by Ron Rash
At church Mrs. Winchester spoke not a word to me or Billy but her eyes was steady on us. The other people in church couldn’t help but notice. They knew what Mrs. Winchester claimed about me and Billy.
‘Don’t pay her no mind,’ Momma said. ‘That no-account son of hers has run off and left her all alone. She’s addled with grief.’
‘She’s a sour old woman who’d blame any but her own self for her troubles,’ Ginny said. ‘And I’ve a mind to tell her so.’
It was in October Momma and Ginny had my baby shower one Sunday after church.
‘Here,’ Momma said, handing me the first cup of cider she poured. ‘This will keep that young one warm.’
The other women soon gathered round me.
‘You be sure to carry a bloodstone in your left pocket these next few months,’ Edna Rodgers said.
‘And don’t look at no cross-eyed woman or eat strawberries,’ Martha Whitmire added.
A half-dozen others had their say before Sue Burrell took me by the arm.
‘You don’t need to be standing long either,’ she said, making me set down on the front pew.
Most of what the older women was telling me was just so much silliness but I made a show of listening. I knew it was their way of letting me know I shared something ever so wondrous with them, something you couldn’t make words for so you talked around it with advice and old wives’ tales.
We passed a good hour talking and sipping the cider. Ginny cut the pound cake she’d made and reached me a piece like I couldn’t stand up and get it myself.
‘Do you need some more cider, honey? Maybe some more cake?’ someone would ask every few minutes, making a fuss over me.
It wasn’t till I started unwrapping my gifts that the church got sudden quiet.
‘I didn’t invite her,’ Momma said softly.
I followed Momma’s eyes to the back of the church. Mrs. Winchester closed the door and walked down the aisle. She had a gift in her hands. The other women stepped aside and let her stand in front of me.
She locked those dark eyes steady on me. I reckoned she knew some things, things she hadn’t told Sheriff Alexander.
‘For the baby,’ she finally said and laid the box on my lap. Then she went on out the door without never another word to any of us. I looked at the gift, the white tissue paper that covered the box, the blue bow tied around it. That box was light as a moth but I felt so sudden weak I was afraid to try and lift it.
‘Leave me have that,’ Momma said, raising it off my lap. She laid it at the far end of the pew.
‘Here,’ Ginny said, reaching me a smaller package. ‘Open this one. It’s from Laura Alexander.’
I didn’t open Mrs. Winchester’s gift till I got back to the house. I sat down in front of the fire, my hands all trembly as I tore off the bow and paper. I opened the box and there was Holland’s face staring at me. He was seventeen, maybe eighteen, and dressed in a dark suit, a suit a man might wear to his wedding or be buried in. I pondered that picture longer than I ought have, knowing how easy a thing it would be to squirrel it away somewheres Billy would have no leave to look. But I didn’t do that. I laid the picture in the fire and watched it curl up and turn black.
As I watched that picture turn to ash, I recollected my promise to Widow Glendower and my thoughts of Holland whittled away most to nothing for there was a fear now in my mind that hadn’t been even when Sheriff Alexander and his men was thick as gnats all over the farm. Whatever else the law might do to me and Billy, they wasn’t going to hurt my baby. But Widow Glendower could.
My mind turned back to a story Grandma had told around the fire, a story about a witch over in Long Creek that burned a newborn for power the doing of such a thing gave her. The witch had raked up the baby’s ashes and bones to make charms and potions. That witch had caught that baby, pulled it right out of its momma and cut the biblical cord. Soon as that was done the witch let that momma bleed to death in the birth-bed while she toted the young one into the woods and built a fire. I could no more shake that story out of my mind than a hound could shake off a tick.
‘I figure Widow Glendower to be your granny-woman,’ Ginny said the next week, like there wasn’t a doubt in the matter.
‘No, I asked Ella Addis,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t if it was me,’ Ginny said. ‘The Widow has saw it all. There ain’t many a fix she couldn’t find the way out of to save a momma and her baby. Besides, she’s near two miles closer than Ella Addis. What if that baby comes of a sudden?’
‘I made up my mind, Ginny,’ I said. ‘You. might as well be talking to a fence post for the hope of changing it.’
Little as Widow Glendower gets out of that hollow, she won’t know, I told myself most every waking hour. That’s how I tried to soothe myself but in my heart I reckoned sure as the sun rising Widow Glendower would know when my baby came. She’d know the very second and there’d be plenty a price to pay for not keeping my part of the bargain.
For the first time since the night after Holland had been killed, I had trouble sleeping. I dreamed constant of babies and fire.
The birth pains came on me at the end of January. Nature makes you lose the memory of the bad hurt it is to have a young one, the old women claimed, else you’d never have but one baby. I soon enough understood the so-true of that. Billy had been ailing since November, sniffling and coughing. He was only the least better off than me but he got in the truck and drove to get Momma and Ella Addis.
It seemed more than forever before he got back. The pains got worse and the floor swagged under me each time they came. I found my way to the bed and laid down. My insides felt to be seizing up a giant hand had me round my middle.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of pleasant things, like purple rhododendron blossoming on Colt Ridge in June, of how comforting it felt when Billy laid his hand on my stomach while we slept. I tried to think how by tomorrow I’d be holding the young one in arms and this would all be just a remembering. Thinking such helped some in the between but when the pains came they flooded everything out of my mind but the hurting.
When I finally heard the truck I liked to have cried I was so eased. Ella Addis came bustling through the door wearing her white apron and bonnet, the black doctoring bag in her hand. Momma was a step behind, looking fretful when she saw me laid out on the bed. Ella pressed her hand on my pooched-out belly like she was feeling a pumpkin to certain it was ripe. She poked me a little then seemed satisfied.
‘It hurts,’ I said.
‘Of course it does, honey,’ Ella said. ‘Nothing that’s born is born without suffering. That’s a big boy baby you’re carrying and you’re a smallish woman.’
She patted my hand.
‘You’ll be all right. It’s turned the right way. It’s getting ready for old Ella to catch it.’
Ella spread a clean white cloth on the table by the bed. She got out her scissors and needle and thread, then her salves and eye drops for the baby’s eyes. .
‘You know all the what-else that needs to be done,’ Ella told Momma. ‘So you best get to it.’
The next pain riffled through me and I couldn’t help but moan. That brung Billy to the bedside. He looked frayed and weary but some scared was in him too.
‘Here,’ Ella said and put a rag to my mouth. ‘Chomp down on it when the worst is on you.’
‘You go on,’ she said to Billy. ‘A man can’t do nothing but get in the way at such a time as this, especially one looking puny as you. Go make yourself a pallet and lay down.’
Billy did what he was told. The next pain came and it was worse. I chomped the rag but I couldn’t feel any good of it. I shut my eyes and the pain was on me so bad it was near like I could see it, like it was a color and that color wasn’t yellow or orange but the white you’ll see in a lantern flame, a flame hotter than any other.
I poured sweat now and thrashed about the bed like as if I was having a bad dream. Momma was soon back beside me and held my hand and talked
soothing while Ella gripped my legs till she stilled them. Then she reached into her apron pocket and brought out her snuff tin.
She took a pinch of snuff and stuck it under my nose.
‘Sniff that, girl,’ she said.
I did what she asked and took a sneezing fit.
‘Good, good,’ Ella said. ‘That’ll help it along.’
The hurting came again. I jerked my head to the side like I could turn away from that pain. When it finally passed I opened my eyes facing the window. It was the shank of evening now and what sun there’d been during the day now mostly fell behind Sassafras Mountain. Last night’s snow still covered the ground and the snow and last light had the deepest indigo blue kind of color about them. I notioned it was the way the ocean bottom must look. Still as the ocean bottom too for there wasn’t a breath of wind.
Then I saw Widow Glendower and Mrs. Winchester standing under the white oak where Billy had killed Holland. Or at least I reckoned I saw them for another pain came and my eyes squeezed shut despite myself.
I spit the rag from my mouth when the pain eased.
‘They’re out there,’ I told Momma and jerked my toward the window. ‘Out by the white oak.’
Momma peered through the window. ‘There ain’t nobody out there, Amy,’ Momma said. ‘You ease your mind on that, honey.’
I looked out the window and saw Momma was right. There wasn’t no one out there, at least not anymore.
‘That young one’s ready to show himself,’ Ella said. ‘You mind to that and start pushing.’
I did what she said and that white flame of pain laid down on me ever more than before.
‘Its head is coming,’ Ella said and the pain was steady now.
Momma reached the rag back in my mouth and squeezed my hand.
‘Push, girl,’ Ella said. ‘His head’s peeking out.’ I loosed my hand from Momma and grabbed my hands against the back of the mattress. I leaned up on my elbows and saw Ella with her hands out to catch the baby. I pushed and felt my body tear open and it was like I could hear it the way you’d hear a sheet being ripped. I saw what had been inside me slide into Ella’s hands and knew right then nothing so bloody and drowned-looking could be alive.
In that second I knew my punishment was to have my baby be born dead and I was hoping I’d die right then and there as well. Then it gave out a big wail. Ella reached the baby to Momma and picked up the scissors and cut the biblical cord. He wailed out some more when Ella put the drops in his eyes.
‘You clean him off,’ Ella told Momma. ‘I got to sew this girl up.’
I saw Ella reach for the needle and black thread and laid back down. I felt the needle and thread pushing through my skin but after what I’d just been through it was no more troubling than a sweatbee sting. I was more tireder than ever I’d been in my life, wore down beyond weariness. But I had to be sure of things before I could rest.
‘Nothing’s the matter with him, is there?’ I asked.
‘He’s fine,’ Momma said,‘ as handsome a baby as ever I’ve seen.’
‘Bring him to me, Momma,’ I said, so she laid him on my stomach. I looked into his eyes and searched his face careful for any marking. I raveled loose the blanket and counted his fingers and toes.
‘See if he’ll nurse,’ Ella said.
Momma helped lean me up on some pillows. It took a few minutes but soon enough he was drawing my milk. The happiness of it settled over me like sun after rain. I closed my eyes.
‘Ten days before you let her out of bed,’ Ella Addis said to Momma.
‘You hear me, girl?’ Ella said, but her voice seemed too far away to bother with a answer.
For the next nine days it was like I never full woke up. I laid in bed while Momma bustled around the house doing the cooking and cleaning. She’d bring the baby to suckle and leave him till he got fussy or needed his diaper changed. Momma brought me my food and between meals had me drink hot tea made with the sang and yellow dock Ella Addis said I’d need to gain my strength back. The tea was a soothing thing, maybe as much the warmness flowing through me as anything. After I’d drink it I always drowsied off.
Billy did what he could to help, taking Daddy’s truck down to Seneca to get things Momma told him we needed, making sure there was enough wood stacked on the porch. He came in to see me every few hours but Momma wouldn’t let him near the baby or spend much time with me. She was worried we’d catch what Billy had. He slept on a pallet in the front room while Momma made hers next to my bed. At night I’d hear him coughing. Each morning when he came in to see me more of his color had left him. He was shucking weight too, for every time he tried to eat he’d take a coughing fit.
‘We got to name that child,’ Momma said after a week. ‘There’s no good to come from that baby not having a name.’
I’d been waiting for Billy to get spry again but the way he was looking that would be some while so I took out the Bible to give him a Godly name. I thought it might put him in God’s favor to do that, put him in God’s favor despite what his momma and daddy did to get and keep him. I settled on Isaac.
‘That’s a proud enough name for any boy,’ Momma said, and Billy made no argue against it either.
The tenth morning I got up from my birthing bed. My legs was a bit unsteady at first and I tottered around like a colt taking its first steps. It was like I’d forgotten how to walk but soon enough I was feeling like myself again. Momma still stayed with me during the day. Daddy picked her up after supper and didn’t bring her back to midmorning. She was letting me take my house back over but she was going to make sure I did it slow.
Isaac was a big baby and it seemed every morning I woke up and looked at him he’d gotten bigger.
‘That’s the growingest young one I ever seen,’ Momma said, ‘and not the least bit colicky.’
Yet as the weeks passed by, the stouter Isaac got the punier Billy seemed. Billy was fevered now, his skin pale and clammy. He soon dragged his pallet in front of the fire. He swore he couldn’t get warm though the sweat poured off him like rain. It seemed now that the baby was out of my belly it took strength from Billy the same way it once did from me.
I got Daddy to drive down to Seneca for Doctor Wilkins. Doctor Wilkins stuck a thermometer in Billy’s throat and had to hold it there for Billy was so on the down-go he couldn’t do it himself.
‘Pneumonia,’ Doctor Wilkins said. He gave Billy a shot of penicillin and some big red pills to take twice a day.
‘That should fix him up,’ Doctor Wilkins said. ‘You send for me if he’s not doing better by Friday.’
‘There ain’t nothing to fret about,’ Momma said. ‘Give him a couple days and he’ll be frisky as a gray squirrel.’
I nodded but I had my doubts. I reckoned I had a owing that was going to be paid one way if not another.
The shot didn’t make Billy no better. The fever was constant on him now and it was starting to bother his mind. At night he’d point at shadows and swear someone was there and that someone was Holland. That put more scare into me than anything since the killing.
‘I best send your daddy to fetch Doctor Wilkins,’ Momma said the second afternoon, but I was beyond believing in what Doctor Wilkins could do. There was but one person that could help Billy. I knew it certain sure I’d have to see her and soon if Billy was to stay out of the burying ground.
It had been flurrying off and on all day so I bundled up good. I filled the lantern with oil because I’d not get there before dark. I went into the back room and got the box of kitchen matches, then reached in the salt tin and poured a handful in my pocket.
‘Where on earth do you think you’re setting out for?’ Momma asked.
‘You stay with Billy and Isaac,’ I told Momma. ‘It’s something that’s got to be done.’
‘I’ll not let you go out in such weather,’ Momma said, but I was already out the door. Isaac started squalling and Momma stood still with the door open, not sure who to go to, me or the baby.
/> ‘You come back here,’ she said, but I was in the yard now, the inch of snow under my feet making my steps soft and whispery. I heard the door shut and in a few seconds Isaac got quiet.
The wind blew steady and flurries stung my face. The sun was near snuffed out by the clouds that sagged down like a big gray quilt. I crossed the barbed wire fence onto Mrs. Winchester’s land and found the stump. I grabbled down in the hole till I rooted up what I was searching for, then followed the fence to the river and then the trail upstream. I could tell all the bed laying had taken my wind from me. I was huffing and puffing and hadn’t walked a half mile yet. I stopped to gain back my breath and remembered myself I’d at least be walking downhill on the way back.
The flurries got thicker till they was more than flurries and if there’d been a choice about it I’d have turned around. But I didn’t believe there was no choice, at least as far as keeping Billy alive. Wind whipped up enough to bury the sound of the river. Light was hiding fast now and the only way to follow the trail was the gaps in the woods. Soon I could barely see my feet, much less the trees.
I knew if I strayed too far right I’d be in a bad fix for there was drop-offs where the trail nudged up close to the river. I stopped to pump the lantern and took out my box of kitchen matches. I had a time of it getting the lantern lit. The wind snuffed the matches quick as I struck them. One finally held long enough to catch the wick. I reached the lantern out before me but still had to step slow and certain for I could see no more than a few yards ahead.
It seemed long as forever before I got to where Wolf Creek ran into the river. Not far now, I told myself, and started into the hollow, full dark but for the lantern, the snow flying thick. It was slow going but I found my way till I came to where the big rocks squeezed the path tight. One of the big rocks had tumbled down and plugged up the gap like a cork in a bottle.
There was no way but to go around. I left the path and went up the left ridge. The land was sidling and snow slicked the ground. I tried to hold my balance but soon enough I slipped and slided down and down, bumping rocks and trees and getting a mouthful of snow. The lantern flung out of my hand halfway down and I heard glass shatter against a rock.
