A Victorian Christmas

by Catherine Palmer

“I’m all right, Longbones,” she hollered back. “I’ll be up in a few minutes. Go on back to the fire.”

  Now . . . where to put the lunker? Fara eyed the cabin. If she stashed him in there, she could maintain her haven in the big house. She could build a fire to warm him up, pile blankets over him, and then head back to her toasty sanctuary. Maybe Old Longbones would have a look at the man in the morning. The Apache knew effective Indian treatments for illnesses and injuries. Once the stranger was alert enough, Fara could strap him onto a horse and send him down the mountain to a Silver City doctor.

  Shuddering in the freezing air, she took the loose end of the blanket and dragged her two-hundred-pound load across the yard and up the cabin steps. By the time she had wedged him through the front door, she was sweating. The dogs bounded in and out of the chilly room, alternately sniffing their mistress’s strange bundle and yipping at her for attention.

  “Eighteen forty-seven,” the man mumbled.

  “It’s 1880,” Fara said, hanging the lantern on the wall nail. “It’s almost Christmas, and I was hoping for a little peace and quiet. Instead, I’ve got you. And you stink.”

  “Pink lemonade,” the man said.

  “Stink, not pink!” Fara threw open the blanket and drew in a breath. Well, now. Bathed in the golden lamplight, the man didn’t look half-bad. He was so big he filled up half the little room, his shoulders broad and his legs long and lean. He had big hands and thick, muscular arms. If he hadn’t been such a healthy specimen, he probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had.

  Beneath his black, unshaven whiskers, his face was squarejawed and chiseled into rugged angles and planes. He had a straight nose, thick hair, and eyes the blue of a New Mexico summer sky. His lips were firm, but they were about as blue as his eyes, and that was all the attention Fara decided to give them. After all, the man was clearly a bad apple.

  “So, who shot you?” she asked as she walked over to the woodstove. “You sure have on some fancy duds there. Stole ’em, I bet. Was that who plugged you? Some fellow you robbed?”

  “Corn on the cob,” he mumbled.

  Fara opened the stove’s firebox, draft regulator, and all the dampers. Then she stoked the box with split wood and struck a match. Good thing the apple pickers and sheepshearers still used the cabin in the summer and fall. It wouldn’t take long to make the place habitable, and then she could get back to her fireside chair.

  As the wood crackled into flame, Fara checked the rolled sleeping pallets stacked along one wall. When she was a little girl, this room had held a single big bed for her papa and a little trundle for his only child. Their dining table still stood near the stove, and a ladder led up to the loft. Fara ran her hand over the smooth wood of the tabletop. Papa hadn’t been the greatest cook, but they’d managed to enjoy many a wonderful meal in this cabin. Now she had a chef and china and a table made of fine cherry wood. She would trade them all to have Papa back.

  “Sphinx,” the wounded man said, his half-frozen tongue garbling the word. “Finx . . . Phoenix.”

  Fara studied him. Eyes closed now, he was stirring a little. Just as she’d suspected. Warm him up, and he’d start to feel the pain in his arm. His feet and fingers would thaw, and those would hurt, too. Then he’d want water . . . food . . . a chamber pot.

  “I’m not going to take care of that for you,” she said, setting her hands on her hips. “I reckon I’ve done my part as a good Christian should. I’ve done more than my fair share, to tell you the truth. I’ll let you stay here till you’re warm and rational, and then you can head back to Phoenix or wherever you came from. I brought you in out of the snow, but I don’t have to know who you are . . . or learn anything about you . . . or care what becomes of you. You’re not my responsibility, you hear?”

  “Thirty-eight plus . . . sixteen . . .”

  Fara sighed. “This is not a schoolroom,” she said, bending over and shaking the stranger’s solid shoulder. “Wake up, sir. Wake up. You’re in Pinos Altos. This is New Mexico.”

  He grimaced in pain and cupped a hand over his wounded arm. Fara fought the sympathy that tugged at her heart. Her papa had taught her a man didn’t often get shot at unless he was up to some shenanigans. This fellow in his fine leather coat and gray wool trousers looked exactly the part of a scalawag—a confidence man, a gambler, a saloon keeper—or worse.

  “I’m going up to get you some blankets,” she said, shaking him again. “Blankets. So you’ll be warmer.”

  He lay unmoving on the floor, so she grabbed the lantern and headed for the ladder to the loft. Many long winter days, the loft had been her childhood hiding place. She had played for hours with her cornhusk dolls. In the late afternoon sunlight, she loved to read her mother’s copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress. Over and over, she read favorite passages until she knew many of them by heart. The pilgrim’s stopping places—the Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, Vanity Fair—were as familiar to her as Pinos Altos and Silver City. When the pilgrim stood at the foot of Christ’s cross and his heavy burden dropped from his shoulders, Fara always wept with joy. Such blessed relief. Such peace.

  In the attic, she lifted the lid of the old storage trunk. Quilts lay stacked to the brim, their bright colors muted in the lamplight. Fara tucked several under her arm. She would drape the blankets over her own frozen pilgrim and leave him to seek his peace. As she stepped onto the top rung, she looked down.

  Blue eyes wide, he was sitting straight up, staring at her. Wounded arm cradled, he breathed hard. “You . . . ,” he said, his voice husky. “You’re . . . Am I . . . am I . . . dead?”

  Fara’s heart softened. “No, sir.”

  “But . . . but . . . you’re an angel. Aren’t you?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I’m no angel,” the ethereal creature said as she descended from the ceiling in a wash of pale amber light. Hyatt blinked. He could have sworn she had a halo. A gown of pure white drifted to her feet, its hem swaying and fluttering in the warm air. Spun gold hair hung around her shoulders, thick and wavy like a costly cape. He squinted, straining to see if wings grew out of her shoulder blades. Wait a minute, weren’t all the angels in the Bible men? Gabriel . . . Michael . . .

  But this creature! She was so beautiful. Translucent. Celestial. Now she hovered over him, draping him in her warm glow. Her pale hands moved across his icy skin. Long lashes framed her dark eyes. He longed to speak to her. There were so many questions. But his tongue was thick and his brain felt foggy.

  “Angel . . . ,” he managed.

  “I told you—I’m not an angel. Now lie down before you keel over.”

  He frowned as the creature pushed his shoulders onto the soft surface. If not an angel then . . . He glanced up, suddenly alarmed. Satan was known as the father of lies. Deceit was his primary weapon. Maybe this angel of light was really a demon of the darkness! Had Hyatt died and gone to . . . to . . .

  “I believe in Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

  “Sure you do. And you think St. Louis is the capital of Missouri.” The creature smiled—a smile so entrancing, so stunning that Hyatt’s heartbeat sped up, and his skin actually began to thaw. “Comfortable?”

  He tried to nod, but his neck was so stiff it wouldn’t move. “Am I . . . am I dead?”

  “Not yet, fella, but if I hadn’t come along, you’d be wolf meat. What did you do to your arm?”

  “Arm?” Was that the source of the pain that raged like wildfire through him? He tried to look at his arm, but the creature had bundled him to the chin. “Where? Where am I? Pinks . . . Phoenix?”

  “New Mexico. Pinos Altos, to be exact.”

  New Mexico. That’s where he’d been headed days ago. Before Phoenix. Before the hotel shooting. Snatches of memory drifted across his mind like wisps of smoke. Riding a narrow trail through the trees. Sleeping in a cave. Drinking water from a stream. Moving east toward Silver City and the woman . . . daughter of his father’s friend. Maybe a man his own father had regarded so highly cou
ld help him now. Was Silver City far? How would he travel without his horse?

  “Leg,” he said. “Horse.”

  “You didn’t have a horse, buckaroo,” the angel said. “When I found you, you were on foot . . . or, more exactly, you were on your backside.”

  “My horse . . . leg broke.”

  At that her face softened. “I’m sorry. Was it a good horse?”

  He managed a nod.

  “Well, don’t trouble yourself too much. You’d better concentrate on that arm of yours. Looks septic to me. What happened?”

  “Finx.”

  “Phoenix?” She shrugged. “You’ve come a long way. Look, I’d put you up on the bed there, but I’m just about done in. You’re a deadweight. So I’m going to leave you right here on the floor to rest. I’ve stoked up the stove and bundled you in blankets. Get some sleep now, and I’ll check on you in the morning.”

  The angel slowly rose above him, her long white gown shimmering in the light. As she turned to go, he worked a hand out from under the quilts and clutched at her hem.

  “Angel,” he murmured.

  When she turned, her hair billowed out in a golden cloud around her face. A halo. She had denied it, but Hyatt knew the truth. God had sent him an angel.

  “Angel . . . thank you,” he whispered.

  She tugged her hem from his fingers. “Save your breath. You just get yourself well enough to get off my property, and that’ll make the both of us a lot happier.”

  As the creature drifted away, Hyatt turned the vision over in his mind. She looked like an angel. She had the touch of an angel. She had the melodious voice of an angel. But the words she spoke put him in mind of a spitfire. What had God wrought?

  Fara yawned and rolled over on the warm featherbed. The pink light of dawn glowed on the flowered wallpaper across the room. It was too early to wake up on her first day of freedom. Unlike Old Longbones, whose confidence in God’s protection had given him the peace of mind to doze straight through her adventures, Fara had hardly slept all night. Her mind had churned with thoughts of the missed meeting at the brickyard, the canceled dinner invitations with clients, the details of the Christmas tea. And that man.

  The wounded stranger had haunted her dreams with his feverish blue eyes. Why had he ridden all the way from Phoenix? How had he ended up at the Canaday ranch? Should she have tried to save him? What if he died? What if he were already dead?

  Fara sat up in bed. She should go down and check on him. Maybe the fire in the stove had gone out. Maybe she had forgotten to bolt the door, and the wolves had returned. What if he had wandered away in his delirium?

  Never mind about him, Fara. Relax. This is your holiday. You deserve a rest.

  Yes, that was true. If anyone had earned the right to a few days of peace and quiet, it was Fara Canaday. Listening to the voice inside her head, she picked up the newspaper she had brought from Silver City. She tucked a second pillow under her head and stared sleepily at the tiny printed text. Her Christmas tea was the talk of the town—as always.

  Miss Fara Canaday, one of Silver City’s finest citizens, once again brings the joy of the season to our society. The annual Christmas Tea for the children of local silver miners will take place on December 24 at four o’clock in the afternoon at the Canaday Mansion.

  “We’re inviting the children of two hundred families,” Miss Canaday said. In hosting this delightful event, she will be joined by the matrons of Silver City’s most upstanding families. Mayor Douglas lauded Miss Canaday’s generosity. “In the tradition of her beloved father, Jacob Canaday . . .

  Fara let her eyes drift shut. Papa had always gotten such a chuckle out of his role as a leading member of Silver City’s high society. He remembered well his days as a poor prospector with no education and little more to call his own than a mule and a pickax. Like her father, Fara had learned to use the relationships with the wealthy to further the Canaday family businesses. But she preferred the company of her horses.

  Remembering the sadness in the stranger’s blue eyes as he had spoken of his horse, Fara felt concern prickle her awake again. Confound it, she wasn’t going to think about him! She was going to relax. After the sun came up and she ate a good breakfast, she would stroll down to the cabin and check on the man. Until then, the time was hers. She glanced again at the newspaper.

  PROMINENT PHOENIX CITIZEN STILL

  CRITICAL AFTER GUN BATTLE

  Mr. James Copperton, owner of five Phoenix business establishments, was gunned down late on the evening of December 4. A former associate by the name of Robert Hyatt stands accused in the incident. Copperton remains in grave condition with a bullet wound to the upper right shoulder. Also injured in the gun battle, Hyatt escaped and was last spotted riding east from Phoenix.

  “He’s been trailing me for years,” Copperton said. “We had a falling-out some time ago, and he swore revenge.” Copperton, who maintains a four-man bodyguard at all times, said he had been expecting the attack. “I always keep a watch on the hotels around Phoenix. When I heard that Hyatt had checked into the Saguaro, I knew the time had come. I was ready for him, but he’s a sharpshooter.”

  Hyatt, who is wanted for train robbery in Kansas and horse rustling in Texas, is known as a gunslinger. He stands six feet three and weighs two hundred pounds. He has brown hair, blue eyes, and should be considered armed and desperate. Injured in the left forearm, he may be dangerous. Anyone with information on Hyatt should contact the sheriff.

  Fara swallowed and read the article a second time. Then she sat up and looked out the window toward the little cabin. Six-three. Two hundred pounds. Blue eyes. Brown hair. Wounded in the left forearm. Phoenix. She tried to make herself breathe. A wanted gunslinger was lying in Papa’s cabin!

  Throwing back the covers, she slid out of bed onto the cold pine floor. She quickly pulled on her buckskin leggings and warmest flannel skirt, knowing she would need all the protection she could get for a ride into Pinos Altos in all the snow. After buttoning on a blouse and jacket and pinning up her hair, Fara headed down the stairs.

  The scent of frying venison wafted over her.

  “You slept a long time, Filly,” Old Longbones said. He gave her a snaggletoothed grin. “Look, I have your breakfast ready. Venison steak. Eggs. Oatmeal.”

  “I’m going to have to ride down to Pinos Altos,” she said. “It’s an urgent matter, Old Longbones. Breakfast will have to wait.”

  “You will have to wait.” He gestured to the window. “Still snowing. No trail.”

  Fara bit her lower lip. She had to get to the sheriff before the man escaped . . . or died. Maybe he was dead already. In some ways, that would be a relief. Then she wouldn’t have to fool with the situation.

  “Sit down, Filly,” Old Longbones said. “I will fill your plate.”

  “No, really. I can’t. Not right now.” Should she tell him? What if her old friend wanted to go down to the cabin? She couldn’t put him in any danger. Armed and desperate, the article had said. In her hurry to get back to the warmth of the ranch house, she had neglected to check the man for weapons. As for his level of desperation, only time would tell.

  “What’s the matter, Filly? You’re usually so hungry in the morning—just like your papa. The two of you could—”

  “There’s a man,” she blurted out. “I found him last night in the snow. You remember the dogs barking?”

  “When I called down, you told me you were all right.”

  “It was nothing. This fellow was lying out by the cabin. Wounded. But now I know he’s a desperado, Old Longbones. He’s wanted in three states. I have to get to the sheriff.”

  “A desperado? He told you this?”

  “I read about him this morning in the Silver City newspaper I brought with me. He’s a train robber.”

  The Indian let out a long, low whistle. Fara knew he wouldn’t be too troubled by a man who robbed trains—those long black snakes, he called them. Apaches rarely spoke of snakes, creatures they feare
d and hated. When they mentioned the reptiles, they used only mystical terms, as though serpents were unfathomable spirits from another world. In Old Longbones’s mind, trains fell into the same category.

  “He’s a horse rustler, too,” Fara said. She knew that to an Apache, horse thievery was a different matter altogether from train robbery. Rustling was an offense that deserved the most severe punishment.

  “What man did he steal horses from?” Old Longbones asked.

  “I don’t know. But I do know he hunted down and shot a prominent citizen in Phoenix. The poor gentleman is near death at this very minute.”

  “Filly, are you sure this desperado in the newspaper is the same man you found in the snow last night?”

  “Absolutely. It’s Hyatt, all right. I dragged him into Papa’s cabin. He’s lying down there half-frozen and sick to death with a putrefied gunshot wound.”

  “Putrefied?” Old Longbones looked up from the skillet. “Is it infection—or gangrene? I had better check him.”

  “But you don’t understand. He’s a terrible man. He might harm you.”

  “Filly.” The Apache gave her a long look. “Once I was the enemy of your people. My friends and I raided the White Eyes’ towns and attacked your settlements. Like that desperado in your papa’s cabin, we stole guns and horses. Sometimes, Filly, we killed. But in my time of greatest need—when I lay wounded, abandoned by my friends, and near death—Jacob Canaday took me in.”

  “I know the story, Longbones. But this is very different.”

  “It was not easy for your papa to do this thing.” The old Apache went on speaking as if he hadn’t heard her. “The White Eyes of Pinos Altos were very unhappy with Jacob Canaday. It was a great risk. For all he knew, when I came back to health, I might kill him . . . and his little golden-haired daughter. But Jacob Canaday always followed the teachings of that Book.”

  He pointed to the well-worn Bible on the mantel. “In the Bible there is a command we Apaches have never understood,” he said. “‘Love your enemies.’ That is not our way. To us it seems foolishness and weakness. But Jacob Canaday showed me the great strength of those who can follow that command. Jacob taught me about God’s love by loving me enough to take such a risk. Because of the love of Jacob Canaday and his God, I learned to accept the White Eyes as my brother. And I learned to love the Son of God as my savior—the One who freed me from the consequence of my many wrongs. Now tell me, Filly, shall we let that desperado with his putrefied wound go to his death? Or shall we love our enemy?”