Once when the baby choked, Barbara started her up again by mouth-to-mouth suction, getting a mouthful of something she spat out hastily. Little Jodie seemed better then for quite a while.
But Hugh knew that it was only a reprieve; he could see no chance of keeping the baby alive long enough-two months-to let Barbara feed it. Only two cans of Carnation milk were left in their stores.
Nevertheless they worked grimly around the clock.
Grace mixed a formula from memory-evaporated milk, boiled water, a hoarded can of white Karo. They had no food cells, not even a nipple. An orphaned baby was a crisis for which Hugh had not planned. In hindsight it seemed the most glaring of probable emergencies. He tried not to brood over his failure, dedicated himself to keeping Karen’s daughter alive.
A plastic-barreled eyedropper was the nearest to a nipple they could find. They used it to pick up the formula, try to match the pressure with the infant’s attempts to suck.
It did not work well. Little Jodie continued to have trouble breathing and tended to choke every time they tried to feed her; they spent as much time trying to clear her throat and get her cranked up again as they did in feeding her. She seemed reluctant to suck on the harsh substitute and if they squirted food into her mouth anyway, she always choked. Twice Grace was able to coax her into taking almost an ounce. Both times she threw it up. Barbara and Hugh had even less luck.
Before dawn following her birthday Hugh was awakened by Grace screaming. The child had choked to death.
During the long day in which three of them battled to save the baby, Duke and Joe dug a grave, high up the hill in a sunny spot. They dug deep and stocked a pile of boulders; both held concealed horror that a bear or coyotes might dig up the grave.
Grave dug, boulders waiting, Joe said in a strained voice, “How are we going to build a casket?”
Duke sighed and wiped sweat from his eyes. “Joe, we can’t.”
“We’ve got to.”
“Oh, we could cut trees and split them and adz out some lumber-we’ve done that when we had to. That kitchen counter. But how long would it take? Joe, this is hot weather-Karen can’t wait!”
“We’ve got to tear down something and build out of it. A bed, maybe. Bookcases.”
“Taking the wardrobe apart would be easiest.”
“Let’s start.”
“Joe. The ‘only things we could use to build a coffin are in the house. Do you think Hugh will let us go in there now and start ripping and tearing and banging? If anybody woke that baby or startled it when they were trying to get it to feed, Dad would kill him. If Barbara or Mother didn’t kill him first. No, Joe. No coffin.”
They settled for a vault, using all their stock of bricks; these they used to build a box in the bottom of the grave, then cut down their dining canopy to line it, and cut timbers to cover it. Poor as it was, they felt comforted by it.
Next morning the grave received mother and daughter.
Joe and Duke placed them in it, Duke having insisted that his father stay behind and take care of Grace and Barbara. Duke had visualized how awkward it would be, getting the bodies into the grave and arranging them; he would not have had Joe along had not an assistant been necessary. He suggested that his mother not come ‘to the grave at all.
Hugh shook his head. “I thought of that. You try to convince her. I can’t budge her.”
Nor could Duke. But when he sent Joe down for the others, his sister and her daughter were decently at rest with their winding sheet neatly arranged, and no trace remained of the struggle it had been to place ‘them there, the rebuilding of part of the brick box that had been necessary, or-worst-the moment when the tiny corpse had fallen out of the sheet when they tried to get them both down as one. Karen’s face looked peaceful and her daughter was cuddled in her arm as if sleeping.