Читать книгу The Midwife And The Lawman - Marisa Carroll, Marisa Carroll - Страница 9

“SHE’S ADORABLE, Lacy.” Devon handed the sleeping infant back to her mother reluctantly. She loved holding babies.

“She looks just like Angie did at that age.” Lacy settled the baby on her shoulder. “She’s nursing well, too. I was a little worried. I didn’t have as much milk as I needed for Angie. I had to put her on a bottle way sooner than I wanted to.”

“Any problems this time?” Devon asked, putting her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff back in her tote.

“Heavens no. My milk just gushes.”

“No redness or sore nipples?”

“A little,” she said with a grin. “She has an excellent sucking response.”

“Great. That’s what I like to hear. I’ll leave you some cream for the soreness. It should help.” Devon stood up and reached down to touch a fingertip to the baby’s silky cheek. “You did good, Lacy.”

“Thanks, Devon. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.”

“You’re planning on having another baby?” When Devon let herself daydream about a family of her own, she always pictured herself with four children. She was an only child and had always envied big families.

Lacy nodded. “Not right away. But Tom and Luke want a boy to even out the numbers. And I like the idea of this little angel having a sister or brother close to her own age to grow up with. I hope The Birth Place will still be operating in a couple more years.”

“It will be.” Devon said what Lacy expected her to, but the truth was she didn’t know how long the clinic would stay in business if her grandmother retired. The other midwives were dedicated, but they couldn’t be expected to shoulder the responsibility of keeping the always cash strapped clinic afloat.

That would be up to her.

If she gave up her practice and her life in Albuquerque.

That was a big if.

“I’ll see you to the door.” Lacy put her hand on the arm of her chair as if to rise.

“Stay put,” Devon said, bending to pick up her bag. “I’ll see myself out.”

“Thanks. I’m still a little stiff.” Lacy settled back into the rocker. “Tom took the kids to town to buy gifts for the new baby with their allowances. They’re going to fix me a special dinner and then we’re going to pick a name for the baby.”

“Sounds like a wonderful evening.”

She smiled down at the sleeping infant. “It will be.”

Devon’s heart contracted. It always happened. She didn’t think she would ever grow blasé about watching a mother with her newborn at her breast. “I’ll stop back in a few days. We’ll fill out her birth certificate then.” The clinic usually did two follow-up visits after a birth, more if the midwife thought it necessary.

“Thanks, Devon. Say hello to your grandmother for me.”

“I will.” She let herself out of the cabin into the bright sunshine of the summer morning. The sky was so blue it hurt to look at it without sunglasses, but off to the south was a ridge of dark clouds. One of the thunderstorms she’d heard predicted on the TV the night before? This one looked to be a long way off, and moving away, so it shouldn’t spoil her trip to Silverton.

But first she’d stop and pay her courtesy call on Miguel’s grandfather.

Daniel Elkhorn had been working as a carpenter on a remodeling project at the clinic when she was fifteen. She had been born and raised in San Francisco, but long visits to Lydia in Enchantment were the highlights of her childhood. That was how she’d first met Miguel—he’d been helping his grandfather during summer vacation. Daniel had been patient with all her questions about Navajo customs and way of life. He never once asked her if her sudden interest in his heritage had anything to do with her very obvious crush on his grandson.

She had no trouble finding the turnoff to the Elkhorn place, although it had been a long time since she’d been out this way. Daniel lived in a mobile home, white with green shutters and a steep-pitched snow roof suspended above it on wooden posts. A small barn housed a couple of milk goats and a chicken run. A swaybacked roan horse grazed in a fenced pasture that would be in shade when the sun dropped behind the ridge line. A dusty, dark-blue pickup was parked alongside a newer dual-cab pickup. She wasn’t Daniel’s only visitor, it seemed.

Sitting in plastic lawn chairs beneath a brush arbor was Daniel and a plump woman in traditional Navajo dress—long-sleeved blouse and long, pleated cotton skirt with a woven belt. Her hair, gathered into a heavy knot at the back of her head, was black, barely streaked with gray. Her jewelry was silver and turquoise. Devon recognized her as Elena Eiden, Miguel’s mother. She was holding a spindle, spinning yarn from a pile of sheep’s wool in her lap.

Elena put down her work and rose from her chair. “Devon Grant? Is that you?” She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand.

“Hello, Mrs. Eiden. Yes, it’s me.”

“How good to see you! Miguel told me you were back in Enchantment. I was planning to stop by the clinic. Dad and I have been in Arizona visiting my daughter and new grandbaby. We only returned to town a few days ago,” she explained, motioning Devon to an empty chair. “I have pictures for Lydia. She delivered her, you know.”

“I know she’d love to see them. We all would.” Devon felt gooseflesh rise on her arms. She might have been carrying Miguel’s baby, another grandchild for Elena, if the timing of their night together had been different. Not for the first time she felt a tiny pang of regret, not relief, when the thought crossed her mind.

“Father, you remember Devon Grant. She’s Lydia Kane’s granddaughter.” She spoke in English, although Devon suspected she and her father had been speaking Navajo when she drove up.

“Yah-ta-he, Grandfather,” she said, using the Navajo greeting he’d taught her years before.

“Welcome. It’s been a long time since you came to visit and ask questions about the Diné, Devon Grant.”

“Yes, it has. I don’t have time to come to Enchantment often anymore.”

“But now you’re here to stay, aren’t you?” Elena asked, resuming her spinning. She was a weaver, too, Devon remembered, though not as renowned as her sister-in-law.

“For the time being. I’ve taken a six-month leave of absence from my practice in Albuquerque.”

Daniel let a few seconds elapse before he spoke. It was a sign of politeness among the Navajo, making sure someone was finished speaking before jumping in. “Are you here now to learn more about the Diné?” His face was impassive, but a glint of humor sparkled in his faded eyes.

“I would still like to learn from you,” Devon said carefully, shying from his gaze. Obviously the man’s advancing years hadn’t taken a toll on his mind. He hadn’t forgotten that she’d been as much interested in Miguel as about Navajo lifestyles.

“You have followed the Navajo way in honoring your grandmother’s wish that you return to Enchantment.”

“I will certainly stay until my grandmother is fully recovered from her heart attack.”

“How is Lydia?” Elena asked.

“She’s regaining strength and is impatient to be back delivering babies full-time.”

“I heard you went out to the reservation to help Ophelia Pedroza. Not many whites will make that drive for any reason.”

This time Devon had no trouble meeting the old man’s gaze. “She needed me.”

“Miguel told me the baby was breech. That you had to take Ophelia to The Birth Place to deliver.”

Devon felt the familiar need to explain her actions and fought it down. The silence stretched out a little longer than good manners dictated. “It was a difficult birth. I’m not my grandmother. I don’t have her experience and expertise. For Ophelia’s sake and the baby’s, I felt they should be brought to the center.”

The two Navajos nodded acceptance of her explanation. Daniel changed the subject. “What brings you this far up the mountain? You didn’t come all this way just to say hello to an old man like me.”

“Well, not exactly,” Devon responded, smiling. “I’m also going to drive on up to Silverton. I haven’t been there in years. I used to love to go there.”

“Not a good place to go,” Daniel said bluntly.

“He’s right, I’m afraid,” Elena said. “Dad’s had stuff stolen and whoever’s doing it could be hiding out there.”

“Miguel mentioned it.” Devon wished she’d kept her mouth shut when she saw the flicker of interest in Elena’s face.

“Someone’s been in my chicken coop,” Daniel elaborated. “Couple nights ago they took off with a hen. It’s probably just kids, but if they go after my goats, I’ll shoot them.”

“You will not,” Elena said firmly. “You’ll call Miguel. And then you’ll call Dennis and me and we’ll come and get you, and you can stay at our place until they catch the thief.”

“I’ll stay here.” Daniel’s tone left no room for argument.

Elena’s lips tightened into a straight line, but she said no more, concentrating on tugging a strand of wool from the bundle of fleece on her lap.

“I’m only going to stay there a little while,” Devon assured them. “I just want to see if the place has changed.”

“There are ghosts there,” Daniel said. It was Navajo custom not to mention the names of the dead in case their malevolent ghosts were nearby. But Devon knew he was talking about Teague Ellis. Teague had been Enchantment’s bad boy a generation ago. He’d died in the Silverton mine before Devon was born, his body not found until years later.

“I’m not planning on going into the mine,” she said, rising from her chair.

“It’s still not a safe place to be right now,” Elena said. “Ghost or no ghost.”

“I’ll be careful.” Devon turned to Daniel. “It’s so good to see you, Grandfather.”

“Come back again, Devon Grant. I am here most days.”

Elena once more put down her spinning and followed Devon to her truck. “Thank you for stopping. My father enjoys the company. He misses my mother.” Elena did not mention her mother’s name in deference to her father’s beliefs. Elena herself didn’t follow the old ways. Her mother had been Roman Catholic and Elena had been raised in that faith. The heavy silver cross she wore around her neck was proof of that.

“I’ll stop by as often as I can.”

“Thank you.”

Devon waved a last goodbye to Miguel’s grandfather, then climbed in her truck and headed up the mountain, following Silver Creek. There was only a trickle of water now. The snow melt was long over and there’d been little summer rain to keep it running free and strong.

The turnoff to Silverton was almost invisible if you didn’t know where to look. But she did. She kept Silver Creek on her left and watched for the landmarks she remembered from her teens, the twisted ruin of a huge cottonwood tree on one side, and a big limestone boulder on the other. There was a sign, too, leaning and faded. If you weren’t looking for it, it was hard to see. She nosed the Blazer onto the old roadway and shifted into four-wheel drive.

The Silver Jacks mine had never been large or profitable, and Silverton had flourished as a community for only twenty years or so. It didn’t exist on any maps, and few tourists found their way up here. Even most of Enchantment’s teenagers tended to stay away. It was too far from town to be convenient for a lovers’ lane, and since the way in was the only way out, it was even more inconvenient as a place for underage teens to drink beer or smoke marijuana. The thrill wasn’t worth the price of getting caught.

A mile or so past the turnoff she rounded a big outcropping of rock and saw the narrow valley that housed what was left of the town. The creek ran along one side of what had once been a street, and dilapidated wooden buildings lined the other side. Here and there one-and two-room cabins with caved-in roofs rose out of the tall grass and young aspens that had grown up around them. Above the town she could see the dark opening of the Silver Jacks mine.

Devon parked the Blazer off to one side of the track, reached behind her and pulled a small collapsible cooler from the back seat. She lifted the hatch and dug a flashlight out of her midwife’s kit. She would need it if she wanted to look inside the mine entrance. She walked over to the porch of one of the derelict false-fronted buildings and sat in the shade. The sun was warm on her jean-clad legs, and she could smell the scents of dry grass and pine resin in the cool, thin air. She leaned gingerly back against the weather-beaten porch post, testing its strength.

She listened to the water dance over the stones in the creek bed, watched the sunlight filter through the branches of the cottonwoods that lined its banks and felt a measure of peace. She remembered coming here the summer she was eighteen, trying desperately to understand the dark changes that had come over Miguel when he returned from duty in Somalia. Now, more than ten years later, she understood those changes, what war and death could do to a man. But then she hadn’t been wise, only desperately in love, and his withdrawal had broken her heart.

She slipped the cooler strap off her shoulder, deciding she’d eat after she explored a little, picked up the flashlight and started walking along the faint path that led to the mine entrance. She wouldn’t go inside, of course—it wasn’t safe—but with the beam of the flashlight she could see well into the interior. She wondered if it was still the same as it had been a dozen years ago, a mine entrance straight out of a Wild West movie, wooden supports framing a narrow, gaping hole in the ground that somewhere not too far inside, ended in a deep drop-off where Teague Ellis had died.

Devon stopped walking. A cloud had passed over the sun, darkening the little valley, reminding her that daylight ended early here even in the summer and that dangerous strangers might be close by. The sun came out again, colors regained their brightness and the birds their songs. She turned away from the creek toward the mine, letting her curiosity override her caution. The ground before the entrance was devoid of vegetation. Odd bits and pieces of rusted metal lay half buried in the stony ground. A few old barrel staves stuck up out of the dirt like the rib cages of dead animals. Anything of value, including the silver, was long gone.

Someone had put up a barrier to deter the curious from entering the mine since the last time she was here. A screen of metal mesh, the sort used for a dog run or a schoolyard fence, had been stretched across the opening and secured with heavy wooden two-by-fours nailed to the mine’s supporting posts. But one of the two-by-fours had been pulled away at the bottom corner, and the wire mesh bulged out, leaving an opening big enough for a small person or a large animal to crawl through.

Had a coyote made the old mine its den?

Or perhaps a Coyote of the human kind?

Devon looked down and saw footprints leading into the mine. She stopped moving, stopped breathing. This would probably be a good time to turn around, get back in her car and drive away. Then she heard it. A sound like a dry, racking cough followed by faint sobbing, as though a child were crying, weak and fearful. She looked down at the footprints once more. They were very small.

Devon refused to listen to the voice of reason that was telling her only a fool would step foot inside that mine with simply a flashlight to defend herself. But she couldn’t ignore a child crying. She jerked on the wire mesh and it moved grudgingly outward, enlarging the opening enough for her to get through without crawling on her hands and knees. She stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness beyond the oblong area of sunlight just within the opening. A small flurry of movement ahead and a little to the left attracted her attention. “Hello? Who’s there?” The crying stopped, but another bout of coughing broke the quiet. “I won’t hurt you. It’s all right. I’m here to help.”

She switched on the flashlight and took several steps, almost tripping on a bundle of thin blankets spread over what appeared to be an old mattress. She looked around. The flashlight beam picked out a lawn chair by the mattress, one of the aluminum ones with plastic webbing that folded flat, in the same green-and-white pattern as the one she’d been sitting on at Daniel’s place. Beside it sat a rusty camping lantern and a couple of plastic plates and foam cups. Next to those were two plastic, gallon milk jugs filled with water. A fire pit had been made in a natural depression in the mine floor.

The sniffling sound came again, followed by a hushed whisper. Devon couldn’t make out the words. She thought they might be Spanish, though. “Please come out,” she said in that language. “I won’t hurt you.” More rustling, as though someone was trying to crawl away. She narrowed her eyes. An area of darker shadows loomed on the mine wall. She moved a little more to her right and realized it was an opening to a smaller tunnel branching off the one she was in. Cool air brushed across her face and breasts. Perhaps it wasn’t a tunnel, but an air shaft, maybe even the one Teague Ellis had fallen to his death in. Devon dropped to her knees and trained the flashlight on the hole.

Two sets of dark eyes stared back at her from frightened faces. They were indeed children. Girls. Sisters, probably, from the similarity of their facial features. The elder held the younger cradled in her arms. “Go away,” she said in Spanish. “Leave us alone.”

One look at the little girl told Devon she was the source of the coughing. She was wearing jeans and a dirty Scooby Doo T-shirt. Her face was flushed with fever, her eyes glittering with tears. Her hair, black as night, was a filthy tangle around her face. The older girl’s hair was not quite as tangled, but just as dirty. She was wearing a thin, shapeless cotton dress and cheap sneakers.

And she was pregnant. Very pregnant. Even holding the smaller child close to her body couldn’t hide that.

Were the children illegal aliens hiding out from the authorities as they made their way north? Were the men that had brought them here still around? She hoped not. The child coughed again and she banished thoughts of Coyotes. “Soy una enfermera.” Devon’s Spanish was not as good as she needed it to be. She switched to English. “I’m a nurse. Let me help you.”

No response. Devon balanced the flashlight on a ridge of rock beside her, then hunkered down and held out her arms for the younger child. Suddenly she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and froze. Had she guessed wrong? Was the girls’ Coyote still here, after all?

“Jesse,” the little girl whispered.

Devon turned her head. A boy, as ragged and dirty as the girls, stood over her. He looked to be about fifteen, not yet a man, but almost. He was thin to the point of emaciation. He wore jeans and a faded red windbreaker over a ragged Dallas Cowboys T-shirt. Her little cooler was slung over his left shoulder, as were the two fleece blankets she’d left folded in the back of her truck.

“Get up,” he said in English.

Devon stood, her heart beating hard. He held a length of two-by-four like a baseball bat. He could kill her with a single blow and they both knew it.

“I’m a nurse. I—”

“Get away from my sisters,” he shouted. “I’ll take care of them. Just leave the flashlight and go. Get out and don’t come back!”