Read Online The Guardian by Elizabeth Lane - Free Book Online

why you’re putting your own life at risk to help me. I think it has something to do with your mother. And yes, it will take my mind off the pain. That, too.”
    Black Sun felt the tightness like a clenched fist in the pit of his stomach. He had never told anyone the full story of his mother’s death—not even his wife, whomhe had loved. That he should bare the past to this small, irritating white woman was unthinkable. And yet, because she had asked, he found himself struggling for a way to begin. He stared up at the sky, groping for words.
    â€œHow old were you?” she asked gently.
    â€œFourteen winters,” he said, feeling the raw unwinding of the story begin inside him. “My mother had lost many of the white man’s babies—he was very big and she was small, and they always seemed to come too soon. But this one she did not lose. Her time was close on that night…when it happened.”
    He felt the light pressure of her fingers on his wrist, as if she sensed the awfulness of what he was about to tell her. It was only when he glanced down at her face that he realized she was having another contraction.
    â€œGo on,” she whispered, her voice taut and husky with the effort of holding back the pain.
    â€œThe white man—he had a name, but I always thought of him as the monster—had traded some furs for a jug of whiskey that day. He got drunk, and when he got drunk, he got mean. My mother had made a stew for him, and he threw it, pot and all, against the wall. Then he started screaming at her and kicking her with his boots. I was only a boy, and not very big for my age. When I tried to stop him, he grabbed me, threw me out into the snow and barred the door.”
    Black Sun felt the tightening of her fingers. This pain seemed to be lasting longer than the others.
    â€œGo…on, please,” She was breathing in gasps now. “Please…”
    â€œI pounded on the door,” Black Sun continued, though his mind was no longer on the story. “From inside the cabin, I could hear him screaming, hear her screaming, and then—”
    â€œOh!” She pressed her lips together to muffle the moan. “I think it’s…coming,” she whispered. “Sweet heaven, the baby, it’s coming!”
    â€œTry not to push!” Black Sun scrambled to his feet, wishing he’d thought to make preparations sooner. Attending a birth was women’s business and he had only the barest knowledge of what needed to be done. Now he improvised as best he could.
    Yanking a rope from the pack, he tossed the end over a stout limb of the pine tree. Finding a short, strong stick, he made a knot around it so that the stick hung crosswise, a forearm’s length above Charity’s head. “Hold on to this,” he said, guiding her hands around the stick until she could clasp it easily. “Pull as hard as you need to.”
    Her body went limp as the pain abated, but her hands kept their grip on the stick, so that, for a moment, she simply dangled, with her knees resting lightly on the ground.
    Tugging the buffalo robe aside, Black Sun used his hands to scoop out the ground beneath her and line the hollow with swiftly gathered handfuls of fresh leaves and grass. By the time he finished, Charity was writhing in agony. Her eyes locked with his for an instant, then closed in a grimace of pain and effort.
    Seared into memory, the images of his mother and his wife rose again in Black Sun’s mind. Once more he willed them away. Charity was young and strong and full of fight, he told himself. Even with her small size and the trials she had suffered, there was no reason to doubt that her child would come swiftly and safely, unless…
    But no, he would not even voice that thought. He had done all he could. Now he could only wait, hope and try to ignore the fear that lay like a coiled thing inside him—the fear that this woman, too, would die and that