The Midwife of Hope River Read online

  “What? What’s the big emergency?” I’m holding on to the door frame as she careens through the nearly empty streets.

  “You’ll see.” She pulls up in the dry grass, bouncing into the gravel. “You hear that?” There’s no way to miss it, a high-pitched scream.

  The vehicle sputters to a stop, we jump out, and she pulls me along through the grass heading under the bridge. The wail rises, then falls. Rises and falls.

  “It’s someone crying. A kid or a woman.”

  What we see next surprises me. Three men, two whites and a black, squat around a small open fire behind one of the bridge’s stone pillar. Their lean-tos, canvas supported on poles with cardboard layered over them, are arranged close together on a rise above the riverbed. These are not campers just passing through: they plan to stay for a while. The fellows jump up when they see us.

  “Is someone in trouble here?” I ask authoritatively.

  “This is the midwife.” Becky introduces me. Apparently she’s already met them.

  The oldest guy, a man of about fifty wearing a wool cap like a paperboy, steps forward and nods toward the smaller tent. “It’s the Girlie,” he says as if that’s her name. “She’s with child. My name’s Will Carter.”

  “You the baby’s pa?” I’m looking at Carter, but all the men shake their heads no. As the other fellows introduce themselves, I take in the scene. Not a pretty picture: tin cans litter the ground, a string of laundry is tied between two trees, and an old stovepipe sticks out of a metal barrel, making a cookstove.

  “We ain’t kin. None of us. Girlie just joined up with us in Cool Springs. The goons at the MacIntosh spur drove us off the rails, threatened us with our lives, so we been making it cross-country, heading for Torrington. She’s on the run from her old man in Beckley. Nice little lady. Pretty damn good cook even with the hobo stove. Calls us her ‘knights in shining armor.’ Can you help her?”

  “Is she alone in there?”

  “We ain’t got no womenfolk,” the young colored man explains.

  “No money either,” the third guy mumbles.

  The cry comes again, followed by a whimper. Becky pulls on my sleeve. “You better check her.”

  I pull the tent flap aside, and my eyes fly open. “Holy cow!”

  The mother, a pale-skinned slip of a thing not more than sixteen, is lying on her side with a baby’s head halfway out. The girl’s not even trying to push, just lying there crying. The trouble is that the tissue all around the infant’s head is beet red and distended, as if the head’s been crowning for a long time.

  “Her name’s Docey,” the home health nurse tells me.

  “Lord, Docey, how long’s this been going on?” That’s me. Becky is kneeling to one side, trying to bring some order to the dirty pallet. She picks up the wet, bloody rags with the tips of her fingers and throws them out the tent door.

  “How long has the head been down here?” I ask again.

  Docey opens her eyes, a startling blue-green, the color of the river in winter when the ice first opens. She shakes her head as if time has no meaning and she’s too tired to talk but not too tired to cry.

  “Eeeeeee. Owwwww!” she whimpers when a contraction hits her, making no effort to bear down. “It burns so bad, I think I’m going to split open.”

  “It’s her first,” Becky fills me in. “I got some of her medical history the first time I was here. It was Judge Hudson that called me. Apparently everyone who’s crossed the bridge today has heard a woman scream. After the third complaint he wanted someone to go check. For some reason he thought of me, not the sheriff.”

  I am hardly listening. If I don’t do something soon, she really might split open, right to the rectum. She won’t die from it, but she might be ruined for life.

  “It’s gonna be okay, Docey. You can do this . . . We’re going to need warm compresses.”

  Outside, I throw orders around like Napoleon. “Where’s the hot water? Did it boil yet? Get more wood. I need a clean bowl, some sterilized twine, and a sterilized knife. Who has one?”

  The black man holds out his pocketknife and wipes it with the tail of his plaid flannel shirt. “Good enough, get it in some hot water . . . Now, do you have any lard?” All activity stops, and the men jerk up from their appointed tasks.

  “Lard?”

  “Yeah, I said lard. Do you have any? Bacon grease? Anything?”

  The crying starts up in the shelter again. The older guy, Will, rustles around in a canvas knapsack and comes up with a tin decorated with a smiling pig.

  “Patience!” That’s Becky. “Patience!” When I reenter the tent, the home health nurse is so anxious you’d think maybe she’s never seen a birth before. “Don’t leave me!” she says. What do they teach these people in nursing school?

  “Make a low table for the water, the lard, and the sterilized knife just outside the tent!” I yell to the men.

  Docey yells louder. “OW! OW! OW!” She still lies on her side, and the head hasn’t moved. I consider listening for a heartbeat, but how do I know if the baby is even alive? Better concentrate on just getting it out. I indicate that Becky should hold the girl’s upper leg, and she does so with shaking hands.

  “Docey,” I try, “you have to stop screaming. You’re scaring the baby.” I remember Bitsy’s words with Twyla, and they seem to work. The girl doesn’t shut up, but she turns down the volume.

  “The baby’s stuck right at the opening, but I’m going to ease it out. You have to push when I tell you. Even if it hurts, you have to push, but just a little at a time. Once we get ready, it will all be over in a few minutes.”

  It occurs to me that my optimism may be misplaced. What if the swollen tissue is not what’s holding the baby back? What if the infant’s shoulders are wedged up behind the pubic bone?

  Outside the tent I hear rustling, and I look out to see the men making a platform with two rounds of wood. The oldest guy brings over a pot of hot water. The bearded fellow hands me the can of lard, and the youngest one proudly shows me his pocketknife, gleaming in a still steaming pork-and-beans tin.

  Hope

  Docey cries out again and again, throwing her head back and forth.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I soothe.

  “It’s okay,” Becky copies me, patting the girl’s arm as if she were a dangerous animal about to bite.

  “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna have a baby in your arms soon.” That’s me again.

  With a twitch of my head, I tell Becky to get the warm compresses. She wrings one out, glad to have something useful to do.

  “My theory is that the warmth will soften the tissue and help the mother relax,” I explain. It seems to be working. Between pushes, I can now get two fingers in, indicating that there’s a little more stretch, and with the next contraction we see some real progress.

  “Look honey, the baby is coming.” The hairy head peeks out just a little more.

  The men can’t help themselves. From outside, they shout their encouragement. “Atta girl!” “You’re getting her now!” “That’s our champ!”

  All my attention is focused on that tight, swollen ring of fire. This is the part where I’m fully awake. I make a crown with my hands and just pray that the baby’s still living.

  “I can see ears. A few more pushes, and the widest part will be out. Push a little. Blow a little. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo.”

  With the next effort, progress happens fast, and my fears of the shoulders being too big prove unfounded. A wailing pink infant girl flops into my lap, followed by a gush of blood and then the placenta.

  Docey’s blue-green eyes fly open as she realizes it’s really a baby and not just more searing pain. “My baby! My sweet!” It’s the first words I’ve heard from her, other than about how bad it hurts.

  “Hot damn!” a man utters behind me, peeking in. “Pardon.”

  The guys can’t help themselves; they have to see. I block their view of the mother but let them get a glimpse of the baby.r />
  Will wipes beads of sweat off his face with a crumpled blue bandanna. “Watcha gonna call her?”

  Docey doesn’t answer at first but inspects the jewel in her arms. “What’s the name of this river?”

  “The Hope,” Becky and I answer together.

  “That’s her name then, Hope.”

  Twenty minutes later, I accept a hot cup of joe from the men around the fire. Becky stays in the tent to show the mother how to breastfeed, her hands no longer shaking. Birth is a messy, primitive event, and I’ve noticed before that it’s not for everyone.

  “How were you fellas going to care for Docey? Did you have a plan? She can’t travel like this, and it’s too cold for the baby to live in a tent.” A chill wind has come up and ripples the river.

  “We didn’t know she was this close to term,” Will explains. “We just figured we’d lay up here for a few days, let Girlie rest, and then get on to Torrington to a church or someplace, find someone who would take care of her. Then this morning she started paining.”

  I run over the options. They could stay here and try to keep warm. I could take the mother and babe up to our house . . . or . . .

  Here Becky sticks her head out the flap and surprises me. “She can come home with me. I’ll take care of her until she gets on her feet.” She hands the lard and the unused rags out to the fathers. I know they aren’t really the fathers, but the beams on their mugs make me think of them that way.

  Will stubs out his hand-rolled fag, saves the butt in a tobacco tin, and ties his knapsack closed.

  “I’m going with her,” he tells me. “The other fellows will stay with our stuff. We don’t have much, but if we get robbed, we’ll be as miserable as sin.”

  I look over at Becky. “No, you won’t,” she counters. “There’s only room for Docey and the baby.” The men are clearly disappointed. They hang their heads as if being told that their favorite grandmother has passed.

  Becky shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says. “Really I am, but there’s just nowhere for you to stay. You can visit every day.” At that the men cheer up, and within an hour we have Docey and Hope up the hill and situated in the Ford. Becky gives the fellows her address and directions, and by late afternoon I’m on my bike crossing the bridge for home.

  Will and the others stand and salute as I pedal past. These are good working fellows, I reflect, unemployed, down on their luck, not vagrants or bums, as some people call them. In my mind, Docey is Mary and they are the three Wise Men.

  June 20, 1930. Moon obscured by the clouds.

  Birth of baby Hope down by the riverside. The mother is Docey of Beckley, West Virginia. (Didn’t get the last name.)

  I was called to a tent set up under the bridge by Becky Myers, the home health nurse. The patient had been crowning for hours, and the tissue around the vagina was swollen, thick, and red. With warm-water compresses and lard I was able to ease the baby out without a tear. Mother and infant were taken to Becky’s house. Present were myself, three traveling men that were camping with the girl, and Mrs. Myers. They told me that Docey, the mother, was escaping from an abusive husband and they had taken her under their wing. I fear she will have a hard go of it.

  Hester

  On my way home, bicycling down Salt Lick, I decide at the last minute to go by the vet’s. He gets around. Maybe he’ll know of some work. Except for the birth of the baby, and my few supplies, the coins I received at the courthouse, the day didn’t net much reward. While I’m at his house, I can also get a cold drink of water.

  Noting his black Model T parked in the drive, I walk my bike across the wooden bridge. Under me, the north branch of Salt Lick gurgles over slate as smooth as a sidewalk. For a minute I think of removing my shoes and wading in the clear water. Skimmers float in the slow places. A minnow flashes, then disappears, but I remember I’m on a mission.

  There’s no sign of the vet in the yard or the barn, so I approach the front door of his stone farmhouse. “Anyone home?” I knock at the back door, expecting it to swing open. No answer. I know he must be here, because his Ford’s in the drive . . . With my hand over my eyes, I scan the surrounding fenced meadows and then knock again, harder.

  “Yeah?” comes a muffled voice from upstairs. Stepping off the back porch, I look up at an open window. “Mr. Hester?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Patience Murphy.”

  “What do you want?” So curt. What’s up? The voice softens. “You having trouble with Star or Moonlight?”

  “No. They’re okay. What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why don’t you come down?” A silence follows, filled with ringing cicadas.

  “I’ve been injured.”

  “Can I come up?” More silence, as if he’s trying to decide how much of his private life he wants to reveal. We aren’t actually friends, though we’ve shared a few moments.

  “Okay . . . the door’s unlocked.”

  As I enter the kitchen, I note a sink full of dishes. There’s an unwashed milk bucket on the counter, and past the wall telephone I locate steep wooden stairs that lead to the second level. Just outside the room that I surmise must be his bedroom, I find a white porcelain potty with the lid off, full to the brim with dark yellow liquid. The smell is not good.

  Without thinking I reach down, replace the lid, then tap twice and push the door open. Daniel Hester lies in a rumpled four-poster double bed, a three-day beard covering his bruised face. His left arm is in a sling, and one very purple bare leg and foot is supported on a feather pillow.

  “Wow! You look like you got in a fight with a bull and the bull won!” I make a joke of it, but in truth I’m shocked.

  Hester waves at a nearby chair and indicates that I should sit down. “I was in a fight, and you’re right, I did lose, but not with a bull.” He notices me staring at an unlabeled bottle of clear booze . . . gin, or maybe vodka . . .

  “Pain medicine,” he excuses himself.

  “What can I do?” I’d like to change his bedding, clean him up. Attend to his wounds. I was looking for a nursing job, but this isn’t for pay. He just looks so pitiful.

  “Nothing. I’m okay.”

  “Sure! You can’t even empty your own pee pot. What are you doing about milking?”

  “Not much. I’ve milked once a day, and it took me an hour to get to the barn and back.” He coughs and holds his ribs on the side of his injured arm.

  I shake my head. “What happened? You were kidding about the fight, right?”

  Hester shakes his head no. “It was three fellows over near Burnt Town. You probably don’t know them, the Bishop brothers.”

  I reach over to straighten Hester’s pillows, wrinkling my nose. He smells like sweat and something else, manure . . .

  “So how did you get in this state? It must have been quite a battle.”

  “I went over to attend their sick horse, and when I got there the three of them were two sheets to the wind. There are four brothers, really, all small farmers and moonshiners, but the one I usually deal with, the oldest, Aran”—he nods toward the bottle—“wasn’t there.

  “Anyway, as usual, they called me when it was almost too late. A lot of stockmen do, trying to save money, hoping whatever is wrong with their animal will miraculously disappear. They were in a surly mood. Drink does that to some men, and they were worried about their animal.”

  He struggles to turn on his side so he can see me better, but tears come to his eyes and he gives up, staring helplessly at the ceiling.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Two days ago. I was summoned because their favorite horse, Devil—”

  “Devil? You’re kidding, right? The Bishop brothers have a horse named Devil?” I think this is funny, but he doesn’t laugh.

  “Yeah. I was called because Devil had colic.”

  “Just a minute.” I trot down the stairs, light his gas stove, pump some water into a big pan, and put it on to heat.

  “What were you doing?” he asks when I get ba
ck. For the first time I notice the framed paintings and prints on the white plaster walls: race horses, farm horses, and hunting horses, some original, some reproductions. There’s even a faded photograph of Hester as a young man in an army uniform, standing with a wagon and two horses. The horses are wearing gas masks. I flick my eyes away from the gallery.

  “Warming water for a bath.”

  The vet smiles his first smile of the day, his half-crooked one. “I smell pretty bad, huh?”

  I nod. “You reek.”

  The only time I smelled something similar was when Ruben came back in the spring of 1920 from organizing the miners at Matewan. He hadn’t bathed for a week and had had only one set of clothes with him. He cried when he told me how things had fallen apart at Tug Fork.

  “Three thousand men signed the union’s roster at the community church, though they knew it could cost them,” he told me after I’d washed his back and hair and made him put on a clean nightshirt. “If we failed in negotiating an agreement with the mine owners, they’d lose their jobs.

  “And that’s what happened. The Stone Mountain Coal Company fought back with mass firings. Women and children were actually thrown out of their company cabins into the rain. The mine boss brought in the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, those goons from down near Bluefield, to do the dirty work with machine guns, but the miners had rifles and pistols and were ready for them. We weren’t even striking yet, just trying to get organized. A gunfight erupted on Main Street. It wasn’t clear who fired the first shot, Sheriff Hatfield or one of the Felts brothers, but ten men died. It was senseless.”

  It’s funny how just a smell can evoke such a strong recollection. I remember all that as I straighten the room. It was the first time Ruben had been involved in armed fighting, and it changed him. After that he carried a Colt revolver.

  The vet groans again and goes on with his story. “Anyway, the horse, Devil, is already in bad shape when I get there. Bad. He’s their favorite mount, the one that always leads the Fourth of July parade in Liberty with red, white, and blue ribbons in its tail . . . They’d been walking him around a pen in the yard. He was pretty far gone, covered in lather and foaming at the mouth, buckling at his knees, trying to lie down. A bad sign.