RR05 - Tender Mercies (36 page)

“The baby started to come in the afternoon, but no matter how hard she struggles, it just won’t be born. Bridget has done all she can and asked me to come for you. Oh, Katy is so weak. I can’t lose Katy.” The last words roared from his throat as if he shook his fist at the heavens.

Oh, Father in heaven, please strengthen our girl. Hold her in the palm of your mighty hand and help this baby come into life, squalling and pink. Father, we beseech you on Katy’s behalf, give Zeb the strength to bear what he must and give us wisdom to be your hands here on earth
. She answered when spoken to but otherwise kept on with her praying.

As the horses raced across the frozen snow, Ingeborg went over in her mind what they could do to help. She and Metiz were out of the wagon bed almost before the team came to a sliding halt. They hurried into the house and into the bedroom, where Bridget shot them a look of pure fear.

“She’s so weak already, she can hardly push.”

Ingeborg shucked her outer things. “Let me wash my hands, and then we’ll see where we are.”

“Katy sleep. Good.” Metiz scrubbed right beside Ingeborg.

“How do we give her the strength to bring this baby into the world?”

“Work. Talk to Great Spirit.”

Katy whimpered as they reentered the room. Her eyes fluttered open. “Zeb? Where’s Zeb?”

“He’s out taking care of the team.” Ingeborg leaned over the sweatsoaked bed. “How are you feeling?”

Katy flopped her head from side to side. “Why doesn’t he come?” Her hand fluttered over her belly, so Ingeborg knew she meant the baby.

“I don’t know. But you rest as long as you can, and then we’ll push that baby out, and you’ll be on your feet in no time.” Ingeborg wished she felt as confident as she tried to sound.

Together she and Metiz checked to see how far Katy had dilated. Metiz shook her head.

Why isn’t she pushing? What’s happening here, Lord?
“Let’s get some pillows behind her and get her sitting up more. Bridget, how long since she walked?”

“Hours.” Then she whispered, “She’s too weak.”

“I know, but between us . . .” Ingeborg nodded to Metiz, who came around the bed. “Okay, Katy, my dear, we are going to get you up on your feet so we can get this going again. Metiz and I will hold you up, and you just move your feet.” Together they rolled her to the side of the bed and, laying her arms over their shoulders, put theirs around her and hoisted Katy to her feet.

“Oh, dear God . . .” Bridget reverted to Norwegian in her misery.

They walked Katy to the door and back around the bed. In the meantime, Bridget whipped off the soaked sheet and threw a clean one over the bed, tucking it in after they sat Katy back down.

“I sit behind her.” Metiz took her place against the wall, and between them all, they pulled and pushed until Katy was propped against her in as much a sitting position as possible.

Watching the limp woman closely, they could see the contraction begin.

“Katy, push!”

Katy groaned, her fingernails digging into Metiz’ legs as she struggled to birth the baby. When she screamed, the sound came more like mewling of kittens than a healthy birthing shriek.

“Has her water broken?” Ingeborg turned to Bridget, who shook her head.

“Ah.” Ingeborg took a sharp knife from her box, and when the contractions forced the opening to expand, she stabbed the membrane, and water gushed into the towels they laid in place.

Within minutes, the contractions deepened and the time between shortened.

Zeb stood in the doorway. “How can I help?”

“You go on to sleep. This is woman’s work.” Bridget made shooing motions with her hands, never taking her eyes from her daughter’s straining body.

“No! Metiz, I can do what you are doing. Katy, I’m here.” He leaned over and brushed the sweat-soaked hair from her forehead. “Katy, love, hear me. We’re going to bring this baby out, okay?”

Metiz looked to Ingeborg and, at her nod, shifted over, relinquishing her place to Zeb.

For a time he seemed to give her strength, but soon her pushes weakened.

“Come on, Katy. You’ve got to push. Now, here we go again . . . that’s it . . . now push!”

“Come on, Katy, love, one more time. Come with a big one,” Zeb chanted, picking up from Ingeborg what was needed. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he wiped them on her hair. “Good, now rest a bit. You’re doing fine, girl. Come on, Katy.”

“I can see the baby’s head.” Ingeborg felt as if she was shouting, but didn’t want the girls to hear all this, so she leaned closer to Katy to let her know.

But after what seemed like hours, the baby had not come any farther. Katy’s pushing grew weaker and weaker, and Ingeborg’s prayers grew more insistent.
Father, give her strength now. Father God, help us
. With no conscious thought on her part, the words streamed from her mind to God’s ear. She hoped.

“We can’t wait any longer.” Ingeborg took the knife and nicked the thin skin surrounding the baby’s head. Then on the next push, with gentle fingers, she tried to get them around the baby’s ears, jaw, something to help him come.

“Now! Push!” The head cleared and with it a stream of blood. “Again. The head is clear.” She turned the shoulders and eased the baby boy into the world amid a gushing of blood.

“Oh, God.”

Bridget grabbed the baby, turned him upside down, and smacked his backside. Nothing.

Metiz massaged Katy’s now flaccid belly, while Ingeborg tried packing to stop the flow.

“What can I do?” Zeb’s voice cut through the air thick with the smell of blood.

“Help Bridget!”

“Breathe in his nose.”

“He’s not breathing.”

Bridget and Zeb continued to work on the newborn, alternating breathing in his nose, rubbing his body, and slapping his backside.

Ingeborg mumbled to Metiz, to Katy, to herself, as they fought to stem the flow of blood that would not stop.

“Dear God, please stop the bleeding,” she prayed over and over.

Katy never regained consciousness. Like the lifeblood flowing from her, Katy’s spirit slipped away, never having seen her son. The son that never breathed.

“I’m sorry.” Ingeborg dashed away the tears that threatened to drown her. “Oh, God, Zeb, Bridget, I’m so sorry.”

Bridget crooned to the baby in her arms as if he could hear.

Zeb fell on his knees beside the bed, kissed Katy one more time, and left.

In her misery, Ingeborg heard the door slam. She glanced out the window to see the crack of gold in the east. With this morning, there would be no joy.

“She’s gone, ain’t she?” Manda appeared like a wraith in the doorway.

“I’m afraid so.” Ingeborg reached for the girl, but Manda dodged her hand and came to stand by the bed. She stared down at the peaceful face on the pillows. “Just like Ma.” She laid the back of her hand on Katy’s cheek. “Good-bye.”

Ingeborg tried to bury her sobs in her hands and blood-stained apron, but it did no good.

Manda looked up at her. “Told you that prayin’ didn’t do no good. God don’t care about us.” She spun on her heel and left the room.

Her words echoed in the room.
God don’t care about us
.

Ingeborg sank down in the rocking chair. “Let me hold him,” she whispered, as if speaking aloud would wake the woman on the bed. Bridget placed the blanket-wrapped baby in Ingeborg’s arms.

She looked down at the round face framed with dark hair long enough to curl already. “He’s so perfect.” She gathered him to her cheek. “Why, oh why, couldn’t you breathe for us? At least your pa would have had you to remember her by.” Her tears washed his face, and she sobbed into the blanket.

Moving like a wooden puppet, Bridget gathered up the bloody sheets and rags and left the room. Metiz laid a hand on Ingeborg’s shoulder.

“Could do no more.”

“I know, but . . . oh, God, oh, God, why hast thou forsaken us?”

“He not leave. He here.”

Ingeborg shook her head. Heavy, it felt so heavy. Was that a door she heard opening? “Where’s Manda?”

“Went out.”

“Oh, we must help her.” She started to rise, but Metiz kept a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Chores will help her. Cows, the horses, they help.”

Between the three of them they had bedclothes boiling and breakfast cooking when Zeb and Manda returned to the house. Deborah clung to Ingeborg, tears leaking from her eyes no matter how much she brushed them away.

“The box will be ready in a couple of hours.” Zeb muttered his first words since he returned to the house.

“Haakan will be glad to do that for you.”

“No! And there will be one box.”

Manda stared at the oatmeal in front of her before flinging away from the table and running for the porch. They could hear her retching over the slop pail.

As soon as the meal was finished, Zeb and Manda both headed back to the barn without another word. A few minutes later they heard the jingle of the harnesses, and Manda pulled the wagon up to the front porch.

“I’ll take you home.”

“I’ll stay here.” Bridget spoke for the first time since she had placed the baby in Ingeborg’s arms.

“Ja.” Ingeborg reached for the older woman, and the two clung together, their tears saying all that words could not convey.

“Mange takk,” Bridget whispered. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

“Ja, I guess.” If she closed her eyes, the black pit yawned at her feet. “I will come back later and help you with washing her and all.”

“No.” Bridget shook her head. “I will do that. She is my daughter.”

Manda never said a word all the way to the Bjorklund farm. From the look on her face, Ingeborg almost doubted the girl would ever speak again.

How were they to help Manda and Zeb and Deborah?
I’ll think about that later
, Ingeborg promised herself as she fell into the arms of sleep.

But even in sleep’s arms, she could see the blood, bright red, that flowed over her hands, over the edge of the bed, and pooled on the floor.
No, no, oh, God, make it stop!

“Inge. Ingeborg.”

She stepped back from the black pit that yawned at her feet, turning to the man who called her name with such love and concern. “Wha-what?”

“You were dreaming.” Haakan stroked her hair from her forehead.

“No.” Ingeborg shook her head. “No, it was not dream. Oh, Haakan.” She raised up to clutch his shoulders with both hands. “She bled to death right before our eyes, and there was nothing we could do.” The last words burst forth like the howl of an animal caught in a trap.

“Ah, my Inge.” He wrapped her in the protection of his arms and cradled her against his chest. “You try so hard and you do the best you can, but my dear love, you are not God.” He kissed her forehead and let her cry.

“But why—why does He turn His face from us?” She hiccuped between sobs. “Zeb, the girls, they need her so bad, and still she is gone. And the baby, ah, Haakan, he was so perfect, and he never even breathed. I cannot bear this. I cannot.” The bed shook with the force of her sobs.

Haakan let his tears wash her hair and gave her the only comfort he could—the warmth of his arms and the strength of his love.

Finally, she wiped her eyes on the bed sheet and gulped in a deep breath of air. Her head felt as if it was far too heavy for her neck to uphold. Her nose ran and she sniffed. The steady beat of his heart under her ear, the scratch of his wool shirt against her cheek, brought a lassitude that she had no will to fight.

“Sleep now, my Inge, and when you awake, all will be better.”

“Where are the children?”

“At Kaaren’s.” He wiped away another tear with the pad of his thumb.

“Don’t leave me alone.” She moved over. “Please.”

Haakan drew her into the curve of his body.

“They were going to call him Gustaf.”

“After Katy’s far?”

“Ja. I should go to Bridget and . . . and the girls.”

“No, you shall stay here.” He cuddled her even closer. “Sleep now.”

She yawned and kissed his hand. “Mange takk.”
I wonder . . .

Chapter 29

Springfield, Missouri

“Something terrible has happened, I know it has.”

“Now, girl, you can’t know that for certain.” Uncle Jed leaned forward, his elbows on the table. He studied her face as if memorizing every inch. “But your ma could tell sometimes too. Guess it’s a family gift.”

Mary Martha started to close her eyes, but every time she did, the sense of doom deepened. “I wasn’t planning to leave until next week, but I think I better be ready in the morning. Could you please go to town today and check on the train schedule? We need a few things at the store too.” She looked deep into her uncle’s faded eyes. “Are you sure you won’t go with me, or at least come later?”

Jed shook his head. “Can’t do that. I’ll put in what crops I can. Hate to let too much go fallow. Sure wish Eva Jane’s man wanted to farm this place with me.”

“He’s not much of a farmer.” Mary Martha rolled her lips together.

“Good thing he’s helping his daddy, even though Eva Jane doesn’t like living that close to her in-laws. Least they got a good roof over their heads and plenty to eat.”

“They’d have that here too. If I had my druthers, I wish Zeb would come home.”

“I know.” She got up to pour them another cup of coffee. “But he likes Dakota, and I think if he left there, it would be to homestead a ranch in Montana. He sure did love the mountains out west.”

“If everybody leaves, who’s going to take care of the land here?”

After Uncle Jed had left for town, Mary Martha thought about his last statement while she gathered her things to pack in the trunk. Not really much she wanted from the house besides her mother’s Bible and her book of recipes for both food and medicinals. Eva Jane had taken their mother’s quilt from her bed and the rocker their father had made before he went off to war. Even though she’d moved furniture around in the front room, without the rocker, there was an emptiness there now.

With the trunk half packed, she stepped outside with a sharp knife and took starts from the white rose bush that smelled so sweet, the snowball bush, and the lilacs. After wrapping them carefully in a packet of damp earth, she wrapped them again in a bit of canvas and nestled them, along with seeds saved from the garden, in a corner of the trunk. If they took, she’d have another remembrance of home.