Wastenot hawed the horse and the little wagon lurched forward, Faith wincing as the girls patted her and the rain poured. Faith’s gaze was somber as a cow’s, and as mindless, looking back at her husband, back at the river. At times like birthing, Alvin thought, a woman becomes a beast, slack-minded as her body takes over and does its work. How else could she bear the pain? As if the soul of the earth possessed her the way it owns the souls of animals, making her part of the life of the whole world, unhitching her from family, from husband, from all the reins of the human race, leading her into the valley of ripeness and harvest and reaping and bloody death.
“She’ll be safe now,” the blacksmith said. “And we have horses here to pull your wagon out.”
“It’s slacking off,” said Measure. “The rain is less, and the current’s not so strong.”
“As soon as your wife stepped ashore, it eased up,” said the farmer-looking feller. “The rain’s dying, that’s sure.”
“You took the worst of it in the water,” said the blacksmith. “But you’re all right now. Get hold of yourself, man, there’s work to do.”
Only then did Alvin come to himself enough to realize that he was crying. Work to do, that’s right, get hold of yourself, Alvin Miller. You’re no weakling, to bawl like a baby. Other men have lost a dozen children and still live their lives. You’ve had twelve, and Vigor lived to be a man, though he never did get to marry and have children of his own. Maybe Alvin had to weep because Vigor died so nobly; maybe he cried because it was so sudden.
David touched the blacksmith’s arm. “Leave him be for a minute,” he said softly. “Our oldest brother was carried off not ten minutes back. He got tangled in a tree floating down.”
“It wasn’t no tangle,” Alvin said sharply. “He jumped that tree and saved our wagon, and your mother inside it! That river paid him back, that’s what it did, it punished him.”
Calm spoke quietly to the local men. “It run him up against that boulder there.” They all looked. There wasn’t even a smear of blood on the rock, it seemed so innocent.
“The Hatrack has a mean streak in it,” said the blacksmith, “but I never seen this river so riled up before. I’m sorry about your boy. There’s a slow, flat place downstream where he’s bound to fetch up. Everything the river catches ends up there. When the storm lets up, we can go down and bring back the—bring him back.”
Alvin wiped his eyes on his sleeve, but since his sleeve was soaking wet it didn’t do much good. “Give me a minute more and I can pull my weight,” said Alvin.
They hitched two more horses and the four beasts had no trouble pulling the wagon out against the much weakened current. By the time the wagon was set to rights again on the road, the sun was even breaking through.
“Wouldn’t you know,” said the blacksmith. “If you ever don’t like the weather hereabouts, you just set a spell, cause it’ll change.”
“Not this one,” said Alvin. “This storm was laid in wait for us.”
The blacksmith put his arm across Alvin’s shoulder and spoke real gentle. “No offense, mister, but that’s crazy talk.”
Alvin shrugged him off. “That storm and that river wanted us.”
“Papa,” said David, “you’re tired and grieving. Best be still till we get to the road house and see how Mama is.”
“My baby is a boy,” said Papa. “You’ll see. He would have been the seventh son of a seventh son.”
That got their attention, right enough, that blacksmith and the other men as well. Everybody knew a seventh son had certain gifts, but the seventh son of a seventh son was about as powerful a birth as you could have.
“That makes a difference,” said the blacksmith. “He’d have been a born dowser, sure, and water hates that.” The others nodded sagely.
“The water had its way,” said Alvin. “Had its way, and all done. It would’ve killed Faith and the baby, if it could. But since it couldn’t, why, it killed my boy Vigor. And now when the baby comes, he’ll be the sixth son, cause I’ll only have five living.”
“Some says it makes no difference if the first six be alive or not,” said a farmer.
Alvin said nothing, but he knew it made all the difference. He had thought this baby would be a miracle child, but the river had taken care of that. If water don’t stop you one way, it stops you another. He shouldn’t have hoped for a miracle child. The cost was too high. All his eyes could see, all the way home, was Vigor dangling in the grasp of the roots, tumbling through the current like a leaf caught up in a dust devil, with the blood seeping from his mouth to slake the Hatrack’s murderous thirst.
Caul
LITTLE PEGGY STOOD in the window, looking out into the storm. She could see all those heartfires, especially one, one so bright it was like the sun when she looked at it. But there was a blackness all around them. No, not even black—a nothingness, like a part of the universe God hadn’t finished making, and it swept around those lights as if to tear them from each other, sweep them away, swallow them up. Little Peggy knew what that nothingness was. Those times when her eyes saw the hot yellow heartfires, there were three other colors, too. The rich dark orange of the earth. The thin grey color of the air. And the deep black emptiness of water. It was the water that tore at them now. The river, only she had never seen it so black, so strong, so terrible. The heartfires were so tiny in the night.
“What do you see, child?” asked Oldpappy.
“The river’s going to carry them away,” said little Peggy.
“I hope not.”
Little Peggy began to cry.
“There, child,” said Oldpappy. “It ain’t always such a grand thing to see afar off like that, is it.”
She shook her head.
“But maybe it won’t happen as bad as you think.”
Just at that moment, she saw one of the heartfires break away and tumble off into the dark. “Oh!” she cried out, reaching as if her hand could snatch the light and put it back. But of course she couldn’t. Her vision was long and clear, but her reach was short.
“Are they lost?” asked Oldpappy.
“One,” whispered little Peggy.
“Haven’t Makepeace and the others got there yet?”
“Just now,” she said. “The rope held. They’re safe now.”
Oldpappy didn’t ask her how she knew, or what she saw. Just patted her shoulder. “Because you told them. Remember that, Margaret. One was lost, but if you hadn’t seen and sent help, they might all have died.”
She shook her head. “I should’ve seen them sooner, Oldpappy, but I fell asleep.”
“And you blame yourself?” asked Oldpappy.
“I should’ve let Bloody Mary nip me, and then Father wouldn’t’ve been mad, and then I wouldn’t’ve been in the spring house, and then I wouldn’t’ve been asleep, and then I would’ve sent help in time—”
“We can all make daisy chains of blame like that, Maggie. It don’t mean a thing.”
But she knew it meant something. You don’t blame blind people cause they don’t warn you you’re about to step on a snake—but you sure blame somebody with eyes who doesn’t say a word about it. She knew her duty ever since she first realized that other folks couldn’t see all that she could see. God gave her special eyes, so she’d better see and give warning, or the devil would take her soul. The devil or the deep black sea.
“Don’t mean a thing,” Oldpappy murmured. Then, like he just been poked in the behind with a ramrod, he went all straight and said, “Spring house! Spring house, of course.” He pulled her close. “Listen to me, little Peggy. It wasn’t none of your fault, and that’s the truth. The same water that runs in the Hatrack flows in the spring house brook, it’s all the same water, all through the world. The same water that wanted them dead, it knew you could give warning and send help. So it sang to you and sent you off to sleep.”
It made a kind of sense to her, it sure did. “How can that be, Oldpappy?”
“Oh, that’s just in the
nature of it. The whole universe is made of only four kinds of stuff, little Peggy, and each one wants to have its own way.” Peggy thought of the four colors that she saw when the heartfires glowed, and she knew what all four were even as Oldpappy named them. “Fire makes things hot and bright and uses them up. Air makes things cool and sneaks in everywhere. Earth makes things solid and sturdy, so they’ll last. But water, it tears things down, it falls from the sky and carries off everything it can, carries it off and down to the sea. If the water had its way, the whole world would be smooth, just a big ocean with nothing out of the water’s reach. All dead and smooth. That’s why you slept. The water wants to tear down these strangers, whoever they are, tear them down and kill them. It’s a miracle you woke up at all.”
“The blacksmith’s hammer woke me,” said little Peggy.
“That’s it, then, you see? The blacksmith was working with iron, the hardest earth, and with a fierce blast of air from the bellows, and with a fire so hot it burns the grass outside the chimney. The water couldn’t touch him to keep him still.”
Little Peggy could hardly believe it, but it must be so. The blacksmith had drawn her from a watery sleep. The smith had helped her. Why, it was enough to make you laugh, to know the blacksmith was her friend this time.
There was shouting on the porch downstairs, and doors opened and closed. “Some folks is here already,” said Oldpappy.
Little Peggy saw the heartfires downstairs, and found the one with the strongest fear and pain. “It’s their mama,” said little Peggy. “She’s got a baby coming.”
“Well, if that ain’t the luck of it. Lose one, and here already is a baby to replace death with life.” Oldpappy shambled on out to go downstairs and help.
Little Peggy, though, she just stood there, looking at what she saw in the distance. That lost heartfire wasn’t lost at all, and that was sure. She could see it burning away far off, despite how the darkness of the river tried to cover it. He wasn’t dead, just carried off, and maybe somebody could help him. She ran out then, passed Oldpappy all in a rush, clattered down the stairs.
Mama caught her by the arm as she was running into the great room. “There’s a birthing,” Mama said, “and we need you.”
“But Mama, the one that went downriver, he’s still alive!”
“Peggy, we got no time for—”
Two boys with the same face pushed their way into the conversation. “The one downriver!” cried one.
“Still alive!” cried the other.
“How do you know!”
“He can’t be!”
They spoke so all on top of each other that Mama had to hush them up just to hear them. “It was Vigor, our big brother, he got swept away—”
“Well he’s alive,” said little Peggy, “but the river’s got him.”
The twins looked to Mama for confirmation. “She know what she’s talking about, Goody Guester?”
Mama nodded, and the boys raced for the door, shouting, “He’s alive! He’s still alive!”
“Are you sure?” asked Mama fiercely. “It’s a cruel thing, to put hope in their hearts like that, if it ain’t so.”
Mama’s flashing eyes made little Peggy afraid, and she couldn’t think what to say.
By then, though, Oldpappy had come up from behind. “Now Peg,” he said, “how would she know one was taken by the river, lessun she saw?”
“I know,” said Mama. “But this woman’s been holding off birth too long, and I got a care for the baby, so come on now, little Peggy, I need you to tell me what you see.”
She led little Peggy into the bedroom off the kitchen, the place where Papa and Mama slept whenever there were visitors. The woman lay on the bed, holding tight to the hand of a tall girl with deep and solemn eyes. Little Peggy didn’t know their faces, but she recognized their fires, especially the mother’s pain and fear.
“Someone was shouting,” whispered the mother.
“Hush now,” said Mama.
“About him still alive.”
The solemn girl raised her eyebrows, looked at Mama. “Is that so, Goody Guester?”
“My daughter is a torch. That’s why I brung her here in this room. To see the baby.”
“Did she see my boy? Is he alive?”
“I thought you didn’t tell her, Eleanor,” said Mama.
The solemn girl shook her head.
“Saw from the wagon. Is he alive?”
“Tell her, Margaret,” said Mama.
Little Peggy turned and looked for his heartfire. There were no walls when it came to this kind of seeing. His flame was still there, though she knew it was afar off. This time, though, she drew near in the way she had, took a close look. “He’s in the water. He’s all tangled in the roots.”
“Vigor!” cried the mother on the bed.
“The river wants him. The river says, Die, die.”
Mama touched the woman’s arm. “The twins have gone off to tell the others. There’ll be a search party.”
“In the dark!” whispered the woman scornfully.
Little Peggy spoke again. “He’s saying a prayer, I think. He’s saying—seventh son.”
“Seventh son,” whispered Eleanor.
“What does that mean?” asked Mama.
“If this baby’s a boy,” said Eleanor, “and he’s born while Vigor’s still alive, then he’s the seventh son of a seventh son, and all of them alive.”
Mama gasped. “No wonder the river—” she said. No need to finish the thought. Instead she took little Peggy’s hands and led her to the woman on the bed. “Look at this baby, and see what you see.”
Little Peggy had done this before, of course. It was the chief use they had for torches, to have them look at an unborn baby just at the birthing time. Partly to see how it lay in the womb, but also because sometimes a torch could see who the baby was, what it would be, could tell stories of times to come. Even before she touched the woman’s belly, she could see the baby’s heartfire. It was the one that she had seen before, that burned so hot and bright that it was like the sun and the moon, to compare it to the mother’s fire. “It’s a boy,” she said.
“Then let me bear this baby,” said the mother. “Let him breathe while Vigor still breathes!”
“How’s the baby set?” asked Mama.
“Just right,” said little Peggy.
“Head first? Face down?”
Little Peggy nodded.
“Then why won’t it come?” demanded Mama.
“She’s been telling him not to,” said little Peggy, looking at the mother.
“In the wagon,” the mother said. “He was coming, and I did a beseeching.”
“Well you should have told me right off,” said Mama sharply. “Speck me to help you and you don’t even tell me he’s got a beseeching on him. You, girl!”
Several young ones were standing near the wall, wide-eyed, and they didn’t know which one she meant.
“Any of you, I need that iron key from the ring on the wall.”
The biggest of them took it clumsily from the hook and brought it, ring and all.
Mama dangled the large ring and the key over the mother’s belly, chanting softly:
“Here’s the circle, open wide,
Here’s the key to get outside,
Earth be iron, flame be fair,
Fall from water into air.”
The mother cried out in sudden agony. Mama tossed away the key, cast back the sheet, lifted the woman’s knees, and ordered little Peggy fiercely to see.
Little Peggy touched the woman’s womb. The boy’s mind was empty, except for a feeling of pressure and gathering cold as he emerged into the air. But the very emptiness of his mind let her see things that would never be plainly visible again. The billion billion paths of his life lay open before him, waiting for his first choices, for the first changes in the world around him to eliminate a million futures every second. The future was there in everyone, a flickering shadow that she could only sometime
s see, and never clearly, looking through the thoughts of the present moment; but here, for a few precious moments, little Peggy could see them sharp.
And what she saw was death down every path. Drowning, drowning, every path of his future led this child to a watery death.
“Why do you hate him so!” cried little Peggy.
“What?” demanded Eleanor.
“Hush,” said Mama. “Let her see what she sees.”
Inside the unborn child, the dark blot of water that surrounded his heartfire seemed so terribly strong that little Peggy was afraid he would be swallowed up.
“Get him out to breathe!” shouted little Peggy.
Mama reached in, even though it tore the mother something dreadful, and hooked the baby by the neck with strong fingers, drawing him out.
In that moment, as the dark water retreated inside the child’s mind, and just before the first breath came, little Peggy saw ten million deaths by water disappear. Now, for the first time, there were some paths open, some paths leading to a dazzling future. And all the paths that did not end in early death had one thing in common. On all those paths, little Peggy saw herself doing one simple thing.
So she did that thing. She took her hands from the slackening belly and ducked under her mother’s arm. The baby’s head had just emerged, and it was still covered with a bloody caul, a scrap of the sac of soft skin in which he had floated in his mother’s womb. His mouth was open, sucking inward on the caul, but it didn’t break, and he couldn’t breathe.
Little Peggy did what she had seen herself do in the baby’s future. She reached out, took the caul from under the baby’s chin, and pulled it away from his face. It came whole, in one moist piece, and in the moment it came away, the baby’s mouth cleared, he sucked in a great breath, and then gave that mewling cry that birthing mothers hear as the song of life.
Little Peggy folded the caul, her mind still full of the visions she had seen down the pathways of this baby’s life. She did not know yet what the visions meant, but they made such clear pictures in her mind that she knew she would never forget them. They made her afraid, because so much would depend on her, and how she used the birth caul that was still warm in her hands.
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