The Christmas Brides

by Linda Lael Miller

  Husbands pulled Lincoln aside to complain; they were being hectored, they said. Now the wife wanted one of those infernal contraptions all her own.

  He’d sympathized, and proffered that a bathtub with a boiler was a small price to pay for a peaceful household. Hell, it was worth the look of de lighted disbelief he’d seen on Juliana’s face when she saw it.

  Guilt struck him again like the punch of a fist as he entered the barn, lit a lantern to see by so the work would go more quickly. He’d bought that bathtub for Beth, not Juliana.

  The cow began to snuffle and snort, wanting to be milked.

  Lincoln soothed her with a scratch between the ears and gave her hay instead. Once he’d fed all the horses and Wes’s mule, he under took the arduous task of hauling water from the well to fill the troughs.

  By the time he’d finished that, milked and started back toward the house, bucket in hand, it was snowing again.

  For a moment, Lincoln felt weary to the core of his spirit. Ranching was always hard work, always a risk, but in weather like this, with cattle on the range, it could be down right brutal.

  Finding Juliana in the kitchen, and the coffee brewed, he felt better.

  Tom was nowhere around, though, and that was unusual enough to worry Lincoln. He was about to ask if Juliana had seen him when Tom came out of his room just off the kitchen, tucking his flour-sack shirt into his pants.

  “Too much reading,” he said. “That Oliver feller has me worried.”

  Lincoln chuckled, poured himself some coffee. “What’s for breakfast?” he asked. “Gruel?”

  Tom looked puzzled, but Juliana smiled. “How about oatmeal?” she suggested brightly.

  “No gruel?” Lincoln teased.

  She laughed. “You haven’t tasted my oatmeal.”

  The gruel, he soon discovered, would have been an improvement.

  Joseph, turning up rumpled at the table, made a face when he saw it. “Is there any of that bear hash left?” he asked, his tone plaintive.

  Only Tom accepted a second bowl of oatmeal.

  When the three men left the house, they met Ben Gainer in the yard, and he looked worried. His freckles stood out against his pale face and his brownish-red hair stuck out in spikes under his hat. “Rose-of-Sharon is feelin’ poorly this morning,” he said.

  “You’d better stay with her, then,” Tom said quietly.

  “I told her she ought to let you come and see if the baby’s on its way, but she said—” Ben fell silent, blushed miserably. Turned his eyes to the snowy terrain and looked even grimmer than before.

  All of them knew what Rose-of-Sharon Gainer had said. She didn’t want an Indian tending her, no matter how “poorly” she might feel.

  “It’s all right, Ben,” Tom told the boy. “Things get bad, you send Joseph out to the range to fetch me.”

  Glumly, stamping his feet to get the circulation going, Ben nodded, his breath making puffs of steam in the air, like their own. “With all this snow, I don’t see how I could get to town to bring back the doctor.”

  Joseph had turned to Tom. “Don’t I get to go with you? Out to the range?”

  “Mike can do that. You’ll stay here and help Art load the sled with hay.”

  There was a protest brewing in the boy’s face, but it soon dissolved. He sighed and went on toward the barn.

  They hauled the first load of hay out to the range half an hour later, and found the cattle in clusters, instinctively sharing their warmth and blocking the wind as best they could. The air they exhaled rose over them like smoke from a chimney.

  The creek was slushy, but it flowed.

  They went back to the barn for another load of feed, and then another. Tom scanned the surrounding plain for wolf or coyote tracks, and found none.

  They headed back and met a panicked Joseph, all but stuck in snow reaching to his midthighs and waving both arms.

  Lincoln, driving the team while Tom rode behind him on the sled, felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  The boy shouted something, but Lincoln couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t matter. Some thing was wrong, that was all he needed to know.

  He drove the draft horses harder, and Tom scram bled off the sled and crow-hopped his way through the snow toward the boy.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LINCOLN HEARD THE SCREAMS as he left the horses with Joseph to be un hitched, led to their stalls, rubbed down and fed. He followed Tom toward the cabin out by the bunk house, moving as fast as he could.

  Glancing once toward the main house, he saw Gracie and Theresa standing at the window, both their faces pale with worry.

  The cabin was only about eight by eight feet, so it was impossible to overlook the straining form in the center of the bed. Juliana was seated nearby, holding Rose-of-Sharon Gainer’s hand and speaking softly, and the sight of her calmed Lincoln a little.

  Nothing was going to calm Ben, though.

  He paced at the foot of the bed, frenzied, shoving both hands through his hair every few steps. He looked like a wild man, some hermit from the high timber, baffled by his new surroundings.

  “You go on over to the big house,” Tom told the young husband firmly. “You’ll be of no help to us here.”

  Ben set his jaw, glanced at his weeping, sweating wife, and looked as though he might throw a punch. Finally, though, he bent over Rose-of-Sharon, kissed her forehead and did as he’d been told, putting on his coat, passing Lincoln without a word or a look and closing the cabin door smartly behind him.

  Lincoln, unsure of whether to stay or follow right on Ben’s heels, stood just inside the door, turning his gaze to the pitiful little Christmas tree with its strands of colored yarn and awkwardly cut paper ornaments. Two packages, wrapped in brown paper and tied with coarse twine, lay bravely beneath it.

  “Breathe very slowly, Rose-of-Sharon,” he heard Juliana say, her voice soft and even, but under laid with a tone of worry.

  Lincoln slowed his own breathing, since the idea seemed like a good one.

  “You’ll be all right,” Tom told the girl.

  Rose-of-Sharon, a pretty thing with glossy brown hair, was well beyond fussing over letting an Indian attend her. “Is—is the doctor coming?” she asked, between long, low moans and ragged breaths it hurt to hear.

  Lincoln thought of the snow, so deep now that the draft horses had had all they could do to get through it, plodding to and fro as they hauled hay to the cattle.

  “Yes,” Tom lied, rolling up his sleeves and inclining his head slightly in Juliana’s direction. “He’s on his way for sure.”

  An unspoken signal must have gone from Tom to Juliana. She nodded and raised the bed clothes.

  The sheets and Rose-of-Sharon’s night gown were crimson.

  Lincoln turned his back, busied himself building up the fire in the little stove that served for both cooking and heating the cabin. Because the chinking between the logs of the structure was good and the ceiling was low, the room would stay warm.

  Rose-of-Sharon shrieked, and the sound scraped down Lincoln’s insides like a claw. For a few moments, it was Beth lying in that bed, not Ben Gainer’s child-bride.

  He wondered again if he ought to leave, get out from under foot the way Ben had, but something held him there. He’d go if Tom told him to; otherwise, he’d remain. Do what he could, which was probably precious little.

  “Put some water on to heat,” Tom said from the fraught void behind Lincoln. “Then go to the house for my medicine bag.”

  Lincoln nodded—no words would come out—found a kettle, went outside to pack it full of snow, since the water bucket was empty, and set it on the stove. He carried the bucket to the well next, worked to fill it, carried it back inside. Next, he made his way to the house, frustrated by the slow going, found all the kids and Ben gathered at the kitchen table, staring down at their hands.

  For some reason, the sight left him stricken, unable to move for a few moments. When he managed to break the spel
l, he headed for Tom’s room, really more of a lean-to, and grabbed the familiar buckskin pouch from its place under the narrow bed. Joseph’s pallet, fashioned of folded quilts and blankets, lay crumpled against the inside wall.

  Leaving the room, he nearly collided with Ben.

  “Rose-of-Sharon?” Ben asked, his voice hoarse, his eyes hollow with quiet frenzy.

  “Too soon to know,” Lincoln said, and side stepped past him.

  “I’m going for the doctor,” Ben said, following him to the back door.

  Lincoln turned. “No,” he said. “You’d never make it that far, and even if you did, old Doc Chaney wouldn’t budge in this weather.”

  “My wife could die!”

  Lincoln looked past him, his gaze connecting with Gracie’s. She was white with terror, no doubt remembering Beth’s passing, and he longed to go to her, assure her everything would be all right.

  The problem was, it might not.

  Lincoln laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said gravely, because nothing but the stark truth would have done. “She could die. But there’s no point in your freezing to death some where between here and Stillwater Springs, whether she does or not. Besides, if Rose-of-Sharon and the baby survive this, they’ll need you.”

  Ben considered that, swallowed hard and gave a grudging nod.

  Lincoln turned and bolted out the door, wading hard for the cabin, the long strap of Tom’s medicine pouch pressing heavy into his shoulder.

  JULIANA HAD NEVER, in the whole of her life, been so frightened. At the same time, she was oddly calm, as though another self had risen within her, pushed the schoolmarm aside and taken over.

  The scene was nightmarish, with all that blood, and poor Rose-of-Sharon shrieking as though she were being torn apart from the inside.

  When Lincoln returned with the bag Tom had sent him for, Tom took the bag, plundered it, solemn-faced, then brought out a smaller pouch with strange markings burned into it. His own hands covered in blood, he extended the pouch to Juliana and instructed her to put a pinch of the seeds under Rose-of-Sharon’s tongue.

  Trembling, she obeyed.

  “Don’t swallow,” Tom told the girl. “It’ll ease the pain some, in a few minutes, and then we’ll see about getting that baby born.”

  “Am I going to die?” Rose-of-Sharon pleaded, her eyes ricocheting between Juliana and Tom. She looked so small and so young—no more than fifteen or thereabouts. It was only too common for girls of her station to marry at an early age. “Is my baby going to die?”

  Tom spoke in the Indian way, some of his syllables flat. “No,” he said, with such certainty that Juliana glanced up at him. She saw the determination in his face, at once placid and stalwart. “But this could take a while. You’ll have to be as brave as you can.”

  Rose-of-Sharon bit down hard on her lower lip, nodded, her skin glistening with perspiration, her eyes catching Juliana’s, begging. Hold on tight, they seemed to say. Don’t let me go.

  “I’m here,” Juliana said, in the same tone she’d used when one of the children was sick or frightened in the night. She squeezed Rose-of-Sharon’s small hand. “I’m right here, Rose-of-Sharon, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  The words, spoken so quietly, were at complete odds with her every instinct. Given her druthers, Juliana would have jumped up and run out into the snow, turning in blind, frantic circles, gasping at air and screaming until her throat was raw.

  What was calming her?

  Surely, it was necessity, at least in part. Tom’s quiet confidence helped, too. In the main, though, it was knowing Lincoln was there, feeling his presence through the skin of her back, as surely as she felt the heat from the stove.

  He seemed as strong and immovable as any of the mountains rising skyward in the distance.

  Tom asked for a basin, once the water had been heated, and instructed Lincoln to prepare more. Juliana bathed Rose-of-Sharon, helped her into her spare nightgown, while Tom removed the soiled sheets, replacing them with a blanket.

  And Rose-of-Sharon’s travails continued.

  Between keening screeches of pain, her body straining mightily, she rested, eyes closed, pale lips moving constantly in wordless prayer or protest.

  The light shifted, dimmed, became shadow-laced.

  Lincoln lit lanterns. Left the cabin again to make sure the children were all right and the barn chores got done.

  Juliana, as preoccupied with tending to Rose-of-Sharon as she was, barely breathed until he came back.

  It was well into the night when the crisis finally came; too exhausted to scream, Rose-of-Sharon convulsed instead, her eyes rolling back into her head, her back curved high off the mattress in an impossible arch.

  The baby slipped from her then, a tiny, bluish creature, sound less and still.

  Tom caught the little form in his cupped hands.

  Was the child dead? Juliana waited to know, felt Lincoln waiting, too.

  And then Tom smiled, grabbed up one of the discarded blankets and wrapped the baby in a clean corner of the cloth. “Welcome, little man,” he said. “Welcome.”

  The infant boy squalled, such a small sound. So full of life and power.

  Tears slipped down Juliana’s cheeks.

  Rose-of-Sharon, spent as she was, seemed lit from within, like a Madonna. She reached out for the baby, and Tom laid him gently in her arms.

  “Get Ben,” Rose-of-Sharon murmured. “Please get my Ben.”

  Juliana heard the door open as Lincoln rushed to do the girl’s bidding, felt a rush of cold air, and shielded mother and child from the draft as best she could. Only minutes later, Lincoln returned with the new father.

  Ben approached the bed slowly, a man enthralled, hardly daring to believe his own eyes.

  “Come see,” Rose-of-Sharon said, the last shreds of her strength going into her wobbly smile. “Come and see your son, Ben Gainer.”

  The room seemed to tilt all of the sudden, and the world went dark. Juliana was barely aware of being lifted out of her chair next to the bed, bundled tightly into her cloak, lifted into strong arms. Lincoln’s arms.

  She felt his coat enfold her, too, the way it had in the wagon, on the way out from town. “I’ve got to stay,” she managed to say, blinking against the blinding fatigue that had risen up around her between one moment and the next. “They’ll need—”

  “Hush,” Lincoln said.

  Even in the bitter cold, she felt only the warmth of him as he carried her through the snow and into the main house. A single lantern burned in the middle of the kitchen table, but the room was empty. What time was it?

  “The children…?”

  “Theresa put them to bed hours ago,” Lincoln said, making no move to set her on her feet. Instead, he took her through the house, along the corridor, into a room several doors down from hers.

  He laid her on the bed, covered her quickly with a quilt, tucked it in tightly around her.

  The fatigue reached deep into her mind, into her very marrow. She tried to get a handhold on consciousness, but the strange darkness kept swallowing her down again.

  She was aware of Lincoln moving about, now removing her shoes, now opening a bureau drawer.

  “Lincoln?” she asked, scrambling back up the monster’s throat only to be swallowed once more.

  She knew when he left the room, knew when he came back, after what seemed like a long time, but could not have said which of her senses had alerted her to the leaving and the returning. She could not seem to fix on anything; she wasn’t asleep, and yet she wasn’t fully awake, either.

  Lincoln was lifting her again, carrying her again, still cocooned in the quilt. When had she last felt so safe, so cared-for? Surely not since early child hood, when she’d had two loving parents and a brother.

  “Where…?”

  “Shh,” he said.

  The sound of running water and the misty caress of steam roused her a little. Lincoln stood her on her feet, supporting her with one arm, peel
ing away her clothes with the other hand.

  He was undressing her.

  But suddenly it seemed the most normal thing in the world for him to be doing. There was no fear in her, no resistance.

  He helped her into the bathtub, and the warmth of the water, the soothing, blessed heat, en com passed her. Of course, she thought, drifting. She’d been soaked in poor Rose-of-Sharon’s blood.

  Her dress had surely been ruined, and she could not spare it.

  Helpless tears welled in her eyes.

  “My dress,” she lamented in a despairing whisper. In that moment, she was grieving over so much more than the best of her three calico gowns. Her mother, her father. Grand mama and Clay. She had lost them all, and she could bear no more of such losing.

  “There are other dresses,” Lincoln told her, lifting her again, drying off her bare skin with soft swipes of a rough towel, pulling a night gown on over her head. It felt soft and worn, and the scent—rose water and talcum powder— was not her own.

  Supporting her with one arm around her waist—why was she so weak?—he guided her out into the corridor again. Past the door to the room she’d been sharing with Billy-Moses and Daisy.

  “The children,” she pro tested.

  “Theresa’s with them,” he told her.

  He took her back to his room—a slight, wicked thrill flickered through her at the realization—and put her into his bed.

  She began to weep, with weariness and with relief, because, out in the little cabin, sorrow had drawn so near and then passed on. For now.

  Lincoln sat down on the edge of the mattress. Kicked off his boots. In the next moment, he was under the covers with her, fully clothed, holding her close. Just then, Juliana knew only two things: she’d be ruined for sure, and she’d die if he let her go.

  He did not let her go—several times during the night, she awakened, gradually growing more coherent, and felt his arms around her, felt his chest warm beneath her cheek.