One Bright Morning (22 page)

“
What about the purple
ones?” he finally asked, with a trace of grumpiness in his
tone.

“
Purple ones?”

Maggie turned wide blue eyes upon him and
Jubal got lost in them for a minute. He had to shake his head and
clear his throat before he could talk again.

He shrugged toward the river bank. “Those
purple ones next to the red ones.”

Maggie squinted at the river and then
sighed. “I can’t see them, I guess,” she admitted.

Disappointment made her words seem very
poignant to Jubal. He eyed her curiously.

“
You really can’t see those
flowers?”

Maggie shook her head and hugged Annie. “I
don’t think my eyes are very good,” she told him in a little voice,
as though her poor eyesight were all her fault somehow.

Silence reigned momentarily.

“
Maybe you need spectacles,”
Jubal suggested after a second or two.

Maggie nodded. “Yeah. I think so. Kenny was
going to get me some before that horse kicked him.” She sounded
very sad.

Jubal’s brows drew together. There she went
again, talking about her dratted husband. Still, he guessed he
couldn’t really blame her. A thought occurred to him suddenly, and
he eyed her once again.

“
But you shot French Jack’s
partner.”

Maggie grinned as she remembered that
episode. It was a high spot in her life, all right. “Yeah, I did,”
she said. “I waited until he shot at me, saw the flash, and aimed
at that.”

A small smile quirked at Jubal’s mouth.
“That’s the way you did it, huh?” He admired that. It was a
reasoned action that demonstrated thoughtfulness and enterprise,
two traits of which he approved. They were also two traits he
hadn’t encountered in a female before.

Maggie nodded. She was very pleased with
herself about that shot. Kenny would have been proud of her. When
she peeked a glance at Jubal Green, and he looked as though he were
proud of her, too, she felt her cheeks get hot.

“
Look, mama,” Annie said,
diverting her mother’s attention.

Annie was getting into the spirit of
adventure, too, and she pointed at more red flowers in a meadow
across the stream.

“
I see, Annie,” said her
proud mama with a happy grin.

Jubal noted with relief that Maggie didn’t
seem unhappy anymore, and he was glad. He was very nearly
light-hearted about it, in fact. He decided to take advantage of
Maggie’s good mood.

“
It’s pretty around here,
isn’t it?” he said, as an experiment. Jubal wasn’t used to making
small talk.

Maggie sucked in a breath of fresh spring
air and smiled. “It sure is. Is this land anything like where your
ranch is, Mr. Green?”

Jubal chuckled. “No, it’s nothing like this
where I live. This is still in the mountains. I’m way down
there.”

He pointed toward the southwest, and Maggie
squinted off into the distance. She couldn’t see a thing except
trees.

“
Is it pretty, though?” she
asked, a bit timidly. She hoped it would be pretty. One thing about
Bright’s Farm, she thought, was that no matter how hard life got,
it was real pretty.

Jubal thought about her question. He hoped
Maggie would like it. It wasn’t like the mountains, though. If she
liked green trees all around her, she’d be disappointed. He didn’t
want her to be disappointed.

“
Well,” he said finally.
“It’s different. It’s got a river running through it with
cottonwoods along the bank. I guess it isn’t like your place in the
woods, but I like it.”

Maggie thought he sounded a little
defensive, and rushed to soothe him. She certainly wasn’t about to
disparage his ranch, no matter how awful it looked.

“
I’m sure it’s a nice place,
Mr. Green. I just wondered.”

“
Well,” said Jubal, “I sure
hope you like it.” Then he felt like blushing and couldn’t for the
life of him figure out why.

“
I’m sure we’ll like it
fine,” Maggie said complacently, and hoped she was
right.

“
Fine,” agreed
Annie.

Jubal grinned at the little girl, and
realized all at once that children could be a convenient place to
rest one’s attention if one were embarrassed about something
else.

“
You’ll like it, Annie. I’ve
got me a dog named Rover. You’ll like him.”

“
Dah?” Annie was interested.
She liked the Phillips’ dog Pete. He was big and furry and licked
her face and made her laugh.

“
Yep, a dog,” Jubal said.
“He’s bigger than you are, but he’s friendly.”

Maggie was smiling broadly now. She loved it
when people paid attention to her daughter.

“
His name is Rover, Annie,”
she said. “Can you say Rover?”

Annie’s big brown eyes sparkled. “Wover,”
she said and seemed pleased when the adults sitting with her
laughed.

They camped that night by the Hondo. Their
route was about to leave the river behind as they headed on south,
but Jubal thought it might be nice to have the luxury of easy water
tonight since, once they passed Turkey Creek on the morrow, it was
going to be the last water of its kind for a while.

“
There will be lots of
little streamlets in places, but we aren’t going to hit another big
river until the Rio Bravo,” Jubal told them. Then he stopped what
he was doing and thought for a minute. “I guess most folks call it
the Rio Grande up here.”

“
I didn’t know they were the
same river,” admitted Maggie, who had just assumed there were two
big rivers flowing through Texas into Mexico.

“
I guess you’re not alone
there, Mrs. Bright.” Jubal thought Maggie’s mistake was a
particularly female one, and for some reason he kind of liked
it.

Four Toes rode up to the little camp then.
He’d been scouting on ahead of them, watching for signs of
malevolent forces. Jubal had told Maggie he didn’t expect any more
of Mulrooney’s people to accost them yet because he didn’t think
there would have been time to send more murderers after them from
that quarter.

“
But that don’t mean the
rest of the no-goods who live around here won’t want whatever’s in
your wagon, ma’am,” Dan Blue Gully told her.

Dan had ridden beside the wagon while Jubal
drove. Maggie watched with interest as the Indian scanned the
landscape around them. He seemed very alert, and she was glad,
especially after he told her about the no-goods.

“
Are there lots of them
around these parts?” she asked, a little worried.

Dan chuckled. “I reckon you could say that,
ma’am, and not be contradicted much, yes.”

Jubal was building the fire and he grunted
at Dan’s words. “Shoot, every no-good who’s got people after him in
the States high-tails it into New Mexico Territory, Mrs. Bright.
It’s almost like somebody tipped the country and all the riffraff
in it rolled out here.”

Jubal thought his arm would break off before
he got the wood carried over to the fire. He was certain his leg
was rotting and would fall off any second now as he tried to walk
without limping about the campsite. In fact, he was so sore that he
could barely move, but his orneriness and pride wouldn’t allow him
to admit it. Whether he admitted it or not, though, bouncing on the
hard seat of the wagon and guiding the mules with his bum arm had
taken their toll on his poor muscles. Maggie’s next comment didn’t
make him feel any better.

“
Yes,” she murmured
thoughtfully. “Kenny used to say just about the same thing, now I
come to think about it.”

“
Got us some rabbits for
supper,” Four Toes said, holding out the four rabbits he had shot
on his scouting trip. “I’ll skin ‘em for you, Mrs. Bright, if
you’ll cook ‘em.”

“
I’d be happy to, Mr. Smith.
Thank you for skinning them. I don’t like to do that very
much.”

Actually, Maggie hated it. She hated
skinning rabbits even more than she hated gutting and cleaning
fish, and she hated that job a whole lot. For some reason, plucking
chickens didn’t bother her as much those other two chores.

“
Think I’ll fix these pelts
up for Annie, too,” Four Toes murmured, as he walked off out of
camp again to take care of the skinning. “I bet she’ll like the
soft fur.”

Maggie smiled after him. “What a nice man he
is,” she mused aloud.

Jubal turned to stare at Maggie, and his
face held an expression that was half bemusement and half
aggravation. Dan noticed that expression and laughed.

Maggie peered at the two of them, puzzled,
for a second or two, but neither one of them seemed inclined to
enlighten her about what was funny. In fact, Jubal turned to glare
at Dan. That was when Maggie noticed that Jubal was stiff and
grimacing as he moved around the campsite.

“
Are your wounds paining
you, Mr. Green?” she asked.

Jubal heard the concern in her voice and his
mood softened some. He had become quite cranky when she went
directly from mooning about her dead husband to praising Four Toes
Smith.

“
Some,” he said, and then
Dan accidentally bumped his leg with a log he was bringing over to
the fire, and Jubal let out a ragged bellow of pain and nearly fell
over.

Maggie jumped right up from where she had
been setting up cooking things and ran over to him. Supporting him
by his good arm, she held him tight and began right in
scolding.

“
Mr. Green, you stop moving
around right this minute. You come over here and lie down, and I
don’t want an argument.”

Jubal didn’t swear at her because he saw
that her expression held genuine concern, and he knew it was for
him. He grimaced, his leg still throbbing painfully, and started to
protest, but Maggie put her other hand over his mouth before he
could say a word. Her hand was surprisingly soft and smelled a
little bit like lilacs. Jubal sniffed appreciatively.

Instead of the words of protest he had been
going to say, when Maggie withdrew her hand he found himself
murmuring, “You smell good.” Then he felt silly.

Maggie flushed up a little bit, and her face
looked almost golden in the last rays of the afternoon sun. Jubal
liked looking at her. Her soft breast pressed against his good arm
as she led him over to the quilt she had laid out for him, and he
liked that, too. He allowed her to help him lie down and wondered
if he was getting so soft that he’d never recover.

“
I’ll help you get your
boots off, Mr. Green, and then I’m going to see if Mr. Blue Gully
thinks it’s a good idea for you to chew on another one of those
bark chips of mine.”

She gave him a firm nod, as though she
wasn’t about to take any guff from him, so he decided not to give
her any. He’d already built up the fire, and his two friends were
setting up the rest of the camp. He guessed he could lie down and
play invalid for a little while. His mood had lightened
unexpectedly with Maggie’s nagging, and he found that circumstance
odd in the extreme.

“
Yes, ma’am,” he said with a
small grin.

Maggie eyed him suspiciously, but he just
smiled at her. His smile sent a funny, swimmy feeling shimmering
through her middle, and she couldn’t watch him while she pulled off
his boots because she was too nervous. That alarmed her. She tried
to cover her nervousness with chatter.

“
Tomorrow you’re going to
use a pillow to sit on, Mr. Green. I’ll fix you up something,
either rolled blankets or a bed pillow or something.”

Jubal was too busy gritting his teeth to
answer her.

Annie had been sitting on a log, playing
with a corncob doll as her mother had instructed her to do, and she
was yawning occasionally. When she noticed Jubal lying back on the
quilt, however, she moseyed over and plopped her little bottom down
next to him.

“
Ho, Juba,” said the little
girl.

“
Hello, Annie,” said
Jubal.

“
See my dolly?” Annie held
up the corncob.

Jubal noted with interest that the doll was
dressed in the same calico print that the little girl wore.

“
I see your dolly, Annie.
Did your mama make it for you?”

“
Yes.”

“
It’s a pretty dolly,
Annie,” said Jubal gently.

“
Yes,” agreed the little
girl.

Then she yawned again and knuckled her eyes.
Jubal crooked his good arm out and the baby took the invitation. By
the time Maggie got back to the quilt, Annie was curled up next to
Jubal, asleep, with her doll hugged to her chest. Jubal’s hand was
stroking her soft hair and Maggie’s heart clutched at the
sight.

This is what life should be like, she
thought suddenly, unexpectedly. Annie should have a daddy to hold
her when she’s sleepy. And she herself needed a man to tend. She
hadn’t realized how much she missed that aspect of marriage until
right this minute.

Jubal smiled up at her when she joined them.
“Your little girl likes to sleep with me.”

Maggie smiled down at him. Then his eyes
captured and held hers for a moment and she got all confused.
Somehow, Maggie knew Jubal’s words didn’t quite mean what they
said, but she couldn’t sort out his ulterior meaning because her
heart was doing crazy flip-flops in her breast. She broke eye
contact with an almost physical effort.

“
Yes, she seems to, all
right.” Her attempt to make the words sound light was somewhat
strained.

She had brought an armload of nursing
equipment with her, and she sat down on the quilt next to Jubal and
Annie with a poof of calico cloth. She slapped her skirts down
around her legs as though sitting on the ground in a rough camp
were an every-day habit for her.