140
Three Rounds with a Rhinoceros
Fraser’s Ridge
September 16, 1780
“ONE WOULD THINK YOU’D done this before,” I remarked, smiling up between Brianna’s knees.
“If one thinks I’m ever doing this again …” she panted, but broke off, her sweating face contorting like a gargoyle’s. “NRRRRGH.”
“Wonderful, darling,” I said, my fingers on the rounded, hairy object showing briefly between her legs. I felt it for only a second before it disappeared again, an instant’s throbbing pulse, but that was enough; there was no sense of distress, only of bewilderment and an intense curiosity.
“Jesus, it looks like a coconut,” Roger blurted from his spot kneeling on the floor behind me.
“ARRRGHHHH! NGGGGHHH! I’m going to kill you! You—effing—” Brianna stopped, panted like a dog, then drove her blood-streaked legs hard into the straw-covered floor, half-rose from the birthing chair, and the baby shot out and fell heavily into my hands.
“Oh, my God,” said Roger.
“Don’t faint back there,” I said, busy swabbing the little boy’s nose and mouth. “Fanny? If he falls over, drag him out of the way.”
“I won’t faint,” he said, his voice trembling. “Oh, Bree. Oh. Oh, Bree!” I could feel him scuffling the straw as he rose to go to her, but my attention was split between Brianna and the baby—a good bit of blood, a small perineal tear, but no apparent hemorrhage—pink, wriggling, face screwed up in the exact gargoyle’s expression his mother had had a moment before, heart thumping like a tiny trip-hammer and … I was already smiling, but my smile widened as he jerked away from my bit of gauze and started yelling like an angry buzz saw.
“Apgar nine or ten,” I said happily. “Well done, darling—both of you!”
“Where’s his Apgar?” Fanny said, frowning at the baby. “Is that what you call his—”
“Oh. No, it’s a list you run through with a new baby, to evaluate their state. ‘Apgar’ stands for Activity, Pulse, Grimace—he’s certainly got that—Appearance—see how pink he is? A baby that’s had a difficult time might have bluish fingers and toes, or be blue all over—that would be very bad.” I had a quick vision of Amanda’s birth—and of the last blue baby I’d held—and gooseflesh rippled over my arms. I closed my eyes with a quick prayer for little Abigail Cloudtree and for the healthy grandson in my arms.
“What’s the ‘R’ for?” Roger asked, curious. I glanced up; he was cradling Bree’s head, gently wiping back the strands of sweat-soaked hair pasted to her face, but his eyes were glued to the baby.
“Respiration,” I said, raising my voice slightly to be heard over the baby’s rhythmic—and loud—cries. “If they’re yelling, they’re breathing. Come down here and cut his cord for him, Daddy. Fanny, come down here, too; the placenta will be along any minute.”
“Where’s Da?” Brianna said, lifting her head.
“Just here, lass.”
Jamie, who had been lurking in the doorway, tucked his rosary into his pocket and came in to Bree, bending down to kiss her forehead and murmur something to her in Gaelic that made her tired-but-smiling face blossom.
The room reeked of blood and shit and the peculiarly fecund, swampish smell of birthwaters.
“Here, sweetheart.” I rose, knees stiff from an hour of kneeling on the hard floor, and put the naked baby into her arms. “Be careful, he’s still a little slippery.” He had the faintly waxy look of a newborn, still coated with the protective vernix that had sheltered him in the waters he’d just traversed. It took a moment for my back to unkink sufficiently for me to stand fully upright, and I stretched my arms up, groaning.
“I’m not seeing it yet,” Fanny said. She was still kneeling, peering intently between Brianna’s splayed legs.
“See if he’ll suckle, will you, darling?” I said to Bree. “That will help your uterus contract.”
“That’s just what I need,” she muttered, but nothing touched the beatific smile that flickered on and off through the exhaustion that veiled her face. She tugged down the neck of her sweat-and bloodstained shift and carefully guided Junior’s squalling face to her breast. Everyone watched, riveted, as he rubbed his face to and fro on the breast, still squawking. Bree squinted down her nose, trying to move her nipple with one hand while holding the baby with the other. The nipples each showed a tiny drop of clear liquid.