Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  She hurried around Beth and grabbed the frame of the door in one hand. “Pa! Pa, Ma’s having the baby! PA!”

  I knew it was pointless, he’d never hear her from the field.

  “Rachel, find the shears and make a small fire outside, warm some water. Stay close to the house now, don’t wander off. You’re going to help me.”

  Please God let it come. Let it be well and whole and if it can’t be that, please let it be over fast.

  She brought me the shears but her little face was scrunched up with fear and her eyes were wet. Beth started to wail.

  “Don’t cry,” I patted Rachel’s hand and tried not to grimace as pain went through me again. “It’s alright. You’ll be alright.”

  Rachel hurried outside and I heard chips being heaped on the scorched earth, the clang of the kettle against the crossbar. Beth began to shriek but I couldn’t bring myself to get up and comfort her.

  “Beth,” I called.

  Her face was red, mouth a gaping black hole in her face.

  “Beth, stop crying.”

  The sound of it was ringing in my ears.

  “Elizabeth Deene, shut your mouth right now, or I’ll give you such a hiding!”

  I caught my breath as the pains squeezed me, Beth’s shriek cut off in sobs and whimpers. The pains came steadily, growing more urgent with each passing minute. I struggled to breathe deep and even. When Rachel returned a particularly bad one caught me off guard. I gasped through it, felt my skirt grow sopping, the waters soaking the tick under me.

  “Keep watch for your Pa, from the door,” I told her, “and take Beth outside to the ox shed.” The shed was safe, but out of hearing.

  I gripped the tick tightly in my hands and shifted my legs apart, feeling the aches go up my spine, the pains running through my belly. It would come soon, I knew it. My labours had never been long.

  I fought to breathe even. The boy after Thomas, born stone dead. A little girl only a year after Rachel, who barely filled my cupped hands. Another boy the year before Beth, blue-grey as flint. But I would live, I would come through it. I had before.

  I arched my back, unable to keep my keening inside. With my knees wide apart I panted, dress plastered in sweat. Flies came to buzz around me, landing on my skin, crawling on the sheets. My body cramped, forcing me to push. I groaned. I was going to be torn in two.

  Rachel didn’t return. In between gasps for air I screamed for her, but no sound came from outside aside from the sizzling of crickets. The waves of pain came closer together. I couldn’t remember whether I should be pushing or holding back. There was no one to tell me what to do and I was terrified of doing the wrong thing.

  The pressure in me became unbearable and I pushed as hard as I could, crying out as I felt my body tear. My baby was born, part way. I couldn’t see over my belly, couldn’t twist my aching body to see whether it was the head or buttocks or legs that had left me. It could drown if the legs came first, I knew that, or be strangled by my insides.

  The need to push came again and I did, sobbing, straining to end it, to get the baby out and staunch the trickle of blood that I could feel, hot and sticky under my thighs. The flies buzzed there, their crawling the only sensation that wasn’t pain.

  William appeared over me; his unshaven face stuck over with harvest dust. He knelt down and took my hand between his cracked and dirty palms.

  “Laura?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, couldn’t talk, exhausted. Again I felt the need to push, fought to expel the weight of the child from me. I felt it coming, and the rip of my flesh had me sobbing as I pushed and pushed, an awful sound coming from between my jaws.

  When I opened my eyes, Will was gone. The door stood open.

  I felt the child slip free, lay, my legs limp, fighting for breath. Everything was silent. I eased myself up, shaking as I looked down at the wet sheet, peeled my stained skirts from my thighs. She was there, red and small and wet. She snorted damply, and then opened her little mouth and let out a mew that fast became a cry.

  I shifted, my body screaming, picked up my shawl, and wrapped the baby in its dark brown wool.

  My belly was shivery with more squeezing, the other matter would come soon. It must.

  “Will?” My voice came out raw. “Will, we have a girl.”

  He came in, carrying the kettle of water, white under his coating of dust, he knelt beside me again.

  “Well, look at that,” he said, reaching out and touching the edge of the shawl. Nose wrinkling at the blood. He cast an eye over the wet sheet, the cord.

  “I’ll send Rachel in.”

  He went out and a moment later Rachel appeared in the doorway, pale and big eyed and trembling. Her eyes were red rimmed and there was a mark on her cheek. She’d been struck for crying and carrying on. I wanted to hold her, to shake her for leaving me. I wanted to tell that it wouldn’t be like this for her, but I couldn’t.

  “Here, hold your sister.” I held the baby out gently and Rachel took her, looking as awed as if I’d just given her a china faced doll. “Clean her off and put her in the cradle.”

  The cradle was an old goods crate lined with a little tick all its own and a quilt I’d made for Thomas when I was first expecting. Rachel placed the baby in it, and while she was getting the water I rubbed my belly and grimaced through the passing of the slippery mass that followed the baby. Before, my mother had looked it over, checked to see if it was alright. I didn’t know what to look for, hadn’t ever really seen it myself before – it looked like offal, veined and bluish-purple, the rest of the cord hanging from it. I couldn’t let Rachel see that, which left it to me to dispose of it. I dragged a gunny sack inch by inch from where it lay under the tick as protection from the damp. Folding the mess into it was the best I could do.

  I had Rachel open the windows to air the room, putting the shutters back and opening the screens a little. William sent Thomas to bury the sacking bundle out at the corner of the field.

  Once the smell of blood was fading on a prairie breeze I showed the baby to the girls. I was still bleeding a little into a folded rag, but I felt lighter, knowing the danger had passed me by, as though Indian riders had stampeded past without sparing me a look.

  I never failed to feel proud when I held my babies and she was no less beautiful to me than the others had been. Relief made my eyes run, tears mixing with the sweat and dust.

  “She’s got hair like Pa,” Beth said, winding the little spring of dark hair around her finger.

  “She’ll look like you I suppose, Rachel,” I said, “you’re the spitting image of your Aunt Caroline, Pa’s little sister.”

  Rachel looked into the little bundle. “She has a mark, on her neck.”

  I had noticed the birthmark, of course, a pinkish brown thing, about the size of my thumb. I hadn’t said a thing to William, but now he came to see.

  “So she has,” he said, regarding the baby, who stared seriously up at him, “almost like a scar.”

  I lifted the baby and kissed the little mark. “She’s perfect.”

  William did not look convinced, “I suppose we should name her as soon as possible, even if we can’t have a baptism,” he looked against at the small bundle, “Let’s name her Nora, after my Mother. I never did like Caroline.”

  Rachel had been named for his other sister and Beth for his grandmother. Thomas he had named for his favourite uncle.

  “It suits her,” I said. After the pain and fear of the birthing, I was tired and leaning heavy in the chair.

  Thomas came in from the field, washed his hands and stood by me.

  “Can I hold her?”

  I passed her to him. “Her name’s Nora.”

  He glanced at William, “Like Grandmother Deene?”

  I nodded.

  He pressed the tip of one finger into her little pink hand, smiled as she gripped it. I reached out and stroked his arm. My gentle little boy.

  “A few days, then you can help us with the hay making,” Will
said, filling his pipe from the tobacco tin on the shelf. “We’ve a lot of grass to cut.”

  I nodded, and took the baby back from Thomas as she began to mewl. I took her behind the screen used for changing, and put her to my breast. I stroked her little cheek and thought of the camomile cream that my mother had made for me, to soothe the pain feeding caused me. I knew I’d miss it.

  Once I’d fed the baby and laid her down in her cradle, Will took Thomas back off to the fields, I was left with the girls and a dinner to prepare, as though nothing had happened at all.

  Chapter Three

  Laura

  With the baby I was tied to the house and couldn’t go far. Even picking chips was difficult, I didn’t like to take Nora under the hot sun.

  The fifth day I knew I would not heal sooner for lack of outside air. If I was going to be sore, I’d be sore with a belly full of prairie hen.

  “Would you leave me the rifle today?” I asked Will as we ate outside on the grass. “We’re so short on things, I should find some game.”

  “I don’t like you being alone with it, you might have an accident. Shoot your goddamn foot off.”

  “Jacob taught me to shoot in Ohio,” I said. Fact was I could shoot better than him and he knew it. I had the steadier hands.

  He grunted, not liking the mention of his brother, but he left the gun.

  Rachel could take care of Beth and Nora for a short while, just long enough for me to find a hen and bring it home. With Will’s patch box and bullet pouch, I set off on the prairie.

  The clean, hot air smelled of baking bread from the parched grass seeds. Though it pained me to walk, I was glad to be outside where there was no smell of milky shit and no bleating cries to cut through my head, no mouth to latch onto my sore nipple. I loved them but it felt like they all wanted pieces of me, pulling at me and crying or just needing me. Alone I could be myself.

  I was almost disappointed when I saw a brown hen a little way off. I crouched and lifted the rifle, had to get the bird with my first shot, reloading would give it time to fly off.

  My shot was straight and it took the prairie hen to the ground. Jacob would’ve been proud. I went to the spot in the grass where the hen was lying, picked it up by the feet and started back for the soddie, but a shadow made me turn my head. For a moment I was sure it was a trick of the sun and the wind in the grass. Then he stood up.

  He had on an old, wide brimmed hat and a patched coat. Travelling clothes. I could only see his eyes, the rest of his face was covered by a no-colour scarf of raw wool. He pulled it down and held up a hand in greeting.

  “Good morning, Miss. I hope I didn’t scare you.”

  His voice was low, carrying an accent that I hadn’t heard in two years, that of a born American.

  “I’ve been travelling a while, haven’t seen anyone around since the last town. Quiet out here, isn’t it?”

  I could only stand there, holding the dead bird. It was so strange to hear a new voice where there had been only those of my family and the sound of the wind before. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had wished me a good morning, or asked a question of me that required more of an answer than handing over the salt or listing the groceries we needed.

  “There aren’t any other families out here yet. Can’t imagine all those politicians in Washington’ll waste too much time opening this territory for settlement though.”

  He smiled when I spoke and his teeth were white and small, none missing. It was only then that I thought to worry. The rifle was empty, I’d forgotten to reload. Had he seen me shoot? Did he know the gun wasn’t loaded?

  “Is your husband around here?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “he’s at the house,” it was still within screaming distance, perhaps that would deter him from trying anything – there was no telling how long he’d been on his own.

  The man considered me. “I saw a man and a boy out harvesting wheat…were they not your family?”

  “My son and brother-in-law.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind taking me back with you then. I need to ask a favour, you see, I’ve come this far for a place to settle, and I was hoping your husband could help me build before winter.”

  “A soddie? Might just get one up and stocked before winter sets in.”

  He nodded. “I could help him and his brother finish your harvest, as payment.”

  “You’re alone then?” It was the longest conversation I’d had in two years and I could feel the unused hinges and joints of my tongue loosen. “No family following after you?”

  He nodded. “No wife, no children. I’ve come to seek a living, then I shall build my family.” He spoke strangely, as if he was putting on a show like a farmhand in skit who was really a young clerk under a smudge of soot and an old hat. I guessed he was from some city back east, wanting to seem experienced.

  With him being so green I felt more secure in talking. We’d met a few such men on our journey out west, men who’d never farmed but who were intent on getting out to Indian Territory before it was opened for settlement, though the railroad companies had been trying like devils to get congress to buy the land from the Indians so they could lay their tracks and Americans could build homes legally on the good flat farmland. By law Will and I, and every white man in the territory, were squatters. We kept our land by working it and warding the Indians off, not by having deeds on paper. He didn’t seem like he had the belly for that. I couldn’t imagine him making a living hunting and trading furs either, or getting a claim in gold country on the west coast, all the way out in Coloma.

  Watching me closely, he said, “I’m not a man to be afraid of, Mrs…”

  “Deene.”

  “Mrs Deene.”

  “Where have you come from?”

  “Ohio,” he said.

  I nodded. “I recognised the accent. We were in Ohio, before we started west.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Really? And what did you make of it?”

  “My husband thought it crowded.”

  “The reason I myself am all the way out here. Men think alike, it seems.”

  He seemed harmless and now that I had begun to speak to him I didn’t want to stop. “It was my husband you saw. I’m sorry for the lie, just not used to seeing anyone out here. He’ll be back soon, would you like a drink of water from our well?”

  “I would appreciate that, it’s difficult to find out here.”

  We walked back together. There was a bit of chain over the heels of his boots and it chinked on the hard sole as he walked. The jug of well water was inside the soddie, where Rachel was wiping dust and the baby was sleeping. With a mug of water in my hand I went outside to him.

  Up close he was slighter than I’d thought, though a head and a half taller than me. The large coat was long in the arms and slack across his shoulders. The skin around his eyes was smooth and he had soft hands. I pegged him for a man just approaching twenty.

  “Thank you.” He drank deeply, handed me back the drained mug. “I’d hate to inconvenience you further, would it be alright if I waited by the house for your husband? There’s no other shade about.”

  I nodded, and he sat down with his back against the wall.

  I went back to the door and Rachel’s blackberry eyes found mine. “Ma, who’s that man?”

  “We’ve a new neighbour,” I said, then realised that I hadn’t heard his name. Somehow I’d thought he’d told me, or that I already knew it.

  “Does he have little girls?”

  “He doesn’t have any children.” I couldn’t tell if this displeased her, or if she found the news agreeable, she only nodded and went back to her cleaning.

  I was lost, should I go back outside to speak with the stranger, or stay with my children and load the rifle in case he turned nasty? Then the baby began to cry, and my choice was made for me.

  She was at my breast when Will came in, storm-faced.

  “You let a stranger near the girls?” he snatched up the rifl
e, “and the gun not even loaded. What if he’d tried to steal the oxen?”

  “He wanted to speak with you and I couldn’t see that he posed a threat,” I said, even though I had been afraid of him before, I had more anger than fear in that moment.

  Will curled his lip at me and shook his head, went back outside.

  I took Nora from my livid breast and adjusted my dress, patted her back before laying her down in her cradle-box. With the water jug and a half-pan of cornbread for the midday meal, I went outside.

  Will was sitting with the stranger, Thomas was lying on the grass, looking up at the sky. I set the dinner things down and took Beth on my lap while Rachel found a seat on the grass.

  “I’d be happy to get some help,” William was saying, friendliness all over his face.

  “Then I’ll come to the field with you when you return.” He looked at me and nodded his head, “forgive me for not introducing myself Ma’am, James Clappe, pleased to meet you.”

  “Welcome to Indian Territory, Mr Clappe,” I said. “Will you have your meal with us?”

  William scowled at me, but Clappe shook his head and said “I need to fetch some poles to put up my tent for the night, once I’ve rested myself a little. Mr Deene, would it be alright if I pitched it by your barn?”

  “That’d be fine.”

  “Where’s your wagon?” Thomas asked, sitting up as I offered him cornbread.

  “Oh, well, I sold it,” Clappe said, glancing between me and Thomas, “I’ll use the money to replace some of the things I left back in Ohio.”

  “Not all?” Thomas asked.

  “No, not all,” he shrugged, “some things are sadly out of my reach.”

  There was a quietness over us then and I watched William and the children eat their cornbread, managed to eat my own portion while Clappe sat with empty hands, watching us with his warm, green eyes.

  “Why don’t you take Beth indoors and get out the wash tub?” I said to Rachel.

  “Can I play outside afterwards?”

  “If you stay where I can see you.”

  She took Beth by the hand and hurried inside.

  William stood and shook crumbs from his shirt. “Thomas, fetch the whetstone to sharpen a scythe for Mr Clappe, I’ll hitch the oxen to the wagon.” He shot me a warning look as he left, he was still angry with me over the empty rifle. If I only got a few hard looks it’d be a miracle.