Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  The bear walks the barbed-wire fence looking for a way to get under. This is my chance! I decide to break for the Berkshire, but now another obstacle occurs to me. There’s no stool to stand on, not even a tree stump. How am I going to get up? I decide to go for it anyway. If I can make it to the horse, I may be able to grab his mane and pull myself up. Indians do this in the cowboy movies all the time.

  The creature wags his head and scratches the grass again. It’s time to go. Weapon in hand, I run for the horse, but just as I reach for his mane Mack spots the bear and shies away. It’s then that I fall. I fall on the ax.

  Resurrection

  So tell me again; what you were doing?” Daniel asks when he returns from town.

  I’m lying on the sofa with my leg on a pile of towels. I found some gauze in the Baby Cabin and wound it around my calf to slow the bleeding and then I called Mrs. Stenger to see if Daniel was still there, but he’d already gone.

  Now my husband sits on the sofa staring at the same leg he stitched up ten years ago when I cut myself while sledding, only this time he’s not sympathetic.

  “How did this happen exactly?” he asks again.

  “Well, I went up the mountain to clear the pasture. You know, cut down the saplings.”

  “I said I’d do it,” my husband snaps.

  “I know, but you’ve been so busy with lambing you’re hardly ever home and I thought you’d be glad. Anyway, I rode Mack up Spruce Mountain and cut down a few dozen trees, but it wasn’t until I was dragging them to the fence line that I saw the black bear.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Patience. You shouldn’t be doing things like that when no one’s around.”

  “Aren’t you going to look at my cut to see if we need to call Dr. Blum?”

  “Yeah, but I want to hear about this bear.”

  “It was just a big black bear.”

  “So how did you get away?”

  “I didn’t. I fell when trying to mount Mack, but then Mack ran away, so I just lay on the ground and played dead.”

  “Oh, Jesus!”

  “You really shouldn’t swear so much, Daniel. The children will pick it up.”

  “You just lay there and played dead!” he says, ignoring my reprimand.

  “Yeah. He snuffed me up a little and then walked away. I must have stayed there an hour and got really cold, but finally I lifted my head and he was gone, so I resurrected myself and limped home.”

  After that, Daniel says nothing while he cleans and dresses my wound. I can tell he’s mad. This time I don’t need stitches, but I’ll have another scar, right above the old one.

  “The kids will be home soon. I need to figure out what to have for dinner,” I say.

  “No you just rest. I’ll clean and sterilize my instrument tray, then I’ll take care of dinner.”

  “Is that doctor’s orders?”

  “Yep, but don’t do any more stupid stuff, okay, Patience? This family needs you. The bear could have torn you to pieces.” He kisses the top of my head. “I need you too.”

  22

  May 8, 1942

  Draft Board Blues

  There’s something I probably should tell you, Patience . . .” Daniel clears his throat. “I’ve received a letter requiring me to register for the draft.” We’re driving through Liberty on our way to the feed store to get a roll of barbed wire.

  I glance over at the Selective Service Office located at the old dress shop across from the movie house. UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU, DON’T WAIT FOR THE DRAFT, VOLUNTEER NOW! a poster says. Another exhorts the reader to LET ’EM HAVE IT! JOIN NOW.

  “I thought everyone had to register during the peacetime draft last fall. Didn’t you send the form back?”

  “No, I ignored it.”

  “Daniel!” I scold. “What were you thinking? If you’re male and age eighteen to forty-five, you were supposed to register. You were still forty-three.”

  “Well, we weren’t at war yet and I was hoping we never would be. Anyway, I already did my duty in the first world war.”

  I let out my air in exasperation. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. So long as nobody on the local draft board notices, I’ll be okay. If they do, I can pretend I never got the letter.”

  “You’d lie?”

  He grins his funny grin. “Probably not.”

  “Who’s on the draft board anyway?” I ask.

  “Well, Judge Wade, Mayor Ott, Louis Tinkshell, and wouldn’t you know it, Aran Bishop . . . I know Aran doesn’t seem like the patriotic type, but he and his brothers fought in the Great War.”

  “There’s a parking spot,” I announce, pointing to a small space between a pickup truck and a shiny green Ford on a street behind the feed store.

  “Someone’s doing well in this war economy,” Daniel snorts, indicating the green auto. “Whoever he is, he must have purchased the car just before the Ford plant switched to making tanks and fighter planes. No one can get a new car now. Not for love or money.”

  Inside, the red-haired kid, Patrick, is sweeping the floor while Sadie, the owner, takes care of a customer at the counter. Sadie, a stocky woman with thinning short blond hair, looks up from the cash register, then snaps the drawer closed. “What can I do you for, Dr. Hester? I ordered that new Sulfa medicine, but it hasn’t come in yet.”

  “That’s fine, Sadie. Just call me when it arrives. . . . All we need today is barbed wire to repair fence in the back pasture.” He tells her how much while I look at the colorful fabric seed sacks arranged along the floor in back.

  Some contain cornmeal, some chicken feed, some flour. A pink pattern with blue flowers catches my attention and I try to estimate how many twenty-pound bags of cornmeal it would take to make a dress for one girl.

  Meanwhile, I catch a snatch of conversation from the front of the store. Two men have come in and one of them sniggers when they approach Daniel.

  “Well, if it isn’t Dr. Hester,” the older one says with scorn. “Kill any good horses lately?”

  “Howdy, Aran. Nice to see you, Mr. Blaze,” my husband addresses them, ignoring the dig that stems from an event that happened over ten years ago in which Dan was called too late to save the Bishops’ prize stallion, Devil. The brothers have never gotten over it and still blame him.

  “Haven’t seen you in town lately,” Aran Bishop complains. “Too busy avoiding civic duty and hanging out with your German friends?”

  Dan stands up tall. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Everyone knows you refused to be on the civil defense board and the draft board. I figure you just don’t give a damn . . . or maybe you’re on the Axis side.”

  “Give the man a break, Aran!” Sadie comes in. “It’s lambing season, for God’s sake. He ain’t got time to play soldier with a little tin hat.”

  Bill Blaze says nothing but watches it all, wondering, I suppose, if there’s a story here.

  “I have your order out on the loading dock, Mr. Bishop,” Patrick says. “Want to pull your truck around?” I give him a smile, thanking him for defusing the situation.

  Sadie brings the roll of barbed wire out from the back and Dan forks over five dollars. “This stuff is getting expensive,” he says.

  “It’s the war,” Sadie says. “Soon we won’t be able to get anything made of steel.”

  “It’s the war. It’s the war!” Dan grumbles as we leave, and I wave to Sadie.

  May 10, 1942

  Sweat and Fear

  You seem tense,” I say to Dan as we walk out to the barn. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the clean sheets and quilts that I washed this morning flap gaily on the line.

  “Yeah,” Dan says. “I’m worried. If a foal isn’t born in an hour after the mare’s water breaks, you’ll likely have trouble. That’s why I wanted you with me. It’s been two hours, now. I probably should have done an internal exam sooner, but Meadow’s never had trouble before and this is her fifteenth delivery.”

 
“Mrs. Kelly always said, ‘Never let the sun set twice on a woman in labor.’”

  Dan shakes his head and smiles. He’s heard all of my Mrs. Kelly stories more than once.

  Years ago, in fact, on the day we met, I assisted Dan at a difficult foaling—not a romantic first date, but an interesting one. Now here we are, ten years later, bumping across the barnyard with a bucket of hot water and all his gear, on our way to another delivery.

  As we push back the double doors and step into the dark interior of the big wooden building, I’m proud to note all Dan’s modern renovations. Last year, he and Isaac Blum put in ten new wooden stalls, with short walls between so that the horses and cows can socialize. There’s a ten-foot-wide corridor down the middle and a work area at each end.

  As we approach the foaling cell, which, unlike the other stalls, has high sides to give the mare a sense of safety and privacy, I smell amniotic fluid—a sweet, earthy odor that I actually like, but there’s something else . . . sour and sharp, the smell of sweat and fear.

  Dan opens the gate and I’m surprised to see our black-and-white mare rolling on the floor. I’ve seen horses roll in the dirt and the grass outside, but never in a barn. She gets up and stamps her feet in the straw. She whinnies and snorts, paces around the small space, and then lies on her side and rolls again.

  Dan looks her over and then when she stops for a minute, he pushes her against the barn wall and takes her vital signs. “Write this down,” he says to me as I open the small black leather journal that he keeps in the side pocket of his vet bag.

  Meadow, Twenty-year-old Mare, Pulse 55, Respirations 58, Temperature 102.

  “Is that too high?” I whisper, and Dan nods that it is.

  “The pulse is especially worrisome. It should be thirty to forty. Let’s wash up.” He strips down to his undershirt and scrubs up to his elbows with strong lye soap, then dries on a rough, clean towel. I roll up the sleeves of my red plaid flannel shirt and copy his motions.

  “Is the foal still alive?” I ask.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” he says, lubricating his hand and reaching into the mare’s vagina. “Notice her flanks. See how she sweats. Never a good sign.”

  “Almost all women sweat in labor, at least at the end.”

  A smile breaks out on my husband’s face.

  “The foal is breech,” Dan explains. “I felt its tail move, so it’s still alive. . . . Sure hope I can save them both. Meadow is normally a good breeder. Never had a problem in all these years.”

  I watch as my husband attempts to break up the breech. He gets one hind leg out, but the mare pulls away, pushing Dan down. She rears up on her hind legs and almost rolls on him as he scoots away through the straw.

  “Damn,” he says. “The hoof has retreated. I think the second leg is stuck under its body. It’s a good-size foal too. I’ll wait until Meadow settles down, then we’ll have to tie her to the wall.”

  Thirty minutes later the foal is still not delivered. Daniel’s strong arm is working back and forth inside the mare. The first hoof is out again, but the second one won’t come and Daniel is sweating worse than the mare. Every time she strains he bites his upper lip and I know that it’s painful.

  “Want me to try?” I ask.

  Dan stands and stretches his back, his face gray with worry. “Sure, I’ll take a break. Maybe your small lady hands can get in a little farther. Remember, the hoof isn’t where you think it will be. It’s under the foal’s belly.”

  I wash again, this time removing my shirt and standing behind the mother in my brassiere. Once a midwife, I think to myself. Now I’m a horse midwife.

  “Okay, Meadow,” I say in my most soothing midwife voice. She turns her head to see who’s talking. “We have to work together to get your baby out. . . . I’ve got it,” I whisper to Daniel. “I’ve got the hoof.”

  “Keep pulling; only put your whole hand around the sharp hoof. You don’t want to lacerate the birth canal as you draw it out.”

  Slowly, I bring the hoof into the light and Dan takes over, working the baby out as the mother strains. I watch for the first breath, but no effort is made. The all-white colt lies there as still as a stone.

  Dan feels for a pulse, but there’s no heartbeat. He bends over and shuts one of the foal’s nostrils and puffs into the other one, trying to stimulate breathing. I take a handful of straw and rub the little animal, hoping it will bring him around, but it’s no good and we both know it. Sometime in the last hour, the cord must have been pinched and his oxygen supply cut off.

  “Too bad,” Dan says. “He would have been a beauty.”

  Meadow stands, legs spread over the colt, sniffing him and nudging her baby’s body. She whickers and whinnies for the colt to get up, but after another hour, Dan ties a rope to the foal’s back legs and drags him out of the barn.

  “I’ll pull him out to the back field with the tractor,” he says. “And bury him there. Can you tend to Meadow? Give her water and fresh hay and wipe off the sweat?”

  The whole time I’m brushing Meadow, she keeps looking at the barn door for her colt and I don’t think she understands that her baby is dead. All animals have an instinct to protect their young. When the baby’s gone, they don’t know what to do. I have seen it with patients who’ve had stillborn babies. They’re not just heartbroken; their bodies cave in around them.

  LATER, WHEN OUR children and Willie come home from school, I set out glasses of milk and oatmeal cookies in the kitchen and tell the kids what’s happened.

  Death is not new to any of them. Willie lost his mother. The twins lost both mother and father, and their baby brother too. Our own kids have seen dead hogs when we butcher in the fall and dead deer when Dan hunts for our winter food, but Meadow’s foal is different. We’d all looked forward to having the little colt frolicking around the barnyard, leaping and hopping and licking our hands.

  “Can we see him?” Will wants to know.

  “Where did Pa put him?” Danny asks.

  “Well, your pa is out in the field burying him now. He may not be done. Let’s go.”

  In a line we march out to the back pasture, Danny and Mira leading the way. Willie trails behind with me.

  “Have you seen dead animals before?” I ask him, thinking because he’s a city boy, he may not have had that experience.

  “I’ve seen lots of roadkill when Bitsy and I travel on the motorcycle—rabbits, fox, snakes—but nothing big.”

  “You used to limp a little when I first met you, Willie,” I observe. “Mine is worse.”

  “It’s okay for a woman.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Limping’s okay for a woman. You don’t have to be strong.”

  “Willie! I’m surprised at you. I have to work as hard as anyone.” The boy looks down.

  “You know what I mean,” he says. “You might work long and hard, but you don’t have to be tough.”

  I let out a long sigh. Once I told Sheriff Hardman that midwives were warriors. What I meant is that we have to be brave, that we have to be able to call on the life force when there’s danger, that we have to summon strength in ourselves when all strength is spent. Maybe that’s not the same as tough.

  “Come on, Mom!” yells Danny. “We’re going to have a ceremony.” I take Willie’s hand and, laughing, we run together. Limpity-limp. Limpity-limp.

  When we get to the gravesite we find that Daniel has already lowered the white colt into the ground. “We need a name,” Susie says.

  Will squats down and touches the little foal’s mane, still matted and damp.

  “You name him Will,” I whisper.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah,” Daniel agrees.

  “Snow,” says Willie, patting the little horse’s white head. “Let’s call him Snow.”

  “Hold hands,” orders Mira as we circle the grave.

  “Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry. Go to sleep, little baby,” I sing, an old lullaby that the kids know. “When you wake,
you will have all the pretty little horses.”

  “Blacks and bays,” Daniel and the children come in. “Dapples and grays. All the pretty little horses.”

  No one cries. We haven’t known Snow long enough to mourn deeply. I look around the circle at my beautiful children. They will meet sorrow soon enough. There’s no way to be in this life without it. Across the barnyard we can hear the mare. She whinnies and neighs, whinnies and neighs, calling for Snow, but Snow cannot answer.

  May 9, 1942

  Grief

  All night, Meadow’s braying keeps me awake. I put the pillow over my head to mute the sound, but it’s no good. Then, at first light, Dan gets up and goes out to her, but by the time he comes back she’s calling again.

  Breakfast is a solemn affair, with the sounds of spoons scraping and little conversation. Susie’s face is white with dark circles under her eyes and I think she’s glad to get on the school bus to get away from the sound of the horse’s sorrow.

  “I’ll go out to Meadow as soon as the chickens are fed and the cows milked,” I tell Dan as I wipe off the table. “What should I do for her? Just keep her company?”

  “Yes, take her outside of the foaling stall and put her in with the other horses. I have to make a visit to Mrs. Stone’s farm to see her prize Nubian goat, and then I’ll be back. Hope it’s nothing more serious than parasites.” He comes up behind me to give me a hug. Ordinarily Daniel Hester is not an outwardly emotional guy, but the loss of Meadow’s colt has cracked him open.

  “You did your best,” I console him.

  “No,” he says. “No, I didn’t.”

  Dan doesn’t return for our noontime meal, so I just pick at leftovers and then hurry out to the barn again. I bring Meadow some carrots from the root cellar. I take the currycomb with the red wooden handle and brush her over and over, starting at her head and working back toward her flank. When I reach the itchy spot on her neck she rolls back her lip and tries to kiss me.