Her head jerked up and her sharp teeth fastened on his hand across the back and up into the palm near the little finger. He cried out in pain and tried to pull his hand away, but her jaw was set and her head twisted and turned, mangling his hand the way a terrier worries a sack. A shrill snarling came from her set teeth. He slapped her on the cheek and it had no effect. Automatically he did what he would have done to stop a dog fight. His left hand went to her throat and he cut off her wind. She struggled and tore at his hand before her jaws unclenched and he pulled his hand free. The flesh was torn and bleeding. He stepped back from the bed and looked at the damage her teeth had done. He looked at her with fear. And when he looked, her face was calm again and young and innocent.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Samuel shuddered.
“It was the pain,” she said.
Samuel laughed shortly. “I’ll have to muzzle you, I guess,” he said. “A collie bitch did the same to me once.” He saw the hatred look out of her eyes for a second and then retreat.
Samuel said, “Have you got anything to put on it? Humans are more poisonous than snakes.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, have you got any whisky? I’ll pour some whisky on it.”
“In the second drawer.”
He splashed whisky on his bleeding hand and kneaded the flesh against the alcohol sting. A strong quaking was in his stomach and a sickness rose up against his eyes. He took a swallow of whisky to steady himself. He dreaded to look back at the bed. “My hand won’t be much good for a while,” he said.
Samuel told Adam afterward, “She must be made of whalebone. The birth happened before I was ready. Popped like a seed. I’d not the water ready to wash him. Why, she didn’t even touch the pulling rope to bear down. Pure whalebone, she is.” He tore at the door, called Lee and demanded warm water. Adam came charging into the room. “A boy!” Samuel cried. “You’ve got a boy! Easy,” he said, for Adam had seen the mess in the bed and a green was rising in his face.
Samuel said, “Send Lee in here. And you, Adam, if you still have the authority to tell your hands and feet what to do, get to the kitchen and make me some coffee. And see the lamps are filled and the chimneys clean.”
Adam turned like a zombie and left the room. In a moment Lee looked in. Samuel pointed to the bundle in a laundry basket. “Sponge him off in warm water, Lee. Don’t let a draft get on him. Lord! I wish Liza were here. I can’t do everything at once.”
He turned back to the bed. “Now, dearie, I’ll get you cleaned up.”
Cathy was bowed again, snarling in her pain. “It’ll be over in a little,” he said. “Takes a little time for the residue. And you’re so quick. Why, you didn’t even have to pull on Liza’s rope.” He saw something, stared, and went quickly to work. “Lord God in Heaven, it’s another one!”
He worked fast, and as with the first the birth was incredibly quick. And again Samuel tied the cord. Lee took the second baby, washed it, wrapped it, and put it in the basket.
Samuel cleaned the mother and shifted her gently while he changed the linen on the bed. He found in himself a reluctance to look in her face. He worked as quickly as he could, for his bitten hand was stiffening. He drew a clean white sheet up to her chin and raised her to slip a fresh pillow under her head. At last he had to look at her.
Her golden hair was wet with perspiration but her face had changed. It was stony, expressionless. At her throat the pulse fluttered visibly.
“You have two sons,” Samuel said. “Two fine sons. They aren’t alike. Each one born separate in his own sack.”
She inspected him coldly and without interest.
Samuel said, “I’ll show your boys to you.”
“No,” she said without emphasis.
“Now, dearie, don’t you want to see your sons?”
“No. I don’t want them.”
“Oh, you’ll change. You’re tired now, but you’ll change. And I’ll tell you now—this birth was quicker and easier than I’ve seen ever in my life.”
The eyes moved from his face. “I don’t want them. I want you to cover the windows and take the light away.”
“It’s weariness. In a few days you’ll feel so different you won’t remember.”
“I’ll remember. Go away. Take them out of the room. Send Adam in.”
Samuel was caught by her tone. There was no sickness, no weariness, no softness. His words came out without his will. “I don’t like you,” he said and wished he could gather the words back into his throat and into his mind. But his words had no effect on Cathy.
“Send Adam in,” she said.
In the little living room Adam looked vaguely at his sons and went quickly into the bedroom and shut the door. In a moment came the sound of tapping. Adam was nailing the blankets over the windows again.
Lee brought coffee to Samuel. “That’s a bad-looking hand you have there,” he said.
“I know. I’m afraid it’s going to give me trouble.”
“Why did she do it?”
“I don’t know. She’s a strange thing.”
Lee said, “Mr. Hamilton, let me take care of that. You could lose an arm.”
The life went out of Samuel. “Do what you want, Lee. A frightened sorrow has closed down over my heart. I wish I were a child so I could cry. I’m too old to be afraid like this. And I’ve not felt such despair since a bird died in my hand by a flowing water long ago.”
Lee left the room and shortly returned, carrying a small ebony box carved with twisting dragons. He sat by Samuel and from his box took a wedge-shaped Chinese razor. “It will hurt,” he said softly.
“I’ll try to bear it, Lee.”
The Chinese bit his lips, feeling the inflicted pain in himself while he cut deeply into the hand, opened the flesh around the toothmarks front and back, and trimmed the ragged flesh away until good red blood flowed from every wound. He shook a bottle of yellow emulsion labeled Hall’s Cream Salve and poured it into the deep cuts. He saturated a handkerchief with the salve and wrapped the hand. Samuel winced and gripped the chair arm with his good hand.
“It’s mostly carbolic acid,” Lee said. “You can smell it.”
“Thank you, Lee. I’m being a baby to knot up like this.”
“I don’t think I could have been so quiet,” said Lee. “I’ll get you another cup of coffee.”
He came back with two cups and sat down by Samuel. “I think I’ll go away,” he said. “I never went willingly to a slaughter house.”
Samuel stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. The words came out.”
Samuel shivered. “Lee, men are fools. I guess I hadn’t thought about it, but Chinese men are fools too.”
“What made you doubt it?”
“Oh, maybe because we think of strangers as stronger and better than we are.”
“What do you want to say?”
Samuel said, “Maybe the foolishness is necessary, the dragon fighting, the boasting, the pitiful courage to be constantly knocking a chip off God’s shoulder, and the childish cowardice that makes a ghost of a dead tree beside a darkening road. Maybe that’s good and necessary, but—”
“What do you want to say?” Lee repeated patiently.
“I thought some wind had blown up the embers in my foolish mind,” Samuel said. “And now I hear in your voice that you have it too. I feel wings over this house. I feel a dreadfulness coming.”
“I feel it too.”
“I know you do, and that makes me take less than my usual comfort in my foolishness. This birth was too quick, too easy—like a cat having kittens. And I fear for these kittens. I have dreadful thoughts gnawing to get into my brain.”
“What do you want to say?” Lee asked a third time.
“I want my wife,” Samuel cried. “No dreams, no ghosts, no foolishness. I want her here. They say miners take canaries into the pits to test the air. Liza has no truck with foolishness. And, Lee, if Liza sees a ghost, it’s a ghost and not a fragment of a dream. If Liza feels trouble we’ll bar the doors.”
Lee got up and went to the laundry basket and looked down at the babies. He had to peer close, for the light was going fast. “They’re sleeping,” he said.
“They’ll be squalling soon enough. Lee, will you hitch up the rig and drive to my place for Liza? Tell her I need her here. If Tom’s still there, tell him to mind the place. If not, I’ll send him in the morning. And if Liza doesn’t want to come, tell her we need a woman’s hand here and a woman’s clear eyes. She’ll know what you mean.”