Namesake, by Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Flash responded at a touch, bearing Dr. Michaela Quinn down a narrow lane on the first hot spring day of 1868. Her rounds took her to the Denton spread to look in on Lida, the elderly grandmother, who awaited a breeze from the porch swing.
"Rest your knee as often as you can, Lida. Use the cane and don't put your full weight on the leg" Michaela advised, rotating the swollen right limb to test articulation. "A sprained joint sometimes responds to quiet more than soaking." She ended the examination with a pat on Lida's arm. "The swelling should be gone by day after tomorrow."
"Bless your heart, Dr. Mike, for coming all the way out here. I depend on you." Lida sank back on the slatted swing and elevated her bandaged leg on a plump pillow. "Now hurry home to your supper."
Michaela gave no thought to cooking or another quiet evening at home in her rocking chair helping her two youngest with homework. It was doctoring that satisfied her inquisitive mind.
"I'll be back Thursday afternoon," Michaela promised, settling herself in the saddle and turning her mare toward the main road.
Lida chortled, "If you had a man, your afternoons would be too full for visitin old ladies with bum knees."
On the road west an hour later, Michaela spied a lone scout on a grassy bluff. He motioned her toward the Cheyenne village. With a wave, she quickened the pace to the village center and slid out off Flash.
"Dr. Mike, you must hurry," Snowbird urged, abandoning her usual dignity and grace for a spirited trot toward a distant tepee.
From the interior came a wail of fear, "E'se!"
"What is it, Snowbird?" Michaela managed as she gulped for breath. Her hands pulled automatically at her medical bag, held by a thong to the saddle horn.
"It is Redwing and her baby." Snowbird summarized the situation without exaggeration: "It goes bad for them both."
"I'll see what I can do." Michaela felt uneasy at the request. She rarely attended Indian mothers, who managed birthing without fuss or the intervention of midwifery. She slipped into the tepee's entrance and accustomed her eyes to the smoky interior.
Instead of carrying out labor in a quiet nook, Redwing lay in misery on a thick bed of skins, her knees pulled into a rigid position. No longer able to mask the suffering, she moaned, "Hoháeh."
Snowbird knew the difference between normal labor and a dangerously long struggle with pain. "Redwing has been pushing since shortly after midnight when her water broke. The baby can't make its way into the world." Snowbird mopped at Redwing's brow with cool water. "I fear for its life and hers."
Michaela crouched by the patient. "Hold her still so I can listen to the fetal heartbeat with my stethoscope."
While holding Redwing's hand, Snowbird crooned "A'eskémêse, soon," a matronly encouragement from a woman who had her own memories of rigorous labor.
"I need a closer look," Michaela noted to herself as she pulled aside a thin blanket. She checked the progress of dilation and felt the baby's position.
Snowbird frowned at the rigid abdomen. "Will they survive the birthing, Dr. Mike?"
Michaela confided to Snowbird, "Redwing is progressing slowly, but normally. It will be a long labor."
Snowbird accepted the diagnosis with a stoic face. "I will stay with her—and you."
"Redwing," Michaela spoke in professional tones, "stop struggling and push when your body tells you."
Snowbird translated "push" into "ésôhón," eliciting a respectful nod and half-smile to the white outsider whom both women trusted. "She understands, Dr. Mike."
Over a small fire at the tepee entrance, Michaela heated three tablespoons of sweet oil in a tin cup and massaged the warm liquid into her palms. "This should soothe the strained muscles and help ease the baby through the birth canal," she explained.
With a firm stroke, she began oiling the birth passage and stretching it bit by bit, stopping occasionally to locate the baby's heartbeat through the uterine wall.
Snowbird nodded and smiled "pâháveméóná'e" as a sign of progress to a "good woman." She chanted a serene prayer to Mother Earth, "Give us guidance to bring the baby safely to the light."
"Sully," Redwing moaned, "ho'ahé'tov. Sully," she stretched the sound into a plea and grasped the skin bed with sweaty fingers. The name echoed with each ragged breath: "Sully, Sully!"
Michaela blanched at the name and wondered if her landlord and friend could be Redwing's lover and the father of the unborn infant. The vision of Sully making love to a Cheyenne woman was unsettling, but not surprising. He was a handsome widower with a passion for native people and their plight on the Colorado frontier.
As if negating Dr. Mike's faulty guess, Snowbird shook her head. "Sully is her son's name," she explained and slipped out the tepee flap. "I will bring him."
Michaela continued the perineal massage and dipped her fingertips once more in the tin cup to spread oil in the birth canal to prevent tearing.
"You're doing well, Redwing," she nodded. "Not much longer." Michaela considered anesthesia, but feared that it would lessen the infant's chances of survival. "Do you need a sip of water—aséham?" Michaela ventured the only word she knew for "drink" and pantomimed taking a mouthful, but Redwing was too engrossed in a contraction to reply.
Snowbird returned to the tepee with a toddler and held him close to Redwing's cheek. The mother gentled her furrowed brow and whispered "Sully." She faked a cheerful smile at her son before Snowbird set the boy free to play outside with the other children.
The reunion of mother and child restored Redwing's courage. The contractions came closer together, forcing her to push without letup. Her lips clung to a hushed mantra, "Sully, Sully."
At the end of another hour, Snowbird muttered, "Mother Earth, we ask you for strength. Redwing is tiring."
"Snowbird, it's coming," Michaela panted, pressing the tiny head toward the spine and rotating the shoulders. During the last contraction, she maneuvered the infant into the light—a chubby female decked with thick black hair.
"A girl, Redwing," the doctor exulted. "A healthy little girl!" Michaela tied the umbilical cord, clipped it, and handed the child to Snowbird to swaddle in thin buckskin.
Redwing, her body slipping into a relaxed doze, began breathing normally. Without strength to speak, she gestured for her daughter.
"She is much relieved," Snowbird congratulated Michaela. "Good job, Dr. Mike. You have saved them both."
The two women clasped hands and smiled at the repose of Redwing and her infant.
Michaela turned to Snowbird for nursing assistance. "After I deliver the afterbirth, let's wipe Redwing dry to prevent chilling. She has soaked the bedding with sweat and birthing fluid." A quick change of skins warmed the shivering mother.
Snowbird poured hot water into a cup and sprinkled crinkled leaves on the surface. "Thistle tea," she explained, "to warm Redwing and bring down the milk." She held Redwing's head and tilted the cup to ease her thirst with an age-old lactation remedy.
Michaela gathered her stethoscope and made a final check on the pulse of mother and child. "They're both fine," she sighed.
The birthing partners retreated to the outdoors to let Redwing sleep with arms clasping her stocky baby girl.
"Thanks for your help, Snowbird," Michaela spoke with genuine warmth. "You gave her the support she needed to keep on pushing. That's what sped up labor."
"Her path has been difficult, Dr. Mike. Yellow Horse, the baby's father, joined the dog soldiers during the winter. To steady their courage against the enemy, he and the other warriors will have no contact with their women until danger has passed."
Michaela nodded without understanding the custom. "Sounds difficult for both parents to be separated."
"Redwing has been lonely," Snowbird continued. "She was cut off from family with only her little boy for company."
Michaela looked beyond the clutch of tepees to the smallest children, who rolled down the hill and squealed in pursuit of a rabbit fur ball. "The boy's so slender. He bears little resemblance to his baby sister."
Snowbird exchanged a knowing look with Michaela and explained, "This is her second marriage. Her first husband died of smallpox."
Michaela raised her eyebrows. "She's young to have experienced widowing and single parenthood."
On the return home on Flash, Michaela was angry at herself for pondering why a Cheyenne child would carry Sully's name. In the barn, she groomed her mare while puzzling over his connection with Redwing.
Footsteps whispered over clumps of spring grass. "Dr. Mike?"
Michaela flinched at her landlord's voice and the shadow that fell across Flash's stall.
"Sorry. Did I scare you?" Sully lifted Flash's saddle onto the rail and forked fresh hay into the manger.
"I was lost in thought," Michaela admitted. "Thanks for the help." The pairing of Redwing and Sully in her mind raised a blush to her cheeks.
"Somethin troublin you?" he ventured, easing the curry brush from her hand and finishing the job on Flash's far side.
"Just—a long afternoon with a maternity case," she concluded, ducking her head to hide disturbing thoughts about the man who dominated her reveries and dreams.
"Cloud Dancing said you birthed a Cheyenne baby." He stalled Flash and latched the gate. "Whose was it?"
"Redwing had a baby girl. It was a grueling labor, unusually long for a woman who already had a child. They're both resting up." Michaela led the way out the barn door and snatched up a bucket to fill at the well. "Snowbird was a great help."
Sully read the obvious diversion as an avoidance of his eyes. "Glad to hear it." He took the bucket from her and filled it.
"Thank you," she nodded and strode toward the porch. Curiosity won out over courtesy. With a swish of skirts, she faced him: "Did you know that Redwing's first child is called Sully?"
With a sudden understanding of Michaela's displeasure, his mouth twitched. "She honored me at the naming ceremony with a namesake." In his usual fashion, he gave no more information than necessary as he followed her indoors.
At the stove, Michaela stoked the morning's coals and slid the kettle in place. Turning slightly toward him, she concealed her suspicions and probed, "Why the honor? Did you deserve it?"
Sully squatted at the fireplace, stacked kindling over the banked ash, and maneuvered a backlog into position. "I was her husband's friend. We hunted elk that winter. After he died from the smallpox, I kept Redwing supplied with wood and meat until their son was born."
Michaela took note of his stress on "their son."
"Oh, that was good of you," she responded with less peevishness. "You're a trusty friend."
"Why are you so curious about the boy?" he pursued, rising quickly almost in her face.
Startled, she slid into the rocker and gathered her dignity. "An unusual name for an Indian," she replied. "Just curious."
"You thought I was the father," he challenged.
"No, no. I didn't think anything in particular." Michaela turned her attention to a ragged cuticle.
"I'm flattered you thought Redwing would want me," he added after a pause. "She's a handsome woman."
"Yes," Michaela admitted, "and devoted to motherhood."
Sully perched on a footstool and gazed upward at Michaela's eyes. "But not as much as you."
"How can you compare me to Redwing? We have nothing in common," Michaela retorted. "She's younger than I. She's already had two husbands and borne two babies. I'm a mature frontier doctor with neither mate nor birth children."
Sully backtracked. "I meant that you both are beautiful and strong and you both love your families."
"Oh," Michaela ran out of words. She mulled over the direction her question had pushed the conversation and felt decidedly uneasy. "Those are nice compliments."
"Didn't mean them as compliments. Just the truth." He stood abruptly and strode to the porch. As an afterthought, he turned back for a final word. "Since Abigail, there's been no one. Except you."
Michaela, too shaken for a reply, listened to the glide of his moccasins as he headed back toward the wilderness. She hurried to the door and called, "Would you stay for supper? The children miss you."
Sully turned at the sound of her voice. "What about you?"
The question demanded some soul searching. Michaela slanted her face toward the sunset and hedged, "What about me?"
He pressed for a glimpse of her feelings. "Are the children the only ones who miss me?"
"I've missed you too," she admitted.
His long legs covered the distance to the porch. With a tentative touch on her back, he moved beside her. "I like being missed. What's for supper?"