“Almost there,” Lynn said when she spotted her own boot prints in the wet bank. They stood out black and hollow even in the dying light of dusk. “This is where I spotted the girl.”
“You should be the one to call to him,” Stebbs said. “Beings as he’ll know your voice.”
“We didn’t talk all that much,” Lynn said, then cupped her hands to her mouth. “Hello, the camp!”
The only answer was the rustle of falling beech leaves, and a frantic scurrying sound in the underbrush nearby. “Try again,” said Stebbs.
She shouted again, this time adding a high-pitched whistle on the end of her call. No response.
“How bad of shape were they in?” Stebbs asked.
Lynn’s eyebrows drew together in concern. “Not as bad as all that,” she said. “Unless someone—”
A piercing scream split the night air, dropping Stebbs and Lynn to the ground in an instant, their hands going to the pistols at their belts. It broke on a high note, followed by a screech and a howl of pain that dwindled into a racking sob.
“The woman,” Stebbs said soberly. “That’d be labor.”
“Labor?”
“The baby’s being born.”
Lynn’s hand tightened on her gun, for all the good that it would do her in that situation. “What do we do?”
Stebbs got to his feet awkwardly and brushed the dead leaves from his flannel shirt. “I know a thing or two about it,” he said. “If that boy is as green as you say, I doubt he’s much help.”
Lynn stayed on the ground, peering through the bracken as if for an enemy. “What do you want me to do?”
“Get up, for one.” He hauled her to her feet.
Lynn hallooed the camp when they were close enough to make out the feeble gray wisps of smoke climbing skyward from the fire. Eli burst out of the shelter, looking wildly in every direction. “Girl? Is that you?” He held a branch above his head in case it wasn’t her, but it didn’t look like he posed much of a threat. His weapon was thicker than his arm.
“Christ, he’s skinny,” Stebbs muttered.
“I’m coming in with a friend,” Lynn yelled toward the camp, pausing only slightly before using the word friend to describe Stebbs. They splashed across the stream to Eli, who lowered his club and squinted into the night.
“Hello, son,” Stebbs said as he emerged from the darkness. “Name’s Stebbs.” He held out a hand, and Eli shook it.
“Eli,” he said shortly.
“The girl here is Lynn, somehow I doubt she introduced herself properly when you met.” Lynn nodded to Eli across the fire.
“How’s Lucy?”
“The girl’s fine,” she said. “That her mother screaming?”
Eli nodded and gestured toward the shelter but came up with no words.
“She trying to be mother to another?” Stebbs asked gently.
“All day it’s been like this,” Eli said. “I don’t know what to do. The baby won’t come out, and Neva is exhausted.”
A cautious silence had emanated from the shelter since they’d converged onto the camp. Lynn had stalked a bobcat through the woods once. Mother had sent her out to find a turkey, but the unfamiliar flash of a feline coat had caught her attention and she’d taken it as a challenge. Bobcats weren’t common, and Lynn had known she was out of her league when she’d emerged into a clearing where she knew the cat should have been, but was out of sight. The same feeling was with her on the bank, the idea that she was being watched by unfriendly eyes attached to a body that was ready to pounce if it made up its mind to do so.
“We’re not here to bother,” she said loudly, hoping her voice carried to those perked ears. “Just wanted to let you know Lucy’s all right.”
Eli’s face fell. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Hold up now,” Stebbs said to Lynn. “If they need our help, we’re here to give it.” Lynn’s eyes cut uneasily to the shelter Eli had constructed, but she kept her mouth shut. “First off, why are you down here on the stream? There’s plenty of empty houses to put her up in to bear the child.”
“Neva says she won’t go. She’s heard too many stories, people’s faces turning black without water, their bodies shriveling up as they die slow.”
“It happens.”
“She won’t come away from the water. I set this up for a temporary camp, but she wouldn’t move from it.”
“It’s not so bad,” Stebbs reassured him. “Probably leaks like a bastard though.”
“It’s not waterproof, no,” Eli admitted.
“Can’t hold any heat either, I reckon.”
In the firelight, Lynn could make out a blush creeping up Eli’s sharp-boned cheeks. “No, it can’t.”
“So here you’ve got a pregnant woman and a child living under a bunch of dead twigs next to a stream when winter’s coming on?”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Eli said tightly, desperation making him bite off each word.