Friday burrowed his head beneath Maggie’s plaide. She wound
an arm around the dog. “Leave him be—I dinna mind.” With
her place in the world now defined, she allowed the hum of mas-
culine voices to lull her to sleep.
H
The two men passed the bottle of peach brandy back and forth.
“How much time d’ye think,” Seth asked, “afore Portland evicts
us?”
Tom shrugged. “He might not
evict—but he’ll surely de-
mand quitrent. Either way, he’ll first have some work getting
surveys platted and writs of dispossession passed through the
court . . .”
“I just hope I can harvest my corn is all.” Seth worried the
stubble on his chin. “Otherwise, we’ll be awful hard-pressed this
winter. Ye ken, I had t’ scrape every penny t’ come up with the
twenty-three pound for the lass’s contract.”
“If you’re strapped, I could always lend you some . . .”
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
65
“Och, yer a good friend, Tommy, but borrowing is aye a mea-
sure of last resort.” Seth took the bottle and drained it.
“After I finish this business with Josh in Richmond, I’m meet-
ing up with Guy DeMontforte for a summer hunt. Why don’t
you come along?”
Seth smiled. “Na . . . those days are behind me, lad.”
“You’re growin’ soft on me, farmer boy! The garrisons along
the frontier are paying good silver for wild beef. You’d be bound
t’ earn.”
“Soft . . .” Seth relit his pipe. “Men dinna come any tougher
than Bert Hawkins. He went overmountain a year ago last win-
ter and no one’s heard tell of him since. Long hunt’s too risky for
a man with a family.”
“Bert’ll turn up. That bastard knows his way about the
woods.” Tom stirred the embers with a short stick. “I s’pose
Bess’s lucky to have ol’ Henry ’round, though—t’ give her a hand
with the farm.”
“Bess Hawkins.” Seth snorted. “She’s not one to waste away
pining after Bert, tha’s certain. I’m no gossip, but ye ken well
what I’m talkin’ about, don’t ye, lad?”
“You’re a huge gossip.” Tom grinned. “But I’ll grant, Bess is a
friendly gal. No one but Bert will be surprised if he comes home
to find he’s fathered a child or two in his absence.”
Seth laughed. He stood, stretched, and gathered his bedding.
Tom dropped to a whisper. “You’re probably wise to stay close
to home, Seth. I didn’t want to frighten the girl, but I’ve evil
tidings—an Ottawa chief stirring trouble among the tribes up
north . . .”
“Which tribes?”
“Those in the old French territories ’round the Great Lakes.
There’s been no call for militia. The Regulars are handling it so
far.”
Seth unfurled his bedroll. “Well, if the French keep out of it,
it’ll probably go no further.”
66 Christine
Blevins
“I hope you’re right.” Tom tied the laces of his moccasins to-
gether and strung them around his neck. “But then again, there’s
nothing as unpredictable as an Indian with a grudge.” Yawning,
he lay back and stuffed his felt hat under his head. “Leastways,
Seth, best keep your family close and an auger eye out for trou-
ble.”
H
Maggie woke to a steamy dawn. She sat up, moved her hand
across the warm, empty space beside her, and looked around the
camp. The dog Friday and the man Tom Roberts were gone.
6
The Homeplace
“C’mon, Maggie . . . we’re nearly there!”
She’d been lagging behind all morning. Seth began this last
day of their journey with an elongated gait. To add to Maggie’s
difficulty, the pace had quickened a few miles back, when he
spotted a pig bearing the Martin earmark rooting for mast at
the base of a giant oak. She caught up to where Seth waited at the
edge of a rough clearing planted with a haphazard field of corn—
young stalks growing between the rotting stumps of trees felled
to build the cabin Seth pointed to.
“There it is—the homeplace—for the time being at least.” His
voice betrayed a sad blend of pride and pique. “Odd, though,” he
said with forehead crinked, “nary a wisp o’ smoke from the
chimney.” He gave the mule’s lead a twist around a sapling then
cocked the hammer on his rifle. With a finger to his lips he said,
“Follow along, softly.”
Maggie restrained the urge to race across the clearing and sa-
vor the solid luxury of a roof and four walls about her. She knew
better than to question Seth’s instincts. During the seven days
between tideland and mountains, she’d come to admire her mas-
ter’s considerable woodskill. Seth skimmed the perimeter of the
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Blevins
clearing, moving toward the cabin, careful to keep cover in the
shadow of the forest. Maggie followed, close and quiet, at his
heels.
The cabin was built on a rise with an unobscured view of the
cleared acreage. Logs notched and mortised at the corners formed
the walls—split wood clapboards, the roof. The chimney was
constructed of mud-chinked stones. More than a dozen brown-
feathered chickens pecked in the dirt in front of the cabin’s stout
oak door, and half as many noisy geese meandered between the
smaller outbuildings scattered down the hillside.
“A war party on the move would have snatched all those
birds,” Seth noted.
This self-comforting muttering quite alarmed Maggie, who
had not fully realized the basis for his concern. She tugged on his
shirttail. “Red Indians?”
“Na . . . no Injuns here. See there? Window lites are
open . . . and the latchstring is out.” Nothing more than narrow,
shuttered openings cut into the log walls on either side of the
doorway, the window lites did not boast a single pane of glass.
Seth spoke with assurance, but he double-checked the readiness
of his weapon before stepping out into the bright of the clearing.
As they crossed the field, two hound dogs—one brindled, the
other solid blue black—rushed forward, barking mad but wag-
ging tails. A young girl came around the corner of the cabin
struggling to steady two splashing buckets of water suspended
from a wooden yoke across her shoulders.
“
Patch! Little Black!
Hush that racket or I will skin yer
hides . . .” She stopped, squinted, and screamed. “Da!” Shrug-
ging the heavy yoke into the dirt, the girl ran full speed, straight
into her father’s arms. Seth shouldered his rifle and swooped his
daughter into an embrace.
“Winnie-lass!”
Winnie clung like a bur to her father and buried her face in
his neck. The oldest of Seth’s three children, Winnie Martin was
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
69
nearly twelve years old, but slight, and an easy burden to bear.
Seth set his daughter on her feet, and the girl eyed Maggie, who
stood quiet off to the side.
“Aye, Winnie, I’ve brung help and it’s help we surely need.
Look at the state yer in—midday an’ yer about in naught but a
shift. I’m almost shamed to introduce ye to our new girl.”
“Sorry, Da.” Winnie cast her eyes down to her grimy toes and
plucked at her shift, struggling to suppress an onslaught of tears.
“Och, now dinna fash on my account.” Maggie stepped for-
ward and wrapped an arm around Winnie’s narrow shoulders.
The girl leaned in with a hiccup and swiped her tears with the
back of her hand. Freckles sprinkled across her nose, soot
smeared across her forehead, and blue-gray circles beneath her
eyes were all that lent color to her thin, pale face. A thousand
wisps of auburn hair escaped from two braids trailing down her
back. The girl looked especially exhausted, her skinny arms pro-
truding from a dingy shift she had yet to grow into.
“Where’s yer mam?” Seth asked. “Where’re the boys?”
“Battler’s napping . . . Jack’s gone to the Bledsoes’ for live coals.”
“Dinna tell me ye lost the fi re! Och, if I told ye once, I’ve told
yiz all a hundred times—bank the fi re properly.”
“I tried, Da,” Winnie whimpered, “but this morn there was
naught but cold ashes on the hearth and I couldn’t catch a spark
for the life of me. Battler’s been ornery and Mam’s ailing . . .”
“Ailing?”
“Aye, she’s abed with fever two days now.”
Seth tugged on the latchstring to lift the bolt and the girls fol-
lowed him into the crowded, single-room cabin. Three sharp shafts
of daylight streamed in through the narrow window lites and open
door, providing the only source of illumination. As Maggie’s eyes
adjusted slowly to the dim light, she stumbled along, following Seth
to the bedstead tucked into the corner of the room.
“Naomi . . . Naomi, darlin’ . . .” Seth called softly to his wife.
Naomi Martin was blanketed from toe to chin. Her tiny
70 Christine
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flushed face was the center in the blossom of sweat-wet auburn
hair exploding across her pillow. Seth’s younger son, Battler,
slept, curled in a tight baby- ball at the foot of the bed. Maggie
eased the sleeping toddler into his father’s arms and whisked the
covers back. Released from the heavy prison of quilts and woolen
blankets, the unconscious woman sighed in relief.
Naomi’s small frame lay trapped in a damp depression in the
straw-stuffed ticking, the soggy linen shift she wore tangled and
bunched at her hips. The bulge of her
six-month pregnancy
seemed an obscene and unnatural addition to her emaciated
body. Maggie laid a hand on the woman’s gaunt cheek. “She’s
burnin’ up. Winnie, has yer mam been pukin’ or coughin’?”
Winnie shook her head. “No . . . but she’s been racked with
chills and mumbling crazy like. She won’t take a bite to
eat . . . though I did get her to sip some water earlier.”
“The poor thing . . . naught but skin, bones, and baby.” Mag-
gie placed two hands on Naomi’s distended abdomen. “But there’s
a braw bairnie inside, kickin’ strong, and that’s always a good
sign.” She smiled and rolled up her sleeves. “Winnie, lend me a
helpin’ hand. Bring rags, a basin of water, and at least a dozen big
onions—more, if they’re small.” Winnie nodded, her face a pic-
ture of relief as she ran off to fetch the things Maggie needed.
Cradling Battler, Seth stood inert with worry and guilt. Mag-
gie gave him a gentle shove. “Find a place to put that knee-baby
and get a fire going. I’ll need my basket—and more water.”
Little Battler was plopped onto the floor in a fat, dazed stupor,
and he watched his da strike a spark to the tinder Winnie had
assembled in her failed attempt. Seth hunkered on haunches,
feeding strips of fat pine to the blaze when his older boy skittered
into the cabin. Young Jack set a tin bucket of embers on the
hearth and leaped onto his father’s back.
“Da’s home!” Jack laughed. The two tussled and Seth gave his
son a sound tickling.
After the fire established, Maggie hooked two big pots of
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
71
water onto the lugpole over the flames. Jack was dispatched to
bring Ol’ Mule in from his tether. Seth shouldered the yoke and
left to fetch water.
Maggie stripped the sweat-soaked shift from Naomi. She sat on
the edge of the bedstead, dipped a rag in water, and swabbed the
woman’s fevered skin. The sponge bath had an immediate effect.
Deep lines of agitation around Naomi’s mouth and forehead disap-
peared. Her eyes fluttered open, beryl blue and soft in dazed con-
fusion.
“Dinna fash, Naomi. Yer goin’ to be fine . . . everything will
be just fine . . .” Maggie’s crooning soothed the woman back into
unconsciousness.
Winnie returned, deposited a woven string of onion bulbs
onto the table, and wandered over to the bedside. “Are you
daft?” The girl gathered the tangle of blankets Maggie had cast
aside. “Mam’s a-fevered! She needs be kept warm.”
“Leave those blankets be, lass. Come, sit here and learn some
healin’.” Maggie smiled and patted the bed. Winnie’s eyes nar-
rowed, thin arms clinching the bundle of blankets tight to her
chest. She glanced from her mother to Maggie, to her mother
again, dropped the blankets, and sat down beside Maggie.
“Most folk dinna ken this—fever can be a good thing, for it
rids the body of ill humors and corruption.” Maggie sponged
Naomi’s naked limbs and torso. “But fever also weakens a
body, stops a body from doing the things that need doing. Mark
this, lass—more folk die from thirst and hunger than ever die
from fever. Aye, fevers are most dangerous if not managed
properly.” Maggie dipped the rag in water and handed it to Win-
nie. “As the fever heats from within, we’ll cool her from with-
out. I’ll roll yer mam to her side, you swab her.” Winnie waited,
compress in hand, as Maggie levered Naomi to face the wall.
“Megstie me!”
Maggie gasped. The freckled skin on Naomi’s
back was crisscrossed with layers of silvery scars, telling a story
of repeated, brutal fl oggings.
72 Christine
Blevins
Winnie traced a finger over the perfect pink letter
R
seared