'I want Earl. I want Earl here. He said he'd be here for me.'
'Ma'am, he's got time. It's going to be a bit. We'll get you into the delivery room when you've dilated to ten centimeters. He'll get here fine, I'm sure. I just think you'd be more comfortable if?'
The pain had her again. The snake roped through her body. How could such a little bitsy thing hurt so much? She was so afraid of letting down Earl. But at the same time, where was Earl?
'Ma'am, I'm going to get your friend. She can be with you. That's all right, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
Mary swam into view.
'Honey,' she said. 'I'll call Phil at the shop. He'll go straight home. He'll go to your house and wait on the front steps for your husband.'
'Key,' she said.
'What, honey?'
'Key. Key in the flowerpot to right of door, third pot. Answer phone.'
'Yes. I'll tell him. He'll wait inside and if Earl calls he'll tell him where you are, so Earl can come direct.'
'Where is Earl?'
'I don't know, baby. I'm sure he'll be there as soon as he can.'
'I'm not strong.'
'Oh, yes you are, baby. You are the strongest. You got through this whole thing without Earl, and you'll get through this if you have to. I know you've got the strength in you.'
The pain had her again.
'What's wrong, Mary?' she said.
'There's nothing wrong,' said Mary, but she flashed an uneasy look at the doctor. 'You're having a baby. I have been led to believe it hurts a bit.'
'I can tell something is wrong. Don't let them take my baby. They can't have my baby. I don't want the gas. If I have the gas, they'll take my baby.'
'No, sweetie, that won't happen.'
But again she had a guilty look.
In time the two women were alone as the doctor, the only one on call this late hour in the near-empty Scott County hospital, went on his rounds, such as they were. They weren't much because 'hospital' was entirely too grand a word for this place; it was more a poverty ward with an operating room/delivery room/emergency room attached, because the quality went up to Fort Smith or over to Little Rock with their medical problems.
Mary came over with a conspiratorial look on her face.
'Baby, they don't want you to know, but they want you to take the gas.'
'What's wrong? Oh, God, what's wrong?'
'It's called a posterior presentation. The baby is facing down, not up, and he can't come out down.'
'Oh, God.'
'With another doctor, they might be able to turn him when you dilate some more. Then they'd cut you a little and remove him and sew you up. But they need two doctors. They can't do it with one doctor.'
'Don't let them take my baby.'
'Honey, you may have to?'
'No, no, no. No!' Her hand flew to Mary's and grabbed it tightly. 'Don't let them hurt my baby.'
'Honey, if they can't get the baby turned, they may have to do something to save your?'
'No. No! Don't hurt my baby! Cut me but don't hurt the baby.'
Mary started to cry as she held tightly to Junie's wan hand.
'You are so brave. You are braver than any man who ever lived, sweetie. But you can't give up your life to?'
'No,' she said. 'Earl will?'
'Earl would make the same decision. He wants you to be with him. You can have other babies. You can't give up your life for one baby. What would Earl do? He'd be by himself with a baby he wouldn't know how to care for.'
'No,' she said. 'I don't want them to hurt my baby. They can't take the baby! Don't let them take the baby. Earl will be here. Earl will save us both.'
'Honey, I?'
The pain had her again, and she jacked as it flashed through her.
Earl? Where are you, Earl? Earl, please come.
Chapter 64
Earl lay on his back. The dew had soaked through his coat. His hat was a pillow. He could see nothing but sky lightening as the sun came up. A cool wind rushed through the grass that concealed him. He could have been any man on a park bench or a camping ground, stretching, damp, a little twitchy as the dawn came up and a new day began.
But no other man would have a tommy gun cradled in his arms across his chest and no other man would carry nine other stick magazines loaded with ball tracer in the pockets of his coat or stuffed inside his belt?oh, for a Marine knapsack.
But Earl lay calmly, letting his heartbeat subside, letting his body cool. He was at the long end of a desperate journey across the northwest corner of Polk County, guided by an old map and his instincts. The car had taken him along dirt roads through vast forest and a nickel compass kept him oriented toward the section of the county where Hard Bargain Valley just had to be.
When he ran out of road, he took ten minutes to load up his magazines and his weapon, then he headed off on a track trending north by northwest, through strange forest, across swollen streams, and finally up a raw incline. It seemed to take forever; he thought of a night or two in the Pacific, the 'Canal especially, when the jungle had been like this, dense and dark and unyielding. You hated to be in it at night because the night belonged to the Japs, and them little monkeys could make you stew meat if they wanted. But there were no Japs in this jungle, except his own memories, his own fears, his own angers.
The worst part of the ordeal came at around 5:30 when the land, which should have been rising steadily to Hard Bargain Valley, instead seemed to straighten out. He kept his trust going in the cheap compass, but then he wondered if the presence of so much metal in the tommy gun and all the ammo had knocked it askew. But it held to a steady N and he kept orienting himself to the right of that pointing arrow, even though in the dark his doubts mounted fearfully. He had no other choice.
And then, as sweet a sound as he'd ever heard, there came the whine of a cruising plane, holding at about two thousand feet in a steady drone. That had to be it. That was Hard Bargain Valley and the plane that came for its human cargo.
Abrupdy he ran into ridge, heavily overgrown, and made his way up it as quickly as he could. Thank God the tommy had a sling, for without one, the going would have been almost impossible. The gun hung on his shoulder, heavy and dense with that special weight that loaded weapons have, as he pulled himself up.
Then he saw it: the broad sweep of valley, flat and only gently undulating, pure natural landing strip, and on the other side other hills, and beyond them, presumably, mountains, for the darkness still closed out longer views.
Earl could see some kind of activity at the far end of the valley. He knew that's where Owney and his boys would be waiting for the plane to land.
Thus he edged down to the valley floor, still shielded for another few minutes by the darkness, and duckwalked out to the center. The plane had to land over him. When it did, he would empty a magazine into the nearest engine, concentrating all his firepower. That would drive it away. It would not land and then he would close with Owney and his boys, and although the odds were one against six it didn't much matter: business had to be taken care of, accounts settled, and there was no one else about to do it.
A shift in the pitch of the engines of the orbiting plane signified that enough light had arrived at last. Earl
