Chapter Twenty
Sarah heard the scream after midnight. She woke. A woman. She heard someone else standing by her wagon. She knew it was Clay; she could feel his alert energy, somehow wrapping around her like a cocoon. He leaned in through the back window.
“Stay here,” he said.
Sarah had already pulled on her boots.
Clay looked at her.
“I’m not staying in a wagon while somebody’s hurt.”
His jaw worked once. “Keep behind me.”
They went toward the creek where the ground dipped, and the cottonwoods stood close together. Samuel came from the next wagon with a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other. Two more men followed, sleepily and unsteadily.
The light found a horse first. It stood with its head hanging, its reins dragging in the mud. Beyond it, under a rough lean-to made from a wagon sheet, a man knelt beside a woman lying on a blanket.
The woman’s face shone with sweat. Her dress had been torn at one shoulder. Her dark hair was stuck to her cheeks. She gripped the man’s hand so hard her knuckles had gone pale, though her skin was dark.
“Don’t come close,” the man said.
He held a knife close to his own chest as if he had forgotten it was there.
Clay lowered his rifle. “We heard her cry out.”
“My wife’s having her baby.” As they got closer, they realized it was Malcolm.
Another pain took her. She bent forward with a sound Sarah felt in her own ribs. The man put the knife down at once and supported her shoulders.
Sarah stepped past Clay.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Malcolm asked.
“No,” she said. “But I can boil water and hold a lantern. That’s more than you have.”
He stared at her a moment. Then he nodded.
Clay turned and called toward the wagons. “Violet. Charlotte. We need you.”
Charlotte came first, wrapped in a shawl over her nightdress, her gray hair loose down her back. Violet followed with a pail and a bundle of cloth. She took one look at the woman and set the pail down.
“You,” Violet told Sarah, “get more water. Clean water. And ask Clay to fetch every scrap of linen he has.”
Sarah ran.
The camp had stirred fully. Faces showed in wagon openings. Men stood in their shirts with their arms folded, watching. The wind had fallen, but the trees dripped from the rain earlier that evening. Water soaked through Sarah’s skirts as she crossed the grass.
Clay met her beside the fire.
“Water and cloth,” she said.
He was already moving. “You all right?”
“She’s not.”
He came back with a sack of spare shirts, strips torn from an old sheet, and a small tin of lard. Sarah carried the bucket while he kept the lantern high. They returned to the lean-to and found Charlotte on her knees between the woman’s feet, as if she had done this a hundred times.
“Her name is Lydia Price,” Violet whispered. “His is Malcolm.”
“Yeah. We’ve already met,” Clay said.
Lydia cried out again. Malcolm shut his eyes, but he did not let go of her hand.
Sarah knelt beside Lydia’s head. “My name’s Sarah.”
Lydia’s blue-black eyes found hers. There was fear in them, and anger too. The kind that had kept a person on her feet when there was no reason left to stand.
“You’re doing well,” Sarah said.
Lydia gave a short, breathless laugh that was almost a sob.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“All right,” Sarah said. “You’re doing something hard.”
That seemed to please her a little.
Hours passed in pieces. Cloth was rinsed and wrung out.
Clay brought wood without being asked and kept the fire alive despite the damp.
Samuel sent the curious away from the trees.
Once Sarah looked up and saw Clay standing beyond the lantern light, his face drawn and quiet.
He’d put his coat around Malcolm’s shoulders.
Near dawn, the baby came.
For a moment there was only Lydia’s ragged breathing and the creek slipping over stones.
Then a small cry rose into the gray morning.
Malcolm made a sound Sarah had never heard from a grown man. He covered his face with both hands. Lydia lay back against the blanket, spent and trembling, while Charlotte cleaned the baby with careful hands.
“A girl,” Charlotte said.
Violet smiled down at the child. “A loud one, too.”
Lydia reached for her. Charlotte placed the baby in her arms. The child was red-faced and furious, her fists opening and closing against the air.
“Rose,” Lydia whispered. “That’s her name.”
Malcolm bent over them both. His forehead touched Lydia’s temple. He stayed there.
Sarah turned away to give them what little privacy there was. Clay stood a few paces off. He looked at the baby, then at Sarah.
“She’s got a good pair of lungs,” he said quietly.
Sarah wiped her wet hands on her skirt. “That is your expert opinion?”
“It is.”
***
By daylight, the camp had a new unease in it.
Lydia and Malcolm had no wagon. Their supplies amounted to one battered pot, a blanket, a small bundle of clothing, and the tired horse tied near the creek. All of this was packed into other wagons.
Malcolm sat beside the lean-to with Rose sleeping against his chest. He had a split lip and a bruise darkening along his cheek. Clay crouched before him, asking questions in a low voice.
“And here I was thinking that a black man could finally see himself safe in this country…” he said. “We got attacked. Took us for all I had.”
“How many?” Clay said.
“Four that I saw.”
“Catch any names?”
“No.”
“Did they ride north?”
Malcolm nodded. “They took the road after they emptied us out.”
Samuel stood nearby, watching the tracks along the wet ground. He came back after a while and wiped mud from his boots.
“Four horses, at least,” he said. “Maybe five. Think there were more wagons nearby. Headed east awhile, then cut north through the trees.”
“Everett?” Sarah asked.
Malcolm looked at her. “You know this party?”
“Could be,” Clay said.
Malcolm’s gaze settled on Clay’s rifle. “One of them seemed like a salesman. Said he’d sell us our own food back if we had money. I lugged our belongings all the way from Louisiana for a new life. Some life it’s shaping up to be…”
“Everett,” Samuel said. “That was your salesman. We know him.”
The name went through the camp without much sound. People looked toward the north road, though no one could see farther than the next rise.
Harlan spat into the grass. “We can’t house every soul those men leave in a ditch.”
“They need help,” she said.
Harlan looked toward Lydia. “The woman can’t walk. There’s a babe now. We’ve got half our flour left and no telling when we’ll find more.”
Malcolm heard every word. His back went stiff, though he did not lift his eyes from Rose.
Sarah felt heat come into her face. “He was robbed.”
“So were plenty of us,” Harlan said. “Doesn’t make the trail any kinder or create more room.”
Clay stood. He was not a large man, but Harlan took a step back all the same.
“We’ve room,” Clay said.
“For tonight,” Harlan muttered.
“For as long as it takes.”
Harlan scowled. “I remember once I was the boss of this trail… I suppose that time is done.”
Clay went on. “We aren’t leaving a woman who gave birth six hours ago on wet ground with no food. If that’s a problem for you, you can say so plain.”
Harlan’s mouth tightened. Violet stared at him. Charlotte did too. Even young Brady stood beside his mother with both fists clenched.
“No,” Harlan said at last. “I said my piece.”
“You did.”
Clay turned away from him.
They gave Lydia and Malcolm the Grangers’ small canvas shelter.
Charlotte insisted upon it, though now Noah was gone, the sight of the shelter seemed to pain her.
Sarah helped Violet spread clean blankets inside.
Rose slept in a wooden box lined with folded shirts, her mouth working in small dreams.
Lydia watched them from the bedding. Her face had softened after sleep, though the weariness remained.
“You don’t have to fuss over us,” she said.
Violet tucked the blanket closer around her. “That’s just what women do when somebody’s brought a baby into camp.”
“We had a wagon,” Lydia said. “A good one. Malcolm built shelves under the seat for the flour and salt pork. We had a little blue quilt my aunt made.”
Her hand came to rest on Rose’s chest.
Sarah looked down at the bundle of clothing they had managed to save. One little dress lay on top, yellowed from use but neatly mended at the hem.
“They took it all?” she asked.
Lydia nodded.
“They took the wagon first,” Malcolm said from the doorway. “Then the horses. One of them said the road was no place for folks like us to be traveling alone.”
His voice was even, but his fingers curled around the shelter pole.
“What did you tell him?” Violet asked.
“That he didn’t own the road.”
A faint smile touched Lydia’s mouth. “That did not improve his temper.”
Sarah sat beside her. “Where were you headed?”
“California,” Lydia said. “Malcolm’s cousin wrote from Sacramento. Said there was work in the towns. Laundry. Carpentry. Anything a person was willing to do.”
Malcolm stepped inside. “We were going to find a place with a door that locked.”
Rose began to cry. Lydia shifted, wincing as she tried to sit up.
“Rest,” Sarah said.
“I can feed my own child.”
“I know you can.” Sarah adjusted the blanket behind her back. “Rest while you do it.”
Lydia gave her a measuring look. Then she settled.
The women spent the morning washing clothes by the creek. Violet had traded two buttons for a bit of soap from Charlotte’s stores. Sarah scrubbed blood and mud from Lydia’s torn dress until her fingers wrinkled in the cold water. Charlotte cut an old underskirt into smaller squares for Rose.
Brady crouched nearby, poking at minnows with a stick.
“Don’t fall in,” Violet said without looking up.
***
By noon, the camp had begun to break apart under the weight of small things.
There was too little water close by. The horses needed grazing.
The women had been up all night, and the men spoke in low, worried voices over the remaining sacks of flour and beans which made a very small pile.
Rose cried whenever the wind moved the canvas.
Lydia could barely stand. Malcolm would not leave her side.
Clay came from the far end of camp with Samuel. Their boots were muddy to the ankle.
“We move in an hour,” Clay said.
Sarah stared at him. “Lydia needs rest.”
“I know.”
“Then why are we moving?”
Clay looked toward the road. The easy humor had gone from his face. “Samuel found fresh tracks north of us. Everett’s men circled close sometime recently.”
Violet’s hands stopped in the water.
“How close?” she asked.
“Too close.”
Sarah rose. “We can’t put Lydia in a wagon.”
“We can lay a bed in mine,” Clay said. “Slow pace. Malcolm rides beside her.”
“She’s just had a baby.”
“I’m well aware.”
Sarah stepped nearer. “Then we ought to stay together and make ready.”
“We’ll make ready to get moving. If Everett knows we’re here, he knows we have a newborn and a woman laid up. He’ll count that as weakness.”
Sarah wanted to argue again. She saw the line of strain beside Clay’s mouth and stopped.
“What do you need?” she asked.
For a second he seemed surprised.
“Water filled,” he said. “Every vessel. Food put where it can be reached. Tell Violet to keep the children near the wagons. Samuel’s sending scouts out for game.”
“Who?”
“Harlan, Ben Turner, and the two Miller boys.”
“Not you?”
Clay shook his head. “Samuel and I stay.”
Sarah nodded. “All right.”
He caught her hand before she turned away.
“Thank you,” he said.
She looked down at their hands. Then she pulled free, not sharply.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “I haven’t done anything.”
“You will.”
She went to work before he could say more.
By the time the sun stood above the trees, the camp had become a place of motion.
Pails passed from hand to hand. Bedrolls were tied down.
Children were counted twice. Malcolm carried Rose while Violet and Sarah helped Lydia into Clay’s wagon, where blankets had been spread thickly over the floorboards.
Clay stood beside the wheel, checking each strap with his own hands.
Rose began to cry again.