"You can reassure her, because this is going to be painful." Vance met Mae's worried eyes. "Give her your strength, as you do me."

Mae nodded. "We all trust you."

Vance dipped her hand into the carbolic and shook the excess liquid free. Sometimes, especially in the last two years of the war, the trust of others had felt like a burden, but not now. She felt an inner steadiness that had been gone since she'd learned of Victor's death. For the first time in months, she felt whole.

Vance turned, and with a clear head and certain mind, said to Mae and Sissy, "Put some pillows under her hips so that the uterus tilts back into the abdomen."

When that was done, she eased her hand into the birth canal and pushed upward until she felt the tiny arm between her fingers. She pushed farther until she encountered the thorax lying wedged across the uterine opening. Pressing her fingers together to form a funnel, she moved them alongside the small body until she reached the hips. Her hand was nearly inside the uterus now. She felt a contraction and the muscles closed down around her wrist. She held still, waiting for it to pass. She blocked out Lettie's screams, knowing that the girl would not die from the pain, and mercifully, that she would not remember it if she lived through the delivery. She looked at Kate, who was following her every movement with intense concentration, her eyes huge but clear.

"I'm going to try to move the baby ninety degrees inside the uterus. That's called a version." She took a breath and smiled slightly.

"That should align the head again so that this baby can get out."

Kate didn't need to ask what would happen if Vance failed. She knew how small the opening was inside and that the only way the child was coming out was head first. She didn't quite know what they would do if this maneuver failed, so she simply prayed that it would not.

"Mae, hold Lettie tightly," Vance said gently.

"We've got her," Mae said in a firm, steady voice. "You go on ahead now and do what needs to be done."

Focusing all her attention on her hand and the small body cradled against her palm, she pushed steadily inward and upward, rotating the hips away from the cervical opening and drawing the head down. At first, nothing happened. Then it was as if the baby coiled in on itself and kicked away, as if swimming. When Vance felt the movement, she slid her hand out and guided the head down into the upper portion of the birth canal. She closed her eyes for a brief second, then grinned.

"Shouldn't be long now."

Within the hour, a lusty cry pierced the air and mingled with the joyous exclamations of the women crowded around the bed.

"Honey, it's a boy. A big, loud, and beautiful boy," Mae exclaimed.

"Let me see him," Lettie said, smiling weakly.

"Kate, go ahead and deliver the placenta," Vance said as she walked away from the bed. Her hair and shirt were soaked with sweat, and the nerves she had not felt earlier snaked around in her belly now, making her queasy. After rinsing her hand and arm, she leaned against the window frame facing the street and closed her eyes.

"Here," Mae said quietly, handing her a glass of whiskey. "You look like you could use this."

Vance turned and set her back against the wall. She took the glass and drained it gratefully. "Thanks."

"I've never seen anyone do that before," Mae said.

"It's not a common technique, and it doesn't usually work."

Vance glanced across the room at Lettie, who was holding her child and rapidly regaining her strength. "But she is young and strong, and they deserved a chance."

Mae put her hand to the center of Vance's chest. Everyone else in the room was focused on the mother and baby. She stepped close. "You seem to have a knack for doing that for everyone."

Vance covered Mae's hand with hers and looked into her eyes.

"We'll be each other's chance."

"Yes." Mae kissed her softly. "We will."


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

As the sun set, Jessie stood on the front porch of the ranch house with a cup of coffee, watching with a wry smile as Vance climbed down from the buggy. "You missed dinner."

"Is Kate angry?" Vance asked as she climbed the stairs.

"She would have been most times, except she's done nothing but talk about Lettie's baby being born for the last three days." Jessie smiled. "So I think you've probably got another week's grace before she'll light into you about not getting back here in time for the evening meal."

Vance grinned. "How about Mae?"

"She'll probably fuss over you in between the scolding." Jessie looked past Vance, choosing her words carefully. "She looks good. I take it there hasn't been any more trouble?"

"None that she's told me of." Vance unbuttoned her shirt collar and took a deep breath of the fragrant, warm night air. "I haven't seen anyone come around the Nugget, and if he's been there, he hasn't caused any trouble."

"I've never seen a mark on Mae before." Jessie hooked her thumb over her gun belt. In the corral across the way, a colt fell asleep with his head resting against his mother's flank. "If I had, I would have done something about it."

"You weren't in town that often, I imagine, and she wouldn't have wanted you to know."

Jessie smiled faintly. "For all her gentle ways, she's strong in places I'm not sure I've got in me."

"She is quite remarkable." Vance rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness of the day and the tension from the conversation.

Every night when the sun went down and she wasn't in town where she could watch after Mae, the anger ate at her, burning in her gut. "But it's only a matter of time before something else happens. Men like him take what they want."

"Whatever needs to be done to make her safe, you've got my help."

"Whoever owns the Nugget has gone to a lot of trouble to keep his identity a secret, and men with secrets are vulnerable." Vance pushed away the surge of anger when she thought of Mae or any of the girls being abused. "I'll find him."

"You still planning to follow Hanrahan when he reports in?"

"Seems like the simplest way to go about it." Vance shrugged.

"I'm sure he doesn't expect anyone to pay attention to his comings and goings. I'd hoped to be able to do something before now, but I've been out on calls almost every night. It seems that this is baby-birthing time."

"I know. Kate's been right there with you most of the time."

Vance searched for any hint of dissatisfaction in Jessie's voice, but found none. "It's demanding work."

"Kate's strong and smart."

Smiling, Vance nodded. "She is. I meant that it can be difficult when your..." She frowned and glanced at Jessie. "Well I don't quite know what word to use. How do you think of Kate, as she is to you?"

"I think of her as my heart," Jessie said quietly.

"Yes," Vance replied, feeling the rightness of that as she thought of Mae. "When your...beloved...makes a habit of leaving in the middle of the night for hours at a time, it can be disrupting."

"I'm gone a lot, seeing to the stock and the men out on the line, and Kate never complains." Jessie chuckled. "Well, not much. More like worries."

"I imagine you worry a bit about her, too."

"If she weren't with you most of the time, I'd fret a lot more. But we've managed to get in some good practice the last few weeks, and she's getting to be handy with a revolver and a rifle."

"Doing the work she's doing will endear her to everyone in the territory. People will watch out for her. She'll be fine," Vance said gently, hearing the concern beneath the pride.

"It's what she wants to do." Jessie studied Vance. She didn't often speak to anyone other than Kate about her feelings. She and Vance were alike, she knew that without being able to put all the words to her knowledge. It wasn't just the way they dressed or the way they loved.

It was something about how they worked inside, what was important to them. And what they feared. It made it easier to say what was in her heart knowing that she wouldn't have to explain or defend her feelings.

"I figure that's part of loving, not getting in the way of what she needs to do."

"I think you're right."

"It can be a hard thing to do sometimes, just the same."

Solemnly, Vance nodded. Harder than hard sometimes. The breeze carried the scent of new grass and rich earth as golden shadows slanted across the dusty yard. "Summer's about here. It's beautiful country."

"It is." Jessie felt the calm in the center of her being that came from being on her land, being satisfied in her work, and being loved better than she had ever dreamed. "I've never been all the way back East, but I've been to the big cities a time or two. Enough to know there is no place for me there."

"I had to leave to understand that," Vance said, recognizing the absence of the restless unease that had always been part of her consciousness, even when Victor had been alive and she had been happy. Or what she had taken to be happiness. "It seems that we've come from different directions to the same place."

"I reckon that says something about us." Jessie grinned at Vance.

"Good thing we're not of a mind to fit in."

Vance glanced behind her at the sound of the door opening. Mae stood in a shaft of lamplight, her face partially in shadows, her hair a golden halo framing the pale oval of her face. She wore a dress that resembled the blue of the Union uniforms when the troops had been young and fresh, before months of deprivation and death had changed them all. It was deceptively simple in design, the bodice and waist subtly accentuating her curvaceous body. It wasn't what she had been wearing when Vance had last seen her that morning. It occurred to Vance that she still wore the dusty, rumpled clothes she'd been in all day, and she wished for a bath.