One Bright Morning (21 page)

With a tilt of her head, Maggie peered up at
Jubal. Her face was papery white in the moonlight, and her big,
earnest eyes looked almost black against the pallor of her
skin.

“
I had Annie right here in
this house, Mr. Green. Kenny was so happy.”

Jubal cleared his throat. “I think you’ll
like my ranch,” he said, hoping to make her feel better about the
move. “It’s a big place. I think Annie will be happy there.” He
thought his words sounded stupid, and was annoyed with himself. He
never had been any good at comforting women.

Maggie looked up at him without speaking for
a couple of seconds. Then she turned her head to stare back at the
sky again. Her myopic eyes blurred all the stars together and she
wished she could see better. It must be really nice to be able to
pick out all those individual bright spots sparkling against the
dark blanket of the night. She was so unhappy that she wasn’t even
embarrassed at her next confession.

“
I loved Kenny a lot, Mr.
Green,” she finally said.

Jubal didn’t want to know that, but he said,
“Yeah, I’m sure you did,” rather gruffly.

“
You see, Mr. Green, Kenny
was the first person in the world who ever loved me. Leaving here
is like—like leaving—oh, I don’t know,” Maggie said in despair. She
really didn’t know how to tell him what this place meant to her.
There just weren’t enough words.

Jubal didn’t know how to express the
feeling, either, but he suddenly caught it from her and he
understood. Squatting down next to Maggie, he looked up into the
glittering sky with her.

“
Mrs. Bright, I’m really
sorry about all this. You don’t deserve what we’re putting you
through. I wish we could just go away and have everything be the
way it was before we got dumped on you, but we can’t.”

Maggie’s eyes left the sky and stared at her
hands, which now rested on her knees. She didn’t say anything for a
long few moments.

“
But I don’t want you to go
away, either, Mr. Green,” she finally whispered.

Jubal’s head swiveled down quickly and he
stared at her profile for several seconds. He inhaled a quick
breath of crisp air that smelled faintly of sweet lilacs and held
it in his lungs.

Maggie lifted her head to stare into Jubal’s
eyes for a long few moments. Then she looked back at the sky.

“
Is the sky this big in
Texas, Mr. Green?” she asked softly.

“
It’s bigger,” he
said.

Chapter Nine

The nearest town to Bright’s Farm was
Lincoln, and it was there that Jubal bought a wagon and another
mule to haul Maggie’s possessions to El Paso. She didn’t own much,
so there was lots of extra room inside the wagon, even after the
high chair and wardrobe were loaded.

Maggie was almost resigned to her fate by
the time they set out for Texas, although she still harbored major
qualms in her heart that she didn’t dare speak aloud. She made
arrangements with Sadie and Pig Phillips to take her chickens and
the cow. The mule would come with them.

Sadie was disconsolate and wouldn’t stop
crying.

“
Oh, Maggie, I’ll miss you
so much,” she sobbed into her hanky. Her little twin boys each
clutched a hunk of their mother’s calico skirt, jabbed their thumbs
into their mouths, and looked worried.

“
I’ll miss you, too, Sadie.”
Maggie was uncomfortable with Sadie’s teary display, even though
she was used to elaborate emotions from her friend.

Annie seemed to be excited about the
trip.

“
We go Tex,” she told the
twins from the comfort of her mama’s hip. The little boys stared
back at her with big eyes and continued to suck their thumbs and
hold onto their mother’s skirt.

Jubal came over to stand beside Maggie. He
was ready to leave and didn’t want any delays. Sadie looked up at
him with streaming eyes.

“
Please take care of her,
Mr. Green,” she whimpered dramatically.

Jubal was annoyed. He hated weepy women. He
wanted to yell at Sadie and ask her what the devil she expected him
to do with Maggie, anyway. Throw her off the mountain?

He curbed his unchivalrous impulse and
merely grumbled, “We will.”

Then he turned his attention to Maggie,
ignoring Sadie and her drippy face. “You ready, Mrs. Bright?” His
voice was a little softer when he spoke to Maggie.

Maggie looked around her and felt as though
somebody were thrusting a sharp stake through her heart.

“
I guess so.”

Jubal nodded and went over to the mules
hitched to the wagon to make sure the harness was tight.

Suddenly Maggie’s own eyes filled with
tears, and she gave Sadie a quick hug. “Take care of your boys and
yourself, Sadie. I’ll write.”

Sadie was too overcome to do more than nod
in misery. She might have thrown herself into her husband’s arms,
but at the moment Pig was helping Dan and Four Toes load the
wagon.

Maggie wanted to take one last farewell look
at everything, so she left Sadie to her tears and her twins and
carried Annie around to the back. With almost overwhelming sadness,
she peered at the new goat pen Dan and Four Toes had just finished
building, and the repaired chicken coop, fixed up finally so that
the chickens couldn’t escape. Only now there wouldn’t be any
chickens to make the attempt. And there would be nobody here to
notice one way or the other even if there had been any.

She stared for a long few moments at the
freshly spaded ground beneath the new fence where she had planned
to plant flowers. There would be no flower bed for Maggie Bright
now. Her throat felt thick and tight and it hurt. She suspected
that she was succumbing to self-pity and didn’t admire herself for
it. But her aunt had always told her that she had a weak character,
so the self-pity didn’t surprise her much.

“
I was happy here, Annie,”
she sighed. “I worked like the devil and was tired darned near all
the time, but I was happy here. It was home.”

“
Home,” Annie agreed
somberly, catching the essence of her mama’s mood.

Maggie plodded softly over to Kenny’s grave.
Ever since Kenny was laid to rest in it, she had tended it with
love. She hated the certain knowledge that the ever-industrious
weeds would now take it over. No matter how tired she had been, she
always saw to the grave.

“
Say good-bye to your daddy,
Annie babe,” Maggie whispered. A big tear slid down her
cheek.

“
By-by, da,” said her
obedient daughter.

Maggie hugged her close.

“
I hope we’ll be back again,
Kenny.” Maggie’s words leaked out in a thin, strangled whisper, and
she laid a hand on the wooden cross that designated Kenny’s final
home.

Jubal found them there, beside the grave. He
had stomped around to the back of the house to hurry Maggie up, but
when he saw her staring miserably down at her dead husband’s last
resting place, he stopped short. His brow furrowed in unhappiness
and he was overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness.

“
Damn,” he muttered to
himself. The woman was at the grave again. Jubal hated
that.

He let her stand there for another few
seconds, then he shook himself like a wet dog and strode on toward
her.

“
We’d better get going, Mrs.
Bright,” he said brusquely.

Maggie looked up in surprise. She had been
so lost in reverie that she had forgot all about the task at
hand.

“
I’m sorry, Mr. Green. I
didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“
Dat’s da, Juba,” Annie
said, pointing to the grave.

Jubal didn’t say anything. He just brushed a
big hand over the little girl’s soft curls and wished he didn’t
feel so vulnerable all of a sudden.

Maggie turned and began to walk to the front
of her farmhouse with Jubal. Suddenly, though, she jerked on
Jubal’s shirt sleeve and stopped walking. He turned to frown down
at her.

Even though she hated herself for giving
into the pitiful impulse, she said, “Mr. Green, may I just take one
last look inside? Just—just to remember? Please?”

Her plea sounded pathetic the way she said
it, and Jubal’s mind rebelled even as his heart squeezed for her.
His mind won.

“
Make it quick,” he snapped.
Then he could have kicked himself.

Oh, well
, he thought.
I never did have a way
with the ladies
.

“
I will. Thank you, Mr.
Green.”

Maggie sounded so grateful that Jubal wanted
to apologize for his earlier curtness, but he didn’t. Apologies did
not come easily to his lips. He just sighed and decided to go into
the house with her.

Inside, the place looked empty, cold, and
desolate now, with all traces of Maggie gone. Jubal watched her
slump sadly through the few rooms and wished he could cheer her up.
He wanted to tell her that his ranch in Texas was fifty times nicer
than this pathetic attempt at a farm in the wilderness of the New
Mexico mountains. He wanted to assure her that she could do
anything she wanted to do at his place, that she could have
chickens and goats and flowers and anything else she wanted, that
she wouldn’t be worn out and tired all the time anymore, that he
was going to take care of her.

But, even though Jubal couldn’t fully
comprehend Maggie’s sentiments about this lousy little cabin on the
edge of nowhere, he understood the feeling of “home,” and he didn’t
say anything at all. He only watched her say a sad good-bye to the
place and wished he could help her.

Finally Maggie took a deep breath and said,
“Thank you, Mr. Green. I guess I’m ready now.” She tried to smile
at him and failed miserably.

Jubal gave her a curt nod and said, “All
right, then, let’s not waste any more time.” Then he gave himself
another mental kick. His soul was getting all bruised up from the
kicks he’d been leveling at it lately.

Maggie’s voice was tight with resentment and
unshed tears when she said, “I know it’s not a grand ranch like
yours in El Paso, Mr. Green but it’s my home and, until you showed
up, I never expected to have to leave it. It’s all I have!” That
last sentence was an angry little wail, and it struck Jubal right
in the heart.

“
Aw, hell, Mrs. Bright. I
didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”

When he pulled her and Annie to his chest,
Maggie tried to resist, but she couldn’t because Jubal was too
strong. Then she gave up and broke down. She cried and cried, until
she’d made a big dark splotch on his soft leather vest. Annie
pulled on his longish, sun-streaked hair and studied it in
fascination while her mama wept.

When Maggie’s sobs subsided, Jubal asked
softly, “Ready now?”

Maggie nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Green.
I’m sorry I got mad.”

She knew, because her aunt had drilled her
until she was blue in the face, that it was wrong to be angry or to
make people mad. She’d been able to forget about that after she
married Kenny, happily, because he was so easy-going. But she had
to remember again now. Jubal Green and Kenny Bright were two
different animals entirely. That was a depressing thought all by
itself, let alone when combined with the reality of having to leave
her only home. She sniffed her unhappiness and wished she possessed
a stronger character.

Jubal wished like the devil that Maggie
would quit thanking him and apologizing to him. It bothered him a
lot. Hellfire, she’d saved his life, and that charitable gesture
was now costing her her home. If anybody needed to be apologized to
or thanked, it was her. He didn’t even try to tell her that.

# # #

It was two weeks to the day after Jubal’s
foolish attempt to ride Old Red that the three men, Maggie Bright,
and her little daughter Annie lumbered out the gate away from
Bright’s Farm on their way to Texas. Maggie had placed Ozzie
Plumb’s guitar into a bureau drawer and set it gently in corner of
the wagon. She tucked it up with blankets and quilts so it wouldn’t
break and wondered if anybody would ever play it again.

Jubal still couldn’t sit a horse for very
long at a stretch, so he drove the wagon loaded with Maggie’s
goods. That hurt, too, but he just gritted his teeth and didn’t say
a word about it. Maggie sat beside him with Annie on her lap and
watched mournfully as her happy home bounced further and further
away into the distance.

Maggie couldn’t seem to stop sighing, and
every one of her sighs ripped through Jubal like the thrust of a
knife. He slumped lower and lower in the seat the more she
sighed.

But the funny part was that, the further
away from her home they rumbled, the more Maggie’s mood perked up.
She thought at first that she was going to cry all the way to Texas
but, instead, she discovered a long-buried spirit of adventure that
began to assert itself as the scenery changed. She found herself
pointing things out to Annie, even though Annie herself had no
basis for comparison and didn’t care anyway.

They followed the Hondo River down the
mountainside, and the landscape changed gradually. It was the first
week in April, and spring was getting a sluggish start this year.
Only a few flowers bloomed beside the banks of the river, but
Maggie showed them to her daughter eagerly from the seat of the
wagon.

“
Oh, look over there,
Annie,” she said in an excited voice, “Pretty red
flowers.”

“
Fowers,” Annie agreed
happily, imitating her mama with a chubby pointed
finger.

Jubal hadn’t noticed the flowers, but now he
peered over to his right, following Maggie’s finger toward the
river. Sure enough, there were some spiky red flowers sticking up,
right next to a little nestled clump of tiny lavender blooms. Jubal
waited for Maggie to mention those blossoms, too. She didn’t, and
he had the absurd notion that she was deliberately holding out on
her daughter for some obscure reason, and that aggravated him.