OFF TO THE GOLD RUSH

I'm continuing my How Women Won the West series with this story. Hope you like it. Let me know and share it to Facebook if you'd like.

LONELY PRAIRIE

Prairie heat waves swallowed the horse and rider. Tressie wiped her tears and stared into the distance where Pa had disappeared. Inside the soddie, her mother’s sobs went on and on. She wanted to shout at her to hush up, but knew if she opened her mouth to speak, a great moan would escape and she might never stop. So she pressed her lips together and watched the emptiness until her eyes burned. He wasn’t coming back. Ever.
In the night she’d listened to them talk about the gold rush.
“Emma, it’s a good way to make things better for you and Tressie and the new one.”
“But what will we do without you?” Ma strained to whisper, but Tressie heard her in the stillness of the night.
“It won’t be that long. Bracken says they’re picking up fist-sized nuggets at Alder Gulch, just laying about on the ground. I’ll come home before fall and we’ll be rich. You can get by till then.”
“But the baby, I want you here when it comes.”
“I can’t be here and there too. I have to do this and you have to be strong, and that’s the end of it.”
Tressie had heard that tone on a few occasions. Pa was a gentle man, but Ma said he never could stay in one place too long. This time his itchy feet had won out over love for her and Ma. He didn’t even care about the baby on its way. The hankering for gold overpowered everything. One final look at the empty horizon and she turned her back on visions of the far off place called Virginia City and went inside the soddie to soothe Ma.
“Hush now, you’ll make yourself sick. Think of the baby.”
Ma sniffed and nodded. Tressie dipped a cloth in cool well water and handed it to her. “Here, clean your face. I’ll fix us something to eat.”
Ma took the rag and mopped at her tear-drenched cheeks. “I’m not hungry.”
“No matter, you have to eat. . .for the baby.”
Fists clenched against the swell of her belly, Ma groaned. “How could he do this?”
“I don’t know, but he swore he’d come back. We can’t give up.”
Ma made a rude noise. “Give up? He’s not coming back. We’re out here in this god forsaken place, no way to get supplies even if we had any money. What happens when we have nothing left to eat? The garden’s burning up, with no rain in sight. The chickens have quit laying. What are we supposed to live on?”
“Chicken, I guess. . .for a while, at any rate.”
“That’s not funny.” Ma chuckled anyway.
“Yeah, you’re right, it’s not funny.” Tressie laughed.
That night they ate chicken and dumplings until their bellies ached. With no way to keep the rest of the meal from spoiling, they fed it to the lanky dog Pa had left behind.
“You’re next,” Tressie said, watching the dog lap up the rich leavings, though she could never even consider such a thing.
That evening Ma sat in one of the three chairs while Tressie cleaned up the dishes.
“I want to show you something,” she said when her daughter dried her hands on a feedsack towel.
“What?”
“You’re seventeen, a woman grown. You’re going to have to help me have this baby. I’m sorry you have to do this, but there’s no one else.”
Limp with fear, she dragged up a chair and listened intently while Ma explained about how the baby would come, how she should support its head and clear its throat and tie off the cord. The idea sent chills through her.
“What if I do something wrong? What if I hurt it? Or you?”
“Just do as I’ve told you. And once the cord is tied off, wash it with warm water and then you’ll have to clean up the after birth.
“I don’t think I can do this.” A moan of dread shook her till she couldn’t say any more.
“There’s no one else. You have to.”
“I could kill him for doing this to you. . .to us.”
“Little good that would do.” Ma rose wearily and rubbing at her back, shuffled to the bed in one corner of the single room. “You can sleep with me tonight if you want.”
Tressie nodded, stricken mute by what lay ahead.
To keep herself from thinking about deliverying the baby, after Ma fell asleep, she checked the storage bins that served as kitchen cupboards in the corner.  Flour and cornmeal, but not a lot; one cone of sugar, some pinto beans she’d shelled out the previous week before the plants died and not much else. It was time to dig the potatoes, but she didn’t expect many because the plants had shriveled from the heat. There might be some under that dusty ground, though.
Early the next morning, before the sun rose to burn its way through the day, she took a fork to the rows of potatoes. Her efforts yielded only small ones. They’d last a while. On her way to the house with two full buckets, she heard Ma cry out.
Heart in her throat, she hurried inside. For a moment she couldn’t see and waited till her vision adjusted to the darkness inside. Ma sat on the edge of the bed in her nightgown.
“The baby?”
“The pains began in the middle of the night. It’s getting close.”
Following instructions, Tressie stripped off the good covers and spread an old, ragged quilt for a birthing bed. Grabbing the water bucket she ran to the well to draw water, then hung an iron kettle on the hook over the fireplace, stoked up the fire and filled the pot.
Every few minutes Ma groaned through another contraction. Tressie alternated between holding her hand and bathing her face in cool water. A feeling of helplessness washed over her as the contractions grew closer together. Time moved on, Ma’s pain increased, and Tressie worried something was wrong. Was it supposed to be this bad? Take this long?
After what seemed like hours, a foot appeared where the head was supposed to be.
By that time, Ma was in and out of herself and Tressie had no idea what to do. This was definitely not normal.
She sat beside her mother, holding her hand and whispering to her, until finally, close to dawn of the next day, the awful pains ceased. So did Ma’s breathing.
For a long timeTressie held her mother close, then, dry eyed, she rose and went to the door.
“Damn you to hell, old man. I’ll find you, and when I do you’ll pay for this.”
Then she went to the barn, fetched the shovel and buried her mother and the unborn child on a rise above the soddie. From there she saw a rider coming out of the East.
“You’re too late,” she muttered. “Too late.”

Montana Promises is Tressie’s story. Reed Bannon is the rider in the distance, but he’s been shot for stealing the horse he’s on. You can find it at Amazon Kindle for $2.99.