One Bright Morning (52 page)

“
Long enough, I
guess.”

“
Sweet Lord above, I didn’t
think this feud would ever end.” Jubal’s voice was a study in
amazement, and it was frosted with relief and a soul-deep
sadness.

“
It was Maggie ended it.”
Dan was smiling a little bit now as he peered into the
gorge.

“
She hollered him right over
the railing.” Jubal smiled a little bit, too.

“
Hope she don’t never yell
at you like that.”

“
I’ll do my best never to
give her cause.” Jubal was only half teasing about that.

“
You better never.” Dan
wasn’t teasing at all.

Jubal shook his head. “I’m sorry she had to
go through all this.”

Dan lifted his head and pinned Jubal with a
steady gaze. “I told you a long time ago that she had a strong
spirit. It’s strong enough to get her through this.”

Jubal grinned. “I know you did, Danny. And I
know you’re right.” His grin faded. “I guess the worst of it was
when those bastards got Four Toes.”

Dan looked down into the gully again. “That
was the worst of it for all of us, I reckon.” His voice was deep
and still in the breathless day.

Neither man spoke for a minute as they
peered into the gorge.

“
Should we pick him up?”
Jubal didn’t sound as though he were thrilled at the
prospect.

“
Hell, no. Just tell the
authorities in El Paso there’s been an accident. Let them deal with
the bastard. With any luck, the buzzards will have picked his bones
clean by that time.”

Jubal shuddered in spite of himself. “I
guess he’ll feed a lot of buzzards for a long time. And maybe even
a coyote or two.”

“
I guess.”

The two men were silent when they rode back
to the train.

# # #

Jubal drove Maggie and Annie in the wagon
back to Green’s Valley. He wanted to put his arm around them both,
but he had to drive the mules so he couldn’t.

Dan rode his own horse and led Old Red. He
rode a little ways away from the wagon, obviously not willing to
talk right now, too busy thinking his own thoughts. He fingered the
medicine pouch that hung on a leather thong around his neck and his
eyes looked as though they weren’t seeing the landscape around him,
but were focused on something in his memory.

Maggie was sitting as close to Jubal as she
could get, her insides so full of confused emotions that she
couldn’t even begin to voice them.

Worst of all—worse than being kidnapped or
watching Prometheus Mulrooney fall to his death or being afraid she
and her baby would die—was the knowledge that Four Toes was gone.
Murdered.

Annie was wearing Four Toes’ hat as they
drove home. It was so big that it swallowed her head whole and rode
on her little nose but since she was sleeping soundly in her
mother’s arms it didn’t matter. Every now and then Maggie would
look at that hat and feel like bawling.

All of a sudden she was glad that she had
been instrumental in Mulrooney’s death. She felt as though, for
once in her life, she had accomplished something worthwhile.

Her Aunt Lucy always told her that anger was
bad, that she was wrong to get mad and that it was bad to make
anybody else mad. Aunt Lucy drummed it into her head that she was
weak and stupid and had a faulty character because she made her
aunt mad and because, every now and then when pressed beyond
endurance, she herself flared into anger. For her entire short
life, thanks to Aunt Lucy’s training, Maggie had tried never to get
mad.

She wondered about that now. She wondered
if, in spite of her aunt, anger might just serve a useful purpose
in life. Maybe her character wasn’t as weak as she’d always
believed it to be. She thought about it for an hour or more before
she felt she’d sorted her thoughts out enough to ask Jubal about
it.

“
Jubal?” The word was a
near-whisper. Her throat still felt tight.

Jubal, whose own thoughts were as confused
as Maggie’s, didn’t even hear her at first. He was still numb about
Mulrooney’s death. It hadn’t quite settled into his gut that the
feud—the feud that had spanned decades, miles, and way too many
lives—was over. More clear to him was the fact that he had lost
another brother. He wasn’t sure he could stand it.

“
Jubal?”

She said it with more force this time, and
it startled her husband. He dared loop the reins into one hand for
long enough to give her a squeeze.

“
Yes, Maggie?”

Although Maggie had been thinking about this
for an entire hour, she still fumbled a little bit when she ask,
“Do—Well—I mean, Aunt Lucy—Oh, Lord.” She took a deep breath.
“Jubal, do you think I have a weak character?”

If his own emotions had not been so raw, his
own thoughts so tumbled, he might have got mad and yelled at her.
As it was, it took him a moment or two to take in her question. He
couldn’t believe she’d asked it, and he had to turn on his seat and
stare at her for a second before he realized she actually seemed to
require an answer.

He was somber when he told her, “Maggie,
I’ve never met a woman in my life who had a stronger character than
you. My mother—well, my mother had a weak character. But there’s
not a weak bone in your body, Maggie. Your Aunt Lucy was a bitch.
Don’t even think about anything she ever said to you. She was
wrong. She was mean and wrong and hated you because she resented
you. Forget her.”

Maggie stared at him as he spoke, listening
for all she was worth. And for once in her life, she wasn’t
allowing her mind to interfere with her listening and filter
Jubal’s words through a lifetime of Aunt Lucy’s training. She
allowed them to settle in so that she could think about them.

Jubal wondered why she didn’t respond after
he said his piece, but he was too occupied with his own unhappy
thoughts to question her.

After what seemed like another hour, Maggie
said, “Thank you, Jubal. I think you’re right.”

They rode the rest of the way home in
silence.

Except for the rumbling of the wagon and the
clop-clop of Old Red and Dan’s horse, the ranch was silent when
they made their way through the gate and lumbered into the
yard.

“
I’ll take care of the
horses.” Dan’s voice sounded raspy and it cracked a little bit, as
though it had dried up in the desert.

“
I’ll make some tea.” Maggie
didn’t wait to be helped down from the wagon, but handed her
daughter to Jubal and scrambled down over the big, dusty
wheel.

Jubal adjusted Annie against his shoulder
and carefully climbed down from the wagon. Then he put a hand on
Maggie’s shoulder, and said, “I’ll put Annie in bed while you do
that, Maggie.”

On the way home, he had decided that Annie
was his daughter. He knew that he hadn’t fathered her in the
literal sense, but she was his daughter now, and he was her father,
and he wasn’t going to fight it any longer. All the fatherly urges
he’d been feeling since he’d met these two females weren’t a
weakness. They were a strength, like Maggie’s character, and he was
going to enjoy them and to hell with anybody who thought
otherwise.

Beula Todd met them before they got to the
kitchen door. Her face was red. She was wiping her hands on her
apron, and she looked as though she had been crying. She flapped
her hands in front of her face, trying to speak.

“
Oh, thank God you’re back!”
was her welcome, as Maggie and Jubal stepped toward the door. “I
was so worried about you. But Doc Haskins says he’s going to be all
right. It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle!”

Upon those words, Beula burst into tears
that looked suspiciously hysterical to Jubal.

With a very few quick steps, Maggie covered
the distance between them and wrapped Beula in her arms. “It’s all
right, Beula,” she soothed. “Everything will be all right.”

Maggie thought she heard Beula say, “I know,
I know,” but she wasn’t sure, because the words came out
waterlogged, soggy, and heavy with tears.

“
What’s Doc Haskins doing
here?” Jubal’s question was sharp.

It took a while for Beula to compose herself
enough to sniff back her tears and answer him. Her voice was still
thick when she said, “Why, Four Toes. When that man brought him in,
we thought he was dead, but Doc Haskins was passing by, and he dug
the bullet out, and he says that if we’re careful, he’ll live.” She
took another watery sniff and repeated, “It’s a miracle.”

Heedless of the sleeping child in his arms,
Jubal whirled around and yelled as loud as he could, “Dan! Dan!
Come here right now!”

Everything seemed to freeze for several
seconds. Later, Maggie couldn’t even remember what she’d been
thinking during those seconds. Or even if she’d been thinking. She
was too stunned.

She couldn’t believe it was her husband’s
voice that croaked a ragged, whispery, “He’s alive,” when Dan came
running hell for leather up to them. Then she couldn’t believe it
was the same two men she knew and loved who first threw their arms
around each other, then opened their little circle to include her.
Then she stood there in that circle and every one of them cried
like babies.

In all the years she’d known Dan Blue Gully
and Jubal Green, Beula Todd had never seen either of them even
close to shedding a tear. She was wiping her own streaming eyes
with her apron when they finally quit embracing each other and
surged toward the house, the horses Dan had been going to take care
of clearly forgot.

It was much later, after the doctor had
left, when they were sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea,
that Beula told them the story.

“
It was the strangest
thing,” she said. “Oh, I didn’t think anything about it then
because I was too worried about Four Toes. But now I think about
it, it was really strange.

“
This man showed up with
Four Toes propped in front of him on his horse. I don’t know how he
knew where to come. Four Toes was unconscious.”

“
What’s his name?” Jubal was
going to be damned sure that the good Samaritan was well rewarded
for saving his brother’s life.

“
Well, that’s just the
strange thing, Mr. Green,” Beula told him. “We don’t know. We were
so busy fussing over Four Toes for the first little while after
he’d brought him home. And then, when we went to see to the
stranger, he was gone. As if he’d never even been here. Didn’t say
a word. I felt bad because I wanted to thank him and feed him, but
he was gone. And nobody remembers ever seeing him before.” She
shrugged and shook her head.

“
Maybe he went on to El
Paso,” said Jubal. “What did he look like? I’ll try to find
him.”

“
Oh,” said Beula, smiling at
the memory, “He was the nicest man. Had the sweetest smile and the
prettiest brown eyes I ever seen. Curly brown hair—pretty brown,
like Annie’s. He was tall and sort of gangly. Wore a blue plaid
shirt and a denim jacket. I remember that jacket because it had a
pretty patchwork flower sewn onto the pocket. Like a sweetheart had
made it for him or something. Had a ring on his finger. Guess he’s
married.”

Maggie had been staring at Beula with an odd
expression on her face. Now she uttered a strangled gasp and Beula
and Jubal looked at her.

“
You okay, Maggie?” Jubal
gave her a squeeze. He had put Annie to bed at last, and the little
girl was still sleeping soundly, Four Toes Smith’s hat gracing one
of the posts at the foot of her bed.

Since she didn’t trust herself to speak,
Maggie only nodded.

It was impossible. She knew
it was impossible. Things like this just didn’t happen. In books.
In fairy tales. In dreams they happened. But they didn’t
really
happen. Maggie
knew that.

“
Did he say anything at
all?” That was Jubal.

Beula sighed, remembering. “Said as how he
found Four Toes on the desert. Padded the bullet wound and wrapped
it up, got him on his horse, and brung him here. Didn’t say how he
knew where he lived.”

“
Well, it happened on my
land. Guess this is the closest place to bring him.” Jubal was
frowning into his tea, trying to make sense of it, wondering how
the man had got past the guards. “Must have followed the wagon
tracks.”

But Maggie knew that wasn’t it. She couldn’t
say so because her husband and Beula would think she was crazy
beyond hope, but she knew that wasn’t it.

The man Beula described was Kenny. Kenneth
Anthony Bright, Maggie’s dear, sweet, dead husband, her guardian
spirit for all these months, had found Four Toes and brought him
home. It even sounded crazy to her. But they’d buried him in that
jacket. The man was Kenny.

“
Did—” Maggie fought hard
for her voice and managed, with an enormous effort of will, to keep
from shrieking her question. “Did he say anything else? Anything?
Anything else at all?”

This was important. She wanted to know.
Needed to know.

Beula thought for a moment; seemed to be
collecting her memories together into some kind of sensible
whole.

“
Yeah. That was a little bit
strange, too, come to think on it. Looked around him after Cod Fish
and Sammy took Four Toes into the bedroom. Smiled. Said something
odd, like, ‘This is a good place. Good place to raise kids. Good
place to be happy.’ Something like that. Then he said, ‘Tell the
lady of the house I’m happy for her.’” Beula nodded at Maggie and
Jubal. “I remember that especially because it seemed so
strange.”

Maggie lurched from the table, upsetting her
tea, and flailed blindly toward the window. It was dark outside
now, and she didn’t see a thing as she stared out that window but
her own memories. They were almost indecipherable through the tears
that blinded her and the roaring in her head.