This Savage Heart (15 page)

She felt the great shuddering within, and she sank her teeth into his taut flesh, overcome.

Ripples were coursing through her as she maneuvered downward, eagerly taking him with her mouth, teasing, wanting to return the joyful agony he had just forced on her. She could hear his soft murmurs as she pleasured him in the way he had taught her during those wondrous months when they were marooned on the island. When the fires grew too hot, he pulled her up. In a long, slow movement, he entered her and she gasped, nails digging into his flesh. He gave her as much as she could receive, and, together, they crested, spirits touching the clouds and sailing beyond to find the moon, to kiss the stars.

Bodies drenched, they clung together. Derek laughed and touched his throat. “You bit me,” he accused. “I’m going to have to watch you, woman. You’re getting violent.”

“You make me violent.” She hugged him tightly, then asked, “Does it hurt?”

“I’ll have some explaining to do. And right now you’re going to pay.” Laughing like children, they rolled on the ground and Derek began to tickle her, but they froze as gunshots split the stillness.

Derek reached for his trousers and, terrified, Julie groped for her dress. They heard shouting.

“Arnhardt, damn it, where are you?”

It was Thomas, his voice high-pitched and unnaturally shrill.

“Here!” Derek yelled, buckling his belt and jerking on his shirt as he stepped through the wall of chaparrals and out into the open. “What in hell is going on?” he demanded. “Why are you shooting?”

Thomas rode up, reining his horse to a skidding stop. “I’ve been calling, but you didn’t hear me, so I fired my gun. You’d better come quick, and Julie, too—if she’s with you,” he added hastily for the sake of politeness.

He continued, rushing. “It’s Teresa. Looks like she might be having her baby. Whatever, she’s in a bad way.”

Julie rushed out of the den, embarrassment cast aside by fear for Teresa. “Let’s go,” she cried.

Chapter Thirteen

Myles was waiting outside the wagon. At the sound of hoofbeats, he turned and ran toward them. Derek reined to a stop so suddenly that Julie was thrown against his back.

Reaching for Myles, she cried, “What’s happened?”

Their wagon loomed against the night sky, a lantern flickering inside it, lending an eerie cast. There was the sound of gasping sobs, then a piercing scream. Myles’s hands on Julie’s arms tensed, tightened, squeezed, and then he set her on the ground and said in a shaking voice, “I was asleep. Her moaning woke me up, and then she admitted she’d been hurting all day, off and on, but she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to worry anybody. She figured it was nothing since it’s not time yet, and she didn’t want Derek to make her go back to El Paso.”

He looked at his sister sharply. “It is too soon, isn’t it, Julie? It’s just a false alarm, isn’t it?”

She ached to agree with him, to reassure him, but she avoided an answer by saying, “Did anyone go for Esther?” He nodded, and she said, “Wait outside.” He hoisted her up into the wagon, and she dropped down next to Teresa, reaching for the wet cloth Esther held out to her. Each time a pain came, making Teresa’s back arch, Julie would try to calm her, wiping her brow with the cloth and murmuring gently. But Teresa was lost in a pain-drenched world beyond Julie’s help.

“Too soon,” she panted. “Oh, God, it’s too soon.”

Esther, kneeling at the end of the mattress, corrected matter-of-factly, “Not for twins, dear. Twins always come early.”

Julie scowled. “Don’t tell her that,” she whispered. “We don’t know it’s true.”

Esther’s eyes widened indignantly. She was in charge there, and she didn’t expect to be challenged. “You’ll see I’m right in just a few minutes,” she said crisply. “It won’t be long.”

Moments passed with agonizing slowness, Teresa’s screams mellowing to soft moans, then rising again when another pain tore through her tortured body.

Outside, Myles paced, wringing his hands and muttering to himself. Derek stared at the pot of boiling water Esther had ordered, watching the clear bubbles popping in the night and wondering why boiling water was always requested when a baby was being born. He decided it was supposed to give the father something to do.

How much longer till daybreak? Maybe an hour. Lord, this had been going on longer than he’d realized, and that poor girl in there was suffering the agony of the damned. He dreaded the time when it would be Julie screaming, but maybe it would be different with a doctor. Esther probably didn’t even know what the hell she was doing. Why couldn’t this wagon train have included a doctor? That would have been a piece of good luck. He started to say something to Thomas, sitting nearby, but caught sight of the Indian girl coming toward them.

“Sujen.” Derek stood. Sujen pointed toward the Marshall wagon. “Bad trouble. I can help.” She was carrying a small bucket, and she stared up at him with that unweaving gaze he’d come to know so well.

Derek cocked his head to one side and looked down at her. She was a tiny thing, probably not over five feet tall. “What can you do to help, Sujen?”

She tilted her head all the way back. “Sujen help with many births. Help now. She hurt too long.”

Touching his arm lightly, she drew Derek away from Thomas. She was embarrassed to talk to a man about woman matters, and the fewer who heard, the better. As best she could, she explained. Derek listened, nodding. What she said made sense.

Aware that Myles was hardly rational, Derek explained carefully. “It makes sense to me, Myles. I figure we should try anything that might help Teresa.”

“Yes, yes.” Myles nodded, murmuring feverishly. “By all means, get her in there.”

Julie and Esther looked around at the sudden intrusion as Sujen climbed into the wagon with her bucket, Derek right behind her. Esther cried indignantly, “What are you doing in here, Captain? And get that…squaw out of here!”

“This woman,” he snapped, “says she’s delivered many babies. Her grandmother was a midwife. She taught Sujen all she knew.”

“That isn’t what we need, I’m sure,” Esther said. “It’s different with white babies than it is with animals. Now get her out of here. We have work to do.”

Derek gave Sujen a slight push toward Teresa. “She’s going to try,” he said in his best Captain Arnhardt voice. “Now please get out of her way.”

“Very well.” Esther stood and smoothed her long skirt furiously. She hissed, “You just go ahead and let a savage take over. I won’t be a party to this.”

Julie spoke up as Esther began to leave. “Wait! Don’t go, Esther, please! We need you.”

“Hmph!” Esther grunted, brushing by Derek. With a sharp nod toward Derek, she snapped, “What do you need me for? You’ve got God Himself—at least that’s who he thinks he is!”

Sujen settled herself between Teresa’s legs and went to work, there being no point in trying to defend herself.

Derek watched for a moment, then decided it really was no place for a man. He left, reminding Julie that he would be outside if needed.

Sujen greased her hands with the lard in the bucket, then smeared some around Teresa, slowly guiding her hands upward. A few moments later she smiled triumphantly. “It is done! Baby comes feet first. Feet were stuck.” She looked warily at Teresa and criticized, “She should sit like this…” She maneuvered herself to a squatting position. “Baby drop out.”

“That’s not the way white women do it, Sujen,” Julie said wearily. She wouldn’t pull Teresa into that awkward position. “The baby will come the way it is, and—”

“Now!” Sujen cried suddenly, waving at Teresa. “Push! Push hard. Baby come. Sujen see it!”

Julie watched in mystified wonder as tiny feet appeared. With a gentle tug from Sujen’s expert hands, the infant slid out and into the world. Julie’s face lit up with a joyful grin…but she froze in a second as Sujen pronounced quietly, “Girl-child. Girl-child is dead.”

“No,” Julie whispered raggedly, scrambling close to the limp body. The baby’s skin was a strange, pasty, blue color. She stifled a scream of horror. The cord was wrapped tightly around its neck. It was dead. With a tearful glance at Teresa, who was not aware of what had happened, Julie whispered to Sujen, “Is there any chance?” Her fingers were working, loosening the cord, but Sujen took the baby from her and said softly, “No. Baby dead.”

Julie cradled the bloodied body to her bosom and began to cry for the little life that would never be, for the joys never to be experienced and, yes, even the sorrows never to be known. She cried and cried, misery blotting out everything else until she heard Sujen gasp. Julie turned her head, still crying, to see a tiny mound of fuzz appear. Quickly, deftly, Sujen helped the second baby to come out, and immediately its blue face changed to fiery red. Small fists began flailing indignantly, and lusty wails filled the air. “Boy-child,” Sujen cried.

Reverently, Julie laid the dead baby girl down on a pile of clothes and gratefully accepted her loudly squalling nephew. “Thank you, God,” she sobbed, rocking him. “Thank you, God.”

One last pain racked Teresa, and after her scream subsided, she slowly began returning to their world. Tears streamed down her face, and she whispered, “My baby.” She whispered the words, too frail to talk.

Julie dried him quickly with a warm blanket, then placed him in Teresa’s arms. Just at that moment, Myles’s excited cries interrupted the holy atmosphere. “Hey! Did I hear my baby crying? Can I come in?”

“In a minute, Myles,” Julie answered, then moved to Sujen’s side. Helping to finish clean up Teresa, she pressed her lips to Sujen’s ear so she would not be overheard. “Wrap the other baby and move it somewhere out of sight. Don’t let Teresa know anything about it yet. She’s terribly weak.”

Sujen nodded in agreement.

Julie pushed the canvas aside, and Derek lifted her to the ground. Quickly she told Myles about his son. After he had received that news, she told him his daughter was dead. “She was carrying twins, and that’s probably why they came early. Miraculously, the boy is a good size and seems healthy, as far as I can tell.”

Myles’s joy had turned to heartbreak. “Why?” he choked. “Why did the first baby die?”

“The cord was wrapped around its neck.” Julie hadn’t wanted to be explicit, but she had no right not to tell him. “She was in labor too long, or— Who knows why, Myles? When I see what I just saw back there, it makes me wonder how
any
babies are ever born and manage to survive. Just be thankful you have your son. And, Myles, I don’t think Teresa should be told there were twins, not now. She’s very weak.” She touched his arm in the age-old gesture from a comforter to the bereaved, then asked Derek, “How far is it to Fort Bowie, or any place where we might find a doctor?”

“A week to Bowie by wagon. Three or four days horseback.” He shook his head, dejected. “I’m sorry, but if we send for a doctor and bring him back, she’s still six days from his help.”

Myles moved toward the wagon. “I’ve got to see her.”

“Wait.” Julie went back inside and saw that Teresa was sleeping, her breathing shallow, exhausted. Sujen was cooing over the baby, having bundled him warmly. Julie took him, then handed him down to Myles.

Tears streaming, unashamed, Myles reached for his son, turning away from the others, wanting the precious moment to be his alone.

Julie motioned to Sujen to hand her the pitiful little body she had also wrapped. She gave the bundle to Thomas. “Bury her, would you, Thomas? Please?” she whispered wretchedly, swallowing hard. Derek drew her to him, and she whispered, “Please. Get Esther. I want her to sit with Teresa and watch her. Make her come.”

“She’ll come,” he said positively. “But are you all right?”

“I just want to be alone for a while, Derek.”

He kissed her forehead, understanding, then released her, watching as she stepped from the halo of light into her solitary grief.

Streaks of dawn stretched above the distant, shadowed mountain peaks. Faint purple mist webbed the new day. Soon the haze would dissipate as the sun leaped into the sky, exploding. There would be no rain, no snow that day.

Julie wished she could be God, just long enough to bestow the breath of life on that poor infant being buried. Oh, she would give so many gifts to that child: the colors of dawn, the first song of a fledgling bird, a warm breeze, twilight.

“Dear Jesus,” she whispered to the ghostly silence about her as her arms crossed her bosom, “I have loved this life, and the longer I live, the more I learn to dwell on the wonders and beauty of the world, not imprison myself within its pain and sorrow. How I have loved the feel of grass under my feet and the soft sound of running streams beside me. I am in love, in love with this world. I have waited for its seasons, climbed its mountains, roamed its fragrant forests, sailed its waters—and always I have known joy and beauty beyond the tears and anguish. Why, God, oh why did the baby have to die without ever living at all?”

Perhaps, Julie reflected, nothing ever really dies. From every death, did not some form of life arise? Leaves fell from trees and were reborn in spring. Stars went down to rise again on other shores.

An infant’s cry reached her ears. God had given a life and taken a life. No. He had given a life and canceled a life. There was a difference. And now, now she must pray that he would not take another life…Teresa’s life.