Midwife of the Blue Ridge (33 page)

pulled and grunted with a steady rhythm, nursing with greedy

ease from Susannah’s abundant supply.

Maggie tied the strings of a clean linen cap under Mary’s chin,

happy to see this patient run off to be with the other children. She

considered perhaps Naomi should be up and about today as well,

for Seth was eager to get back to the homeplace, but as she poured

a cup of tepid tea for each woman, she thought twice on that plan.

Susannah said, “You look under the weather, Maggie.”

“Bad stomach—bad head.” Maggie shrugged and poured a

cup for herself.

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231

“Making too merry ’round the fi re, eh?”

“Aye.” Maggie poked through her supplies neatly organized

on the worktable and found the last of her wild carrot seed.

She dosed herself, chewing a heaping teaspoon to a pulp. Tears

stung her eyes as she choked it down. She tipped a good ration

of willow bark powder into her tea to ease her throbbing

head.

Susannah drank every drop in her cup, and asked for more.

Naomi sat slumped on the edge of her bed, holding her full cup

in loose fingers, staring at the wall, glazed, pink-rimmed eyes set

in circles of deep lavender.

“Drink up, drink up, Naomi,” Maggie urged. “How d’ye ex-

pect t’ make the milk yer bairn craves if ye dinna drink?”

Naomi struggled to lever her legs up onto the bed; she sucked

air and winced, her features contorted at the effort. Maggie

rushed to take the tea from her. She lifted Naomi’s legs and set-

tled her back onto the pillows. A loud, rancid stench assailed the

midwife’s nose. She shot a glance at the chamber pot sitting be-

neath the bed, but it was clean and empty. Naomi shifted her

hips and stifl ed a groan.

“Pain?” Maggie asked.

“My head—and just then, a bit of pain in the gut.” Naomi

drew a deep breath. “Overlong on my feet, is all.” She fl ashed

Maggie a desperate smile.

Maggie pressed her hand to Naomi’s pale cheek. “Yer a tad

feverish . . .” She slid fingers down to the base of her neck and

counted a pulse beating too rapid. With both hands, she gently

probed Naomi’s soft abdomen, causing her to cry out in pain.

The malevolent smell enveloped them, thick as a misling fog.

“Let’s get ye cleaned up. I want t’ change the clout between yer

legs.” She reached under Naomi’s shift and slipped loose the

double-thick pad of flannel bound, breechclout style, to a soft strap

around Naomi’s middle. Maggie held her breath, not surprised to

find the clout reeking with a pungent yellow discharge. Naomi

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whimpered and began to shiver as Maggie quickly bundled the

cloth into a tight roll and set it outside the doorway.

“Dinna fash, sweeting.” Maggie floated a blanket over her.

“After I get a fresh rag on ye, I’ll fi x something for the headache

and fever.” She worked to keep her tone smooth and even, simul-

taneously sorting through an array of treatments in her mind.

Maggie took Naomi by the hand and met her limpid blue eyes.

“We’ll start with a warm linseed poultice on your belly. Yer

goin’ to rest, gather strength, and get well.” Heart pounding in

her chest, Maggie glanced over her shoulder at Susannah. “Ye

ken we need ye t’ wetnurse the lad a few days yet . . .”

Susannah bit her lip and nodded.

17

Dispossessed

Maggie crossed from the cookhearth to the blockhouse with

Winnie, Jack, and Battler in tow. Ada had prepared a basket of

good eating for the trail. Maggie added it to the bundles piled

outside the blockhouse door.

“We’ll wait here till everyone’s ready to go.”

Diffused light seeped through morning fog still clinging like

cotton lint to the treetops. She shaded her eyes, squinting to see

Seth bring Ol’ Mule in from pasture.

“Move yer bleedin’ arse!”
Seth shouted, and slapped Mule’s

hindquarters with the hobble strop. Mule laid his ears down,

curled his lip back, and brayed. Carnaptious Ol’ Mule, for rea-

sons unknown, balked at entering the fortyard. Equally carnap-

tious Seth tugged and pushed.

“Megstie me.” Maggie sank down to sit on a tree stump. “This

might take a while.” Battler crawled up onto her lap and Jack and

Winnie plunked down on either side to watch the contest of wills.

“Da better mind so’s he don’t get a kick in the head,” Jack

said, slipping his scrawny arm around Maggie’s waist and tip-

ping his head against her shoulder. “Ol’ Mule don’t take t’ being

whipped or shouted at.”

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Blevins

Seth spat on his hands, dug moccasins into the earth, and

pulled with all his might on the mule’s lead.
“Moooooove . . . ye

fuckin’ stupid bag o’ shite!”

Head hanging low and long ears flopped, Mule did not

budge.

Seth tossed the lead and his arms into the air. He paced to and

fro, rapping out an endless string of vile curses.

Maggie fished in the lunch basket and handed each child a

raisin scone. “I’m goin’ to help yer da.” She came up on the mule

and stroked his withers with the fl at of her hand. Long ears shot

up and twitched. “D’ ye mind, Seth, if I give a try?”

His face screwed in an awful pucker, Seth welcomed her effort

with a wild sweep of his arm. “Fuck-all if I care . . . have at it.”

Maggie positioned herself between man and mule. “C’mon,

laddie . . . nothin’s goin’ to harm ye . . . come along with Mag-

gie,” she cooed. The mule sniffed then munched the bit of scone

she held out, his nose fuzzy and squishy, like a half-eaten peach

in her palm. She tugged on his halter and he moved forward,

slow and steady, right through the gate.

“Huzzah for Maggie!” Winnie and Jack cheered.

“Hmmph,” Seth grunted, and followed behind Maggie as she

led the mule to the blockhouse. He clapped his hands together

and the children hopped to their feet.

“All right, let’s load up. I thought to be halfway home by

now . . .” He snatched up a pair of wicker panniers and slung them

over the animal’s rump, looping the hanger strap under Mule’s

twitchy tail. “I canna believe I wasted most of the morning chasing

after this pasture-spoilt beast. Winnie—bring the saddle pad.”

“He didn’t mean no harm.” Jack stroked the length of Mule’s

velvet nose. “He’s just cautious, is all.”

“Cautious!” Seth snorted.

“And we’ve plenty morning left, Da.” Winnie handed her fa-

ther a woolly sheepskin. “Most everyone else is still abed.”

Seth knit his brows into a dark wing. “I dinna give a tinker’s

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
235

fart what most are doin’, miss. Stiek yer gob and fasten those

straps.” He positioned the sheepskin over the mule’s back and set

the saddle atop it. Winnie chewed on the end of her braid and

ducked under to buckle the cinches snug around the mule’s belly

and across his chest.

Arms akimbo, Seth pondered the pile of gear waiting to be

packed. “By God’s blood and the nails they nailed Him to the

cross with—all this lot onto one lone beast?”

“Ye needna be such a crosspatch.” Maggie sorted through

the pile and separated out the small bundles that would fi t

inside the panniers. “We’re all of us anxious t’ get home and

willin’ to tote ’n carry if needs be.”

“Winnie—” Seth turned to see Winnie wandering away, head-

ing toward the gate. He hollered, “Winnie! Where are you off to,

miss?”

Bold as can be, Winnie paid her father no mind and continued

forward.

“
Winnie!
Answer when I call ye.”

She halted, hunched shoulders up to her ears, and shouted

with terse deliberation, “I’m goin’ to pick flowers for Mam!”

With that, she took off, braids flying around the corner to disap-

pear behind the stockade wall.

“Mam!” The scone tumbled from Battler’s chubby fi st. He

clambered down from the tree stump and toddled after Winnie,

a huge grin on his crumb-covered face.

“Och, bloody hell.” Seth’s shoulders slumped. “Jack—fetch

yer brother.”

Jack heaved an annoyed sigh, tossed aside the twig he’d been

poking into an anthill, and scooted after his brother, halting

Battler’s escape none too gently, jerking him rough by the tail of

his smock shirt. “C’mon back, y’ ninny.”

Twirling around and around as frantic as a puppy after his

own tail, Battler chased Jack, clawing and slapping at the hand

gripping his shirt. “No, Jackie—let go!”

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Blevins

Jack tugged Battler inch by inch, back to the tree stump.

“C’mon—quit bein’ such a baby.”

“Not a BABYYYY!” Battler screamed, threw himself to the

ground, and stretched his arms out, wriggling chubby fi ngers.

“
Mam!
Want Mam!”

“Mam’s dead! She’s dead an’ in the hole,” Jack shouted, and

pulled Battler by the ankles, dragging him through the dirt.

Seth ran over and grabbed Jack by the upper arm, clenching

tight through muscle and tendon down to thin bone, shaking the

boy hard. “What’s gotten intae ye? By God, if I had a switch I’d

wear out yer tail end . . .”

Jack wrenched away and staggered back two steps. “You shout

at us all the time . . . we didn’t do nothin’ wrong. We didn’t die!”

The boy fisted the air and kicked a tree root, bloodying his bare

foot.

Freed from his brother’s grasp, Battler leaped up and collided

with Maggie, hugging her around the legs. He buried his cherub

face in her skirt and let loose a mournful dirge of a wail. Maggie

stood mute, bewildered as to which of the Martin males she

should comfort

first—shrieking Battler;

teary-eyed Jack, defi -

antly taking a stand against his father; or poor Seth, looking like

Ol’ Mule had indeed just kicked him upside the head.

The stoic shell in which Seth had encased himself since the

night Naomi died crumbled away, his face and limbs suddenly

slack. He stumble-stepped forward, his voice pinched and pained.

“I’m so, so sorry, Jackie.”

Jack fell into his father’s arms. “’S awright, Da.”

“No.

We’re havin’ rough times, one and all . . . I’ve no

call t’ . . .”

“Yer just angry Mam’s gone and died,” Jack lamented, press-

ing up against his father’s chest. “I’m angry, too. We’re all of us,

out o’ heart.”

Maggie hoisted Battler onto her hip and rubbed his back. He

snuffled snotty into her neck. She sat down with him on her lap,

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
237

fi ghting to squelch her own tears, rocking the sobbing boy quiet.

“Sha, laddie . . . sha now . . .”

Seth pulled back and looked straight into Jack’s eye. “Yer

mam surely wouldna like for us to be so cross and sad—I’m goin’

t’ try hard t’ be better.”

“I’ll try too, Da.”

“We’ll all feel better once we get home,” Maggie said.

“Aye—” Seth draped an arm around Jack’s shoulders. “And if

we mean t’ make it home with daylight to spare, we best get on

with the packing. Ye g’won lad, fetch yer sister back.” Seth

clapped his boy on the back. Jack tore off, kicking up a dust trail

as he raced through the gate.

Seth sank down beside Maggie, legs encased in fi lthy deerskin

breeches splayed out in an exhausted V. He laced his free arm

through to link with hers. “My Jack’s but ten years old and he

kens well the way of this sorrowful world. I
am
angry, Maggie.

Angry my Winnie has a grave t’ pick fl owers for . . . angry Bat-

tler willna recall his mam’s face . . . angry Naomi’s no longer

crowding me in my bed . . .”

“It all takes time, Seth. Only time will tame yer grief.”

“She was gone from me afore I had time t’ wrap my mind

around the notion of her dying . . . gone . . .”

“When corruption settles in the womb, it moves awful quick,”

Maggie explained, just as she had the night Naomi died. “There’s

naught but the will of God to stop it. It’s a rare thing for a

woman to survive a bout with childbed fever.”

Water welled up in Seth’s doleful, bloodshot eyes. “I miss her

so, Maggie . . . I do miss her so . . .” He swiped a hand over his

face and stared at the wet on his fingers. “An’ here I thought I

was past tears . . .”

Maggie took Seth’s rough hand in hers and she sat with him,

and he cried the odd way men do, stifled and stiff and silent,

tears coursing a ragged path down his stubbly face.

“Yiv lovin’ children and many good friends t’ help ye get

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Blevins

through these tryin’ times.” Maggie regretted mouthing another

of the tired platitudes she knew he’d been hearing for days—

wanting for something more to say—something to make his an-

guish less.

“Aye . . . children and friends”—Seth reached over and ruffl ed

his fingers through Battler’s sun- blond curls—“in that I am a

wealthy man.” He scoured his face with his sleeve. “I sorely wish

Tom hadn’t taken to the hunt. It would’ve done me good t’ have

him ’round.”

Tom’s name aloud hit Maggie like a thwack on the back. Her