“No, Jack—oohh.”
“Squatting is easier, trust me.” He panted, his arms around her, forcing her up.
“How would you know? Ohh—God!” Her hands, covering his, gripped and clawed.
“Believe me, I know,” he cried. “Are you pushing? Are you breathing? Breathe and push!”
“I’m breathing, I’m pushing,” Candice cried. “For God’s sake, Jack, you’re holding me too tightly …”
“You should be tied, dammit, you should be tied!”
“Don’t—oh!—yon even think it!” She started to press away from him, and taken by surprise, he slipped, and they went tumbling down, Candice in his arms.
“Look what you did!” Jack panted, stumbling to his knees and lifting her back up. Sweat ran down his face.
Candice grabbed Jack’s hands and removed them. “I am lying down now, Jack,” she announced calmly, placing her bottom on the ground and then her back.
“No, trust me.” Jack gasped, his arm going beneath her to lift her. Then: “Shit!”
“Ohh!”
“Usen give me strength,” he muttered, forgetting all about his wife being in the wrong position, because suddenly he could see the baby’s head. “I see the head, Candice, push, hard!”
“I’m pushing.” She panted, and she pushed.
“It’s coming,” he cried, and then before he knew it, a white-coated baby had slipped into his hands.
Candice closed her eyes and lay gasping for air.
“A girl, Candice, it’s a girl!” he cried, awed, thrilled, relieved, and exhausted. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and reached for his knife. He cut the umbilical cord.
“Oh,” Candice whispered. “Let me, Jack …”
“Let me wash her first,” Jack said, staring at the red-faced baby. She was bald, her eyes screwed shut. He hurried down to the creek and washed her, then removed his loincloth to dry her and wrap her in it. She opened her eyes and blinked. He smiled, then, drinking the sight of her in. Her eyes were blue. He noted that she wasn’t completely bald, there were a few dark hairs above her forehead. She opened her mouth, turning her face against his belly, searching. He hurried back.
Candice reached out, her face glowing. Jack knelt and placed the baby in her arms. “Oh,” she whispered. “She’s beautiful.”
“Like her mother,” Jack said softly, then started laughing. A rich, warm, relieved laugh. “You did better than any Apache woman I ever saw, Candie. I can’t believe you didn’t know you were in labor,” he said.
“But I didn’t,” she said simply, stroking the baby’s soft, downy head.
“Do you feel all right?” he asked softly.
“Wonderful,” she murmured. “Hello, Christina. You are so beautiful. My little lady,”
“Why do you want to call her Christina?”
“It’s a real lady’s name,” she said, never even looking at him. “A Christian lady’s name. And she’s going to grow up to be a fine Christian lady.”
Jack looked at her, absorbing her words, watching as Candice freed her breasts, moving Christina closer to one soft nipple. A fine Christian lady, he thought, the words echoing disturbingly. Then his attention became fastened on his daughter as she found her mother’s nipple and began to suck. He felt incredibly proud watching this scene. His beautiful wife, his beautiful daughter. He sat behind her and propped her head up on his leg. “Better?”
She smiled contentedly.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Jack watched Candice grinding the seeds into flour from wild berries, which would then be made into bread. He didn’t smile. The sight of her like that, their daughter in the cradleboard on her back, asleep, should have made him smile—at the very least with the warmth he felt for them, or even because she looked so adept, as if she had become a squaw.
But Candice would never look like a squaw. Her hair was plaited in a thick, fat braid, which she had draped over one shoulder carelessly. Wisps of golden-yellow hair curled around her golden face. He felt a pang of desire, but refused to entertain it. It was still too soon. And something was wrong. He could sense it. He wondered if there was such a thing as a woman becoming melancholy after having a child.
