The Midwife of Hope River
Page 64“We don’t know. The nurse just called and insisted I let her kin know she’s injured and confused. There’s a son too. Thomas Proudfoot.”
“Bitsy went fishing early, down at Hope River,” I fib, hoping it sounds a little plausible. “Thomas lives at the camp at the Wildcat Mine.”
Sheriff Hardman clears his throat. “There’s something else. Mr. MacIntosh’s wife, Katherine, and his young son have disappeared. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? MacIntosh told us you and her were friends.”
“Not really friends,” I contradict. “I was her midwife . . . I haven’t heard from Katherine lately.” This is just a white lie. We have no phone, so we haven’t heard from her. That doesn’t mean she’s not hiding out in the barn.
“Well, I have to get back. Tell the Proudfoot woman the doc said to come soon.” The two move toward their police van. “Oh, and let me know if Mrs. MacIntosh shows up. William MacIntosh is awfully worried.”
Before they climb in, the city lawman with the granite mug stops. “You aren’t from Union County, are you?”
“No, not originally. Why do you ask?”
The man shrugs. “Your accent isn’t local.” I watch from the porch until the van disappears, a black stain in the mist by the river. Then I run—run for the barn.
Flight
Two hours later I am driving William’s wobbly Olds back into Liberty with Daniel Hester following behind. Katherine, Bitsy, and the baby ride with him. It’s still early and steam is rising off of the river when, behind the Texaco station, I tuck the keys under the seat of the mud-spattered vehicle and get in with them. Bitsy is going to see Mary, and the rest of us are on our way to Torrington, where Katherine can catch a train to Baltimore.
Katherine, who is scrunched low with the baby on the Model T’s back floor, reaches into her brassiere and pulls out some folded green, part of her getaway cash. Without rising, she sticks her hand out the window and waves the money at Bitsy. “You’ll need this for the doctor’s bill,” she whispers. “And maybe food . . . Thank your mother from the bottom of my heart. I just know she fell trying to keep William from following me. I just know it.”
Then Hester and I, in front, with Katherine and the baby staying low in the back, speed north up 92 toward Torrington. Everywhere there are leaves on the road, torn from the trees during the thunderstorm. Twice we have to get out to pull big branches off the road.
“Thanks for helping us,” I whisper to the vet.
He shrugs. “It’s nothing.”
“I didn’t know where else to turn.”
He repeats himself, flicking his gray eyes to my face and tightening his jaw as if he means business. “It’s nothing.”
I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting to see William Mac-Intosh, or maybe the sheriff, hot on our trail, but there’s nothing back there except the empty two-lane blacktop.
By dark we’re standing in the doorway of a one-room tourist cabin on the outskirts of Torrington, the last one available at the Riverview Travelers’ Lodge. We have just learned that the next train for Baltimore doesn’t leave until seven in the morning and are trying to make the best of it.
Exhausted, Katherine collapses on the single bed and falls asleep nursing Willie. I pull the covers over them. The poor battered woman is dead to the world. My idea was that she and I would sleep together in the double bed and Hester would lie down on the single, but I hate waking her and making her move, and apparently so does the vet.
I wince. It looks really uncomfortable. He won’t sleep at all.
“No, I’ll sleep there. I got you into this.”
“I don’t mind.”
I let out my air. I’m dog tired and in no mood for arguing. “Okay, let’s share the big bed.” I turn down the stiff sheet and red-and-black-striped cotton Indian blanket. “We can keep our clothes on.” The truth is, I’d feel guilty taking the bed while he sat up all night, and even if we traded halfway through, that would mean less than four hours of shut-eye for each of us.
Hester looks dubious but then raises his eyebrows and grins. “Whatever you say. We’re already outlaws, helping Katherine sneak out of town with the coal baron’s baby. Sleeping together won’t sully our names any worse.”
We remove our shoes but nothing else, and I use the tiny water closet to unfasten my brassiere. The vet reaches up and turns off the light. “Good night,” he murmurs, turning away.
I swallow hard. It’s the first time I’ve slept near a man, since . . . since Ruben died, and Hester’s warmth comes clear through his clothes.
Outside the small window, the neon sign winks NO VACANCY. Red, then green. Red. Green. Red. Green. Hester stirs in his sleep.
Oh, Ruben! Why did we go to Blair Mountain? I wipe my face on the corner of the blanket and choke back my sobs, but the tears keep coming.
Lost
“Do you think she’ll make it?” I ask Hester as we see the train off. Katherine is still waving through the Pullman car window, looking like any other mother and baby on a holiday. The sleep has done her good, and her color is better.
“Yeah, I explained the situation to the porter, a nice guy, who says he knows Thomas Proudfoot. He promised he’d look after them. If the law doesn’t search the train at Cumberland, they’ll be okay.”
“I hope she writes. I asked her to. I just want to know she’s safe.”
The vet has been especially solicitous this morning, helping me on with my sweater, pulling out my chair at Minnie’s Breakfast Diner, opening the door for me. I worry that he may have heard me crying in the night.
We’re halfway back to Liberty on Route 92, each lost in our own thoughts, when he poses a question that surprises me. “Have you ever been hurt by a man?”
“Why do you ask?” He’s probably thinking about my tears in the night.
“Some men think it’s their right.”
“Not the ones I know. My men friends believed in equality between the sexes.” Except Mr. Vanderhoff, I think . . . but that was way back . . . and anyway, he wasn’t a friend.