The Midwife of Hope River

More swearing. More taunts. “Come on out, you sluts! Let’s party!”

“Yeah, we want some pussy!”

“You take the white one. I’ll take the brown.”

“Hell, I’ll do them both!”

That goes on for a while. The men in hoods have no faces. They could be anyone. I remember what Becky told me: when times are hard and people are suffering, there will be those who want to hurt someone.

Bitsy is sobbing now. I’d like to cry too, but what good would it do? I’ll cry later. If there is a later . . . “Get a grip, Bitsy, and if it will make you feel better, go get the guns.”

My friend scoots across the floor toward the pantry where she keeps her rifle and shotgun. She crawls back and sits with her back to the door, loading the ammunition. My mouth is as dry as a bale of hay, and I wonder, if she gives me a gun, will I remember how to use it?

Dancing shadows in the flames, the smell of kerosene and burning wood. A short, thick man pulls a half-burning picket off the fence and waves it like a torch. Three others follow. Then someone gets the bright idea of throwing his flaming brand at the house.

“Watch it, you almost hit me!” the low voice yells.

“Aw, shit, Aran! We’re just having fun.”

There’s a scuffle, and the big man busts the smaller one in the chops. “I said no names!”

Aran, I think. That’s one of the Bishop brothers, the moonshiners who gave Hester a hard time. What did we ever do to them? And the short loudmouth, that’s probably Beef, the guy who kept whacking his horse when it died.

The Klansmen, or pretend Klansmen, whoever they are, continue to throw burning sticks at the house. “Buffalo Girls, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight?” someone sings.

“Yeah, I’ll make mine come.” More laughter. More throwing of torches. One flaming brand hits the porch roof but skitters off into the leaves. The ground is too damp for the fire to spread, but if one should ignite the shingles, our roof will go up like a tender box.

“Bitsy, we gotta get out of here. We’ll head for the barn, free the animals in case they try to set it on fire, and maybe in the confusion we can get on Star and ride away. If we stay here, we could be burned alive or captured, and there’s no way I want those men to lay their dirty paws on us.” What I’m thinking is, I’d rather go up in a blaze, but that might be an exaggeration.

We grab our jackets and crawl toward the kitchen. But what about the dogs? If I free them, they will attack the intruders and maybe get shot. If leave them in the house and it catches on fire, they’ll be burned alive. I don’t have a plan, except to save ourselves, so while the shouting goes on, I kiss them each on the nose and creep out the back. Sasha whines.

“Shhhhh!” I command, shutting the door and feeling terrible.

Buffalo Girls

Sheltered by the shadow of the house, we stay low and dash straight for the barn door. Inside, Star whinnies, but I lay my hands on her and she quiets down. First we push Moonlight and her calf out into the yard. Moonlight looks at the fire with bulging white eyes and trots around back with the calf right behind her. Then we grab the chickens, which refuse to get out of their boxes until we pick them up and throw them out the double doors. I can’t blame them. How would we like to be yanked out of bed and hurled into the night?

For a moment I stare at our idle Oldsmobile. If only we could rev it up and roar out in it, past our attackers and down the mountain, but I know all that’s left in the gas tank is fumes, and anyway, their vehicles are blocking the road. Finally I climb up the slatted side of Star’s stall and mount her. Bitsy hands me her shotgun and slides on behind.

“Wait.” I point down at two white feed sacks hanging over the hayrack. I don’t yet know my intention, but I pull one over my head and hand one to Bitsy. “Put this on.”

“What?” I can imagine her shocked expression. “I can’t see.”

“Shhhhhh!” I yank them off, lean over toward the scythe hanging on the barn wall, and slash two eyeholes in each of them. Feed sacks back over our heads, we look at each other. I’d laugh out loud if our situation weren’t so terrifying.

Outside, Star trembles and shies when she first sees the fire, but I guide her away around the side of the barn. Apparently the men, still singing out front, don’t know we’re gone.

We have two choices. We can continue our course, trot around the rail fence, and escape up the back, or . . . something bothers me about running, leaving our little house, barn, and dogs for the fools to burn up. I’ve been running my whole life.

The Buffalo Soldiers were the brave black U.S. Cavalry men who fought in the West in the Civil War. The intruders call us the “Buffalo Girls,” and that settles it!

“Hold your gun up where they can see it, Bitsy. Change of tactics. Those guys tick me off!”

“Oh, Miss Patience!” Bitsy squeaks, but she shifts her position and does what I say.

“Buffalo Girls, won’t you come out tonight?” the guys warble drunkenly. The wild laughter crescendos, the fire flares, and two more flaming pickets twirl toward our roof.

I nudge my horse into a canter. “Hold on,” I growl, more for myself than for Bitsy. I have no idea what I’m doing. I just don’t feel like sneaking away, coming back in the morning to find our sweet little home a pile of coals.

“You fucking pillow heads!” I yell the worst words I know as we gallop into the light, right up to the knot of men. The anger and fear in me come out like a roar. If Sheriff Hardman could see me now, he wouldn’t think me so soft. I’m more pissed than these men could ever be. A pregnant woman protecting her nest!

“You fucking pillow heads!” my friend echoes and fires once into the air.

The singing comes to an abrupt halt. In the flickering firelight, the men are confused. Who are these new masked riders? Bitsy and I, on top of the wild-eyed beast, tower over them. “You have business here?” I growl in the lowest voice I can work up, nudging Star farther into the crowd. Bitsy reaches down and strips off one man’s mask. He’s too startled to speak, covers his face, and jumps into his truck.

“Coward!” I yell through my dusty feed sack. Bitsy gets into the spirit of things and fires into the air twice more.

I dance Star around as we pull off three more head covers. The other men duck down where I can’t reach them and bump into one another as they scuttle like crabs. I’m sure they don’t realize that the aggressors on the horse are Bitsy and me, in control now—the Buffalo Girls!