Mail-Order Man (29 page)

He wouldn't even be able to tell Skylla goodbye.

The family Bible clutched in her hand, Kathy Ann prayed over him, for medical science and even the Comanche shaman had exhausted all avenues of treatment. Sergeant had been at death's door for two days.

A doctor stood over Brax's bed, bathing his fevered pallid face. Yesterday, John Larkin Hale, M.D., had arrived, repentant and hoping to reconcile with his surviving son. Yes, surviving. John Hale brought sad news. His young son Andrew had succumbed to pneumonia. Grief had wrenched the doctor into coming to grips with his first family and doing something about his muddled past, as he had told Kathy Ann.

John Hale existed as living proof that what goes around, comes around. He watched his last living son slipping away—and agonized over a dying child.

John Larkin Hale had begun to pay for the wrongs he'd done.

Brax spoke, his voice weak. “Was the . . . deed in the strongbox?”

How easy it would be to lie, but Kathy Ann couldn't fabricate stories for the man who had turned her life around. Why mention that they'd found another trapdoor? The woodstove had sat atop it. He could have reached down into that hole, yet he'd have reached for nothing. The strongbox there brimmed with Confederate bills. “I'm sorry, Sarge. The deed wasn't there.”

“I wanted to prove my love. Oh, God, I wanted to secure this place for her.” He tried to swallow. “Have the boys carry me outside, lay me under a magnolia tree. I want to die in the magnolia grove where I first saw Skylla.”

 

 

“Eureka!”

Skylla, in the Bexar county clerk's office, sniffled over the musty deed book and jabbed a finger against the page conveying the ranch's title to Titus St. Clair. “There it is, Mr. Packard. Proof positive you can't take my ranch.”

His jowls went gray; she would have bet the ranch he regretted accompanying her to San Antonio. “You're too new to Texas to know how our public records have shifted around,” she said as Packard slammed his hat atop his head. “I must remember to bake Herr Kreitz a nice vinegar pie for sending me here.”

“I hope he chokes on it.”

The big Yankee stomped out of the vault, and Skylla knew intuitively this was the last Texas would see of him.

Although victory was hers, it rang hollow. she had the land, but she'd lost Braxton. As if she ever had him to begin with.

“Are you Mrs. Hale?”

Skylla swung to a pretty fair-haired, green-eyed girl of about twelve. “Yes, I am. Skylla Hale.”

“I . . . I may be your sister-in-law. My dad is John Hale. My name is Abigail Hale. I'm called Abby.”

So this was Braxton's half sister. Well, the family looks were inherent in yet another of the Hales. “I know who you are. Yes, we're sisters-in-law. How . . how did you find me?”

“Talk gets around in San Antonio. Someone told my grandmother a Hale was snooping around in the courthouse. Oh, fiddlesticks, I mean no offense by ‘snooping.' ” Abigail blushed. “Anyhow, my dad told me I had a married brother, so I couldn't help wondering if you were the same Mrs. Hale. Dad said you're pretty and dark haired.”

John Hale had confessed to his second family? Perhaps he wasn't the rogue of first impression. “I'm married to Braxton Hale. Your brother. There's quite a resemblance between you.”

“I'd like to meet him.”

“You'd best concentrate on Andrew.”

That pretty chin dropped. “Andrew is dead.”

Wordlessly, Skylla opened her arms: The girl lunged into them, and her tears wet Skylla's bodice. “Abby, life probably doesn't seem too fair right now. You can't understand why you had to lose your brother. And you probably wish you'd been nicer to him.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, I know, sugar. I do know.”

Grief made Skylla ache. Considering the tenuous grip one had on earthly anchors, she questioned her actions that night in the tack room. If there was even a chance that Braxton returned her love, should pride keep her from making the most of each and every moment in this earthly home?

Hadn't Braxton pledged his love and affection? Words were only words, but actions spoke true. He had given all of himself and his energies to her, and what had she done in a time of travail? Tossed her beloved aside.

After she'd threatened him, would he give her a second chance?

Abigail looked up with those magnetic green eyes. “Will you take me to meet my brother?”

Skylla knew where to find him, Stalking Wolf's village. “What would your mother say if I took you to Mason County? I should imagine she wouldn't be pleased.”

“She's not feeling too well right now, being sad over Andrew. We could ask Grandmother Rourke. She brought me here. She's in the hallway.”

The Hale females locked hands and went to find Mrs. Rourke. Abigail's grandmother was formidable. At least six-feet tall, she stood erect, a stern glare in her steel-gray eyes.

“Are you Mrs. Braxton Hale?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“My granddaughter needs to meet her brother. Her mother and I are willing to let her. Unfortunately, that bounder son-in-law of mine has already taken off to do business with your husband, so Harriet and I can't count on him. And I won't leave my daughter. Are you willing to help Abby?”

John Hale wanted to find Braxton? That was good. Very good. The father wouldn't go after the son unless his intentions were sterling. “Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am, I am.”

Skylla would return to the ranch, then have a ranch hand fetch her husband. She asked God for one more favor:
Please let him stay, once he gets there
. She would ask him to remain. If she got the chance . . .

 

 

Chills wracked him, despite his fever and the quilts Kathy Ann and Bella had tucked around him. He lay abed, slices of orange and blue cutting across the twilight sky. A magnolia leaf drifted to his chest. Magnolias. He'd vowed he'd never smell them without thinking of Skylla—his sole succor. While passing away with her scent in his nose.

Damn, he was going to miss his lady. What he wouldn't give to have a few more days, weeks, years with her. He couldn't count on an eternity together. She'd fly right to heaven. The last place Brax Hale's soul would end up.

The venom ate through his body, leaving him with patches of consciousness. Hallucinations, too. He thought he saw his father's face. His earthly father. The devil knew Brax Hale wouldn't be meeting God. And he'd leave without helping Skylla keep her ranch. No!

“Try this broth, son.” That sounded like John Hale.

There was a hell on earth. Or Brax had died and just didn't know it.

His lids closed, like sandpaper over his coal-hot eyes. Someone pried open his mouth, then dribbled chicken broth onto his tongue. He swallowed. He took more of it. By the time he'd had several sips, he forced his eyes open. And saw John Hale.

“Am I dead?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Trying to save my son.”

“Have you seen Geoffie?”

“Yes. I didn't say anything about Geoffrey Bain. It's better that way. I'm through breaking hearts.”

That would be a first. “How did you find me?”

The doctor wiped his son's chin. “Through Sheriff Klein in San Antonio. You gave him your name. And where to find you.”

“Go away.”

“I'm told you've forgiven me.”

“That's not the same as—” Brax tried to rearrange his body on what felt like a bed of nails. Couldn't. Couldn't move. “I . . . understand what you . . . did. But I don't wanna see you.”

“Don't go to your grave without forgiving me, son.”

That entreaty settled in a cobwebbed brain. “Did you put poison in that broth?”

“Your wife cooked the broth.”

Brax felt a surge of strength. “Where is she?”

“Sleeping. The first rest she's gotten since arriving two days ago.”

Skylla was here. That was good. Unless she'd come to gloat over his funeral. No. She wouldn't do that. “I bet René was . . . upsetting about the broth.”

“He was gracious.” John chuckled at the allusion to the Gaul's verb usage. “I'm glad to see your humor's returned. That's an encouraging sign.”

“Does it mean I don't have to forgive you?”

“Absolutely not.”

The scrape of chair legs grated in Brax's ears as his father brought a seat over.

“Son, ever since you were in San Antonio, I've been thinking about Natchez. At last I see myself as I was. I'm sorry I hurt your mother. Despite everything I said about her, she was a good woman. Too good for the likes of John Hale of Natchez.”

This, Brax identified with.

A tear made a runnel down John's face. “I'm sorry I hurt you kids. If there were anything I could do to make up for my sins, I'd do it.”

“There's no changing the past.”

“There's always the future.”

Brax recognized the irony in his father's remark. Soon, he would have no such chance. Curiosity settling into his feeble heart, he prompted quietly, “Tell me about your family.”

John launched into a complimentary account of his wife and daughter, ending with, “She's twelve, Abigail. A pretty little blonde. I've told her about you. She wants to meet her big brother.” A moment went by. “She's here. Will you see her?”

Why not? He had nothing more to lose. Yet when he said, “I want to meet her. If I beat that scorpion, I'd like us to be a family,” he'd made peace with his resentments.

“My prayers are answered.”

For the second time in his life, Brax Hale felt the kiss of another man. This time he didn't have a fit. “You didn't say anything about the boy. Andrew.”

His father looked away. The words came slowly, wrenched from the soul of a man who had made too many mistakes. “The angels took him. Christmas Eve. He's up there with the other Hales. I can't help but believe Elizabeth is seeing after him.”

For fifteen years Brax had yearned to hear his father say something nice about his mother. Those words mellowed the effects of the venom. “Don't forget Diana and Susan. And Lilly. And Larkin and his wife. They were Hales, too.”

John took his son's uninjured hand. “And Diana and Susan and Larkin. And Lilly and Larkin's wife,.”

Brax squeezed the fingers that clasped his. “I wish I could tell them you had a change of heart. 'Fraid I won't be seeing them. I'm bound for the devil.”

“Only if you don't make up your mind to get well. You've got to. Not for me. For your wife. She's a noble woman.”

“I know.” He let the tears fall; they pooled in his ears. He cried for all that he would leave. Skylla and her ranch—and the children he'd never been able to give her.

“Braxton.”

That wasn't a male voice. “Skylla?” A tender hand touched his jaw; a sweet scent enveloped him. A wondrous vision formed. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I found the peaches and fudge. That was dear of you.”

“All Piglet's doing. But she owed me.”

“I know all about it.”

He worked hard at focusing on the sweetest peach in the world. “I'm sorry about the ranch.”

“Don't be. I found what I was looking for.”

He wanted so much to hold her, yet he couldn't. “Will you do something for me? I don't want to die without your forgiveness.”

“I've forgiven you. Will you forgive me?”

“There's nothing to forgive.” He luxuriated in the sight of her. He tried to raise his stung hand to touch her cheek. Futile. Pain shot through him. The hand was a huge purple ball of pus. But he had to know . . . “Do you still love me?”

“You know I do.” She placed her chilled cheek beside his feverish one. “Get well. We've got a baby to rear.”

“Whose?”

“Ours.”

A baby. A real live baby was growing. He hadn't fired blanks. Brax experienced a jubilation he'd never known before. This was a solemn trust The Man Above had rested upon his weakened shoulders. A child was the second best reason to get well. “Make it grow up to be a good person.”

“You make it. Come July, I'm going to push your child into this world. And you'd better, by darn, be there to catch him.”

“Too late for that.”

“You're a gambling man. How about we engage in a game of chance?” She lifted her hand. Her fingers gripped a gold coin. “Let's flip to see how hard you fight that tiny scorpion. I choose tails.”

Brax laughed softly. “I pick heads.”

 

Just as the roosters began to crow on Independence Day—six months to the day after a sidewinder named Packard had slithered out of Texas for good, and eight decades before the people of Vicksburg would again celebrate the Fourth of July—Brax yelled, “Push!”

Skylla Hale gave a mighty shove.

Two men of medicine attended the birth of yet another Larkin Hale. The boy greeted the world with a loud and exceedingly healthy protest, the womb being a much more genteel place than the frontier of Texas.

Lark Hale, fair-haired and dark of eye, learned to cope. He had a host of misfits, liars, and thieves to help him along the way. And he had a few angels, too. His mother nursed and weaned him, and Aunt Abigail took him under her tender wing.