The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (38 page)

Jane watched Dino very carefully while Ava undressed. He looked, but it was incidental. She saw no hunger there. While Ava bathed, Dino heated up cans of beef stew and set out a can of peaches. “For dessert,” he said with a little smile. Jane was still watching.

She sat down in one of the chairs at the small dining table. When they joined her, she felt she sat with Honus and Jodi again.

“So where did you come from?”

“San Francisco. Spent a winter in Utah. Traveling, mostly.”

“Have you seen many people?” Ava was eating hungrily, but Dino seemed eager to talk.

“A few.”

“Mostly men?”

“Yeah, mostly men. Where did you come from?”

“I’m from St. Louis. When the city got bad, I got out.”

Ava swallowed and reached for her water glass. “I’m from Texas. Came through hell to get here. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.”

Jane managed half a smile. “I might.”

“So things are the same on the west coast?” Dino did not seem disappointed. He was like a man patting the stump of a lost limb. Just checking.

“Same all over. Dead and dying.”

Ava fell back into her stew.

“So I noticed your tattoo.” Dino nodded to Jane’s chest where the black figure of a caduceus was inked.

Her hand went to it. She had caught Honus staring at it but he had never asked. It had been a long time since she looked at it, really thought about it.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, are you a doctor?”

“I’m a midwife.”

The word hung there a minute.

“I might be the last midwife on Earth.”

“Well,” Ava gulped again. “You might be, but at least you’ve got medical training. That’s a great skill.” She applied herself to licking the bowl.

“Yeah I’m trained as a nurse. Not just babies. Great because babies are about out of business.”

Ava and Dino shared another glance. Jane decided she could wait it out.

“Do either of you need medical attention?” Her cool professional eye was on them. They didn’t.

“I know a man who died of tetanus this year. We think it was tetanus. He got cut on some tiny thing, like a rusty nail. We didn’t know what to do. We could use somebody…” He looked at Ava. Ava sighed.

“We have a place,” Ava said carefully. “It’s very safe. Enclosed. Defensible. We’re not really looking to take in new people, but we never turn down women or girls. Combine that with your training, and of course we want you.”

Jane was stiff. She waited.

“We’re not going to make you. Nobody will lay a hand on you. Believe me, I know how this sounds. I got sold twice before I got out of Texas. I lost my daughter out there.” Her eyes were wet but nothing fell.

“Sold?”

“Once for guns and once for penicillin. Both times to gangs of guys. The first gang killed my daughter, she was thirteen.”

Ava dropped her chin to her shoulder, as if she were looking behind her. She took a few breaths. No one spoke. She started again when she was steady.

“Second time, the gang of guys fell apart, starting killing each other. I end up with this asshole, Eddie. Eddie sold me for penicillin after he got pneumonia. He shot the guy he sold me to and took me back. The penicillin killed him. I took his gun and his car and ran.”

“Allergic.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think, too.” Ava’s eyes were intelligent and steely. Jane adjusted her opinion of the woman and listened closely.

“You didn’t get pregnant?”

“IUD.”

“Good for you.”

“Good old Planned Parenthood. Saved my life.”

They shared a moment, a knowing. Dino did not intrude.

“What about you?”

Jane looked at her steadily. “I got into trouble a couple of times. Killed some men. Never got captured. Or sold.”

Fuck, am I bragging? Hope she doesn’t think I feel superior. Only luck.

“Good for you.”

“Do you want to come with us? If you don’t like it, you can take off anytime. We don’t hold people.” Dino looked hopeful. He finished his stew and kept his eyes down. He was studiedly trying not to look eager. He had learned to mask the intensity of his feelings toward women, Jane could see it. He was consciously trying not scare her, and she liked him for it.

Jane thought about it. She spooned up the last of her stew. “I’ll go with you. I want to see it, at least.”

In the morning, they walked out to the truck and packed sticks under the stuck wheels to get it out. They piled into the cab and drove.

Fifty miles away, they came to the gates of a military fort. The sign had been covered over. Jane couldn’t read what had been underneath, it just looked like bumps under the paint. The hand-painted top layer read “Fort Nowhere.”

June 16

Fort Nowhere = 124 men 17 women 6 boys 2 girls. Cohesive. Peaceful.

Only a handful of military left. One guy who was here when medevac brought people in. Slowly seeing everybody for check-ups. Place has a real infirmary, equipped for basic hospital functions. Sterile instruments. Slip right back in. Even wearing scrubs.

Two pregnant women, all but four of the others now on BC. One girl near menarche, the other has a few years yet.

One case of hepatitis. Couple of skin infections, one poorly healed knife wound. No STIs in the population = miracle. Basic care and all grateful, all relieved to see me.

Pros of staying: decent people. Met a few I can talk to, even some funny guys. Bernardo, Isaac. Couple of women I really like. Rachel. Callie. Place is clean, organized. Well stocked but they’re setting up gardens for next spring. Nobody has gotten into my space at all.

Council of five in charge, but everyone votes. The vote on punishments was unanimous. That was a shock but it’s a pro. Some large arrangements, some monogamy. Three single women not including me. Dating, fucking for sure. But no coercion. Handful of men sleeping together. Convenience. Attraction. Adjustment.

Cons of staying: no other medicos, going to get worked to death if people get sick. Can’t let them become dependent. Train my replacement. Won’t keep me, can walk right out the door anytime. Might as well stay. Free to stay = free to go.

Chapter Twelve

When Jane had been at Fort Nowhere for a few months, strangers approached the gates. Two men and a handcuffed girl, a teenager. Her face was covered and the handcuffs were rusted in their joints.

The men asked about trade but found that the fort was not open to trading guns. They pulled back the girl’s hood and offered her in exchange for letting them stay. The night guard let them in.

Bernardo was one of the guards. He was tall and muscular, good with a bow. Very handsome. When he knocked at Jane’s door, she was happy to find him there. He told her why he needed her and her smile faded.

“Bring the girl to the infirmary alone. Wake the council to meet with the men.”

Jane’s living quarters were nearest to the infirmary. They had moved someone else out so that she could be there. She was in her scrubs and walking through the doors in less than five minutes.

The girl sat on the exam table listlessly. She was milk-pale, once her face was uncovered. Jane could see the blue veins in her arms from across the room. The girl’s hair was coal black and her eyes seemed the same. She stared.

Jane spoke gently. “Are you alright?”

She shook her head.

“Are you hurt? Are you pregnant?”

The girl shrugged.

“What’s your name?”

She whispered and her voice was tiny. Up close she was a big girl, maybe nineteen or twenty.

“Colleen.”

“Hi Colleen. I’m Jane. I’m here to help you, ok?”

She nodded.

“I want to check you out to make sure you’re alright. I don’t want to do anything that will hurt you or scare you, but I need to look at your body. Is that alright?”

Colleen nodded and teared up. She stood up and stripped quickly, efficiently.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and her lips pressed together. She sat back down. She was gone from her body. She looked at nothing.

Jane looked over the bruises and scrapes, the ligature marks at her wrists and knew the story. She palpated the girl’s belly and determined that she was not pregnant. Wonder of wonders.

Colleen’s inner thighs were bruised and she showed handprints and finger marks all over. When Jane probed gingerly at the girl’s vulva, she got a shock.

“Who did this to you?”

Colleen shrugged, not looking.

“It was a while ago. More than a year, right? Maybe two?”

She nodded.

“Was it the guys you’re with now?”

She shook her head.

“But these two raped you. Recently. Probably today.”

“Every day.” The same baby voice.

Jane gave her back her clothes. She wanted to hug her, to hold her hand but she thought the girl had had enough. She looked out the door to where Bernardo had posted guard for her. She told him to go get Old Maria. The old woman was always perfectly calm, and would care for anyone.

“Please tell Maria to give her a good dinner and put her in her spare bed. This girl shouldn’t be alone.”

Bernardo nodded and was off. Jane waited until Old Maria came.

“Colleen, would you like to go with Old Maria? She’s got dinner and a nice warm bed for you. Is that alright?”

The girl nodded again.

“Listen, you’re not going back with those guys. Nobody is going to hurt you here. Nobody will even touch you unless you say ok. I promise that. Ok?”

Colleen did not look as though she believed Jane or cared. She went where she was told. Jane went to the council room.

Council was set up in the offices that had formerly belonged to the fort’s commanding officer. Only Daniel had been summoned to meet with the traders. Female members of council were not called upon to deal with outsiders.

The two men were kept standing. They wore ragged ponchos and stank of unwashed bodies. When Jane walked into the room, they started.

“Holy shit.”

“Where’s Colleen?”

Jane ignored them and spoke to Daniel. Daniel was in his fifties. A career military man, his bearing was erect and his clothes looked pressed every time she saw him. He took to leadership naturally, but without the insecurity that drives a man to be cruel.

“Daniel, Colleen is badly injured. Her genitals were cut a few years ago by someone with a dull knife and no brains. These two are rapists.”

Daniel nodded curtly. He had expected that the men would be of no use, but genital cutting was something new.

“Hey, we didn’t cut up her pussy. She was like that when we bought her. Some old guy did that.”

“But you have been forcing her to have sex with both of you?” Daniel’s eyes were ice.

“Well, she belongs to us. We care for her and feed her. It’s an arrangement.” The two men were bearded twins with the same shiftless way of talking. Jane could not tell them apart.

“Do you two have anything else to say?”

“You’re not gonna let us stay, are you? We’ll just take our girl and be on our way.”

“Do you mind if I do it, Daniel?”

Daniel sighed. “No, but don’t do it in here. I’ll send for a burial detail. Take them to the field.”

Jane pulled her revolver out of the back of her scrubs and pointed it at the last man who had spoken.

“Turn around and walk out the door.”

The other man reached under his poncho and pulled his gun. Jane shot him in the eye from a distance of three feet and he crumpled.

“Sorry, Daniel.”

“Shit. Get him out of here.” Daniel touched his ears, frowning.

Jane pointed her gun at the other one. “Move.”

He did.

They walked out together to the spot they called Potter’s Field.

He was talking fast. “Look, I’m a mechanic. I can fix things. You wouldn’t be sorry if you kept me. There’s no reason to get all bent out of shape about Colleen. She’s fine. It wasn’t a big deal, she just wasn’t that into it. But she—“

“I’m only walking you out here to keep you from becoming a carpet stain. Shut up.”

“Oh so you just take her side of it? Is that all?”

“Did you fuck her today?”

“Well yeah.”

“Did she say yes?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Stand or kneel?”

“Please don’t shoot. Please. I’ll make it up to her. I’ll never touch her again, or anyone else. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” His eyes were green in his haggard face. They darted as he begged.

“I can’t fix you. I don’t have the time to teach you why you’re wrong if you don’t already know. So this is it. Stand or kneel?”

He lunged toward her. She took the shot and he pitched forward, laid out on the ground.

The burial detail arrived as Jane was walking away. “Check him, he might have a good knife for one of you.”

Jane got out of her scrubs and into bed. She slept with her door unlocked. She dreamed of nothing at all.

* * * * *

When the settlement at Fort Nowhere had been in place for seven years, Jane was nominated to council. It was only a gesture. She could not leave her work. But the people of the fort trusted her, they knew how she decided and how she acted. She saw them through seven hard winters with minimal loss of life. She treated the flu and kept panic about fever to a minimum. She delivered dead babies and buried mothers. She established the hospice and trained attendants so that when Old Maria began to show the signs of cancer there was a network in place to see her mercifully to her death.

Refugees and wanderers came. Some could stay, some could not. No one with medical training joined the community, so Jane began training a couple of sharp teenagers. Every once in a while, the Council debated creating a school, but the population did not grow. They did not see the point.

Jane’s diaries gained legendary status even as she wrote them. The books were always in evidence in the infirmary. When her time was most scarce, she would ask others to add to the story of where they came from and what they had seen. Not everyone took her up on it, but still the story grew. When she ran out of space in the journal she had, an order was given to a raiding crew to bring back more. The crew returned with a trunk full. Journaling caught on as a fad, then became embedded in the culture. Storytellers emerged among the inhabitants and it was Daniel who first remarked that they ought to appoint someone to act as an historian. A scribe for the community. They might not be able to leave anything else behind. The resolution passed.

THE BOOK OF HISTORIES AND HIVES

Please share some part of your story here. I want us to start collecting histories
. –Jane

Daniel Emory Woolcott, Colonel. U.S. Army, 54673

I was born in Bloomington, Illinois. My parents were James and Emily Woolcott. I joined the Army when I turned eighteen. I served in actions in the Middle East for most of my career, and I should have retired ten years ago. I hung on because I’m still in good shape and they always seemed to have a job for me.

I was assigned to Fort Leonard Wood during the outbreak. Initially, I was assigned command of a regiment stationed here for the evacuation of the city centers of Missouri and part of Kansas. That plan went immediately to hell and we had refugees flown in from all over, mostly doctors and scientists. This place became a lab center where they tried to figure this thing out. They failed in their efforts. There was a rash of desertions and another of suicides. I served with some fine men and women, but I am the only one left of the people who were brought here by medevac. I dug a lot of holes.

I lost contact with my wife and grown children almost as soon as I got here. Communications broke down all over the country and the cell network was the worst of it. The last time I spoke to Maude, I didn’t think I had any reason to say goodbye. She was in Savannah, and I don’t think I have any reason to go looking. I don’t have many reasons at all.