The Last Midwife: A Novel

by Sandra Dallas

  “Dr. Erickson? Rebecca Richards told me she’d as soon give birth by herself as have him do it.”

  “She must have thought you were too poorly to come.”

  Gracy glanced at the quilting in her lap. “Or she thought I might harm the baby. Is that it?” Gracy looked squarely at Mittie. They were not women to hide a truth, to sugarcoat and coddle and put a better face on a thing than it deserved. “What are they saying about me, Mittie?”

  The young woman put down her own sewing, smoothing it with her fingers. She took her time, glancing down the trail as if she’d heard footsteps. Then she looked at Gracy. “There’s some that say you done it.”

  “I know that. There’s been talk at the saloon. Daniel told me.”

  “I mean among the women.”

  “Edna Halleck?”

  “I haven’t heard her say it, haven’t seen her in fact, but it might be that’s where it started. At the mercantile, there was some saying they wouldn’t trust you. Effie Ring said she’d always suspicioned you after she lost her girl last year.”

  Gracy thought that over. Effie Ring’s baby had come too soon, and thank the Lord, because the poor thing had been born with deformed arms. Effie had begged Gracy not to tell anyone, even her husband, and she hadn’t—hadn’t breathed a word. She’d buried the infant behind the Ring cabin, buried it under the columbine. Effie had blamed herself, said she was a sinner because she’d lusted after a miner at the Tiger, although the two had never done anything more than kiss. Gracy had replied that sinning had not a thing to do with it. The Lord didn’t punish women by hurting their babies. Besides, what was wrong with admiring a figure as handsome as a fireman and doing a little flirting?

  Gracy was aware, however, that knowing a secret could create an enemy. She hadn’t thought Effie would turn against her, but maybe the woman regretted that Gracy knew so much. Perhaps Gracy shouldn’t have been surprised. “Are there others?” she asked Mittie.

  “Coy Chaney’s wife.”

  “That one’s to be expected.”

  “Maybe one or two more.”

  Gracy didn’t ask their names. She sat for a long time, her sewing in her lap. It hadn’t been a week since the Halleck baby was murdered, and yet some already had found her guilty, blamed her for the sorrow that made her ache as much as it did Josie Halleck. “I’ve been thinking it might be time to give up my work.” There, she’d said it out loud.

  Startled, Mittie raised her hands to her face. “Not deliver babies? Why, you’re the best there is. The only one there is. You’re the last midwife. What would women do without you?”

  “There’s the doctor.”

  “I wouldn’t let him deliver my baby. I wouldn’t at all.”

  “I’ve already been thinking about calling it deep enough,” Gracy said. She didn’t tell the girl the real reason, that she could no longer take the burden on her heart of the hardships, the deaths of women and children that were part of childbirth. Instead, she said, “With Daniel not working in the winters, he’s home by himself and lonesome. I got to think about him.”

  “Does he want you to quit?”

  Gracy shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t told him. I’ve only been thinking about it. But maybe it’s not for me to decide. Maybe nobody’ll want me after this.”

  “I’ll want you.”

  Gracy almost said it wasn’t likely Mittie would ever have need of her that way, but such a remark would have been cruel. Gracy only smiled and said, “I wouldn’t quit you.”

  * * *

  “What are they saying about me in town?” Gracy asked Daniel that night after supper. The two sat in their chairs facing the fireplace, the cabin lit only by the dying fire and the glow of a kerosene lamp.

  He shrugged. “Oh, you know how folks love to gossip. Men’s as bad as women. I wouldn’t put much worry into what a drunk miner or two says.”

  “The women are talking, too. Mittie told me.”

  Daniel pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. “She shouldn’t have.”

  “Yes, she should. I need to know.”

  “Then you ought to know that mostly, folks don’t believe you killed that baby, despite what Jonas Halleck says.”

  “Does anybody think he did it?”

  Daniel pondered that. He leaned forward in his chair and began to unlace his boots. “There’s aplenty that don’t like Halleck, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to speak against him. You remember when he accused me of high-grading? Quite a few came to the house to tell me they knew I didn’t do it, but I don’t recollect anybody saying it in public. There’s not many would want to bring down the wrath of Jonas Halleck.”

  “Worse than the wrath of God,” Gracy said.

  Daniel pulled off his boots and stretched out in the chair. “Truth of it is, Gracy, and I know you want it told to you straight, I haven’t heard a soul say Mr. Halleck did it—except for John Miller. And that’s a strange thing, because John’s doing everything he can to find evidence against you.”

  “That’s his job.”

  “Well, it’s a mighty poor job if it means trying to put you in jail. After all you done for him!” Daniel reached for a tin of paste and a rag and started oiling a boot.

  “Time for you to get new boots. You’ve worn those since we came here.” Gracy picked up the second boot and began rubbing the oil in with her fingers. “I’d rather have John Miller gathering evidence instead of somebody who doesn’t know me. At least he’ll be fair. It’s worrisome that Jonas Halleck might be trying to get some of his people to talk against me.” She got up and went to the pie safe for a rag, then sat down again and began to polish the boot. “Like I said, some of the women have already turned on me.”

  “And after all you’ve done for them, too!” Daniel set down the boot, disgusted, and looked at Gracy.

  “Oh, there were always a few who didn’t like me, but it seems there’s more of them than I knew. Mittie thinks Edna Halleck might be behind it. I’m not so sure. She’s a good woman. Maybe Mr. Halleck put her up to it.”

  “I sure wish Jeff would come home. Maybe he could help.”

  Gracy stared at her husband. “Jeff?” She wanted her son close, all right, had wanted it every day since he’d left out. He always managed to make her smile, to feel whole, despite her sorrows. Still, maybe it was best he was away. She didn’t want him caught up in her troubles.

  “Might be he will.”

  Gracy jumped at the sound of another voice that came through the open doorway, and Daniel said, “God, hell! Who’s there?”

  “It’s only John Miller,” the sheriff replied, stepping into the room.

  “How long have you been standing there listening in?” Daniel asked.

  “Just a minute.”

  “Well, I hope it was long enough for you to hear me say I thought you weren’t much of a man, trying to find evidence against Gracy like you’re doing.”

  “What do you think a sheriff’s supposed to do? I got to get the evidence against Gracy if it’s there. That’s what I’m paid to do.”

  “That’s what Gracy says, but that don’t hardly make it right.”

  “You’d rather one of Mr. Halleck’s men handled it? That’s who’d be appointed sheriff if I left. You know I’d quit if it would help Gracy, but I’m helping her more by being sheriff.”

  Gracy put her hand on Daniel’s arm to still him, then said to John, “There’s coffee, fresh made an hour ago.”

  “Save it for breakfast.”

  Daniel didn’t rise, didn’t offer John his hand. Instead, he gave the sheriff a surly look and asked, “What are you doing here, trying to find more lies about Gracy?”

  The sheriff regarded him a moment, then reached out his hand to the dog and let Sandy sniff it.

  “Dog doesn’t know the difference between friend and foe,” Daniel said.

  “You’re the sorriest old leather belly I ever met up with. You don’t know when a man’s come to help. It’s a wonder Gracy puts up
with you.”

  Picking up the coffeepot, Gracy went to the fireplace and set it in the coals. “I guess I could stand a little coffee myself. I’ll get a cup out for you in case you change your mind, John. Daniel?”

  Her husband grunted, which Gracy decided was a yes.

  “How can you help when you’re trying to turn up something bad about Gracy?” Daniel asked. He picked up a sack of tobacco and pinched enough for his pipe before he held out the bag to John, who shook his head.

  “First off, I brought the name of that lawyer fellow I told you about, Gracy—Ted Coombs. I already sent him a copy of what I turned up. I copied out the coroner’s report for him, and I haven’t even give it to the prosecutor yet. I thought I’d let you have first crack so you’d know what you’re up against, although I expect it’s against the law for me to do. It puts a hard point on it, me being sheriff and trying to help a friend, too.” He stared at Daniel, who dropped his eyes. “Dan, you know I’d do anything in the world to save Gracy,” he said.

  “I know,” Daniel said softly, filling his pipe, then lighting it.

  “What did you turn up?” Gracy asked. She used the hem of her apron to lift the coffeepot out of the fireplace, then poured the black brew into three cups. “I should have made fresh. You deserve it,” she said, handing a cup and saucer to John. He poured the coffee into the saucer to cool, which made Gracy wonder why she’d heated it in the first place.

  “There are folks saying bad things about you. I won’t deny it. You want me to tell you or not?”

  Gracy sat down in her chair and took Daniel’s hand, then nodded. “We’ve been talking about that.”

  “The way I see it, there ain’t much hard evidence. What it boils down to is your word against Jonas Halleck’s. He’s not liked much, but folks respect him for being rich and smart, and plenty will believe him. He said he was there when you done it. He didn’t see you tie a string around the baby’s neck, but he said you were the last person to tend that baby before he picked it up dead. Couldn’t nobody else have done it but you. That’s what he says.”

  Gracy nodded. She knew all that.

  “You believe that, John?” Daniel asked.

  “I’ve told you what I believe, but it don’t matter. It’s what a jury’ll believe, and you’ll likely get a miner or two from the Holy Cross on it if you’re not careful. Not many folks would want to call Jonas Halleck a liar. He’s too powerful.”

  “I checked that baby over before I laid him in his cradle, and he was sleeping when I left. That’s the God’s truth.” Gracy remembered how she had held the baby tight against her chest before she set him in the tiny bed, then had let her hand linger on his cheek, reluctant to turn away, not knowing if she would ever touch him again.

  “I know that,” John told her.

  “What else do you have?”

  There was the testimony Coy Chaney and Little Dickie Erickson would give, he said, but Gracy already knew about that. Then John cleared his throat. “This will surprise you, Gracy. Georgia Simmons and Pearlie Evans both say they suspected you of killing their infants.”

  If the charges surprised Gracy, she didn’t show it, not at first. She thought that over for a long time, before she replied, “Georgia’s husband works at the Cross. Pearlie wanted me to give her something…” Gracy didn’t finish, because she didn’t talk about the women who had come to her to terminate their pregnancies. Pearlie Evans had asked Gracy to perform an abortion because she’d gotten pregnant one summer when her husband was away prospecting. Pearlie was sickly, and Gracy had told her the abortion might kill her. The woman had been as mad as a yellow jacket and swore Gracy hadn’t the right to say no. The baby had come early, and nobody was the wiser. Gracy thought Pearlie had gotten over her anger. Now it was clear she hadn’t.

  “There’s men, too,” John said. He picked up the saucer and held it to his mouth. “I don’t put much store in what most say, seeing as how they work at the Cross. But Boston Chowder don’t work there, and he says you got a temper that beats all.”

  At that, Gracy chuckled. He had indeed seen her temper, seen it when Gracy told him he’d have to keep away from his wife for six weeks after she gave birth. The man’s name was Barton Crowder, but he was so mad at Gracy that he’d spit out a mouthful of milk punch, and Gracy had said it looked like Boston chowder. The story had stuck, and so had the name. She should have had better sense.

  “Can those men testify? What they say doesn’t have anything to do with the Halleck baby,” Daniel asked.

  “No, it don’t, and I believe they can’t be called. What they talked about doesn’t have a bearing, as they say, on the case against Gracy. Still, it depends on the judge. You better hope you get a judge who isn’t in debt to Jonas Halleck.” John slurped the rest of his coffee and rose. “That offer’s still open, Gracy.”

  Daniel frowned. “What offer’s that?”

  “One I wouldn’t take,” Gracy replied, and then thought she might have been wise to consider it.

  Ten

  “Are you sure you feel like quilting today?” Mittie asked Gracy.

  “Of course I do. When did I ever not feel like quilting?” Gracy shoved a half-finished quilt block into a flour sack, along with her needle and scissors and scraps of material. She moved slowly, because she still hurt from her fall.

  “I mean going to quilting. Maybe you hadn’t ought to come.”

  Gracy tied the ends of the sack and started to drop it into her medicine bag. She almost never went anywhere without the bag, even to quilting, not since Marianna Martin went into labor one afternoon right there at the quilt frame. “I know what you mean,” she told Mittie. “You’re afraid Edna Halleck will attend, maybe Josie, too, and there will be a set-to.”

  Caught, Mittie looked down at her toe and scraped it back and forth over Gracy’s braided rug. “I don’t want you to have to hear mean things.”

  “I might as well get used to it. There will be plenty of mean things said if there’s to be a trial. The hearing is next week.”

  “What’s a hearing?” Mittie asked.

  “It’s where the prosecutor gives the judge all the evidence the sheriff collects against me. I guess Jonas Halleck and Coy Chaney will have their say, and maybe Little Dickie. Then the judge decides whether there’s enough to put me on trial. The thing is, at the hearing, I won’t be able to say a word. I’ll have to wait until the trial to defend myself.”

  “That sheriff’s been going around asking about you, asking about things you done, asking about gossip. He ought to be ashamed of hisself.”

  “He doesn’t have any choice. He’s the sheriff. That’s his job.”

  “I told him to get out of my house.”

  It was nice having friends, loyal friends who stood up for her, Gracy thought. Mittie was one, and there would be others, although perhaps not as many as she had once thought.

  Gracy decided not to take the medicine bag after all, since as far as she knew, no one who’d be sewing that day was pregnant She left the bag in the pie safe and slung the flour sack with her scissors and needle and scraps of fabric over her shoulder. “If I don’t go to quilting, women will say I’m ashamed to show myself. They’ll talk about me even more. I don’t much want to face them, but it’s best I get it over with. It’ll only be worse if I wait. I’ve spent too much time to home as it is.”

  Mittie didn’t seem so sure. She set a slow pace as they made their way to the church, where the quilting was always held, stopping two or three times to ask Gracy if the walk tired her, for the old woman limped badly, despite the walking stick that Daniel had made for her from the trunk of a young aspen tree, stripping the bark and polishing it until it looked like ivory. Once, Mittie stepped off the trail to admire a patch of butter-and-eggs that were a creamy yellow in the soft morning, and another time she picked a perfect aspen leaf off a tree, held it up, and remarked that it looked like a heart. She could trace around it and make a pattern for quilting, she said.


  Gracy knew the girl was dawdling, and at last she told her, “Best to hurry it up, Mittie. If we’re late, we won’t find a place around the frame to sit. Is there a quilt ready for us or are we going to work on our own piecing? Maybe I should have brought Daniel’s stockings to darn.”

  “Nancy Culpin’s got her quilt set in. She asked for the borrow of my frame. I don’t look forward to the quilting of it.” She sent Gracy an accusatory look. “If you’d stayed home we wouldn’t have to work on it.”

  “I’m fit as I’ll ever be,” Gracy said, although her face was still badly bruised, and the limp was worse than when she’d started out.

  They stopped at the churchyard to open the gate, then put the wire loop over the fencepost to keep the gate shut. The women were careful to do that because the yard was filled with flowers, not that a shut gate would keep animals from eating them.

  The quilters were just then taking places around the frame when Gracy and Mittie entered, and their chatter stopped, except for a remark one woman said to another under her breath.

  “They don’t say nothing out loud, just whisper,” Mittie said to Gracy, whispering herself.

  Nancy Culpin looked startled and said she hadn’t known Gracy was up to quilting. “I thought you’d be at home being dilatory,” she said.

  “Nobody ever accused the Sagehen of laziness,” Mittie defended Gracy.

  “No, no. I’ll have to find another chair. I didn’t expect you.” Gracy caught the long look Nancy gave Mittie, not sure whether Nancy was put out that Mittie hadn’t told her Gracy would be there or annoyed that Mittie hadn’t kept Gracy away. It would be as awkward an afternoon as she had ever spent.

  She looked around at the dozen women, relieved that neither Edna nor Josie Halleck was there. Gracy had thought she might have to excuse herself if those two attended. Still, one of Rebecca Richards’s sisters was present, along with Effie Ring. Pearlie Evans was there, too, and she wouldn’t look Gracy in the eye. Gracy knew both Effie and Pearlie had spoken against her. The air in the room seemed as thick as smelter smoke, and Gracy thought perhaps Mittie had been right, that she shouldn’t have come. But she had, and she was determined to stay. Walking out would only make things worse. She stiffened her back as she gripped the walking stick.