One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel

by Olivia Hawker

  The fall ewes began dropping their lambs on my third night under Nettie Mae’s roof. I had finished my supper, helped my ma wash up, and was leading the children upstairs to ready them for bed when Clyde came into the house, bringing with him the sweet and dusty smell of rain on the sage.

  Beulah, he said, come on out to the fold if you can. That red-faced ewe has passed her water. The lambs are set to come.

  I’d seen calves born, of course, but I’d never seen a sheep come wet and fresh into the world. Clyde had already told me that lambs were most often born in pairs, and after patiently enduring the thunderheads of Nettie Mae’s temper, I was eager for the delight of greeting not one but two new and hopeful lives.

  I cast a questioning look at my ma, who was drying Nettie Mae’s drab plates with a towel.

  You may run along, Ma said. She struggled to hold back a weary sigh. She had run herself ragged already, after only a couple of days, but she could see the enthusiasm shining out from me, and she never liked to trample on anybody’s joy. Benjamin, you must get your brother and sister ready for bed, and see that they wash their faces in the basin. Dress warmly, Beulah. It’s still quite damp outside. I won’t have you taking ill.

  Up in the cramped room I shared with Ma and Miranda, I pulled on an extra set of stockings and tied my warmest shawl around my body. Then I hurried back down the stairs and out into the fading light with Clyde close beside me.

  He carried a lantern. Its tin sides were pierced by tiny stars and half moons, and spots of light scattered wide all around us, sliding and rippling through wet grass, gray as moths in the dusk. The smell of rain still lingered heavy across the land and I breathed it in deeply; it compelled me to inhale, to savor its presence and its rarity. The sheep rustled in their fold. They could sense that one of their number was about to give birth, and it made them anxious. Night was the time of predators, and they had only their hooves and the ram’s horns to protect the vulnerable among them.

  We eased the fold gate open and then shut, moving slowly to soothe the flock’s worry. At the far end of the enclosure, against the stone wall, I could see the red-faced ewe. Night had grayed her, stealing the whiteness of her short wool, recently shorn. The ewe’s forelegs had knuckled under her body. She seemed to be kneeling, shoulders against the earth and haunches in the air, as if praying to an unseen god.

  That’s good, Clyde whispered. They usually bear their lambs in that position. See how her sides have tightened?

  The ewe’s flanks were tense and trembling, and the great ripe roundness of her belly lifted as she strained.

  Come on. If the lamb is stuck, we have to turn it. But Clyde didn’t move toward the laboring sheep. He only raised his lantern, setting the stars and moons to dance among the milling flock.

  What’s the matter? I asked.

  I . . . I guess I ain’t so good at handling sheep.

  But you handle them every day. You have since you were a little boy.

  I did it my father’s way then. Clyde sounded as if he were making some dire confession, one that might damn him. This is the first time I’ve ever presided over the lambing by myself, without my father.

  What of that?

  I don’t want to do it his way—rough and mean. It just don’t seem right to me.

  I could understand his reservation. The hour of birth was a sacred time, holy as the hour of death. It wouldn’t do to desecrate the moment with violence.

  So don’t be rough, I told him. There’s no law says you have to.

  Still he hesitated. The flock seemed to bleat with one urgent voice as it circled the pen.

  When he finally answered, Clyde’s voice was small, almost drowned out by the sounds of his sheep. I don’t know how to be any other way. Whenever I’ve tried to hold the sheep for shearing, they thrash around and slip right out of my hands. I have to hold them tighter and . . . and frighten them. Force them. Or else they don’t keep still.

  Along the western horizon, the last trace of fading light—blue gray, gathered in a close, concentrated band—surrendered to the cold black dominance of rain clouds. Night had truly come. I watched Clyde’s face for a long spell; even in the darkness, I could see the sharpness of his features, made stark by uncertainty.

  Then I’ll show you how, I said at last, and walked across the pen, through the flock that shied away and the darkness that enfolded us all.

  I trusted that Clyde would follow, and he did. I went slowly, and told the laboring ewe with my quiet, deliberate movements that I was a friend. Her head jerked up on a stiff neck at my approach, but I paused, waiting for her to settle. She did, as I knew she must. I knelt beside her shoulders, stroking the shorn hide. With a sigh, she accepted the comforts I was murmuring. Specks of light from the lantern moved over the ewe’s body, playing along the edge of the stone wall. I could feel Clyde standing behind me, hanging back, still caught in the web of his fear.

  You can come up now, I said to Clyde without taking my eyes off the ewe. She’s calm; she won’t struggle.

  He shuffled forward, step by cautious step. The ewe remained as she was, hindquarters up, back feet stamping with pain and impatience. Her breaths came short and harsh.

  What do you see? I asked Clyde.

  He leaned forward, peering at the ewe’s backside. The first lamb’s feet are showing. I can see both feet, too. When she has another pain, she’ll—

  The ewe’s contraction came upon her then. She grunted and strained, and the corners of her mouth turned white with foam. But when the straining halted, Clyde shook his head.

  The lamb is stuck. I’ve seen this before; its neck is turned, and that’s stopping it from coming.

  What shall we do?

  He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he sank to his knees and reached into the sheep’s body. She cried out in alarm, and I spoke to her softly, running my hand from the crown of her head down to the broad, strong span of her back.

  There, Clyde said, I’ve pushed it back up toward her womb. Its head ought to be facing the right direction now. Let’s see if it doesn’t come.

  The sheep’s next pain came upon her soon enough, and this time, Clyde declared that he could see the lamb’s nose lying between its knees. He laughed with relief as he spoke. He sounded so young, so startled by his own capacity.

  You see, I told him, you can be gentle after all.

  The ewe required but three pains more, and the lamb slid to the ground. It hit the hard-packed soil with a wet smack and struggled for a moment, tearing its caul, lifting the sharp, newly carved V of its nostrils high into the cool night air. The small mouth opened on a thin, indignant cry. As the dark afterbirth followed, Clyde pulled the caul away from the lamb’s body and set the newborn in front of its mother’s head. I could hear the excited rush of the ewe’s breath as she sniffed her lamb. Then she began to clean it, licking the tight, wet coils of its coat.

  Will there be another? I asked.

  Yes; it’ll come soon.

  The second lamb was born without any trouble, and Clyde placed it beside its brother. Her work finished, the ewe rose to all four legs and stood trembling and panting. The new lambs had struggled to their feet; Clyde and I guided them with gentle taps toward their mother’s milk. Both suckled at once, and the ewe seemed to calm herself, letting the last of her uncertainty drift into the darkness with the soft plumes of her breath. The flock drew in around the mother and her newborn young, ready to defend them all against the dangers of the night.

  We ought to bed her down in the barn, Clyde said. Lambs don’t usually come so late in the evening. They’ll be stronger by the morning and able to run, but till then, they might bring coyotes or wolves down on the flock.

  Clyde paused. Over the tread of the sheep, I could hear his throat working as he swallowed. My father didn’t approve of such things, you know.

  What things?

  Shutting up new lambs in the barn. He always said if a coyote took the lambs, then it was God’s will, and anyway, tho
se lambs weren’t strong enough or smart enough to survive.

  I guess he was right, in a way, I said. But he ain’t here anymore, is he? This is your farm now, Clyde, and these are your sheep. It’s your own will you ought to follow, not God’s.

  He stood in a long silence, mulling over my words. Then he nodded—only once, and abruptly at that. But he nodded.

  I said, Will any other lambs come tonight?

  No; that red-faced one is usually the first of the fall lambers to give birth. But the others will follow her lead. By morning we’ll have our hands full, you and me.

  Good. I like being a midwife for sheep.

  You did a fine job of it, Beulah. There was admiration in his words, and more than a little awe. I accepted both as my natural due.

  We left the fold and headed for the barn, Clyde’s lantern swinging between us.

  I said, How many more ewes will drop their young this fall?

  Five more. If we’re lucky, we’ll have a dozen good lambs by April, when they’ll be ready for butchering. Of course, it’s ordinary to lose a few to weather and coyotes. That can’t be helped. Even so, we ought to make out well next spring.

  Inside the barn, Clyde opened the wind screen of his lantern, and the red flicker of candlelight illuminated the space. We set to work, strewing a stall with a deep bed of hay. Clyde was still weak from his fever, near as shaky as the lambs. The next few days would be demanding, with so many births to oversee in addition to the chores Clyde and I had to share. I hoped he would sleep well in his cot by the kitchen fire.

  Five more ewes, Clyde had said. But that wasn’t so. There were six sheep waiting to give birth. I had noticed the other shorn females in the pen, of course, but there was another ewe, round bodied and hollow at her hip, just as a cow was before she dropped her calf. Her fleece was still long and heavy with its crust of dirt and seeds; Clyde had mistaken her for a maiden and had left her unclipped. The sixth ewe was smaller than the rest—young, I assumed; this could well be her first season as a mother. Her belly wasn’t as big as the others’, but even so, the new life she carried was ripe and ready to come forth. She would give birth soon, along with the rest of the autumn flock.

  I pondered for a spell whether I ought to correct Clyde and tell him about the sixth lambing yet to come. But though I had noticed the young mother only for a moment—she had vanished again among the pressing bodies of her flock almost as soon as I’d glimpsed her—I thought it better not to mention the ewe at all. Brief as my encounter with that ewe had been, I had seen with vivid clarity the sacred shadow hanging over her back, darkening the curve of her poll. Death was waiting, already drawn close beside her. I couldn’t yet see whether she or her newborn would die—maybe both—but weak and uncertain as Clyde was that night, I thought it better not to mention the matter to him. Death comes when it comes. You can’t do a thing to change it, once the great and final decision has been made. And Clyde had enough to trouble him, with a farm of his own to run—and his own will to hear and obey.

  CLYDE

  You can’t do a thing to change it. That was what Clyde told himself, and told his mother silently, with the hardness of his eyes and the set of his shoulders, as Nettie Mae laid out her expectations for the strict order she intended to maintain beneath her own roof.

  “This house is already too crowded for my comfort.” Nettie Mae never looked up from her spinning, but her foot beat the treadle faster, and the spokes of the wheel blurred before Clyde’s eyes. “It’s bad enough that I must have that woman’s children all around me. I won’t have her belongings cluttering up my home, too.”

  “The children are well behaved,” Clyde said. “A nest of mice would make more racket inside the house.”

  “It’s fitting, that you should compare them to vermin.”

  “Mother, don’t.” You can’t do a thing to change this. Why couldn’t he bring himself to rebuke her, to speak those words aloud? “Cora is doing the best she can to keep out of your way and please you.”

  “She should have thought of pleasing me—”

  “Before she dallied with Father,” Clyde said wearily. “I know. Listen, Mother; Cora has a loom at her house. She can weave. I’ve seen the cloth she makes; it’s good and sturdy. Seems it would be useful to have plenty of cloth on hand. Winter never gets any warmer, and sewing goes much faster than knitting.”

  “Well and good; Cora may go across the fields and weave at her own house.” Nettie Mae never said that name if she could avoid it. When she did deign to speak it, she loaded those two syllables with all the venom of a curse.

  Clyde suppressed a sigh. “Well, we must at least bring more of her blankets and clothing for the children. You know there’ll be no chance for laundry once the snows come.”

  “That can’t be helped, I suppose,” Nettie Mae conceded, glowering at the thread as it slipped from her fingers and wound itself around the bobbin. “But I won’t have you carting over any more than the bare essentials.” She looked up suddenly, fixing Clyde with her forbidding eyes. “Those dishes of hers—the china from the president. They must remain where they are.”

  “Mother—”

  “I won’t hear any argument, Clyde. The china is a bribe, payment for her silence, a reminder of her sins.”

  “Cora had no say in her own birth.”

  “Nevertheless, I won’t have any reminder of her sinful ways in my home. It’s bad enough having the sinner herself. I will admit, she seems humble and contrite . . . for now. But you mark my words: If she were allowed to bring that frippery with her, it would soon go to her head. The woman would strut and preen and think herself higher than the sun in the sky. The dishes stay at her house. That’s all I have to say on the matter.”

  Clyde knew better than to argue with his mother when she had declared her final word. He nodded and left her to the spinning, then hitched Joe Buck to the float and drove across the sage to the Bemis place. The morning had presented high, thin clouds, which scattered the yellow glow of diffuse sunlight across the basin. There was no sign of rain. Cora had led her children back to the little gray house for a day’s work, packing up the rest of the belongings they intended to bring to the Webber farm for the long winter ahead. When he reached their garden fence, the little fellows came tumbling out onto the porch to wave in greeting, and Joe Buck threw up his head and whickered.

  “You boys tie my horse up to the rail there,” Clyde said, stepping down from the float and handing the lead rein to Benjamin. “I’ll go on in and speak with your mother.”

  He found Cora and Beulah in the kitchen, nestling the last pieces of the china set in their crate, covering the cups and saucers with handfuls of straw.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Bemis.”

  Clyde’s mouth had gone dry. He didn’t like being the conduit between his mother’s anger and its target. Cora struck him as a small, frail, infinitely frightened thing. Life itself was terror enough to her, or so it seemed to Clyde, without heaping Nettie Mae’s endless scorn upon her head. But he couldn’t change this either—couldn’t dodge this task, no matter how bitter the words would taste upon his tongue. Cora had agreed to abide by Nettie Mae’s rules, and this was one of them.

  “We’ve finished packing up,” Beulah said, “more or less.”

  “That’s good—that’s good.” Clyde shuffled his feet, hid his hands in his pockets, and glanced around the kitchen rather than meet Cora’s eye, or Beulah’s. “Mrs. Bemis, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but . . . but my mother said there’s no room at the house for the president’s china. I’m afraid you must leave it here.”

  Cora withdrew her hands from the crate. A few wisps of straw fell from her fingers. “Oh, I see.” She breathed in, long and slow, and Clyde understood that she was steeling herself. She knew full well the decision was nothing more than Nettie Mae exercising her power. After all, the china could have been stored in the Webber barn. Only pettiness required that it be left behind.

  “Your loom, too,
” Clyde said. His cheeks prickled with embarrassment. “I tried to convince her otherwise—honest, I did.”

  “It’s all well and good, Clyde. We owe you and your mother so much. More than we can ever repay. I’ll gladly do as Mrs. Webber asks. We’re an imposition already; let us not make ourselves more of a bother than needs must.”

  “No harm can come to the china or the loom here at the house,” Beulah said. “There’s no cause to fret, Ma.”

  “Everything left here will be safe enough,” Cora agreed. “But the loom would come in handy during idle times. I’ll have plenty of empty hours once the snows set in. And the china . . . I had thought to keep it close, for if by chance I should find a buyer before the spring—”

  Clyde and Beulah spoke up together. “A buyer?”

  “Of course.” Cora shrugged, turning lightly away from the crate. A basket stood unlidded on the kitchen table, and she placed a few folded cloths inside. “I mean to sell the whole lot.”

  “You can’t, Ma!”

  “Beulah, we need the money. What else ought I to sell? We’ve nothing of any real value.”

  “But President Grant himself gave you these dishes!”

  Cora cut a brief but sharp glance at her daughter. “I’ll hear no argument, Beulah. It is what it is.”