“Oh, I’m sure we could have.”
“Mebbe another time, then?”
“Mebbe.”
“I’ll keep my motor runnin’ for you.”
Ryan didn’t answer, but instead focused his attention on Purvis, who had just climbed onto the wag. He stared at Ryan a moment, then took a seat at the front among the sec men.
Outside, a smaller wag pulled up and Mildred and the woman got in. After a few moments they drove off, heading back to the main building at a good clip.
“Does your friend know what she’s doing?” a voice asked.
Ryan turned and saw a man on the seat in front of him. “You say something?”
The man nodded. “I said, does your friend know what she’s doing?”
“Who are you?”
The man looked around suspiciously. “I’m her mate. She’s carrying my child.”
Ryan looked closely at the man. He seemed genuinely worried about the woman bearing his child, which was probably a dangerous thing to be doing on this farm. “She’s in good hands,” he said. “So is the child.”
“Appreciate it.” A smile eased the tension in the man’s face. “My name’s Brody, by the way.”
“Ryan.” They shook hands then, Ryan’s gaze locked once again on Purvis.
“He doesn’t like you much.”
“And I don’t like him.”
“You could use someone to watch your back.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Consider it watched.”
The wag started moving.
“Thanks,” Ryan said.
IT WAS DARK by the time J.B. and Jak returned from their recce of the farm.
“Just in time,” Doc greeted them. “Our sleeper has just recently awakened.”
Clarissa stretched her arms and legs. A few yards away, the muties were also rising from their fruit-induced sleep. “What happened? One minute I was talking to you, and then the next I was fast asleep.”
“The fruit,” Doc explained, “which came courtesy of Fox Farm, seems to have been laced with some sort of sedative.”
“And you gave it to me to eat, knowing that?”
“You were hungry,” J.B. stated. “It wasn’t lethal, and we didn’t have anything else to give you…or your friends, to eat. Besides, it was either that or chill you.”
She looked at the Armorer for a long time, probably wondering if he was kidding or serious. “I believe you would have, too,” she said at last.
J.B. remained silent.
“This museum you spoke of,” Doc said. “Is it close enough to travel to in the dark, or should we find some other accommodation for the night?”
“Not a good idea to be out at night.”
“Know safe place?” Jak asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay, we’ll rest up tonight, and tomorrow we’ll hit the museum.”
J.B. turned to Clarissa. “Lead the way.”
MILDRED WAS LED into a well-lit and very clean room in the basement of the main building. A row of beds stood against each wall, ten to a row, twenty beds in all. All but four of the beds were empty.
Sitting at one end of the room at a desk was an old woman who had to be in her sixties. She was gray haired, hunched over and the knuckles of her hands were gnarled with arthritis.
“Two at once,” the old woman said when Mildred brought Jasmine into the nursery.
“No,” Mildred said. “I’m just here to help her.”
“You a midwife?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Healer?”
“Sort of.”
“Oh well, welcome, then. I could use the help. What’s her story?”
“Her water’s broke and she’s had some muconium staining.”
“Is that like dark water?”
“Yes.”
“She may be overdue, then.”
“That’s right.” Mildred had wondered if the old woman would be in the way, but it was obvious that she’d delivered plenty of babies in her time and knew what she was doing.
“Here, honey,” the old woman said, taking Jasmine’s hands and placing them on her nipples. “Touch them, twist them and pull on them for the next little while.”
“What will that do?” Jasmine asked.
Mildred wondered about that, too, but then remembered that nipple stimulation released the hormone oxytocin, which caused the uterus to contract. But how did you go about explaining that to a woman born and raised in the Deathlands?
“It will help make the baby come out,” Mildred said, deciding the simplest explanation was best.