Midwife of the Blue Ridge (10 page)

Friday burrowed his head beneath Maggie’s plaide. She wound

an arm around the dog. “Leave him be—I dinna mind.” With

her place in the world now defined, she allowed the hum of mas-

culine voices to lull her to sleep.

H

The two men passed the bottle of peach brandy back and forth.

“How much time d’ye think,” Seth asked, “afore Portland evicts

us?”

Tom shrugged. “He might not

evict—but he’ll surely de-

mand quitrent. Either way, he’ll first have some work getting

surveys platted and writs of dispossession passed through the

court . . .”

“I just hope I can harvest my corn is all.” Seth worried the

stubble on his chin. “Otherwise, we’ll be awful hard-pressed this

winter. Ye ken, I had t’ scrape every penny t’ come up with the

twenty-three pound for the lass’s contract.”

“If you’re strapped, I could always lend you some . . .”

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
65

“Och, yer a good friend, Tommy, but borrowing is aye a mea-

sure of last resort.” Seth took the bottle and drained it.

“After I finish this business with Josh in Richmond, I’m meet-

ing up with Guy DeMontforte for a summer hunt. Why don’t

you come along?”

Seth smiled. “Na . . . those days are behind me, lad.”

“You’re growin’ soft on me, farmer boy! The garrisons along

the frontier are paying good silver for wild beef. You’d be bound

t’ earn.”

“Soft . . .” Seth relit his pipe. “Men dinna come any tougher

than Bert Hawkins. He went overmountain a year ago last win-

ter and no one’s heard tell of him since. Long hunt’s too risky for

a man with a family.”

“Bert’ll turn up. That bastard knows his way about the

woods.” Tom stirred the embers with a short stick. “I s’pose

Bess’s lucky to have ol’ Henry ’round, though—t’ give her a hand

with the farm.”

“Bess Hawkins.” Seth snorted. “She’s not one to waste away

pining after Bert, tha’s certain. I’m no gossip, but ye ken well

what I’m talkin’ about, don’t ye, lad?”

“You’re a huge gossip.” Tom grinned. “But I’ll grant, Bess is a

friendly gal. No one but Bert will be surprised if he comes home

to find he’s fathered a child or two in his absence.”

Seth laughed. He stood, stretched, and gathered his bedding.

Tom dropped to a whisper. “You’re probably wise to stay close

to home, Seth. I didn’t want to frighten the girl, but I’ve evil

tidings—an Ottawa chief stirring trouble among the tribes up

north . . .”

“Which tribes?”

“Those in the old French territories ’round the Great Lakes.

There’s been no call for militia. The Regulars are handling it so

far.”

Seth unfurled his bedroll. “Well, if the French keep out of it,

it’ll probably go no further.”

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“I hope you’re right.” Tom tied the laces of his moccasins to-

gether and strung them around his neck. “But then again, there’s

nothing as unpredictable as an Indian with a grudge.” Yawning,

he lay back and stuffed his felt hat under his head. “Leastways,

Seth, best keep your family close and an auger eye out for trou-

ble.”

H

Maggie woke to a steamy dawn. She sat up, moved her hand

across the warm, empty space beside her, and looked around the

camp. The dog Friday and the man Tom Roberts were gone.

6

The Homeplace

“C’mon, Maggie . . . we’re nearly there!”

She’d been lagging behind all morning. Seth began this last

day of their journey with an elongated gait. To add to Maggie’s

difficulty, the pace had quickened a few miles back, when he

spotted a pig bearing the Martin earmark rooting for mast at

the base of a giant oak. She caught up to where Seth waited at the

edge of a rough clearing planted with a haphazard field of corn—

young stalks growing between the rotting stumps of trees felled

to build the cabin Seth pointed to.

“There it is—the homeplace—for the time being at least.” His

voice betrayed a sad blend of pride and pique. “Odd, though,” he

said with forehead crinked, “nary a wisp o’ smoke from the

chimney.” He gave the mule’s lead a twist around a sapling then

cocked the hammer on his rifle. With a finger to his lips he said,

“Follow along, softly.”

Maggie restrained the urge to race across the clearing and sa-

vor the solid luxury of a roof and four walls about her. She knew

better than to question Seth’s instincts. During the seven days

between tideland and mountains, she’d come to admire her mas-

ter’s considerable woodskill. Seth skimmed the perimeter of the

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clearing, moving toward the cabin, careful to keep cover in the

shadow of the forest. Maggie followed, close and quiet, at his

heels.

The cabin was built on a rise with an unobscured view of the

cleared acreage. Logs notched and mortised at the corners formed

the walls—split wood clapboards, the roof. The chimney was

constructed of mud-chinked stones. More than a dozen brown-

feathered chickens pecked in the dirt in front of the cabin’s stout

oak door, and half as many noisy geese meandered between the

smaller outbuildings scattered down the hillside.

“A war party on the move would have snatched all those

birds,” Seth noted.

This self-comforting muttering quite alarmed Maggie, who

had not fully realized the basis for his concern. She tugged on his

shirttail. “Red Indians?”

“Na . . . no Injuns here. See there? Window lites are

open . . . and the latchstring is out.” Nothing more than narrow,

shuttered openings cut into the log walls on either side of the

doorway, the window lites did not boast a single pane of glass.

Seth spoke with assurance, but he double-checked the readiness

of his weapon before stepping out into the bright of the clearing.

As they crossed the field, two hound dogs—one brindled, the

other solid blue black—rushed forward, barking mad but wag-

ging tails. A young girl came around the corner of the cabin

struggling to steady two splashing buckets of water suspended

from a wooden yoke across her shoulders.

“
Patch! Little Black!
Hush that racket or I will skin yer

hides . . .” She stopped, squinted, and screamed. “Da!” Shrug-

ging the heavy yoke into the dirt, the girl ran full speed, straight

into her father’s arms. Seth shouldered his rifle and swooped his

daughter into an embrace.

“Winnie-lass!”

Winnie clung like a bur to her father and buried her face in

his neck. The oldest of Seth’s three children, Winnie Martin was

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
69

nearly twelve years old, but slight, and an easy burden to bear.

Seth set his daughter on her feet, and the girl eyed Maggie, who

stood quiet off to the side.

“Aye, Winnie, I’ve brung help and it’s help we surely need.

Look at the state yer in—midday an’ yer about in naught but a

shift. I’m almost shamed to introduce ye to our new girl.”

“Sorry, Da.” Winnie cast her eyes down to her grimy toes and

plucked at her shift, struggling to suppress an onslaught of tears.

“Och, now dinna fash on my account.” Maggie stepped for-

ward and wrapped an arm around Winnie’s narrow shoulders.

The girl leaned in with a hiccup and swiped her tears with the

back of her hand. Freckles sprinkled across her nose, soot

smeared across her forehead, and blue-gray circles beneath her

eyes were all that lent color to her thin, pale face. A thousand

wisps of auburn hair escaped from two braids trailing down her

back. The girl looked especially exhausted, her skinny arms pro-

truding from a dingy shift she had yet to grow into.

“Where’s yer mam?” Seth asked. “Where’re the boys?”

“Battler’s napping . . . Jack’s gone to the Bledsoes’ for live coals.”

“Dinna tell me ye lost the fi re! Och, if I told ye once, I’ve told

yiz all a hundred times—bank the fi re properly.”

“I tried, Da,” Winnie whimpered, “but this morn there was

naught but cold ashes on the hearth and I couldn’t catch a spark

for the life of me. Battler’s been ornery and Mam’s ailing . . .”

“Ailing?”

“Aye, she’s abed with fever two days now.”

Seth tugged on the latchstring to lift the bolt and the girls fol-

lowed him into the crowded, single-room cabin. Three sharp shafts

of daylight streamed in through the narrow window lites and open

door, providing the only source of illumination. As Maggie’s eyes

adjusted slowly to the dim light, she stumbled along, following Seth

to the bedstead tucked into the corner of the room.

“Naomi . . . Naomi, darlin’ . . .” Seth called softly to his wife.

Naomi Martin was blanketed from toe to chin. Her tiny

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flushed face was the center in the blossom of sweat-wet auburn

hair exploding across her pillow. Seth’s younger son, Battler,

slept, curled in a tight baby- ball at the foot of the bed. Maggie

eased the sleeping toddler into his father’s arms and whisked the

covers back. Released from the heavy prison of quilts and woolen

blankets, the unconscious woman sighed in relief.

Naomi’s small frame lay trapped in a damp depression in the

straw-stuffed ticking, the soggy linen shift she wore tangled and

bunched at her hips. The bulge of her

six-month pregnancy

seemed an obscene and unnatural addition to her emaciated

body. Maggie laid a hand on the woman’s gaunt cheek. “She’s

burnin’ up. Winnie, has yer mam been pukin’ or coughin’?”

Winnie shook her head. “No . . . but she’s been racked with

chills and mumbling crazy like. She won’t take a bite to

eat . . . though I did get her to sip some water earlier.”

“The poor thing . . . naught but skin, bones, and baby.” Mag-

gie placed two hands on Naomi’s distended abdomen. “But there’s

a braw bairnie inside, kickin’ strong, and that’s always a good

sign.” She smiled and rolled up her sleeves. “Winnie, lend me a

helpin’ hand. Bring rags, a basin of water, and at least a dozen big

onions—more, if they’re small.” Winnie nodded, her face a pic-

ture of relief as she ran off to fetch the things Maggie needed.

Cradling Battler, Seth stood inert with worry and guilt. Mag-

gie gave him a gentle shove. “Find a place to put that knee-baby

and get a fire going. I’ll need my basket—and more water.”

Little Battler was plopped onto the floor in a fat, dazed stupor,

and he watched his da strike a spark to the tinder Winnie had

assembled in her failed attempt. Seth hunkered on haunches,

feeding strips of fat pine to the blaze when his older boy skittered

into the cabin. Young Jack set a tin bucket of embers on the

hearth and leaped onto his father’s back.

“Da’s home!” Jack laughed. The two tussled and Seth gave his

son a sound tickling.

After the fire established, Maggie hooked two big pots of

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
71

water onto the lugpole over the flames. Jack was dispatched to

bring Ol’ Mule in from his tether. Seth shouldered the yoke and

left to fetch water.

Maggie stripped the sweat-soaked shift from Naomi. She sat on

the edge of the bedstead, dipped a rag in water, and swabbed the

woman’s fevered skin. The sponge bath had an immediate effect.

Deep lines of agitation around Naomi’s mouth and forehead disap-

peared. Her eyes fluttered open, beryl blue and soft in dazed con-

fusion.

“Dinna fash, Naomi. Yer goin’ to be fine . . . everything will

be just fine . . .” Maggie’s crooning soothed the woman back into

unconsciousness.

Winnie returned, deposited a woven string of onion bulbs

onto the table, and wandered over to the bedside. “Are you

daft?” The girl gathered the tangle of blankets Maggie had cast

aside. “Mam’s a-fevered! She needs be kept warm.”

“Leave those blankets be, lass. Come, sit here and learn some

healin’.” Maggie smiled and patted the bed. Winnie’s eyes nar-

rowed, thin arms clinching the bundle of blankets tight to her

chest. She glanced from her mother to Maggie, to her mother

again, dropped the blankets, and sat down beside Maggie.

“Most folk dinna ken this—fever can be a good thing, for it

rids the body of ill humors and corruption.” Maggie sponged

Naomi’s naked limbs and torso. “But fever also weakens a

body, stops a body from doing the things that need doing. Mark

this, lass—more folk die from thirst and hunger than ever die

from fever. Aye, fevers are most dangerous if not managed

properly.” Maggie dipped the rag in water and handed it to Win-

nie. “As the fever heats from within, we’ll cool her from with-

out. I’ll roll yer mam to her side, you swab her.” Winnie waited,

compress in hand, as Maggie levered Naomi to face the wall.

“Megstie me!”
Maggie gasped. The freckled skin on Naomi’s

back was crisscrossed with layers of silvery scars, telling a story

of repeated, brutal fl oggings.

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Winnie traced a finger over the perfect pink letter
R
seared