Walking on Air

by Catherine Anderson

Gabe felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his chest. “He’ll be starving again come morning,” he observed.

  “No, he won’t. This delivery lady has every intention of taking him a huge, hot-from-the-stove breakfast. And I will carve out time tomorrow to pay a call on our minister to let him know there’s a boy who needs placement in a good home.”

  “You can sweeten the deal by telling the preacher that the generous family will receive a tidy amount of money each month to offset the cost of feeding and clothing an extra child.”

  Nan smiled up at him. “Are you truly willing to do that for him, on a monthly basis without fail?”

  “Sure.”

  Fortunately Gabe knew that Nan would see to it after he died. She would then have a bank account balance nearly as big as her kind and gentle heart.

  He felt at peace as he escorted the two females to Lizzy’s. He handed Laney the quilt he’d been carrying under one arm. Nan, apparently chilled, leaned against Gabe’s side as they watched the girl scurry across the café’s back dooryard to the lean-to. Even through the darkness, Gabe saw the painfully thin yellow dog struggle to his feet, beside himself with happiness to have a visitor. Laney set aside the bucket and went down on her knees to hug the animal’s neck. Not good. Gabe had a bad feeling it might be love at first lick. Soon the dog was devouring the offerings. Laney stayed there until the food was gone to collect the pail.

  “I think I need a new trash bucket,” Nan observed. “That one is going to be in constant use.”

  Gabe was happy to agree that she was probably right.

  During the short walk home, he congratulated himself on outwitting the angels. He’d followed their rules, almost. Surely almost would be counted as good enough, even up there.

  Gabe was too happy to worry about it overmuch tonight. He took it as a very good sign that he hadn’t heard the angel Gabriel’s admonishing voice boom in his ear.

  Now Gabe had only to dream up some way to prevent that little girl from going to the doctor next week. That was going to be a tough one, he knew.

  But, dammit, he had to think of something.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After that night of helping the boy and dog, Gabe yearned to do more, so very much more. He kept reminding himself that he could not keep intervening, that he needed to stay focused on his immediate circle, but, damn, it was hard. There were so many things he could have prevented from happening with the foreknowledge he had—the death of a dog that ran between two quarreling drunks and got shot, the nasty fall of a toddler on the boardwalk that resulted in badly scraped knees, and the financial ruin of a young man at the poker tables who bet all he owned on a supposedly unbeatable poker hand. The list of things Gabe could stop from happening was endless inside his mind.

  He tried to concentrate on his singular reason for being here: saving Nan. She was why he had been given this second chance. He couldn’t forget that even for an instant. No one else mattered.

  In the beginning, Gabe had been so grateful to be given another chance, but as Christmas approached, he was filled with heartache. Ah, yes . . . he had succeeded in accomplishing nearly all of his assignments. Today he had finally received the Pinkerton report in the mail, which documented that Horace Barclay had survived being impaled by Nan’s knitting needle. When the moment was right, Gabe would hand Nan the paperwork. She would no longer have to live in dread of the murder charge that she now believed hung over her head. She’d still have to be cautious about how much she revealed about her past if she forged friendships, of course. To protect Laney, she would have to remain in hiding until the child reached her majority. Martin Sullivan was the girl’s legal guardian, and if the man got wind of Nan’s whereabouts, he’d waste no time in coming to Random to collect his younger daughter.

  Gabe worried about what would become of his ladies after he died the second time, but one concern he didn’t have was that Nan would be careless and reveal her location. She’d managed to keep her head down for eight years, and she would continue to do that. With all the money Gabe was leaving her, she and Laney could remain in Random, a tiny town lost in the wilds of Colorado, and live in high cotton for the rest of their lives.

  Gabe tried—really tried—to be satisfied with the good he had accomplished. The dog was putting on weight, and the boy, though not yet placed in a caring home, was warm and had a full belly. But thoughts of the little girl with the weak heart haunted him. He attempted to keep a smile on his face, but apparently he was no loss to the stage, because Nan picked up on his gloomy mood.

  One evening as they worked together to prepare supper, she suddenly reached out and clasped Gabe’s wrist, stopping him from opening a cupboard door. “Gabriel, what’s troubling you?” she asked softly.

  Gabe avoided meeting her silvery gaze. Sometime over the last couple of weeks, he’d started to feel as if Nan could see clear to his soul, and he figured his soul was probably a pretty dark place right now. Using his greater strength, he broke Nan’s grip by grabbing the cupboard knob. “What makes you think something’s troubling me?” He took a serving bowl from the shelf. “I’ve got nothing on my mind but the hunger in my belly. Pretty soon it’ll be growling so loud, you’ll think a wild beast is hiding behind me.”

  Nan left off trying to make him look at her, but when she spoke from behind him as he tried to walk away, her words jerked his feet to a stop as surely as if they were invisible strings knotted around his ankles. “You don’t laugh anymore.”

  Gabe kept his back to her and briefly closed his eyes. Laughter, his gift to her, and now he’d become the killjoy. “I’m sorry.” He moved over to the stove to empty a hot pan of peas into the bowl, wishing Laney would emerge from her room to interrupt this exchange. She’d come home from school feeling tired and was taking a before-supper nap. “I didn’t realize I haven’t been laughing. It’s nothing to do with you, honey. I guess we all have a gloomy side, and now you’re glimpsing mine, I reckon.”

  “Are you—” She broke off and made fists in her pretty white apron, which she’d embroidered with roses and curlicues of green. “From the start, I feared that you’d grow bored with all this domesticity. Is that the problem, that you’re yearning to be out on the trail again?”

  Gabe almost groaned. He’d hated his former life, camping along streams or laying over in strange towns, never daring to linger for long and always waiting for a slug to nail him in the back. This brief time in Nan’s world . . . Well, these had been his best days ever. He’d gotten to experience life in a real home. He’d even been able to pretend sometimes that Nan was his wife and Laney his very own child, giving him an addictive taste of family. If he’d had his druthers, he would have stayed here in Random forever. Maybe build a real house at the edge of town with enough land around it to keep horses and a few farm animals, plus grow some crops. Hell, maybe he’d even raise chickens. While Nan made hats, he could try his damnedest to produce hens that laid better eggs than Ellen Hamm’s.

  “I’m not hankering for the trail, Nan. You don’t have to worry that you’ll wake up tomorrow morning and find me gone.” He laughed at the thought, the sound wistful. “As if you’d care if I suddenly disappeared. If you could, I think you’d sweep me out the shop door with all the street dust your customers track in.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. I’ve come to think very highly of you, Gabriel. You’re . . . my friend.”

  Gabe searched her gaze and knew, finally, that she wouldn’t send him packing if he told her Horace Barclay was alive and well. He wished for more than mere friendship with her, but he had to settle for whatever she offered him. “Nan, there’s something really important that I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “About Horace Barclay and that mur—”

  “Mama?” Laney called hoarsely as she stumbled sleepily from her room toward the kitchen. “I don’t feel well.”
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  Distracted, Nan met the child in the archway, felt her forehead, and said, “Oh, lands, you’re burning up!” She sent Gabe a frightened look. “I mean it; she’s on fire. We need to tonic her up and try to get this fever down.”

  Frustrated by the interruption, Gabe stepped over to place a hand on the girl’s forehead. Nan was right: Laney had a very high fever. Just then, the girl coughed, and Gabe heard a slight rattle in her chest. Nan went as white as her apron.

  “She’s had pneumonia once before.” She directed an imploring look at Gabe. “Do you think—”

  “I don’t hold much with tonic,” Gabe inserted. “Peddlers mix it in their wagons half the time, using measures of rotgut whiskey, honey, and God only knows what else. For all we know, they could spit tobacco juice in for good measure. Then they swear it’ll cure near anything. The truth is, people feel a little better right after taking it because they’re a bit drunk.”

  Nan teetered on the edge of panic. Gabe saw it in her face. “Get her back to bed, honey. When she’s settled, fill the washbasin with cool water, strip off her clothes, and bathe her with wet cloths. She’ll get the shudders and beg you to stop, but don’t. And when she tries to hug the covers, don’t let her.”

  Gabe stepped over to the wall hook where he’d taken to hanging his Stetson. As he settled the hat on his head, Nan, holding a slumped Laney to her side, cried, “Don’t leave us, Gabriel! I’m not strong enough to bathe her if she goes out of her head with the fever and fights me.”

  Instilling into his voice a calmness he didn’t quite feel, Gabe said, “I’m only stepping out briefly to fetch Doc Peterson. I’ll be back in two shakes. Then I’ll help, if I’m needed.”

  Laney leaned more heavily against Nan. “My heart hurts, Mama, like a knife is poking into me. I can’t barely breathe.”

  When the child used incorrect English, Gabe knew how very sick she truly was. Pneumonia, sure as hell.

  Gabe collected the physician in short order. Doc Peterson, the same man whose gaze Gabe had met in the saloon mirrors on that Christmas morning right before he’d been shot, took a listen to Laney’s chest and pronounced, “It could turn on us and become pneumonia, but for now, I don’t think she’s there yet. Just very congested.”

  “I nearly lost her to pneumonia the last time,” Nan said softly, her voice twanging with hysteria. “What if she has a tendency toward it?”

  Doc patted Nan’s arm and got up from the bed. “She’s older now, Mrs. Valance, a healthy young lady with a strong constitution. This stuff is nasty, and I can’t promise it won’t turn into pneumonia, but let’s not start draping black over the windows just yet.” His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he spoke. Gabe noticed that his thin gray hair spiked straight up atop his bony head, a sure sign that he’d been raking his fingers through it, possibly with hopelessness. His gray suit, the same one he’d worn last time, looked as if he’d been sleeping in it for days. He opened his black bag and started fishing around in the cluttered depths. “I’ve seen some patients tonight who may not be so lucky, but I’m not too worried about this little gal. Do like your husband told you. Keep the fever at bay with cool baths.” He set a brown bottle on the small table. “This tonic will help her to rest. Dose her with two tablespoonsful every four hours.”

  “It wasn’t mixed by a peddler, I hope,” Nan said shakily.

  Doc chuckled. “No, ma’am, I don’t deal in snake-oil cures. I order this tonic in from Frisco. There’s some laudanum in it, what we doctors call tincture of opium. Strong stuff, so don’t overdose her. It’s mainly to help her sleep while her body fights this off.”

  Gabe knew Laney wasn’t going to die. For one, he hadn’t heard rumors of her death the last time he’d lived through this month. He’d also seen Nan at a bough-draped shop window on Christmas morning. She never would have decorated for the holiday if her little sister had just passed on.

  He escorted the exhausted physician downstairs to see him out. As they crossed the shadowy shop, Gabe said, “This illness—it’s sweeping clear through town, isn’t it?” The last time Gabe had lived through this month, he’d heard people in the hotel restaurant speaking of the awful contagion that others were catching right and left. It was the same affliction that would kill the little girl with the weak heart on Christmas Eve. “It started with Simon White about three weeks back.”

  Doc nodded. “Simon went to Denver on business. I don’t know if he caught it in the city or while he was traveling, but it took him down.” Lifting an eyebrow, the physician smiled wearily as they moved through the shadowy shop. “Call me crazy if you like, but I’ve been practicing medicine for a long time, and though I’ve got no proof, I believe contagious illness is passed from person to person, possibly by touch or through the air when stricken people cough.”

  Gabe had done some reading but didn’t count himself an expert. “So you don’t hold with the miasma theory?”

  “I don’t discount it, but I don’t ignore what I’ve seen with my own eyes, either. Close contact—hell, just being in the same room a sick person recently left—can make you sick, too.” The doctor shrugged. “I’ve seen it happen. It’s happened to me. I’ve started washing my hands before and after I treat a patient, and my wife, who assists me, frequently sterilizes all the surfaces in my treatment room. I don’t get ill nearly as much now, and neither does she. I highly recommend that you and your wife wash your hands often while you’re caring for Laney.”

  Gabe was a firm believer that experience was a great teacher, so he thought the physician could be right. And deep in his heart, Gabe was convinced that the little girl destined to die on Christmas Eve could be saved if he could prevent her from entering that office where so many sick people would be waiting for treatment. “You won’t hear any argument from me, Doc. If illness travels in a cloud of bad air from one community to another, why do I never get sick out on the trail? I remember once—the name of the place escapes me now—when a stage full of ailing people pulled in and stayed over until everyone was well enough to travel again. The sickness spread all over town.”

  Doc nodded. “I’ve seen similar incidents. A sick cowpoke rides in to have a drink, and before I know it, my waiting room is brimming with people who have the same illness. Before Simon realized he was getting sick, he made contact with a lot of people. He’s a shaker of hands and a cheek busser, as much a politician as he is a banker. Now a good third of the population has taken ill. I caution people to stay home if they can and to wash their hands often if they are around others, but very few listen.”

  “That’s too bad.” Gabe’s thoughts drifted to the little girl again. “Whatever this is, it’s really nasty.”

  “Yes. It’s hitting the little ones and the elderly the hardest. I lost Mrs. Barker tonight. She was the old lady who originally opened this shop. I didn’t mention it in front of your wife for fear of upsetting her even more.” At the door, Peterson stopped to look up at Gabe. “I did all I could. It was her time to go, I guess.” He shifted his bag to his left palm and mimed shaking hands with Gabe. “No point in touching. I’ve been handling the sick all day, most recently that girl upstairs. Don’t know for sure if it helps, but I try not to pass any contamination around. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. I can finally size you up on something besides rumor.”

  “Rumor?” Gabe echoed.

  Peterson chuckled. “That the gunslinger in town isn’t really such a bad fellow once you get to know him. I don’t put much stock in gossip normally, but I’m pleased to learn that it rings with truth this time. That fine lady upstairs deserves to have a good man.”

  Gabe locked up after the doctor, then leaned his forehead against the cool glass above the Closed sign. Her time to go. He felt as if he’d chewed up a razor and swallowed the chunks, wooden handle and all. Knifelike pains pricked his innards. That sweet little girl would go into Doc’s waiting room next Tuesday, and she’d be afflic
ted with the same illness that Laney fought off right now. And Gabe wasn’t supposed to do anything.

  After helping Nan nurse Laney—holding the girl still while Nan bathed her, hauling in boiling-hot pots of water to set them under a sheet canopy to create steam, and grasping the girl’s thrashing head between his hands while Nan dosed her with the tonic—Gabe prepared food for the boy and dog. Laney was sleeping now, albeit fitfully. Nan was resting in the rocker that Gabe had moved from the sitting room into the bedchamber.

  In short, there was no one but Gabe to play food deliverer tonight. He formed a sack with one of Nan’s kitchen towels to hold the boy’s sandwiches and milk bottle, filled the pail with scraps for the dog, and retraced his steps downstairs. Outside Nan’s shop, he stood motionless for a moment, wondering how in the hell he could do this and get away with it. He could only hope that angels had lousy night vision. And what were the chances of that?

  Gabe stopped several yards from the whorehouse staircase and softly called, “There’s food and milk in a satchel out here on this boardwalk. I wonder who in the world left it here.”

  Before the boy could slip out from his hiding place to fetch the food, Gabe had turned heel and was walking away, swinging the pail of dog scraps at his side with every other step. No personal contact, no forbidden act of intervention. Nope. He was just dropping off nourishment, helter-skelter, and if a hungry boy and dog ran out to eat, it wasn’t any of his doing.

  Gabe whistled the tune to “Yankee Doodle” as he approached Lizzy’s Café, which was now closed down for the night. Circling the side of the building and stopping just short of the backyard, he set down the pail and slightly changed the cadence of his whistle, two sharp tweets that most dogs recognized as a “come here” signal. Never missing stride, Gabe loped toward the opposite side of the street, gained the boardwalk, and leaned against the barber’s pole to strike a match and have himself a leisurely smoke. Every man needs to escape sometimes, he told himself, and enjoy a cigarette. There was no crime in that. If some stray dog devoured the contents of a bucket he’d left unattended, it wasn’t his fault.