If the Murphs had the date right, with their crude estimates of the progress of the calendar, Soosquana’s labor began on New Year’s Day. She and Adelin had finished preparing a special dinner to celebrate the occasion when she felt the first pain.
“Oh! I have to sit down, Adelin.”
“You all right, Soos? Are you sick?” Then she realized. “Oh, oh! Soos! It’s the baby, isn’t it? Wow! I’ll get Saul.”
“No, wait. Not yet ready. Maybe it starting but baby not come yet.”
“I’ll get Saul anyway.”
Saul and Cal were at Soosquana’s side in less than a minute.
“We have to get you to bed,” proclaimed Saul. “And then we have to, uh, we have to . . . . Soos, what do we do next? Adelin? Hell, I don’t know.”
Adelin laughed. Soosquana tried to laugh, too, but the next pain doubled her over.
“I see that you fellows are going to be a lot of help,” reasoned Adelin. “She’ll be all right; the baby will be a while yet.” She reached for Soosquana. “Come on, help me put her to bed and I’ll get your dinner for you. It’s about ready.”
Saul and Cal spent the afternoon walking in circles in the yard, with Saul having to look into the cabin at less than five minute intervals. It being a nice day for January, Adelin sat in a rocking chair on the porch and did finger work on a deerskin blouse. The men’s worried antics entertained her. Soosquana mostly napped as the labor symptoms had subsided.
By supper, Soosquana had decided that the baby was yet days away, that the day’s episode was just an early stirring. She finally convinced the others and prepared for bed.
Cal had said little all day, and had done even less to be helpful. As they walked to their cabin, Adelin hooked her arm in his and smiled. “You did good today, big boy,” she teased.
“Huh? Whaddya mean?”
“Why, you didn’t get in the way a single time. That’s about as good as a man can do in these situations.”
The quiet and the deep slumber of that same pleasant winter night was splintered by a panicked shout. “Adelin! Cal! Come over! We need you!”
Cal and Adelin jerked upright in bed in unison.
“It’s Saul,” said Cal.
“Soos’s pains must be back. Let’s get over there.”
Contractions had returned stronger than ever, and this time it was unmistakably the real thing. However, the baby was in no hurry. After making all preparations for the birth and watching the men check everything over and over until it became annoying to both women, Adelin again banished them to the yard.
The time had to be a couple of hours past midnight. Cal decided he should check the animals and headed for the shed.
“You’ll just wake ’em up,” Saul called after him. “What the hell can you do in the middle of the night?”
Saul sat on the porch steps, got up and walked to the edge of the bluff, came back and sat down, got up and went to the door, opened it and spoke to Adelin who again reassured him. Saul closed the door and sat on the steps again. Perhaps three minutes had elapsed. A minute on the steps and he repeated the entire cycle. It would be retraced again with variations dozens of times before the moon set and a hazy gray softened the southeastern sky. Cal had returned to the porch sometime during the predawn and flopped down in the rocker. He hardly moved the rest of the night.
Through the night inside the cabin, Adelin’s sympathetic conversation and excited giggles had mixed with Soosquana’s occasional grunts, squeals, and tortured comments frequently cut short by sudden yips. As the sky lightened, the tone sharply changed. Soosquana’s pain had become steady and acute. Saul ran to the door. Adelin let him in but soon had to again ask him to leave.
Cal laughed. “Big brother, you’re just no good at this birthing business, are you?”
“I reckon you’re doing a helluva lot of good yourself?”
Cal laughed at him again.
Saul offered his help a couple more times and was ejected from the cabin anew on each occasion. He walked across the porch, from one end to the other and back again, continuously. Cal grinned at him each time he paced by the rocking chair.
Suddenly, just as a big fiery sun poked through the treetops across the river, sounds of activity within the cabin stopped. Dead silence. Saul froze in the middle of the porch, facing the door, unable to move. Cal stopped rocking.
No sound. Nothing. Not even, it seemed, the murmur of the river washing over the shoals. Every movement had been suspended. Long minutes. Long, long minutes.
The door cracked. Then it swung full open. Adelin slowly walked out. She tenderly held in both arms a big bundled blanket.
“Daddy Saul,” she smiled, fighting to control herself, “say hello to your beautiful, beautiful baby daughter.”
Saul carefully peeked into the blanket as Adelin began crying, unable to hold her emotions longer. Sleeping in her arms was the most gorgeous baby Saul had ever seen. Everything about her, as far as he could tell, was perfect, right up to a full head of coal black hair.
“Is Soos all right?” he asked.
“She’s just great,” Adelin sniffed between tears. “She’s dozing.”
“Can I see her?”
“Of course. Go on in.”
Saul looked past the doorway into the darkened room and nervously stepped inside. Soosquana appeared to be asleep. He quietly walked to her and leaned down and kissed her. She roused and opened her eyes and smiled.
“Did you see her?”
“I sure did,” he said.
“Is she not beautiful?”
“She is beautiful. The most beautiful baby ever. She looks just like her mother.”
Adelin still held the baby. “Do you want to hold her, Saul?”
“What? Hold her? Me? Yes. No! No, I might drop her. No. What, are you crazy? I can’t hold her. I’ve never done that. I don’t know how.”
“Come on, don’t be silly. You had little brothers and sisters back in Virginia, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t touch them as babies.”
“Sit down, you old softy, and I’ll put her in your lap. Don’t worry. I’ll show you. You’ll do fine.”
Soosquana watched the drama from her bed, amused at her astonished husband. As Adelin arranged the baby in his lap, and he stared down at this amazing new creature, Soosquana’s amusement turned to wonder and worship. Her Muskogi people believed in Spirits and depended on miracles, but what she saw in her husband and child was more spiritual and more miraculous than anything she had experienced in life to this moment.
Later, Saul, Cal, and Adelin stood on the porch and noticed for the first time that a marvelous, bright day had dawned. Inside, Soosquana had fallen asleep with the baby at peace in the crook of her arm.
“I’ll go to the cabin and cook some breakfast for everybody,” volunteered Adelin. “You stay here and watch them, Saul. After we’ve all eaten, I’ll stay with them. You boys need to get some sleep.”
“Adelin,” pronounced Saul, “you are not to be believed. What would we have done without you? You must be an angel.” He looked at Cal. “And little brother, you were as useless as I was.”
Cal and Adelin started toward their cabin. Adelin turned back.
“Saul,” she asked, “what’s the baby’s name?”
Saul looked startled. “Name? Why, I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about it. We haven’t talked about it.” He stroked his chin. “Yeah, I suppose she needs a name. I’ll have to ask Soos.” He turned to reenter the cabin. “Yeah, I’ll have to ask Soos.”