She was going through the same thing he was.
He wasn’t certain how he felt about that, which was why he went swimming in the middle of the night. After a few more minutes, he came out of the water and pulled on his pants, then walked back to the hut.
It was past midnight. The moon was low in the west. He walked into the hut and quietly closed the door. He looked at her hammock, but it was empty. He scanned the hut, letting his eyes adjust. He spotted her outline on a mat in the corner of the new part of the hut where Annabelle slept.
He moved quietly and stood over them. She was curled on her side, asleep, the baby sleeping in the crook of her arm. Her other hand rested lightly on the baby’s chest as if she needed to feel Annabelle’s heartbeat.
Some foreign emotion hit him, flooded into him. And he stood there, confused but compelled to watch them because doing so filled some empty need in him. After a few minutes he looked at Theodore and Lydia. They were sound asleep, too. He turned back to Smitty.
There had been a time when he had wondered how people could bring a child into the world. It had been something he didn’t understand.
Until the past few weeks.
Standing in the dark and watching all of them, he realized that he had grown to know them as he hadn’t taken the time to get to know anyone in a long time. He felt something so powerful that he couldn’t name it.
He had an insane need to just watch them.
He had no idea how much time passed, but finally he went to his hammock, stretched out in it and rested his hands behind his head. He stared at the woven thatch above him.
The night was fading, he knew. Somewhere outside the moon was going down. Before long it would be that ink black part of night just before morning comes—the darkest part of each day. He’d heard it called the dark before the rising sun.
Hank knew that darkness as well as he knew his own name. He had carried it in his soul for years. But he looked at the children, then at Smitty and Annabelle. He turned back and closed his eyes. And for some reason, the darkness faded.
25
One large blue eye stared down at Muddy from the mouth of his bottle. He grinned and waved. The eyeball moved back, and he could see the distant features of Lydia’s face.
With the tinkling of bells, he swung his feet off the striped divan and stood. He checked to make certain the bottle opening was clear, raised his arms, and blasted out.
Just to make the children laugh, he did a backflip, three aerials in mid-air, and a spread-eagle landing, where he hovered over their heads for as long as it took the smoke to dissipate. He gripped his knees, spun, and landed on his feet, bells ringing in his wake.
Lydia covered her mouth and giggled.
Theodore’s eyes crinkled. “Holy cow!” he said in a loud whisper.
Muddy looked around. They were inside the hut. He leaned toward Theodore. “Why are we whispering?”
“’Cause Annabelle’s asleep. See?”
The baby was curled into a sleepy ball in the corner. Muddy smiled and thought, Ohhhh.
There was something about babies, whether they be human babies or bunnies, kittens, puppies, ducklings, chicks, and piglets and even baby elephants. For some odd quirk of nature, when one looked at them sleeping, there was this overpowering urge to say, “Ohhhhh...” followed by a tightening in one’s chest—right near the heart.
Yes, most babies could reduce just about anyone to goo-gooing morons. It was a universal and timeless thing—something that had been true for over two thousand years and in any part of the world.
In fact, he remembered one baby in particular, a little boy that had been born in a stable. He smiled. Three wise men had traveled far, only to say, “Ohhhh...” when they saw the little boy in his bed of hay.
Babies held a sweet innocence that could grip the heart of the most cynical. Even Muddy.
There was one exception though.
Baby camels. Baby camels were nearly as obnoxious as adult camels. They were smaller, but they could spit just as far and just as frequently and with surprising accuracy.
“We’re bored,” Theodore told him with a sigh big enough to make his whole chest sag.
Muddy looked at him, then at Lydia. “Would you like to visit the bottle?”
“Me? Truly? I can go inside?”
