The Other Brother Page 15

  “Yeah, I’m wondering about them, too. If he’s bringing in illegal aliens to work, why would he bring families with small children?”

  “Because he can take the children and hold them hostage, make the parents turn over all their pay. And he can sell the kids. Or rent them by the hour to perverts.”

  Melanie’s stomach churned.

  “They talk about this sort of exploitation all the time on the news.”

  “What are we going to do? We can’t just let him take them away and turn them into virtual slaves.”

  “They’re on your land. What do you want to do?”

  “Oh, great. Now you decide to let me make the decisions.”

  “If you’re asking what I’d do, I’d get them out of here so Bruno can’t find them. They’re obviously illegals. It’s not like he can complain to the cops, right?”

  “No, he can just break Daddy’s kneecaps.”

  “There is that.”

  “But not,” Melanie said thoughtfully, “if we complained to the cops.”

  “You mean turn these people over to Immigration?”

  Melanie swallowed. Of course, that was exactly what they should do. These poor people were in the U.S. illegally. Immigration would send them back to Mexico.

  She looked at them, at their wretched condition, at the wretched conditions they’d suffered to find new jobs to feed their families. Yet they would work for Bruno for years and never pay off their debt, never even come close to the great American dream. Bruno’s interest rates made credit card companies look like Santa Claus.

  “No,” Melanie said. “Not unless we have no choice. But there is such a thing as home invasion, and my home has definitely been invaded. Before we do anything, we need to move these people. Hide them.”

  “Where? Why?” Caleb asked.

  “We can hide them down at the hay barn,” she said. “As for why, because I’ll be damned if Bruno is going to use the Pruitt Ranch in his disgusting scheme.”

  Caleb smiled. “That’s my girl.”

  “Huh. In your dreams, pal.”

  “There, too. But we also have to think about your dad. We interfere in this, Bruno will take it out on him.”

  “I know.” She paced away, then back. “I know. Daddy went along with this to cancel out his debt.”

  “He went along with it to avoid getting his kneecaps broken. And maybe yours, too.”

  “I know, I know. But it’s not like Daddy can get police protection from his bookie.”

  “No, but Bruno’s not just going to go away. He lets your dad get away without paying and anybody hears about it, he loses his reputation, then his business.”

  “And I’d feel so sorry for him.”

  “Me, too. But nobody named Bruno is going to let that happen. He’s going to come after your dad, or you’re going to go out to the barn some morning and find another goon waiting out there.”

  Melanie threw her hands in the air. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

  “The only thing you can do. The only thing he’ll settle for. Pay him.”

  “I can’t afford it,” she cried.

  “Melanie.” He took her by the shoulders and held her still. “Are we friends?”

  “Not for much longer if you don’t get to the point.”

  “I can pay him.”

  “You cannot!”

  “I can, and if you won’t take it as a gift from one friend to another, you can pay me back later, whenever it’s convenient.”

  “Caleb!”

  “Melanie.”

  Melanie fought back a groan. “I can’t deal with this right now. Let’s just get these people out of here first. We’ll worry about Daddy and the money later.”

  Melanie explained the situation as best she could, while those who spoke English translated for the others.

  “The man, Bruno, who arranged to bring you here, is a bad man. He makes money off the misery of others. When he comes here in a little while he’s going to separate you into two or three groups. It’s possible he’ll separate husbands from wives, and there will be nothing you can do about it. It’s almost certain that he’ll take the children away from their parents.”

  After the translations, one woman hugged her daughter close and spoke a rapid stream of Spanish that was far beyond Melanie’s high-school-Spanish vocabulary.

  “She asks,” said the man who identified himself as Jorge, “why a man would do such a thing.”

  “Because he can, then force you to work even harder and give him every cent you earn. He’ll tell you it’s to take care of your children. He’ll make you do things you won’t want to do. If you don’t do what he wants, he’ll say you’ll never see your children again. Meanwhile he’ll be selling your children to other men, making them do things no child should ever have to do.”

  When Jorge translated, everyone spoke at once.

  “Hitting them pretty hard, aren’t you?” Caleb asked.

  “I want them to understand the kind of man they’re up against.”

  “You’re scaring them.”

  “I mean to.”

  One woman started to wail.

  “No.” Melanie grabbed Jorge’s arm. “Stop her. We have to keep quiet. Stop her now! They left a man, a lookout, just over the rise. We can’t let him know you’re out of the truck.”

  “Shh, shh,” Jorge said, followed by a fast stream of Spanish.

  The woman gasped and fell silent.

  “Thank you,” Melanie said. “The man on guard has a gun and I’d hate for him to come out here to investigate.”

  “A gun?”

  “That’s right. The other men who will come for you will have guns, too.”

  “What can we do? We came here to work, for our families. We want no trouble.”

  “We can hide you until the men leave.”

  Jorge looked around the empty pasture. “Hide us where?”

  She pointed west. “There’s a hay barn not far away. You’ll be safe there.”

  “The owner, he will not mind?”

  “This is my family’s ranch. I’m one of the owners.”

  Caleb stepped up. “If Bruno decides to look around, he could easily find them there. They’ll be safer on the Rose.”

  “Are you sure?” Melanie asked. “You don’t mind?”

  “What is this Rose?” Jorge asked.

  “It’s my ranch. The Cherokee Rose. You’ll be safer there. It’s not far, but if you’re all willing, we should get moving.”

  They were willing. Eager, even, to avoid the men with the guns who would come for them.

  Melanie led the way across the pasture and down along the fence. The Mexicans moved slowly; they were exhausted and hungry and had little strength left. The children staggered with fatigue. One woman was so weak she could barely walk and had to lean on her husband. Caleb brought up the rear.

  How was a man supposed to keep up with a woman like Melanie? Figuratively speaking. Much less understand her. A couple of days ago she’d been all hot under the collar thinking he’d been breaking the law by helping illegal aliens.

  Now look at her, he thought. Leading this group of ragtag refugees like Moses shepherding the Jews out of Egypt. Except Moses hadn’t had a flashlight.

  For this particular exodus, Caleb was grateful for the flashlights but wished they had a little more time. Or a little more speed. If Bruno and his men showed up and caught them out in the open, there was no telling what might happen.

  The woman just ahead stumbled again. Her husband was getting weaker, having more trouble carrying her weight.

  “Here,” Caleb offered. “Let me take her for a while so you can catch your breath.”

  “Oh, gracias, señor, but I am able to manage.” He straightened and adjusted his grip around his wife’s back. The woman let out a soft moan.

  Caleb fell back, but not too far, and followed, ready to leap forward and catch the woman if the man couldn’t hold her up.

  He figured they were anoth
er ten minutes away from their goal. Melanie hadn’t said so, but he knew she was taking them to the gate she and Caleb had installed the other day. Trying to get these people through the barbed-wire fence, children included, without someone getting sliced up, would be nearly impossible. The gate would be much easier.

  They finally reached the gate and made it through to the copse of blackjack trees on the Cherokee Rose on the other side. Caleb turned back to close the gate, and the woman who’d been having trouble let out a cry and sank to her knees.

  “Maria!” Her husband fell to his knees beside her.

  Caleb rushed over and dropped beside them. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the baby, señor.”

  “Baby? What baby?”

  “The one that is coming.”

  “Coming?” Caleb tried to swallow and couldn’t. Surely he’d heard wrong. “What do you mean, coming?”

  “What’s all the noise about?” Melanie elbowed her way through the crowd surrounding the downed trio. “What’s going on?”

  Caleb looked up at her. The sky was gone, blocked out by tree branches still thick with leaves. Why in the name of all that was holy had he not brought a cell phone? His was in the front seat of his pickup and Little Donnie might have spotted him retrieving it, but Melanie’s was in the pile of phones George had collected. Caleb’s only excuse for such a lapse was that he didn’t seem to think straight around Melanie these days. Didn’t seem to be able to think much at all around her.

  Now, here they were, out in the woods in the middle of the night with a baby on the way and no way to call for help.

  “Unless I miss my guess,” he answered Melanie, “we’re having a baby.”

  “Oh my God.” For a moment, Melanie’s mind simply went blank. She dealt with birth on a regular basis on the ranch, of course, but not human birth. “How long has she been having pains?”

  “I have no watch,” the man with her said. “But it has been since a long time before we stopped.”

  “Are you her husband?” Melanie asked.

  “Sí. I am Pedro Martinez. This is my wife Maria. This is our first baby.”

  “Maria, do you speak English?”

  “She does not,” Pedro said. “I am sorry.”

  Melanie looked over at Caleb. “How far are we from the house?”

  “About a half mile.”

  She swore under her breath. “Too far to carry her.”

  Maria cried out and arched her body against a contraction. When it subsided she spoke to her husband in halting Spanish.

  “She says the baby comes now.”

  “Oh, God. I don’t suppose anyone here knows about childbirth.” She looked up hopefully to the other three women.

  Two women immediately shook their heads. They each took a child, one a young girl, the other a boy, by the hand and backed away. The third woman waited for Jorge to translate, then answered him.

  “She says,” Jorge told Melanie, “that all she knows how to do is push one out. She does not know about the catching, but how hard can it be? That is her question, not mine, por favor.”

  “How hard can it be,” Melanie muttered, trying to bite back her sarcasm. “Pushing and catching. Here’s hoping it’s that simple.” Unless something went wrong, it should be that simple. Most births went smoothly, didn’t they?

  God, we could use a little help here.

  “I can get to the house and have help back here within twenty minutes,” Caleb said.

  Melanie shot him a desperate glare. “If you think you can leave me here alone and not suffer the consequences, think again. Before anybody goes anywhere, somebody needs to see how far along she really is.”

  Caleb took a step back and raised both hands. “Don’t look at me.”

  “Just like a man,” Melanie muttered. “Okay, first let’s make Maria comfortable. Caleb, give me your jacket.” She took off her own and used both jackets to create a makeshift bed for Maria. A hell of a place to have a baby, on the ground in the dark beneath the trees in a foreign land. In forty-degree weather. Fleeing from the likes of Bruno McGuire and his goons.

  If that weren’t bad enough, it seemed the height of indignity to Melanie for a woman to have some stranger shine a flashlight up her skirt, but there seemed to be no help for it. Maria appeared to be in serious labor and Melanie had to see if the baby was crowning yet.

  At least, she thought crowning was the word for what happened when the top of the baby’s head started putting in an appearance.

  And that was exactly what was happening underneath Maria’s torn and filthy skirt when Melanie looked.

  “I see the head,” Melanie said, hoping her voice was steadier than her nerves.

  Pedro squeezed his wife’s hand and translated.

  “Don’t push.”

  “¿Señora?”

  “Señorita,” Melanie corrected. “Tell Maria not to push. Not yet. Just pant through the pain. Don’t worry, Pedro, and tell Maria not to worry. Everything will be all right.” From her lips to God’s ears.

  While Pedro repeated her words to his wife Melanie prayed she was right. She could see the next contraction contorting Maria’s abdomen. “Breathe,” she told the woman. “Little breaths. Pant.” And she panted with her. And so did Pedro. And everyone else in the clearing.

  When the pain ebbed and Maria began to relax, the panting stopped and everyone looked around and laughed sheepishly.

  “She can’t be moved,” Melanie told Caleb. “It’s too late.”

  Caleb knelt beside her, but turned at an angle that would not allow him to see beneath Maria’s skirt. Melanie wondered whose modesty he was trying to preserve, Maria’s, or his own.

  “You seem to be okay with this,” he said. “Where’d you learn about childbirth?”

  “Never mind that.” She didn’t think anyone in the vicinity would appreciate hearing that everything she knew about childbirth she’d learned from the Discovery Health Channel.

  “Looks like you don’t need me. I should go to the house for help.”

  Melanie gripped his arm hard enough to cut off circulation in her fingers. “Don’t you dare leave me,” she hissed.

  Maria groaned with another contraction.

  “Pant,” Melanie reminded her. “Little breaths. Don’t push, don’t push. The head’s coming. Slowly, but it’s coming. Just let it come. There it is.” She held the baby’s head gently in her hands and beamed, her heart pounding ninety to nothing.

  Caleb’s gaze was drawn to Melanie’s hands against his will. He couldn’t help but stare in awe at all that dark hair on such a tiny head.

  Not, he thought, that Maria would consider it such a tiny head. Lord, what women had to go through to bring new life into the world.

  When Maria’s contraction eased, Melanie had Pedro sit behind his wife, propping her up to a semireclining position to help her push the child from her womb.

  “This time,” Melanie said, “when the next contraction comes, push as hard as you can. And don’t worry about being quiet. You tell her that, Pedro. Tell her she can scream as loud as she wants.”

  One of the other women spoke to Maria, and Maria answered, gesturing toward the cloth bundle she’d been carrying. The other woman opened the bundle and pulled out a small blanket.

  “For the baby,” Pedro said.

  Melanie smiled at him, and at Maria. “It’s lovely. You’ll be needing it in just a few minutes.” She handed her flashlight to the other woman and had her aim the beam between Maria’s thighs.

  Caleb felt the tension emanating from Melanie, but bless her, she didn’t let it show. Both her voice and manner were easy and calm. His admiration for this woman he’d known all his life rose to new heights.

  How many new things, he wondered, could a man learn about a woman he thought he knew?

  “Caleb?” Melanie said. “I need a hand here.”

  A hand? She had to be kidding. He followed her line of sight and felt his throat close. The umbilical cord was w
rapped around the baby’s neck.

  “I’ll hold his head up,” she said. “You slip the cord over it.”

  Caleb took a deep breath and felt a sense of calm settle over him that he had not felt in hours. Melanie needed him. This baby and its mother needed him. With a steady hand he slipped a finger beneath the cord and eased it up over the head. “There you go,” he said.

  “Thanks. Okay, here we go, Maria. Push hard.”

  Caleb stared in awe as Melanie held the baby’s head and a shoulder popped free. A moment later, accompanied by a strangled cry from Maria, the other shoulder emerged.

  “I could use another hand here,” Melanie said.

  Caleb leaned closer and put his hand beneath the baby’s shoulder while Melanie held the head. After that, the baby just seemed to slip right out into their waiting hands as if there had been no effort involved at all by anyone. It was the most miraculous sight Caleb had ever witnessed. He felt awed. Humbled. Exuberant.

  “It’s a girl,” Melanie whispered, her voice filled with the same reverence that Caleb felt.

  “Here.” Caleb gently ran a thumb and forefinger down the tiny nose to help clear out the mucus. He rolled the baby over in Melanie’s hands and tapped on her little back. The baby let out a small mewl of protest, then a loud, boisterous cry.

  The small clearing in the woods erupted with laughter and cheers.

  Caleb looked into Melanie’s eyes and felt a connection as deep as the one they’d shared when they’d made love.

  Then the baby squirmed and broke the moment.

  With a nervous laugh Melanie placed the baby on Maria’s belly and barely remembered the afterbirth in time to catch it when it came out a moment later. She tucked it up next to the baby and wrapped them both in the blanket Maria had brought for her newborn.

  “Here she is, Maria, Pedro. Your daughter. Do you realize she’s a U.S. citizen?”

  Pedro gasped. “Truly?”

  “Truly. Born in the U.S.A. Right here on the Cherokee Rose ranch in the middle of Oklahoma, the center of the whole country.”

  Quiet tears streamed down the new father’s face as he repeated this news in Spanish for his wife.

  Maria held her daughter against her, with Pedro’s arms around them both, and cried tears of joy and exhaustion.