaming muzzle. "Flynn ain't gonna hurt you."
"Don't lie to her, Gideon," Flynn advised him half
humorously, positioning his hands once again. "Missy taught you better than that."
Gideon managed a grin, but Missy could see his heart wasn't in it. His eyes were too full of worry for his mare, even when he glanced over at the newborn colt. He talked to Glory all the while, and the mare settled down again, undoubtedly soothed by the familiar, beloved voice.
Flynn grunted; Missy guessed he'd gotten hold of the second foal's legs again.
"Hold her, Mi," he breathed. "This one isn't going to budge without a fight. Missy, maybe you'd best leave."
Missy caught Flynn's worried gaze. She knew he was remembering that awful summer night when she'd removed an aborted foal piece by piece. He was trying to spare her, and she loved him for it.
"I'm staying," she told him quietly, pressing her hand against the life within herself. "Whatever nature has to show me, I've seen. I'm staying for you and for Gid. And Glory."
She looked at Gideon and saw a flush of gratitude in his young face before pride made him look away from her. He sniffled, and she averted her gaze out of respect for his privacy.
Gently, inexorably, Flynn worked with Glory's next contraction
to pull the foal's forelegs and head into the light. Missy held her breath. Gideon's voice quavered, but he did not interrupt his monologue to Glory.
"One more," Flynn muttered, sweat beading on his brow. "Come on. Just one more." He was talking to the horse or to God; Missy did not know which. In either case, one of them obliged and the foal, a small but perfect chestnut filly, popped out, entirely bathed in blood and fluid.
And she appeared to be alive. With a cry, Missy crawled forward as Flynn gently placed the tiny foal before her in fresh straw. Micah produced a towel and, with one big, careful finger, cleared the animal's mouth. It didn't take but a few wipes to dry off this one, small as she was, but Missy did not like the amount of blood she saw. She looked up to question Flynn, but the bleak expression in his tired eyes stayed her inquiry.
"She's ruptured her uterus," he said under his breath with a wary glance at Gideon, who was still stroking and talking to his mare. "It . . ." He stopped. He shook his head, his eyes filled with unshed tears.
Missy's own eyes misted. She did not need for him to say more. Glory had fought bravely to bring her children, hers and Sheik's, into the world, and now she was going to rest. There was nothing to be done but wait.
But meanwhile the children needed looking after. Charged with a new mission, Missy found the will to get up.
"Go wash up Artemis, Micah," she told the foreman. "She has milk she doesn't know what to do with; I have two foals that do."
She never doubted that the grieving mare would foster Glory's foals. She could not afford to think it. The foals would die without that first milk, and Missy was damned if she would let that happen.
"What do you mean?" Gideon was indignant. "They're Glory's babies. Don't be giving them to Artemis! What'll Glory think?"
Glory will be dead before these two even make it to their feet, she wanted to tell him. I have to think of the foals.
"Get Rich to help you take them in to Artemis." She ignored Gideon and addressed Micah, who had gotten as far as the door of the stall on his first assignment.
"We've got to try to get them to bond with her. It's their best chance."
"Missy!"
Gideon was on his feet before her. How had she missed the fact that in the past few months he'd grown nearly as tall as she was, and that his voice was now more like a man's than a boy's? She was able to meet his gaze for only an instant.
"She can't do it, Gideon." She could not bring herself to tell him more than that.
Gideon grabbed her sleeve.
"But they're hers," he insisted, and the cry of a child emerged from the throat of a man. "You can't just"
"I don't want to," she told him, taking hold of his shoulders because she knew he would wrench away from the hug she wanted to give him instead. "But I must. We have to think of the babies now, and what's best for them. Can you understand that?"
"But Glory . . . She's just tired out from everything," he argued, not moving from her grasp. "She’s she isn't going to"
Glory gave a pained whinny and convulsed once again. Missy watched Flynn lay gentle hands on her. A fresh puddle of blood reddened the straw. When Missy met Gideon's gaze again, she started to tell him the awful truth, but found that she could only shake her head.
He must have read the answer in her expression, for he released her sleeve and left his mouth hanging open in shock.
"No," he intoned in disbelief, sinking to his knees. "She's not Missy, she's not going to"
Die. Missy heard the word, even though Gideon did not say it. She'd have done just about anything, she realized, feeling his pain even more than her own, to make it otherwise, but there it was. No longer able to stop herself, she pulled Gideon close and wept into his tousled hair.
His strong, wiry body went limp in the solace she offered for only the merest of seconds before she felt it stiffen again, and she was not surprised when the boy took two solid steps back from her.
Missy saw it then. She would have missed it if she had so much as blinked at Gideon, but she didn't, and she actually saw the shield go up before his shining, sable eyes, and his pronounced jaw set itself. She'd remember that night forever, she realized, watching Gideon go back to his tender care of the dying mare, silent but otherwise as nurturing as ever. A child was dying before her eyes, even as a mare was. Both were painful. Both were tragedies. But one tragedy resulted in a man; the other, two foals.
That was the thing about tragedies, she'd discovered. There was usually a blessing or two hiding in them somewhere, if one took the trouble to look. She prayed that Gideon would come to understand that himself one day.
Glory passed quietly. Flynn and Missy left Gideon alone with her when it was over.
"Been a long night," Flynn remarked with a sigh. "You all right?"
He looked haggard, washing the night's work from himself in a bucket outside the stall, but not so weary that he didn't have a fond look for her.
She nodded, warmed by his gaze, even in the cold stable. "Think I'll sleep late, though." She looked deep inside herself hoping to find a smile, but she only managed half of one.
"He'll be all right, Missy." Flynn put his hand on her arm.
"I know."
"And so will the foals."
"Let's have another look at them."
Flynn slipped his arm about her waist and she allowed him to lead her to the stall they'd readied for Glory and her new foal. It was Artemis in there, though, contentedly nursing Glory's two eager but mismatched foals, with Micah acting as arbitrator. Glory's tragedy had become Artemis's blessing. Missy smiled even as a tear eked its way from the corner of her eye. The foals would thrive. She was certain of it. And Gideon, when he'd mourned Glory enough, would foster the foals just as he had the mare.
"Sheik's legacy," she murmured, laying her head against Flynn's shoulder as she counted her own blessings.