It let out a choked wail.
"Get her on the bed, boys-but easy! It's still fastened by the cord."
They made it, Hugh on his knees and burdened with a feebly wiggling load. Once they had Karen down, Hugh started to put her baby in her arms-but saw that Karen was not up to it. She seemed to be awake-her eyes were open. But she was in total collapse.
Hugh was close to collapse. He looked dazedly around, handed the baby to Barbara. "Stay close," he told her, unnecessarily.
"Dad?" said Duke. "Aren't you supposed to cut the cord?"
"Not yet." Where was that knife? He found it, rubbed it quickly with iodine-hoped that it was sterile. Placed it by two boiled lengths of cotton string-turned and felt the cord to see if it was pulsing.
"He's beautiful," Joe said softly.
"She," Hugh corrected. "The baby is a girl. Now, Barbara, if you-"
He broke off. Suddenly everything happened too fast. The baby started to choke; Hugh grabbed it, turned it upside down, dug into its mouth, scooped out a plug of mucus, handed the baby back, started again to check the cord-saw that Karen was in trouble.
With a nightmare feeling that he needed to be twins he got one of the strings, tied a square knot around the cord near the baby's belly, trying to control his trembling so as not to tie it too hard-started to tie the second, saw that it was not needed; Karen suddenly delivered the placenta and was hemorrhaging. She moaned.
With one slash Hugh cut the cord, snapped at Barbara, "Get a bellyband on it!"-turned to take care of the mother.
She was flowing like a river; her face was gray and she seemed unconscious. Too late to attempt to take stitches in the cut he had made and the tears that followed; he could see that this flood was from inside, not from the damaged portal. He tried to stop it by packing her inside with their last roll of gauze while shouting to Joe and to Duke to get a bellyband and compress on Karen herself to put pressure on her uterus.
Some agonized time later the belly compress was in place and the gauze was backed by a dam of sanitary napkins-one irreplaceable, Hugh thought tiredly, they hadn't needed much. He raised his eyes and looked at Karen's face-then in sudden panic tried to find her pulse.
Karen had survived the birth of her daughter by less than seven minutes.
Chapter 9
Katherine Josephine survived her mother by a day. Hugh baptized her with that name and a drop of water an hour after Karen died; it was clear that the baby might not last long. She had trouble breathing.
Once when the baby choked, Barbara started her up again by mouth-to-mouth suction, getting a mouthful of something she spat out hastily. Little Jodie seemed better then for quite a while.
But Hugh knew that it was only a reprieve; he could see no chance of keeping the baby alive long enough-two months-to let Barbara feed it. Only two cans of Carnation milk were left in their stores.
Nevertheless they worked grimly around the clock.
Grace mixed a formula from memory-evaporated milk, boiled water, a hoarded can of white Karo. They had no food cells, not even a nipple. An orphaned baby was a crisis for which Hugh had not planned. In hindsight it seemed the most glaring of probable emergencies. He tried not to brood over his failure, dedicated himself to keeping Karen's daughter alive.
A plastic-barreled eyedropper was the nearest to a nipple they could find. They used it to pick up the formula, try to match the pressure with the infant's attempts to suck.
It did not work well. Little Jodie continued to have trouble breathing and tended to choke every time they tried to feed her; they spent as much time trying to clear her throat and get her cranked up again as they did in feeding her. She seemed reluctant to suck on the harsh substitute and if they squirted food into her mouth anyway, she always choked. Twice Grace was able to coax her into taking almost an ounce. Both times she threw it up. Barbara and Hugh had even less luck.
Before dawn following her birthday Hugh was awakened by Grace screaming. The child had choked to death.
During the long day in which three of them battled to save the baby, Duke and Joe dug a grave, high up the hill in a sunny spot. They dug deep and stocked a pile of boulders; both held concealed horror that a bear or coyotes might dig up the grave.
Grave dug, boulders waiting, Joe said in a strained voice, "How are we going to build a casket?"
Duke sighed and wiped sweat from his eyes. "Joe, we can't."
"We've got to."
"Oh, we could cut trees and split them and adz out some lumber-we've done that when we had to. That kitchen counter. But how long would it take? Joe, this is hot weather-Karen can't wait!"
"We've got to tear down something and build out of it. A bed, maybe. Bookcases."
"Taking the wardrobe apart would be easiest."
"Let's start."
"Joe. The 'only things we could use to build a coffin are in the house. Do you think Hugh will let us go in there now and start ripping and tearing and banging? If anybody woke that baby or startled it when they were trying to get it to feed, Dad would kill him. If Barbara or Mother didn't kill him first. No, Joe. No coffin."
They settled for a vault, using all their stock of bricks; these they used to build a box in the bottom of the grave, then cut down their dining canopy to line it, and cut timbers to cover it. Poor as it was, they felt comforted by it.
Next morning the grave received mother and daughter.
Joe and Duke placed them in it, Duke having insisted that his father stay behind and take care of Grace and Barbara. Duke had visualized how awkward it would be, getting the bodies into the grave and arranging them; he would not have had Joe along had not an assistant been necessary. He suggested that his mother not come 'to the grave at all.
Hugh shook his head. "I thought of that. You try to convince her. I can't budge her."
Nor could Duke. But when he sent Joe down for the others, his sister and her daughter were decently at rest with their winding sheet neatly arranged, and no trace remained of the struggle it had been to place 'them there, the rebuilding of part of the brick box that had been necessary, or-worst-the moment when the tiny corpse had fallen out of the sheet when they tried to get them both down as one. Karen's face looked peaceful and her daughter was cuddled in her arm as if sleeping.
Duke balanced with a foot on each brick wall, knelt over her. "Good-bye, Sis," he whispered. "I'm sorry." He covered her face and got carefully out of the grave. A little procession was coming up the hill, Hugh 'assisting his wife, Joe helping Barbara. Beyond the shelter 'their flag flew at half-mast.
They arranged themselves at the grave, Hugh at the head, his wife on his right, his son on his left, Barbara and Joe at the foot. To Duke's relief no one asked that faces be uncovered nor did his mother seem disturbed at the arrangements.
Hugh took a small black book from his pocket, opened it to a marked page:
"'I am the Resurrection and the Life. .
"'We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can take nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken-'"
Grace sobbed and her knees started to fail Hugh shoved the book into Duke's hands, moved to support his wife. "Take over, Son!"
"Take her back down, Dad!"
Grace said brokenly, "No, no! I must stay."
"Read it, Duke. I've marked the passages."
"'... he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them.
"'For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
"'0 spare me a little, that I may recover my strength.
"'Man, that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.