Victoria Thompson - Texas Blonde

"An ambulance," Asa supplied.

"Yeah, that's it," Slim said. "It had pictures painted on it, mountains and trees, that kind of stuff. And some fancy writing. A long word that started with a B or a P. I disremember which."

Asa was hard-pressed not to whoop with glee. Still, the sighting was months old. "Did you see the people?"

Slim nodded. "A man and a girl; his daughter, I reckoned. I rode up to see if they needed help. They were mighty skittish. I told them if they were drummers to come on over to the ranch, that everybody'd be glad to see them."

"What did they say?"

Slim shrugged. "They said they were in a hurry and wouldn't have time to stop."

"Did they say where they were going?"

"No, they didn't say," Slim reported, "but I saw their tracks a few days later. They headed south."

Asa realized on some level that he must be hard up indeed to be so delighted over such a small and ancient kernel of information. But the fact remained that it was far more than he had discovered in all his months of scouring the state of Texas for clues.

"What's south of here, Slim?" he asked, already making plans.

Felicity lifted her eyelids slowly, cautiously, hoping that when she was fully awake her pain would fade like a bad dream. But it didn't. Every muscle in her body throbbed, and her insides felt as if someone had seared her with a red-hot iron. It was labor, she thought, except that unlike labor, the pain did not recede.

She listened a moment for Blanche or Candace. They should have been bustling around her, wiping her brow, encouraging her, but the room was still. Too still. Only the faint sound of someone breathing broke the ominous silence.

Cautiously, Felicity turned her head toward the sound, afraid a sudden movement might jar new sources of agony to life. She blinked in surprise. Joshua was sitting in his wingbacked chair beside her bed, and he was sound asleep. His chair did not belong in the bedroom, her pain-fogged brain argued. And why would he sleep sitting up? And why was he in here at all? Men had no place in a birthing room. Candace had said so.

Except this was no longer a birthing room, she remembered with terrifying suddenness. Her hands went instinctively to her now-flat abdomen, heedless of the way her sore muscles protested the movement. The baby! The baby had been born!

But where was it? she wondered frantically, glancing around the shadowed room. The heavy draperies had been drawn against the afternoon sunlight, so at first she could not make out the cradle sitting empty in the corner. NO! her mind screamed when she saw it. The baby was here! She knew it was. She remembered…

But she did not remember, not exactly. Where was her baby? "Where's my baby?" she croaked, her voice hoarse and faint.

Joshua stirred, and his eyes flickered open. In another second he was fully awake. "Lissy, are you all right?" he asked anxiously, leaning over the bed to see her better.

"My baby! Where's my baby?" she repeated urgently, her fears growing with every passing second. When she saw Joshua's face twist in pain, her fear turned to horror. "NO!" she screamed aloud this time.

"There was nothing anyone could do. He was stillborn," Joshua's voice said, but she knew it was a lie.

"No! I want my baby!" she cried hysterically, struggling to sit up. If they would not bring him to her, she would go and find him.

Joshua's strong arms closed around her. "Lie still, Lissy. You'll hurt yourself," he cautioned, cradling her gently to his chest.

"I want my baby!" she sobbed over and over in a litany of despair as he rocked her and stroked the tangle of her hair. So deep was her anguish, she no longer even felt her physical pain.

Josh blinked away his own tears as he listened to her weep. How could he have done this to her? he asked himself for the thousandth time. The physical pain was bad enough, but he could not bear her grief. Once again he experienced the overwhelming helplessness he hated so much.

Felicity sobbed until her weakened body could no longer sustain her grief and she grew limp and quiet in his arms.

With infinite care, he laid her back against the pillows. Her face was pale and tear-streaked, her eyes closed, and she only whimpered slightly as he drew his arms away. With one long finger, he tenderly brushed the tears from her cheeks.

She was so quiet and so still that he thought she must be sleeping again. Reluctantly, he began to rise from the bed and return to his chair and his vigil, but the fragile sound of her voice stopped him.

"I want to see him."

"What?" Josh said, uncertain he had heard correctly.

"I want to see my baby," she repeated. With apparent effort, she lifted her eyelids again. Josh was startled by the determination reflected in the sky blue of her eyes.

But he was already shaking his head. "No, Lissy, it's better if you don't-"

"I want to see my baby!" she said fiercely, her blue eyes glinting.

"Let her see him."

Both Josh and Felicity glanced up in surprise to see Blanche standing in the doorway.

"No," Josh insisted, remembering some adage about not missing something you never had. He knew that the sight of his son lying cold and motionless, covered with Felicity's blood, would haunt him as long as he lived.

"Yes," Blanche insisted right back. "Joshua, he's beautiful. You can't let her spend the rest of her life wondering if she gave birth to a monster so hideous we were afraid to let her see it!"

"Please, Blanche," Felicity begged, her voice little more than a whisper.

Blanche turned in a rustle of skirts and disappeared. Before Josh could even think to protest, she was back, a tiny yellow bundle clutched protectively to her bosom.

Felicity recognized the blanket instantly. It was one she had hemmed so carefully in preparation for her child. She struggled back up to a sitting position and reached out eagerly.

Blanche placed the bundle in her arms with a care bordering on reverence, and then she drew back the edge of the blanket so Felicity could see the little face.

"Oh!" Felicity cried, new tears streaming from her eyes. "Oh, Blanche, you're right. He is beautiful!" Slowly, as one unwraps a precious gift, she peeled back the blanket so she could, like all new mothers, count fingers and toes. For a long time Felicity simply stared, not quite able to comprehend how something so perfect could not be alive. Gradually she came to accept that the pale, slightly bluish skin was cold and that the stiff little body would never move again.

Lovingly, she stroked the lush black fuzz that covered her son's head. Black, the way Joshua's must have been once. "He has your hair," she said, lifting her gaze to her husband and surprising a look of such naked agony on his face that she almost cried out herself.

"Yes," he said in a strangled voice, pushing himself up from the bed at last and striding away, over to the window, where he could look out and not have to see her heartbreak. How would she bear it when they had to take the child from her and put it in the ground? What comfort could he offer that would make things right? Would he ever see her smile again?

Felicity watched him in despair, knowing that she had failed him. Her one hope of winning Joshua's love had been to give him a child. That hope now lay cold and dead in her arms. Would he ever forgive her?

"I'm sorry, Felicity," Blanche said.

Felicity looked up, a little surprised to see that her friend was still in the room.

"We did everything we could," Blanche continued. "Candace said the cord must've gotten caught during the birth. I'd give anything if…"

Felicity nodded dumbly, understanding the silence as well as the words.

"I'll dress him for you if you tell me what you want on him," Blanche offered.

Oh yes, Felicity thought. There were practical things to consider. Grave clothes and burying and a graveside service. But how could she ever let him go? Her arms tightened around the infant protectively, and she lowered her face to his, pressing her lips to the ivory brow. But even her mother's kiss could not make this right again. "Something warm," she said around fresh tears. "He'll need a bonnet, too, so he won't get cold…" When this new spate of weeping ended, Blanche reached for the child.

"Not yet!" Felicity protested, not surprised to see tears on Blanche's face, too. "I just want to look at him a little while longer." But how long would be enough? Forever, she answered herself, knowing such a request was ridiculous. And yet…

"I want a picture of him," Felicity declared.

Josh turned in disbelief from his post at the window. "A picture?" he rasped stupidly, not really comprehending her request.

"Yes, I want to make a photograph of him so I'll have something to remember him by." She could see the disbelief on their faces. "We did it once for a lady in Sweetwater. Her baby had just died," Felicity defended herself, remembering the woman's pathetic gratitude and understanding it now for the first time. "Tell Cody to get everything ready. I'll want to make the plate myself, but he can do the rest," she planned, thankful that she had taken the time to train Cody so thoroughly. The boy had accompanied her on several photographic expeditions around the ranch, and he could now do everything. Unfortunately, he lacked her skill with plate making, something that came only with time and experience.

Blanche and Josh stared at her in stunned silence. What could she say to make them obey her? "If you don't do this for me, I'll do it myself," she threatened. Still clutching the baby, she made as if to scoot toward the edge of the bed, wincing as her battered body protested.

"Wait!" Blanche cried, coming forward at last. "What shall I put on him?" she asked, taking the baby from her.

"His christening dress, for the picture, and afterward his bunting," Felicity instructed, her eyes misting as she realized the futility of trying to keep him warm. "And tell Cody-"

"I'll tell Cody," Josh said, breaking out of his shock at last. He could not bring the baby back, but at least he could grant her this small request. "But you can't make the plate. You're too weak to go out to the wagon."

"Then you'll have to carry me," she told him stubbornly. "I want this plate to be perfect, and Cody can't do a perfect plate yet."

In the end, Josh did carry her out, bundled in a quilt. Blanche posed the baby in his cradle in the afternoon sunshine. To the casual observer, he appeared to be asleep. Before Felicity would let Josh take her back inside, she insisted on seeing the negative. Only when she judged that it was perfect did she consent to return to her bed. Unutterably weary, she was asleep even before Josh returned her to her bed.

When she awoke again, a new day had dawned. Joshua sat next to her bed, and he was wearing his black suit. This time Candace brought her baby to her. He was dressed in his bunting, as if for a long trip.

When Josh was sure that Felicity was not going to lose control of herself again, he said, "We have to decide on a name for him."

Oh yes, more practical matters. Something for the tombstone, she thought bitterly. Why couldn't they just leave her alone with her baby? "I'd like to call him Caleb, after my father," she said instead.

Josh smiled sadly. "I thought you wanted to name him after me," he reminded her. They had discussed the matter several times, and Felicity had been adamant that a firstborn son should be named for his father.

Felicity's head snapped up. He could not be serious. Surely he did not want to waste his name on a dead baby.

"How about Caleb Joshua?" he suggested, seeing her uncertainty.

Felicity nodded, still not able to understand him, but unwilling to analyze his offer too closely. It was the name she would have chosen herself had she suspected his willingness to accept it.

"Gus made a… a box," he said, loath to use the word "coffin." "And we're going to put him right next to my father."

"That will be nice," she said inanely, not knowing what response was appropriate. The thought of putting her baby in a box in the ground was too horrifying even to contemplate.

They sat in silence for a while, as Felicity made her peace with the fact that she would never see her child again. Then Blanche came in and took him for the last time. Once more Felicity kissed the cold brow, and once more Joshua held her while she wept.

Although no one told her what they were doing, she heard them come and carry the coffin out of the house. Joshua left her then, promising to return soon, and Blanche came in to sit with her. Her body still ached, but she could already notice an improvement, even after only twenty-four hours. Her heart was another matter entirely. Nothing would ever ease that agony.