Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

“I’ve been askin’ around to see if there’s any women in nearby towns or camps who have babies and can feed him. Haven’t found any yet, but I’ll keep askin’.”

“Thank you.”

“If you want you can give him to me and I’ll put him to bed in our room for tonight,” she offered.

To Robert’s great surprise, he was reluctant to hand over Jimmy, even to someone as sympathetic as Nancy. The bond with his nephew had already tightened around him. “That’s all right. I’ll take him back to the-the-” He stopped.

“They moved her,” Nancy said, filling in for him. “She’s down in the barn, where they’re makin’ the coffin. They’ll bury her later-Billie’ll come get you when they’re ready.”

Robert nodded and got up carefully so that Jimmy wouldn’t wake. Back in the bedroom, all traces of Martha were gone except for her carpetbag, which sat in a corner like an abandoned dog. The mattress and bloody bedding had been removed and a new straw mattress put in its place, less comfortable than the feather bed, but Robert figured he would end up sleeping on the floor anyway.

He laid Jimmy in the middle of the bed and opened the bottom drawer of the bureau. Then he unbuckled Martha’s bag to look for something to line the drawer with. In it were two dresses, some underclothes, a hairbrush, the letters, and the nine-patch quilt, rolled up. Robert pulled out the quilt and spread it over his knees. Seeing the different squares brought forth a rush of memories. He sat for a long time, touching a bright blue square, a brown one and a dark green silk piece that was now frayed and threadbare but still the most beautiful patch of the quilt. Only when Billie Lapham knocked on the door did he rouse himself.

They went together to see Martha buried in the graveyard next to the town’s church. Little was said, but at Robert’s request Nancy sang “Blest Be the Tie That Binds,” her voice quavering.

Robert spent the next two days trying out different ways to feed his nephew. He was astonished at how difficult it seemed to be to get milk inside him. When Jimmy rejected the milky handkerchief-and who could blame him-Robert tried dribbling milk into his wailing mouth with a spoon, but it just made him choke. He visited a ranch outside of Murphys and borrowed a cow’s horn drilled with holes that they used for feeding calves when the mother died, but it was too big for Jimmy’s mouth. He spent some time fashioning a teat out of leather shaped into a cone while Billie Lapham reluctantly held the baby-after Martha’s burial, Nancy lost what little strength she’d briefly gained and had gone back to bed. The baby managed to suck on the leather teat but then promptly threw up all the milk he had taken in.

It was bad enough hearing Jimmy cry. Even worse was when his crying grew weaker and it was clear he was failing. In desperation Robert walked all over town, as well as through the nearby miners’ camps, looking for women and asking them what to do. Wherever he went, he got amused looks, for it was unusual to see a man carrying a baby around, especially a newborn. The women he met had plenty of advice. The one who had helped with the birth tore a towel into triangles and showed Robert how to pin it around Jimmy for a diaper. Another showed him how to properly swaddle a baby; when she got through wrapping Jimmy in Martha’s shawl he could move nothing but his mouth, and seemed stunned by this fact.

The most sensible woman was the one Robert had watched mining with her family a few days before. Now she was sitting alongside the creek, resting while her husband and sons worked. She had a smear of dirt across her nose and cheek, and she rubbed at it while contemplating Jimmy. “He’s spitting up cow’s milk? You gotta find you some goat’s milk, then, or sheep. And if you can’t find that? Go find a woman with a baby. Go farther away to the other camps, or better yet, down to Stockton. More women there, more babies maybe.”

Robert frowned. Stockton was sixty miles away. Even if he could find a way to tie Jimmy on so they could ride the gray that far, it would take another day to get there. His nephew might be dead by then. And there was no guarantee that there were babies in Stockton.

“Course, you could always try the Indians,” the woman added. “There’s Miwoks camped up near Cally Grove.”

Robert recalled that there were definitely babies there-he’d seen them recently in their slings on their mothers’ backs, so natural there it was easy to forget them. He frowned. “Think they’d do it?”

The woman shrugged. “Everybody’s got a price.”

Robert wasn’t so sure. Most Indians he’d seen maintained a distance from white people, as if taking a step back and watching to see what would happen. Why would an Indian woman agree to feed a white child who might grow up to push her family off the land?

By the next day, though, he had no choice. He could not find any goats or sheep nearby. Jimmy continued to spit up the cow’s milk, and the sugar water Robert managed to get down him was not sustaining him. When he stopped crying altogether, Robert went to saddle the gray. He would have to go back up to Calaveras Grove.

Jimmy was too small and floppy to be tied in a sling to Robert’s chest or back. Instead he swaddled him extra tight-already he was getting better at that-and had Billie Lapham hand the baby up to him once he was astride the gray. His arm ached from carrying the baby almost nonstop for two days, but he couldn’t see a better way.

“Goodenough, I never thought I’d see you ridin’ round with your saddlebags stuffed with diapers and sugar water,” Billie Lapham said as he stood at the gray’s side. “You want me to water the seedlings while you’re gone?”

“Oh-yes.” Robert had forgotten about the sequoias he’d collected. These last few days he had thought of little other than keeping Jimmy alive.

“It’s good to see you lookin’ after your nephew. Your sister would have been glad.” Billie Lapham’s eyes grew watery. “Poor gal.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face and blew his nose. It occurred to Robert then that Lapham’s grief for Martha was a dress rehearsal for his wife’s death. Molly was right: the world was full of sorrows.

Robert wanted to gallop up the mountain but didn’t dare; holding Jimmy in the crook of his arm, he had to ride one-handed, trying not to think about the gray rearing up at a snake or stumbling over a rut in the track. But the horse seemed to understand that Robert was riding differently, that there was a new, demanding passenger, and adjusted his gait to a gentler trot than usual.

He had been so swamped with the practicalities of looking after a baby that he’d not had time to consider anything else. Now that Jimmy was quiet, and Robert had a plan and was moving, he was able to think about Martha. And then he was not thinking, but crying, sobbing so hard that the gray actually stopped and swung his head around to look at the sight, and Robert had to kick him to get him started again.

At last, empty of tears, he grew as calm as his listless nephew, and they rode up the mountain towards the big trees.

When he caught sight of the red and yellow parasol in the distance once again, this time coming down towards them, Robert was so relieved he almost began to cry again. Only now did he realize that these last few days he had been waiting for Molly to come and make things right.

She was lying flat in the wagon bed as the same old man drove, spinning her parasol above her and singing:

I came to the river

And I couldn’t get across

So I paid five dollars

For a big bay hoss.