Morning Star (3 page)

"Don't you want me at home with you?"

Cindy went to speak but held off.

"Of course I want you home. I'd love to have you back at The Rising Sun, but the doctors tell me..."

She squeezed his hand hard. Her strength surprised him momentarily. He found himself at a loss for words.

Cindy saw it first, something in Dannie's eyes. They sparkled the deepest blue, almost black, for just an instant. 

"I had a dream," Dannie said. "I had a dream about a horse. The horse came to me in my dream. He let me pet his head. He told me his name is Morning Star and that he came to take me home."

Nate stopped smiling. He looked up at Cindy. She shook her head and then realized it was her time to speak.

"Let her."

Nate looked around the room. Posters from all her school friends lined the walls. A large machine purred quietly next to the bed as it monitored Dannie's heart rate. A bag containing fluid hung from a stand. A tube ran from it to a needle placed in the girl's arm. Outside, in the hallway, he heard a voice on an intercom calling for a nurse.

She did belong here. Here is where she would receive the best possible treatment. The treatment that would help sustain her over the long painful weeks or months ahead.

Months or weeks, Nate looked at his daughter and gripped her hand as tightly as she gripped his. His face showed determination though behind it fear lurked. Eventually he found his smile. Today that would be enough to keep the dread at bay.

"Let's go home," he said. 

8

To say her doctors didn't like the idea was putting it mildly. The specialist from Phoenix, in particular, thought it to be absurd.

"I'll be as blunt as possible, Mister Walker," he said into the nurses desk telephone, "she will not survive a month without the proper care."

"She'll get the proper care. All the machines and tubes will go with her," Nate replied. He glanced at the gathering of nurses around him. None were happy.

"And how might I ask will you accomplish that feat? You are not in a library Mister Walker. That equipment is the property of the hospital."

Nate cupped the receiver and turned away from the nurses. He lowered his voice.

"Actually, Doctor Matthews, the equipment sort of belongs to me. You might have noticed the hospital and I have the same name. The reason for this is that my father, before his death, gave a large sum of money to this facility. A large enough sum to have its name changed from Garden General to Walker General." 

Silence greeted him. Nate waited it out.

"She'll need a nurse twenty four seven. Will you see to that?"

"I will."

The doctor sighed at the other end. "Very well. Please give me periodic updates on her condition."

Another long pause. "I've come to like little Dannie very much. I sincerely hope she sees happiness," another pause, "for the rest of her life."

"We share the same hope doctor."

"I need to talk to Doctor Fleming if he is around."

Nate handed the phone to the nurse. "Fleming," he whispered and then turned to his daughter's room. Dannie sat on the side of the bed. Cindy sat next to her. Dannie's head rested against his girlfriend's shoulder. Cindy ran her hand through his daughter's hair. As Nate stood there, the hospital faded away from his vision and Dannie sat on her bed at home. His wife now sat beside the child who curled up in her mother's embrace. Nate watched from the doorway as Katy caressed Dannie's hair. Then he saw his wife kiss Dannie's forehead. He knew that if he closed his eyes and reopened them, he would be back in the hospital room. He didn't want that right now. He wanted to look at his wife and daughter together again after so much time apart.

Katy turned her head toward him. If she felt surprise at seeing him, it didn't show.

"How are you holding up there cowboy? You look like you've lost some weight."

"I'm more than a vision," she said as if reading his thoughts. "I am a part of you, a part of the way you think. That's the way it works Nate. Pretty cool huh?"

Nate nodded in agreement.

"All that I was, all that I am, still exists. You can find me whenever you want, whether in a thought, a dream, or a wish. I've become all those things and more."

She looked down at their daughter.

"Danielle and I will always have each other no matter what happens." Katy turned to him once more.

"Do you want to know something else Nate? We all go on, that's the truth of it. We go into a place of great light and become a part of that light. And then, and here's the amazing thing, we become a part of all that is good. All of us connect together, and the love of one becomes the love of all." 

His wife moved her hand to Dannie's cheek. "Danielle will be safe, will be loved, no matter what journey she takes."

His eyes filled with tears. Wait....no tears, only smiles. He was trying, trying his best.

"Free of pain. Free of time. She will be loved forever." Katy kissed her daughter a final time, and then turned to face Nate.

"I want you to be happy Nathan. Cindy wants that too. You would be smart to marry that girl. Danielle loves her. I trust you to make the right choice and marrying Cindy would be a good one. Taking Danielle home is a good one also. You're doing fine cowboy. You've made me proud."

The hospital folded back around him. Cindy still brushed back Dannie's hair. She looked up at him and smiled. Nate smiled back. No tears, only smiles.

9

Al and Margaret were the first to arrive. Nate had made it a point to call them the minute he had made the decision to take Dannie home. He did not want them to arrive at the hospital and find an empty bed. 

By the time they showed up at the ranch, all of Dannie's  hospital equipment graced her room, along with one Nurse Edmonton, the live-in nurse. Nurse Edmonton was not a happy camper. She criticized the move during the ambulance trip from the hospital, quietly enough so her patient wouldn't hear. When Nate gave her a dirty look despite her softly spoken words she turned to mumbling under her breath.

Dannie, on the other hand, couldn't have been happier. Her joy grew as she neared The Rising Sun and exploded as they passed through the front gate.

"Morning Star," she yelled. "I want to see Morning Star."

"You'll see all the horses soon," her father said to her, hoping that the somewhat restless new arrival had not already flown the coop.

The ambulance had barely stopped at the driveway's end when Dannie shouted "get me outta here" so loudly that a surprised gasp replaced Nurse  Edmonton's murmuring.  

Nate and Cindy helped Dannie out of the vehicle. Her complaints of being quite able to walk on her own fell on deaf ears. She faced the pasture with both adults on either side of her, each holding a hand.

Her eyes focused on the field and for a brief moment she stared at the empty space beyond the fence.

"Morning Star," she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

A breeze, ever so slight, blew in toward them. Something moved in the far distance. Nate saw it first and then Cindy caught it too.

"Morning Star."

The small tornado of dust spinning in the far distance took the shape of a horse as it grew nearer. The horse ran as fast as the wind. He grew in size as he neared and the earth seemed to rumble and shake beneath their feet.

The breeze became a strong wind and Danielle laughed between them. Nate heard her through the wind, laughing, the sound of beautiful music.

The horse neared the fence in front of them but didn't slow. He angled slightly across the land and approached the fence at full speed. 

When he leapt in the air the wind stopped. The horse was no more than five feet to their side, near enough to see it glisten dark blue as it took to the sky. It cleared the fence with such ease that Nurse Edmonton, standing by the ambulance,  gasped again. This time loud enough for all to hear.

The horse stopped on a dime a good twenty feet past the fence line and about an arm's length from Nurse Edmonton who proceeded to faint dead away.

While the driver tended to her, the horse walked to the three at the fence. Nate saw the horse watch Dannie as he came nearer. No one else seemed to matter to the animal, only the girl.

The horse moved closer, stopping only when near enough to be touched. Dannie let go of the hands holding her and took a step forward. The horse lowered his head and she touched him, above his eyes, below his mane. The horse stood still. Its hard breathing slowed to normal. Its nostrils no longer flared.

"Morning Star." 

She stepped closer. The horse moved his head lower and she whispered something into his ear. They saw it; both Nate and Cindy saw it. The horse nodded his head up and down as if he understood every word she uttered.

"My God," Cindy said, and for a moment she thought she would join Nurse Edmonton on the ground. 

Dannie moved away from the horse's ear. Whatever she wanted to say had been spoken. She turned slowly to her father and the woman she hoped he'd marry. She leaned ever so slightly against the horse's neck.

"Thank you for bringing me home," she said to the two. "This is where I need to be."

10

The moon rose large and bright above the earth. Nate and Cindy watched it climb the sky from the railing of the front porch. Neither said a word. Their day had been hard and trying but ultimately satisfying. Dannie was home, sleeping in her own bed in her own room, where she should be. The time for hospitals was over. Whatever happened from now on would happen here.

"She wants us to get married you know. She calls me her second mom." 

Cindy felt Nate's arm wrap around her waist. A tingle went through her. She had never known love before, not like this. She had never known her heart to quicken its steady rhythm when any man stole a glance her way until now. She had never felt on fire when a man spoke to her as she did now.

His arm drew her nearer and she wrapped around him, around his warmth. 

Her parents had warned her.
He is broken
her mother said.
He has baggage
her father added. And they were right. She knew that going in. The nightmares of a war, of a wife lost to cancer, of a father and mother both dying before their time, and of a child as helpless as an autumn leaf on a mighty wind.

But she followed her heart anyway and this is where it led her. Nate, the good father, the good man, caught in a dark story that may only end in heartbreak.

"I think we should. I think we should get married."

Nate dropped to a knee. The moonlight wrapped the porch in a white glow. A ring appeared in the hand not holding hers. The diamond at its crest cast a rainbow of colors onto the ceiling above them. 

"Would you marry me Cindy Bannister?"

She didn't want him to rise. She joined him on her knees. 

"Yes, I'll marry you." Her heart again quickened its rhythm when he kissed her. And when he put the ring on her finger her heart beat so fast she thought it would burst through her chest.

Dannie slept in her room above them, a large stuffed bear in her arms. Her eyes fluttered as she had a dream, and at some point between the dead of night and the rising of the morning sun, she smiled.

11

He met Bill Travers at the far gate of the southern pasture. Travers and his two teenage sons, Curtis and Tommy, had driven the ten mustangs by land. 

Nate dismounted to unlock the gate. 

"Nice horse you got there," Travers said from the opposite side.

"Old Betsy here? Your eyes must be giving out Bill."

"I ain't talking about your mare. It's the big one behind her that's got my eye."

Nate turned to his rear. The horse his daughter called Morning Star stood there.

"I'll be damned. I never knew he followed me."

"So where'd you get him son? He don't look like he's from around here."

Nate wondered how he knew that but didn't press the issue.

"He's not from around here as far as I know. He just showed up yesterday morning."

"Just showed up." Travers raised an eyebrow. "And I suppose he just let himself in without your knowledge."

"No. I had knowledge of it. He jumped the fence in front of me."

"Jumped the fence? I recall your dad telling me once he'd never heard you tell a lie. Why would you want to start now?"

Nate took the key out of the old lock and gave it a shake. It popped open.

"I'm not lying Bill. The horse jumped the fence."

Travers eyed the horse once more. As he did so it nodded its head, apparently in agreement.

Travers chuckled. "It appears you may be telling the truth. Any interest in selling that black beauty?"

"Actually the horse is a deep blue in color. You'll see that when you get in closer. And no, I have no interest in selling him. Fact of the matter is he's not mine to sell. The horse has bonded with Dannie. They've become attached."

"I thought Dannie was in Walker General?"

Nate opened the gate wide. "She was up until yesterday. She's back home now."