One Bright Morning

by Duncan, Alice

  “Well,” said Maggie, “Let me help you eat this soup and corn bread, Mr. Green. Maybe that will make you feel better.”

  Jubal grumbled his assent, and Maggie sat down next to the bed and helped him eat. His sour mood didn’t bother her much since she figured he’d earned it. Her aunt used to be in a perpetual snit and with much less reason; Maggie was used to dealing with moody people.

  “Nobody’s ever had to help me eat before,” said Jubal, as if to assure Maggie that he wasn’t normally helpless. He still couldn’t use his right hand to lift anything, so somebody had to help him eat things like soup that spilled easily.

  Maggie’s soft laugh caressed his ears and made his insides puddle up into a pool of slop.

  “I’m sure that’s so, Mr. Green. I don’t suppose you get shot up regular like or anything.”

  She was concentrating on not spilling his soup as she filled his spoon, so she didn’t notice the way his eyes were examining her.

  Jubal liked the way she looked. He also liked the way she made him feel.

  Maggie wasn’t a beautiful woman by most standards, but she had a pretty face, with wide-set, big, blue eyes, and a cute little nose that sat above a mouth that looked temptingly kissable to Jubal. He wasn’t altogether sure he approved of his reaction to her, and he chalked that reaction, too, up to his weakened condition.

  The fact that Maggie also made him feel good didn’t annoy him quite as much, since he figured it was only natural to feel better when one’s nurse was around.

  “You’re a good nurse,” he muttered after swallowing a mouthful of soup.

  Maggie looked up from her work in surprise. “Thank you, Mr. Green. Actually, Mr. Blue Gully is the one who told me how to help you,” she said deprecatingly.

  “That’s not what he said,” Jubal told her. “He said if it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead now.”

  “Did he really?” Maggie could feel herself blush. She wasn’t used to hearing praise sung in her favor, her aunt having conditioned her to expect criticism, if anything. It both pleased and embarrassed her.

  “Well, thank you again,” she said, and turned her eyes to the corn bread. She broke off a piece and stuffed it into Jubal’s mouth before he could say any more nice words about her and embarrass her further.

  After Jubal chewed and swallowed his bread, he said, “And you’re a good cook, too.”

  “Well, you know, truly, Mr. Smith is the one. He goes out every day and finds things in the woods that I wouldn’t even know were there if it wasn’t for him. He gets all sorts of greens and things that I don’t usually get this time of year.” She nodded to herself and Jubal. “Mr. Smith’s the one, all right.”

  Jubal was becoming right aggravated by Maggie’s always disparaging her own accomplishments.

  “God damn it, it’s not them, it’s you. You’re the one saved my life and you’re the one cooks. Now, when I say you’re a good cook, I mean you’re a good cook, and I don’t want any argument.” His voice was gruff and his expression was ferocious.

  Maggie’s face registered real surprise at his words. She didn’t speak for a moment, an old, familiar knot of frustration squeezing her chest. Long, long ago, Maggie had learned not to argue with difficult people. Still, she was surprised at how hard it was to bite back a frosty retort. She guessed she’d got kind of soft, living with the easy-going Kenny Bright for so long.

  She murmured somewhat stiffly, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Green. I didn’t mean to argue with you.”

  That little comment riled Jubal even further, but he decided he didn’t have the energy to set Maggie straight at the moment. He chomped down on the spoon she stuck in his mouth so hard that his teeth clanked on the metal.

  When he had swallowed, he said, “You’re an irritating woman, Mrs. Bright.”

  Then he could have hollered when Maggie’s lips clamped together, her eyes dropped, and it looked like she was going to cry. He’d rather she just yell at him. That’s what Dan or Four Toes always did when he got touchy and they got mad at him.

  Oh, hell, Jubal thought to himself. Why are women so blamed difficult?

  Instead of pursuing the question with a member of that difficult sex, he said, “I want to go outside.”

  He didn’t add that he wanted to be outside when Maggie was outside, and that he wanted to be able to watch her the next time she sang “Annie Laurie” and hung up the wash.

  Maggie looked at him speculatively for several moments. She wasn’t sure she liked Jubal Green. He said mean things, or at least things she didn’t understand. She couldn’t figure out why he had at first praised her and then told her she was irritating, and she wished he could be as obliging as his Indian friends.

  Her long appraisal of him was making Jubal fidget, and he was glad when she drew breath to speak again.

  “Well, Mr. Green, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to move around much yet. I hope you won’t think it irritating of me to say that I’d like to talk to Mr. Blue Gully before trying to help you stand up.” Her words were clipped and a little snappish.

  Jubal sighed.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, ma’am,” he said.

  Hell. He hadn’t meant to offend her. He didn’t know how to talk to women. Except for his mother, he’d grown up around men. His mother was always cringing and crying in a corner somewhere, so he’d just mainly tried to keep out of her way and not aggravate her further.

  Virtually all the women he’d been associated with since he’d grown up were whores, except his sister-in-law Janie. He’d only known Janie a few years before she, his brother Benny, and their daughter Sara had been killed by French Jack. He’d been sort of getting used to Janie and was kind of sorry she was dead, although it was her own fault.

  But he’d loved Sara. He acknowledged that fact only to himself and with an ache in his chest that he was sure would never heal. Sara had been bright and pretty and had loved him, in spite of himself. Little Sara hadn’t cared that Jubal was morose and broody around women. She’d just climbed up his leg and hugged him. His heart hurt whenever he thought about her.

  His sister-in-law hadn’t been as bad as his mother, but she wasn’t one to be easy around, either. He’d never been around as easy a woman as Maggie Bright before. She just went about her business, smiled and sang, and didn’t screech at bugs or yell at her baby. Jubal liked to listen to her and Annie. He wanted to be able to watch them, to see just what it was that mothers and children did together, since he didn’t know from personal experience.

  “Please talk to Danny and see what he thinks,” he said politely. “I’d like to be able to get up, even if I can’t get around yet. I feel—I feel lonely in here.” He stared at the quilts tucked around him and felt like a fool after admitting to that weakness.

  But Maggie’s heart melted immediately and her primly pursed lips relaxed. She understood lonely. She’d been lonely most of her life. She put a comforting hand over his.

  That gesture surprised the socks off of Jubal Green. He liked it a lot, and he liked the feel of Maggie’s soft hand on his.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Green. Of course, you’re lonely. You’re all shot up and hurting and stuck away in here while we’re outside or in the kitchen doing our regular chores and leaving you out. I’m sure we can think of some way to help you.”

  Jubal was surprised at how natural it all sounded coming out of Maggie’s mouth. It didn’t sound like a puling, sniveling, weak request on his part when Maggie said it. That pleased him and he smiled at her.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bright.”

  He had a nice smile. In fact, he had a real nice smile. It was a warm smile. When he smiled, all those little skinny white lines around his eyes crinkled up and he lost some of that hard-as-nails look that he usually wore. Maggie felt a sudden slithery warmth invade her heart. She really, really liked Jubal Green’s smile.

  “Sure, Mr. Green.”

  Then she finished helping him eat and went out to find Dan Blue Gully.


  By the end of the early March afternoon, the air was getting chilly and Jubal Green was ensconced on a chair out back where he could watch Four Toes Smith chop wood while Maggie planted winter kale, beets, and carrots in the kitchen garden. Little Annie was helping her mother, more or less.

  Dan Blue Gully was mending the chicken coop that Ozzie had never managed to get fixed so that the chickens would stay in. Dan and Maggie were swapping tales about farming with each other. It was a subject that was relatively new to both of them.

  Jubal Green breathed deeply of the crisp air. As he inhaled the fragrance of freshly chopped wood and newly turned earth, he felt just fine.

  Chapter Seven

  Four more weeks passed by without incident.

  “It can’t last much longer,” Jubal commented to Dan after supper one night.

  The kitchen smelled of the good supper Maggie had just served, freshly brewed tea, and cinnamon, because she had spent the afternoon baking. Jubal liked the way her house always smelled of good things to eat. That was also something he had never experienced before. He was up and about now, limping, sore, and crabby, but able to get around without help.

  “Do you think Mulrooney knows about French Jack killing your brother yet?” Dan asked.

  “Hell, yes,” said Jubal. “You don’t think French Jack didn’t keep him informed, do you?.”

  “No,” Dan mumbled, “I don’t guess so.”

  “Probably wired him every day that he was near enough to a town to do it,” Jubal muttered.

  “I suppose so.”

  “You know Mulrooney,” Jubal said joylessly.

  “Yeah,” said Dan. “I know Mulrooney.”

  “Can’t be too much longer,” Jubal repeated.

  “No,” sighed Dan. “Mulrooney’s probably already got somebody else on our tail right now.”

  Jubal sighed back. “Yeah.”

  The two men were lingering over their tea. Four Toes had gone out to the barn to see that the animals were properly tucked in for the night. Jubal didn’t want to get up and go into the parlor. He liked to sit at the kitchen table, smell the good smells, and watch Maggie work. It was real peaceful in the kitchen.

  Right now Maggie was doing the washing-up and singing an alphabet song with her daughter. Annie was banging on her wooden high chair tray with a spoon, trying to keep time with the music, Jubal supposed, although he didn’t know much about either music or babies. She made him grin, though.

  Jubal wasn’t altogether certain he approved of the warm, comfy feeling that always snuck up on him when he sat in Maggie’s kitchen. It seemed somehow weak to him that he should entertain feelings of that soft nature, and Jubal was not normally weak. For several weeks now he had chalked up that particular weakness to his having been injured, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. After all, his wounds were almost healed. But those contented, peaceful feelings still grabbed hold of him every blessed time he ate a meal in the kitchen. Or even walked into the room.

  He felt even more uneasy when he acknowledged that those feelings didn’t only wallop him in the kitchen. They attacked him whenever he was in Maggie’s presence, and that fact troubled him a good deal.

  But tonight he didn’t want to think about his odd reaction to Maggie Bright. He figured he and Dan had better consider what was to be done when the next contingent of thugs hired by Prometheus Mulrooney came out to the New Mexico Territory to murder them.

  Jubal was scowling into his teacup. “Hell, I almost wish my mother had married that devil and spared us all this grief.”

  Dan eyed him speculatively. “I don’t suppose you really mean that, Jubal.”

  “I don’t know,” Jubal muttered, his mood unsettled. “All she ever did was slink around the place and fret and worry and cry and stew because of him.”

  “Well,” said his friend, “that was because he was scarin’ her.”

  “Maybe,” growled Jubal, “but for her, fretting was a full-time occupation. She didn’t have time for her husband or her kids or her house or anything. She was too busy bein’ scared.”

  Maggie had come over with the tea kettle to fill the pot with water and she listened with interest as the men talked. She was very curious about why this Mulrooney fellow seemed so determined to rid the world of Jubal Green. She felt easier around Jubal now than she had at first, although she had begun to consider him a somewhat hard man. He still gave her odd, warm feelings in her middle when she watched him, though. She liked to look at him when he didn’t know she was watching. She got embarrassed when he looked back at her.

  “Is that your mother you’re talking about, Mr. Green?” she asked, curious.

  “Yes.”

  Jubal wasn’t sure he should have mentioned anything about his mother in front of Maggie. Women never understood anything, especially when it came to other people’s mothers.

  “Those are pretty hard things to say about your own mother, aren’t they?” Maggie ventured softly.

  She felt quite shy about voicing an opinion in this matter. After all, her aunt had taught her over and over again that her opinion was worth less than nothing. Her marriage to Kenny had softened her perspective on the matter some since he deferred to her in almost everything but, still, Maggie wasn’t at all certain of her position among these men. Not only that, but she was almost positive that Jubal Green wouldn’t appreciate her interference in what he might consider none of her business. Still, it was her business now, in a way, since her own life and that of her baby girl had been imperiled by the feud between him and Mulrooney.

  When Jubal turned to scowl at her, though, she was sure she shouldn’t have spoken.

  “Hard words or not, they’re the truth,” he said. “My father needed a wife. He didn’t need a weeping, wailing woman clinging to him all the time and interfering with his work. All her whining took his mind off his business.”

  “Well,” said Maggie in defense of Jubal’s unknown parent, “I suppose she was near scared to death with that man trying to kill her and all.”

  She didn’t notice Dan smile at her because she was too busy watching Jubal and being amazed at her own audacity.

  Jubal was mad. He didn’t like females talking back to him.

  “Hell,” he snapped. “You were scared, too, but you didn’t hide in a corner and bawl. You took your goddamned gun and shot that bastard in the butt. You took me in and saved my life. People can be scared and still be useful. They can be scared and still do their rightful job.” He was frowning fiercely at her, and Maggie quailed inside. “And you sure as blazes didn’t abandon your little girl because you were scared,” he added as a clincher.

  Maggie blinked. Abandon Annie? “My God, Mr. Green, I could never do that,” she said, startled into anger at the mere suggestion. “What on earth are you thinking of?”

  “Well, then, there you go,” said Jubal, as if she had just made his point for him.

  When Maggie turned to walk back to the stove and put the tea kettle down, her thoughts were troubled. She absolutely hated to argue, although Jubal Green had certainly pricked her temper. And she still believed that he was being mighty hard on his poor mother, too.

  As she trod across the kitchen floor, however, Maggie was suddenly taken up short by the realization that Jubal Green might just have paid her a compliment. She stood still at the stove and thought over his words. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that he had actually compared her favorably to his mother.

  Maggie was smiling a little bit when she turned back to face the two men at the table and said, “Thank you, Mr. Green.”

  Then she scooped Annie up out of her high chair and bore her off on her hip to her room, where she prepared her for bed. She felt pretty good all at once.

  Jubal and Dan sat at the kitchen table and stared after her.

  Jubal looked at Dan, puzzled. “What did she thank me for?”

  Dan was grinning at him. “I think she just figured out that you praised her.”

&n
bsp; “Praised her?” Jubal scowled.

  He tried to concentrate on the few words he and Maggie had exchanged. It seemed to him that he had been irked with the woman; he didn’t remember praising her. He finally gave up and shook his head.

  “Hell,” he said. “I’ll never understand women or Indians.”

  Dan just laughed.

  # # #

  In another week, Jubal decided he was ready to try to mount his horse.

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Mr. Green,” said Maggie when he let his intentions be known to her at breakfast.

  Jubal looked up at her and was taken aback at the concern he read in her eyes.

  She’s worried about me, he thought, surprised. Then that surprise turned to pleasure. I’ll be damned, he thought. She’s worried about me. For some reason, that made him feel really good.

  “It will be all right, Mrs. Bright,” he told her stolidly.

  But Maggie looked plenty doubtful. “I don’t know, Mr. Green. That leg wound is mighty fresh. You’re still limping awful bad. It would be terrible if it opened up again.”

  Maggie knew that he shouldn’t be riding yet. He was still too weak. He might hurt himself all over again, and Maggie thought Jubal had been hurt enough already. Besides, the mere thought of having to doctor another open, bleeding wound made her blanch. She hated the sight of blood.

  Jubal began to frown. He was glad she was concerned. He did not, however, care for an argument.

  “I already said it would be all right,” he said, his tone a trifle curt.

  “I know what you said, Mr. Green,” Maggie snapped back. “But I’m the one has to fix you up if you get hurt again, and I don’t want to.”

  Jubal’s frown deepened. “I’ll be all right,” he snarled, and stomped, limping, out of the comfort of Maggie’s kitchen and over to the barn.

  “Hell,” he muttered. “I thought she was worried about me. She just doesn’t want to have to nursemaid me anymore.”

  Then Jubal hollered at Four Toes Smith when Four Toes, also, suggested that he wait a while before trying to get up on Old Red again. Old Red was a very large horse with a lot of spirit. At Jubal’s angry snarl, Four Toes just shrugged and saddled the horse since Jubal couldn’t perform that chore by himself yet.