“I’ve never looked so forward to a bed in my life,” Maureen said.
The stage rolled to a stop in Austin after 150 miles of bad road, three nights of flea-infested mattresses, and seventy-two hours of Cornelius Warren’s constant chatter about Timberline, Colorado.
“Down-filled ticking, I assure you. Ester runs a fine boarding house,” Cornelius said for the tenth time before jumping out of the stage to assist us.
“Cotton-filled, at least,” his daughter, Anna, said.
“As long as it isn’t straw.” I gave Cornelius my hand and stepped out of the coach to a muffled scream emanating from the two-story house in front of us.
Maureen poked her head from the coach. “Someone’s either bein’ murdered or giving birth,” she said, and stepped out.
The teamster unloaded our trunks and placed them on the porch. He cackled. “Sounds about the same, I grant you. No, mayhap Ester’s daughter is having her baby.” He placed his hands at the small of his back and stretched. Another scream pierced the night. “Might want to go on in. Doubt she’ll hear ya knock.”
My mind started working through the scenarios I might see on the other side of the door. My fingers itched to move, to help, to heal. “Maureen, make sure there’s plenty of water on boil. And coffee,” I said. Maureen nodded and went into the house with purpose. “Anna, ever seen a child brought into the world?”
“No.”
“Would you like to.”
Anna nodded.
“Come along.”
“I’ll see to the trunks,” Cornelius said.
I pulled my father’s watch from my medical bag and opened the face. “I may need to get into the black one.” Another scream pierced the night. I clicked the watch shut. “Rather soon, I think.”
With my medical bag in my hand I entered the house and followed the screams up the stairs.
A tall, weedy-looking young man stood on the landing, running his hands through his hair and pacing the width of the hall. He stopped and talked to a closed door. “Want me to go for the doc?”
“Joe, stop pacing outside that door,” said a voice from inside. “Doctor’s no use. It’ll be over before you find him.”
I placed a hand on the young man’s arm. He jumped.
“Joe, I’m Laura. I’m here to help.”
His relief washed away any questions he might have had about who I was or where I had come from. “Thank you. Ma said the baby ain’t turned right, but she won’t tell me what that means.”
I patted Joe’s arm again. “Go on downstairs, Joe. Maureen will fix you a cup of coffee.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Fix us up some, too. I’ll help your ma.”
He nodded and stumbled downstairs. When he was gone, I contemplated Anna, who stared at the door with apprehension. “Do whatever I ask immediately and without question.”
Anna paled a little but nodded. I opened the door.
The light of four lanterns bathed the bed in the center of the bedroom with a warm glow but were not strong enough to banish the sense of panic that hovered over the scene. Sweat-soaked tendrils of hair framed Joe’s mother’s pale, worried face. Dark half-moon circles sagged beneath her eyes. She pressed on the pregnant woman’s stomach with as much strength as her small, exhausted body could muster. The pregnant woman moaned and whimpered like a wounded animal, delirious from pain and the heat emanating from the lanterns. “Open the window.” Anna did as ordered.
The midwife looked up. “Who’re you? What are you doing?”
“I am Dr. Laura Elliston.” Anna eased next to me. From the corner of my eye I saw her surprise at my title, but she remained silent. “This is Anna. Are you Ester?”
At the word doctor, the woman’s shoulders drooped. Her tension and worry shifted to my own. “The baby’s breeched and coming fast. Nothing I’ve done is working.”
A quick visual sweep of the room showed me Ester Mebane knew how to birth a child: a pan full of water, plenty of sheets, string to tie the cord, a knife, a blanket for the baby. She’d probably brought dozens of babies into the world without incident or with only the normal problems attending childbirth. Tonight, this birth was different.
I placed my bag on the dresser and regarded the pregnant woman’s face for the first time. She was Anna’s age or a little older. “What is her name?”
“Ida.”
“She your daughter?” I lifted the sheet from the girl’s legs.
“Yes.”
Ida was almost completely dilated. I could see the child’s behind at the edge of the birth canal. I pulled the sheet back over the girl’s knees.
“Anna, go to my trunk, the black one. Bring back the bottles labeled chloroform and carbolic acid. Ester, go with Anna and bring two pans and as much hot water as you can carry. Get Joe to help. Also, a spool of your strongest thread, and a bottle of whisky. Go. Now.”
I removed my traveling cloak and rolled up my sleeves. I placed a straight-backed chair at the end of the bed and set my surgery kit on top of it. Ida shifted, moaned, grasped the sheets, and sat up with a bloodcurdling scream. I moved forward and grasped her shoulders. “Try not to push, Ida.”
Beneath the sweat, tears, and flush of pain from childbirth I could clearly see the young girl only a few years past playing with dolls. “It hurts,” she sobbed.
“I know it does. It will be over soon.”
She collapsed back onto the mattress, insensible again. I checked my father’s watch and calculated her contractions were only five minutes or so apart.
Anna and Ester returned. The two women followed my preparation instructions to the letter and without complaint while I dosed Anna with morphine-laced whisky. I rested my hand on Ida’s forehead. “There now, that will help ease the pain.”
I moved to the end of the bed and placed most of my surgery tools into the waiting pan of hot water with a few drops of carbolic acid. “Ester, put the thread in there as well.”
In the other pan, I washed my hands with lye soap and rinsed them. “Wash your hands,” I said to the women.
I doused a clean cloth from my medical bag with chloroform. “Ester, I want you to be ready to receive the baby. Anna, hold this lightly over Ida’s nose and mouth.”
With an assurance that belied her youth Anna went to the top of the bed and waited for my direction. Ester stood at the foot of the bed next to me. I nodded to Anna, who placed the cloth over Ida’s nose. Ida’s body relaxed.
I pushed my right hand up the birth canal until I touched the baby. “Good.”
“What?” Ester said.
I pushed against the baby’s bottom to move it back into the womb and with my left hand pushed against Ida’s abdomen. I closed my eyes and visualized the baby’s situation in the womb as I maneuvered it into the correct birth position. Ida’s cervix contracted around my wrist. I stopped and pushed back against the baby’s desire to see the world. A trickle of sweat ran down between my breasts and my arm trembled with the effort. Finally, Ida’s contraction passed.
It was almost time for the next contraction by the time I maneuvered the baby into the correct position. I removed my hand slowly. “Let her breathe.” Anna held the cloth aloft.
“She’s overdue by about two weeks,” I said. I picked up the scalpel.
“Yeah. What are you doing?” Ester said.
“The baby is big, and your daughter is small. She will tear.” I took the scalpel and made a one-inch incision below her vagina. “This will help.”
The baby crowned, and with the next contraction a beautiful little head emerged. I rotated the baby to release the shoulder, and the baby slid out into my hands. I held him upside down and slapped his back. He gave a lusty, life-affirming cry as I placed him in Ester’s waiting arms.
“Congratulations, Grandma.”
Tears flowed down Ester’s cheeks. “And a fine boy he is.” I tied the cord off and cut it with the scalpel while Ester cooed to her grandson. “Take him downstairs and clean him. Give him a sugar teat until Ida is ready to nurse.”
I took the pan of soapy water to the window, glanced below, and when I saw the street was clear, tossed it. I cleared the chair, sat, and waited for the afterbirth. I glanced up at Anna, who was staring at me, eyes wide.
“You are a doctor.”
“I am.”
“Why did you say you were a midwife?”
In truth, the word doctor had slipped from my mouth before I considered the ramifications. I could have easily delivered the baby as a midwife and kept my identity a secret for a while longer. The horse was out of the barn now.
“People accept women as midwives easier than as physicians.”
“Oh, but this is wonderful. Father will be so pleased. Having a doctor as a founding member of our community. They are tremendously hard to recruit to the frontier.”
“Can we keep my profession between us for a while longer?”
“But, Father—”
“I will tell Cornelius in due time.”
Anna nodded but still looked a bit peaked.
“Are you going to faint?”
“I’ve never seen the like.”
“Neither have I.”
“You’ve never—?”
I shook my head. “She would have died giving birth breech. She’s too small.”
I caught the flush of blood and afterbirth in the empty pan and massaged Ida’s abdomen to staunch the bleeding. “Take this,” I said, holding the pan of afterbirth out to Anna.
“Do you want me to throw it out?”
“The window? Heavens, no. Place it on the dresser and put a towel over it for now. Bring me that pitcher of water.”
“What are you doing?” She handed the pitcher over.
I poured a small amount of water between Ida’s legs. “Have you heard of germ theory?”
“No.”
“I did not imagine you would have.” I rubbed the bar of carbolic soap between my hands, and gently cleaned the blood from between Ida’s legs. “About eight years ago, Louis Pasteur theorized disease is not transported through the air, but by direct contamination; physicians and nurses with soiled hands touching other patients is what spreads disease. Pasteur wasn’t the first to postulate the idea, only the most recent and well regarded.”
I threaded the needle that had been soaking in the carbolic acid solution and tied off the end. I held the threaded needle up. “Purple thread. I would have never guessed, Ester.” I leaned forward. “Could you bring a lantern over, please?” With Anna holding the lantern, I sewed the incision I made.
“The Rebels, during the war, ran out of everything. They resorted to using horsehair for sutures. Can you imagine the desperation you must be in to use horsehair? But it was coarse and not easy to work with, so they boiled it to make it more supple.” Ida twitched and moaned. I rose and held her by the shoulders while she drank the rest of the morphine-laced whisky. Soon, she was asleep again.
I returned to my task. “Turned out, the wounds that were stitched with the horsehair were less likely to get infected.”
“Because they were clean,” Anna said.
“Yes.”
“Four years ago, Joseph Lister championed the idea of using carbolic acid as an antiseptic during and after surgery. Like any new idea, it has been slow to take hold. It is difficult to change people’s minds.”
“But, you listened.”
I tied off the suture and stood. “The benefit of being shunned by the medical establishment is I can do what I want. I will tell you this: I have never lost a patient to infection, and I never will.”
* * *
“Ten minutes,” Ester said. “Ten minutes from the time she walked in the door ’til I was holding my grandson. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Maureen and I sat across Ester’s scrubbed wooden table from Cornelius and Anna. Anna held a pencil over a small bound journal, waiting to write the next item on our list of supplies to buy and things to do before our wagon train pulled out of Austin in a week’s time. Maureen licked the tip of her pencil and made note on her own list, or appeared to. In truth, she doodled boxes in the margins, having completed our list the night before.
It was three weeks past the night of our arrival and Ester had told the story of Ida’s delivery daily, sometimes multiple times, ever since. Her gratitude and enthusiasm for my skills in saving her daughter and grandson were gratifying, a little too gratifying in Maureen’s opinion. She believed one compliment was enough, constant compliments were the Devil’s playground, and warned me more than once not to let Ester’s praise go to my head. When Ester wanted to spread the story beyond the boarding house, I pulled her aside and asked her to keep my heroics quiet, as well as my profession. Her face fell, slightly, until comprehension dawned. She nodded once and with a firm expression kept her word, though she couldn’t resist talking about it among our group in private.
“She just reached up in there,” Ester said, miming my actions with her arm, “and—”
“Yes, yes. That’s quite enough. No details are needed.” Cornelius fidgeted with the knot of his tie and glanced everywhere but at the women who surrounded him. Anna and I exchanged subdued smiles. Poor Cornelius was outnumbered and it made him extremely uncomfortable. “We were talking teamsters not—the other. You’ll need to hire one to drive your schooner,” Cornelius said to Maureen.
“No, we won’t.”
“Have you decided to take me and Anna up on our offer to travel with us?”
“No need to be so crowded when we can afford our own.” Though paying for our outfit had depleted our money to an alarming degree. Only two pieces of my mother’s jewelry remained and Maureen and I decided we must not sell them until we were settled in Timberline.
“I agree,” I said. As nice as Cornelius and Anna were, Maureen and I wanted our own space. “We purchased one this afternoon, and two rather docile oxen. We shall be fine.”
Ester stood at the stove chopping vegetables for a winter stew. “Throwing good money after bad.”
“And, why is that?” Maureen asked.
“Won’t be doing much riding in the schooner. Most uncomfortable way to travel you can imagine.”
“It can’t be much worse than the trip from Galveston,” Anna said.
“Oh, you’ll be surprised. ’Course, you’ll walk most of the time.”
“I’ll be driving the wagon,” Maureen said.
Ester stopped chopping and studied Maureen. “Will you, now? I supposed you could at that.”
“I agree,” Anna said, with an encouraging smile at Maureen.
“I have no doubt you will do a fine job,” Cornelius said. “You said your oxen are docile?” The concern in Cornelius’s voice and in his expression was plain to all.
I had not been so long without male attention I could not read Cornelius’s interest in Maureen. It would have been subtler of him to take an advertisement out in the Democratic Statesman declaring his love for my maid. What I could not read, though, was Maureen. She vacillated between anger and embarrassment. Anger appeared to be winning at the moment, though that could be lingering irritation at the compliments being bandied around.
“Yes, they are docile. We have named them Piper and Púca.”
“I suppose I’m outnumbered,” Cornelius said. “My only concern is your safety.” There was a long pause in the conversation, until Cornelius coughed and said, “Meaning the safety of the entire group, of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
Maureen blushed, but tried to mask it with a scowl. “It’s awfully hot in here.”
Ester shrugged and went back to her chopping. “Y’all wanted to meet in the kitchen.”
I studied Maureen while Cornelius rambled on about the journey. She had fully recovered from her bout of seasickness. Color had returned to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. I thought back over our past and tried to remember her ever being so happy. As I watched Cornelius try to draw her out and her determined refusal to be, I wondered how much of her color was due to renewed health and how much was due to the attentions of Cornelius Warren.
“Amos Pike’ll be our trail boss,” Warren said.
“Amos Pike is a good man,” Ester interjected. “Rode with my Hiram. If anyone can get you to Colorado, it’s Amos Pike.” She accentuated her opinion by pointing her knife at us.
“Rode with your husband?” Anna asked.
“With Jack Hayes back in forty-eight.”
“Who is Jack Hayes?” I asked.
Ester scooped the vegetables into the cast-iron pot, wiped her hands on a towel, and faced us. “The best Indian fighter Texas has ever seen, and we’ve had our fair share of good ’uns. Amos was a good ’un in the end, but he didn’t start out that way. Not many do, come to think of it.”
“What happened?” Anna asked.
“Same thing always does. Comanche raid homesteads; we chase them. Only Amos was the only one who lived to tell. Walked back into Austin ten days after they left, half-dead from exhaustion and full of shame.”
“Shame for what?” I asked.
“Living. Buffalo Hump killed his whole outfit. Including my Hiram. Those savages scalped Hiram while he was still alive, gutted him like a fish.”
The bloom on Maureen’s cheeks faded. I grasped her hand and squeezed.
“Ester, please,” Cornelius said. “There are women in the room.”
Ester scoffed. “And what’m I? This ain’t London or New York, or even New Awlens.” Her voice softened a bit and she spoke as if only to Maureen. “It’s harder out here, best you know it now.” She patted Maureen’s shoulder. “You’ve got mettle, though. I can tell.”
Maureen forced a smile, but gripped my hand.
“How did Mr. Pike survive?” Anna’s voice was strong, though it pitched up at the end, as if it was a great effort for her to disguise her fear.
“He hid behind a rock. Worst moment of his life, he said, walking back into Austin to tell the tale and admit his cowardice.” Ester returned to the stove.
“I’m surprised you think so highly of a man who you call a coward,” I said.
“I called him a coward at the time, I’ll admit. I was torn up about Hiram and not thinking straight.” She paused again. “When Amos told the story, well, I can’t say as I blame him for what he did. A few held a grudge, but he was young, inexperienced.” She brought a cleaver down onto the hindquarter of a rabbit. Bits of fat and gristle flew through the air. She dropped the leg into the stew. “He made up for it by becomin’ one of the fiercest Indian fighters Texas’s ever seen.” She nodded. “I learned a long time ago to don’t ever judge a person ifin you ain’t been in their shoes.” She cleaved the rabbit again. “You got the Army with you. They ain’t as good as Rangers, but they’ll do.”
“Precisely,” Warren said. “We will drive up the Western Trail, stop at Fort Richardson before we reach Fort Sill.”
Maureen, who had been watching Ester’s dissection of the rabbit with fascination, turned her attention to Cornelius. Her eyes narrowed. “The Army’s traveling with us, right?”
Anna shifted in her chair and stared at the scrubbed wooden table. “Not technically,” Warren conceded. “As I said, though, we will be visiting forts along the way and will be well east of the line of civilization.” He patted Maureen’s hand with a protective affection. She pulled her hand away and cut her eyes at me.
Cornelius was a healthy, handsome man, if somewhat portly and talkative. He tended to run to vanity about his full, silky beard, stroking it for effect more often than he should. But those were hardly characteristics to stand in the way of Maureen’s happiness. What could stand in the way, though, was Maureen’s concern about me. It suddenly occurred to me she might be trying a little too hard to hide her pleasure at being courted to reassure me she would not leave me.
“You’ll be fine. Amos knows what he’s doing. You got guns, too, dontcha?” Ester asked.
“Of course,” Warren said.
“Doctor? You got a gun?” Ester asked.
I pulled my eyes from Maureen’s face. “I’m sorry. What?”
“You have a gun, don’t you?”
I opened my mouth to say yes when I realized I had not seen my gun since that final, horrible night in New York City. I must have dropped it after I shot my attacker. Did James pick it up and forget to give it to me?
“I lost it,” I replied.
Ester wiped her hands on a towel. “I can take care of that.” She walked out of the room.
I narrowed my eyes at Warren. “How safe is this journey, Cornelius?”
“I wouldn’t take my daughter on such a journey if I thought there was the least amount of danger involved.” He patted Anna’s hand.
“I am not frightened in the least,” Anna offered. I wondered if her confidence was genuine or based on loyalty to her father.
Ester returned holding a man’s shirt between her hands with a reverence usually reserved for the Good Book. She placed it on the table in front of me and unfolded the blue material. The gun and holster were old but well cared for.
“A Colt,” I said.
Ester nodded. “A Paterson, given to Hiram by Hayes himself.”
“It’s the same as the gun I lost.”
“You know how to keep it.”
“It was your husband’s, Ester. I couldn’t possibly accept it.”
“’Course you can. It’s sittin’ in a drawer, gettin’ cleaned once a month. Consider it payment for saving my daughter and grandson’s lives.”
I placed my hand over my heart. “Thank you, Ester. I will take good care of it.”
“Better yet,” she said, eyes glittering, “kill an Indian with it.”