One Bright Morning (14 page)

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Stole her, Ferrett. Like
the miserable thief he was.”

“
Yes, sir.”

Mulrooney’s glared transferred itself once
again to the window and his fat finger resumed its tapping.

“
Marianna claimed she didn’t
want to marry me,” Mulrooney commented.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Said she wanted to marry
Benjamin Green, of all people. My partner! Usurping
villain.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Said she wouldn’t have
married me even if Benjamin Green wasn’t around. Said I was
unpleasant to be around. Me! Unpleasant! Can you feature that,
Ferrett?”

“
Yes, sir.”

Ferrett looked startled when his boss’s head
whipped around and he found himself withering under the furious
scowl of Prometheus Mulrooney once more. Then he realized what he
had just said, and stammered out a quick, “I mean, no, sir. No,
sir, I certainly can’t.”

Mulrooney’s piggy eyes stayed squinched-up
and he glared at Ferrett for another few seconds, until the
secretary thought for sure he was going to disgrace himself and wet
his drawers. Fortunately, Mulrooney’s glare transformed from one of
fury to one of contempt once more before that happened. Ferrett
sighed with relief. He was accustomed to contempt.

“
Miserable twit,” said
Mulrooney at him.

“
Yes, sir,” Ferrett
agreed.

“
It was twaddle, of course,”
Mulrooney continued. “Marianna was a silly girl and didn’t know her
own mind. I explained that to her, but she wouldn’t
listen.”

“
No, sir,” said Ferrett,
sure of his ground again.

“
The foolish girl married
Benjamin Green anyway.”

“
Yes, sir.”

A slithery smile again took possession of
Prometheus Mulrooney’s face. “But I got them,” he said softly.

Ferrett shuddered.

“
Yes, sir,” he said. His
voice shook.

“
They left New York for
Texas. Took the profits Green had made with me and bought himself a
spread near El Paso.” Mulrooney stopped talking and his smile
broadened, as if relishing a cherished memory.

Ferrett didn’t say anything.

“
They forgot all about me,”
Mulrooney continued, his voice dreamy.

“
Yes, sir,” Ferrett
whispered.

Mulrooney turned to glare at his secretary
again.

“
Shut up, you foul,
disgusting frog,” he said.

“
Yes, sir,” said Ferrett,
and clamped his teeth together.

“
I didn’t forget about them,
though,” Mulrooney continued, his smile having returned once his
reminiscences resumed. “I got them, Ferrett.”

Mulrooney paused. Ferrett remained silent.
Mulrooney turned and his fists crashed down upon his desk.

Again, Ferrett jumped. His eyes nearly
bugged out of his head.

“
Are you listening to me,
you absurd excuse for a human being?” roared Mulrooney.

“
Yes, sir,” Ferrett
whimpered.

“
I said, ‘I got them,’”
Mulrooney repeated, glaring at Ferrett, who looked very much as
though he might faint.

“
Yes, sir,” he
squeaked.

Mulrooney sat back in his chair again. “I
waited until they were established and happily ensconced in their
little kingdom, and then I went after them, Ferrett. Through my
agent in Texas, I began to buy up all the land around them. They
didn’t know my plan. They didn’t know it was me.” He chuckled in
satisfaction.

Ferrett swallowed. “Yes, sir,” came out
feebly.

“
I toyed with them at first.
Diverted water. Poisoned cattle. I wanted them to
suffer.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
But that got boring.
Besides,” Mulrooney said querulously, “that dratted Green was
smart. He figured out what was happening and intervened. Every
single time. Damn his soul to hell.” Mulrooney’s furious glower was
still directed at the window, a fact that Ferrett
appreciated.

Then Mulrooney heaved a sigh that was as fat
as his body.

“
So I killed them,” he said
simply, as if that made perfect sense.

“
Yes, sir.” Ferrett’s tiny
whisper barely left his lips before it died.

“
But by that time they had
sons,” Mulrooney said as though the Greens’ sons were a personal
affront to his dignity.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
But I’ll get them, too,
Ferrett,” Mulrooney said with a fat smile. “Already got one of
them.” He sounded downright cheerful about that.

“
I’ve dedicated my life to
this pursuit, Ferrett,” he murmured, as though he were talking to
himself. “They took away my happiness. She gave my sons to that
usurping criminal Benjamin Green. They should have been mine, those
sons, Ferrett. They should have been mine.”

Mulrooney had turned to face Ferrett again,
and both his intense smile and his tiny, protuberant eyes held the
fervor of a crazed fanatic. Ferrett trembled.

Mulrooney’s smile faded and he glared at his
underling once again.

“
Get my agent, Ferrett. He’s
got to contact my man in Amarillo.”

“
Yes, sir,” said Ferrett. He
waited for further instructions.

Mulrooney continued to glare at him.

Ferrett continued to wait.

Mulrooney’s bellow hit Ferrett full in the
face and backed him clear across the floor to slam up against the
wall.

“
Go, you
imbecile!”

Ferrett didn’t waste time on another “Yes,
sir,” before he opened the door and raced to do his master’s
bidding.

Mulrooney’s agent was every bit as terrified
as Ferrett of Mulrooney. His name was Pelch.

As Ferrett took Pelch up the stairs to their
employers’ office, the two men commiserated with each other.

“
He’s in a rare mood today,
Mr. Pelch,” said Ferrett.

“
Ain’t he always,” muttered
Pelch.

Ferrett sighed out a, “That’s so.”

When the two men got to Mulrooney’s office
door, they both had to steel their nerves before Ferrett dared
venture a small, clickety knock upon the varnished mahogany.
Ferrett and Pelch both winced as Mulrooney’s screamed, “Get in
here, you idiotic fools!”

Nobody ever left Mulrooney’s employ
voluntarily. Mulrooney would occasionally fire people, but nobody
ever left voluntarily. It was either stay and take his abuse or be
fired. People who tried to quit invariably seemed to meet with
unfortunate accidents. Mulrooney didn’t like quitters. Neither
Ferrett nor Pelch dared even try to quit.

Ferrett hovered outside the office door for
poor Pelch to emerge. The two men often tried to bolster each
other’s lacerated spirits, although it was a useless task.

Pelch’s eyes were downcast when he finally
emerged from Mulrooney’s office. Ferrett patted him on the shoulder
in a gesture of consolation.

The sigh that Pelch heaved seemed to have
been torn from an exhausted soul. He looked as though he wanted to
cry as he peered sadly at Ferrett.

“
How many does this make,
Mr. Ferrett?” he whispered miserably.

Ferrett gave a disconsolate shake of his
head. “I’ve lost count,” he admitted.

Pelch shuddered. “I’m no better than a
murderer,” he murmured.

Ferrett patted his shoulder once more. “It’s
not your fault,” he consoled.

Pelch didn’t look convinced. He jerked his
head toward the top of the staircase. “That man’s the devil,” he
whispered.

Ferrett cast a frightened-rabbit look up the
stairs. “That he is,” he whispered back.

The two men scurried away to do their
master’s bidding.

# # #

Maggie felt as though she had died and gone
to heaven during the next few weeks.

All danger had passed, at least momentarily,
and Dan Blue Gully and Four Toes Smith spent their days helping out
around the house since they didn’t need to be protecting themselves
and her from murderers. They repaired broken door hinges, fortified
stalls in the barn, fixed the wagon axle that Ozzie Plumb had been
meaning to get around to fixing for six months now, and Four Toes
even put up a fence around the little cabin’s yard.

Even her monthlies held no terror for
Maggie, now that she had Dan Blue Gully’s magic bark to cure her
headaches.

“
Maybe I can whine about
cramps along with Sadie now,” she giggled to herself. Maggie had
often thought she’d trade her shattering, debilitating headaches
for cramps any day.

Annie and Four Toes had taken a strong
liking to each other, and the young Indian spent hours playing with
the little girl, a circumstance that freed Maggie’s time up
amazingly. Besides the building-brick set, Four Toes fashioned
wooden toys for her. Annie loved playing with her carved horses,
cows, mountain lions, and coyotes. He told the little girl
wonderful, fanciful stories about the animals as they played.

Four Toes told Maggie he put up the fence
for Annie, so that she wouldn’t wander away and get lost in the
woods, and Maggie knew she would be eternally grateful to him for
that alone. She had worried about what she was going to do when
Annie began to walk around on her own. The possibilities, from the
creek to wild animals to roving criminals, scared her.

“
You like flowers, ma’am?”
Four Toes asked Maggie one day after he had finished installing a
gate to the split-rail fence he had erected.

Maggie had been hanging out the wash. The
weather was getting on towards spring, and it was safe to hang wash
out-of-doors once more without fear of it freezing on the line.

“
I love flowers,” she
sighed. “I’d like to have me a flower garden someday when I have
time to tend it.”

Four Toes said, “Well, you got time now,
ma’am. I can dig you a little border along the fence here. Then we
can get you some seeds next time we go to the mercantile in
town.”

Maggie’s eyes, no longer sunken inside a sea
of black rings, got big with wonder.

“
Oh,” she breathed. “Do you
mean it?”

“
Sure,” said Four Toes, as
if he were surprised at her doubt. “A few hollyhocks. Maybe some
cosmos.”

Maggie’s smile could have warmed the coldest
winter day. “Thank you, Mr. Smith,” she said softly. “Thank you so
very much.”

Four Toes dug the toe of his boot into the
soft earth. “It ain’t nothin’, ma’am. You’re two ladies here.
Ladies like flowers,” he said bashfully.

Maggie glowed at him and went back to
hanging her wash with a song in her heart. She was going to have a
flower garden. She couldn’t believe it.

The song in Maggie’s heart didn’t take long
to work its way out into the open. From his invalid’s bed, Jubal
Green heard her pretty voice raised in tune. She was singing “Annie
Laurie” as she hung out the wash, and Jubal lay on his back and
fretted. He felt left out.

Since he had never felt a need to belong to
anything, Jubal had never felt left out before. He didn’t
understand the strange longing he felt of wanting to be a part of
the odd little family that had been created around him. He chalked
it up to his injury and it irritated him.

When Maggie came in to give him his lunch,
he was scowling.

“
Oh, my, Mr. Green, you look
fierce. Are your wounds hurting you?”

Maggie was concerned, although she had mixed
emotions about both Jubal Green and his injuries. On the one hand,
she certainly wanted him to get better. On the other hand, he was a
difficult patient. Not only that, but she was afraid that when he
got better, he and his two Indian friends would go away again.
Since Maggie had not only got used to them but liked having them
around her, she didn’t even want to think about what life would be
like when they all went away and left her.

Jubal frowned at her. “They’re not too bad.”
He sounded very grumpy.

Maggie set his soup and corn bread on the
table beside the bed and helped him to sit up. That remained a
painful process yet, and Jubal grunted. He still looked unhappy
when he was sitting up. Maggie stood back and peered at him
critically, as if to assess the state of his health.

“
Are you sure you’re not
hurting, Mr. Green? You don’t look so good.”

“
I’m all right.” He was a
little mollified since she seemed to be concerned about
him.

“
Well,” said Maggie, “Let me
help you eat this soup and corn bread, Mr. Green. Maybe that will
make you feel better.”

Jubal grumbled his assent, and Maggie sat
down next to the bed and helped him eat. His sour mood didn’t
bother her much since she figured he’d earned it. Her aunt used to
be in a perpetual snit and with much less reason; Maggie was used
to dealing with moody people.

“
Nobody’s ever had to help
me eat before,” said Jubal, as if to assure Maggie that he wasn’t
normally helpless. He still couldn’t use his right hand to lift
anything, so somebody had to help him eat things like soup that
spilled easily.

Maggie’s soft laugh caressed his ears and
made his insides puddle up into a pool of slop.

“
I’m sure that’s so, Mr.
Green. I don’t suppose you get shot up regular like or
anything.”

She was concentrating on not spilling his
soup as she filled his spoon, so she didn’t notice the way his eyes
were examining her.

Jubal liked the way she looked. He also
liked the way she made him feel.