One Bright Morning

by Duncan, Alice

  She didn’t know Jubal Green yet, but there was something about him that seemed to draw her to his bedside like a bee to a flower.

  The injured man continued to improve. Within another week, he was well enough to sit up with help, although the effort apparently required a good deal of grunting and swearing on his part.

  “Watch your mouth, Jubal,” Dan said the first time he made the attempt. “There’s a lady present.”

  “Hell,” was the only response Jubal gave to that admonition.

  By the time he was sitting up, he was sweating rivers, and Maggie could tell he was in mortal pain. She rushed over with her bowl of water and soft cloth to blot his damp brow.

  Since she was feeling so rested and well lately, she had been inspired to add a couple of drops of her beloved lilac toilet water to the bowl of water. She didn’t figure Jubal Green could object to the sweet smell, and it definitely made her feel good.

  She just couldn’t get over how splendid she felt since all these men had invaded her life. At the moment, Annie was in the kitchen being entertained by Four Toes Smith, who was showing her how to build things with some wooden blocks he had fashioned for her.

  I don’t even have to worry about the baby, Maggie thought with a smile of pure wonder as she settled herself next to Jubal’s bed, dipped the soft flannel cloth in the scented water, squeezed it out, and pressed it to his forehead.

  Jubal’s eyes had been closed in agony, but they opened as soon as he felt the cool, soothing cloth. He sniffed suspiciously.

  Maggie had not particularly noticed Jubal’s beautiful, sea-green eyes before. Now, as they stared at her with uneasy misgiving, they almost took her breath away. Oh my Lord, he was a handsome man.

  His eyes were actually hazel, Maggie guessed, but they were a deep, deep hazel and they were flecked with green so that the effect, when they were aimed directly at one as they were now at her, was stunning. And they were framed by those beautiful, dark lashes that Maggie had envied before. Jubal’s eyelashes were thick as grass, black as soot, and curled naturally.

  A woman would pay a fortune for lashes like that, Maggie thought as she sponged his brow.

  “You have pretty eyes, Mr. Green,” she commented as she gently worked over him.

  Jubal frowned slightly. He had finally figured it all out. This woman was Maggie Bright, a widow lady whose door he had come to after being shot by French Jack. She had taken him in and saved his life, and for that he was grateful. It must have been she, since there were no other females around, who had seemed to shimmer about him in the night when he’d been feverish, and who had floated like an angel by the window, brushing her hair.

  No proper lady, however, had ever complimented him on his eyes before. Plenty of whores had. According to Dan, Maggie Bright was not a whore, but was, rather, a proper lady with lots of grit and no pretensions. Jubal didn’t quite know what to make of her comment about his eyes. It didn’t square with what he knew about women.

  “Thank you,” he said, since he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “You’re welcome,” said Maggie with a tender smile that made Jubal’s heart flutter so hard, he was sure it was giving out on him.

  He positively hated the fact that he liked Maggie’s ministrations. Pleasure in this female’s touch was a flaw he was sure he would overcome as soon as he was healthy again. He was weak as a kitten now. He sucked in a deep breath of lilac and his weakness made him say, “That smells real good, ma’am.”

  Maggie looked pleased, a reaction that warmed Jubal’s innards. His innards’ reaction to her pleasure irritated him.

  “I’m glad you think so, Mr. Green. It’s my favorite lilac toilet water.”

  Jubal didn’t care, but he didn’t want to seem impolite. After all, this woman had saved his life.

  “It’s nice,” he said.

  “My husband gave it to me,” Maggie said with a sigh, glad to have somebody to talk to. Sadie hadn’t come back since she left with Annie the other day. Dan had told her it wasn’t safe.

  The idea of Maggie Bright with a husband sent an irrational surge of annoyance through Jubal’s guts. He frowned.

  But Maggie was staring out the window, lost in memories of happier days with Kenny and didn’t notice Jubal’s frown. She sighed. It was a heart-felt sigh, and it aggravated Jubal further.

  “He bought it for me in Indiana right after we were married,” Maggie said. “I’ve saved it ever since. Don’t use it very often, ‘cause I never go anywhere. Besides, I don’t expect I’ll ever get any more when this is gone.”

  “Yes you will,” said Jubal Green.

  The irritation in his voice surprised Maggie even more than his words did. Both quickly drew her attention from the window and back to his face. He was glaring at her for some reason. She didn’t suppose it would be wise to argue with him, so she put on a perky smile instead.

  “Well, now that you’re all cleaned off and sitting up, I’ll get your breakfast, Mr. Green.”

  He didn’t want her to leave his side, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he shook his head as he watched her sway gently out the door to the kitchen.

  Hell, he thought.

  He chalked up his reaction to her to his having almost died and decided he’d be real, real glad when he was better. He inhaled a lungful of the soft, sweet lilac scent that lingered in the morning air, and knew that for the rest of his life he would think of Maggie Bright whenever he smelled lilacs. His heart hurt with the knowledge.

  Dan had told him that they were under siege. That particular circumstance, however, was drastically altered early the following morning.

  Before daylight yawned over this little piece of the Lincoln County forest, Four Toes Smith and Dan Blue Gully left the tidy farmhouse in the clearing near Bright’s Creek and went a-hunting.

  They surprised French Jack and his two companions still at rest. French Jack’s last mistake in this world was letting the man whom Maggie wounded stand guard.

  “Probably had no choice,” Dan told Jubal as he recounted the morning’s events to him a little later in the day. “They was only the three of ‘em. But the butt-shot man was too weak to stay awake. We got ‘em all.”

  Maggie, who was folding clean bandages on the chest across the room, was a little alarmed at the broad smile with which Jubal greeted Dan’s words.

  “All dead?” the invalid asked with obvious glee.

  “They are now,” said Dan. Irony dripped from his words, along with grim satisfaction.

  Maggie stopped folding and watched the two man while she listened.

  “How’d it go?” Jubal asked his friend.

  “The butt-shot man took one through the heart. Dead in a second flat. I expect they’ll be pieces of his spine stuck in that tree for a hundred years or more.”

  “You Indians,” said Jubal with a grin of wry appreciation. “Always thinking about your ancestors and your posterity.”

  “In this case, I guess it was posteriority,” said Dan Blue Gully.

  Jubal and Dan laughed heartily at Dan’s joke. Maggie almost puked.

  “What about the other two?”

  “Well, Jack’s other pal, Four Toes blew his brains all over his bedroll. I decided it wasn’t worth takin’ the blanket to clean it up. It was a mess.”

  Maggie’s eyes closed in revulsion.

  “And French Jack?” Jubal asked the question with relish, as though he had been saving the best for last.

  Dan looked up at the ceiling for a minute and said, almost dreamily, “Well, French Jack, we figgered he deserved something special. Four Toes and me, bein’ Apache and all, we decided we ought to give him a little extra care. So first we strung him up.”

  “Did you go through his pockets and gear?”

  “Of course. Found what you was lookin’ for, too,” said Dan. He showed Jubal a folded paper.

  Jubal nodded with satisfaction. “Good. Then what?” He sounded very eager.

  Dan Blue Gully h
ad already begun his recitation of French Jack’s demise by the time Jubal realized Maggie was still in the room.

  “Well, first we slit his belly open and let him watch his guts fall out,” Dan said.

  He was warming up to his description when Jubal’s deep grunt stopped him. Dan looked down at his friend with a puzzled expression on his dark face.

  Jubal jerked a small warning nod in Maggie’s direction, and Dan turned and saw her. She was standing still as a statue by the window, linen bandages dangling forgot from numb fingers, staring at the two of them with her eyes agog, a horrified expression on her face.

  Dan looked down at his boots in obvious embarrassment.

  Jubal cleared his throat. “Mrs. Bright, you probably don’t want to hear this.”

  He was trying to be polite. He knew how touchy females were about stuff like this. They didn’t seem to be able to appreciate the finer aspects of revenge unless it was their own.

  Maggie swallowed hard. She had a hard time whispering, “No. I don’t guess I do.” Then she practically ran out of the room, bolted into the kitchen in a pelter, and collapsed at the table.

  Four Toes had just put the finishing touches on the rest of Annie’s building brick set. As Maggie’s eyes took in the sweet picture of him squatting on the kitchen floor, handing her baby a block, the full measure of men’s inconsistencies struck her like a blow. Four Toes was showing Annie how to build a tower by placing one block atop another. He was grinning in real, tender pleasure at the little girl’s ill-coordinated attempts at construction.

  “That’s right, Annie. Now this one goes there,” said Four Toes as Maggie’s baby succeeded in setting one block on top of another one.

  Annie laughed with pleasure and clapped her little hands. Four Toes chuckled softly.

  “You’re real good at this, Annie,” he said, giving her chubby, angelic cheek a tweak.

  “Annie good,” the baby confirmed, winning another chuckle from Four Toes.

  Maggie shook her head in wonder. If she didn’t know it for a certified fact, she would never in her wildest dreams believe that this sweet man who was playing so peacefully with her baby had tortured and killed another human being earlier in the day.

  “I’ll never understand people as long as I live,” she murmured.

  Dan came out of the bedroom as she whispered the words. He shuffled uncomfortably for a second or two, then said, “I’m sorry we upset you, ma’am. I guess what we done to them men probably shocked you some.”

  Maggie considered denying it, but decided against it. After all, they had seen her reaction to their words. It wouldn’t do any good to lie anyway.

  “Yeah. I guess it did some,” she whispered.

  Dan sat down at the table across from her.

  “I know it sounds mean, ma’am, and brutal, but, see, me and Jubal, we been chased and hunted by French Jack for months now, and we been chasing and hunting him back. Jubal’s only brother and his family was murdered in cold blood by that man, Mrs. Bright, and I figured he should pay for what he done. He’s a criminal, ma’am. There’s a reward’s been posted on him.”

  Dan laid the wanted broadside, Jubal’s blood now dry upon it, on the table in front of her. Maggie stared at it numbly.

  “And it ain’t only that, ma’am. You see, French Jack, he was just a pawn. He was a crazy, mean pawn, but he was still only a pawn. The man who hired him is even worse.”

  The Indian laid another paper in front of Maggie. It took her a couple of seconds to realize that it was a letter. She picked it up and read it, holding it close so that her poor eyes could decipher the closely-written missive.

  She had to read it twice because she didn’t believe she had read it properly the first time. When she was through with her second reading, she looked over the crumpled paper into Dan Blue Gully’s eyes and there were tears in her own.

  “Why, this Mr. Mulrooney fellow says he means to kill the entire Green family, Mr. Blue Gully. ‘Wipe them off the face of the earth,’ it says here. He was paying this Mr. Gauthier five thousand dollars to get Mr. Green.” Her voice held pained awe. “And you and Mr. Smith.”

  “Yep,” the Indian agreed somberly.

  Maggie stared at the letter once more.

  “I don’t understand,” she muttered weakly. “Why would anybody hate another person that much?”

  “Well, Mrs. Bright, it’s a long story and it ain’t really mine, except by—well, by adoption, I guess you might say. I expect I should let Jubal tell you about that.”

  Maggie just stared at him. She didn’t know what to say.

  “There’s a reward on French Jack, Mrs. Bright. Four Toes and me, we’ll haul the bodies into Lincoln this afternoon and visit the sheriff there. You’re due some of the reward, ma’am. In fact, you’re probably due all of it, for putting up with us like you been doing.” He said that with a grin.

  The Indian’s last words shocked Maggie out of her torpor. She turned her big eyes on Dan Blue Gully with a look so poignant that he blinked.

  “Will you be leaving now?” Maggie asked in a faint whisper.

  Suddenly she couldn’t bear even the idea of these two good men leaving her. They’d been here for over a week and turned her life upside down and inside out and killed three people and scared her to death, and yet she didn’t want them to go.

  Dan cleared his throat, as though he didn’t much want to tell her what he had to tell her next.

  “Well, ma’am, you see, Jubal, he ain’t up to traveling yet.”

  “Of course not,” Maggie agreed.

  Dan didn’t continue, and Maggie wondered if that was all he was going to say.

  “Mr. Green can certainly stay here until he’s well,” she offered. The prospect of caring for an invalid while keeping up her farm single-handed and mothering Annie made her heart sink like a lead weight into her sturdy shoes.

  Dan still didn’t speak. He seemed troubled, and he was apparently having a hard time looking at Maggie.

  Finally Maggie couldn’t stand his silence. “What’s the matter, Mr. Blue Gully?”

  Dan sighed. “Well, ma’am, I’m afraid this might not be as easy as that.”

  Easy? Maggie almost laughed.

  “You see, Jubal is writing a letter to Mr. Mulrooney right now, telling him what happened.”

  “What on earth is he doing that for?” Maggie hadn’t meant to yell her question.

  Dan shrugged. “He thinks he has to, this being sort of a family feud. They write back and forth to each other all the time, Jubal tellin’ Mulrooney to give it up and Mulrooney tellin’ Jubal that he ain’t goin’ to give it up ‘til one of ‘em’s dead. When Mr. Mulrooney gets that letter, he’ll be mad as fire. There’s no way he’ll be able to avoid learning that you helped us. Anyway, I expect he already knows, since he’s got spies followin’ Jubal everywhere, and he’s probably got more killers on his tail right now. Then you’ll be a target too, ma’am, and Jubal and me--well, we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Maggie’s face had begun falling at the mention of Jubal’s letter. By the time Dan had finished his little recitation, her face had fallen so far it had nearly joined her heart in her shoes.

  “No,” she whispered miserably.

  “So, you see, ma’am, I know it’s a bother to have us here, but we don’t dare leave yet.”

  “No,” Maggie said again, but with a little more hope.

  “But we don’t want to trouble you no more than we have to, so Four Toes and me, we’ll help out around the place. The reason I brought Four Toes along in the first place was to do some work for you since your other hired fellow was a no-good drunk.”

  The way Dan said it was so matter-of-fact that Maggie could only nod. Hearing Ozzie Plumb described as a no-good drunk by an impartial third party sort of eased her guilt about having found the man so aggravating. She still had his guitar.

  “Do either of you play the guitar?” she asked curiously.

  Dan seemed taken
aback momentarily, as though he considered Maggie’s question a flippant departure from the subject at hand.

  “No, ma’am,” he answered.

  Maggie sighed.

  “Well, I’ve still got Ozzie’s guitar if you want to learn,” she said sadly.

  Dan didn’t say anything for a moment or two. He just watched Maggie as she stared at the table top in front of her. His normally expressionless eyes held a world of sympathy.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he finally said. “Four Toes, he’s kind of musical.”

  Dan looked a little doubtfully at Four Toes Smith, who was now sitting on the floor having a delightful conversation with baby Annie while they built a wood-block cabin.

  Maggie followed his stare and smiled at the young Indian man and her daughter.

  “He’s good with babies, too,” she said.

  “Yeah,” agreed Dan. “He likes kids.”

  “Is he married?” Maggie asked for some reason she couldn’t quite fathom.

  “Naw. He don’t want to live on a reservation, and if he got married, he’d have to do that or be chased for the rest of his life.”

  Maggie’s gaze returned to Dan’s face, and she looked vaguely puzzled. “Really?”

  Dan nodded. “Yeah. Most white folks can tolerate one or two of us at a time, but they don’t want a whole family of us anywheres near ‘em. Four Toes and me, we never lived on a reservation before.”

  Maggie wasn’t embarrassed, a fact she later found rather surprising. She only said, “How sad,” as her eyes wandered back to her baby playing with her new friend.

  “Besides,” Dan continued. “Four Toes has it in his head that he ain’t going to live long.”

  Maggie shook her head. “How odd,” she mused. Then she stood with a weary sigh. “Well, if you two are going to get those dead men to town, I’d better pack you a lunch.”