East of the Mountains

  A young man in stocking feet knelt beside her, brushing the hair from her cheek with his fingernails. A woman knelt on the mattress, too, speaking urgently in Spanish. A second woman, short and large—a dwarf, Ben realized: she was four feet tall—stood with rolled sleeves at a propane stove, dipping a towel into a kettle of steaming water, then wringing it with muscular vigor. "Its good you're here," she said to Ben.

  "How long has she been in labor?"

  "A long time. Too long," said the dwarf.

  Ben ducked inside, carefully. The ceiling loomed claustrophobically low, and he couldn't stand without stooping deeply, which hurt his neck and back. He moved closer, knelt beside the mattress. The girl, he saw, was very young, a child giving birth to a child. "What's your name?" he asked.

  "Her name is Doris," the boy answered, and draped a blanket over her.

  "How old?"

  "Fifteen."

  "Are you the father?"

  The boy nodded.

  "What's your name?"

  "Jimmy Perez."

  "This is her first?"

  "Her first, yes."

  "Okay," said Ben.

  The woman on the mattress caressed the girl's damp forehead. She seemed to Ben to have an eye of glass, or a wandering, unfocused, dead pupil—he couldn't tell which. He couldn't tell if she was looking at him. She seemed to look sideways, or through him, or beyond. "Are you her mother?" he asked.

  "No," said the woman, her eye roaming.

  "How long have you been here?"

  "I came last night."

  "Twenty-four hours?"

  "More than that."

  "She's been in labor twenty-four hours?"

  "Longer," said the woman.

  Ben shook his head. "Are you a midwife?"

  "I don't know anything," the woman answered.

  Ben put a hand to his forehead, pausing. He had not attended a woman in labor since his internship in obstetrics forty-four years earlier. For six weeks in 1954 he'd assisted in delivering babies. "We need to call for an ambulance," he said. "She needs to go to a hospital."

  As if in response, Doris heaved painfully onto her back, seized the hands of the glass-eyed woman, and bore down with so much force, her lips whitened, her eyes squeezed shut, tears leaked from their corners. She flung her legs wide unabashedly—a seething mass of dark tissue, her purple rectum swollen. The vulva had stretched to the limit; her perineum might rupture. An episiotomy would have helped, but that was impossible now.

  "Can you do anything?" asked the glass-eyed woman. "What are you supposed to do?"

  Ben didn't answer. He kept his hand on his forehead. The girl panted, gasped, and grunted, then bore down again. Ben saw the swelling of the baby's head, the wet, dark oval of its hair. "The head is showing," he said.

  "What does that mean?" asked Jimmy.

  "It means it's too late for the hospital." Ben turned to the propane stove. "How hot is that water?" he asked.

  "It's too hot," the dwarf said. "I'll put some cold in it."

  Ben took off his hunting coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The dwarf poured dish soap into his hands, and he washed, adjusted his glasses on his face, and knelt again by the girl. "You're all right," he said.

  "Are you a doctor?"

  "Do I look like one?"

  "No," said Doris.

  "Well, I am."

  As if in answer, she pulled at her thighs to spread them as wide as possible. Then she buried her chin against her chest and bore down with the concentrated force of a woman trying to move the earth. Her skin went from gray to blue, her brow furrowed, her eyes narrowed, it appeared as though she was being crushed by something enormous and invisible. Ben watched while the baby's head crowned, and then Doris's perineum ruptured. There was blood now, but not very much. The tear looked relatively superficial, involved the fourchette and mucus membrane but not the underlying fascia. "Your baby's coming," said Ben.

  The dark wet head emerged gradually. It came face down, then turned sideways—a natural restitution. The features were scrunched, constricted, crabbed, the eyes clenched, the mouth closed, the skin tinted a shade of blue far darker than the blood of veins. The head stopped, came no farther, and seemed to retract or shrink again, like the head of a turtle or snail. An odd, swollen, parasitical growth attached to the girl's groin. Her gaping legs with a head between them—a neckless, embryonic head. It hung suspended, a third appendage, Doris impaled on it. Ben lay on the floor beside the mattress to wipe its strictured face with a towel and swab its mouth with his forefinger. He wished he had an aspirating syringe, and even more, a fetoscope. The baby wasn't breathing, it was stuck at the shoulders. He wasn't sure what to do about it, but he knew there was no time to lose. The cord might be fatally compressed.

  Ben pulled up Doris's left knee until it pressed against her swollen belly, and then he brought up the right. Doris held them there. Awkwardly, low against the mattress, he pried hard at the baby's head, stretching the neck unnaturally, then gave up and slid two fingers in, next to the baby's ear. Doris shrieked and swore at him in Spanish, and Jimmy Perez put a hand on her back and leaned close to her. Ben was relieved to find that the umbilicus wasn't tangled, but he still felt time was running out. He slid in a third finger and tried to twist the baby, turn it in some subtle fashion, unlock it as though the passage to birth were a Chinese puzzle of sorts. He tried clockwise and counterclockwise. He couldn't think what else to do. He withdrew his fingers and pressed on the girl's pubis, as though the baby might be popped free, as in a Heimlich maneuver. It didn't work, and he pried again, gripping it behind the ears. The baby remained intractable. "Is it dead?" asked Jimmy Perez.

  "No," said Ben. "We'll get it out."

  "Its face is blue."

  "It isn't breathing yet."

  "It's dead," said Jimmy.

  "No, it isn't," said Ben. "It's still getting blood from the umbilical cord. That blue will go away."

  "It's dead," said Jimmy. "I know it."

  "No," Ben repeated.

  He slid his fingers past the baby's neck—slid them into Doris's vagina. He knew he was hurting her—she was trying to pull away and shrieked at him in Spanish—but he had no choice anymore. His hand was in, now, to the third set of knuckles. Doris winced, holding her breath; her face blanched, her eyes closed. Ben crouched with his fingers inside her, seeking with his fingertips. He followed the length of the baby's upper arm, which was folded across its collarbones, until he came to the little elbow. It took awhile. He searched. Finally he found what he was looking for. When he drew out his hand, he had the baby's small blue fist trapped between two of his fingers, as in a magic trick.

  The baby's arm hung quivering near its head while Ben popped the shoulder free in a gradual release of traction. The other shoulder came much more easily, and the baby—a girl—slid out like a fish, awash in blood and amniotic fluid, the umbilicus wrapped around her. "You have a new baby," announced Ben.

  Catching her, he trembled. He held her, a jewel, in his palms. "It's a girl," he said. "She's beautiful."

  "A girl," said Jimmy Perez.

  "Thank God you were here," exclaimed the glass-eyed woman, her pupil crackling with light.

  "Let me," said Doris. "Let me see her."

  Ben ran a finger inside the baby's mouth, then blew in her face to startle her. Next he turned her upside down, his hand locked around her ankles, flicked the bottoms of her feet gently, then slapped her on the back. The girl began to wriggle in his grasp and made small squawking noises. She turned pink gradually. When she started to cry, her father crossed himself. "A miracle," he said.

  Ben was still trembling. With a towel he swabbed the baby clean, then set her, covered, on Doris's belly. Jimmy lay down to look at his daughter. He covered his mouth in disbelief.

  "What do you need?" the dwarf asked.

  "A sharp knife," said Ben. "And some twine."

  Sanchez, from the doorway, produced a lock-back blade. Ben sterilized it in rubbing al
cohol brought from a neighboring trailer. Then he tied the umbilicus in two places, using bits of Manila twine, and made his cut between them. The placenta delivered of its own accord. Ben made sure it was all there, then dropped it into a plastic bag the dwarf held open for him. He washed and looked again at the child, who was nursing vigorously. Her color was substantially better now. She had a lot of dark hair, and a cowlick.

  Ben pressed gently on Doris's lower belly, assessing the condition of her uterus. It was hard to the touch and had contracted swiftly to the size of a small grapefruit. She was not bleeding, and he felt satisfied that there was no immediate danger. "You should take them both to see a doctor," he said, addressing Jimmy Perez. "After she's rested, but as soon as possible. Just to make sure everything's all right. That there aren't any problems."

  "Okay," said Jimmy. "Thank you."

  "There should be a clinic in Wenatchee," said Ben. "They'll have a doctor who knows about this, who knows about newborn babies. And someone for Doris. She needs stitches."

  "Okay," said Jimmy. "We'll go."

  "It's dangerous not to," Ben warned.

  When he went outside, it was first light. The orchards nearby were hung with ripe apples. The broad sky was pale, cloudless. Things looked different now.

  TWELVE

  He slept all morning in the pickers cabin. At ten Sanchez came, bringing a woman. They stood in the doorway looking at Ben. "This is the doctor," said Sanchez.

  "This man here?"

  "Yes."

  Ben put on his glasses. He had folded his hunting coat into a pillow and lay with the side of his face against it, in the smell of blood and bird feathers. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm not very well. Excuse me for not getting up."

  "Please," said the woman. "Don't."

  She was almost his age, Ben guessed, a gray-haired woman with deep wrinkles and liver spots who wore a housedress, a cardigan sweater, and calf-high rubber boots. Her hair was amiss, her dress front stained, and there was hay stuck to her. She looked as if she'd been milking cows or working in a stable. The handles of a pair of pruning shears stuck out of her sweater pocket.

  Sanchez took off his cowboy hat and held it by its crown. "This is the woman of the house," he said. "This is Mrs. Harden."

  "I'm Ben Givens," said Ben.

  "I'm Bea," said the woman.

  Sanchez put on his hat again. "I'm going to head back to my pickers," he said. "Unless you need me for something."

  "You go ahead," said Bea.

  Sanchez walked to the door and turned. His face was as quiet, as inaccessible, as it had been the evening before. "We just went to look at the baby," he told Ben. "She was sleeping, and so was her mother."

  "What did they name her?"

  "Ellen Dolores."

  "Remind them to go to a doctor, okay? Mother and baby both."

  Sanchez nodded and went out. Bea Harden took her pruning shears and put them in the opposite pocket. "I heard all about it," she said.

  "Heard about what?"

  "You and the baby. Gustavo told me." Bea rubbed her nostrils with a handkerchief. "I heard it was stuck at the shoulders for a while. That can be dangerous."

  "You're right. It's very dangerous."

  "Then it's lucky you were there."

  "It was lucky," said Ben.

  Bea stuffed her handkerchief away. Her nostrils looked inflamed and tender. She had an equine, pop-eyed face. The space between her lips and nose was deeply etched with wrinkles.

  "Your name," she said. "I know it."

  "Plenty of Givenses used to live around here."

  "But you used to live across the river when I was growing up in Wenatchee. My name then was Beatrice Cade."

  "Cade," said Ben. "I don't remember."

  Bea kneaded the fingers of her left hand, which were bent, knobby, arthritic. "My dad worked with your dad on the Icicle Ditch. And we had the milliner's shop in town. Your mother used to come there sometimes."

  "My memory's bad," said Ben.

  "Her name was Lenora. One of the Chandlers. I knew your aunts, too."

  Ben didn't answer. He tried to remember. Where had the milliner's shop been in Wenatchee? He thought back sixty years.

  "Lily," said Bea. "That was my sister. She was your age—one year younger. And my brother was Andy. He worked for the utility. You remember him. Andy Cade."

  "Andy," said Ben. "No."

  "They're gone," said Bea. "But you had a brother. Aidan—wasn't it Aidan?"

  "He's gone, too," said Ben.

  Bea picked the hay from her sweater. Her large, worn fingers worked slowly at the task, absently, as she spoke. "I knew there was something going on last night. There were so many lights on down in the hollow. They said there was a picker delivered the baby. A picker who was a doctor, maybe. Why would a doctor be picking apples? It didn't make any sense."

  "It doesn't make sense," answered Ben.

  "So why are you picking?"

  "It's a long story."

  Bea poured a cup of water at the sink. Ben sat up and drank all of it. "Is your husband named William?" he asked.

  "William is my brother-in-law."

  "Does he have wolfhounds?"

  "He raises them."

  "He stole my gun," said Ben.

  Bea took the cup again. "He's always been the terror of the country," she said. "Nothing he does surprises me."

  "A varmint hunter."

  "Worse than that."

  "He sends his hounds out after coyotes."

  "He sends them after anything that moves." Ben nodded. "Like my Brittanies," he said. "His hounds killed one and maimed the other."

  Bea shook her head regretfully. "I wish he had another hobby."

  "I killed the one that got after mine."

  "You killed one of Bill's hounds?"

  "That's why he stole my gun."

  Bea put the cup in the sink. She grimaced, angry, and shook her head. "I'm going to talk to him," she said.

  Ben rubbed his side. It hurt relentlessly. "Don't bring it up. He can have the gun. I don't want it back. Forget it."

  "It's yours, though."

  "I don't want it anymore."

  "It's the principle."

  "Just let him have it."

  "We'll get it back."

  "I don't want it, though. The only thing I want is to go home." Bea, again, kneaded her fingers, the swollen, misshapen knuckles. "Where is home?" she asked.

  "I live on the other side of the mountains."

  "You're a transplant, then."

  "I guess I am."

  "Can I bring you an aspirin?"

  "Aspirin doesn't help."

  "What does?"

  "Nothing, really."

  "What do you have?"

  "Cancer. Of the colon."

  "Oh, no," said Bea.

  She took him in her car, an El Dorado, up past an orchard of trellised Fujis and another laden with Granny Smiths. A day of full sun, warm and well lit, the pickers working in their shirtsleeves. There were orchards rolling across the hills, a vast plot of spindled Galas, Braeburns on vertical trellises, seasoned Red Delicious. Off in the distance, across the river, a delicate web of power wires ran over the hills. In the hard light they looked as fragile as gossamer, their pylons and stanchions complicated, and at the crest of the breaks they disappeared across the wheat plateau.

  Bea, driving, offered comfort—people she knew in remission. A cousin who'd outlasted lymphoma, the daughter of a friend who'd licked Hodgkin's Disease, an orchardist in Mattawa who'd overcome lung cancer on a diet of raw calf's liver juice and organic Winesaps from Manson. "I hadn't heard about the Winesaps," said Ben. "But the calf's liver juice sounds familiar."

  "Well, what about it?"

  "It's not for me."

  "Why shouldn't it be?"

  "Because it doesn't work."

  Bea gave him a crestfallen look. "You sound like a doctor," she said.

  They passed a weathered maintenance shed, then mesh-wire kennels h
ousing Bill Hardens wolfhounds, who lolled about in their cramped dark cages like circus animals. Around the corner was a barn, a shop—ladders stacked up under its eaves—and a clapboard house with dormer windows and a broad, wraparound porch. There were stacked bins in front of it, a forklift and Farmall tractor. A box of tools sat on the ground, and a case of motor oil.

  Bea urged Ben to come in for breakfast, to rest on the couch, use the bathroom. He told her about the rented truck, parked overnight on Joe Miller Road. If she could drop him there, he asked.

  "You can't drive, the way you are."

  "I can, too. Once I'm settled at the wheel."

  "No, you can't. I'm not going to let you."

  Ben frowned stubbornly, but Bea only put her open hand out. "Give me your keys," she told him. "I'll make sure we get your truck back to the U-Save in town."

  "I don't have any other way home."

  "I'll drive you across. Don't you worry about that."

  "It's a long way."

  "I'm a good Samaritan."

  "You don't even know me."

  "It doesn't matter."

  She got out and spoke through the window frame. "Give me about five minutes," she said. "My husband is up in the orchard somewhere. I'm going to tell him about driving you."

  "But you really shouldn't," said Ben.

  She walked away, to the house. Ben watched her go. She had a vegetable garden laid out in tidy rows, free of weeds, bountiful, the plants poking up out of black tarp. The potatoes grew inside of old tires. The tomatoes were staked with twine to tall poles. Purple grapes hung from a willow arbor. A rototiller sat in the yard, beside a pile of bark mulch.

  Ben sat with his window open, smelling apples on the air. The five minutes became fifteen. He shut his eyes and dozed a little. He was worried that Doris could hemorrhage still. He decided to tell Bea about that possibility. The girl should see a doctor right away, go to the clinic in town.