In the Heart of the Canyon - By Elisabeth Hyde Page 0,91
But all the doctor had to do was order up a few pints of blood, and they appeared like magic; the IV was already in place and within minutes the color returned to Mac’s face—all this while his newborn son was off being weighed and washed and swaddled in a soft, hospital-issue blanket. JT remembered how he had almost wanted to kiss the floor of the delivery room: for things could have turned on a dime, and yet in the end he had a happy wife and a fat squalling baby boy to take home.
And he looked at his surroundings here—the beach littered with all their equipment, the coffee-colored river, the band of cliffs, a hot white sun overhead—and wondered just what they were going to do if Amy’s baby decided it was going to go ahead and rush itself out into the world before a helicopter could get here.
“Has her water broken?” Lloyd asked.
“I don’t know. Have you ever delivered a baby, Lloyd?”
“On the reservation, I delivered a set of twins. But I might be a little rusty,” he said.
“Don’t be rusty, Lloyd,” JT told him.
“Don’t sue me,” Lloyd replied.
And JT marveled at the human brain, that it could become so entangled with the plaquey ropes of Alzheimer’s, yet still find a clear line to a quick, snappy retort.
By now a makeshift trauma station was taking shape on the beach. Using stakes and rope and a triangular nylon tarp, Dixie and Evelyn and the boys had constructed an open-air tent that provided both shade and ventilation. Mitchell had lugged one of the five-gallon water jugs over and set it in the shade, and Evelyn, in between helping Dixie with the tarp, had managed to find the unopened twelve-pack of cotton bandannas that she’d stashed in the bottom of her overnight bag.
In the meantime, another party had pulled in, and a motley crowd had gathered outside the tarp area—young strappy guides, lizard-skinned oldsters, throngs of passengers in their clownish rubber-toed sandals. And the kayakers, all of them. Unless there was a doctor, JT didn’t really want an audience, so he designated Mitchell to shoo everyone away.
“Tell them if we need any help, we’ll ask for it.” He was annoyed, even though he knew he had no reason to be. Anyone would be curious; anyone would want to help.
“What should I say?” said Mitchell.
Do you tell a crowd of strangers that a seventeen-year-old girl who didn’t even know she was pregnant was going into labor? This question had never arisen before.
“Find out if there’s a doctor,” he told Mitchell.
Mitchell marched out into the sunshine and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Is there an obstetrician in the house?”
JT groaned inwardly.
“Well, now they know,” Peter said.
There had been several times during the course of this trip that JT would have said that he was nearing the end of his rope. Back at Phantom, watching Blender get swept beneath the footbridge. Or two nights ago at Upset, when Mitchell and the dog went somersaulting down the hill.
Now it seemed that the rope had no end, that it was just a long series of knots and tangles, a kind of Jacobs ladder into a bottomless hole. It had no meaning, being at the end of one’s rope; you were either on it or off; nothing much mattered, except keeping everyone alive. And he flashed on Mac once again, because Mac was one of those people who could always find another rope to grab, when all else failed.
They had once made such a good pair, JT thought. And he felt a sudden stab of grief, to think that his marriage hadn’t worked, that all his years on the river had passed without the one sweet love of his life by his side.
But obviously he couldn’t focus on Mac right now. Sitting back on his heels, he took a long drink of water from his Tropicana jug. At the same time, Susan returned with Amy’s water bottle. She hovered near the circle of people, not sure of herself. JT moved aside to make room for her.
Lloyd was in the process of taking Amy’s pulse. “One hundred and ten,” he called over his shoulder.
“Somebody write that down,” said JT.
Evelyn promptly recorded the number in her journal, and Amy began making little rocking movements with her hips.
“Here we go again,” Lloyd announced.
“Note the time,” JT told Evelyn.
Susan held one hand, Jill the other, while Peter, who was stationed by her feet, gripped her ankles.