Little Sam's Angel (11 page)

The boots came off easy when panic driven hands weren't doing the work, but the second hadn't hit the floor before Gabe was back up. He shrugged into the shirt Morey had carried in, not even looking at it or seeing how Morey stared at his scars without comment or how Morey followed him when Gabe ran out of the room, his shirttail slapping free of the pants he was still buttoning since it took too long to tuck it in proper, and his feet were bare.

As soon as Danny saw Gabe, his screams changed to one word, "Hold", until Gabe had him in his arms.

"Sure, I'll hold you. Now you just quit that crying. Come on, Danny, now don't cry so," Gabe said, swaying to rock the child while he talked to him.

"Well, guess that sure enough answers two things," Sally said.

"What, Sally?" Sammy asked in distraction, tucking the blanket around Danny again.

At any other time, Gabe would have been acutely aware of her being so close and the touch of her hands as she worked the blanket around his arms to cover Danny. He was just too worried about the boy to think of anything else right then.

"Do you know what's wrong?" he asked Sally anxiously.

"Not what's ailing him yet, but you cain't have no doubt about him really liking you or that he cain't talk when he wants to."

"Yeah, but what's wrong with him?" Gabe asked, ignoring the curious look Sammy was giving him.

"Well now, there's all kinds of things it could be. We'll just have to wait and see what it comes to. Be back in a minute. You just sit down and keep him quiet."

"Sally, isn't there anything you can do?" he asked helplessly, trailing after her like a lost dog.

She stopped and very firmly told him, "There is, and I'll do it if you stay out of my way. Now just go sit down with him."

"This chair is the most comfortable, Mr. Taylor," Sammy told him, pointing to the chair she stood beside.

He glanced at the large overstuffed chair, and then looked back in the direction Sally had gone.

"She'll make a potion to make Danny feel better," Sammy assured him. "She doesn't like anyone watching her while she does it."

"Will it make the fever go away?" Gabe asked, still standing uncertainly in the middle of the room.

"Sometimes it's better not to. We don't want it to get too high, but some diseases need the fever to—"

"Diseases!" he exclaimed in horror, holding the whimpering baby even tighter.

"I can see that was a bad choice of words," Sammy said with an understanding smile. "There are several sicknesses children get. It's all part of growing up."

"You mean like chicken pox and such?" he asked dubiously.

"Measles, mumps," she said with a nod. "Most times they're nothing to worry about, but the poor things are sick with them just the same."

"I think I did it. I shouldn't'a gone to sleep like that."

"Where was he when you woke up?"

"Curled up next to me."

"Were you cold?"

"Huh?" he asked, wondering what that could have to do with it.

"Were you cold?"

"No, but—"

"Then there's no reason to think he would have been. He had your warmth as well as his own, and it was warm last night."

"But on the floor like that…I should'a taken better care. I don't know, ma'am, I thought I could do it, but—"

"He needs the other things you give him much more," she said quickly. "I've never seen a man able to hold a child the way you do."

"Ain't nothing to holding a babe," he scoffed.

"Most men cain't relax. They hold a babe up, but away from them. Danny's as comfortable in your arms as he would be in a bed, and he knows he's safe there. That's why he's quiet now. Even though he doesn't feel good, he knows he's safe when you hold him."

Gabe looked down at Danny and knew what she was saying was true. Danny was making the strange hiccupping sound that comes after a hard cry, but he still snuggled up against Gabe's chest.

"Is that all you want, Danny? You want me to hold you?" Gabe asked softly. Danny nodded, squirming even more snuggly into the arms that cradled him. "Did you see that?" Gabe asked Sammy in amazement. "He answered me."

"Of course, he did. Didn't you, you little scamp? You've been playing dumb."

That question Danny chose not to answer, twisting his face away from the touch of her hand and clinging to Gabe's shirt as if he feared she was going to take him away.

"Don't you be rude. She was just talking to you," Gabe told him. Danny made a noise, but the meaning was clear enough. "Sorry, ma'am. Looks like him and me is going to have to get some things straight when he feels better."

She answered him, half-teasing and half-serious. "Not too many manners, Mr. Taylor, or he won't talk to me at all."

She shouldn't have said that. It brought back to mind what Gabe considered his place. His face flushed red as he looked around, seeing the havoc he'd caused in her home. "Lord, ma'am, I'm sorry. I shouldn't'a come blundering in here like a lunatic."

"You are one if you think we'd want it any other way," she snapped.

"You're fixing to go flying off the handle again," Morey said dryly.

"You explain it to him. He's such a damn knot-head most the time I cain't believe it," Sammy snapped, exiting swiftly, passing by Morey with an exasperated throw of her hands.

"You better sit down before you get the other one mad at you, too," Morey advised and moved on into the room. "You forgot these." He put a pair of socks on the arm of the chair before telling Gabe, "Nothing makes folks madder than someone thinking what they're doing is some great favor when they're just doing what comes natural."

"I wasn't thinking about this being her place. I was just thinking of getting Danny to Sally."

"Way it should have been," Morey said, nodding at the chair for Gabe to sit down while he sat down on the end of the couch. "Sammy wouldn't'a had it any other way. Galls her for you to think she would."

"I didn't mean it that way," he said uncomfortably, sitting stiffly on the edge of the chair. "It's just that, well, look at the mess I brought to her."

Water dampened the floor where it had rolled and dripped off him where Gabe had stood and walked. The couch had a wet stain spreading out from under the slicker, and water still dripped off it.

"Ain't nothing a mop won't fix. This house has seen lots worse. This here couch is where they laid Big Sam when they brought him in to die. That there chair was where Handley sat for Sally and Sammy to bandage his hand after a horse stomped it. He worked for them until he died last year. One time I sat there with an arrow in my leg. This house has seen a lot of misery in its time, and none of it was ever turned away or tended to with a feeling that it was a bother."

"Big Sam must have been quite a man."

"In some ways, the best. He come up from Texas, figuring he'd worked long enough for other men. He'd found him a woman he wanted to wed, so he built his own ranch. He never forgot what it was like being poor, never raised his nose nor turned his back to a man that worked for him or any other man. I ain't never been anything on this ranch but a hired hand, if that's what you choose to call me, but I've always been an equal, same as any man who's ever come here."

"Some different than where I come from," Gabe said bitterly.

Morey's eyes narrowed a bit, and then he changed the subject. "He gone to sleep?"

"No, just quiet," Gabe said for not once had his vigilance over the child lapsed.

"Well," Morey said, standing up, "you brought him to the best place. Sally's as good as a doc in some ways, better in others."

The way Sally came back into the room as soon as Morey finished, Gabe was sure she'd stayed out of sight waiting for Morey to set him straight. She had a cup in her hand and proceeded without commenting on what Morey or Sammy had said.

"He ain't gonna like the taste of it, so's you'll have to force him to drink it," she told Gabe in warning.

"How do I do that?"

"Hold him down and pour it into him."

Which was easier said than done. Gabe no sooner got one of Danny's hands down out of the way than the other came up to knock the cup away. When Gabe got both tiny hands in one of his large ones, Danny arched his back, flopping away from the cup. A knee raised up under his head brought Danny's head back up, but he rolled it away. Finally, with Sally helping to hold him, Danny set his teeth, causing the liquid to spill over his throat, chest, and Gabe's leg.

"Stop that!" Gabe barked in exasperation. Danny gulped in surprise at the sharpness of his voice. "You drink it, Danny. It's good for you."

Danny drank it, looking like he feared death if he didn't. He gagged, choked, and sputtered, but he drank it.

"Now hug him up so's he knows you're not mad at him," Sally said softly when it was over.

"Maybe I shouldn't'a yelled at him like that," Gabe said, feeling guilty about losing his temper.

"He needed it," she said dispassionately. "That'll let him sleep so's you can get some rest. You look tuckered out."

"Couldn't feel any worse if I'd worked ten days straight without a let up," Gabe admitted.

"Humph," she grunted. "Just what you been doing."

"It ain't that," he said quickly. "I just been fretting over him."

"Wasn't why you fell asleep on the floor, either, I suppose."

"Okay, I was tired, but—"

"Close to exhaustion," she corrected. "Good thing he's sick. You'll have to stay close, and you'll get some rest, too."

"Ain't nothing wrong with me," Gabe grumbled with embarrassment.

Morey chuckled and went to the kitchen where Sammy was cooking dinner.

* * *

"Got that potion down him," Morey told Sammy standing next to her at the stove.

"I know," she said without turning from her cooking.

"And did you hear the rest?" He picked a piece of potato from the skillet. She didn't answer. Keeping his voice low, he said, "Had a look at him while he changed clothes. Been shot up bad, not too long ago from the look of them scars." She still didn't comment. "Makes you wonder why for. Don't know much about him. Could be—"

She interrupted to say, "Hedges knows him."

"Didn't appear to before he showed up here, from what I heard."

"Hedges knows him, Morey," she repeated, looking straight at him.

"Knows he ain't a bad one?"

"Yes."

"He told you so?"

"Yes."

"Okay then, but still makes me wonder how he came by those scars."

"It's his own business."

"Iffen I'd seen those scars before I seen him with that babe, I'd wonder 'bout him being in the wrong of it." She gave him an annoyed look. "You're sweet on him. Wouldn't want to see you fall for a bad one."

"You talk loco," she said, unable to look at him any longer.

"Seems to figure he ain't good enough to be in the same room with you. I figure it's ‘cause he's a working man. Reckon I can—"

"Morey, don't you do nothing. You stay out of my life and leave it be."

"Want to see you happy, girl."

"I told you how to do that, and you refused," she snapped.

"I won't take your ranch, Sammy, and any man that wouldn't take you 'cause of it is too damned proudful to have."

"Leave it be," she repeated in warning.

"Don't figure him to be that unreasonable."

"Just stay out of my life. You're always trying to run it for me, you and Sally, and look at the mess you've made of me."

* * *

Gabe looked up at the sound of Sammy's angry voice coming from the kitchen. He couldn't hear the words, but after the way he'd acted and the mess he'd brought to her house, he figured he was the cause of it.

"Seems I always put my foot in crossways with her," he commented to Sally.

"Uh-huh," she agreed, stroking Danny's damp hair.

"Is he gonna be okay?"

"I don't know what it is yet, Gabe, but you know I'll do everything I can to help him."

* * *

Gabe couldn't relax, not when Sally bullied him into sitting at the table to eat with them or when they moved to the front room for coffee and to continue the vigil. It wasn't just because Sammy owned such a ranch that he couldn't feel easy with her, and he sure couldn't explain the real reason to Morey.

After the meal he figured the last thing he would do would be to fall asleep, but he did, sitting in the chair, holding Danny. He woke up because someone was whispering close to him, and he opened his eyes to find Sammy's face a few feet from his. Not too sure he wasn't dreaming, the way she was smiling at him, he pushed himself upright.

"I hope you've had the measles, Mr. Taylor," Sammy said.

"Huh?" he asked in a fog of sleep and confusion.