I asked a few questions about Agnes’s family, but she had withdrawn into her own anxiety and wasn’t disposed to talk much further. Beyond the information that they had built their present cabin in the early summer, I gained little knowledge of the Cloudtrees beyond their names: Aaron, Susannah, Agnes, William, and George.
At the top of the Ridge, Jamie halted at the edge of the Bald, as folk called the high, treeless meadows on the upper slopes of the mountain. As usual, there was a stiff wind blowing on the Bald, and the shawl I’d pulled over my head was snatched back and my hair with it, whipping free in the breeze. Jamie dropped Miranda’s reins, and she immediately lowered her head and began to munch grass.
Jamie dismounted and came to take Clarence’s bridle. Out from under the trees now, I could see him plainly by the moonlight; he was smiling up at me, watching as my hair was lifted straight up off my scalp.
“Dinna take flight just yet, Sassenach. I’ll need Miss Agnes to guide us from here,” he said, and reached up a hand to her. “Will ye come over to me, lass?”
I felt her stiffen, but after a moment’s hesitation she nodded and slid off Clarence. Clarence grunted and turned smartly round, obviously thinking that now we’d got rid of the girl, it was time to go home.
“Think again,” I told him, reining his head hard round. A short battle of wills followed, this resolved by Miranda and her riders moving off with the slow implacability of a steamroller. Clarence snorted and brayed after her, but she didn’t turn back, and after a moment’s fuming, he snapped into a tooth-jarring trot and plunged after her. A quarter of an hour later, we crossed the Cherokee Line. A white blaze, briefly showing by moonlight, marked one of the witness trees that marked the Treaty Line.
The moon was high overhead, and the trees open enough for me to see Jamie glance back over his shoulder. I raised my hand in a small wave of acknowledgment; I’d noticed. A premature birth might not be all Agnes’s family was risking, settling on Indian land. I was glad that Jamie had insisted on coming; he spoke enough Cherokee to get along, if that should become necessary.
The journey took no little time, as Agnes needed to come out into the open now and again to get her bearings—she could read stars, she said matter-of-factly—but within an hour, we saw the dim glow of a cabin’s windows, covered by oiled hide.
I slid off Clarence and pulled down the bag that held my kit.
“I’ll mind the horses,” Jamie said, coming up to take Clarence’s reins. “Ye’ll need to hurry, I expect?”
Agnes was already at the door, fluttering like a frantic moth, and even from where we stood, I could hear the deep, guttural noises of a woman deep in labor.
The door opened suddenly inward, and Agnes fell over the threshold. A tall, dark figure yanked her to her feet and slapped her across the face.
“Where the hell you been, girl!”
Clarence’s ears went straight up at the gunshot sound, and when this was succeeded at once by the high-pitched shrieking of small children, he turned around and trotted off into the forest.
“You bloody idiot!” I shouted at him. “Come back here!”
“Ifrinn!” Jamie dived past me and ran after the mule, saving the rest of his breath for the chase.
“Who the damnation are you?”
I turned to see a young Cherokee man standing in the flickering light of the doorway, glaring at me. He was leaning on the doorframe, his long hair disheveled and blood on his shirt.
I took a deep breath, straightened my spine, and walked up to him.
“I, sir,” I said, “am the midwife. Do please go and sit down.” I didn’t wait to see if he obeyed this injunction; I had work to do.
My patient was sitting on a crudely made birthing chair near the hearth, collapsed forward, arms dangling and her dark-blond hair nearly black at the roots with sweat, the ends dripping over her immense belly. Two little boys, of perhaps five and three, clung to one of her legs, howling. Her legs and feet were grossly swollen.
“Come here, Billy.” Agnes, her face dead white save for the scarlet palm print on her cheek and her voice no more than a squeak, took the bigger of the boys by his collar and pulled him away. “Georgie, you come, too—come, I said!” The fright in her voice stirred them, and they turned and clung to her, whimpering. Agnes looked at me, her eyes huge in mute appeal.
“It will be all right,” I said to her, softly, and squeezed her arm. “Take care of the little ones. I’ll see to your mama.”