A Victorian Christmas

by Catherine Palmer

  Fara used her papa’s big brush to lather the desperado’s chin and jaw. “You sure managed to sprout some tough-looking whiskers,” she said. “Lucky thing I’m good with a razor.”

  “I trust you. You’re my angel.”

  At that, Fara’s heart sped up so fast she wondered if he could hear it. Telling herself not to be silly, not to give his words a second thought, and certainly not to tremble, she began to draw the razor’s straightedge down the side of his face.

  As the rough stubble came away, she saw that his skin was smooth and taut. Though the Western sun had bronzed him, Hyatt bore none of the craggy lines and leathery wrinkles of the miners and cowboys she so often passed on the streets of Silver City. The more bristle she shaved away, the less he looked like a desperado and the more he transformed into a square-jawed, clean-cut, elegant gentleman.

  “Gracious,” she said as she dipped the towel in the warm water and rinsed off the last of the lather. “Mr. Hyatt, you look absolutely . . . positively . . . decent.”

  He laughed, and for the first time she realized what straight white teeth he had, and how fine his lips were, and how very brightly his blue eyes sparkled. When he slipped a comb from his pocket and ran it through his hair, she stared transfixed. Could gunslingers be so handsome? so mannerly? Again she thought back to the article in the newspaper. Six feet three inches tall. Two hundred pounds. Blue eyes. Brown hair. Shot through the left arm.

  “May I ask how much you weigh, Mr. Hyatt?” she asked.

  A flicker of curiosity crossed his brow. “Two hundred pounds before I went on my starvation ride into New Mexico.”

  “And your arm,” she whispered. “Where did you say you were when you were shot?”

  “Phoenix. A hotel.” His eyes grew distant, as though he was seeing through her to that other place and time. “I was walking through the lobby of the Saguaro Hotel. A boy said something to me. ‘Someone’s waiting for you.’ Who? Who was it?”

  Copperton, Fara wanted to say. You know who it was. You’d been tracking him for years.

  “I started up the steps,” Hyatt continued. “I turned on the landing. There he was . . . with a six-shooter . . . shouting, waving the gun . . .”

  “So you shot him,” Fara said.

  The blue eyes snapped back into focus. “No! He shot first.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “And you don’t remember his name?”

  He shook his head. “I’d never heard it before in my life.”

  You, Mr. Hyatt, are a handsome, intelligent, mannerly gentleman, Fara thought. You are also a low-down, conniving snake. And the biggest liar in New Mexico Territory.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Fara made up her mind to let Old Longbones tend the desperado. The Apache knew more about healing than she did, she reasoned. Besides, she wasn’t comfortable with the way she felt in Hyatt’s presence. He was too slick. He spoke with such an honest light in his eyes and such frank words on his tongue that she slipped easily into trusting him.

  Worst of all, she actually liked the low-down gunslinger. Hyatt laughed easily. He knew about horses and good books. And he enjoyed her baking.

  So Fara stayed up at the big ranch house and sent Old Longbones down to the cabin to change the nopal dressing and check on the wounded man. She spent most of the following day riding her horse through the forest and visiting her father’s grave. The dogs played in the deep snow while Fara sat on a fallen log and stared at the headstone.

  Jacob Canaday. How could a man once so alive be dead? The cold granite belied the warmth of the man whose name was carved on its surface. Fara wept. Then she cut branches of pine and juniper and laid them around the stone. Then she cried some more.

  The sun was setting as she climbed the porch and entered the big house. Old Longbones looked up from the rocker beside the fire. He had been dozing in the warmth.

  “How’s our desperado today?” Fara asked.

  “Better.” The Apache scratched his chin and gave a yawn. “You know, Filly, that dangerous gunslinger of yours . . . he doesn’t have a gun.”

  Fara pondered that for a moment. “He’s a very confusing man.”

  “Yes.”

  “You think he’ll live?”

  “Oh yes. He grows strong—especially after eating all that bread you baked.”

  She took a step toward the fire. “He ate it all?”

  “Mmm.” The Apache leaned back in the rocker and shut his eyes again. “He says you are the best baker of bread he ever knew.”

  A smile tugged at Fara’s lips. “Wait until he tastes my biscochitos,” she whispered.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever had something truly melt in my mouth before,” Hyatt said as he watched Filly pour him a second cup of tea the following afternoon. “Who taught you to bake these biscochitos?”

  “Manuela,” the young woman said. “She’s my . . . my friend. In town.”

  He nodded. Filly was holding back. That afternoon—in spite of her obvious reluctance to spend more than a few minutes in his presence—they had sat together in the little cabin for hours. He had lured her into reading The Pilgrim’s Progress to him while he sat beside the stove. Then she had ordered him into a pair of her papa’s old denims and a flannel shirt so she could wash his traveling clothes. She returned with a batch of cookies she’d baked that morning, and they’d shared a pot of tea. It had been the best afternoon of his life.

  If it weren’t for the vast gulf between their upbringings, Hyatt would have vowed Filly was his perfect match. She was smart, witty, and beautiful. Equally important, she didn’t have the least compunction about giving him a piece of her mind when she thought he deserved it. He’d never met a woman with as much spunk.

  When she went away that evening, he found the solitude of the little cabin almost unbearable. Though the pain in his arm was intense at times, the wound was beginning to heal. But his hand was stiff and difficult to flex. He didn’t sleep well. He had little energy. Worse, he found himself anticipating his own future with a measure of dread.

  It was bad enough to think of returning to California—the empty mansion, the rounds of insufferable parties, a business he had organized so efficiently it could almost run without him. But before he could return to those wearying occupations he would be obliged to complete his mission. The idea of spending time in the presence of a stuffy heiress like Miss Fara Canaday was enough to send chills down his spine. He might have tolerated the woman had he not grown so enchanted by the high-spirited filly who had dragged him out of the snow and saved his life.

  When she knocked on the cabin door the following morning, he jumped to his feet like a kid at Christmas. His gift—the beautiful golden-haired angel of his dreams—swept into the cabin wearing a pair of buckskin trousers, a red flannel shirt three sizes too big, and a shearling coat that hung down to her knees.

  “Checkers,” she announced, sliding a wooden game board onto the table. “Old Longbones won’t play with me. Guess I’m stuck with you, buckaroo.”

  Hyatt set his hands on his hips. “I come in a poor second, do I?”

  “I reckon you do. Ever played before?” She flashed those molasses eyes at him as she thunked the bag of checkers on the table.

  “Checkers is child’s play to me. How about chess?”

  Her mouth dropped open, and he had to laugh. Within minutes they had devised a set of chess pieces from a collection of saltshakers, wood chips, and leftover biscochitos. Filly proved herself a worthy opponent. All morning and most of the afternoon, they battled over the game board. Just when Filly would crow she had him cornered, Hyatt would wiggle out of her trap. As the shadows grew long, he finally managed to box her in.

  “Check,” he announced.

  “What!” She stared at the board. “Are you sure? Are you positive?”

  “Look at my bishop. You’re done for.”

  “Don’t count on it. Just give me a minute here. I’ll figure this out.”<
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  Chuckling, Hyatt stood and walked over to the stove. One day at chess with Filly had been as much fun as he’d had in years. As he pushed split wood into the firebox, he thought again about his bleak prospects. A trip to Silver City to meet a pompous heiress. A long journey back to California to resume his duties. He had friends, gold, and all the entertainment money could buy—and he’d much rather play chess in a run-down cabin with a poor prospector’s daughter.

  Was he ungrateful? God had blessed him so richly. He had been given more than any man could ask for. Why did the old Apache’s words now ring so true? Empty. Your heart is empty.

  “Checkmate,” Filly announced in triumph.

  Hyatt swung around. “What? How can that be?” He studied the chessboard. Sure enough, she had him cornered. But wait . . . “Where’s my bishop? Hey, what did you do with my—”

  He looked up to find Filly smiling innocently at him, a hint of powdered sugar dusting her upper lip. “Your what?” she asked.

  “You ate my bishop!” he shouted.

  She began to giggle. “I was hungry. You said yourself they were delicious biscochitos.”

  “That was my bishop!” He started toward her, and she leapt from the table. “You can’t eat the chessmen. That’s not in the rules.”

  “Rules, rules!” she said, dancing out of his reach. “Who said we had to play by the rules?”

  “I always play by the rules.” He lunged for her long blonde braid.

  “Boring, bor—! Oh!” Captured, she whirled toward him and stopped, her face less than a breath from his.

  Hyatt swallowed. The fragrance of pine and cinnamon drifted over him, and he realized it came from the woman’s skin. Her braid hung like a silk rope in his hand. Her eyes shone brighter than any two stars, and his voice caught in his throat. He lifted his injured arm and brushed the sugar from her lip with a fingertip.

  “Checkmate,” he said.

  “A person should always play by the rules,” Fara told Old Longbones as they walked toward the barn to check on the horses the following morning. “It’s foolhardy to buck against the order our society has put on things. Take that desperado, for example. The Bible tells us to love our enemies. To be hospitable to strangers. To minister to the sick and the imprisoned. But it’s just not wise to become too friendly with the likes of such people.”

  “Why is that, Filly?” The Indian lifted the bolt that barred the barn door. “Are you afraid you might start to see the desperado as a human being? You might start to care about him? Once you know him, you might begin to truly love him?”

  Fara stopped just inside the barn door and crossed her arms. On any other day, she would have enjoyed this moment. The banter with Old Longbones. The rich scent of hay, oats, and leather in the barn. The soft nickering of the horses. But ever since Hyatt had come into her life, she had felt off-kilter and confused. Once, her world had been so well ordered. She had known the rules— and followed them. Now her heart was in chaos.

  “Jacob Canaday was a breaker of rules,” Old Longbones said as he began filling a bucket with oats. “Did he not take me into his home?”

  “But you’re different, Longbones. You’ve always been loyal to us. You’re our friend. We can trust you.”

  “Only because your papa’s love changed me. I came to Pinos Altos to raid, to steal, to burn—even to kill the White Eyes. But I stayed because I had found a man who cared about me. His acceptance opened my heart. I gave my life to the Son of his God, and I became a new man.”

  “Because Papa took the risk of caring for you.”

  “Of knowing me.” The Apache beckoned to her. “I think it may be better to care deeply for one gunslinger, Filly, than it is to make a Christmas tea for the children of two hundred miners whose names you will never know.”

  Stung, Fara leaned over a stall door and ran her fingers through the coarse red-brown mane of her favorite mare. Old Longbones didn’t understand the risk she felt in reaching out toward the man in the cabin. How could he? The Apache might speak of the importance of marriage and family, but he had never had a wife of his own. He had never known the strange, driving force that was propelling Fara toward Hyatt.

  Mysterious and powerful, the compulsion was headier than anything she had ever felt. She thought about the man every waking moment. He walked through her dreams at night. She had memorized the sound of his voice, the nuances of his smile. Everything about him drew her—from their recitation of John Bunyan to their teasing over the chessboard. She wanted to do more than tend to the healing and salvation of a wayward gunslinger. The moment when he had caught her braid she had wanted him to kiss her.

  Could she possibly care about Hyatt with nothing more than Christian charity? Could she minister to him as a child of God in need? Could she like him . . . without loving him?

  “Be the daughter of Jacob Canaday, Filly,” Old Longbones said. “Break the rules.”

  Fara shut her eyes and let her mare’s soft nose nudge her cheek. Father God, help me. Help me to care . . . to really care, as Papa cared. Help me love as You loved. And please . . . please protect me from my own wayward heart.

  In the days that followed, Fara watched the snow begin to melt and the creek beds fill with icy, rushing water. Determined to do right by her father’s memory, she made the gunslinger her missionary priority. She gave up her much-deserved rest and filled her days with cooking hot meals, changing nopal bandages, and reading long passages from the Bible to the object of her Christian ministry.

  Hyatt responded by making her days a form of torture. He was as delightful a man as she had ever met. He teased her, complimented her, and challenged her at chess, checkers, and dominoes. He debated every philosophy she tossed at him. He told stories that had her laughing until tears ran down her cheeks, and he sang songs that made her heart ache. When she mentioned cutting down a little Christmas tree, he accompanied her into the woods. Together, they hauled back a little sapling and set it up in the cabin. Then they trimmed it with strings of popcorn, bright red chiles, and bows fashioned of straw.

  As the snow melted, the days ticked by. Christmas approached, and Fara’s heart grew tighter and the lump in her throat more solid. The prospect of her Christmas tea held scant joy. The anticipation of business meetings and sloppy mud streets made her positively morose. But she knew her emotional turmoil had little to do with Christmas and everything to do with Hyatt.

  She had utterly failed in her missionary project, she thought one bright afternoon as she carried his lunch from the big house down toward the cabin. All her Bible reading had elicited no tearful remorse over train robberies and horse rustling. Hyatt had confessed to no dastardly crimes. He had never spoken of the man who had shot him with the least measure of vengeance in his voice. In fact, Hyatt seemed as good and as kind a man as had ever lived.

  If anyone had been changed in the two weeks of her campaign, it was Fara herself. She had laughed harder, prayed more fervently, and enjoyed herself more thoroughly than she had since her papa had died. She had been eager to start each day and sorry to go to bed each night. And Hyatt—always Hyatt—had filled her thoughts.

  Things couldn’t go on this way. The night before, Fara had made up her mind. It was time. Past time.

  “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve,” she said softly as Hyatt held the door open for her. “Old Longbones says the trails are clear and almost dry.”

  Hyatt watched her in silence as she spread a white cloth and set out dishes and spoons. She could feel his eyes following her around the room, and she knew he sensed the tension in her movements. Her hand trembled as she dipped out a ladle of hot soup. The lid clanged against the pot. She sank into her chair and turned to him.

  “Your arm is better now,” she said.

  He nodded. Joining her, he sat in the chair near the stove. She led them in a brief prayer; then she stirred at her soup. “I reckon you’ll be wanting to head on out,” she said.

  His hand paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. “Out
?”

  “Back to Phoenix . . . or wherever.”

  “Are you running me off?”

  She sipped at her soup. “I won’t be around to tend you after today,” she said. “I’m going to town. I have things to do.”

  “Things?”

  “Christmas things.”

  They ate in strained silence. Finally Hyatt cleared his throat. “I guess I always knew this time would come. I thank you for your care of me. I owe you my life.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing. I’ve done what any Christian woman should.”

  “My angel.”

  “Don’t call me that!” She blinked back the unexpected tears that stung her eyes. “I’ve failed—failed at what I thought I should do for you. I don’t have the strength of heart my father had. I’m weak. Willful.”

  “Human?” He reached toward her, but she drew back.

  She couldn’t stay with him. Not a moment longer. If she did, she would be the one confessing—blurting out how much joy he had brought, how deeply she had come to care for him, how empty her heart would feel when he went away. She pushed back from the table and stood.

  “I’m going now,” she said. “I won’t see you again.”

  “Wait—” He caught her hand. “Where are you going?”

  “To visit Papa’s grave for a few minutes. Then I’ll be leaving for town. Old Longbones is saddling my horse. He’s getting one ready for you, too. You’re welcome to take it—my gift.”

  “Filly—” He followed her to the door.

  “Please don’t.” She held out a hand, touching him lightly on the chest. “Give me this time alone.”

  Before he could restrain her, she hurried out of the cabin and flew down the steps toward the path that led to the lonely grave. Tears flowing now, she lifted her heavy skirts and ran until the chill air squeezed her breath, and her heart hammered in her chest. When the little granite stone came into view, she fell on her knees and buried her face in her hands.