One Bright Morning (20 page)

A vile grin greased its way across
Mulrooney’s fat face.

“
So I guess I’ll just have
to take over the job, since my hired help is incompetent,” he said
to his two petrified underlings.

Then he seemed to realize the two men were
still there. “Well?” he thundered. “What are you waiting for?”

Ferrett and Pelch bolted for the door of
Mulrooney’s library like a couple of frightened antelopes.

“
New Mexico,” breathed Pelch
when the door had shut behind them. He had to wipe the sweat off of
his brow, and his white handkerchief fluttered in his shaky
hand.

“
Oh, Lord,” muttered Ferrett
miserably.

They walked down the stairs slowly, their
shoulders drooping, their heads bowed under the weight of their
employment.

Ferrett looked at his companion sadly. “Do
you have a will made up, Mr. Pelch?” he asked.

“
Yes,” replied Pelch. “Do
you?”

“
Yes.”

“
Good,” said
Pelch.

“
Yes,” Ferrett
repeated.

# # #

“
But I can’t leave my
home!”

It was a week after Mulrooney’s last attack,
and Maggie felt as though the fabric of her life had just been
ripped to shreds in front of her face. After several heated minutes
and quite a few angry exchanges between herself and Jubal Green,
her temper tantrum had still not worn itself out.

But now, as her eyes made the circuit from
man to man to man as she peered around the table, what she saw in
their expressions was not encouraging. She could tell they weren’t
going to budge.

Dan Blue Gully looked stoic and his face was
unreadable. Four Toes Smith bounced Annie on his knee. He was
giving the little girl horsy rides. Four Toes watched Maggie with
enormous compassion recognizable in his dark brown eyes, but not a
shred of compromise.

Jubal Green was furious. He knew he’d just
yell at her again if he opened his mouth, so he sat stiffly at the
table and let Dan do the talking. He’d already said his piece, at
the top of his lungs, and she was still arguing.

Women
, he grumped to himself.
Just when
you think you like one of them, she up and gets unreasonable on
you
.

Dan Blue Gully’s voice was soothing.

“
It’s not safe for you here,
Mrs. Bright. You and your daughter will be safer on Jubal’s spread
in El Paso.”

Maggie’s eyes darted again from man to man.
Jubal thought she looked a little wild, and he had a sudden urge to
scoop her up, settle her on his lap, soothe her, and tell her that
everything was going to be all right. Lord, those bullets must have
done him more damage than he thought. He was getting soft as
mush.

“
But won’t they just come
for you there? If you go away from here, won’t they leave me
alone?”

Her voice cracked and she had trouble
getting the words out. She had been furious when they first said
she’d have to go with them to El Paso, and had fought and kicked
and screamed until she was nearly hoarse. Now that she was calmer
and was thinking more rationally, the plain truth of her feelings
struck her as almost more idiotic than her fit of pique.

The truth, Maggie acknowledged against her
will, was that she didn’t want these men to leave her. She wanted
them to stay here with her and Annie and for everything to be
peaceful and for all of them to be happy together. An infinitely
practical woman, Maggie knew that wish was unreasonable, but still,
she couldn’t help what she wanted.

“
I’m afraid Mulrooney
doesn’t work that way, Mrs. Bright. He considers anybody who helps
an enemy of his to be his enemy, too. He won’t leave you and your
daughter alone just because we go away. In fact, to tell you the
truth, we’re the only protection you have.”

Maggie put her face in her hands and stared
at the table top through her fingers.

“
Oh, God,” she
whispered.

“
Jubal’s got a nice ranch
near El Paso, Mrs. Bright. And he’s got a regular army guarding
it.”

Dan’s attempt to make Maggie feel better
wasn’t working.

“
Well, I’ve got a nice farm
right here, and I don’t want to leave it!”

“
We know that, Mrs. Bright.”
Dan’s voice was a sigh. “We’re really sorry about this. But we’ll
be able to guard you better in El Paso.”

“
Oh, yes? They killed his
brother there,” she reminded him.

“
That was because his
sister-in-law wouldn’t listen to reason, Mrs. Bright. She was very
foolish and took their daughter and tried to get to town without an
escort. When Jubal’s brother went after them without waiting for
help, they were all wiped out.”

Maggie shuddered. She knew he was right.
They were trying to protect her and Annie. She knew that. Even if
it was their fault that she and Annie needed to be protected in the
first place.

But they were asking her to leave everything
she’d ever had in her life, and she simply couldn’t do it. This was
her home, the only real home she’d ever known. Kenny had built it.
She had learned love here. Kenny was still here, for God’s sake,
buried in the back yard. Although she’d never say it to a soul, she
like to think his spirit still lived on here, protecting them. She
was sure it would break her heart to leave that spirit behind.

“
My—my husband’s buried
here,” she whispered, her words now thick with tears.

Jubal’s chair scraped away from the table
and he stood up. He limped, scowling, over to the window and stared
out into the black night. For some reason, he didn’t want to hear
about Maggie’s husband.

Dan watched him, his face expressionless.
“You can come back to your farm when the danger is over, Mrs.
Bright.”

“
Will it ever be over?”
Maggie asked in a bitter whisper.

“
I sure hope so, ma’am,” the
Indian said.

“
You
hope
so?” Maggie knew she sounded
vaguely hysterical and didn’t care. “You
hope
so? I’m supposed to leave my
home and everything I have in the world because you
hope
so? What if I
can’t
ever
come
back here? What then?”

Nobody
had
an answer for her. She gave them
a full minute, eyeing each one in turn, before she exhaled a huge
sigh and resumed staring miserably at the table top.

Jubal suddenly turned away from the window
to face the trio at the table.

“
He’s hiring better people,
Mrs. Bright. That man we killed last week was Jose Escobar. He was
a desperado with a name for himself all over the border lands, in
Texas, Mexico, and here in the Territories. There’s no telling who
he’ll send after us next. We’d all be safer on my
spread.”

He hated the way Maggie’s blue eyes seemed
to be pleading with them. That plea in her expression made his
insides turn to soup and his brain to garbage. At least, he figured
it must be garbage that urged him to fall onto his knees in front
of her and beg her to come with them. He gave his head an angry
shake to clear it of those absurd notions.

“
But—but this is my
home
, Mr. Green,” she
said plaintively. “It may not be grand like your ranch, but
it’s
mine
.”

Jubal quelled the last of his soft feelings
and his gaze went hard. “It’ll still be here when you come back,
Mrs. Bright. And I don’t suppose your husband will be going
anywhere.”

He regretted his harsh words as soon as he
saw Maggie’s flinch of pain. He ran a distracted hand though his
hair and murmured a soft curse.

Dan scowled a warning at Jubal, then turned
to Maggie. His face lost its impassiveness when he looked at her
and his expression held a compassionate smile.

“
We won’t desert you, Mrs.
Bright. When this is over and you want to come back here, we’ll
help you. We won’t just let the place go. That’s a promise.” He
looked over to Jubal. “Right, Jubal?”

Jubal frowned at Dan. He didn’t want to
promise to bring Maggie back here. To her goddamned dead husband.
But he knew he had to.

“
Yes. That’s a promise, Mrs.
Bright,” he growled.

All this time, Four Toes had been paying
attention to Annie. Right now he was showing her a newly whittled
toy. He hadn’t said a word so far, but he did look up at Jubal’s
promise. He glanced from Jubal to Dan to Maggie and nodded.

“
They keep their word, Mrs.
Bright,” he said.

Maggie felt as though the whole world were
ganging up on her. She didn’t want to leave her home. She didn’t
want these men to leave her. She didn’t want to go back to being
alone in her cabin in the woods. But she didn’t want to leave that
cabin in the woods, either. It was the first place on the face of
the earth that she felt she belonged. It was close to being the
first place on the face of the earth that anybody had ever loved
her.

Besides that, what on earth was she supposed
to do at Jubal’s ranch? He said he’d protect her and she believed
him. But what did he expect of her in return? Did he expect her to
pay him? Oh, Lord. She didn’t even know how to ask the questions
she had; didn’t know how to phrase them. Still, she had to try.

“
What—what about
food?”

“
Food?” Jubal and Dan
exchanged a puzzled frown.

“
Yes. What about food? I
believe you when you say you’ll protect us, but how will we eat? I
won’t have my garden or my chickens or anything.”

Jubal’s brows nearly met over the bridge of
his nose, his scowl was so black.

“
What do you take me for
anyway, Mrs. Bright? You think we’ll haul you all the way to El
Paso just to let you starve to death on my ranch? It’s our fault
you’re in danger. For God’s sake, there’s food there! I said I’ll
take care of you. That means I’ll take care of you!”

“
I can’t pay you, Mr. Green.
I have no money.” Maggie was sure he still didn’t understand what
she was trying to say to him.

With an incredulous stare,
Jubal said, his voice a near-shout, “I don’t want your goddamned
money, Mrs. Bright! I wouldn’t take it if you gave it to me. You
saved my life! Now Mulrooney wants to kill you for it. Can’t you
understand? Until this is over,
I’ll take
care of you
! Criminy!”

Afraid he’d grab and shake her in his fury,
Jubal turned his back to the table and ran his hand through his
ruffled hair once more. Good God in heaven, what kind of man did
she think he was anyway?

Maggie flinched at his ferocity, then stared
unhappily at the three men for another minute or two. Then she
nodded her head very slightly.

“
All right,” she whispered,
barely shoving the words out past the lump in her
throat.

Then she burst into tears, jumped up from
the table, and tore out through the front door and into the black
night. It was all accomplished so quickly that the three men could
only watch, startled, as she flung herself out of the house.

“
Mama?” little Annie said,
peering at the door that had slammed shut after her mother. Annie
had a puzzled expression on her piquant face, and Four Toes held
her tight.

“
It’s all right, Annie,” he
whispered, his voice very soft.

Jubal lurched away from the window to charge
outside after Maggie, but Dan put a restraining hand on his arm.
Jubal frowned at his friend.

“
Just be kind to her,
Jubal,” said Dan.

“
Well, what the hell did you
think I was going to be?” spat Jubal furiously.

Dan just shook his head. “Jubal, she’s a
strong woman with a big heart, and we just busted it all to hell.
Be careful what you say; that’s all.”

“
Quit growling, for one
thing, Jubal,” Four Toes recommended with something close to a
grin.

Jubal cast them both an angry glare and
stomped out of the house.

The night was black as India ink and cold as
winter when he stepped outside. Above the forest, stars were so
thick it looked as though he could have reached up and grabbed a
handful if he’d had the inclination. The moon rode at an angle in
the sky, cupping bright stars in its crescent.

Jubal didn’t take any heed of the moon or
the stars until he finally found Maggie. She was sitting back on
her heels beside the grave of her husband, Kenneth Anthony
Bright.

His heart lurched when he saw her kneeling
there. She was staring up into the night sky and she had stopped
crying, although her eyes still looked perilously bright. He was
grateful to be spared more of her tears, at least.

Although he had been angry when he left the
house, when he saw her sitting there, still as stone, he suddenly
just wanted to comfort her. Very quietly, he walked up until he was
standing right next to her. She didn’t turn to look at him, and he
didn’t know what to say to her.

It was several minutes before either of them
spoke, and then it was Maggie.

“
Kenny loved this place, Mr.
Green.”

Jubal still didn’t know what to say.

“
He hacked the clearing out
of the forest and built the cabin and started the farm. He was so
proud of the place. He might not have been the world’s best farmer,
but he just loved it. And then he brought me here to share it with
him. He gave me my baby here, Mr. Green.”