Baby on the Oregon Trail

by Lynna Banning

  “Oh, you already know, Lee. First it was Randall, and then Mathias. I am finding I am not able to raise the girls the way they should be brought up. They’re growing up with no discipline, no manners. I feel responsible for them. And...and I’m afraid I’m making more mistakes.”

  She started to cry, and Lee bit his tongue to keep himself quiet and just let her talk.

  “Then,” she said in a low voice, “there is you.”

  God, here it comes. “What about me?”

  “You’re a good man, Lee. You owned up to shooting Mathias, and then you volunteered to drive us on to Oregon. And...and...”

  “And?” He found he was holding his breath.

  “And, well, you are helping with the girls. Teaching them things. They like you. They don’t like me, except maybe for Ruthie. Oh, Lee, I—I feel I’ve failed at everything.”

  “You haven’t failed with me, Jenna.”

  She lifted her head. “I haven’t? Really? I thought when you learned about Randall... And then after we... I mean, after that night...”

  “Jenna, listen. After that night I couldn’t stop smiling. Sam said he thought maybe I’d drunk too much whiskey. All I wanted was to have another night with you, and I’ve got to tell you, Jenna, I’m still thinking about it.”

  She gave him a shaky smile, and Lee saw that tears sheened her cheeks. He settled back and pulled her head onto his shoulder.

  “You ready for your bedtime story?”

  She nodded, her hair brushing against his neck. “All right, here goes.” He took a deep breath. “Once upon a time...”

  What the hell story could he tell a scared, very pregnant woman? He swallowed hard and started over. “Once...once upon a time, there was a beautiful, brave butterfly and, um, a cowardly woodpecker. He was so cowardly he was afraid to even talk to the beautiful butterfly for fear she would fly off and he’d never see her again.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” she said, her voice drowsy. “Go on.”

  “One day the brave butterfly got lost between a rosebush and a...uh...a morning glory vine. The woodpecker watched her flutter here and there, trying to find her way home, and after a while he said to himself, ‘I could let her climb up on my back and take her to a safe place.’ So he flew along beside her and said, ‘Land on me, beautiful butterfly, and I will take you home.’”

  He looked down and smoothed his thumb over Jenna’s wet cheek. “What did the butterfly do?” she murmured.

  Lee weighed possibilities for the wacky story he was spinning. He couldn’t make it too obvious, or too simple; Jenna would see right through it.

  “Well, you remember that the butterfly was very brave. But she didn’t trust the woodpecker to take her home, so she refused his offer. The cowardly woodpecker puffed up his chest feathers and said, ‘Trust me.’ And the butterfly asked, ‘Why should I?’”

  Jenna gave a soft, sleepy giggle.

  “‘Because,’ the woodpecker said, ‘you need to find your way home, and I like being useful.’ The butterfly asked, ‘Aren’t you scared you will get lost?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ said the woodpecker. ‘But I’d like to try anyway.’”

  “Then what happened?” Jenna murmured.

  Lee thought for a moment. “The butterfly hemmed and hawed, but finally she climbed up on his back and they flew off.”

  There was a long silence, and he glanced down to find Jenna sound asleep. Thank the Lord. He wasn’t used to making up stories, and he sure didn’t know what happened next. He leaned over and pressed his lips against her forehead. “Night, Butterfly.”

  * * *

  The wagons labored on toward the pass at the top of the mountain, and the closer they got, the harder Lee found it to push the ox team onward. The trail was rough, strewn with rocks and pitted with holes deep as half barrels. He prayed the animals wouldn’t drop dead in their tracks.

  Jenna had given up walking beside the wagon and now rode on the bench beside him, her blue shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders, as they slowly lurched upward. The air was cold, too cold for August, Lee thought. A sharp wind whipped around them, sending showers of bright-colored aspen leaves onto the ground.

  Ruthie was riding with Sophia Zaberskie, and the two older girls were warm inside the wagon. Their quarrelsome voices rose like the jabbering of angry birds.

  “I did not!”

  “Did too. I saw you. Jimmy saw you, too.”

  “I didn’t take your dumb old ribbon, Tess.”

  Jenna twisted toward the canvas opening behind the bench. “Stop it, both of you! Find something better to do than argue with each other.”

  Lee turned up the collar of his sheepskin jacket, folded his chilled hands around the traces and urged the team forward.

  All at once a sharp crack sounded, and one side of the wagon tipped sharply. Jenna yelped and clutched his arm to keep from sliding sideways off the bench.

  He brought the wagon to a halt.

  “What happened?” Tess screeched.

  Lee set the brake and climbed down to inspect the wheels. When he saw what had occurred, he swore under his breath. “Broke an axle,” he called. The iron shaft had snapped completely free of the wheel hub. Damn bad timing.

  He reached up for Jenna, lifted her down and watched the last of the wagons in the train lumber on up the mountainside toward the pass.

  “Lee, what will we do now?”

  “Fix it.” He knelt beside the back wheel and studied the break. “I’ll have to make a new axle.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Yeah. I can make a new one out of wood.”

  “There aren’t many trees up here,” she observed.

  “All I need is one. A small sapling will do.” He scanned the landscape and spied a sparse stand of dark green conifers half a mile back.

  “Tess,” he called. “Find the ax.”

  After a few minutes Tess poked the wooden ax handle through the bonnet; Lee shouldered it and tramped back down the trail.

  He felled a young pine tree, limbed it and peeled the bark off a six-foot length, then hoisted it and the ax on his shoulder and hiked back up to the wagon. There was plenty of daylight left; it shouldn’t take too long to shape a new axle. He’d run the wheel up onto a rock to lift it off the ground, and...

  The thought died when he caught sight of Jenna, her body bent over the back wheel, both hands locked onto the iron rim.

  “Jenna?”

  She tipped her head sideways to look at him. Her face was pasty, her lips white around the edges. Lee dropped the ax, rolled the sapling off his shoulder and began to run.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Jenna? Jenna, what’s wrong?”

  She tried to smile, but her mouth twisted oddly. “Lee,” she panted. “I think...the baby...” She caught her breath and her voice trailed off.

  “God!” he gripped her shoulder. “Are you sure?”

  “N-no. I’ve never...” she tightened her hold on the wheel rim, bowed her head and hissed in air “...had a baby before.”

  Lee peered up the trail, but the wagon train was already out of sight. “Mary Grace!” he shouted. “Get your warm coat on.”

  The girl popped her head out the bonnet. “What for? It’s nice and warm in here.”

  “I’m going to saddle up Devil. I want you to ride after the wagon train and bring Dr. Engelman.”

  Mary Grace jumped down, a bulky wool coat over one arm. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Lee walked her off a few yards. “It’s Jenna. The baby’s coming.”

  The girl’s hazel eyes rounded. “Now? But it isn’t time yet, is it?” She shot a look toward Jenna, gripping the wagon wheel.

  “I guess it is time,” Lee said quietly. He bent to retrieve his saddle from the wagon undercarriage and st
rode toward his stallion.

  “Couldn’t I take my own horse? The roan?”

  “No. Devil is stronger. Get some gloves on.”

  By the time Mary Grace reemerged from the wagon, he had Devil saddled and waiting. He heaved her up and laid the reins in her hands.

  “Lee, I’m scared.” Her young voice shook.

  “So am I,” he confessed. “Just do your best.” He slapped the animal’s rump and the horse trotted up the trail.

  Tess’s head appeared through the bonnet, and Lee motioned her down.

  “Jenna’s baby is coming. I need you to build a fire. A big one.” Before she could question him, he grabbed the ax and ran back to the stand of pine trees. Twenty minutes later he staggered back with a huge armload of firewood to find that Tess had rolled three stones together and was dipping water from the barrel reservoir into one of the water buckets.

  He shaved kindling, added dry leaves and dropped a match onto the pile. When a tiny flame showed, he moved to Jenna’s side.

  “I wanted the baby to be born in Oregon,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t think so,” he replied. He pried her fingers from the iron rim. “Can you walk?”

  She nodded.

  “Come on, then, into the wagon.”

  Tess took one look at her stepmother and clasped her arms across her waist. “Oh, Jenna,” the girl breathed. “Are you sure? I mean, is the baby really coming now?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice thin, “I’m sure. I probably joggled it up when the axle broke.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Make sure the fire doesn’t go out,” Lee said. “Boil some water. And find Jenna’s scissors.”

  “And pray,” Jenna added.

  “Scissors,” Lee reminded as Tess moved away. He lifted Jenna through the canvas bonnet and settled her on the quilts and then bent over her. “You warm enough?”

  “Yes. Actually I feel...” She closed her eyes abruptly. “Too hot.”

  Lee leaned out the back end of the wagon. “Tess, dip out some water and bring me a rag.”

  “I’ll sponge her,” Tess said. “We can take turns.”

  Lee traded places with the girl, made sure a full bucket of water sat heating over the fire and tried to talk his nerves into some kind of sanity. Women had babies every day. They’d been doing it for thousands of years.

  But Laurie had died having their son.

  He clamped his jaw shut. Don’t think about that now. Just do what needs to be done for Jenna.

  He straightened and went to chop down another small tree. They’d need a lot of firewood before the night was over.

  At dusk, snow began to spit out of the sky, the wind driving big white flakes that coated the ground. A dark cloud covered the pass above them, and Lee knew it was snowing even harder up there, probably closing the trail. If Mary Grace did reach the wagon train, she would never be able to get back over that pass with the doctor.

  He and Tess were on their own.

  Dammit to hell. He’d fought Yankees and battled Indians, but he’d never felt this helpless.

  It grew darker. And colder. The swirling snow began to stick to the ground, then pile up in drifts. Every hour Lee chunked up the fire and checked on Jenna. Tess had helped her remove her shoes and her dress; now she lay on top of the quilts in just her chemise and petticoat.

  He knelt on one side of her, Tess on the other, and they took turns sponging off Jenna’s sweat-sticky face and dribbling small sips of water past her cracked lips.

  Hours dragged by and it began to grow dark. Lee could tell Jenna was trying to contain her cries, and when Tess went out to replenish the cup of water, Lee leaned down and smoothed Jenna’s hair off her forehead.

  “Yell if you want to,” he said.

  “Don’t...want to frighten Tess,” she whispered. “Someday she may...wonder about having her own child. Not good to be...frightened.”

  “God, Jenna, yell anyway. Tess is tougher than you think.”

  She laughed, then caught her breath, and a low moan escaped. “Lee?” she said after a long moment.

  “Yeah?”

  “This is...taking a long time, isn’t it?”

  “We’ve been here about nine hours, I’d say. Maybe longer. It doesn’t matter.”

  She slept off and on, waking when the pains came, then drifting off. An exhausted Tess stretched out beside her. Much later Lee checked on the fire and then lay down on Jenna’s other side. In the dark she grabbed on to his hand and held on so tight he thought his knuckles would break.

  Toward morning, Lee slipped out for more water for Jenna to sip. He’d just dipped some into the cup when a guttural scream broke the silence.

  “Lee?” Tess’s voice sounded frightened.

  He bolted forward and met Tess as she tumbled out of the wagon. “Lee,” she sobbed. “She’s hurting so much. Is it always this awful? I can’t stand to watch her.”

  He pressed the girl’s shoulder. “Listen, Tess. It’s almost light. I want you to wrap yourself up warm and go for a walk, away from the wagon. Maybe back to those pine trees I chopped down.”

  She turned a tear-streaked face up to his and nodded. He watched her move away, and then Jenna screamed again, and he turned back to the wagon.

  She was panting, her face contorted. She reached for him, and he grabbed her hands and held on. She writhed and groaned, pulling against him. “Talk to me, Lee,” she whispered. “Please.”

  He worked to keep his voice calm. “How about I finish that bedtime story?”

  “Yes. Anything.” Again she squeezed his hands and pulled with such strength he had to brace his arms. His knuckles ached.

  “Well,” he said when she relaxed her hold. “You remember our woodpecker? He’s—”

  She cried out, arching her back off the quilts. “More,” she gasped after a long minute. “More story.”

  He couldn’t do it, couldn’t think while he watched her suffer.

  “Story,” she begged. “Now.”

  “Okay.” Think, Carver. He cleared his throat. “So the woodpecker, he, uh, he put the beautiful butterfly on his back and off they flew.”

  “Then what happened?” Jenna whispered. The contractions were coming every minute or so now, and he could see she was tiring.

  “Um...well, they got lost. The woodpecker flew back and forth between the rosebush and the morning glory vine, but nothing looked familiar. ‘I can’t see from way up here,’ the butterfly said. ‘Can you fly lower?’”

  He stopped to wipe the perspiration from Jenna’s face. “And?” she muttered.

  “And...the woodpecker thought about lying to her, but he decided he couldn’t do that. No matter how much he wanted her to admire him, he couldn’t lie to her. ‘I can’t fly any lower,’ he said. ‘I’ll crash into the ground. But you could flutter off on your own. Is that what you want?’”

  Jenna grabbed for him again. When she relaxed back onto the quilts she tugged at his shirt. “More.”

  Oh, Lord. “Well, let’s see. The butterfly didn’t answer for a long time, and the woodpecker, he, uh, he thought she had forgotten all about him.”

  Her body convulsed and her hoarse cry made his blood run cold. “But she hadn’t, had she?” Jenna whispered when it was over.

  He gripped her hand. “Nope. The woodpecker figured she would leave him, so he landed on a huckleberry bush and waited for her to fly off. He waited and waited, but nothing happened.”

  “I just knew it,” Jenna said between clenched teeth.

  “You did?”

  She nodded. “More,” she groaned.

  He racked his brain to focus on Jenna and to think up more of the story. And to not show how damned scared he was.

  “Final
ly,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, the woodpecker asked, ‘Are you still there?’ And the butterfly said...”

  Oh, God, he couldn’t think with Jenna groaning and panting like that. “The butterfly said, ‘Yes. I am thinking about what I should do.’”

  “Go on,” Jenna urged, her voice guttural.

  “Well...” he grasped her hands and let her pull hard “...the woodpecker waited. And waited. Summer turned to winter, and still he waited. At last, when the snow was thick on the woodpecker’s back, the butterfly flew away.”

  “And the woodpecker?” Jenna asked, her eyes closed. “What happened to the woodpecker?”

  “Oh, yeah, the woodpecker. Well, the woodpecker spread his wings and tried to fly, but he found he couldn’t move.”

  “Why not?” She bit down hard on her lower lip.

  “Um... He couldn’t move because...because his feet had frozen to the ground.”

  “Oh, no,” Jenna murmured after the next contraction. “Did he...did he die?”

  “I don’t know, honey. What do you think happened to him?”

  “I think the butterfly felt very sad about the woodpecker. I think he was very brave.” She caught her breath and jammed her fist against her mouth.

  “That butterfly was not brave at all,” she muttered when she relaxed again. “The woodpecker gave his l-life for her. He was the b-brave one.”

  Lee thought his heart would crack in two. He leaned over and briefly pressed his lips against her sticky forehead.

  She jerked away and cried out, arching her back off the quilts. “Bottom drawer,” she gasped when it was over. “Baby blanket.”

  He reached over and slid the drawer out, rummaged inside and pulled out squares of soft blue flannel with embroidered edges.

  The contractions built so rapidly Jenna could scarcely catch her breath between them, and Lee began to pray in earnest. With her next pain she clawed at his sleeve.

  “I can’t,” she gasped.

  “Yes, you can.” Then he shouted for Tess.

  “Quick! Bring the scissors and some warm water.”

  The enamelware bowl and the scissors appeared through the bonnet, and then Tess’s face. “Anything else?” she asked, her voice quavery.