Chapter 28 #3
Someone came around the sharp curve ahead toward her. Lindsay.
Anthony had sent help.
Belle didn’t have the strength to pull the horses to a stop. They rolled on past Lindsay. Too fast.
Lindsay drew off to the trailside as the wagon passed her. “Ma, what’s wrong?”
Though she asked, Lindsay didn’t pause for an answer.
She quickly dismounted, lashed her horse’s reins to the back of the moving wagon, and sprinted to jump up on the seat.
She grabbed the brake, gently moving Belle aside.
With Lindsay’s strong hand on the controls, the wagon slowed, but it still moved too fast for safety.
“It’s the baby. Didn’t Anthony tell you?” The wagon seat had no back. Belle struggled to sit upright.
“No.” Lindsay bore down on the brake. The last turn was dead ahead, and it was as tight as a hairpin. The wagon couldn’t get around it at this speed.
The horses whinnied in fear. Lindsay fought a quiet, desperate fight between herself and the mountain and that brake. The wagon slowed a bit. The tight curve ahead came nearer.
Belle’s stomach contracted again. There was hardly time to breathe between the pains now.
The brakes squealed in protest. The horses began throwing their weight on their back feet under Lindsay’s skillful handling on the reins. Her shout even galvanized her own horse to pull against the wagon from behind.
They turned into the curve, still going too fast.
“Lean up the hill, Ma. We can make this, but I need your help.”
Belle obeyed. Years of taking charge, doing what had to be done despite the difficulty, were too ingrained to ignore. Belle leaned away from Lindsay.
The wagon tilted. Two wheels came off the ground.
Lindsay yelled at the nervous horses and threw even more weight against the brake.
They rounded the corner, and the trail straightened. The wagon banged down onto four wheels. Lindsay now could at least make the horses move a bit more briskly and stay ahead of the wagon. She began winning her fight one second at a time.
Finally, the brake caught firmly ahold of the heavily laden wagon. Seconds later, they reached the bottom of the mountain trail.
Most likely, Lindsay normally would have pulled over and given herself and the lathered horses a chance to calm down, but she was a canny girl, and she’d already figured out Belle needed to get home. “What did you mean about Anthony telling me?” Lindsay asked.
Belle gasped as the pain let up. “He came past me on the trail. He wouldn’t stay. I asked him to send help. When I saw you—” Belle lost her ability to speak again as another storm swept over her beleaguered body.
“He came in the cabin. He served himself supper in front of all of us without saying a word.” Lindsay threw Belle a look of such fury that Belle regretted saying anything about Anthony’s part in this. “I just knew it was time for you to be coming, so I rode out to keep you company.”
Belle’s heart broke at Anthony’s cruelty. But she set that aside as another pain threatened to tear her apart. A sudden spate of moisture told her the baby had broken through. It wouldn’t be long now.
“What can I do to help you, Ma? Can you ride my horse to get yourself home faster?”
“No, it’s too late. I wouldn’t be able to sit on the horse.”
Lindsay slapped the horses with the reins and yelled. They picked up the pace to a trot.
They still had a long way to go. The gap was miles away from the cabin. Belle didn’t think she’d make it, but she held on, her fingers white against the buckboard seat.
Lindsay reached her left arm to support Belle’s back, holding the reins in her right hand, now that the brake was no longer needed.
“The horses can’t keep up this pace all the way home.” Belle wouldn’t harm her team to save herself. She’d give birth along the trail first. “Not with the wagon loaded.”
“We’ll go as long as we can. I’m watching ’em. I won’t let them overdo. We’ll deliver the baby out here if we have to.”
Belle focused on the team, trying to keep her weight off Lindsay, trying not to be any more of a burden to her daughter than necessary.
Slave labor. Was it true?
The pains were nearly constant when the cabin finally came in sight.
“Emma!” Lindsay’s shout brought Emma and Sarah out of the cabin at a run. Lindsay pulled within inches of the door.
“What’s the matter?” Emma came around the back of the wagon, her eyes on Belle.
“Ma’s having the baby. Help me get her down.” Lindsay wrapped the reins around the brake with lightning movements. Emma threw herself up beside Belle. Lindsay and Emma eased Belle sideways.
Belle did her best to help. The baby pressed to be born.
The girls, including Sarah, nearly carried her into the house.
The commotion brought Anthony’s head up from where he lay on his narrow bed. He smirked at Belle, then sauntered outside.
The girls lowered her to her bed, and they were in time. Barely. The baby slipped into the world, into the gentle hands of her big sister. It was a girl.
Belle was home. She’d made it home.
But her marriage made it a sad, pathetic excuse for a home.