The Midwife And The Lawman

But not if she stayed in the damp and dirt of the abandoned mine.

Maria needed more than a fever reducer and a few ounces of liquid. She needed to be warm and safe. She needed to be where Devon could administer antibiotics if she needed them. “Jesse, your sister needs to be away from this place. Both of your sisters. And you need food and rest, too. Isn’t there someone I can contact to come and help you?” She felt like an idiot as she spoke. Would these children be in the situation she’d found them in if there was anyone who could care for them?

“We have no one,” Jesse said flatly. He looked more like an old man than a young boy. His dark eyes were sunken into his head, a faint stubble of beard shadowed his chin, and deep lines bracketed the corners of his mouth. “They sent our mother back to Mexico. She died there.”

They, Devon deduced, meant the INS, la migra. “How did you get here?”

“We have a truck,” Maria piped up. “But it’s broken.” She pointed in the direction of one of the ruined buildings near the mine shaft.

“¡Silencio!” Jesse hissed.

Maria began to sniffle and hung her head. Devon put her arms around her thin shoulders and gave her a reassuring hug.

“Just leave us some of the pills for Maria’s fever and go away,” the boy said, hostile once more. “We’ll be fine.”

“I can’t do that. Maria is too ill. She could develop pneumonia. You know what pneumonia is, don’t you?”

His head came up. “Of course I do.”

“Let me take Maria to my house and care for her.” Devon tightened her embrace of the child. “She needs rest and care. You all do. Come with me.”

“No. Like I said, just give us some of those pills and you’ll never see us again.”

“What about Sylvia? A few pills won’t help her when she has her baby.” Devon was at a loss for any other way to break through his resistance.

Sylvia looked stricken at the mention of her pregnancy. She crossed her hands over her belly, not in the instinctive, protective contact with her unborn child that was common to women the world around, but in shame and misery. Sylvia’s child was not wanted, had probably been conceived in ignorance or even fear. Had she been raped? Devon hoped with all her heart she had not. Teenage births, especially without prenatal care, could be dangerous for mother and child under the best of circumstances. If the pregnancy was a source of misery and fear compounded by neglect and malnutrition, the outcome could be tragic.

Devon made up her mind. There was no way in the world she was going to leave the ghost town without the children. But if she made any attempt to contact the clinic or Miguel, they would overhear and probably take off running. She had no doubt they’d been hiding in Silverton long enough to have staked out a number of hidey-holes. The ghost town didn’t draw a lot of visitors, but it wasn’t totally isolated. To remain undetected for any length of time, they had to have been clever and resourceful.

And if she left with the children and then contacted the authorities, what would become of them? Would they be separated? Deported? Or left to the system of overworked, underfunded advocates for whom they would be just one more set of statistics when all was said and done? She made and held eye contact with Jesse’s suspicious gaze. “If you come with me, I won’t speak a word to anyone about the three of you.” She had nothing to convince him of her sincerity but her words.

Suddenly her radio came to life. “This is Birth Place base to unit two. Devon, are you there?”

She moved around the fender of the truck to answer Trish Linden’s query. In the side mirror she saw Jesse swing Maria up off the tailgate as Sylvia scooped up the sack of hard candy and the bottle of Tylenol.

She thumbed the toggle. “I’m here, Trish.” She broke the connection momentarily and held out her hand. “Wait, please.” Jesse had already carried his sister several yards back up the path to the mine, but Sylvia stopped at her plea. “Just for a moment.”

“Devon?”

“I’m still here, Trish. What’s up?” Devon hoped her voice sounded normal. Deliberately she turned her back on the three children, praying they wouldn’t run.

“Are you anywhere near Silverton?”

“I’m right in the middle of it.”

“That’s what I wanted to know. I’m going to patch you through to Chief Eiden. He wants to talk to you. I don’t do this very often,” Trish continued, “so if I screw up, just hang on, okay?”

Miguel couldn’t have picked a worse time to try to communicate with her. A series of clicks preceded the sound of his voice. “Devon, do you read me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“I thought you were going to stay away from Silverton.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“See anything odd up there?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” She turned to face Jesse and his sisters. The trio stood watching her with dark and suspicious eyes. At least Jesse and Sylvia were watching her that way. Maria had laid her head on her brother’s shoulder and looked half-asleep. The Tylenol was probably kicking in, reducing her fever enough to allow her to rest comfortably. It would only last a few hours and then the fever would be back, climbing and becoming dangerously high if she weakened any more from lack of food and water.

“I was going to drive up there, but there’s a report of a couple of lightning strikes over near Wolf Canyon I need to check out. Don’t want any fires getting out of hand around here.” Thunder rolled down the valley and echoed in the cracks and crevices of the mountain, adding urgency to his words.

“There’s no sign of anyone having been here lately.”

“Thanks, Devon. You’ve saved one of my guys some time, and wear and tear on the squad cars. Eiden out.”

“Did you copy all that, Devon?” It was Trish’s voice again, slightly distorted by background static.

“I got it all, thanks, Trish.”

“Thank goodness. I never quite know whether I’m doing it right,” Trish fussed. “I just wanted to tell you not to hurry back if you’re enjoying yourself. Your two-o’clock called and said her car has a dead battery. I rescheduled her for tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Trish. I’ll see you at three. Devon clear.” She released the toggle and put the radio receiver back in its clip on her visor.

“She called that guy you were talking to ‘Chief’,” Jesse said. “Does that mean he’s an Indian, not a cop?” His lip curled in a sneer. He tightened his arm around Maria. Sylvia began inching away again, moving farther up the path.

“He’s both actually,” Devon said.

“You lied to him about us.”

She nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Why’d you do that?”

Why had she done that? She hadn’t wanted to lie to Miguel. She wasn’t a deceitful person, and she valued honesty in others and in herself. But she didn’t regret her action. “I gave you my word,” she said.

Jesse held her gaze a few moments longer, then nodded. “We’ll go with you.”

DEVON RESTED HER HEAD against the glass of her bedroom window. It was very late, long after midnight. She was tired, but she couldn’t sleep. She looked down the mountain, noticing for the first time that if the branches of the trees outside her window moved just right, she could see a gleam of light from the direction of Miguel’s house. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?

He was up late, too, it seemed. Probably because he’d been on patrol around the country looking for signs of wildfire started by the thunderstorms that had rumbled through the valley, producing sound and fury, but not much rain.

She straightened and walked out into the main living area of the cabin. The room was small, but the soaring ceiling gave the illusion of space. Adjacent to her bedroom was a bathroom with both a shower and a tub and a stacked washer and dryer. She could hear the dryer humming away now. She might as well see if the load of towels was dry. She couldn’t sleep, anyway.

Next to the bathroom was an eat-in kitchen. She’d stopped by both the grocery and the minimart to stock up on food for the children. She hadn’t wanted to arouse suspicion where she usually shopped by buying too much food. The clerk would wonder why a woman who lived alone and ate Lean Cuisine more evenings than not would buy two gallons of milk, two dozen eggs and three loaves of bread. Her refrigerator was full for the first time since she’d moved into the place.

The dryer buzzed and she hurried to silence it. Above her, in the loft, the three children were sleeping, Jesse on an air mattress on the floor, the girls in the sleeper sofa beneath the window. After she’d broken radio contact with Miguel, she’d gone back to the mine with Jesse and his sisters and helped them pack their few belongings and carry them to the old stable where they’d hidden their truck.

But that was as far as she’d gotten. Jesse had refused to let her inside the badly listing building with its empty windowpanes and sagging roof, guessing correctly that she would see the license plate and use it to learn more about them.