The Baby Gift

by Bethany Campbell

  “Luck,” Carson said with satisfaction. “You’re the luckiest SOB I know in a tight spot. Remember that mess in Haiti? What were the odds of your hardly being touched? Face it, Morris. You’ve got it and you’ve always had it—luck.”

  Josh thought, Luck can run out.

  But in the end he said yes. He had no choice.

  “PITCAIRN ISLAND?” Briana said, dark eyes widening in fear. “It’s so far away. It’s dangerous, Josh.”

  “Babe, I’ll watch my step,” he promised, “you know I will. I’ve got every reason to be careful.”

  “But,” she said, “but—” She knew about places like Pitcairn. She knew because of him. It was one of he places he used to talk about and she’d prayed he’d never be sent.

  It was not for the usual reasons. There were no violent political clashes, terrorists, bombings, land mines, drug wars, firefights or tortures.

  No, it was frightening in a different way. Going to Pitcairn was like going to the moon. It was barely accessible. No plane could land there. No helicopter could make it that far. There was no real harbor, and no big ship could negotiate its crashing waves.

  Even to set foot there, you had to risk your life. You had to cross the deadly stretch of sea in a small boat, then climb a three-hundred-foot cliff. Once you got on the island, there was no guarantee when you would get off. It might be weeks—or even months.

  She wanted to cry. It was starting all over again. She might be pregnant, and once more he was going away from her to a distant and frightening place.

  He said, “I will always come back to you. To you and Nealie—” he patted her abdomen “—and whoever may be in here. I will always come back. Always.”

  She blinked back the tears. “When do you have to go?”

  “They want me in Houston day after tomorrow. There’s a tanker that’s agreed to carry us if we work our way.”

  “A tanker?” she said, relieved. “Then you’ll be near shipping lanes?”

  “No,” he said. “But they agreed to take us as close to the island as they can get. The islanders come get us in long boats. I—don’t know yet how we’ll get back. Or when.”

  She understood that too well. “But the baby?” She choked the words out. “What if there’s not a baby this time?”

  He rubbed her nose with his. “There’ll be a baby. They’ve got me in Popsicle form in the lab.”

  “I don’t want you in Popsicle form,” she said, collapsing against his neck. “I want you in the warm, old-fashioned form.”

  “Then you’ll have me that way,” he said. “Again and again and again.

  NEALIE CRIED HARD when he left. He didn’t know which was worse—Nealie’s tears or Briana’s stoic cheerfulness.

  With luck he might be back in three months, even less. But he was haunted by ominous feelings about this trip he had once so desired. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay put.

  He sensed disapproval from Leo and Larry. See? the men seemed to say with silent looks. He’s deserting her again. Can’t depend on him. Not that one.

  Glenda seemed concerned for his welfare, and oddly, so did Inga, who had suddenly started acted almost like an ally. Did she suspect something? Josh was starting to think she did.

  Harve clasped his hand and wished him a safe journey, a speedy return. With an ironic shock, Josh realized he was beginning to like Harve. But it tore his heart out to leave Nealie and Briana. He kept telling himself it would be all right. Briana would be pregnant, and Nealie would be safe, and he would come home to his family.

  By then it would be late spring or early summer. He imagined evenings sitting in Briana’s porch swing, Nealie on his lap. Briana would lean her head on his shoulder, and together they would listen to the frogs and crickets. He would rest his hand on her swelling abdomen, where their new child grew.

  THE SWEDISH SHIP had to drop anchor in the open ocean when it neared Pitcairn. The waves crashed violently against the great rock that was the island, and waves and reefs could tear the tanker to pieces. The ship had arrived at night. The sky was black, the sea was rough, and a chill rain fell.

  By radio contact the Pitcairners knew the ship was there and set out in their longboats to reach it. They knew the tanker would stay a few hours at most, and they must dare the sea, no matter how dark and pitching.

  They came across the nighttime sea guided by their flashlights and lanterns, a supernatural winking across the black water. Part of their journey was to bring barter—handcrafts and fresh fruit and fish. They easily clambered up the sides of the ship using a rope ladder and bearing bundles and baskets on their shoulders.

  What they purchased, they swung in baskets over the side into the longboats that rose and fell on the waves. Trading done, the men and women scrambled over the rail one by one.

  Each had to time exactly his or her drop from the swinging ladder. If they did not hit the longboat when it crested on a swell, they would plunge at least ten feet to crash into the boat—or miss it and fall into the sea.

  Josh climbed down the side of the tossing ship on a ridiculously thin rope ladder that was slippery beneath his sweating hands. When it was his turn to free fall into the boat, he prayed, gritted his teeth and let go.

  A group of islanders lowered his equipment in wildly swinging baskets. Then came the last man, the writer, Watson. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of the ladder and had to be dragged into the boat by a burly man who cried, “Now, now! Let go now!”

  Watson collapsed into a heap, but nobody seemed to notice except Josh, who pulled him up to sit on the thwart beside him. The others were already concentrating on making the arduous voyage back to land. They did not speak to the Americans.

  Later Watson told Josh he’d never been as scared in his life as hanging on that threadlike ladder and tossing in that small boat over the night sea. “I almost peed my pants,” he said.

  Josh decided he probably shouldn’t tell Briana about this part of the voyage for a while. Maybe never.

  NOT MERELY was Pitcairn’s shore dangerous to reach. Its one settlement, Adamstown, could be reached only after climbing a cliff aptly named the Hill of Difficulty.

  But Josh knew that at the top of the hill was a prize of enormous value—a telephone that could reach the outside world. The telephone was a recent acquisition, bouncing its signal only a part of the day off a New Zealand satellite. He could talk to his wife and daughter.

  On that phone, two days later, he learned that Briana was pregnant. When she told him, he was so stunned he could hardly speak.

  “Hello?” she said through the static and fluttering hum. “Josh, did you hear me? The test was positive. There’s going to be a baby.”

  At last he managed to say, “I’ll get back as soon as I can. There should be a mail boat in a couple of months. Then I’m coming back to you. All three of you.”

  “And I’m telling my family,” Briana said. He could hear the happiness in her voice. “I think Glenda has a hunch something’s up. And Inga, too. I think she’s been preparing Poppa that this might happen.”

  “Your father—is he strong enough to take it, do you think?”

  “He’s better than he’s been in years. Inga makes him toe the line, but he loves the attention. It’s so obvious, it makes Nealie giggle.”

  His throat tightened at the mention of his daughter. “My Panda Girl, how is she?”

  Briana said, “Oh, Josh, Nealie’s going to be over the moon when she finds out.”

  “I love you,” he said. “Listen. The telephone signal’s been bad lately. There’s no Internet. I won’t be able to talk to you as often as I want. But I’ll think of you every minute.”

  “Josh, please be careful and come back to us soon.”

  “I’ll say it again,” he told her. “I love you. I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’m counting the days.”

  He did count them. And count. And count.

  NEALIE WAS so excited that she wanted to
dance everywhere she went.

  Sometimes she did dance and sometimes she got a nosebleed, and when that happened, she had to stop dancing, but that didn’t stop her from being excited. What was an old nosebleed? Her daddy and mommy were married again!

  They had gotten secretly married. They did it that way so that Grandpa wouldn’t be upset. Grandpa got upset anyway, of course, but Inga was helping him smooth his feathers. She had grown expert at it. Still, Grandpa grumbled that Pitcairn Island was the most obscure place on the earth and nowhere for a sane married man to go. And Mommy, as usual, was worried when Daddy was away.

  But unlike her mother and grandfather, Nealie would not believe anything could ever happen to her father. He was strong and smart and brave, and he would come back to them just like always. He especially had to come back because in November there would be a new baby.

  Nealie convinced herself this child would be a girl. “Julia Ann,” she kept whispering to herself. She would pretend to introduce the baby to people. “This is my little sister, Julia Ann.”

  But still, Mommy was distracted. Sometimes she stared at the horizon, almost as if, if she looked hard enough, she could see Daddy, as far away as he was. She would stand with her hand on her tummy, and Nealie knew she was thinking of Daddy. Three months was a long time to wait for him to come home.

  In three months, winter turned into spring and spring was changing into summer. And Nealie noticed people changing, too. Uncle Larry was not as loud, and he made his boys behave better—finally! Mommy said this was because of Inga, who knew how to handle people like Larry. Aunt Glenda seemed happier than Nealie could ever remember.

  Harve had changed, too. He was busy building his new house, and he had stopped mooning around after Mommy. Now he liked Penny, which was, to Nealie’s mind, a much better arrangement.

  So Nealie thought that life was good except for Daddy being gone. The doctor said the baby was healthy and strong and would be born right before Thanksgiving. Daddy would be home by then, and maybe he could stay a long time before he had to go away again.

  But May came and went, and Daddy had to stay on Pitcairn. He couldn’t book passage on the mail boat. It was already overcrowded. At last he called and said he would be home at the end of July. Adventure had found a yacht coming from a place called Mooréa, and the captain had agreed to pick up Daddy and the writer and get them to Tahiti, and from Tahiti, Daddy could be home in almost no time.

  Mommy was starting to get a round tummy, and the further into July it got, the happier she seemed.

  But that was before Mommy got the telephone call that made her cry.

  IT WAS just after ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning in mid-July, and Briana waited for Josh’s call. He tried to phone as often as possible, and always on Tuesdays.

  He was late calling, but that did not upset her. The island’s phone service was patchy and unpredictable. She was eager to hear from him, for she had much to tell him. At her exam yesterday, doctors had said both she and the baby were doing excellent.

  Nealie’s latest blood test showed she was still holding steady, and she had not had a nosebleed for a week and two days. Leo seemed to have grudgingly accepted the marriage and even seemed excited, almost against his volition, at the thought of another grandchild. Briana was eager to tell Josh everything.

  But when the phone at last rang, the voice she heard was not Josh’s. It was that of the writer, Tim Watson. Watson asked if she had anyone with her.

  Briana was puzzled. There was no one else in the house—everyone was off somewhere, and she was alone.

  “I’m sorry,” Watson said. “I’ve got bad news.”

  Her knees felt suddenly rubbery, and her breath choked in her throat. “What is it?” she managed to say.

  “Josh is hurt,” he told her. “It’s bad.”

  The edges of her vision went dark. All the light seemed to leak out of the room. She gripped the phone tightly, closed her eyes and forced herself to say, “How bad?”

  “It’s serious,” Watson said. “He’s got a fractured leg, a concussion and a broken collarbone.”

  “No!” she cried. “No. What happened?”

  Her heart thudding, she listened to Watson stammer through a disjointed explanation. She could only half comprehend his words.

  On the north side of Pitcairn was a ridge of rock jutting into the sea. It was called Down Isaac’s, and the islanders waded from it to catch fish.

  But Down Isaac’s could be reached only by descending one of Pitcairn’s cliffs, and after rains, the cliff was dangerously slippery. Josh had gone to photograph the morning’s fishing. He had fallen, and nobody could clearly explain how it had happened.

  “He’s at the island’s dispensary,” Watson said. “Listen, we’re doing all we can for him.”

  “The dispensary?” Briana said, still in shock. “There’s no doctor there. There’s only one nurse—”

  “She’s a good nurse,” Watson said, trying to comfort her. “She was able to set his leg. It was a clean break. Thank God for that. She’s got him in some kind of harness for his collarbone, but he’s in a lot of pain. The circulation in his arm’s affected. He may need surgery.”

  “B-but for surgery h-he needs a—he needs a doctor,” Briana stuttered.

  “Yes,” Watson admitted. “He should be in a real hospital.”

  But he’s on Pitcairn, Briana thought in panic. The nearest hospital is over a thousand miles away. “The yacht coming from Mooréa,” she said desperately. “It should be there within a week. Is that soon enough?”

  There was a long pause full of interference and whirring, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She sensed more bad news coming.

  Watson said, “I’m sorry. The yacht can’t make it. Motor trouble. It had to turn back. Nobody’s on the way that we know of.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, and fought back tears of hopelessness.

  “It wouldn’t have helped,” Watson said. “He needs a faster boat and one with a doctor aboard. We’ll do what we can. We’re sending out signals that we’ve got a medical emergency.”

  “Can I talk to him?” she begged. She was frantic to hear his voice.

  “He’s pretty drugged up now,” Watson said. “And he wasn’t very coherent when they brought him in. What he talked about mostly was you—you and your little girl and the baby.”

  Briana put her hand on her belly and felt the unborn child kick.

  “Tell him we love him,” she said, her voice breaking. “Tell him to hurry back to us.”

  When the call ended, she collapsed onto her desk and wept.

  On Pitcairn a man could die of complications of even minor injuries, and Josh was badly hurt. How could she tell Nealie? What could she say to her?

  This was the sort of thing she had always feared—that Josh would take one chance too many, that he would take one dangerous assignment too many, that one day something terrible would happen, and he would not come back.

  She would never see him again, nor would Nealie, and his unborn child would never know him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  BRIANA’S FAMILY rallied around her.

  Her father said Josh was a survivor, a fighter, a few broken bones wouldn’t get him down. Larry muttered that Josh was a tough guy. He’d worked side by side with him and he knew. “If anybody can make it, he will.”

  Nealie stubbornly said that her daddy would be fine and that he would come home. She had complete and utter faith in her father’s strength to overcome any obstacle.

  Glenda said to believe and to pray.

  But oddly, it was Inga who most helped Briana to cope. “You have a baby to think of. You have a little girl who needs you. You can’t afford to be weak. Hang on, darling, for your children.”

  So Briana hung on, but in her heart, she was terrified. For Nealie’s sake, she put on a brave front. For the baby’s sake, she made herself eat right, get rest, do all the things she was supposed to do.

  Penny worked ex
tra hours to take strain off her, and Inga pitched in, too. Inga understood business. She picked up the routine quickly. Briana lived in dread, but she knew she was not alone.

  She talked to Tim Watson almost every day. On the fifth day, he told her Josh was fully conscious again, although he could not remember the fall or even setting out for the fishing expedition at Down Isaac’s.

  Watson had more good news. By telephone and radio, Pitcairn had been sending out medical distress signals trying to reach any ship in the area with a doctor aboard. This morning a Russian vessel, a thirty-six-thousand-ton bulk carrier, replied that it was within a hundred miles of Pitcairn.

  By law, all Russian ships carried a medical doctor, and the captain agreed to make for the island. A crew of Pitcairn men would take the longboat to the Russian ship and ferry the doctor to land.

  If the doctor thought Josh was well enough to be moved, he could be taken aboard the ship, which would make it to Auckland in little more than a week.

  Auckland, New Zealand! In Auckland there were hospitals! Briana thought with a thrill of hope. But she was frightened, too. For a gravely injured man, such a journey might be dangerous, even fatal.

  The decision was in the hands of a doctor she’d never met whose language she could not even speak.

  “Can I talk to Josh?” She was almost pleading with Watson. “If I could just hear his voice.”

  “He’s here,” Watson said. “They fixed him up with a rattletrap wheelchair. The nurse didn’t want him to try this stunt, but you know Josh. He’s only supposed to talk a minute, though. He’s got to save his strength.”

  She listened for what seemed an endless time to static and the ebbing and rising thrum of a fragile connection. At last she heard his voice.

  “Briana? Briana? Babe? Are you okay?”

  She could not stop her tears. “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “My head still hurts. My ears ring. It’s like I’ve got a carillon in my head. The nurse says it’ll go away.”

  “Your leg?”