Cowboy Creek Christmas

by Cheryl St. John

  Nausea pitched in Colton’s stomach. The bundle was smaller than a sack of flour and painfully light. He’d seen death in so many forms, but never one this small and helpless. He had to grow beyond himself, to be tougher than he’d ever been before to even deal with the thought of it.

  Fearful of dropping his precious burden, Colton followed the corridor and discovered the kitchen. The fastidious doctor kept the space meticulously neat and tidy. Jars were arranged by height along the counter, and the enormous cast iron stove gleamed as though it had never been used.

  Tucking the baby into the crook of his arm, Colton ladled water from the stove well into a pan he’d discovered hanging beneath the sink.

  His hands full, he bent and snagged a towel from the side of the washbasin with his teeth, then crossed to the butcher-block table in the center of the room.

  He gently rested the child in the center and forced himself to peel back the edge of the enveloping blanket. Though an unnatural shade of purplish blue, the tiny face was wrinkled and discolored and absurdly perfect. Colton’s eyes burned even as impotent rage flared in his chest. Where was God for Beatrix Haas and her baby?

  Colton’s hand dwarfed the tiny head. Keeping his fingers cupped protectively around the infant’s body, he dipped the rag in the warmed water and pressed the wetted material against the baby’s still rib cage.

  The infant startled. Tiny arms splayed. Colton stumbled back a step, then frantically reached for the infant once more. He rested his hand on the tiny chest and felt the vigorous beating of a miniscule heart. The baby’s first raucous cries sparked a jolt of pure joy through him. He scooped the bundle against his chest and wept with utter gratitude, his mumbled prayers and words of thanks pressed against the downy tuft of dark hair on the baby’s head.

  “You keep crying,” Colton ordered. “You keep crying and fighting.”

  Reaching for a second clean towel, he snuggly wrapped the baby, then tucked the angry, howling infant into the hollow of his neck.

  He caught the sound of a second voice echoing through the corridor. Giddy with relief, he returned to the sickroom. Leah and the doctor leaned over the bed in solemn examination.

  The doctor held Beatrix’s wrist and ducked his head. “Thready. She’s very weak, but she’s a fighter.”

  Leah caught sight of Colton. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

  The crying that had resembled a thousand clanging bells in the kitchen was muffled against the blanket.

  “He’s alive.” Colton declared. “He’s a fighter.”

  “Oh, my word.” Leah clutched her throat and lunged forward. “What? How?”

  “I don’t know. I was cleaning him, and he startled.”

  “This night has been full of surprises.” Leah flipped back the blanket, her joyous expression at odds with the tears streaming down her cheeks. “His mother is struggling.” She stood, swiped at the moisture, and reached for the baby. “I’ll take this angry little fellow. We should leave the doctor to his work.”

  “No.” Colton moved nearer the bed. “We’re not leaving. Either of us.”

  Leah stilled. “I know you want to help. We all do. But the doctor is in charge now. There’s nothing more for you to do.”

  “I don’t believe we’re helpless.”

  “Leah is right.” The doctor glanced over his shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

  Colton widened his stance and braced for battle. “I’m not leaving.”

  Chapter Three

  Leah held up her hands in supplication and glanced at the doctor. “His presence certainly can’t hurt.”

  “I won’t be in the way.” Colton tensed his jaw for a fight. “Beatrix needs her child.”

  With two fingers the doctor pushed up his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “She doesn’t even know he’s here. She doesn’t know any of us are here. There’s little use in the infant remaining.”

  “She knows.” Colton avoided confrontation at all costs. Because of his size, he was often seen as a challenge by other men. They’d pick a fight against him as a way to prove their manhood. He’d learned long ago to hold his tongue and keep his peace. Not today. Not now. He knew in his heart what needed to be done. “This child stays with his mother.”

  Sensing his implacable stance, Leah softened. “Let me at least examine the baby. I’ve got some supplies.”

  “As long as he doesn’t leave the room.”

  “I promise.” Leah gestured for the baby. “The child won’t leave his mother’s side.”

  Colton didn’t know why, and there was no time for searching his feelings, he only knew that Beatrix and the child needed each other desperately.

  “He should have a name,” Leah said. “You’re his father in the eyes of the law. What name do you choose?”

  Colton’s chest tightened. You’re his father. He’d married Beatrix. This was his child in the letter of the law. As the blue-black eyes blinked, he accepted the deeper truth. This child was his responsibility—not Leah’s, not Daniel’s. Watching the tiny warrior enter the world, seeing the little fighter struggle for his first breath, this was his son in every way that mattered.

  Emotion clogged Colton’s throat. His life had been inexorably shaped by his superior strength and size. He’d always had to be the toughest, because he was the one the others challenged. Right then he feared he might weep like the infant in his arms.

  “Joseph.” He glanced at Beatrix’s pale face. None of this was fair. She should be laughing and crying with him, celebrating the life she’d brought into this world. She should be naming her son for someone who was important to her. Yet they knew nothing of her family beyond the few clues she’d provided. She’d given them little information, leaving him bound and helpless. Since she couldn’t give her child a name, Colton chose the one name that meant the most to him, his brother’s name. “We’ll call him Joseph.”

  He prayed that Beatrix would understand and bless the choice he’d made for her.

  Leah gave a somber nod, and Colton reluctantly released his cherished burden. Beneath his watchful gaze, she spent the next half an hour cleaning up the child and coaxing Joseph to suckle. When she’d wrapped the baby in swaddling, she returned him to Colton. Once in his arms, Joseph’s eyes drifted closed.

  “You’ve had a tough day,” Colton crooned. “You deserve a rest.”

  The doctor had finished cleaning up the evidence of his birth. Beatrix lay beneath a sheet pulled up to her shoulders. Her ashen face blended with the white pillow beneath her head. Her lips were parted, and her breath came in shallow gasps. Leah had lovingly brushed the snarls from her dark hair and fanned the tresses over her shoulders.

  With her features softened in slumber, Colton admired the soft curve of her cheeks and the gentle sweep of her brows. She couldn’t be more than twenty, far too young to die. He recalled her eyes in the pale lamplight, a radiant shade of brown. The color of afternoon sunlight reflected through a russet bottle. Free from pain, in peaceful slumber, her beauty shone through once more. Not the delicate prettiness of filigree work, but the strong, tested beauty of tempered steel.

  Taking a seat near the head of the bed, Colton brushed the hair from her shoulder and tucked Joseph against her bare skin.

  Leah slumped against the wall, her stance mirroring his exhaustion. “You don’t have to stay. You’ve already done more than most.”

  “I’m certain.”

  “This night will not go easy.”

  “I’m staying.”

  The doctor straightened the tools he’d arranged on the side table. “We can bleed her. There’s little else we can do for her condition.”

  “No,” Colton spoke brusquely. “She’s suffered enough.”

  Colton had expected the doctor to be indignant at the presum
ption, but instead he seemed almost deferential.

  “You’re the husband,” the doctor replied. “You make the decisions.”

  The weight of his responsibility humbled Colton. He wasn’t a doctor, he didn’t know medicine, but he’d seen plenty of men die. That knowledge gave him some sense of his duty. The time had come to wait and pray.

  Daniel, Leah’s husband, arrived a short while later. He wore the rough canvas pants and boots that had become his uniform around the stockyards he owned. His hair was brown, and his eyes were an intense green. Though not overly tall, he was a man to be reckoned with in a physical fight or a mental challenge.

  The Gardners clearly adored one another. Daniel quickly took in the solemn event and wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulder, folding her into his embrace. She burrowed her head against his chest and circled her arms around his back.

  “If only I could have done more,” she said, her voice muffled into his shirt.

  “You did everything you could, my love.” He glanced at the squirming infant nestled against his mother’s shoulder. “You saved the baby.”

  “That was Colton’s doing. He wouldn’t give up on his son.”

  Daniel jerked back. “His son?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything once we’re home, and I’ve put up my feet with a cup of tea in hand.”

  “You should be resting,” Daniel said, exquisitely concerned for his wife. “My curiosity will wait at least that long.”

  After the two broke apart, Daniel placed his hand on Colton’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, my friend. I had no idea what I was getting you into. Leah needed a translator, and I knew you spoke German.”

  “It’s all right,” Colton said, unbearably weary. “Take your wife home and let her get some shut-eye. I’m staying.”

  “I’ll catch a few hours of sleep and return.” Leah stifled a yawn behind her elegant fingers. “That baby will wake hungry. I’ll show you how to prepare the pap and feed him.”

  The doctor stretched and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Werner. There’s nothing to do now but wait. I’ll be in the next room. Morning will come too soon.”

  Daniel frowned. “Colton shouldn’t be alone—”

  “He’s fine.” Leah pressed the backs of her fingers against her husband’s cheek. “The doctor’s room is right next door. Colton can call out if he needs anything, if anything changes...” Her throat worked. “If anything changes, if the baby fusses, send for me immediately. I’ll be back in a few hours either way.”

  Once the three of them were alone again, Colton knelt beside the bed and rested his elbows on the edge of the mattress. Joseph nestled his tiny nose against the frail pulse at his mother’s neck. Colton had given up praying a long time ago. Today was different. Today he prayed.

  He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, stemming the flood of tears. He’d never had God’s ear before, and he feared today was no different.

  * * *

  For the next few days Beatrix floated in and out of consciousness. She dreamed of Austria, she dreamed of her sisters and of her nieces and nephews. She dreamed of babies crying and babies feeding.

  A sense of familiarity gradually surrounded the voices inhabiting her imaginings. There were two distinct male voices. One deep and calming, one higher-pitched and frail. There was a female voice as well, alternatively soothing and cajoling. As the days passed, her sensations of time and place were fluid until one morning her reality shifted, and she sensed a change. Beatrix fought toward the surface of her swirling dreams.

  Her whole body ached. A sound caught her attention. She forced open her weighted lids and took stock of her surroundings. Chilling panic infused her body, and she struggled upright. She didn’t recognize anything. Where was she? What had happened?

  “Easy, there.” A firm hand rested on her shoulder. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Where am I?”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I arrived in Cowboy Creek. I wasn’t feeling well.”

  The man sucked in a breath. “You don’t think you’re in Austria?”

  “No. I traveled to America.”

  She blinked a few times, clearing her vision. Her eyes were watery, and she made out the form of a taller-than-average man.

  “Don’t try and move,” he said. “I’ll fetch the doctor.”

  The male voice disappeared, and the next instant another voice joined him. Beatrix focused on the face of a whip-thin man with graying hair and round spectacles. Instead of the German the other man had spoken to her, he spoke in English.

  “I’m Doc Fletcher,” the man said. “You are one amazing woman, Mrs. Werner.”

  The doctor was the polar opposite of the giant who’d spoken first. He was small and wiry thin. Balding on top, a gray fringe of hair showed around his ears. Laugh lines framed his gray eyes, softening the advancing years evident on his clean-shaven face.

  Beatrix frowned. Her English must be worse than she’d thought. “Who is Mrs. Werner?”

  “Oh, dear.” The doctor shook his head. “This complicates matters.”

  Beatrix studied the enormous man hovering in the corner of the room, his arms cradling a bundle of blankets, and her memories of that first evening in Cowboy Creek came flooding back. These were the two male voices drifting through her slumber.

  “We married!”

  She’d married Colton Werner. The man with the strong German name her father would loathe.

  “This isn’t a dream?” she demanded.

  The doctor chuckled. “You surprised us all, Mrs. Werner. I’ve been a doctor for more years than you’ve been alive, and I’ve never seen a recovery like yours. Your husband sat with you day and night. Wouldn’t let us take the baby out of the room.”

  The tall man translated the words, and at one in particular, her heart nearly leaped from her chest.

  “My baby! Where’s my baby?”

  Her dreams took shape, the cry of an infant, the feel of nursing the tiny life.

  The giant—she still couldn’t quite think of him as her husband—stepped forward and revealed a bundle with only a tiny mop of dark hair peeking through a mass of enveloping blankets. “You had a boy.”

  “Let me hold him.”

  She reached for the child, but a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. Quick on his feet, the doctor retrieved a bucket and settled her back once more.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Mrs. Werner. You’ve hardly been lucid for days. We nearly lost you. No sudden moves.”

  “Let me sit up at least.”

  The frantic need to hold her baby superseded all her other aches and pains.

  The doctor arranged the pillows behind her head, and she fought against another wave of nausea. The small effort exhausted her, and she panted, catching her breath. Colton took the seat nearest the head of the bed and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, tucking the baby into the crook of her neck.

  Despite his size, her new husband was surprisingly gentle. Her husband. She didn’t know what to make of him. Everything had happened so suddenly that first evening, she’d made the decision to wed solely in order to give her child a name. She’d wanted her baby to have a father—she hadn’t really thought of what it would mean for her to have a husband. Now she was alive and married to a stranger. She couldn’t quite comprehend the sudden turn of events.

  The baby mewled, a gentle coo, and the sound tugged at her heartstrings.

  There’d be time enough to worry about her husband later. She studied her baby, filled with a sense of awe and wonder unlike anything she’d ever known. He was perfect, from the tiny lashes surrounding his blue-black eyes to the perfect bow of his lips. Those tiny lips opened and closed, seeking. A sense of complete an utter love blanketed her
spirit.

  She reached to pull her baby closer, but her arms were feeble and uncooperative.

  “You’re still weak,” Colton said. “Little Joseph likes to nuzzle the spot right at the hollow of your neck.”

  “Little Joseph?”

  Colton’s face flushed. “We didn’t know what name you would... We weren’t certain... My brother’s name was Joseph.”

  “Joseph,” she said, testing the name on her tongue.

  The changing of tenses wasn’t lost on her. His brother was gone.

  She’d put off thinking about names until after she was married and the child was born. She’d assumed she’d make the decision with her new husband—except her new husband was not the man she’d expected.

  Though her mind temporarily rebelled at having the choice snatched from her, the flash of sorrow in Colton’s eyes gave her pause. Joseph was a strong name. Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery, but he’d become an important man. Beloved by his father...

  She studied the tiny fingers of the infant. “Joseph is a fine name.”

  The doctor left, and a woman entered the room. She held a bowl of porridge with a glass of milk. “You should try and eat something,” the woman said. “You need your strength. For the baby.”

  “I know this voice,” Beatrix exclaimed.

  The blonde woman perched on the side of the bed. “I’m Leah Gardner, midwife for Cowboy Creek. You’ve given us all quite a fright.”

  Beatrix automatically turned to Colton, and he translated. She struggled for the words in English.

  “Thank you,” she managed, “for looking after me.”

  Leah grinned. “Thank me by taking care of yourself. Please, eat.”

  The aroma sent Beatrix’s stomach rumbling. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten.

  Taking a sip of the milk, she grimaced. “This is different than the milk in Austria.”

  The midwife patted her arm. “I added some heavy cream. You need the weight. You have a big, strong boy to raise. I’ll be back in a half an hour. Joseph will be hungry, too, by then.”