Walking on Air

by Catherine Anderson

  Gabe thought of his own family—Laney, Christopher, Tyke, Jasper, and Nan. Oh, God, his precious Nan. If he’d had his druthers, he sure as hell wouldn’t be standing in this saloon, about to knock back jiggers of rotgut. These men needed a couple of angels to give them a good, hard shake so they’d appreciate the people who waited for them at home.

  When the barkeep came to take Gabe’s order, he smiled and nodded. That was definitely different. Last time, all Gabe had gotten was a stiff, “Merry Christmas.” He ordered a whole bottle, just as he had the last time, even though he knew that having it marked with his name was silly. He’d never be back to pour another measure from it.

  At the end of the bar, Doc Peterson nursed a drink. This time around, Gabe didn’t have to guess at the doctor’s identity; he knew the man and liked him. The poor fellow’s thin gray hair was in a stir, and once again his gray suit looked as if he’d slept in it. Gabe knew the physician hadn’t been home recently to catch some sleep. His wife never would have let him leave the house with his necktie all crooked and escaping from the stickpin.

  Gabe looked into the mirror behind the bar and met the doctor’s gaze. Doc’s larynx bobbed. He inclined his head in a silent greeting, which was another different thing. Either Gabe’s memory was faulty, or he guessed not every detail could be exactly the same this time around. He’d lived this last month so differently than he had the first time, and according to Nan, he’d collected some friends along the way. Knowing that felt damned good. At least this time when Raintree shot him, Gabe wouldn’t lie in the street feeling indescribably empty because no one would mourn his passing. Some people would feel a little sad when they learned of his death. And his family, he knew, would mourn him deeply.

  Gabe just hoped Nan’s and Laney’s memories would be erased so they’d feel no grief. How would it be fair if they had to endure pain because he had failed so miserably at life the first time around that he’d needed to be sent back to take another shot at it? He had this sadness coming, but by God, they didn’t deserve it.

  “You doing okay, Doc?” Gabe asked. He figured it’d be rude not to speak, and if that was breaking the damned rules, what the hell? He’d already broken so many that one more would hardly matter. “I sure hope the little Wilson girl isn’t sick.”

  Doc shook his head. “No. Thanks to you, Charity is fine.” He smiled wearily. “I lost an old fellow tonight, though. The family is taking it pretty hard. In my business, you sometimes feel like a failure, and the only way to cheer up is to have a toddy.”

  Gabe nodded. “Just don’t fall into the habit,” he warned. “You’ve got a mighty nice lady waiting at home for you, and there’s not a man alive who can save the whole world. You do your best. That’s all you can do.”

  Doc lifted his glass. “Good luck, Gabriel. I think you’re due.”

  Gabe frowned and knocked back the contents of his glass. Good luck? He couldn’t recall anyone ever having wished him that. No gunman worth his salt depended on luck. He counted on his instincts, his speed, and his accuracy—which was precisely why Gabe had left his weapons lying on Nan’s worktable. When he turned to face Pete Raintree, he didn’t want to react reflexively and slap leather. This time around, the kid would live to walk away. Whether he deserved to or not wasn’t the point.

  Pouring himself one more jigger, just as he had the last time, Gabe smiled, albeit with a sting in his eyes. This time around, Christopher Broderick wasn’t outside under the brothel staircase, clutching his knees and wearing a ragged coat as his only defense against the cold. And when Gabe got drilled, he wouldn’t be missing an important breakfast date. Nope. This time the kid was safe at home, snug under a double layer of quilts on Nan’s settee. Gabe hoped the boy had taken a leap of faith to believe in Santa Claus tonight and was now dreaming about a jolly old elf filling his sock with sugarplums.

  It’s time. Gabe wished he could ignore the seconds that ticked past in his head, but like he’d told Nan, he couldn’t hide from this, and he sure as hell couldn’t run from it. He drained his glass and set it back on the counter with a sharp click.

  Doc stirred. “Hey, Gabriel.”

  This sure as hell was different. Surprised, Gabe turned toward the physician. “What’s that, Doc?”

  “If I never get another chance to say it, I want to say it now. Thank you for keeping Mrs. Wilson from taking her little daughter into my office this week. I don’t know what led you to be in that precise spot at that exact moment, but I’ll always thank God you were there and had the foresight to warn that woman away. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that you saved that child’s life.”

  Gabe held that thought close as he pushed through the bat-wing doors and stepped out into the predawn darkness. His boots thumped on the boardwalk, making crisp yet hollow sounds. His senses were so sharp that his skin prickled. He’d told Nan he wasn’t afraid. But now he felt it—a cold, crawling fear that inched up his spine and turned his blood to ice. It wasn’t that he was afraid of dying. What terrified him was leaving Nan alone, and knowing that he would miss all the years they could have had together.

  A snowflake drifted down, startling him. He thought he heard the plank walkway across the street creak under someone’s weight. Then he thought he saw movement in the thick shadows in front of the closed, dark-windowed shops.

  Just nerves, he assured himself. And as he stepped out onto the street, he started to pray. If you’re listening, Lord, I still don’t have the words of your prayer memorized, so all I can do is talk to you inside my head, sort of like I’d talk to a friend. Gabe decided that sounded stupid and was glad he wasn’t saying it aloud. Nobody ever taught me to pray before I met Nan. Please watch over her for me. She’s the sweetest person I’ve ever known. I swear, she’s never had a mean thought or done a mean thing to anybody. As for me, well, I tried, but I guess you know by now that I can’t follow your rules even to save my own soul. Gabe let out a quivery breath. I’m sorry for that, but then again, not really sorry, so I won’t ask for forgiveness. Just know that I tried hard to think about things this time and do what I thought was right, even though the angels said different. Gabe kept putting one foot in front of the other despite a faint voice at the back of his mind that kept screaming for him to dive and roll. Any second now, Pete Raintree would shout his name. I guess that’s all, Lord. Except, if you have a second to spare, I could use a big dose of courage right now. It’s mighty hard to keep walking.

  Gabe searched for the candlelight that should be shining from Nan’s shop window. All he saw was blackness. He took a few more steps, convinced that he wasn’t seeing right. She’d promised she’d stand at the glass. So where the hell was she? Why had she doused all the wicks?

  “Valance! Gabriel Valance!”

  The shout was followed by a gunshot that made Gabe jerk. He closed his eyes for an instant. He hadn’t been hit. Not yet. Then he slowly turned around. His hands ached to go for his guns, to shoot back and try to save himself. Only he already knew how that would end, and in a crazy way he was glad that he wasn’t wearing his Colts.

  A male voice barked from somewhere off to Gabe’s left and nearly startled him out of his boots. “Drop it, Raintree!”

  What the hell? This isn’t in the script. The next instant, Gabe saw men spilling from the saloon. Who were they? The movement in the shadows that Gabe believed he’d only imagined moments earlier materialized into men—shopkeepers, hired help—all of them with rifles aimed at Raintree and ready to fire.

  “Drop the gun, mister!” someone else shouted. “One wrong move and we’ll fill you with so much lead, you’ll leak like a colander!”

  “You heard him!” another voice warned. “Here in Random, we watch out for our own!”

  It seemed to Gabe that men shouted warnings from nearly every direction. Doc’s tenor stood out from all the rest. “We folks in Random stand together, son. I don’t hold with killing, but I do sh
oot rattlesnakes, and right now, you’re looking like one to me.”

  Stunned, Gabe couldn’t think, couldn’t move. This wasn’t happening. He shook his head and blinked, but nothing changed. Then his bewilderment turned to spine-chilling terror when a woman’s voice, thin and shaky, shrilled from behind him.

  “I’ve got a gun on you, too, Raintree!”

  Nan? Gabe couldn’t credit his ears.

  “I’ll shoot you dead; I promise you. If you’ve got a brain in your head, you’ll drop that pistol to the ground!”

  Oh, Lord. If Nan’s hands were shaking half as badly as her voice, she’d be the one to drop her weapon, and she probably had the damn thing cocked. What the Sam Hill was she thinking?

  Pete Raintree, as tall and gangly as Gabe remembered, staggered in a full circle, clearly too panicked to think straight. Instead of dropping his weapon, he waved it around, saying, “Are you people crazy? This is a shoot-out. You ain’t s’posed to interfere!”

  A new kind of fear filled Gabe. He couldn’t let that kid die just because he was too stupid or too scared to put down the weapon. Gabe threw up his arms. “Don’t shoot him! Please don’t shoot him! Raintree, drop the goddamned gun! They’re gonna drill your hide with holes if you don’t.” Gabe saw the younger man turn toward him. “Throw it down. Just throw it do—”

  Gabe felt the punch of lead hit him in the chest before he heard the shot. He staggered back but didn’t fall. Then, as if a metal bar struck him across the bend of his legs, he went to his knees.

  “Gabriel!” Nan screamed his name. Gabe heard the terror and anguish in that cry, but damned if he could turn his head to look at her. He felt numb all over. Go back, he wanted to yell, but he couldn’t make his vocal cords work. The darkness around him grew blacker. Bright little spots bounced in front of his eyes. Noise exploded against his eardrums, a staccato of weapon reports. “Gabriel!”

  He felt her arms come around him. And for just an instant his vision cleared. Nan, my window angel. Only she wasn’t safe inside her shop; she was on her knees beside him in the street. What if she took a bullet with his name on it?

  Gabe felt himself slumping sideways, felt Nan’s fingers clutching frantically at his shirt to hold him up. Then he hit the ground, shoulder first. He figured his head must have hit, too, but he was beyond registering anything. Blackness moved in. He knew how dying went. The only difference was, he didn’t feel so cold this time.

  Because Nan’s arms were around him.

  • • •

  “No!” Nan screamed the word. She felt blood seeping from Gabriel’s chest, hot and sticky against her hand. “No! Please, God, no!”

  This can’t be happening, she thought wildly. Nearly all the shopkeepers along Main had heeded her warning and had been waiting to protect her husband. Why, oh, why had Gabriel interfered, trying to save a no-account man who didn’t deserve to be saved?

  Don’t shoot him! Gabriel had shouted. And then he’d raised his arms and walked toward Raintree, making a target of himself. No! She couldn’t understand. Why would God take such a wonderful man when he was needed here by so many? Laney needed him. Christopher needed him. Tyke Baden needed him. Even Jasper needed him. And so do I! He’s my life, my heart, every breath I take!

  Hard male hands closed over Nan’s shoulders. She vised her arms around her husband, knowing that those hands meant to take him from her. She braced against the tugs. Then she shrieked and fought, blindly lashing out. “Leave him be. Don’t touch him! Leave us alone!”

  But in the end, Nan’s strength was no match for that of the men, and they pried her husband from her arms. Dazed, robbed of comprehension, Nan knelt on the frozen earth with snow pelting her face. One thought kept circling stupidly in her brain, something Gabriel had told her: that nothing could interfere with the plans of the angels. I can’t hide from God.

  Nan felt as if her heart were being ripped from her chest. She covered her face with her hands and began rocking back and forth. All for naught. All her efforts to save Gabriel’s life had been futile, the silly, desperate contrivances of a frantic wife to save a man already marked for death. Only why? She couldn’t understand it. Gabriel, so wonderful and good of heart, had been taken from her while hundreds, probably thousands of less deserving husbands still lived.

  “Mama?”

  Laney’s voice barely penetrated the fog. It seemed as if the girl called out to her from a great distance. She felt a grip on her arm and recognized Laney’s touch.

  “Mama, they carried Gabe to Doc’s!” Nan felt Laney give her arm a yank. “Not to the undertaker’s, Mama. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Nan blinked. She was almost afraid to comprehend Laney’s words. It would kill her to be given false hope. “What?” She brushed at her cheeks. “What did you say?”

  Laney knelt down to look Nan in the eyes. “I don’t think he’s dead, Mama. I know Raintree shot him in the chest again, but it didn’t kill him this time. At least, I don’t think it did.”

  “He ain’t dead.” That was Christopher’s voice. “At least, not yet he ain’t. Dead men don’t get carried to Doc’s. They get took to the undertaker.”

  Nan’s heart squeezed. Then, as the children’s words sank in, hope unfurled like a bud opening to the sun.

  Nan scrambled to her feet. Flanking her, both children grabbed her arms to help get her steady on her feet. Not dead. Nan broke into a run. Not releasing their holds on her, both kids raced along beside her. When they hit the boardwalk at the corner of Oak and Main, their bare feet made loud thumps on the icy planks.

  Men crowded the waiting room. Nan scanned the familiar faces of fellow business owners, but she could ascertain nothing from their stoic expressions. Lifting her chin, she tried to push through their ranks to reach the inner door, but Mr. Redmond caught her back. “You mustn’t go in there just yet! Doc’s working on them both right now. It’s no place for a lady.”

  Nan realized that she stood before these fellows in nothing but her nightgown and wrapper, which hung open with the sash drooping uselessly at her hips. Lady? She no longer cared to be a lady; she wanted to be Gabriel’s wife. She planted a hand on Redmond’s chest. “Let go and get out of my way! I want to see my husband!”

  “Mrs. Valance, I can’t allow—”

  Allow. That single world set off white sparkles inside Nan’s head, and no one in the room ever found out what Burke Redmond couldn’t allow. Every bit of ladylike behavior Nan had ever learned fell away from her like a discarded cloak. This man was trying to prevent her from going to Gabriel. Reacting instinctively, she brought up her right knee forcefully and felt it connect. Redmond made a clogged sound, like a turkey whose feathers had been violently pulled, and released her at once, staggering against the wall. Nan spared him not a glance and stepped into the next room.

  Doc glanced up from where he was working over Pete Raintree’s thigh. His spectacles rode low on his bony nose. Mrs. Peterson stood slightly behind him, holding surgical implements in her hand. The patient appeared to be unconscious, whether from near death or a pad soaked in chloroform, Nan didn’t know. Nor did she give a flip.

  “Why on earth are you working on him when my husband needs you more?” she demanded.

  Doc smiled wearily. “Don’t count me as a total fool. I worked on your husband first, and all he really needed was some flushing out and stitching up. He’s out cold, and he’s lost some blood, but he’s in no danger of dying unless infection sets in, and I don’t expect that to occur. The bullet hit a harmonica in his shirt pocket. Cracked the ivory, glanced off, and went in way to the left of his heart. Missed anything vital, thank God, and basically cut a trench through his underarm before it came out the back side. He’ll have a mighty sore chest and arm for a week or two, but it’s not a life-threatening wound. Should heal up just fine. But this young feller’s bleeding like a stuck pig.” />
  “But—” Nan broke off to drag in a bracing breath and moisten her dry lips. “It hit Gabriel right over his heart! And I felt the blood pouring out.”

  “Bleeding hard is a good thing in this case. Cleans out the wound. He’ll be weak from it, but a strong man like him should bounce back pretty quick.” Doc inclined his head toward the other table. “Grab a chair. You can sit with him if you like. While I was stitching him up, he started to come around, so I had to put him back under. He’ll probably wake up madder than a badger tangled up in a briar patch. You’d better take a load off your feet while you can, because he’ll be a handful when you take him home.”

  “Home?” Nan said the word as if it were one she’d never heard.

  “Heck, yes, home.” Doc shook his head. “I’m not keeping him here. He’ll be hurt only enough to be pesky, and I’d a whole lot rather he pester you.”

  Nan rushed over to the table where Gabriel lay covered to midchest by a white sheet. Tears stung her eyes when she saw the rise and fall of his breathing. He was alive. Pete Raintree’s bullet had missed its mark this time. She didn’t understand, but right then she didn’t care. Gabriel was alive.

  Taking her husband’s limp hand in both of hers, Nan lifted it to her cheek. The warmth of his bent knuckles against her wet skin was the most wonderful thing she’d ever felt. Her plot to save Gabriel’s life had worked!

  Only, even as that thought shot through Nan’s mind, she knew it wasn’t true. Despite all her contrivances, Raintree’s bullet had hit Gabe in the chest. The string of events leading up to that moment had all been altered because of her scheming, but even so, the ending had been exactly the same, except for one small detail: Gabriel had been carrying a gift of love in his shirt pocket, a small harmonica inlaid on both sides with carved ivory, given to him for Christmas by a young girl who’d come to worship the ground he walked on.

  “It’s a miracle,” Nan whispered to her unaware husband. “God gave us a miracle.”