by Sharon Sala
She had stirred them into the flour this morning before she baked the bread and was delightfully surprised by the taste.
Now she smiled again, watching the surprised expression on Yuma’s face as he bit into the bread.
“This is good! What did you put in it?”
“Some black berries Dakotah gave me yesterday. He ate many, I think. This was what was left by the time he got to me.”
Yuma laughed and took another bite.
“I will thank him when I see him. You sit,” he said, pointing to the bench at the table. “I will bring the food to you.”
“I don’t want much. My hunger is small today.”
He nodded, but when she wasn’t looking gave her another nervous glance. She seemed far calmer than he felt. He so wished this day was already over.
***
Wind-tossed waves higher than Yuma’s head crashed against the shore. He watched from their front porch to be certain the village boats were both secure and high enough from the water not to be swept away. Once he was certain they were safe, he turned his face to the wind and closed his eyes.
Lola and Willow were inside and had been for hours. They’d made him leave a short while ago. Yuma wanted to be with her. He would wait, but in the end, he would be there. He wasn’t a man to break a promise.
He didn’t hear any sounds from inside, but that could be partly due to the din the wind was making. Suddenly the first drops of rain were blown against his face. He opened his eyes just as the roar of thunder rolled across the bay, followed by a spear of lightning that struck out on the water.
The storm was upon them, and no matter what those women said, he was going back inside.
Wind and rain blew in as he opened the door. Before anyone could yell at him, he shut it fast behind him. Tyhen was pacing back and forth, her face wreathed with sweat, her hands beneath her belly, as if she was trying to hold onto the child to keep it from being born. Even though it was a subconscious act, it struck Yuma as most poignant. Even now as the baby was in the act of being born, Tyhen was still trying to keep her safe from what awaited in the years to come.
Willow frowned.
“You do not belong here.”
His chin came up and his eyes narrowed as he returned the frown.
“I helped make this happen. I do not leave her to suffer it alone.”
Willow was taken aback. She had never heard words like that come out of warrior’s mouth before.
Lola smiled. When it came to protecting Tyhen, Yuma was first in line.
Tyhen reached for him in mute desperation as another contraction rippled across her back and belly. She leaned her forehead against his chest, her fingers digging into his forearms as she shuddered and then groaned.
As soon as the contraction passed, she began to walk again, and so he walked with her, whispering sweet things meant only for her ear. He was shocked when the next contraction came so fast on the heels of the other.
“Lola! The pains are so close together. How long has this been happening?”
“A while,” she said.
Suddenly, Tyhen’s moan turned into a high-pitched keen.
Willow grabbed bedding from off their bed, threw it down on the floor and made Tyhen squat.
Yuma knelt behind her and slid his arms beneath her shoulders.
She leaned back against his strength as another pain rolled from her back to the middle of her belly. The moan in her throat rolled out as a scream when the baby’s head was crowning.
Willow and Lola were there, ready to catch the baby.
“I see her!” Lola cried. “Push, Tyhen, push!”
“So tired,” Tyhen muttered, and then as another wave of pain rolled through her, she threw her head back on Yuma’s shoulders, rode through the pain with a long, guttural groan and did as Lola asked—pushing, pushing without taking a breath or losing focus.
All of a sudden there was a cry, and Tyhen drew breath on a sob.
She was here!
Yuma could see nothing but the back of Tyhen’s head and her bare knees. He smelled the blood and when Tyhen collapsed against him, he held her tighter.
Then he heard the cry. It was a tiny one as baby cries go, but it was a sign that she drew breath. He could tell by the smiles on the women’s faces that the baby was whole, and when she cried again, it was a little louder with more indignation and he smiled.
When they cut the cord and wiped her clean, he could only stare at her in mute astonishment. That’s what he and Tyhen had made. That perfect child is what came from their love. The room blurred and then the women took charge.
When he sat down on the bench, still shaking in very muscle, Lola suddenly thrust the baby into his arms.
“Hold her.”
And so he did.
She was wailing to the walls and the wind blasting against the cabin, expressing her indignation at such a rude entrance into this world and it so reminded him of when he’d first seen Tyhen that it made him laugh, and then he was laughing through tears.
He opened up the covering to look upon his child and knew she would be tall like her mother. Her little body was long, as were her legs and feet. The little fingers that curled around his thumb held hard and fast. She would be stubborn, also like her mother. She already bore a full head of black hair.
He rubbed a finger along the side of her cheek he felt the softness of newborn skin and laughed again from total joy. It was the second bout of laughter that stilled the baby’s cries.
“There you are,” Yuma said, watching as her eyes began to follow the sound of his voice. He seemed to remember learning in the time before Firewalker that babies could not see when they were first born, but he didn’t believe that was true. Not with this one. Another Windwalker had been born.
Eyes so dark they appeared to be black looked up at him from a tiny face that would one day become a beauty. Her nose was barely there, her tiny mouth opened and shut, as if instinctively searching for the nourishment she would get at her mother’s breasts.
“I am Yuma. I am your father and I am the Eagle who looks after the Dove. Welcome to this world little girl and know that you are loved.”
He watched her blink, and then she was done with the introduction to her father as she let out another wail that brought Lola running.
“Tyhen is ready now,” she said. “I will take her to her mother.”
Yuma stood.
“I will carry her,” he said softly. “It is the first time, but it will not be the last that she is in my arms.”
He crossed the room and went into their bedroom.
Tyhen was propped up in the bed, waiting for the moment to hold her daughter in her arms. When she saw Yuma walk in carrying the baby, a wave of emotion swept through her. She had loved him as a boy. She loved him as a man. But she had never known she would love him more as he bent down and placed their baby in her arms.
“She is angry with me,” Yuma said, as the baby continued to wail. “I am sadly failing in what she needs.”
Tyhen lowered the cover over her breast and cradled the baby against her.
“Hello, my daughter. Open your eyes and see your mother.”
It was the voice—the voice she’d heard all the months she’d been waiting to be born. The crying trickled off into little more than a mouse squeak.
Yuma laughed, which made Tyhen smile.
“Good girl. Now hear your name, my baby, so that you will know when you are called. You are Walela, the butterfly. Born as one thing that turns into another. You are a Windwalker and you are loved.”
***
Dakotah sat at the open window of their cabin, feeling the rain on his face and the wind in his hair. There was a trembling within him that he could not control.
She was here!
She would love him forever and he wou
ld protect her with his life.
Epilogue
Three months later
It was late afternoon and had it not been for the sea breeze, the heat of the day would have been unbearable.
Suwanee was miserable and with no way to ease her burden by lying down, she got up to move to the porch. Evan had built what he called a rocking chair and put it on the porch for her alone.
The girl who helped her was gone for the day and Evan would be home at any moment. He had been hunting all day and was down in the village sharing meat they didn’t need with the widows who no longer had a man who hunted for them.
It was cooler on the porch, but it did not ease her misery. She saw the dark shade beneath the trees in the forest a short distance away and had a sudden longing to feel the dirt beneath her feet.
Evan would disapprove, but he would get over it, she thought, and was smiling to herself as she eased down the steps and headed for the shade.
It felt good to be doing something positive. She was so tired of staying still and not tending to her man. She would be glad when these babies were out of her belly so that she could live a normal life again.
The dirt was hot beneath her feet but the shade soon cooled them. She moved her toes back and forth in the dirt and then laughed. She could not see her feet because her belly was in the way.
The forest beckoned. For a child who’d grown up in the north, there were always trees and the vast valleys between the mountains in which she’d played. She moved a few steps farther, seeing a bush with tiny flowers, then seeing another bush heavy with some kind of berry. But the simple fact that no animal had been eating there was her warning to leave them alone. If an animal or bird wouldn’t eat them, they had to be poison.
Ignoring the burgeoning bush, she began following what appeared to be a deer path just because she could, and the next time she looked up, she could not see the cabin. On the heels of that reality came a pain so fierce across her back that she thought she would die, and then she panicked.
The babies! It was time and she was not where she should be.
The pain began to fade and when it did, she headed back down the deer path as fast as she could move. Fear was in her heart and something within her—some kind of self-preservation, told her trouble was only starting. Another wave of pain was so great she doubled over as water gushed from inside her and ran down her legs. Unable to stand, she dropped to her hands and knees and rode it out.
She thought about screaming for help, but again, instinct told her to stay quiet, and as soon as she could, she pushed herself up and began moving again, this time faster and faster.
She was running when the next wave of pain struck and she grabbed onto the limbs of a tree and held on in horror as she felt a baby sliding out of her body. Frantic, she tore off her shift and caught the baby in it just before it hit the ground. The baby was not moving, and she was so afraid she could not breathe. She turned it over in her arms and thumped the tiny back until she felt something move and realized it had taken a breath. It wasn’t until she turned him over that Evan’s prediction about a boy proved to be true.
Her heart was pounding now because what she’d sensed behind her, she could now hear. The shuffling grunt and the rustling of leaves told her it was a bear and from the blood she had shed it was on her trail. Without hesitation she bit the cord in two, separating herself from the child, rolled it up in her shift and began to run again.
She had only gone a short distance down the path when she heard the bear again. It was closer and pains were rolling through her and the second baby was falling out between her legs. She caught it with one hand and clutched it against her too, then holding them tight against her breasts, she began to run.
She was screaming now, praying to the Great Spirit to lend strength and speed to her legs, but she could hear it coming faster and faster down the trail. With only seconds to make the decision, she jumped off the path long enough to hide the first baby beneath heavy brush next to some pines, and then took off running down the path, hoping that the bear would follow her instead. There was no time to separate herself from the second child and so she ran, faster than she would have believed she could run while blood poured from her body, screaming Evan’s name as she went.
***
Evan was on his way back to the cabin when a vision flashed before him. All he saw was Suwanee on her hands and knees in the woods and his heart nearly stopped. He couldn’t believe she’d done it, but he knew she was out of the cabin and giving birth in the woods. He began to run.
His first instinct was to send a message to his brother, then remembered he was no longer in their world and sent a message instead to Tyhen.
I need help. Suwanee is in the woods. The babies are coming and she is in trouble.
Tyhen’s voice in his ear was an immediate relief. Someone was going to come help.
Where is she? What kind of trouble?
I think on the deer path straight behind the cabin. I feel more than pain from the birth. I feel danger.
We are on the way.
It was all he needed to hear and lengthened his stride.
***
Tyhen dumped the baby in Dakotah’s arms.
“Take care of her for me. Something is happening to Suwanee.”
Dakotah’s eyes widened and then he clutched her close. It was his first time to protect her and he had no notion that he would fail.
Tyhen ran out of the house calling Yuma’s name. He came running from the back where he’d been cutting up firewood, still holding the precious axe from before Firewalker in his hand.
“What’s wrong?” he cried, picking up his spear with his other hand as he ran toward her.
She threw her arms around him and within seconds they were in the air.
“Something is happening to Suwanee. She is on the mountain behind their cabin. Evan said the babies are coming but she is in danger. Help me watch for her below.”
His hands tightened on his weapons as he began scanning the area. They flew over the cabin and then Tyhen went lower until they were so close to the treetops he could almost feel them.
Suddenly he saw movement and yelled.
“Down there! I think I see her running!”
Tyhen swooped lower.
“I see her!” Yuma cried.
And then Tyhen did, too. She was completely naked and running for her life with a baby clasped against her breast, and only a short distance behind her, they saw the bear.
“Put me down! Put me down!” Yuma yelled.
And so she did, crashing through treetops, scattering leaves from the rush of the wind in which they flew. By the time they had landed, Suwanee and the bear were already farther down the trail.
They were running when they heard a roar and then a scream, and then they took a turn in the trail and saw them.
The bear was already on top of her. Yuma didn’t miss a stride. Still running, he pulled back his spear and leaped. The spear went through the bear’s back as he landed on top and then he swung his axe with his other hand, severing the bear’s head from its spine with one blow.
The bear fell sideways just as Evan reached the scene. He saw Suwanee face down in the dirt, and although he knew she was dead, began screaming and tugging at the bear, trying to drag it off of her lifeless body.
Finally, it was Tyhen and the power of the wind that lifted the bear up and flung it against a nearby tree.
Evan was on his knees, shaking and mumbling as he grasped Suwanee’s shoulder and turned her over, then rocked back on his heels. The baby was still clutched to her chest, still connected to her by the life cord.
Evan couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.
Then Tyhen pushed him aside and grabbed the tiny child from Suwanee’s arms and felt for a pulse. There was none.
She blew in it
s mouth in the way her mother had taught her, and then pushed on the tiny chest with two fingers, then breathed again, and then again, until the blue tinge beneath the skin turned pink and she heard it cry.
“He lives, he lives,” Yuma said, and at Tyhen’s instruction, cut the cord and cleared the baby’s mouth.
Evan was sobbing as they placed his son in his arms. He saw Adam’s face on a baby with brown skin and thought, Adam came back in the only way that he could.
Then Tyhen gasped, and the fear behind it made his blood run cold.
“She’s already had the other baby. That’s why she has no clothes. She wrapped it up in her shift. Think Evan, think! Where is your son? He might still be alive.”
Evan shuddered as the shock of what she said rolled through him. He thrust the baby into Yuma’s arms and closed his eyes and heard a cry.
“I hear him,” Evan mumbled, and started walking back up the path, and the farther he walked, the louder grew the cry.
Tyhen could hear nothing, but she didn’t doubt his word. They followed Evan up the mountain, leaving Suwanee’s poor battered body behind. She didn’t need them anymore, but her son did, and if it was the last thing they could do for her, they didn’t intend to let her down.
Evan was still moving, but the cries were getting weaker which scared him, so he began to run. If the cries stopped, he would not find the baby in time.
It was instinct that made him stop. So he stood on the path without moving, listening, listening, and finally heard what his heart had been feeling.
Something was moving in the brush. He stumbled off the path, following instinct rather than sound as he shoved aside the brush beneath a tall stately pine.
First he saw a foot and then a tiny leg poking out from beneath the folds of Suwanee’s shift. He bent down and picked the bundle up, then held it close against his chest.
Tyhen and Yuma arrived just as Evan began to unwrap the folds.
“You found him!” Yuma cried. “Is he alright? Has he been harmed?”
