One Bright Morning (37 page)

At least, he was sure that was what he felt
like. But it was sort of like being in love. He’d never felt that
way before and didn’t quite know what to do about it. It was
bewildering, all these new emotions. He peered up at Maggie for
guidance and discovered that every single employee on his spread
seemed to be watching him with huge, eager eyes. He stood up in a
rush and thrust the baby into her mother’s arms.

“
Let’s get inside,” he said
gruffly.

Then he turned quickly to see who it was
that had snickered. He pinned Dan Blue Gully with a piercing glare,
but Dan just grinned back at him and snickered again.

# # #

Ferrett and Pelch huddled miserably in the
flickering shadows, hunched together for solace. They watched as
the soaring flames splayed unsteady light across the florid, fat,
unpleasant features of their employer.

Prometheus Mulrooney was beside himself with
glee as greedy tendrils of fire gobbled up Maggie Bright’s
farmhouse.

The ride down to Lincoln from Santa Fe had
been one of unrelieved agony for Mulrooney’s underlings, and he
himself had been petulant and uncomfortable during the entire
two-hundred-mile trek. There was simply no easy way to get here,
and Mulrooney took that fact as a personal affront. Even after
special alterations, he found the wagon in which he rode hellishly
uncomfortable.

The weather was miserable, too. During the
day, the sun scalded Mulrooney’s pink face underneath his sparse
yellow hair until he looked like a tomato, even when he wore his
big, wide-brimmed sombrero. Rivers of perspiration soaked his
clothing and then dried so that when his fat thighs rubbed against
one another, they chafed. Ferrett had not thought to purchase
talcum, so he was in Mulrooney’s black books, a circumstance that
made poor Ferrett’s life even more terrible than usual.

What with the heat and the sweat, everybody
riding with Mulrooney smelled bad, too, and there was no way to
bathe. He hadn’t realized life could be so damnably awful.

“
Serves that bastard Green
right,” he whimpered to himself as he dabbed a scented hanky to his
heated brow. “He deserves this hellish place.”

Then at night, Mulrooney nearly froze to
death. He confiscated everybody’s blankets to keep himself
warm.

“
What do you mean, you can’t
build a fire?” he had roared to the buckskin-clad man Pelch had
hired to guide them through Apache territory.

“
Indians,” the laconic guide
had replied, as if Mulrooney should already have known
that.

Mulrooney started to berate the guide, but
the man, who didn’t care who Prometheus Mulrooney was, just rode
away from him, leaving him to splutter and flap at the cold night
air. Mulrooney took his unrelieved fury out on Pelch.

“
What do you suppose he
expected, Mr. Ferrett?” poor Pelch asked his friend as the two of
them shivered on the cold ground, trying to get through the
miserable night without freezing into solid lumps. They had thrown
woolen serapes over their shoulders and sat on saddle blankets, but
their efforts were not paying particularly warm
dividends.

Ferrett shook his head. “I don’t know, Mr.
Pelch.”

Even though they were practically touching,
neither man could see the other. The night was black as a raven’s
wing.

Pelch peered up into the inky heavens. They
didn’t look like any heavens he’d ever seen before. His heavens had
always been pocked by the friendly glimmer of gas street lamps and
the warm, yellow glow of light streaming from hundreds of cozy
windows. These Territorial heavens were alien, black, and very,
very cold. And they hid mysterious, frightening things that made
strange, terrifying noises.

A coyote yip-yip-yipped and then warbled
into a piercing, high-pitched howl in the distance, and Ferrett
clutched at Pelch’s arm.

“
Oh, my word, Mr. Pelch,” he
whispered unsteadily.

Pelch sucked in a shaky breath. “Aren’t
there supposed to be stars in the sky, Mr. Ferrett?” he asked
uneasily. “Even in New Mexico Territory?”

“
I believe so, Mr. Pelch,”
Ferrett responded in a frightened whisper.

Both men nearly had heart failure at the
chuckle that came to them out of the blackness.

“
You fellers will see enough
stars pretty soon,” a voice said, following closely on the tail of
that chuckle. “It’s just gone on to dark. Pretty soon there will be
stars enough.”

The voice proved to be telling the truth. As
Ferrett and Pelch sat in silence, both cowed at the thought that
unknown persons could hear them speak, the stars began to twinkle
on in the firmament. It wasn’t very long before a blanket of
sparkling splendor grew overhead until it seemed to reach into
infinity.

Ferrett gaped with open-mouthed wonder at
the amazing display above his head.

“
My goodness, Mr. Pelch,
will you just look at that,” he whispered solemnly.

“
I’m looking, Mr. Ferrett.
I’m looking.” Pelch’s voice held awe.

Their unseen friend chuckled again. “Told
you so,” he said. Then he tossed a thick wool blanket over to the
two men. “Here. You two city fellers probably need this.”

“
Th-thank you,” murmured
Ferrett. He was so unused to kindness that he almost
cried.

“
Sure thing,” said the
voice.

All that could be discerned then was the
sound of shuffling feet and the slither of blanketed bottoms as
Ferrett and Pelch rearranged themselves underneath their
benefactor’s largesse.

“
Thank you very much, sir,”
Pelch said after they had settled down.

“
Yes, this is much warmer,”
added Ferrett with gratitude.

“
No problem, gents,” said
the voice.

Silence reigned for a few minutes as Ferrett
and Pelch occupied themselves with staring up at that incredible
sky. They were both startled into a little jerk when their friend’s
voice broke into the blackness once again.

“
Purely don’t know how you
two fellers tolerate that man you work for.” The voice held genuine
puzzlement.

Ferrett and Pelch looked at one another.
Each could barely see the other now under the canopy of stars.

Ferrett sighed morosely.

“
He’s a devil,” whispered
Pelch unhappily.

“
Agreed,” said the voice.
“Don’t you fellers get sick of his always bellyachin’ and
hollerin’?”

“
Oh, my yes,” Ferrett
mumbled.

“
Indeed,” agreed
Pelch.

“
Why don’t you just up and
quit?”

Neither man spoke for a minute. How did one
say that one did not resign from service with Prometheus Mulrooney
and expect to live past the front door on his way out?

Finally Pelch cleared his throat and said,
“It is not considered—uh—healthy to quit.”

That news was greeted by silence.

Finally the voice muttered, “Well, maybe an
Apache will stick an arrow in him for you.” The voice did not speak
again during the night.

Those cheery words buoyed Ferrett and
Pelch’s spirits briefly, even into the following day. Eventually,
however, they understood that Mulrooney’s hired guards were much
too alert to allow such a quick, pleasant end to their
troubles.

It was now the evening of the day after
their adventure under the stars. As they watched cinders from
Maggie Bright’s farm fly up into the night sky, illuminating the
diabolical face of their employer, both men were very
depressed.

“
It was such a pretty little
place, Mr. Pelch,” mourned Ferrett.

“
We’re responsible for this,
too, Mr. Ferrett,” said Pelch in a beleaguered undertone. “If only
we were bolder.”

Ferrett nodded his head miserably. “Yes,” he
agreed.

“
That poor woman,” Pelch
muttered. “All she did was help a fellow human being in
distress.”

Ferrett only stared straight ahead into the
inferno that had been Maggie’s home, the first place on earth,
although he didn’t know it, that she had been loved, the site of
her only happiness until now.

Finally he said, not even trying to sound
hopeful, “Well, there is still the saw, Mr. Pelch.”

Pelch nodded unhappily. “Yes,” he said.
“There is still the saw.”

# # #

Beula had prepared a big, special dinner in
honor of Jubal’s return home with the woman who had saved his life,
and Maggie felt very spoiled when she wasn’t allowed to help cook
it, serve it, or clean up after it.

“
I feel useless,” she
announced, and Jubal got the distinct impression that she not only
meant it, but didn’t like the feeling one bit.

He confiscated her to take a little walk
with him after dinner. She agreed somewhat reluctantly, and hoped
that he wouldn’t suggest any kind of unsavory alliance. Somehow, he
didn’t seem the kind of man who would keep a mistress, but since
Maggie didn’t off-hand know what kind of man would keep a mistress,
she didn’t know how she’d come to that conclusion.

“
I want to show you around
the place since it’s going to be your home now. For a while.” He
added that because he didn’t know what the future held. It had
become very difficult for him to imagine life without Maggie
Bright, but he wasn’t ready to admit that to anybody
yet.

His offer sounded innocuous enough to her;
not at all like the preamble to an illicit offer. “Wait until I get
Annie settled, please; then I’ll be happy to walk with you.”

“
All right.”

Then he decided to go with her and help.
Actually, he didn’t know how to help tuck a child in bed, but he
had a sudden, urgent yen to learn. It occurred to him that this
fatherly urge of his might be getting out of control. Then it
occurred to him that he didn’t care.

Beula had fixed a room up with a bed for
Maggie and the Todd babies’ old crib for Annie. Jubal wondered
briefly why she had elected to prepare the only other bedroom in
the wing where he slept, then decided Dan had probably told her
which room to use. Good old Dan. Always figured he knew best. Maybe
he did. At any rate, Jubal could hardly stand the wait until he
could have Maggie to himself again.

Annie settled down slowly. The last few days
had been full of unaccustomed newness for the little girl, and she
was reacting now by being uncharacteristically cranky. Maggie hoped
she’d calm down and be her usual pleasant self after a couple of
days spent in one place. In the mean time, she made sure Annie’s
gourd dolly went to bed with her. Then she sang her a couple of
lullabies.

Jubal listened to Maggie’s gentle dealings
with her baby and his heart began to ache with a longing so acute
that it hurt. He didn’t remember his mother ever being sweet and
gentle with him. He didn’t remember ever hearing a lullaby in his
life until he’d ended up in Maggie’s bed, shot blamed near to
death. He’d always wondered why people spoke so respectfully of
their mothers. As far as Jubal was concerned, his own mother hadn’t
been worth a plug nickel. But Maggie. . .

He stood in a corner and shook his head with
wonder while he watched her and listened to her. Lord above, he
could get used to this.

When Maggie thought Annie was settled down
enough not to fuss when she left, she tiptoed over to Jubal. He was
almost disappointed when they quietly left the room.

“
You’re a real good mother,
Maggie,” he told her with brusque emotion as he guided her outside
into the patio.

Those words came as a complete surprise to
Maggie, who wasn’t used to thinking of herself as much good at
anything. She looked up at him with a quick, amazed smile and a
little blush.

“
Oh, do you really think
so?”

It was Jubal’s turn to be surprised now. He
looked down at her with a slight frown and said, “Of course, I do.
Why on earth do you think I’d lie about that?”

Maggie blinked up at him. The man could be
so touchy. “Oh, dear,” she sighed. “I didn’t mean to say I thought
you’d lied to me, Jubal. It’s just that it’s—it’s been so hard,
raising Annie alone and all. And there was always so much work to
do that I didn’t have as much time with her as I would have liked
to have had. That’s all.”

Jubal took her arm and put it through the
crook of his elbow. “Well, you won’t have to do that much work
here,” he told her firmly.

Maggie looked up at him again. “No, I guess
I won’t have to work that hard until I go home again.” Then she
looked away quickly, not certain she wanted to see his reaction to
those words.

The truth was, Maggie wasn’t sure of her own
mind, any more than she was sure of Jubal’s. Her heart was sure.
She loved him. But she didn’t know what he felt about her. And she
sure didn’t want to give up Kenny’s farm. It had been his dream and
had become hers, and she aimed to keep it alive. She didn’t think
she even had words enough to explain all of that to Jubal.

It was probably just as well she wasn’t
looking at him, because Jubal’s scowl had become positively
ferocious.

There she goes, talking
about her goddamned home again. Pretty soon she’ll be running on
about that damned dead husband of hers
.
Jubal didn’t know whether he were more angry or hurt.

“
Yes, well, you can think
about that later, after we’ve taken care of Mulrooney,” he finally
said in a growly voice.

That was fine with Maggie. She was too busy
looking at the patio to think about anything else at the moment.
Two torches lit the big square, casting intriguing shadows over the
scruffy, dirty, tiled walkway and the bare dirt middle. Work on a
stone fountain had been begun and abandoned in the center of that
dirt patch a long time ago. The patio had the makings of a
perfectly idyllic place.