Molly's Hero

by Susan Amarillas

  Maybe it was growing up in an orphanage, never having a home of his own that had him feeling like a low-life cur dog.

  Hey, wait a minute, he told himself, this is business, not thievery, and he wasn’t going to feel guilty or ashamed. Business, pure and simple.

  Ethan straightened and started back toward the cabin. She must be done changing by now. He’d make some food. See if he could rustle up some cold remedies. Tomorrow he’d tell her his business and be on his way.

  Yup, that sounded fine.

  He was cutting a tight corner on the shady side of the cabin when something snagged his trousers. “Ouch,” he muttered, rubbing his leg through the denim as he looked to see what had stuck him.

  It was a plant in a tin washtub, hardly noticeable in the shadows. He looked more closely.

  It was a rosebush.

  Who the hell had roses out here? No one. They couldn’t take the summers or the winters and yet here one was, looking pretty pitiful but hanging on. A few leaves and the barest start of a red bud.

  He touched it, careful not to get snagged on those thorns again.

  “A rosebush,” he said aloud, his thoughts going instantly to the woman. A smile threatened. Roses and Molly Murphy. A perfect combination of thorns and silken beauty.

  Wilder, are you getting poetic on me?

  He chuckled. Could be.

  Without giving it much thought, he lugged a bucket of water from the creek and poured it on the rosebush feeling strangely as though he was more than helping, that he was part of her life.

  He looked at the empty bucket and in the general direction of her garden. Next thing he knew he was hauling more water, soaking the beans and cabbage and corn. The more water he hauled the more he smiled.

  Crazy, Wilder. Pure and simple crazy.

  Yeah, but what else could he do? He’d said he’d help her and that was what he was doing.

  Putting the bucket down by the side of the house, he headed for the cabin door.

  Molly was sitting on the side of the bed trying to understand what she’d done.

  It was crazy.

  It was necessary.

  The voice of caution drew her attention to the rifle that was propped by the doorway. Thinking good sense was the better part of valor, she did retrieve it for all her telling him she didn’t need it. A few steps there and back and she slid the Henry under the bed—for safekeeping.

  “Aren’t you gonna change?” Katie stood by the head of the bed like a lady-in-waiting as Molly settled on the rope-strung bed again.

  She reached for the nightgown. The thought of lying down was getting more and more appealing.

  “Honey, go look out the window and see if you can see Mr. Wilder out there.” She was already undoing the dozen or so buttons down the front of her blouse.

  Katie scampered away, and the blanket flap settled quickly to the floor in her wake so that when Katie pulled the door open Molly wasn’t blinded by the light. She stared at the blankets, her hand gliding lightly down the worn wool. It was a nice thing for him to do. A thoughtful thing. She appreciated it…and him.

  “No, I don’t. Maybe he’s in the barn. You want I should get him?” Katie asked.

  “No!”

  Katie hurried back to Molly, giggling as she ducked under the blanket again. “This is fun,” she told Molly. “Like playing Indian.”

  “I’m glad you’re having a good time.” Molly pulled the nightgown over her head and then undressed inside it like a tent, feeling less…exposed. “Now, I’m gonna rest for a little while and you play and be a good girl for Mr. Wilder. He’s gonna take care of you while I’m sleeping. Okay?”

  “Are you gonna be sick for long, Mama?” she asked, tossing the hair back from her face.

  “No, not long,” Molly said as much for herself as the child.

  Please, Lord, let it be so.

  She heard a knock on the door an instant before it opened.

  “Okay to come in?” Ethan spoke to the blanket wall.

  She couldn’t see his face, which meant he couldn’t see her, either. “Yes,” she answered. She slid under the covers, the coarse muslin sheet cold and rough against her overly sensitive skin.

  “Is the kid, ah, Katie, still there with you?”

  Katie’s head came out between the blankets. “I’m here, Mr. Ethan.”

  He smiled. He’d never spent much time with kids but he was getting to like this one. “Well, why don’t you come on out of there and show me around the kitchen?” He hooked his hat on one of the chairs, and walked the five steps to the cupboard area. Katie scrambled up behind him.

  “Whatcha gonna make?” she asked eagerly.

  He spoke loudly so that the woman, Molly, could hear him. “Well, I don’t know.” He started opening and closing doors. The cupboards were pitifully bare. There was half a sack of flour and about the same amount of coffee and lard. There was cornmeal mush, a large piece of salted ham covered by a towel, a white sack of beans, two jars of tomatoes, a can of Coleman’s mustard, some dried apples, salt, pepper and green tea.

  “You got any honey?” he called to her.

  “No,” Katie and Molly answered almost in unison.

  More softly to the child he said, “How about sugar?”

  “No.” She shook her head, her blond hair flying around her face. “We got molasses. Will that help?” She pointed to the other cupboard which did indeed hold a tan ceramic jug of molasses and a few strips of dried beef.

  Well, he had sugar in his saddlebags. Okay, it was a weakness. He’d never learned to drink his coffee black—and like it.

  He was thinking about making some sort of tea for Molly. Honey was soothing to the throat, but maybe the hot liquid would be enough. He could try a little molasses in it. He never liked the taste but most folks did.

  “How about some tea?” he called to the woman. “Might help warm you up and ease your throat a bit.”

  “Sounds nice,” came her less than enthusiastic reply.

  Ethan turned to Katie. “Okay, kid, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to start some water boiling for tea, then cut some of this ham, make some biscuits and eggs. There are eggs, aren’t there?” he asked, remembering the chickens.

  Katie screwed up her face. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, go look.”

  “Mama doesn’t let me get the eggs.” Her face was all frustrated.

  “Why not?”

  “She says I break ’em and we can’t sell broke eggs.”

  Ethan chuckled. It made sense but right now selling eggs wasn’t his top priority. “Are you afraid of the chickens?”

  “Naw, they don’t scare me.” Katie puffed out her chest.

  “Good, then you check to see if there’s eggs while I go get some water from the stream. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Katie grabbed a small basket from the counter and rushed for the door. Ethan picked up the nearly empty water bucket and followed.

  “We’ll be back in a minute,” he told Molly.

  “Okay.”

  Ten minutes later he had water boiling. Katie had indeed retrieved five eggs and hadn’t broken one. Ethan was appropriately congratulatory. With the kid’s aid, he got the lunch going, ham frying, biscuits baking and finally the eggs frying. He was no fancy cook, but he knew enough to stay alive on the trail.

  He brewed a pot of green tea and put a big spoon of molasses in it, then stirred.

  Molly slipped lower in the covers, the flannel warm but the sheet cold against her bare feet. A cough rattled around in her chest and the inside of her nose burned. With all that, the only thing she was thinking about was a man in her kitchen making tea for her. A man was taking care of her. Odder yet, she was letting him.

  Her head kept spinning and she closed her eyes against the motion and throbbing in her temples. A cough. Then another. She rolled onto her side. Her eyes drifted closed.

  Ethan tasted the tea and made a face, which made Katie laugh. “I hope your mother like
s molasses.” With that he started toward the blanket-draped bed.

  “She does,” Katie confirmed, and again he noticed the kid’s missing bottom tooth.

  “When’d you lose the tooth?” He walked to the bed where Molly was resting. His spurs jingled and left light scratches in the rough pine planks.

  “Yesterday. You wanna see it?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure, I guess.” He stopped at the blanket and without looking over said, “Ma’am?”

  No answer.

  Cautiously he peered over the top. She was asleep. Her hair fell across her cheek and he could tell by the shape of the quilt that she had her knees drawn up as if she were cold. He wanted to touch her face, to check, to help somehow. He decided against it.

  Putting the steaming tea down on the table, he sat down. “Katie,” he said softly, “your mother’s asleep so we’ll eat quietly, then we’ll go outside. Okay?”

  “Okay, Mr. Ethan,” Katie responded enthusiastically, then, as though she’d realized what she’d done, she repeated herself more softly. “Okay, Mr. Ethan. I can be as quiet as an Indian.”

  “Please don’t even mention Indians. That’s all I need right about now.” The Sioux were raiding north of here. He helped Katie get settled in her chair.

  “Can we play a game after lunch?”

  “How about you show me your tooth?” He didn’t care about teeth but games weren’t his strong suit unless there were cards involved.

  Katie’s eyes brightened. “Okay.” She gobbled lunch like a cowhand fresh in from the range. Ethan was enjoying the last of his biscuit when she jumped up and started pulling him outside.

  Licking his fingers, he went along. “Where are we going?”

  “To my secret place.”

  “Secret, huh?” Kids were always stashing some useless thing somewhere and expecting adults to get all excited. So, okay, he figured he could make an appropriate fuss.

  Outside those thunderheads still looked threatening. The day was gray and ominous. He’d have to remember to get the horses inside soon. And there was the wagon.

  The list kept growing.

  Right now he was about to be treated to the revelation of Katie’s secret place, which turned out to be near the stream. A piece of folded red flannel that was kept in a scraped out spot covered by a rock was her version of a Wells Fargo safe.

  Katie made a big show of sitting Indian style on the ground and motioning for Ethan to sit opposite her and do the same. The wind stirred the leaves of the cottonwood trees, making a sort of clatter. The stream gurgled and tumbled over the small rocks that dotted the bottom, creating little waterfalls and whirlpools.

  Ceremoniously, Katie unfolded the cloth one corner at a time until the contents were revealed.

  “See here, this is my tooth.” She held the white enamel square out for him to inspect, which Ethan did with what he hoped was great solemnity.

  “Nice,” he said, handing it back to her. “But why didn’t you put it under your pillow for the tooth fairy?”

  Katie cocked her head to one side, her little mouth drawn up in a serious expression. “What’s a tooth fairy?”

  Uh-oh. Now he’d done it.

  “Well, the tooth fairy comes at night after you’re asleep and puts a penny under your pillow.” At least that was the story the nuns at the orphanage had told him. Why hadn’t someone told her about it?

  “Why’d the fairy do that?” Katie’s face looked very serious, her eyes bored into his.

  “Ah.” He rubbed his beard-stubbled chin. “Because the fairy takes the teeth back to…ah…to…ah heaven, yes, that’s it, back to heaven so that they can be used again for some other little girl or boy.”

  Katie’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the tooth in her hand, then at Ethan, then the tooth again. “How come I never heard ’bout this before?”

  “Don’t know.” Ethan lied as the realization came to him. Maybe because your mother doesn’t have the penny to spare. “What else have you got there that you’re saving?”

  Katie put the tooth back in the flannel. “This is my favorite rock.” She held it up to him. “See how the colors are so pretty? When you wet it it shines really nice.”

  “I’ll bet it does.”

  “You wanna see?” Katie was already dashing for the creek edge.

  “Be careful.” The creek was only ten feet wide but pretty deep and running fast from the spring melt in the mountains.

  “I do this all the time.”

  Katie dipped the rock in the water. “See,” she announced, beaming. “See the colors?”

  “I sure do. Let’s look at it over here.” He’d feel better if he got her away from the stream. Standing there, looking at the rock, his mind instantly flashed back fifteen years. He’d had a secret stash filled with odd bits of treasure he’d collected. His was kept in a handkerchief that he’d stuffed behind a loose brick in the chimney of Saint Anne’s.

  He wondered if it was still there, since he hadn’t bothered to retrieve it the day he’d left. An odd feeling moved through him, nostalgia perhaps, sadness for sure. Anger, too.

  “Mr. Ethan? Mr. Ethan?”

  He realized the kid was talking to him. “Yeah.”

  “I also got a penknife, but it’s broke and don’t open so good.”

  He gave it a cursory once-over. The metal blade was rusted and the wooden case was cracked. “Maybe we can fix it.” Assuming he could even get the blade open.

  “You think?”

  He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “We’ll see a little later.”

  “And I got this.” She held up a piece of jewelry. A few blue beads and a metal cross.

  He knew what it was instantly. “Where’d you get the rosary?” He’d spent a lot of hours on his knees saying prayers, usually in penance for some transgression—everything from missing mass to missing his work assignment.

  Ethan had made a lot of transgressions so he knew his rosary well, not that he said it anymore. Oh, he believed. He just believed in himself and Billy and cold hard determination more. That’s another thing war will do to a man.

  “I got the beads from my mama,” she shouted over her shoulder as she darted on ahead after a big yellow butterfly. “Come back here, you!”

  Her laughter carried on the increasing breeze. The sky turned darker with every passing minute and there was no longer any doubt that it was going to rain, just how soon. The child disappeared around the side of the cabin and Ethan smiled. Quite a bundle of energy. If he could harness that energy he could run a dozen trains without steam.

  Yup, quite a kid. The wind picked up and swirled dust in his face so that he had to turn his back for relief. Standing there, looking at the pitiful excuse for a ranch, well, this was sure as hell not the way he envisioned things going. Who’d’ve figured a hard case like him would get all tangled up with a kid and a woman. All he wanted was his land, yeah, his land, and he was outta here.

  Of course, he hadn’t counted on the woman’s being sick. Or, most especially, the fire in her hair.

  Chapter Four

  This day was never going to end. It was barely after lunch and the girl was running him more ragged than any crew of rail layers. At this rate he’d never make it to dinner. It was time for a little action, he decided.

  “Hey, Katie, what say you give me a hand bringing back the wagon?”

  The kid appeared from around the side of the house. “Really?”

  She looked skeptical, her hair falling wildly across her face. “Can we ride your horse?”

  “Yeah. We’ll ride him.”

  “Ride the horse” seemed to be the deciding factor, which was pretty much what he’d figured.

  Ethan was still watching that ever darkening sky. He hoped it held off until they got back.

  In the corral, he saddled Four and plunked Katie in the saddle. Ethan knew he could trust Four not to move, and this way he would also know exactly where she was.

  A few more minutes and he had the team hooked to a
lead, had borrowed a bottom rail from the corral to use as a drag, and was about to swing up behind Katie. Just then he realized he’d better tell the woman what was up. There was that temper of hers to consider. A hint of a smile quirked the right side of his mouth. He liked fiery women.

  “Ma’am?” He spoke in a hushed voice as he entered the cabin in case she was asleep. Evidently she was, because she didn’t answer, so he scrawled a note—penmanship never being one of the things he excelled at—and left it propped against the lamp on the table.

  It took them about twenty minutes to reach the wagon, Katie bouncing up and down in the saddle the entire time. Wind swirled and stirred the dusty road. Ethan had to settle his hat a little tighter on his head.

  Once at the wagon site, Ethan used the wagon jacks to prop up the rear end. He removed the broken wheel and lashed the corral rail to the hub. It was hard work but he didn’t mind. In fact, he was glad to be doing something. It kept his mind off other confusing thoughts.

  “Okay,” he said to Katie when he was finished. “You and I will sit up here and drive.”

  “But I wanna ride Four some more.” She flounced around in the seat, her arms folded tightly across her chest.

  “You can, but not now.” He didn’t wait for her to agree. This was one time he was in charge. The girl decided to sulk, so jaw clenched, arms crossed and feet swinging faster than the horses were walking, they headed back.

  The wagon creaked and groaned all the way and Ethan kept a close eye on that drag. If the damned thing broke he’d really be up the creek.

  Fortunately, the fates were with him and, about an hour later, he pulled turtle-slow into the yard and stopped near the entrance to the barn so that he wouldn’t have to walk so far between tools and wagon.

  Ethan jumped down first, then held out his hands to Katie, who hurled herself at him as if she were flying.

  The sky left no question of the fast approaching storm. Ethan put the horses up in the barn. There were no stalls so he tied each to a peg or post near the back wall, whatever he could find, leaving the rope long enough for them to reach the hay on the floor.