The Last Midwife

by Sandra Dallas

  Ben did as he was instructed, then grinned at Davy. “Lookit there. We got us a son.”

  “He’s yours all right. Dark like you, and he’s got your ugly chin,” Davy said.

  “I’d hoped he wouldn’t, but he does, don’t he?”

  Gracy ignored the bantering as she turned to Esther. The baby had come so fast that she had barely looked at the woman. Now when she studied Esther’s body, the nightdress pulled up, Gracy frowned. She placed her hand on Esther’s belly and gasped.

  At the sound, the two men glanced away from the baby. “What’s wrong?” Ben asked.

  “There’s another’n in there. Mr. Boyce, your wife is going to have twins.”

  “Another?” Ben asked, confused.

  “Sometimes it happens.” Gracy turned to Esther. “Mrs. Boyce, you get yourself ready. There’s a second baby about to be born. It’ll be easier than the first.”

  “I don’t want—” Esther started to say, but a pain seized her. And in a moment, a second boy emerged into Gracy’s hands. This one was smaller, lighter, with ears flat against his head and downy hair the color of fireweed—the color of Davy’s hair—and Gracy’s hands shook as she held the infant. She could almost always tell who the father was. It was an odd thing, but she knew the minute a baby was born if its father wasn’t the woman’s husband. She never let on, of course, never told. So there were fathers out there taking pride in children sired by other men. Knowing at the birth who had fathered a child was a skill Gracy sometimes wished she didn’t have, like now, although anybody could see who’d fathered this second boy. It was a rare thing, twins, each one sired by a different man. Gracy had read of it in a book, although she’d never seen it herself, not that she knew of, at any rate.

  She stopped as she pondered what had taken place in that cabin, was still so long that Esther asked what was wrong. Nothing, Gracy told her. The baby was as healthy as the first one. She’d only gotten a tear in her eye and had to push it away. She started to hand the boy to Davy but stopped and told Ben to give his partner the first infant so that he could help her with this baby’s cord.

  Ben didn’t say a word, just stared at the boy as he followed Gracy’s instructions. She had no time to study the men because there was the afterbirth to deal with. And she needed to examine Esther to see if she was all right. “Two boys. Two healthy boys,” Gracy told the new mother. She ordered the men to turn away while she helped Esther out of her nightdress and into a clean one, because the first was covered with blood. Then she remade the bed with a fresh quilt and helped Esther to lie down again.

  Usually when there were twins, Gracy tied a string around the wrist of the first one to show who was older, but there was no need for that here. “There now,” she said. “I expect you want to hold your boys.” She took the red-haired baby from Ben and handed him to Esther, then gave her the darker infant. “I think you’ll have milk enough for two, but if you don’t, just send Davy to tell me. There’s a woman in Swandyke had a stillbirth, and likely she’d make a wet nurse.” It wouldn’t matter to Esther that the woman wasn’t married, Gracy thought, or that she’d worked at the Red Swan on Turnbull Mountain. That would be the least of Esther’s problems.

  Esther took the two babies, one in each arm, and cooed to them. If anything seemed strange, she didn’t remark on it. “This one,” she said, nodding at the red-haired infant, “he’s named for you—Benjamin. We’ll call him Benny.” She smiled at her husband. “The other…”

  Gracy held her breath. Surely she wouldn’t name the other boy for Davy.

  “His name is Thomas. That’s my brother’s name. Tommy. I always favored it.”

  Gracy sighed a breath of relief when the second child was named, then busied herself with applying the bellybands and cleaning up. She wrapped the afterbirth in newspaper from her bag and handed the package to Davy with instructions to bury it under one of the wild roses Esther loved. “Do it now,” she said, nodding at the door, and Davy went out. After the door closed, Gracy turned to the stove, and taking out a tin of catnip tea, she made a cup for Esther, adding a little sugar. The tea would help bring on the new mother’s milk, and she’d need plenty of it with two babies. Things were already tangled enough without bringing in a wet nurse. When the tea was made, Gracy set it on the bureau beside the bed.

  The cabin was warm, well chinked, which was a good thing for the babies, what with summer on the downside. On the dresser were stacks of baby clothes, flannel diapers. A cradle made from pinewood, sanded and burnished until it was the color and sheen of honey, was beside the bed. They’d need a second cradle, but for now, both babies could fit into one. Gracy opened the safe to find it filled with food, two loaves of bread resting on a towel. Esther must have baked it the night before, maybe when she couldn’t sleep. Or perhaps Davy had made the bread.

  The baby—the first one, anyway—had been anticipated, planned for, loved, Gracy thought. Now what? What did that red-haired baby mean? What had happened between the two men and the woman, and what would happen now? Would Davy move out, maybe take the second boy with him? Perhaps Esther would leave, threatened and forced out by her husband. Blood, like water, boiled too quick at timberline. But where could a dance hall girl with two babies go? Or perhaps the three adults would go on as before, pretending that nothing had happened, that both of the babies were Ben’s. Not many people made it to the trappers’ cabin, so perhaps no one would suspect the babies had been fathered by two different men. Maybe the red hair would turn dark. Sure, and maybe next year the sun would melt the snow before June, Gracy thought.

  Well, what was to be was up to the three of them. Gracy couldn’t do anything about it except worry and keep her mouth shut, and she knew how to do both. She finished her work and packed the soiled nightdress along with her own apron in her bag. If Davy did the washing, he wouldn’t want to scrub out the childbirth. Gracy would bring the laundered items with her when she returned. “I’ll be back,” she said, “I want to make sure everything is all right.” But how could it be all right?

  Neither Esther nor Ben seemed aware that Gracy was leaving. She went to the bed and gazed at the infants, both mewling, curling their little hands around Esther’s fingers. Gracy smoothed the red down on Ben’s head, hair thin as frog’s hair, then picked up her bag and went through the door, shutting it quickly to keep out the cold air. Davy was sitting on the bench outside when she emerged. He rose, saying he’d see Gracy to her buggy. She nodded, wondering if he did not want to go inside and face Ben.

  “Do you need me to take you home?” he asked.

  Gracy laughed. “I guess I see better in the dark than a raccoon. I know this trail. I’ll find my way.” But maybe she should ask him to take her home. Perhaps she should get Davy away from the cabin for a time, give Ben a chance to love both babies? Davy’s being there would complicate things. But then it already had. The three would have to face their situation, and perhaps it would be better if they did so right off. If Davy was going to leave, he ought to go now, find another cabin and set his traps before winter came on. But would he go? After all, both men had adjusted to Esther. Perhaps they could adjust to the idea of one of those babies being fathered by Davy. Maybe there’d been an arrangement. Gracy knew strange things happened in a lonely mining camp. She didn’t judge.

  “I best go in. Somebody’ll have to fix supper. There’s been so much bother, I ain’t had time to think about it,” Davy said.

  “Bother” wasn’t the way Gracy would put childbirth. Still she said, “Isn’t she the lucky one! Most fathers—most men, that is—they aren’t a hand at cooking. Expect their wife to climb off a childbed and fix the victuals. But Esther can sit there like the Queen of Turkey with you to do the cooking.” She leaned forward and said, “She ought to stay in bed ten days after giving birth to two. Feed her beef tea if you can get it.”

  Davy nodded.

  “My, isn’t she the lucky one with two men to take care of her,” Gracy said again, although she wasn’t s
ure there was much luck around that place.

  Davy didn’t reply, just handed Gracy into the buggy. He reached into his pocket and took out a gold coin.

  Gracy protested the pay was too much.

  “I guess you get double for birthing two babies,” he told her.

  “It’s only a little more work than one.”

  “We’re obliged,” he said as he untied the reins from an aspen tree. He stared at the leather straps for a long time. “I guess folks will talk, won’t they?”

  “They won’t hear anything from me. That red-haired baby isn’t any of my business.” There, she’d said it out loud.

  “There’ll be others that’ll think it’s their business.” He handed the reins to Gracy. “You know, Esther said she had a sister with red hair.”

  Gracy stared at Davy for a moment. “I was thinking someone in the family might.” And then she muttered to herself, “Well, God!”

  * * *

  The sky had clouded over, blocking out the stars and the moon now, and the night was black as a grave, Gracy realized with a sudden shudder. Usually, she liked the night, the dark enfolding her like a quilt. The horse knew the way home, and she could drowse a little if she wanted to. But the births at the trappers’ cabin weighed on her mind. She remembered another time she had birthed twins, a boy and a girl. Both were healthy, but when Gracy went back to check on them a few days later, the girl was dead. “I’m glad,” the mother told Gracy. “I got five others, and I can’t take care of them and two babies besides. My husband says best the boy lives, because a girl ain’t worth much.” Gracy had pondered whether the mother had killed her own child. Or maybe the father had done it. The mother had gotten pregnant again not long after that. She’d asked Gracy to perform an abortion, but Gracy, knowing how weak the woman was, said it might kill her and refused. Later, the woman stumbled over a cliff and died anyway. An accident, her husband said, but Gracy wasn’t so sure. The man disappeared, and the children went to an orphan home. And Gracy had asked herself if the risk from an abortion had been worth the certainty of death from a fall?

  Now, thinking of both women who’d borne twins, Gracy was uneasy. The blackness didn’t help. The pine trees were dark shapes dripping with rain, hiding wild animals. She wished she could have brought Sandy with her, but he was with Daniel. The dog generally stayed behind anyway, because Gracy never knew how long she’d be gone and she didn’t want to worry about feeding him.

  Gracy roused herself. She was not easily frightened. She’d driven through dark nights before, and in blizzards to boot. This evening was summer cool but warm enough so that she was comfortable wrapped in a cloak and the quilt she kept in the buggy. It was the not knowing that bothered her, not knowing what had gone on in that cabin and what would happen now, she told herself. Should she do something? Tell the sheriff? But what was there to tell? And what could he do anyway? It wasn’t a crime to have babies by two different men. A sin, maybe, but not a crime, and sin was commonplace in a mining town. Besides, maybe Esther really did have a red-haired sister. But even so, Gracy was sure Davy had sired one of the babies. She could tell.

  The wind blew through the pines, making a soft moaning noise that Gracy always found comforting, only now it added to her anxiety. Then came a rustling that made her start. A deer or an elk in the wet leaves, she told herself. But there were bears, too, and mountain lions. After the old doctor died, Gracy had been called to attend a man who’d been attacked by a lion, the side of his face scratched to the bone, one eye gone, his chest tore up, his arms and legs broken. It had been a horrible sight, and Gracy felt it was a blessing he’d died. She shivered to think a lion could be stalking her, that she might be laid out on the trail, bleeding and broken, maybe dead without a chance to say good-bye to Daniel. He wouldn’t be able to go on without her. Gracy’s thoughts were always of Daniel, even years before, when he’d broken her heart.

  The horse caught the scent of something and picked up speed, running nervously, and Gracy had to hold him back with the reins. Gracy felt an evil about that didn’t have to do with the folks in Mayflower Gulch. Perhaps she should go back and ask Davy to take her home. But how would she explain herself? They would think her a silly old woman. Besides, how could she go back? There was no place on that narrow trail to turn a buggy. She’d have to walk, and that would make it mighty easy for a lion. Gracy tried to laugh at herself, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t help the feeling that something was out there, something ominous.

  She wasn’t a timid woman, but she had had those feelings before. Nabby had told her to trust them because they came with the gift of healing. She had had a premonition once in Arkansas about a baby Nabby had delivered. Gracy had helped with the birth, and it had gone fine. The baby was healthy, and so was the mother. But after the two midwives left, something gnawed at Gracy. She couldn’t sleep that night, and the next day she told Nabby she had had a presentiment. So the two returned to find the woman in agony from puerperal fever. They stayed with her for a week, placing cold cloths on her head and a flannel bag of hops soaked in hot vinegar on her abdomen, mustard poultices on her feet and thighs. “You saved her life. If we’d come back even half a day later, we’d have lost her,” Nabby told Gracy after the fever lifted. “You have a gift.”

  There were other times Gracy had had presentiments, like that night in Virginia City. She had tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t. It had been too strong.

  Gracy was sure the feeling now had nothing to do with the two babies. It was about her. She was in danger. She reached behind the seat and took out the pistol she kept there. It was loaded, and she knew how to shoot. She stared into the darkness ahead of her, thinking it must be a panther, because they were more stealthful than bears. She wouldn’t hear it until it sprang onto a horse—or onto her. Gracy shivered to think of the animal’s claws raking into her back, his teeth sinking into her neck. She shook her head. She no longer held the reins to keep the horse back but urged him on. She wished she had left the whip in its socket, not because she wanted to use it on Buddy but as protection. But she never whipped a horse and had left the whip behind.

  Perhaps the force she felt was a man. Gracy hadn’t never been afraid of the miners. They knew the Sagehen, knew her because she had attended their wives and sometimes even nursed them. No one in Swandyke would hurt her. Still, there were men who were not quite right in the head, who would rape, even murder a woman alone.

  She urged the horse on, slapping the reins on his back. He was old and did not move fast, but he picked up the pace, as if he, too, sensed danger. She wished the clouds would lift, that the moon would light the way, but the moon was covered, and the trail was black. She thought about the road now, whether there were ruts and rocks. She hadn’t paid attention when she’d ridden with Davy Eastlow to the cabin.

  Then far off in the distance, she saw a light like a lantern, and another and knew that Swandyke lay just ahead. She let up on the reins and sank back into the seat. The fear had been for nothing. She had indeed been foolish.

  Just then the horse stumbled, and the buggy hit a log that lay across the road, a log that hadn’t been there when she had passed through on her way to Mayflower Gulch. Gracy grasped onto the side of the buggy, but she was too late, and the vehicle swerved and went up on one wheel. Gracy flew out of the buggy, and her head hit the log. She rolled off the road and sank into unconsciousness, her last thoughts of Jeff, the infant she had warmed with her love from the moment of his birth. And of Daniel—of Daniel in his youth, Daniel strong and handsome as a racehorse.

  Buddy ran on, the buggy bouncing behind him, leaving Gracy a dark shape in the dirt, as still as the night around her.

  Seven

  Daniel was Black Mary Brookens’s son, and he had watched as Gracy at the age of ten midwifed her first baby. She didn’t see him again for a dozen years, not until Lucy, the daughter who had fetched Gracy to attend Black Mary that day, birthed her own child.

  By then, young as she
was, Gracy already had delivered her share of babies, although when someone sent for her, she deferred to Nabby, saying, “She’s the midwife. I’m only her assistant.” Nabby was getting along in years, however, and had turned frail, and like as not, she would tell Gracy to go herself and attend the mother. “I’m not good for nothing but sitting in the chimney corner,” she’d say, waving her hand toward the door. Of course, times when she suspected the birth would be difficult, Nabby went along, but even then, she instructed Gracy instead of doing the birthing herself.

  Folks knew about the girl who had delivered Black Mary’s last child, knew her to be a midwife blessed by God with a special gift. So they didn’t fuss when Nabby sent Gracy instead of going herself. Lucy didn’t ask for Nabby, however. She sent word she wanted Gracy to attend her, sent the sister Marjorie, the one Gracy had birthed twelve years earlier, to fetch her. “Lucy trusts you more than God Hisself,” the girl said, and Gracy, flattered, didn’t mind the blasphemy. In fact, she didn’t always trust God.

  Although the two young women lived far over the hills from each other, Gracy had kept up with Lucy, knew she had married, knew she’d lost a halfway baby the year before when she was out picking pole beans. Granny Alice, a midwife on Lucy’s side of the hills, had attended her. Perhaps Lucy blamed the woman, which was why Gracy had been called for this time. Most likely it was not Granny Alice’s fault. God often called home a baby who wasn’t perfect instead of letting it suffer, although not always. He let a plenty of misformed ones slip through His fingers. Gracy reminded Him of that in her prayers.