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He won’t stop crying.
She’s tried everything – she fed him not long ago, checked his diaper, made sure he wasn’t too hot or too cold, played with him, put him down for a nap, picked him up, sang to him, rocked him, played with him again, swaddled him, took off all his clothes so he could flail his little limbs without restriction, tried feeding him again...
But nothing’s working, and he just won’t. Stop. Crying. Face scrunched up and red, screaming his little lungs out – she doesn’t know how such a small thing can be so loud, or how he still has the energy – the wailing is a full-body effort, kicking legs and beating tiny fists. Lord knows, she’s exhausted, and she’s well aware of all the filthy looks the others have been casting her way – she don’t blame them, it’s getting near midnight.
“Jack, Jackie honey, it’s okay, come on, hush now...” she croons, hoping he won’t detect the tremble in her voice. She bounces him on her knee, casting another helpless glance across the dark camp. But none of the folk she can usually rely on are around, either out on jobs or already passed out drunk – or pretending to be. Something like resent curdles in her stomach – funny how, despite all Dutch’s talk of family when he’d assured her she didn’t need to leave the gang, not many of Jack’s ‘aunts and uncles’ seem all that willing to help care for the boy once the sun’s gone down.
Or maybe the feeling is just hunger pangs – she’d spent so long walking Jack in endless circles around the camp, half asleep herself, she hadn’t heard or even noticed the call for dinner like the others. And seems no one thought to save her a bowl. Not even John.
She sniffs hard, once – Lord knows she’s cried enough tears over that fool already. The sound seems to startle Jack, and he pauses, blinking up at her with those beautiful big brown eyes. The sudden quiet makes her ears ring.
“Hey, darlin’,” she whispers, trying not to sound so desperately hopeful. “How about we go to sleep now, huh?”
His little face crumples, and as he starts up wailing again, it’s all she can do to not do the same.
“Abigail?”
Startled, she automatically clutches Jack closer as a figure blocks out the light coming through the opening to her tent. It’s John – and she wishes the dark look on his face was just a trick of the shadows.
“Could you uh, do something about that?” he asks, gesturing at their baby. “We’re meant to be riding out at first light to meet with Hosea...”
Abigail can’t help but splutter in disbelief, though really, she should know better by now.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think of ‘doing something’, I just been sitting here filing my nails all evening while you lot sat around drinking!” she snaps. She regrets it immediately – not because of the sour look John gives her, but because Jack picks up on her anger and shrieks.
“Jesus...” John huffs. Abigail clenches her jaw and lets her eyes squeeze shut for no more than three seconds. She will not let this man see her cry. Not again.
“John, please.”
But she’s so tired.
“What?”
“Just, help me.”
“But I don’t-” There he goes again – arms folding, lips twisting into a scowl, turning his body away from her. Same as he had when she gave him the news all those months ago, though it feels like years. “I told you, I don’t know nothing about- Why do I gotta-”
“Because he’s your son too!” she wants to scream. But she’s too exhausted to have this argument again, the same one they’ve been having since that day, and he gave her that scowl – one she’d never thought would be directed at her. Lord, she’d thought she was all grown up at seventeen, thought she knew all about men. Thought she’d finally found real love, the kind all the songs were about.
Damned, foolish, stupid girl.
“Just, take him a minute so I can grab some coffee,” she asks instead. Hates that she has to beg the man to hold his own son.
“But I don’t know how to-”
“Please, John. Just for a minute.”
John makes a face, reluctance in every movement as he steps forward and reaches down, like she’s asked him to take a dead skunk off her hands instead of a baby – their baby. He picks up Jack, tries to settle him in his arms, but his hold is all wrong.
And Jack howls.
“Christ alive woman, what are you doing to that baby, murdering it?!” someone shouts.
“Here’s hoping...”
She doesn’t know which tent the mutter comes from, but it’s enough to make her snatch her baby out of John’s awkward grasp and walk off into the forest with him, only stopping when she thinks they must be out of earshot of the camp.
John doesn’t follow.
Jack’s still squalling when she drops herself onto a fallen log.
“Please stop,” she begs, voice wavering. “Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry you’re stuck with me, I’m sorry you haven’t got a better mother who knows how to look after you, I’m sorry that this is what I’ve brought you into, but, please, just for one night, please help me, just, please...”
If anything, he cries harder, and Abigail can’t help her own sob, the tears she’d fought so hard against falling now there’s no one to see.
Perhaps that old preacher was right when he declared, after paying for her services, that she needed to repent to God lest she end up in Hell for her filthy ways. She always thought judgement was meant to come after you died, but perhaps her sentence has come early. Perhaps Hell is sitting in the dark, every cry tearing her heart into smaller and smaller pieces. Perhaps Hell is letting yourself believe you’ve finally found a family and all the love that’s meant to come with it, only to feel more alone than ever before.
She loves Jack. Loves him with a tenderness and a fierceness she didn’t know was possible. And yet, even with him here in her arms, she’s never been so lonely.
She doesn’t know how long they both weep in the dark – could be minutes, could be hours. Time’s become fairly meaningless, numbers on a pocket watch replaced by feeding time and nap time and diaper-changing time, and she’s been getting that same feeling she used to back in her working days – like she’s not really there, in her body, but watching herself from above, wondering how she ended up here.
Then a twig cracks like a gunshot, and she’s snapped back to her senses.
She clutches Jack close, scrambling to her feet. Realises, heart climbing into her throat, that she’s taken her baby far from camp, without so much as a knife to defend them with, and only moonlight to see by. She twists her body, putting herself between Jack and whatever it is rustling around in the dark undergrowth – and she can tell it’s big, and it’s getting closer, louder, she nearly screams-
-and then a mass of red fur comes bounding out of the bushes towards them.
“Copper!” She laughs in relief. Not just because it’s not some wild animal coming to eat them, but because Copper and Jack adore each other. Maybe the big coonhound will succeed where she’s failed.
And it means Arthur’s back.
Copper wuffs at her in greeting as he skids to a halt and sits expectantly at her feet, tail wagging so hard he quickly clears a bare patch of earth in the leaf litter behind him.
“Hey, boy!” she says, settling herself back on the log and giving him a pet. She squints into the trees behind him, but there’s no sign of Arthur, though he can’t be too far behind. “I’ve missed you! And so has my little puppy. Hey, you think you can cheer him up for me?”
She lowers Jack a little so the dog can get close. From the day she and Arthur had carefully introduced them, Copper has been obsessed with Jack – the big hound taking up near-round the clock guard duty when he’s not out with Arthur, sitting close by to the baby and staring with apparent fascination. She’d been a little nervous at first – Copper didn’t seem to have a vicious bone in his body, but he was still a big dog who didn’t seem to realise he was no longer a puppy himself.
The first time she’d heard him growl, she had left him alone with Jack – just for a moment, just to quickly get a cup of water. She, and half the gang, had never sprinted so fast across the camp to her tent. Only to find Copper, hackles raised and snarling like a hellhound, planted firmly between Jack’s basket and a rearing snake.
Now, there aren’t many she feels safer leaving Jack alone with.
Copper cocks his head, then presses his nose against Jack’s cheek, tail still wagging. Jack stops for a second in surprise – but then starts up crying again. Copper whines in distress, tail drooping, along with Abigail’s sense of hope...
“Heh, I know you was worried about him growin’ up in campfire smoke, but I don’t reckon it’s done any harm to his lungs!”
She hopes her relief at the familiar drawl doesn’t show too much on her face.
“Sure don’t seem like it,” she calls tiredly to the figure emerging from the undergrowth. Arthur gives her a smile – but it quickly falls.
“What you doin’ all the way out here?”
“I, just...”
She gestures helplessly at bawling infant in her lap.
“Aww, what’s the problem, little fella?” Arthur scoops the baby out of her arms without hesitation, resting him against his shoulder, apparently not minding having the screaming right next to his ear. Abigail takes the chance to rake her fingers through her hair, pulling a face at how greasy it feels. Lord, how many days has it been since she had a proper wash?
“I don’t know,” she sighs, resting her forehead in her hands. “I’ve tried everything. He ain’t hungry, his diaper don’t need changing, but he won’t sleep, nothing I do seems to- he just... He’s so unhappy, and I don’t know why...”
“Well, that ain’t good, is it? What’s gotten you all wound up, hmm?” Arthur says, more to Jack then her – maybe too focused on the baby to notice how her voice came out closer to a whimper near the end, or maybe just pretending to be to spare whatever’s left of her pride. Either way, she’s grateful.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admits softly.
Arthur spares her a glance, then focuses back on Jack.
“So, nothin’ in or out?” he asks.
“No. And he’s too young to be teething...”
“Hmm.” Arthur shifts his hold on Jack a little and starts rubbing the boy’s back firmly.
“I did that already,” Abigail says, trying not to sound petulant.
“I’m sure you did, just wanna see something...”
Arthur carries on stroking Jack’s back like that, and amazingly, after a few minutes, the babe quietens down.
“There we go.” Arthur grins at her astonished staring.
“How did you...?”
Jack makes a funny burbling sound, coos in delight – then promptly sicks up all over Arthur’s shoulder and back. Abigail’s astonishment turns to mortification.
“Oh- oh my Lord, Mr. Morgan I am so sorry!”
Arthur makes a face, but doesn’t tear Jack away from himself in disgust – just switches him over to the other shoulder, patting his back.
“Aw, don’t be. My own fault – I was kinda expectin’ that to happen, shoulda got a rag or somethin’ first. And how many times I gotta tell ya? Just call me Arthur.”
He doesn’t seem to care that he’s got half-digested milk running down his back, seeping through his shirt.
“Babies got sensitive stomachs,” he continues, “sometimes they just get set off for no reason – so don’t you worry about doin’ somethin’ wrong.”
Calms the fear she didn’t even speak aloud.
“I... thank you, Mr.- Arthur, I...” she shakes her head in disbelief. “How did you know?”
Arthur doesn’t reply, just shrugs the shoulder Jack isn’t resting on. The one that’s covered in sick. Abigail gives herself a shake.
“Let me-, no, I can go- do you want me to-”
“Hold him for a minute? Yes please.”
Cheeks burning at how flustered she sounds compared to his calmness, she reaches out, takes Jack while Arthur peels his shirt off.
“I’m real sorry,” she says again, grimacing.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it – this shirt was due a wash anyway. Though, you mind grabbing me another one? I walk through camp like this, I won’t hear the end of it from the Callanders for at least a month. Here, I’ll hold him.”
He takes Jack back before she can even think to protest he’s done enough already – even wipes his little chin with a clean part of his shirt. Abigail just nods dumbly and goes off to his tent to fetch him a new one – grabs a rag and a washbowl while she’s at it, topping it up with hot water left in the jug by the fire. But she pauses as she reaches the edge of the clearing.
Arthur’s perched on the log, cradling little Jack and talking to him softly, while Copper sits with his head on Arthur’s knee, gazing up at Jack adoringly. Unlike most of the other men in camp, Arthur seems to value his modesty – rarely stepping out of his tent bare-chested, and quickly retreating back inside to a chorus of catcalls whenever he does. But he’s always been real big and intimidating, and now she can see his chest is littered with scars (more than one looks like it might be from a bullet wound) and his hands are huge in comparison to the tiny little baby and – well, it’s a sight.
She’s seen a lot of fellas in various states of undress, with all sorts of opinions and hang-ups over their own damn bodies. She wonders if Arthur genuinely doesn’t realise Mac and Davey’s teasing comes from jealousy.
“All right there?” he asks in a normal voice, glancing her way. She realises she’s staring, tries to laugh it off.
“Just enjoying seeing Mr. Big Mean Outlaw tell stories about bunny rabbits.”
“Heh, well I’d tell you some more, but Mr. Big Mean Outlaw has to go talk to Dutch.”
“Oh, right – sorry, I should’ve-”
“You’re doin’ fine, Abigail.”
Again with the words she didn’t even know she needed to hear. She swallows, mutely takes Jack off him, rocks the baby gently while Arthur gets himself cleaned up and shrugs the shirt on.
“Thank you, Arthur. Really.”
He glances up from doing the buttons, gives her a gentle smile.
“Don’t mention it, kid. And uh, he’ll probably be hungry again soon, ‘fraid to say. Won’t you, little man? Gotta get you big and strong so your poor mama can have a break!” He tickles Jack’s stomach with a finger, making him squeal in delight. Abigail makes a noise that’s halfway between a laugh and sigh before she can stop herself. Arthur glances up at her.
“You okay?”
“I- I’m fine.” But he keeps looking at her with that gentle concern – and good Lord, she’s so tired. So she lets herself sigh properly.
“I am fine now, thanks to you. Really. I just... just wish John would be half the father you seem to be.”
She expects a sad silence, or some joking-bordering-on-mean comment about John’s parenting skills.
She doesn’t expect the bitter laugh.
“No, Miss Roberts, believe me – you really don’t.”
He’s off into the dark of the night before she can ask him what he means.