Chapter 13 - The Longest Night of Jasper Cain’s Life
Ellie went into labor during a snowstorm.
Jasper considered this deeply unfair.
“Of course it’s snowing.”
Ellie gripped the bedframe.
“Jasper.”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rose laughed from across the room.
Ellie glared at her.
“You too.”
Hours passed.
Then more.
The labor became difficult.
Ellie knew enough medicine to recognize the danger.
That knowledge made fear worse.
A midwife from Copper Falls worked beside her.
Jasper waited outside because Ellie finally threatened bodily harm if he continued asking whether she was all right every thirty seconds.
Then he heard her scream.
Every memory returned.
Blood.
Cabins.
Death.
People disappearing.
He stood.
Rose blocked the door.
“No.”
“I need to go in.”
“You’ll be in the way.”
“She needs me.”
“She needs you to trust her.”
Jasper stared at the door.
Trust.
The hardest thing he had ever learned.
Inside, Ellie fought.
Outside, Jasper waited.
Near dawn, silence fell.
He stopped breathing.
Then—
A baby cried.
Jasper’s knees buckled.
Rose caught him.
“You mountain men are remarkably dramatic.”
He laughed through tears.
The midwife opened the door.
“Come meet your daughter.”
Jasper entered.
Ellie lay exhausted against the pillows.
A tiny bundle rested against her chest.
He approached as though walking toward something sacred.
“She’s so small.”
Ellie smiled weakly.
“Most babies are.”
“Is she supposed to be that small?”
“Jasper.”
“Right.”
He sat.
Ellie placed the baby in his arms.
He froze.
“What do I do?”
“Hold her.”
“How?”
“Like she matters.”
Jasper looked down.
The baby opened dark blue eyes.
Something inside him shattered and rebuilt itself.
“Hello,” he whispered.
Ellie watched him.
“What should we name her?”
Jasper thought.
“Mary.”
Ellie understood immediately.
His mother.
“Mary Rose Cain.”
Rose sniffed.
“I approve.”
Life changed.
Sleep disappeared.
Laundry multiplied mysteriously.
Jasper discovered that grizzly bears were less intimidating than crying infants.
Ellie discovered that being a nurse offered surprisingly little protection against worrying about every sound her own child made.
Mary grew.
At two, she followed Jasper everywhere.
At four, she began carrying a toy medical bag behind Ellie.
At six, she announced she intended to become both a nurse and a bear hunter.
Jasper blamed Ellie for the first ambition.
Ellie blamed Jasper for the second.
Their home became loud.
Warm.
Crowded.
Exactly what neither had dared imagine.
One evening Mary asked, “Papa, how did you meet Mama?”
Jasper looked at Ellie.
“Oh, that’s a story.”
Ellie groaned.
“He exaggerates.”
“I was dying.”
“Accurate.”
“A beautiful angel crossed a mountain—”
“You called me that because you had a fever.”
“I stand by it.”
Mary’s eyes widened.
“Then what?”
Jasper smiled at Ellie.
“I asked her not to leave.”
Mary turned to her mother.
“Did you?”
Ellie shook her head.
“No.”
“Why?”
Ellie considered.
“Because sometimes staying changes two lives instead of one.”
Mary seemed satisfied.
But life, even happy life, continued bringing pain.
When Mary was seven, Samuel Mercer died peacefully in his sleep.
Jasper buried his oldest friend on a hill overlooking Black Pine Creek.
At the funeral, he stood silently.
Ellie held his hand.
“He brought you to me,” Jasper said.
“Yes.”
“I never thanked him enough.”
“He knew.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
Jasper looked toward the mountains.
Samuel had once ridden through a blizzard because a dying man needed help.
One choice.
One journey.
An entire future followed.
After the funeral, Jasper found Samuel’s old journal.
Inside the final pages was an entry about the night he went to Copper Falls.
Everyone said Nurse Caldwell couldn’t make the mountain.
Samuel had written one more line beneath it.
They didn’t know Eleanor Caldwell.
Jasper laughed through his tears.
Years later, that sentence would be carved above the entrance of Ellie’s nursing school.
But before that happened, Copper Falls would face one final crisis.
A crisis that would force Ellie to confront the man who had once told an entire room she was unfit to save anyone.
May you like
Sheriff Harlan himself.
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