One Bright Morning (19 page)

“
Oh, my God,” cried Maggie,
“What’s the matter?”

“
Better get down, Mrs.
Bright. Looks like Mulrooney’s people are back.”

Dan and Four Toes squatted in position
beside the windows of the little house. For the first time, Maggie
realized that her cozy home had been turned into a fortress.
Without her even being aware of what they’d been doing, the two
Indians had reinforced the windows, carved gunwales into the sills,
and added metal bolts to the doors.

“
Where’s Annie,” Four Toes
wanted to know.

“
She was on the bed
sleeping, but she probably isn’t anymore,” Maggie said, dashing to
the bedroom.

Sure enough, Annie was sitting up, knuckling
her eyes, and her little face was puckered up in preparation for a
good wail. She’d been frightened by the noises in the kitchen.
Maggie ran to the bed to pick her up. Jubal’s hand stopped her from
turning right around and rushing into Annie’s room.

“
What is it?” His voice
sounded gravelly with sleep.

“
Your friend Mr. Mulrooney’s
sent some more people to kill us,” Maggie told him. Right now she
was very angry with all of the men in her house for bringing this
danger to her door, and the emotion leaked into her
voice.

“
Shit.” Jubal still held
onto Maggie’s arm when he swung his legs over the side of the
bed.

When she saw his huge, hairy thighs,
Maggie’s eyes got big. Then she squeezed them tightly shut. “You’re
not supposed to get out of bed, Mr. Green,” she choked out. “You
promised.”

“
Yeah, I know I promised,
Mrs. Bright. But that was before Mulrooney’s men showed up. I get
dispensation when somebody’s trying to kill me.”

Jubal tugged on his britches. The magic bark
was still working, and his leg didn’t hurt too much. He limped over
to the chest against the wall and grabbed his guns.

Maggie was standing in the doorway, staring
at him, her insides roiling with fear, anger, and confusion. She
held her baby tightly. Annie’s chubby little legs straddled her
mama’s hips, and her fist was crammed into her mouth. Jubal strode
over to them with a little less of a limp.

“
The two of you stay here.
Get down. Sit beside the bed and don’t move.”

He had taken Maggie’s shoulders in his two
hands and he was squeezing her tight and looking at her with an
intensity Maggie’s startled brain couldn’t quite take in.

“
Maybe I can help you,” she
suggested in a strangled voice.

“
No!”

Jubal hollered the word and Maggie winced.
“Don’t yell at us,” she cried, her voice a tangy blend of fear and
anger.

“
I’m sorry,” he said, more
softly. “No. You can’t help. Just stay in here with your baby and
keep her safe. Don’t go anywhere, and stay down. Promise me,” he
demanded.

Maggie stared up at him and her brain
registered something akin to terror. She finally nodded, knowing
she’d just waste everybody’s time if she argued. Besides, Jubal was
right; she had to keep track of Annie.

Jubal nodded and started for the kitchen. He
stopped suddenly and jerked around. When he kissed Maggie hard on
the lips, she was too startled to respond. He was gone again in a
second, and she could only press her fingers to her lips and wonder
what that kiss had meant.

Gunfire erupted moments later, and then
Maggie was too busy being scared and furious and cradling her
daughter’s small head against her shoulder to wonder about anything
at all. She could hear Jubal, Dan, and Four Toes in the kitchen,
discussing tactics. Maggie didn’t know anything about tactics.

“
Oh, Lordy, Annie, I just
want all of those dratted Mulrooney people to go away and leave us
alone. And not only that,” she admitted to her daughter, willing to
say it out loud because there was only Annie to hear her, “I want
those three men to stay with us and make our lives easier forever,
too.”

She sniffed unhappily and sat on the floor,
squashed up against the bed, and hugged Annie to her breast. Annie
was frightened, too, mostly because her mother was, and she didn’t
squirm to get free of Maggie’s arms. She wriggled up closer against
Maggie at each burst of gunfire.

Maggie felt a moment of sheer panic when she
heard Dan and Jubal arguing. Their fussing began after what seemed
like hours and hours of the noisy fighting. Actually, only several
minutes had passed.

“
Damn it, Jubal, you can’t
do it. You’re crippled, for God’s sake. You’d never make it.” Dan
was obviously annoyed.

“
It’s me he wants, Danny,
damn it. I’d be able to draw their fire better.”

“
He wants us all, Jubal, and
you know that as well as I do. That man out there don’t care who’s
who. He’s just hired to kill us all, and the woman and baby, too. I
ain’t a cripple, so I’m going.”

“
Shit,” Jubal said
furiously. “I don’t like it.”

“
I don’t like it, either,
but it’s got to be done, and it’s got to be done by somebody who
can run like hell, and you can’t.”

“
I guess not,” admitted
Jubal. He was obviously not pleased to admit it, either.

“
I guess you’ll listen to
your nurse from now on.” Four Toes popped into the conversation
with a grin in his voice.

“
Shit,” Jubal said
again.

Maggie held her breath when, during the next
lull in the shooting, she heard the back door creak open. She
prayed into her daughter’s soft curls when the silence stretched
out for what seemed like decades. Then she jumped a foot when shots
rang out again, and she finally gave up trying to be brave and was
crying when she heard the thundering of horse hooves and the
peltering sound of running feet. Then came what sounded like a
series of measured, calculated shots. A man screamed after one of
those shots, and Maggie tried to cover Annie’s ears with her own
shaking hands.

Then there was silence. The only sound
Maggie could hear was that of her own hiccoughing sobs.

For some reason this interruption of her
peace was much more terrifying than that first time when Jubal had
been lying wounded on her bed and Dan Blue Gully had left to track
French Jack. She knew the reason for her increased terror now was
that she had come to care for these men. A lot. All of them. And
she didn’t want them to die.

The quiet grew and grew and grew, until
Maggie thought she and Annie must be the only two people left alive
in the whole world.

Then, all of a sudden, there was another
sudden, furious volley of shots. Maggie tried to stifle her shriek,
but she wasn’t sure how successful she was. Annie whimpered into
Maggie’s shoulder.

“
All right. It’s all right.
All clear.”

Dan Blue Gully’s voice sounded faint and
far-away, floating over the dusky, smoky, early spring evening to
the little house in the clearing. It penetrated the ringing in
Maggie’s ears slowly, and she only gradually realized what it must
mean.

Then she sucked in a huge gasp of air that
tasted sharply of cordite. She wanted to run to the kitchen to see
for herself that everything really was all right, as Dan Blue
Gully’s words implied, but her knees were shaking too much and she
couldn’t stand up.

Jubal Green limped into the bedroom and
stopped just inside the door, looking down at the two females who
were clutching each other and staring at him. Two pairs of eyes,
one a big, soft brown, and the other a big, vivid blue, held him
captive. Both Maggie and Annie were petrified.

His leg hurt like crazy when he squatted
down in front of Maggie. His big, callused hand reached out and
stroked her cheek. Then his hand moved over to Annie’s soft hair,
and he leaned over and kissed the baby’s head. He wanted to kiss
the baby’s mama, but he didn’t quite dare.

He said softly, “It’s all right. It’s all
over now.”

Suddenly Maggie was in his arms. She didn’t
know how she got there. She only knew that with one enormous
effort, she propelled herself and her daughter off the floor and
into Jubal Green’s arms, and his embrace was big enough for the
both of them.

He rocked them for a long time, whispering
nothing into Maggie’s ear while she sobbed onto his shoulder. The
effects of Dan’s magic bark were wearing off, and Jubal thought he
was going to die from the pain in his leg and his arm. But he
wasn’t about to let Maggie Bright go until she wasn’t scared
anymore.

That took a long time, and it was only the
dawning realization that Jubal Green’s wounds must be hurting him
that finally made Maggie draw away from the comfort of his
arms.

The mood in the little cabin was very
subdued when she finally served up supper that evening. The rice
had cooked too long during the gunfight and was somewhat dry, but
nobody except Maggie seemed to notice.

# # #

Prometheus Mulrooney’s entire body quivered
when he read the wire Ferrett’s shaky hand had just delivered to
him. The color drained from Mulrooney’s normally florid face, he
was breathing erratically, and Ferrett thought for a hopeful moment
that the man might be going to suffer a spasm.

He didn’t.

Instead, Mulrooney slowly lowered the wire
onto his cluttered desk and pinned Ferrett with a lance-like glare
that set his secretary to shivering wretchedly.

“
Fetch Pelch,” Mulrooney
said softly.

His voice was drenched in throbbing
malevolence, and Ferrett was sure that both he and Pelch were done
for. They hadn’t done anything wrong, but Ferrett knew that didn’t
make much difference when their employer was in one of these
moods.

“
Yes, sir,” he said in a
voice that squeaked pitifully.

His knees shook as he made for the door, and
his progress was hampered somewhat by the unsteadiness of his
gait.

Ferrett was stirred into bullet-like
propulsion when Mulrooney’s fist slammed down on the desk and he
roared, “Now,” so loudly that the windows in his office shook.

Ferrett was still trembling when he and
Pelch trod up the big staircase to Mulrooney’s office.

“
Oh, Lord, Mr. Pelch,”
Ferrett said in strained tones. “It must have been real bad
news.”

Pelch shook his head. “It’s always bad news
to me, Mr. Ferrett,” he whispered miserably. “The man’s a
devil.”

Ferrett nodded.

“
I’m no better than a
murderer myself, Mr. Ferrett,” Pelch said, shaking his head sadly.
“I arrange for these things.”

“
Well, Mr. Pelch,” said
Ferrett softly, “you don’t have much choice. There’s no quitting
Mr. Mulrooney’s employ, you know.”

“
If I had a shred of
courage, Mr. Ferrett, I would have resigned my post months ago,
when I realized what kind of person Mr. Mulrooney was.”

Ferrett’s brow furrowed. “I suppose that may
be true, Mr. Pelch,” he said with considered gravity. “But you have
to own that you would also be a dead man right now.”

Pelch heaved a heavy sigh. “Aye,” he
said.

Ferrett knocked on Mulrooney’s door and he
and Pelch entered after a bellowed command from their boss.

Mulrooney staked them both to the floor with
his furious gaze.

“
We’re going to New Mexico
Territory, you two miserable toads,” Mulrooney told them. His voice
sounded more strained than usual.

Ferrett and Pelch exchanged a look of
bewildered fright. Ferrett cleared his throat discreetly. He looked
as though he were very worried about his boss’s announcement.

“
Ahem. Do you mean, sir,
that all three of us are going to the Territory, Mr. Mulrooney? Mr.
Pelch and me, as well as yourself? Sir?”

Mulrooney’s eyes began to bug out. Little
flecks of foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. He drew his
brows over his buggy eyes in a way that made both Ferrett and Pelch
shrink into themselves so tightly they seemed to shrivel under
Mulrooney’s glare.

“
What did I just say, you
slimy worm?” Mulrooney said in a rasping, grating
whisper.

“
You—you said we were going
to New Mexico Territory, sir,” Ferrett whimpered.

“
And do you doubt my words,
you disgusting scum?” Mulrooney asked, still maintaining his
blood-thirsty whisper.

“
N-no, sir,” stammered
Ferrett.

“
Then see to it!” Mulrooney
roared.

His roar made Ferrett’s knees buckle, and
the poor man found himself kneeling in front of his boss next to
Pelch, who was visibly shaking.

Mulrooney stood up behind his desk then and
leaned over it, bracing himself on two hands the size of pork
butts.

“
Pelch, wire that imbecile
of an agent in Texas and tell him to expect us. We should be in
Santa Fe by the end of next week. Ferrett, see to arranging
transportation. I’ll use my own railway carriage.”

“
Yes, sir,” both Ferrett and
Pelch uttered together in a terrified duet.

Mulrooney’s glare transferred to his desk,
and he ogled the wire Ferrett had handed him earlier with such a
hot glower that Ferrett would not have been surprised to see the
paper burst into flames.

“
The idiot hired another
fool and Green and his Indian friends are still alive. So is that
wretched woman who took them in. This Jose Escobar—”Mulrooney
gestured to the wire “—was as incompetent as Jack Gauthier. Neither
one of them were worth the price of the ammunition it took to kill
them.”

Ferrett and Pelch could only stare. Ferrett
had managed to drag himself upright and now stood, trembling in
agonized apprehension, next to Pelch. He was clutching one of
Pelch’s coat tails for security.