Free Deborah Camp by Lady Legend Page A

like you isn’t going to faint at the sight of new life.” She patted the top of his head. “You’ll bear up, just like me. You’ll see. Now help me shove the trunk out of the way.”
    He forced himself to his feet again. “I’ll do it. Will you please sit down and rest? Lord, woman, you’re about to give birth!”
    “I’m not about to do anything but lose my temper with you.” She let him push the trunk off to one side. “That’ll do. I’ll fill some extra lamps andyou can hang them. You’re tall enough to reach those hooks.”
    He shook his head, watching as she funneled oil into the lamps. “You’re a wonder.”
    She scoffed at him. “I’m a woman. And I need you to be my man.”
    Her words added iron to his backbone. He felt himself straighten to stand tall and proud. Later, he wondered if it was an age-old instinct; the sudden rush of power in a man when a woman asked him to be strong for her … strong
with
her. All he knew for sure was that her request transformed his lion’s yawn into a roar. Come heaven or hell, he knew he’d see her through the ordeal. He’d be her man until she no longer needed him. By God, he owed her that.
    “Shouldn’t you get into bed?” Tucker asked, when Copper’s pain passed and he thought she could respond. She was squatting near the bunks, her skirt hitched up around her thighs, her face bloodred from the agony of her exertion.
    “This is the way I was taught. It’s the Crow way. When I feel its crown, I’ll get in bed.” She let her head drop and filled her lungs with air, then blew it out through her mouth in a long gush.
    “What can I do?”
    “Wash your hands, then don’t touch me. Just the baby. Touch only the baby.”
    He nodded, understanding that she didn’t want infection to set in. “Do you have any rubbing alcohol?”
    She pointed a shaking finger at a high shelf. Tucker rummaged through the dusty bottles until he found the one he wanted. He set it beside the mount of clean rags on the foot of Copper’s bunk. He noticed the poultice and vaguely recalled her fashioning it one evening. Little by little, task by task, she had prepared herself for this. He only wished he’d done the same. But how could hehave? Some lessons had to be learned in the doing, not in the planning.
    He stared at the ropes she’d tied to the head of the bed and realized they were pulls for her hands when the labor became so intense that she’d need something to hold onto. That her pain could worsen and not kill her was unthinkable to him.
    Another contraction ripped through her. Copper flung back her head and bared her teeth. A groan, beginning low and crescendoing along with the pain, tore at her throat. Pink fluid seeped from her body and pooled on the rock-hewn floor between her widely planted feet. The contraction lasted a full minute. Tucker ached with her, grimacing and gnashing his teeth, wishing he could share her agony. She slumped, her hair hanging in wet ropes, her skin flushed hot pink.
    “Help me …” She panted, then forced herself to breathe deeply. “Got to get this dress off. It’s time.”
    He tugged the leather shift up over her head and tossed it aside. Her body glistened with sweat. It occurred to him that this was the first time he had ever removed a woman’s clothing for reasons other than sex. The sight of her swollen stomach and full, blue-veined breasts educated him to the drastic changes a woman went through to bear a child. A shiver raced down his spine and his gut knotted. God, was he really going to do this? Was he really going to help deliver a baby into the world?
    The bunk was ready and she reclined on it, moving as if her limbs were filled with lead. Tucker could only imagine how every muscle must ache; how her poor, tortured body must throb. He guided her hands through the loops and pressed her fingers around the rope. She’d looped rags around the footrails and he slipped her feet through them, positioning her knees wide