Dorothy Garlock (6 page)

“M-ma . . . ma!” Harriet screeched suddenly.

“I’m here, honey. Hold onto my hands.” Fear constricted Ana’s stomach. She would never forget the wild, terrified look on her stepdaughter’s face as long as she lived. Sweat drenched the girl’s brow, and she panted with the force of her contractions. “Take deep breaths, honey. It’ll be over soon.”

“The baby . . . won’t come—”

“It will, in time. Hold on to me.”

“I . . . want Owen.”

“He went to get water. He’ll be back.” How could she want that beast of a man after what he’d done to her? Ana thought angrily.

Owen came as the pain rolled away. Harriet’s dull eyes turned to him.

“Owen! Come here. I want Mama to raise my baby.”

“You’ll raise your own baby,” Ana said quickly.

“No, I won’t,” Harriet panted. “But it’s all right.”

Ana looked up at the man holding the steaming kettle and saw the wholly tender look cross his face before he turned away to set the kettle down on the washstand. Pain took Harriet again. Ana threw off the covering and lifted Harriet’s legs, placing her feet on the bed.

Harriet’s eyes opened wide. “Owen!” she screamed and reached for him. “Help me!”

“I’ll try, girl. Let it come. It will only make it worse if you hold back—” He knelt beside the bed and took her hands.

Harriet stared into Owen’s face, not seeing him, but using him as a point on which to focus her mind while her muscles knotted and pulled. Ana placed the palm of her hand on the hardened mound and waited for another contraction.

“Promise . . . Owen. Mama will love . . . him.”

“You’re going to be all right, girl.”

“No. I don’t want Esther to have—” Pain took her and she was lost to the world. After several minutes, her cries became weaker. “M-mama, I can’t . . . stand it.”

“It’ll be over soon, honey. Push as hard as you can.”

“You don’t blame him, do you, Mama?” Harriet gasped when the pain ebbed.

Ana glanced at the man’s set profile. “Of course not, honey,” she crooned the comforting words that were not true.

“He made me happy and he . . . loved me—”

“No doubt he made himself happy too,” Ana hissed, then gasped at the amount of blood that suddenly poured from the girl.

Harriet reared and grabbed her abdomen as pain took her again. She let out a piercing scream, quivered in her agony, then lay limp as the world retreated.

“It’s coming, but it’s turned around,” Ana cried in anguish. She looked helplessly into Owen’s eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

O
wen
moved quickly to the end of the bed.

“We’ll have to take it or it will strangle.”

“It’ll kill her!” Ana looked at the pale face of the unconscious girl and back at the man.

“She’ll bleed to death if it hangs there, and the baby will choke. The cord will be around its neck.” He picked up a cloth and grasped the protruding feet.

“She’s fainted! She can’t help.”

“Can you feel the head?”

“Yes.”

“Push on the top of it,” he ordered.

Gently, Owen pulled the tiny being from its mother’s body. With bloody fingers he unwrapped the cord from around its neck and sliced through it with his knife. It was all done in a matter of seconds. The baby was dark and still.

“Is it alive?”

Owen didn’t answer. He lifted the child by its heels. Ana held her breath thinking he was going to bash its head against the wall. He swung it back and forth, then laid it on its back and wiped its mouth and nose with a cloth. Still it did not move.

“Breathe,” he commanded roughly. “Breathe.”

Owen dug a finger into the baby’s mouth to clear it of mucus. He then turned it over and whacked its tiny buttocks with the palm of his hand. The tiny chest heaved, the little mouth opened and drew air into its lungs. It made a mewing sound like that of a newborn kitten, then opened its mouth and let out a screech of indignation and rage.

Ana massaged Harriet’s stomach with strong, knowing hands. This was something she knew how to do. After a short time, the afterbirth came and with it a fresh flow of blood. Scarcely aware of the crying baby, she quickly rolled up the soiled bedding and packed fresh cloth between the thighs of the pale girl who lay limp and drained.

With this done, Ana turned to Owen and the baby he was holding in his two big hands. Together they looked at it in awed silence; Ana fighting tears. It was a beautiful baby with a plump little belly with its cord cut and tied, its dark hair plastered against its head, its little face blood-stained.

“God Almighty! A boy—” Owen said in a shaky whisper.

When Owen raised his eyes to Ana’s, he was smiling. The change in his face stunned her. He looked years younger. He was actually handsome, handsome enough to turn the head of any young girl.

“He needs to be washed.”

“You’ll have to do it. I’m afraid I’ll hurt him.” He held the newborn out to Ana. She shook her head and turned away.

“He’s your son. Wash him,” Ana said crossly, remembering his seduction of a young and naive girl.

Ana poured water from the teakettle into the washdish and cooled it with water from the pitcher. She dipped her elbow into it to test the temperature, then wet a cloth with the cold water and laid it on Harriet’s head.

Owen placed the naked infant in the washdish and carefully washed the blood and mucus from its tiny body.

Fear made Ana weak and sick to her stomach when she checked the pads between Harriet’s legs. She had lost so much blood and it was still flowing much too fast. Suddenly Harriet’s eyes opened and she looked directly into Ana’s.

“Mama?” Her lashes fluttered and fell.

“Yes, honey.”

“Is it . . . over?”

“It’s over and you have a boy.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s perfect. Mr. Jamison is washing him.”

“I want to see him—” Her voice, a low painful whisper, trailed.

Owen lifted the baby from the washdish, wrapped him in a blanket and brought him to the bed. His big hands held the baby carefully. The boy’s head, nestled in the big rough palm, was covered with dark wet hair, his face was red and wrinkled. A tiny fist was seeking his mouth. Harriet smiled as she looked down at her son. She stroked the fuzz of dark hair with her fingertips, then moved them down to the velvet softness of the baby’s cheek.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he, Owen?” With tear-filled eyes, she looked at the man who knelt beside the bed. “What shall we name him?”

“Do you have something in mind?”

“You name him.”

“Then I’ll call him Harry after his mother. Harry Jamison. How’s that?”

“Harry O. Jamison. You’ve been good to me, Owen.”

Ana had to choke back the snort of disgust. The lump that thickened her throat prevented her from making the caustic remark that came to her mind.

“I did what I could, girl. I’m sorry you were so miserable most of your time here.”

“Promise you’ll let Mama have him.”

“Ah, girl—I can’t just give the boy away. He’s a Jamison,” Owen said in strangled voice.

“I wish he’d died!” Harriet cried. “With all my heart, I wish he’d died!” She hugged the baby as sobs shook her.

“Oh, no! Honey, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Ana gasped and reached over to make sure the baby was not pressed so close that he couldn’t breathe.

“Yes, I do, Mama. Esther has no love in her. She’ll take over my baby like she has Owen, and Hettie, and Lily, and like she—” A sob clogged her throat. Her strength gave out and her arms dropped from around the child.

“We’ll not talk about it now. It just gets you upset.” Ana picked up the baby and cradled it in her arms. “You’ll feel better after you rest and eat something.”

“Promise, Owen,” Harriet insisted. Her anguished brown eyes were fastened on his face. She had not heard a word Ana had said. “Please promise me that if I . . . if I die you’ll let Mama have my baby.”

Ana wanted to smash her fist into the face of the big, silent man. Why didn’t he say the words that would bring comfort to the girl whose life he had ruined? Why was he sitting there like a big stump? Damn him! Holding the child in her arms, Ana bent over her stepdaughter.

“Don’t worry, honey. You’re going to be all right, but if not, I’ll move heaven and earth before I leave your baby here. You know how stubborn your mama can be when she sets her mind. I promise that your baby will have all the love my heart has to give. Now you’ve got to rest. Sleep is what you need. Your son will be hungry soon.”

Ana forced her voice to stay firm until she finished, but she never felt more like crying in her life. A desperate feeling of loneliness possessed her—a loneliness that would be her future without Harriet.

Harriet’s eyes, glazed with tears and exhaustion, went from Ana’s face to Owen’s. It was all she could do to keep her eyelids from drooping over them.

“Owen? You know how it is here. I’d rather my child be dead than to have the spirit crushed out of him. Promise you’ll let Mama have him or I’ll pray with my last breath that God takes him.” Her voice had lowered to a painful whisper and her eyes were dull and staring.

“Rest easy, little girl.” Owen was holding one of Harriet’s hands in both of his. “Mrs. Fairfax and I will work out something so she can look after the boy.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Mama, I love . . . you—”

“I love you too, honey. Can you rest now?”

Ana turned away lest Harriet see the tears in her own eyes and the worry on her face.

“I don’t want to go to sleep. Soon I’ll be sleeping for a long, long . . . time.” Her voice faded, then came back stronger. “Owen! Tell him . . . I love him—” Her lids drooped over her eyes as if they were too heavy to hold up.

Owen lifted her hand to his lips. “I’ll tell him,” he whispered huskily.

*   *   *

Harriet was dying.

Owen knew it. Ana knew it. She had never felt so helpless in all her life. She sat in a chair beside the bed as the lifeblood slowly drained from the girl. Ana thought of the first time she had seen her—a toddler taking her first steps. A child herself, Ana had knelt on the floor and held out her arms. The trusting, chubby little cherub had staggered into them, confident that Ana wouldn’t let her fall. In the joy of her accomplishment she had placed wet kisses on Ana’s cheek. From that moment on she had been Ana’s child. Ana slept with her, fed her, tended to her while her grandmother did the work.

Her anguish too deep for tears, Ana held Harriet’s hand throughout the long night hours. She was losing the dearest thing she had in the world. She wanted to rage at the injustice of it and at the man responsible. If he had needed a woman, why hadn’t he gone to one of the establishments up and down the river and paid his money for his pleasure. Instead he had seduced a young, innocent girl and brought her to this.

The baby lay in a bureau drawer that had been lined with blankets. Ana had dressed it in one of the gowns she brought with her and wrapped it in a soft blanket. She picked it up, brought it to the bed and laid it in the crook of Harriet’s arm. He was a big baby. Ana guessed that he weighed well over eight pounds. It’s no wonder the baby was so big, Ana thought bitterly. The father was a big, powerfully-built man. It took all of Ana’s self-control to keep her anger at bay and to be civil to Owen Jamison.

He came in, set a cup of coffee on the table within Ana’s reach, and took his place on the other side of the bed. He hadn’t said anything for hours. Occasionally Ana caught him massaging his thigh when he thought she wasn’t watching him. She would have rather kept the vigil alone, but the man was Harriet’s husband and he had just as much right to be here as she did. Owen rested his forearms on his thighs, his hands hanging between his knees, his head down, as if he wished he were anywhere but where he was. The lamplight shone on the top of his head where a few silver threads were mixed with the brown.

“She’s going to die,” Ana said tersely. “I’ve done everything I know to do to stop the bleeding, but it isn’t enough.”

Owen’s eyes moved over Harriet’s quiet face. “Poor little thing,” he whispered sadly.

The words so shocked and angered Ana that she was up and out of the chair before she realized it.

“It’s too late for that now. You should have thought of it when you came to Dubuque. Harriet said she had met a
man.
A real man would have never taken his pleasure of an innocent fifteen-year-old girl and left her to face the consequences. I bet you were surprised when she showed up here.” Ana drew a quick hurtful breath. “If she’d only have told me, I would have taken her away somewhere and taken care of her. She was wrong to give in to you, but she shouldn’t have to die for it.” Angry tears streamed down Ana’s cheeks. “Were you so angry that she found you that you worked her to death?”

Owen looked up as if startled, his heavy brows drawn together in a deep frown. He held her angry gaze with his for a long while. The silence between them seemed to crackle.

“You’re not entirely without blame, madam. You should have kept her off the street.”

He got to his feet and left the room without giving Ana a chance to reply. She sank back down in the chair, tears blurring her eyes. She picked up Harriet’s hand and held it between her own. A rooster crowed in the barnyard below, announcing the coming of dawn. Time passed and a faint light came in through the east window.