Catch a Fallen Angel

by Maureen Child

  "Smooth, you say?" Bass yelled, "I hope to shout it's smooth. Been doing this for nigh onto forty years. Hope I've got it right by now." He picked up a wooden-handled brush and swept away loose hairs from Jake's neck before tearing the sheet off him and shouting, "You're set, son."

  Gabe winced and wondered why it was a deaf man always shouted to everybody else. Maybe to hear himself talk? "How much?" he asked loudly enough, he hoped, to be heard.

  "Lunch?” Bass asked and stared at him. "I don't serve no lunch. This here's a barber shop."

  Jake chuckled and scampered off the high seat to make room for the next customer.

  "Not lunch,” Gabe corrected, speaking a bit louder than before. "I said, how much? How much for the haircuts and shaves?"

  Bass .frowned at him. "Why the hell didn't you say so?”

  Jake laughed again and Gabe s lips twitched. "My fault,” he yelled.

  "Fall? Who fell?" Bass demanded.

  Gabe's chin hit his chest as Jake collapsed against his side, laughter shaking his little body until Gabe had to reach down to hold him upright. This might take all night, he told himself and reached into his pocket for some money. Holding it out toward the barber, he tried again. "How much?"

  The barber sniffed, scratched his head, and finally said, "Four bits each."

  "Done."

  "Of course you're done," Bass yelled. "I can't spend all day on you two for four lousy bits, y'know.”

  "Right you are," Gabe said on a choked-off laugh. He counted out the money, handed it over, then steered Jake out of the shop. Once outside, the two of them stopped to look at each other and the laughter started all over again.

  "He can't hear very good," Jake finally managed to say.

  "I noticed," Gabe told him, and laid one hand on the boy's shoulder to steer him toward home. "So, you think your mother's got some work for us to do?"

  Clearly disgusted, the boy kicked at the boardwalk. "I reckon. She's always busy now."

  “Now?" Gabe asked, curious in spite of his better judgment.

  "She didn't used to be in such a hurry all the time. She used to be different."

  "Different how?"

  Again, he scuffed his shoe against the boardwalk and tossed a look up at Gabe. "She was more fun than skippin' rocks. We did lots of stuff together. Now all she does is work all the time and makes me, too."

  What had changed her? Gabe wondered even though he knew it was none of his business and that she wouldn't thank him for butting in.

  They'd gone only a few more steps when Maggie rushed out of the restaurant, turning her head this way and that. When her nearly frantic gaze landed on Gabe and her son, she seemed to droop with the relief.

  But a moment later, she was headed their way and she didn’t look any too happy to see them.

  "Where have you been?" Hands on her hips, toe tapping against the boardwalk, she stared at her son.

  “We were at the barber's," Gabe answered for him.

  She shot him a glare. "I'm talking to Jake."

  One of Gabe's eyebrows lifted. "Yes, ma'am."

  "It's like he said, Mom,” Jake told her and took a step closer to his mother. "Feel me. I got a shave, just like Gabe. And Bass put a really hot towel on my face and then lots of lather and everything. And he cut my hair too, just like you wanted."

  That last bit, Gabe figured, was a wild shot for mercy. Reminding his mother that she'd wanted him to get a haircut and then hoping she'd see that he'd done her a favor by doing just that.

  “I was worried, Jake," she said. “You shouldn't have gone off like that without telling me."

  The boy's gaze dropped to his shoes. "I'm sorry, but—“

  "No buts." She interrupted the apology and put one finger under his chin to lift his gaze to meet hers. Then she smiled and took the sting out of her words. "Just don't do it again, all right?"

  Mother and son stared at each other for a long minute before Jake nodded. "All right."

  "Good," she said, still smiling. "Now take that handsome face of yours inside and start your homework."

  "Ah, Ma…"

  "Scoot."

  Maggie waited until Jake had gone inside before she turned to face her hired help. He had the nerve to look pleased with himself and somewhat surprised by her attitude.

  “Why would you take him somewhere and not even bother to tell me?” she demanded.

  Her voice was low and tight and twin spots of color filled her cheeks. Her eyes flashed warningly and if Gabe hadn't already been dead, he figured that gleam in her eyes would have done the trick.

  "I didn't take him to San Francisco, Maggie. We were right next door. I meant no harm," he said.

  "I don't care what you meant. He's my son."

  "That's not in dispute."

  “Isn't it?" She stepped up close and had to tilt her head back to glare at him. "You decide to take my son off on a little expedition and don't even bother to let me know he's home safe from school?"

  “Maggie," he said on a forced laugh, "you're making too much of this."

  "No I'm not," she told him. "I hired you to help with the restaurant, not to help raise my son."

  “That's not what I was doing," he complained and couldn't help remembering one of his father's favorite sayings. No good deed goes unpunished.

  “When he needs a haircut, I'll get him one."

  “It wasn't about the haircut."

  "And he had no business getting a shave, for heaven's sake."

  “That's what you think."

  “That's right." she said. "And it's what I think that counts. He's my son."

  With that, she spun around on her heel and headed off to the restaurant. Well, Gabe was just step or two behind her.

  He caught up with her in the doorway and grabbed her upper arm to make sure she stopped. She tried to pull away, but he only tightened his grip a bit.

  "You had your say, now it's my turn."

  "You don’t get a turn," she told him.

  "Is that right?” He let her go and tried not to think about the tingling in his fingers from where he'd touched her. "Well, lady, I'm taking a turn anyway. That kid of yours is lonely."

  "He is not."

  "He is too.”

  She flinched from him as if he had physically struck her. "We have each other. That's enough!”

  "Not by a damn sight, it's not." For either of you, he thought, but didn’t say. Why in the hell was she alone? Why didn't she find herself another husband? A good father for the boy? Couldn't she see what a waste it was for a woman like her to be alone?

  "You don't know anything about us," she told him, her voice tight with emotion.

  "Maybe not," he conceded. "But I know what it's like to be a boy. Do you?"

  She snorted a laugh. "No. I don't."

  “That's why you need a man around him occasionally, Maggie."

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “It means," Gabe told her fiercely, "a boy learns to be a man by being with other men. A mother, no matter how well meaning, can't teach him that. He needs a father."

  She sucked in a gulp of air. “Fathers aren't always the best teachers, Mr. Donovan.”

  "Maybe not, Mrs. Benson,” he said. "But a boy's got to be able to run a little wild from time to time. Go to the creek, play with his friends. He shouldn't have to spend every waking minute with his nose buried in a book."

  She was quiet for quite a while and that should have worried him. But the truth was, he was so caught up in the argument now, he wouldn't have stopped anyway.

  “Thank you so much for the benefit of your advice," she said softly.

  "I only want to—“

  "I’m sure.” She cut him off and held up one hand to make sure he stayed quiet while she talked. "I’m sure you've learned a lot after having raised—how many children did you say you have?”

  All right, fine. Gabe shifted, shoved both hands into his pockets, and met her dark gaze. “None."

  "So in other wor
ds, you know nothing about raising children or what they need."

  "I know what he doesn't need," Gabe told her. "He doesn't need to be mothered to death. He's not a baby, Maggie. You do him a disservice by treating him like one."

  She blanched visibly and only then did he notice the spots of yellow paint speckling her face. She had it in her hair, down the front of her dress, and now that he looked, he saw the backs of her hands were covered in the same shade of golden-yellow.

  She cleared her throat and he looked into her eyes.

  "My son is my business, do you understand?" she asked.

  "Yeah," he said softly. "But do you understand, Maggie, that everybody needs help sometimes?"

  "Maybe," she said, “but when I need your help, I'll ask for it."

  He nodded. "All right. But don't wait too long, I'll only be here two months."

  She smiled a bit at that and assured him, "I’ll keep that in mind." Then she turned and walked into the darkened restaurant.

  She stopped, but didn't turn around when he called out after her, "By the way…yellow looks good on you."

  Chapter Six

  Maggie walked into her son's room and stood in the shadows, watching him sleep. The blankets were in a twist around his legs and his left arm was flung across his eyes. Quietly, she moved forward and gently straightened his covers. He flopped over onto his side, but didn't wake and Maggie sat down on the edge of the bed beside him.

  Reaching out, she smoothed his hair back from his face and let her fingertips trail across his cheek. So soft, she thought, and smiled at the mental image of her little boy getting a shave. Soon enough, she knew, he really would be shaving. He was growing so fast, the years slipping one into the other, that it staggered her to think how quickly he would be grown and gone from her.

  Frowning slightly, she folded her hands in her lap and thought about what Gabe had said that afternoon. There’d been some truth in his words, no matter how she tried to deny them. Jake did need a man in his life. She remembered then how her son had looked up at Gabe and smiled and she wondered how it was the two of them had become such fast friends.

  Still, her new hired hand was wrong about something, too. Not just any man would do for her son. His own father had been worse than useless and she shuddered when she thought about the kind of example he would have given had he stayed with them.

  Her gaze drifted around the room, touching briefly on the artwork Jake had done and then nailed to his walls. A shaft of moonlight slanted through the window and fell across Jake's desk, illuminating the surface with a soft silver glow. A collection of rocks lay scattered across his desktop and one of his schoolbooks was lying open where he'd left it.

  She stood up, walked to the desk and slowly reached down to close that boo, letting her fingers slide across the worn leather cover. Then she reached out and opened the window a bit, to let in the cool night air.

  But along with the breeze came the muted sounds of revelry from the saloon. Frowning, Maggie stared at the garishly bright lights pouring from the front windows of the Howling Dog. And as she watched, a man came flying through the batwing doors, stumbled and fell across the boardwalk, then down the steps to land face-first in the dirt. Someone inside tossed his hat out after him, and the man didn't stir when it land in the center of his back.

  "Drunk," she muttered, shaking her head. Yet another fine "lesson" her son could learn from the wrong kind of man.

  Turning away from the window, she looked at her sleeping son again. In his innocent face, she saw the hope of a better future and silently she renewed her vow to do anything she had to, to see that hope become a reality.

  Besides, she thought as she quietly left Jake's room, her son had a grandfather that Gabe didn't know about. And though her father's visits weren't often enough to suit Maggie, Jake loved him as much as she did.

  In the dark, she walked from her son's room to her own, and as she lay down on the feather mattress, letting the warm comfort of it surround her, her mind drifted once again to Gabe. And whether she liked it or not, she fell asleep with the sound of his voice humming in her ears and the remembered warmth of his touch soothing the lonely corners of her heart.

  #

  When Maggie's silhouette left the window, Gabe slowly turned and started walking again. He wondered what she'd been thinking as she stood in the darkness staring out at the night. And then he wondered why he was wondering about her.

  She and her son were none of his business, as she'd pointed out just that afternoon. He'd do well to remember that, he told himself and at the same time admitted that he probably wouldn't. The woman and her son touched something in him he hadn't been aware of until coming to Regret. And damned if he didn't find that annoying.

  A dead man shouldn't have to put up with all this other nonsense. Why should his body still stir and his hungers quicken when he knew he couldn't do a damn thing about either of them? Was this some sort of special torture devised by a cunning Devil? If it was, it was damned effective.

  Scowling, he listened to the rowdy noise filtering from the saloon and felt its old call reach out to him. Scowling more deeply, he ignored it and kept walking. He passed the silent, darkened livery stable and stepped into the bathhouse.

  The old man behind the counter, who always looked as though he could make good use of his own facilities, stared at Gabe in surprise.

  "You back again? So soon?”

  He smiled. "Back again."

  The man stroked one hand down the length of his dirty gray beard and shook his head, dislodging one of the three strands of hair glued to a bald scalp with a healthy dose of witch hazel. "You're gonna wear out your skin, you keep washin' it this much,” he warned.

  Gabe’s gaze swept across his host quickly. From his straggly beard, to the stained underwear peeking out from beneath an equally dirty shirt, the man appeared to be in no danger from suffering a like fate.

  "I'll risk it," Gabe said and tossed a fifty-cent piece onto the counter. It rolled across the uneven wooden surface until a grimy hand came down on it.

  "'Your hide, I reckon," the man said with a shrug and reached beneath the counter for a worn but clean towel. This he tossed to Gabe and, jerking his head toward a door on the right, said, "Go ahead on. You know the way."

  Inside the dimly lit back room, Gabe found himself alone and quickly stripped. He helped himself to the pots of hot water kept simmering on a nearby stove, and when he'd filled the tub halfway, eased his tired body down into it.

  Letting his head fall against the high back of the tub, he stared at the ceiling and noted, not for the first time, the five or six bullet holes in the roof. Apparently, the bathhouse customers created their own diversions from time to time, he thought, and smiled as he closed his eyes to better enjoy the heat seeping into his bones.

  Of course, this was probably a mistake, he thought. What he needed here, was cold water. And lots of it.

  "What you need," a voice from close by told him, "is to keep your mind on what you're supposed to be doing."

  Gabe's eyes flew open. He knew that voice. But there was no one in the room with him.

  "Over here," the voice said and Gabe turned to look at the shadow-filled far corner of the room. As he watched, those shadows thickened, taking on a shape he remembered all too well.

  The gunfighter stepped out of those shadows and came within a foot or two of the tub where Gabe sat, feeling at a distinct disadvantage. Cupping his hands, he covered himself as best he could and shot the Devil a glare.

  “Can't a man take a bath in peace?"

  The Devil laughed shortly. "You want peace?" he asked and shook his head. “Then you shouldn't have made a deal with me."

  “You're saying I had a choice?"

  “There's always a choice," the Devil said with a shrug and walked slowly around the room.

  Gabe followed him with his eyes and tried to slink lower into the water. His knees jutted up from the surface even as his chin came level with the water'
s edge. "I thought I had two months," he said, then spit out a mouthful of water.

  "You do."

  "Then why're you here now?”

  “Call it…" the Devil said and paused before turning to fix an icy stare on him, "a reminder visit about what you're supposed to be doing."

  "You really think I’m likely to forget?"

  The tall gunfighter lowered himself to sit on the edge of another tub. Setting his palms on his knees, he smiled a slow smile that did nothing to ease the tightness of his features. "Then why aren't you busy getting me what's mine?"

  "How'm I supposed to do that?" Gabe asked and noticed the water was cooling off. Goose bumps raced along his flesh and he shivered slightly. At the same time, he couldn't help thinking that in two months' time, he'd never again have to worry about being cold.

  "'That's not my problem," the Devil said, inclining his head toward Gabe. "But it is definitely yours."

  “And I’m taking care of it"

  "How? By playing games with a child?"

  A mental image of Jake rose up in. Gabe's mind and he felt a sudden swirl of anger rush through him. That boy was no business of the Devil's.

  "Leave him out of this."

  A half-smile lifted one corner of the Devil's mouth. "Protective instincts? From the condemned?”

  That sneering comment only fed the flames of the anger burning inside. What he did with his last two months of life was up to him. As long as he lived up to his side of the bargain, Hell shouldn't give a damn how his task was accomplished. And he didn't have much to lose by saying so.

  "Why don't you back off?" Gabe suggested. "I'll find Henry my way, in my own time."

  "Your time? It's time I gave you, remember."

  "Not likely to forget, am I?” he said, reaching one hand up to finger the rope-burn scar at the base of his neck. He'd been wearing that stupid red bandana for days now to hide the evidence of his hanging.

  "Fine,” the Devil said after a long, thoughtful moment. "But remember this," he went on and stood up to his full, imposing height. “None of these creatures are of any concern to you. The woman. Her boy. You're no more than a shadow to them. You’ll pass through their unimportant lives and then be gone and forgotten almost before the doors of Hell swing shut behind you."