by Lakota Grace
Darbie nodded, holding back tears.
“Good. Then we can begin.”
Janny had flopped in another chair, her eyebrows squinched up, arms crossed tightly.
Ruby Mae looked into her pale face. “Janny, you got a watch?”
“On my phone.”
“There's a likely chance that Darbie won’t deliver that baby before the ambulance arrives. So I want the two of you to walk around the courtroom while we get ready in here. Be good exercise for both of you. Use that smart phone thing of yours to time the next contraction.”
When they had left, Ruby Mae turned to me. “You squeamish?”
I shook my head. I'd not witnessed childbirth before, but I helped my uncle deliver a calf once back home. And I'd been first on the scene for several traffic accidents, which meant blood, crying people, and chaos before the medical help arrived. Surely, one baby’s arrival couldn’t be worse than that.
“Babies are messy,” Ruby Mae said. So we layered the judge’s couch for the birthing. First the shower curtain from his bathroom. Then newspapers from a vending machine in the hall. Ethan brought in the supplies from the cafeteria, and we placed one of the clean tablecloths on the layer of newspapers. Finally, towels from the judge’s shower went on top.
Ruby Mae pawed through the judge's locker and discovered a shirt fresh from the laundry, paper-banded and clean. “Baby wear,” she said triumphantly, holding up the package. “Empty that big drawer from the desk for a temporary bassinet.”
On the desk top, the first aid kit containing gauze and adhesive tape joined the box of gloves, hand sanitizer, and the scissors soaking in the glass of the judge's favorite whiskey. Ruby Mae pulled off her pink sweater and rolled up her sleeves.
We were as ready as we’d ever be.
I’d transferred the 911 operator to my phone when Myra Banks left, and now I checked in with him. “Ambulance on the way,” he said. “I have Doctor Elizabeth Johnson on the phone. She's the Ob-Gyn doctor on call at the hospital.”
An easy voice with an Oklahoma drawl came on the phone. “Hi, this is Liz Johnson. Who’m I talking to?”
“Peg Quincy, Deputy Sheriff.”
“Hi Peg. Who else is there?”
“Darbie Granger, the pregnant lady, and her friend Janny Nettle. They’re out walking in the next room. And Ruby Mae Nettle, Janny's mother, is here with me.” I put the phone on speaker and Ruby Mae said hi.
“Anybody there know about birthing babies?”
Ruby Mae cited her experience and explained the preparations we’d made.
“That's good. How far along is our new mother?”
We heard a gasp from the other room. Another labor pain. I looked at my watch. Seven minutes from the last one. I notified Liz and told her this was Darbie’s first child.
“They tell me the ambulance is about ten minutes out, so we should be fine,” Liz said. “Important thing is to keep the mother as calm as possible. Keep me posted on the contractions. I'm standing by.”
I set the phone on the desk, still on speaker. There was a hurried knock at the door and I opened to a white-faced Janny.
“Her water broke. What do we do now?”
“Time to get to work.” Ruby Mae’s tone was quiet as she slipped into midwife role. She first brushed Darbie's sweaty hair out of her eyes with an experienced hand and then assessed her daughter. “Janny, you okay? I can't take care of two of you.”
“Let me sit still for a moment.” Janny shrunk into the chair.
Ruby Mae turned to me. “Guess you're my assistant on this one. Help Darbie up onto this couch and let's get her prepped.”
I settled the girl on the couch and took off her shoes—five-inch spike heels, what was she thinking of? Ruby Mae washed her hands in the bathroom. She brought wet soapy cloths, removed Darbie’s underwear, and cleaned her inner thighs with gentle hands.
The lights flickered again and the phone crackled to life. “Liz here. How we doing?”
Ruby Mae leaned over. “Water broke, but she's doing just fine, aren't you Darbie?”
“I think so.” Darbie's voice was hesitant, a little scared.
“Good,” the voice from the phone said. “I have years of experience delivering babies just like yours. Right now, though, I want to talk to Ruby Mae privately. Why don't you chat with your friend Janny, and we'll be right back to you.”
Darbie moaned, a keening sound that knifed through the air.
“Janny, look in that first aid kit,” Ruby Mae directed. “See if there's any aspirin, she can have that, and a sip of water.”
Then she grabbed my phone, hustled me into the courtroom, and closed the door behind us. “Okay, go ahead, Liz.”
“Let me put the police dispatcher back on for you.”
We leaned near the phone’s speaker.
“A delivery truck slid on that glare ice,” the dispatcher said. “The ambulance couldn’t stop and slammed into it. We contacted our backup ambulance in Camp Verde, but their EMTs are out on another call. You’re on your own for now.”
The lights dimmed again. If the power went out, we’d lose light and heat, with a new baby on the way. I caught my breath. The lights flickered once and the power resumed.
Ruby Mae seemed buoyed by the dispatcher’s news. “Cal always made strong babies, and this one will be fine, too. You with me, Peg? Be fun.”
I wasn't convinced, but I was game. Anyway, that baby wasn’t asking our permission to come into this world. We returned to the judge’s chambers.
“Time to check the cervix,” Ruby Mae said. “You ever seen one before? Darbie, what about you? I can use a mirror if you want to look.”
The girl grunted “no,” as another contraction shuddered through her.
Ruby Mae looked at Janny. “What's the time on that one?”
“Five minutes.”
“Wash up, Peg,” Ruby Mae instructed, “and put on some gloves. Clean that flashlight of yours with the hand sanitizer. Then come over here and we'll take a look. Need a speculum to do it proper, but we'll manage.”
She washed her own hands again and put on gloves. “Scoot your knees up, Darbie.”
I held the flashlight so that Ruby Mae could examine her. “Hold that flash a little closer,” she instructed. “See, that bulge in back?”
Looked all pink to me, but apparently, Ruby Mae saw something she liked.
In the quiet minutes between contractions, we prepared the bassinet. We heated the salt in the Judge's microwave and put it in the drawer like a hot water bottle under the folded towels.
As the contractions got shorter, Ruby Mae’s manner became brusque. “Darbie, next contraction, start to push. Janny give her a sip of water, get her ready.”
The lights went out again with a clunk of lost power. Janny dropped the glass and it broke against the cabinet.
She screamed. “Momma, I can’t see. It’s dark. I can’t breathe…”
Ruby Mae’s reassuring voice filled the darkness. “Peg, come here, hold Darbie’s hand while I see to Janny.”
Darbie clutched at me like a drowning swimmer.
Ruby Mae turned to her daughter, crooning. “You’re doing fine, baby. Just breathe. Where’s your purse?”
The door opened and Ethan appeared with a flashlight, directing erratic beams of light across the room.
“Direct that thing to the floor,” Ruby Mae said. “Give this mother-to-be some privacy.”
The beam turned downward, its beam glinting off the broken glass and creating silhouettes of Ruby Mae and Janny against the wall.
“Ethan, take your sister outside.” She shoved Janny’s purse at him. “Find her inhaler in that mess of junk she carries in there. And leave us that extra light.”
Ruby Mae directed Ethan’s flashlight at me. “You okay, Peg? Can’t lose my best assistant over a power failure.” She bent awkwardly, gathered up the larger glass fragments, and piled them on the desk.
“I’m fine. What happened to Janny?”
/> “Been scared of the dark since they diagnosed asthma in childhood. When she loses light in an enclosed space, she panics, freezes up, like. Ethan knows what to do. He’ll watch her.”
Ruby Mae switched off the flashlight and the room blackened like the far side of a very dark field. “Don’t need light while we’re just sitting here. We’ll save the batteries until that baby-child arrives. Plenty of light from your phone, Peg, if we need it.”
I picked up the judge’s phone, but it was dead. Then I glanced at my phone on the judge’s desk and remembered the charger sitting on my dresser. Not a chance in hell we’d have enough juice. But I couldn’t turn it off, or we’d lose connection with Liz at the hospital.
“Ruby Mae, you got a phone?” I asked.
“At the house, same number for years. Didn’t see no reason to get one of those carry-around things.”
“Darbie, you?”
“Couldn’t pay my phone bill. Company turned me off. I meant to go see them…”
Her words echoed in a darkness that grew colder with no power to heat the room. Ruby Mae wrapped her sweater around Darbie. I pulled out the last tablecloth and we piled that around her, as well. Ruby Mae started shivering, and I did, too. The temperature rapidly chilled. If the power didn’t come back on soon, we’d be in a bad way.
“You still there?” Liz asked, her voice booming eerily from my cell phone into the dark room.
“We’re doing fine,” I said, not sure how much longer our connection would hold with my draining battery.
Again there was silence until Darbie broached the subject everyone had been avoiding, the father of this soon-to-be-born child. “Ruby Mae, what was Cal like when he was younger?”
Ruby Mae paused, remembering. “He was this big strapping guy, so handsome. We met at a church social, I was only fourteen. My own daddy disapproved, said Cal wasn't a Christian.
“So the next Sunday, Cal went and got baptized. Weather so cold there was ice on the pond. He just marched right in and dipped in that freezing water. Told me later I was lucky all his equipment still intact, that’s how we made four healthy babies together. We had thirty good years. I miss him.”
“I miss him, too,” Darbie said. She sniffled a little.
“Not your business to miss my husband.” Ruby Mae’s voice stiffened and I was afraid the temporary truce between the two of them would disintegrate. But the baby had other plans.
Darbie writhed in pain, and Ruby Mae flicked on Ethan’s flashlight again. In its light, Darbie’s lower belly bulged out. The baby was crowning.
“One last push,” Ruby Mae said, “and then let this baby come out to greet us.”
Ruby Mae jerked to her feet to attend to Darbie and slipped in the spilled water. She grabbed at the side of the couch and went down, landing hard. The flashlight skidded under the chair as she shrieked with pain.
“Damn wet floor!” Then she moaned. “My wrist.”
I grabbed for the light and flicked it on. Ruby Mae lay on the floor, blood dripping in a widening pool around her hand. Too much blood, like the mortal wound of the dying man I had killed. It was my worst nightmare, exploding to life once more.
But Ruby Mae couldn’t die, not here. I wouldn’t let that happen.
“Darbie, hang on,” I said, as my mind zoomed into emergency mode.
Propping the flash on the table, I reached for a washcloth and wrapped it around Ruby Mae’s wound. Then I grabbed bandages and gauze from the first aid kit and made a field wrap.
“Nothing broken,” Ruby Mae said, “except my stupid pride. I knew that shattered glass was down there. Shoulda been more careful. You doing okay, Peg?”
I was fine. What did she mean?
“You’ll have to take over,” she explained. “I’m contaminated, can’t be anywhere near that baby. I’ll talk you through it.” She gave me a little shove. “Go on now.”
The baby's head appeared face down and Ruby Mae instructed me to gently turn it sideways when it was entirely out.
“Do we reach for the shoulders now?” I asked.
“That baby knows what to do. You just cradle the head steady. New babies are slippery.”
Darbie gave one final, easy push and that baby entered the world. I cradled the infant in my hands and placed it on Darbie's stomach.
“Clean the mucus from the mouth,” Ruby Mae instructed.
I did and the little one let out a blustery cry. Ruby Mae held the flash closer and we examined the baby. Ten fingers, ten toes. But no...
Ruby Mae chuckled. “Thought you were having a boy child, Darbie. What you got here is a little girl.”
I tied two strips of gauze tightly around the birth cord about three inches apart. Pulled the sterilized scissors from the doctor's whiskey and cut the cord between the ties. Wrapped the cord close to the infant’s belly with the gauze. Then I bundled the child in the judge's fine white shirt and gave it to Darbie.
“See if she’ll feed a little,” Ruby Mae said.” Contractions will help the placenta separate.”
The afterbirth came soon then. I captured it in the big pan and set it aside.
Ruby Mae turned to me. “Tear off a piece of tape and let's identify this girl-child for the world. What's your new daughter's name?” she asked Darbie.
Darbie looked up with big eyes. “I want to call her Ruby Jannell. Cal would have liked that.”
Ruby for the grandmother, Jannell for the new step-sister, Janny.
Fatigue passed over Ruby Mae's face, and then a melancholy smile. “Yes, I think he would have. Write it down, Peg. Ruby Janell Granger.”
I tore off two strips of tape, affixed one to the other making a small bracelet with sticky ends. Checking my watch, I wrote the name on the tape along with the date and time and attached it around the little baby's ankle. She kicked at me as I touched her heel, strong-willed like the other Nettle children. For an instant, I felt Cal Nettle’s ghostly presence in the room, and then it vanished.
“That’s it,” Ruby Mae said, wiping at her forehead with her bandaged hand, wincing at the pain.
I heard applause from the phone, still live on the desk. “Well done,” said Liz. “Get that little girl-baby over here to the hospital. We'll take good care of her.”
The lights blinked back on, flickered, held. With a rush, the heater blasted warm air into the room. I stripped off the gloves and held my fingers to the vent, feeling the welcome heat. At that moment, my phone crackled into powerless silence. But we’d made it!
Cold air blasted in when I opened the door to the courtroom.
Ethan looked at me anxiously from where he and Janny had been huddled together. “Are they…”
“You've got a new little sister,” I said. “And Darbie’s doing fine.”
Hard, pelting snow blasted the outside windows as I walked beyond him into the outer hallway. Amidst the gathered court workers, was a familiar face, Rory Stevens.
He looked uncertain of my welcome, but first held out his hand and then widened his arms. “Heya, lady. Hear you had a time of it in there. Congratulations.”
“Thanks for coming.” I walked into his embrace and held onto him for a long minute. There were still issues between us, but they could wait.
Outside the window, arcing red lights created sword stabs through the snow. The replacement ambulance had arrived. “It took them forever to clear that accident off the highway,” one EMT said. “Where's our new mother?”
I never knew what passed between Ruby Mae and Darbie in those few moments before the ambulance arrived. But when the EMT crew reappeared with Darbie, her baby was swaddled in Ruby Mae’s bright pink sweater.
Rory and I walked to the front door, his hand steady under my arm. Then he wrapped his jacket around me for the plunge into the blinding snowstorm. When I peered into the white blizzard, an atomic orange Hummer came into view.
“Let me offer you a ride home,” Rory said. “You can pick up the sheriff’s SUV in the morning.”
Sounded l
ike a plan. My adrenalin drained away in the safety of the big Hummer. Rory cranked the heat to high, and I leaned back against the leather seat. It was good to have a friend.
Threats
29
LATE THAT NIGHT I awoke to the sound of my cell phone buzzing on the night table. I fumbled for it in the darkness. “Hello?”
First some heavy breathing, then: “Eleanor?” The only person who called me that was my grandfather and this wasn’t him. I should have hung up—haven't gotten a harassing phone call for a while—but for some reason, I stayed on the line, curious.
“Who’re you trying to reach?” I said, hoping it was a wrong number.
“Eleanor Pegasus Quincy?”
“What do you want?” The voice sounded familiar, yet different, as though someone was trying to disguise their voice.
“Leave well enough alone. Don’t mess in what you don’t understand.” The tone was guttural and rough.
I broke the connection and threw the phone away from me, rejecting the slimeball that had called and the message along with it. The phone hit the wall with a satisfying thump and bounced on the carpet.
Thoroughly awake now, I retrieved it and thumbed down for the caller ID. “Restricted.” How had they gotten my cell number? And my full name? Few people knew that, not even Shepherd.
My heart was pounding, my nerves on high alert, but I was angry now, not frightened. How dare they call me, here at home when I was sleeping? I checked all the outside door locks. With everything secure, I stepped out onto the balcony to sample the night air. The neighborhood was quiet in the early pre-dawn darkness, yet something hummed in my primitive reptile brain.
Was the caller male or female? I couldn’t tell with the disguising. But the message conveyed a danger, like a whiff of smoke in a dark forest.
The door slammed shut behind me, caught by a draft of wind. I yanked it back open, went in, and locked it behind me. Dropping to the couch, I pulled a throw over my feet intending to rest a moment…
***
THE NEXT MORNING, I awoke to a stiff neck and sunlight bursting in the window. Indian summer had returned to Mingus. Shopkeepers swept the last of the snowmelt off sidewalks and the gutters dripped a steady tattoo. Overhead skies were a deep blue, oblivious to the damage they had spewed forth only a day before.
