As this is a moving week for me, I’m providing the original three chapters for my novella “The Dogtrot Christmas” soon to be re-released in Barbour Publishing’s A Log Cabin Christmas Collection. Chapter one ran on Monday and can be read here: Chapter One.
Chapter Two takes us to a more dramatic moment where it puts Molly’s emotional response to her family, her brother Jamie, and her nephew, into perspective.
Chapter Two
“Jamie, is the baby here yet?” Molly tossed the braid over her shoulder and whispered into the white canvas tent. She could hear rustling but Syntha’s moaning had eased some.
Her brother stepped out, running his fingers through his sandy-colored hair and blinked several times. “Not yet and Kizzie’s getting worried. She wants me to send scouts out for Ma Hanks.”
“Why?” Molly could smell the sweat rolling off him and something worse, a heightened fear they already knew too well.
His whip-thin body suggested adolescence more than fatherhood, but her brother thrust his shoulders back and his chin out. “Syntha’s having trouble. Kizzie thinks the baby may be too big.” He looked down at her from his six-foot height. “She don’t look very good.”
Molly touched his arm. “You don’t think?”
“I don’t know what to think. The Hankses always know best. I’m going to find Ma Hanks. And to tell Pappy Hanks to start praying.”
“God always listens to Pappy Hanks. Even the Texas Mexicans are afraid of him.”
Hope and indecision crossed Jamie’s face, but he nodded. “I’ll find ‘em now.”
Molly watched him thread his way between the handful of tents and the dozen wagons. Three children ran by chasing a yellow hound with a stick in his mouth and she could hear the milk cows bellowing. Coming soon to be milking time and the men should be back from scouting out the trail ahead through theArkansas swamps. Everyone was getting worried. All the good land might be taken up; they needed to get toTexas to lay claim as soon as they could.
“Molly, that you out there?”
She heard Kizzie’s quick voice. “Yes ma’ am.”
Kizzie leaned out of the tent and thrust an iron pot into Molly’s hands. “We need more hot water. Get it from the cauldron on the fire and then find a bucket and draw cool water, too.”
Molly took off in the same direction as her brother. “How’s Syntha doing?” asked a young woman rocking a babe of her own.
Molly shrugged. “Baby’s coming.” She handed the pot to a hollow-eyed woman minding the smoky fire.
“Taking a long time,” the woman said. “We be praying.”
“Thank you. Jamie just went for Pappy Hanks.”
“Ma Hanks going to be unhappy she went with Pappy Hanks today.”
“Syntha’s baby wasn’t due for another month.” Molly held out the pot.
“I know he’s been praying for his girl. That Syntha’s the light of his eye, his baby girl.”
“Yes, ma’am. Kizzie needs more water, though.”
“Aye. I’ll fill it up.” The woman lifted off the lid from the blackened cauldron and ladled in hot water.
Molly hurried as best she could without spilling any of the precious water down her brown homespun skirt. It was hard to keep clean on the trail and she only had the two dresses. She walked carefully to not scuff up any dirt and managed to arrive at the tent with most of the water still in the pot. “I’m here, Kizzie.”
“Thank ye.” Kizzie look harried as she grabbed the metal wire handle.
“Can I see her?”
Kizzie held her sky-blue eyes closed a moment as if to rest. When she opened them, she stared unblinkingly at Molly. “How old ye be now? Seventeen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re old enough to know, especially if that Parker boy is still swanning around. Come in, but be quick about it.”
Jamie’s bride lay on a tick of old corn stalks. Her face looked pallid and drawn in the dusky light. Kizzie crooned softly as she wiped a damp cloth across Syntha’s forehead. “The baby’s coming soon, you just need to push and use all your strength.”
Syntha moaned and Molly saw the cords that bound her head to her neck strain. She reared her back into an arch and let out a stifled cry. “That’s it,” Kizzie whispered. “Let it out. Ease down there, push from up here, and scream if you need to.”
Molly backed toward the flap just as Ma Hanks bustled in. “We be back. The scouts thought they saw Indians. I’m grieved I wasn’t here.” She drew back the sheet from Syntha’s knees and Molly slipped out of the tent. Molly picked up a water bucket and hurried to fill it at the cool chattering creek. This time she didn’t care if her dress got wet when she scurried from the bank.
Pappy Hanks returned with Jamie, carrying a lantern the woman quickly took into the tent. The two men sat on a log beside Molly as night fell and the flitting movement of bats crossed the sky. Pappy Hanks held his thick hard-covered Bible in his large hands, but he did not open it. His eyes were closed and his lips moved as he invoked the blessings of his powerful God on behalf of his youngest daughter.
Jamie hung his hands between his knees and stared at the ground, flinching every time Syntha moaned. Molly wanted to run away from the noise and the fear, but love for her frightened brother kept her beside him.
“It is woman’s lot to suffer in childbirth,” the Reverend Hanks said once. “But that doesn’t make it any easier. “
They heard the great horned owl soar overhead and the scent of the pine tree woods seemed to intensify in the dark. Families called good night and the cows lowed in their make-shift corrals. A knot of women gathered just outside the lantern glow of the tent and Molly could see the tension in their shoulders.
When at last the thin wail of new life slipped out of the tent to their grateful ears, Molly felt joy break through her heart. Her niece or nephew was here! After so long being a twosome, she and Jamie had another blood member in their family.
Ma Hanks came out of the tent carrying a bundle and her fierce voice broke. “Jamie, Tom, come. We’re losing her.”
Molly jumped to her feet after the men. When she reached the tent Ma Hanks thrust the bundle into her arms. Under the thin light from the cusp of a moon and against the dying rasps of Syntha’s breath, Molly looked for the first time at her nephew’s red, scrunched up face. What were they going to do without his mother?
[…] The Dogtrot Christmas–original Chapter Two […]