While he held the square in place, she secured it with the tape.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Up to this point no one had given any attention to the unconscious man. Ronnie approached, transferring his pistol from one hand to the other and drying his damp palms alternately on the seat of his jeans. He hitched his chin toward Cain. "What about him?"
Tiel considered that a very good question. "I'll probably get years in prison for doing that."
Doc said to Ronnie, "I recommend that you let me drag him outside, so his buddies in that bad-ass van out there
will know he's alive. If they think he's dead or wounded, it could get ugly, Ronnie."
Ronnie apprehensively glanced toward the outside and gnawed on his lower lip while considering the suggestion.
"No, no." He looked over at Vern and Gladys, who seemed to be having as good a time as two people on a theme-park thrill ride. "Find some duct tape," Ronnie told them. "I'm sure the store sells it. Bind his hands and feet."
"If you do that, you'll only be digging yourself in deeper, son," Doc warned gently.
"I don't think I could get in any deeper."
Ronnie's expression was sad, as though he was just now fully comprehending the enormity of his predicament.
What might have seemed a romantic adventure when he and Sabra ran away had turned into an incident involving the FBI and gunplay. He had committed several felonies.
He was in serious trouble, and he was intelligent enough to know it.
The elderly couple stepped over the unconscious agent. Each took an ankle. It was an effort for them, but they were able to drag him away from Sabra, giving Doc and Tiel more room in which to function.
"They're going to lock me up forever," Ronnie continued.
"But I want Sabra to be safe. I want her old man's promise that he'll let her keep our baby."
"Then let's end this here and now."
"I can't, Doc. Not before getting that guarantee from
Mr. Dendy."
Doc motioned down to Sabra, who was panting through another pain with Tiel. "In the meantime—"
"We stay right here," the boy insisted.
"But she needs a—"
"Doc?" Tiel said, interrupting.
"—hospital. And soon. If you're truly worried about
Sabra's welfare—"
"Doc?"
Irritated because she had twice interrupted his earnest appeal, he turned to her abruptly and asked impatiently,
"What?"
"Sabra can't go anywhere. I can see the baby."
He knelt down between Sabra's raised knees. "Thank
God," he said on a relieved laugh. "The baby's turned,
Sabra. I can see the head. You're crowning. A few minutes from now you'll have a baby."
The girl laughed, sounding too young to be in the jam she was in. "Is it going to be all right?"
"I think so." Doc looked at Tiel. "You'll help?"
"Tell me what to do."
"Get a few more of those pads and spread them around her. Have one of the towels handy to wrap the baby in."
He had rolled up his shirtsleeves above the elbows and was vigorously washing his hands and arms with Tiel's bottled cleanser. He then bathed them with vinegar. He passed the bottles to Tiel. "Use both liberally. But quickly."
"I don't want Ronnie watching," Sabra said.
"Sabra? Why not?"
"I mean it, Ronnie. Go away."
Doc spoke to him over his shoulder. "It might be best,
Ronnie." Reluctantly the boy backed away.
In Cain's doctor's kit, Doc found a pair of gloves and pulled them on—expertly, Tiel noticed. He snapped them smartly around his wrists. "At least he did something right," he muttered. "There's a whole box of them. Get yourself a pair."
She had just managed to get the gloves on when Sabra had another contraction. "Don't bear down if you can keep from it," Doc instructed. "I don't want you to tear."
He placed his right hand on the perineum for additional support to avoid tearing, while his left hand gently rested on the baby's head. "Come on, Sabra. Pant now. Thata girl. You might move behind her," he said to Tiel. "Angle her up. Support her lower back."
He coached Sabra through the pain, and when it was over, she relaxed against Tiel's support.
"Almost there, Sabra," Doc told her in a gentle voice.
"You're doing fine. Great, in fact."
And Tiel could have said the same for him. One had to admire the calm, competent manner in which he was dealing with the frightened girl.
"Are you okay?"
Tiel had been staring at him with overt admiration, but she didn't realize he was addressing her until he glanced up. "Me? I'm fine."
"You're not going to faint or anything?"
"I don't think so." Then, because his composure was contagious, she said, "No. I won't faint."
Sabra cried out, jerked into a semi-sitting position, and grunted with the effort of expelling the baby. Tiel rubbed her lower back, wishing there was more she could do to relieve the girl's suffering.
"Is she all right?" The anxious father was ignored.
"Try not to push," Doc reminded the girl. "It'll come now without your applying additional pressure. Ride the pain. Good, good. The head's almost out."
The contraction abated and Sabra's body collapsed with fatigue. She was crying. "It hurts."
"I know." Doc spoke in a soothing voice, but unseen by
Sabra, his face registered profound regret. She was bleeding profusely from tearing tissue. "You're doing fine,
Sabra," he lied. "Soon you'll have your baby."
Very soon, as it turned out. After all the concern the
child's slow progress had given them, in the final seconds it was eager to make its way into the world.
During the next contraction, almost before Tiel could assimilate the miracle she was witnessing, she watched the baby's head emerge facedown. Doc's hand guided it only a little before it instinctually turned sideways. When Tiel saw the newborn's face, its eyes wide open, she murmured,
"Oh my God," and she meant it literally, like a prayer, because it was an awe-inspiring, almost spiritual phenomenon to behold.
But there the miracle stopped, because the baby's shoulders still could not clear the birth canal.
"What's happening?" Ronnie asked when Sabra screamed.
The telephone rang. Donna was nearest to it and she answered. "Hello?"
"I know it hurts, Sabra," Doc said. "The next two or three contractions should do it. Okay?"
"I can't," she sobbed. "I can't."
"This guy name o' Galloway wants to know who got shot," Donna informed them. No one paid any attention to her.
"Doing great, Sabra," Doc was saying. "Get ready. Pant."
Glancing at Tiel, he said, "Be her coach."
Tiel began to pant along with Sabra as she watched
Doc's hands moving around the baby's neck. Noticing her alarm, he said softly, 'Just checking to make sure the cord wasn't wrapped around it."
"Is it okay?" Sabra asked through clenched teeth.
"So far it's a textbook birth."
Tiel heard Donna telling Galloway, "Nope, he ain't dead, but he deserves to be and so does the damn fool that sent him in here." She then slammed down the receiver.
"Here we go, here we go. Your baby's here, Sabra."
Sweat was running into Doc's eyebrows from his hairline, but he seemed unaware of it. "That's it. That's the way."
Her scream would haunt Tiel's dreams for many nights to come. More tissue was torn when the child's shoulders pushed through. A small incision under local anesthetic would have spared her that agony, but there was no help for it.
The only blessing to come of it was the wriggling baby that slipped into Doc's waiting hands. "It's a girl, Sabra.
And she's a beauty. Ronnie, you have a baby daughter."
Donna, Vern, and Gladys cheered and applauded. Tiel sniffed back tears as she watched Doc tilt the infant's head down to help clear her breathing passages since they had no aspirator. Thankfully, she began crying immediately. A
wide grin of relief split his austere face.
Tiel wasn't allowed to marvel for long because Doc was passing the infant to her. The newborn was so slippery she feared dropping her. But she managed to cradle her and get a towel around her. "Lay her on her mother's tummy."
Tiel did as Doc instructed.
Sabra stared at her bawling newborn with wonderment and asked in a fearful whisper, "Is she all right?"
"Her lungs certainly seem to be," Tiel said, laughing.
She ran a quick inventory. "All fingers and toes accounted for. Looks like her hair is going to be light like yours."
"Ronnie, can you see her?" Sabra called to him.
"Yeah." The boy was dividing his glance between her and the Mexicans, who seemed totally disenchanted by the wonders of birth.
"She's beautiful. Well, I mean she will be when she's all cleaned up. How're you?"
"Perfect," Sabra replied.
But she wasn't. Blood had quickly saturated the pads beneath her. Doc tried to stanch it with sanitary napkins.
"Ask Gladys to bring me some more of those. I'm afraid we're going to need them."
Tiel summoned over Gladys and gave her the assignment.
She was back in half a minute with another box of pads. "Did you get that man tied up?" Tiel asked.
"Vern's still working on him, but he won't be going anywhere anytime soon."
While Doc continued to work on Sabra, Tiel tried to distract her. "What are you going to name your daughter?"
Sabra was inspecting the infant with blatant adoration and unqualified love. "We decided on Katherine. I like the classic names."
"So do I. And I think Katherine is going to suit her."
Suddenly Sabra's face contorted with pain. "What's happening?"