Chapter One
Gretchen Altman sat at the kitchen table, drumming her
fingers on the hard pine surface. Through the stiff black lace of he veil,
the surroundings looked surreal. Lace made for an interesting effect. Perhaps,
she thought, that was why people had lace curtains. She’d always wanted some, but
Ben had never allowed it. But Ben wasn’t here anymore.
With a heavy sigh, she pulled the veil off and laid it on the table, blinking
at the bright shaft of light coming through the clean windows. Clean windows,
clean floors. She’d helped Ben install them both. At her foot was
a knotted floorboard that held special significance. When Ben was putting
the wood through the mill, the knot had caused the board to buck, gashing
his chin. As a midwife, she’d sown up plenty of tears, but few as
bad as that one. Her husband’s jutting chin presented a special challenge
and later he would compliment her on her handiwork. That had been nice.
Ben had been a man of few words and fewer compliments.
“Had been.” It would hard, Gretchen knew, to think of her husband
in the past tense. It seemed even now he would come walking through the door,
tapping his boots against the frame to dislodge any garden dirt. It was his concession
to her desire for a tidy house, and one of the many little quiet kindnesses he
paid her that was beyond words.
And Ben had always been a quiet man, which made their pairing a surprise
to both of them for Gretchen, while tiny, had a large smile and a friendly,
outgoing demeanor that charmed everyone she met. But she could be tough
and decisive, too, and effect the kind of quiet authority often necessary
to guide skittish new mothers through the scary territory of their first
childbirth - or seasoned ones through a tough one.
Gretchen had never thought to use that authority with her own husband,
but after a fire had destroyed his and the bank refused to loan him money
to rebuild. He later found out that the bank president’s nephew was
planning to build one himself in the growing town. Gretchen had urged her
husband to take the matter up with the town officials, but Ben - in his
quiet, passive manner - simply said that with everything lost nothing could
be gained.
Knowing that arguing otherwise would only make him feel more diminished,
Gretchen instead gave her husband his space. It was June then and young
farm wives in the outlying areas were ripe and ready to present their husbands
with either hoped-for sons or disappoint them with daughters.
And so Gretchen, her own belly riding high with her first child, threw herself
into her work and brought home money from richer families or eggs, ham,
bread, jam, vegetables and other staples from ones who could only barter.
The day she went into labor, she was helping Sarah Wood deliver her sixth
child - a large and tightly wedged infant that was having trouble being
expelled by the weak contractions of an overtaxed uterus. In the tenth
hour of labor, Sarah began to moan and talk of death, clinging to Gretchen’s
arm and wholly unaware that the midwife’s contractions were increasing
in pain and intensity. Finally, with the help of some herbs and gentle traction
on the infant’s large head, Sarah brought forth a fat-squawling girl-child
and then excused herself, leaving mother and infant in the capable hands
of Sarah’s elderly mother. She did not wait to get paid the goat
she had been promised, but instead made as hasty departure as she dared
in her buggy.
She arrived home to find Ben mending a harness and with one look, her husband
knew she was just moments away from delivering.
“What were you thinking, girl?,” he chided. “You and our
child must be considered.”
“There was no choice,” she said, as she walked awkwardly with
his assistance to their bedroom. “I’m far more fit for this
than Sarah. Had I not gone both she and the babe would have been lost.
How would it have looked for me to birth a healthy child on the day one
of my mothers dies trying to have hers?”
Ben had said nothing, only pulled the blanket from the bed and laid down
linen his wife kept in a chest just for the occasion.
“Should I send for Melody?” he asked nervously.
“No time,” said Gretchen through waves of pain. “And besides,
she’s tending her sick mother today or else she would have been helping
me with Sarah. Now please, husband, help me off with these under things.”
Nervously, Ben did as his wife requested, pulling away her muslin drawers
as she lay back on the bed. He could see nothing now but a huge mound of
belly over the bloody maw between her legs and for a moment Gretchen worried
he had fainted from the site. “Don’t be afraid, Ben,”
she said. “Just think of all the times you’ve brought foals
into the world. It’s like that.”
“It’s nothing like that,” her husband said.
“Aaaaaaaaammmmmm!” Another contraction and Gretchen felt a searing,
unbearable burn between her legs and knew that her baby’s head had
crowned. She felt an urge to push so strong that she grabbed the headboard
and bit into the pillow to help herself resist, working to calm herself.
“Ben,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “The head
is coming out. It’s a big baby and it will tear me if I push to hard.
I need you to get the salve off the chest there, take it and firmly rub
it into the my skin around the baby’s head. All around.”
Ben did not argue, but Gretchen could tell he was nervous, for a second
later the top to the ointment bottle clattered across the floor. But then
her husband’s strong fingers made contact with the skin of her perineum
and he massaged the ointment in with a firm, circular motion. The ointment
- Gretchen’s own recipe - contained herbs and oils that both relaxed
and numbed the skin.
Gretchen grabbed the bedclothes and steeled herself for the next push,
reminding herself of what she told so many mothers at this state. “Breathe him
out, breathe him out, breathe him out.” Taking a deep breath, she
exhaled her breath and slowly delivered her son’s head, groaning
deeply so as not to scare the husband or her child.
“The head’s all white,” said Ben, his voice fearful, but
Gretchen ignored him, knowing that what he saw was the soft, cheesy covering
present on all infants. With another breath she pushed again, long and slow and
felt the baby slip from her body, like a large slippery cod. Raising herself
up, Gretchen reached between her legs and pulled her son up onto her belly. Ben
reached for a warm blanket from the chest and she covered the babe, rubbing his
back with deep circular motions until he let out a wail and turned a ruddy pink
beneath the filmy white covering.
A few moments later, Gretchen silently delivered the afterbirth and cut
the cord as her husband removed the mass that had sustained his son for
the last nine months. He came back and packed towels between his wife’s
legs and then sat at her shoulder and watched her nurse the baby. And as
he did Ben smiled for the first time since his business had been destroyed.
“Owen,” Ben had said.
“After my grandfather,” said Gretchen, putting a hand to his
face. “Thank you. It’s a good name, a strong name and reminds
me of the green of home.” She looked down at the baby suckling at
her breast and laughed at his serious expression. “Owen.”
The child’s birth seemed to revive Ben, who, after assuring himself
that Gretchen was capable of doing without him, announced that he needed
to take a trip. For business. When Gretchen had inquired of him what that
business might be, his back had stiffened. “Just business,”
he’d replied and kissed her goodbye.
That night she rocked Owen and sang the old Irish lullabies her grandmother
had taught her back when she was small, back before she became a wife and
met the man who would move her - as a new immigrant - from a bustling port
city westward to Norman to build his business. She knew little of her husband’s
past, other than that Ben’s parents had both died of fever when he
was twelve. He’d worked every day since then, caring for and raining
rich men’s horses and growing into a strong, quiet man that people
could trust. He repaid that trust in return and naively believed that no
one would deal unfairly with a man who dealt fairly with them. His first
lesson had been his hardest, and while Gretchen didn’t know what
her husband had planned it made her happy to see that he was at least willing
to try again.
But three days later when he came home and announced they were moving to
a homestead outside of town she was shocked. “How?” she asked,
wiping milk away from Owen’s chin and tucking her breast back into
her blouse as she simultaneously hefted her son over her shoulder.
“That’s my concern. You need to be concerned only with that
babe,” Ben had said, and Gretchen noticed that he looked away as
he said the words. He was hiding something, but she knew her Ben. To try
and force the secret from him would only cause him to draw it in deeper.
They went out in the buggy the next day to see visit their new home. There
was a pond, a stand of trees and small house, but it was a house, which
meant the family could move from the rooms they lived in over the store.
There was also a space for a garden plot, a barn in better shape than the
house and three corrals.
“A great place to raise horses,” said Ben with a smile and Gretchen
had looked at him, her eyes brimming with questions.
“I sold some stuff to get the place and some more stuff to get the
horses I’ll be bringing here,” he said, reading her thoughts.
“What kind of stuff, Ben?” Gretchen wanted to know.
“Just stuff,” he said. “Things I’d put away for
a rainy day. Just in case we needed to start over. So never you mind.”
“Hmmm,” she said, and they both knew she didn’t believe
him but that it maybe it wasn’t important. Gretchen sensed whatever
he’d had to do to pay for the land, whatever he’d sacrificed,
was necessary.
So she threw herself into helping him making the new place their home. Ben
bought some wood and cut more to expand the kitchen and add two bedrooms
to the house. Gretchen tied Owen on her back while she worked tirelessly
beside her husband, taking breaks whenever she was called to deliver babies
for neighbors far and near. Owen went with her then, too, often amusing
himself on a floor blanket while a screaming woman labored just feet away.
When Gretchen returned from one overnight trip to attend a particularly
difficult birth, she found a bay stallion in the far paddock. After another
trip she found four handsome mares. “Morgans,” Ben said by way
of explanation. “They’ll turn us a fine profit.”
And they did. In the next year the mares produced and Ben sold the offspring
and invested in more horses, assuring her that the next year would be their
best. “After this, we’ll have paid off our investment and it
will all be profit,” he assured her, never alluding to how he’d
come by money to invest in the first place.
And up until the day he died, it had remained a mystery. Even now Gretchen
couldn’t help be angry at God for taking her husband so cruelly when
he was so close to realizing his dream. In her mind, the “if-onlies”
refused to go away. If only Preacher Watson’s son had been there to
help him haul logs for the cabin he was building. If only their best mare
had foaled a day later, giving Ben an excuse not to help when the preacher
had come to call. If only he’d noticed the worn place in the chain
that had snapped as the preacher’s draft horse had pulled the log
up the ill, sending the quarter-ton cylinder down and into Ben’s
chest, killing him.
It seemed so unfair that Ben had been dealt the such a sorry lot in life.
While bad men prospered, her good and gentle husband lay under a wooden
cross in the churchyard, leaving behind a wife and a son who would never
remember him.
A tear swelled from Gretchen’s eye but she quickly wiped it away.
There would be time for crying later. But for now there were chores to do
and plans to make. She knew enough of birth and breeding to know she could
keep the business going - for now - and she’d find a way to balance
responsibilities on the farm with her duties as a midwife. She’d make
it, and if Ben was in heaven as she so desperately desired to believe, at
least he could look down and know that his wife was capable of prospering
things in his absence. And she also vowed not to turn to a man to save her.
Gretchen knew as a widow with a home and a thriving business, she’d
be a target for men looking to enrich themselves. But the only man she
was planning to enrich was her little one, who now lay napping in her bed.
Gretchen decided to take advantage of his naptime to get some things done.
She picked up her veil and walked into her room, where she was placed it
in the chest. She was just about to remove her black dress when she heard
the jingle of a harness. It was probably Melody or some other women from
the community who’d promised to come by with food. The thought brought
her a small feeling of comfort. It would be nice to have a warm supper
and a shoulder to cry on.
Smoothing her skirt, she walked to the window and looked out. But her guests
weren’t women. A black buggy had pulled up in front of her house and
from it emerged Gerald Cavendish, the town banker, and a tall, black-clad
bearded man she’d never seen before.
Gretchen walked to the door and opened it before they even had a chance
to knock. “Mr. Cavendish,” she said. “Hello.”
Cavendish walked into the house and removed his hat. The tall man walked
in, too, his dark eyes looking up and down with an intensity she found disturbing.
“Mrs. Altman,” said Mr. Cavendish. “Let me again tell
me how sorry I am…”
“I know,” said Gretchen, “But really you don’t need
to extend me condolences again, especially since you just expressed them
less than two hours ago at my husband’s graveside.”
“I -yes,” he said. “You’re right. I’m not
here to express condolences.”
“Is it Mary, then?” Gretchen asked, her Irish accent thickening
as it often did when she felt nervous. “I only delivered her of your
babe a fortnight ago. If there’s a problem it won’t be any
trouble for me to come by later.”
“No. Mary’s fine. Both she and the baby are fine.” The
banker paused, rolling the hat in his hand. “I’m here on business,
Mrs. Altman.”
“What sort of business?”
“Not of a pleasant kind,” the banker said. “Look, there’s
no easy way to say this, but I’ve come to inform you that in the wake
of your husband’s death, the farm and horses are to be conveyed to
their rightful owner.”
Gretchen felt an uneasy feeling in her stomach. “And who would that
be, if it’s not myself?”
The banker looked down. “Mrs. Altman, this is Kane Altman. He’s
your late husband’s brother.”
“Brother?” Gretchen repeated the word as if she wasn’t
sure she’d heard it. “Ben never mentioned a brother.”
“We weren’t close.” The tall man put his hand out to her,
and Gretchen was surprised at how she instinctively stepped back from the
offer. Something about this tall man with the close-cropped black beard
frightened her, but she didn’t know what.
She dismissed her unease as shock and crossed her arms, refusing to accept
his outstretched hand. “You look nothing like my husband,” she
said. “And if you’re truly his brother, why weren’t you
at his graveside today?”
The banker stepped forward. “Mrs. Altman,” he said quietly.
“Your brother-in-law only learned of your husband’s death Tuesday,
the day after it happened. That’s when I contacted him. He got here
as quickly as he could but regrettably missed the funeral. I found him
at my office when I got back.”
Kane Altman bowed his head a bit, as if attempting to show regret for what
he was about to tell her. “As I said, we weren’t close. In fact,
when he came to borrow money to buy this farm and start a business, it was
the first I’d laid eyes on him in more than ten years. I gave him
a three year deadline to repay me. Sadly, he has now died and I hold the
note on the farm.”
“Lies,” Gretchen said. She suddenly felt as if they floor would
fall from under her.
“It’s no lie, I assure you.” The tall man’s voice
was deep, hypnotically sinister. He smiled then, a small unreadable smile
that passed like a shadow, and reached inside his black cloak to withdraw
a piece of paper. Unfolding it, held it before her. “Can you read,
woman?”
“Of course I can read,” she hissed and stepped forward, one
hand on the chair to steady herself as she looked at the paper. She recognized
that the document as official and was as he said it was. And suddenly, sickeningly
the room began to spin and she fell. The last thing she saw before she fainted
was the black cloak fanning open as Kane moved to catch her, the fabric covering
her like the wings of some great, black predatory bird.
