Wiley Cash - A Land More Kind Than Home

BEN WAS AS WHITE AS A SHEET WHEN HE OPENED THE DOOR, AND HE looked to be just about scared out of his mind. “Who drove you up?” he asked.

“Gerty’s boy, Ronnie, couldn’t make it all the way,” I said. “I walked most of it.”

“I hate to make you do that,” he said, “but I’m glad you’re here.”

“She in the bedroom?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “Her contractions are giving her fits. I ain’t been able to help her at all.” I’d decided to leave my coat on for the time being, and I went over and stood by the fireplace and held out my hands.

“How far apart are they?” I asked.

“How far apart are what?”

“Her contractions,” I said.

“Good Lord, Miss Lyle,” he said. “I don’t know. I didn’t even think to check.”

I turned back and faced the fire and felt that cold leaving my hands and my face. “Well, you go ahead and put on a pot of boiling water,” I told him. “Go on and toss some scissors in there and find some string and some towels or whatever you got to clean with. We might be having ourselves a long night.”

I opened the bedroom door real quiet and looked in and saw Julie sitting up in the bed and leaning her back against some pillows. When I walked inside the room, the air coming in the open windows hit me in the face and I almost hollered out for it being so cold in there after leaving the warmth of the fire.

“I had Ben open them up,” she said. “I can’t get cooled off.”

She lay back against them pillows and tried to smile at me. Her face was wet with sweat, and her hair and gown were soaked clean through.

“Good Lord, child,” I said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m getting on all right,” she said. “I don’t think it’ll be long now. I’m glad you’re here.” I pulled my coat tight around me and walked toward the bed.

“I’m glad I could come,” I said.

I helped her shimmy down to the bottom of the bed and hollered for Ben to find some more pillows to prop her up. He brought me a little chair, and I sat down at the foot there.

“How far apart are they?” I asked her.

“They’re right on top of each other,” she said.

I lifted up her gown and took a look, and that’s when I seen that boy’s head crowning inside that sac. “I figure to know why,” I said. “Y’all about to have you a baby here in no time flat.”

Ben went up there and took her hand, and she started in to pushing and breathing. I watched that little boy’s head come through, and I could see then he was going to be born with the caul, and sure enough, he was.

“This boy’s born for good luck,” I said. “Looky here.” I held him in my arms and lifted that little hood from his eyes, and that’s when he opened them up and blinked and looked up at me. Ben was standing right over my shoulder when he did it, and I could hear him breathing and it was so cold in there I could see his breath coming out of his mouth like smoke. I could hear Julie crying softly from up on the bed. “He’s got blue eyes just like his daddy,” I said. Ben reached down to take him out of my arms, but I stopped him.

“Not just yet,” I said. “There’s still work to do. Take that piece of string and cut it in two.” He pulled his knife out of his pocket and cut it. “Now tie one piece around the cord right here. Make sure you get it good and tight.” I motioned to the baby’s belly and watched Ben tie a knot. “Do the same on the other end,” I told him. After he’d done it I told him to get them scissors out of that boiling water and come back in the bedroom. He went in the kitchen and came back with them scissors wrapped in a towel. He looked down at the cord, and then he looked at me.

“All right, Daddy,” I told him. “Go ahead.”

BEN CLOSED THE WINDOWS, AND THE ROOM GOT TO FEELING ALMOST comfortable with the heat coming in from the fireplace in the front room. I’d pulled the chair up alongside the bed, and I sat watching Julie feed the baby. He was making little grunting noises like babies do when they’re nursing. I could see that Julie’s face looked worried.

“Why hasn’t he started crying yet?” she asked.

“You got yourself a content little boy,” I told her. “I wouldn’t get to complaining about him being too quiet just yet.”

“Something ain’t right,” she said.

“He’s fine,” I told her. “He’s a good, strong boy. He’s hungry, that’s all. Just let him eat. There’s plenty of time for crying.” I looked over at Ben where he was standing with his arms folded at the foot of the bed. He was watching Julie. “He’s a good, strong boy,” I said again. But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t so.

After delivering the afterbirth I took it into the front room to talk with Ben about what he needed to do next.

“You can use that same pot you boiled the scissors in,” I told him. “It don’t matter, but you need to boil this here into a tea and feed it to Julie and the baby. It’ll be good for them. They’re slap wore out, and they need every bit of help they can get. After you get done with it you need to dig a little hole and bury it out in the yard.”

Ben just stood there staring at the afterbirth where I held it wrapped in that towel. His eyes looked like he wanted to say something to me, but he seemed like he couldn’t figure out how to put the words together.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. He looked up at me.

“What is it that you don’t know?” I asked.

“I don’t think we’re in for that,” he said. “We’re trying to have us a Christian family, Miss Lyle. I don’t think we’re in for all that old-timey stuff. It don’t seem right.”

“Don’t seem right?” I said. “Did I not slap your behind hard enough on the day you were born? Let me tell you that it don’t matter what ‘seems,’ it matters what ‘is.’ And if I was you I’d get to digging a hole out there in that snow while I had me a pot of water boiling on the stove.”

“That ain’t our way,” he said.

“Well, I ain’t going to try and change your mind,” I told him. “But you called me up here to deliver your baby, and I done that the best I could. If you don’t want to take my advice, then you don’t have to. But like I said, I done the best I could. It’s up to you now. Ain’t going to be nobody up here but y’all, and you need to start thinking about what’s best for your family.”

“I am,” he said. “And I appreciate you coming up here, and I hope I can repay your kindness sometime.”

We stood there looking at each other for a minute, and then I tossed that towel onto the kitchen counter and went back in to check on Julie. Her eyes were closed, and she was holding the baby in her arms. They both looked to be sleeping. I took my coat off the back of the chair and closed the door softly and walked back into the front room.

“Call down to Gerty’s, if you would.”

“I will,” said Ben. “Let me get some warm clothes on, and I’ll walk down with you. Ain’t no sense in you going back down alone.”

“I can go back just the way I came,” I told him. “But I’d appreciate you calling Gerty’s boy.”

I set off down that mountain and got about halfway when I looked up to see something coming toward me in the snow, and I slowed down and thought about stepping into the woods until whatever it was had passed me by. But when it got closer I could see it was Doc Winthrop on the back of his old mule coming up the mountain to help Julie. I could’ve passed by without him even knowing it. He would’ve got himself all the way up that mountain before he realized that he’d seen him a ghost floating down Gunter in a snowstorm. But I couldn’t help saying something to him, even if he was just a drunk country doctor toting a bag of broken old instruments up a mountain in the snow. I waited until we got abreast of each other and I could hear him moaning real quiet and see the smoky breath of his old mule.