One Bright Morning (3 page)

“
My name’s Dan Blue Gully,
ma’am.”

Suddenly Maggie remembered Annie. “Where’s
my baby?” she shrieked.

Her eyes were wild now, and the man sighed
as though he were used to this kind of reaction from white people.
“She’s in her high chair in the kitchen, ma’am, and she seems real
happy. She’s surely a pretty little thing.”

He looked behind him and Maggie saw that he
smiled at something. A horrible image of her beautiful Annie,
scalped in her high chair, flashed through her fevered brain. Maybe
this person and the stranger on her bed were vicious criminals. God
knew, there were plenty of those wandering around in Lincoln
County. It was all too much for her, and Maggie began to weep
hysterically.

The expression on the Indian’s face was one
of mingled concern and aggravation. “Are you all right, ma’am? I
know I give you a start, but I ain’t violent. Swear to God I’m not.
Honest.”

Maggie couldn’t stop herself. Huge,
shuddering sobs were making the ache in her head slam against the
backs of her eyeball like tiny, granite baseballs. The agony had
concentrated now, as it usually did eventually, behind and around
her left eye. It felt as though the pain on the inside of her head
were pushing her left eyeball right out of her skull.

“
No,” she finally managed to
choke out. “I’m not all right. There’s a dead man in my bed, and my
baby’s been murdered, and I’m crazy, and there’s an Indian in my
kitchen. And I have a headache!” The last sentence was wrenched
from her gut and wailed out of her mouth like a piercing prairie
wind.

When the man finally gave up trying to
reason with her and walked over to take her by the shoulders, she
wanted to turn tail and run away. She tried to pull away from him,
but he gently and firmly led her out to the kitchen and sat her
down next to Annie, who was still working busily away on her
arrowroot biscuit. The baby had managed to soften a good deal of it
with drool and was gooing it into her soft curls delightedly. Annie
gurgled at the brown man and he grinned at her.

Dan Blue Gully squatted beside Maggie,
dipped a rag in some water at the sink, and wiped off her bloody
face and hands. He kept her hands in his when he was through doing
that.

“
I can tell you got a bad
headache, ma’am, and I’m right sorry. But I have to help my friend
in there. We’ve been partners for so long that I’ve forgot when I
didn’t know him, and I don’t aim to see him die. I appreciate your
tryin’ to help him, and I may need you again. You eat this and
drink some water, and I hope you feel better in a little
while.”

He opened a leather pouch and handed Maggie
a piece of wood. She had no idea what it was. Her tears had
stopped, but her head was now pounding so badly that she could
barely keep it lifted. She stared dumbly at the man beside her, who
was wobbly and shimmered oddly through her watery eyes. The numb
realization that her hands were no longer caked with blood seeped
slowly through the ache in her head and registered dimly somewhere
in her consciousness.

She was afraid to disobey the man for fear
he would harm her and her baby. She only hoped that if he planned
to kill them, he’d do it quickly. And soon. The sooner this
headache was gone, even if it took her with it, the better.

Dan Blue Gully pumped a mug of water and
brought it to her. “Chew on that piece o’ wood, ma’am. It might
help your head. And drink the water with it. Otherwise, it might
make you sick. I got to get to work now.”

With that, he turned and went back into the
bedroom.

Maggie sat in the chair and didn’t know what
to do. She was normally a fighter, but right now she couldn’t even
see straight, much less fight. Her headache had become so bad that
she didn’t think she could stand up without falling over in a
faint.

“
Oh, what the hell,” she
finally muttered. “If it poisons me, so much the better.” She began
to chew.

It was about ten minutes later that she
again had a coherent thought. She suddenly realized how absurd this
whole situation was. Here she was, sitting in her kitchen chair,
caked with blood, chewing on a piece of wood and drinking water,
while her baby sat gurgling in her high chair, gumming a biscuit
and smearing glop into her hair, and there was an Indian operating
on an unknown dead man in her bedroom.

She almost laughed before she realized her
headache was gone.

Maggie stared at the remains of the wood in
her hand in pure awe. She had never in her whole life had one of
these headaches just up and go away.

She shook her head experimentally back and
forth. There was no pain. Not a shard. Not a hammer. Not a wince.
She turned her gaze upon her baby. Annie was smiling at her
happily. It looked as though she could use another biscuit.

“
Ho, mama,” the baby cried
happily.

Maggie cleared her throat. “Hello to you,
pretty Annie.”

Very carefully, she stood up. She didn’t
want the pain to come crashing back into her head again,
sneaky-like, and knock her cockeyed.

Nothing.

She shook her head once more. Then she
looked over to the bedroom door and half expected to see the Indian
laughing at her wickedly. Or the devil. There must be some mistake.
Something good had happened to Maggie Bright.

She decided not to argue with the fates. If
the devil were playing tricks with her, she might just as well
enjoy the few pain-free moments allowed her before the bolt of
lightning struck. She looked with disgust at her blood-caked
shirtwaist.

“
Ugh, Annie. Your mama’s a
mess.”

The baby gurgled happily, “Mama mess.”
Maggie smiled.

She took an experimental step towards the
bedroom, then another. By the time she had made it to the doorway,
she almost believed her headache was really, truly gone. She peeked
into the room.

The stranger lay naked on the bed, Dan Blue
Gully was kneeling beside him on the other side, and Maggie had a
splendid view of the most powerfully built male body she had ever
seen. That view made her squeeze her eyes shut tight and gasp. Dan
looked up at the noise.

“
Feelin’ better,
ma’am?”

Maggie decided it was impolite not to look
at him as she spoke, even if it meant eyeballing him over the very
most personal part of the stranger on her bed.

“
Ye-yes. Thank you,” she
stuttered. She opened her eyes wide and then shut them tight
again.

The naked stranger on her bed didn’t look at
all like Kenny looked the few times Maggie had seen him without his
union suit on. This man’s thighs were huge and looked like iron.
Iron covered with curly, golden hairs.

“
If you’re feelin’ better,
ma’am, I could use a little help in here,” Dan Blue Gully said
pleasantly.

Maggie cleared her throat. “Of course.” Then
she said fervently, “Mr. Blue Gully, I can’t hardly believe it, but
that piece of wood you gave me actually cured my headache. I don’t
know how to thank you.”

“
That’s all right, ma’am.
You probably saved my partner’s life. That’s worth a piece of wood,
I reckon.”

“
Well, I just want you to
know how much it means to me, ‘cause it does. It means a whole lot.
Just let me take care of the baby for a second and I’ll be right
back,” Maggie said, and then fled back to Annie.

“
Oh, Lord Jesus, Annie. Now
I’ve got to go into that room and face a naked man and an
Indian.”

Annie sucked on the last of her biscuit and
grinned. She had biscuit goo all over her face and hair, and Maggie
itched to clean her up, but she didn’t have time.

When she remembered Ozzie, she cursed him.
“I really will break that man’s guitar if he doesn’t get back here
pretty quick.” She handed Annie another arrowroot biscuit. “Here,
baby, I guess you might as well paste on another one of these.”

The baby laughed a tinkling little laugh at
her, and Maggie smiled and kissed her. Then she straightened up,
sighed deeply, and headed back into her bedroom.

Dan Blue Gully had covered the stranger’s
privates with a sheet by the time Maggie reentered the room.

“
Thank you, ma’am.” He
glanced up as Maggie stepped inside. “If you could hold his leg
still, I’ve got to dig out the bullet.”

Maggie swallowed hard and cleared her
throat. “All right.”

“
You did a real good job on
his shoulder,” Dan said as he eyeballed the bullet hole in the
man’s thigh and poised his knife.

“
Thank you,” Maggie
breathed. She couldn’t watch.

Dan Blue Gully worked in silence for a
second or two as Maggie held the stranger’s leg steady. It felt
very hard and hairy. Kenny had been hard and hairy, too, but
Kenny’s was a wiry hard, not a bulky, muscled hard like this
unconscious man whose massive thigh she cradled in her arms.

She discovered that when she opened her
eyes, she was staring straight at his sheet-covered privates. Lord,
the bulge they made was big, too. Maggie didn’t want to think about
it, so she turned her head to study Dan Blue Gully’s profile.

He had a nice profile, Maggie decided. His
features were sharp and lean, not puffy like some of the Indians
she had seen in town who had given themselves over to strong drink.
Not, she reminded herself sourly as she recalled Ozzie Plumb, that
addiction to intoxicating spirits was by any means confined to the
Indian segment of the population.

Her eyes had a provoking tendency to slide
back to the stranger’s bulge, so Maggie decided to talk to Dan Blue
Gully in order to keep herself occupied.

“
That piece of wood you gave
me truly worked wonders, Mr. Blue Gully. Nothing I’ve ever done
before has ever helped one of those headaches.”

The Indian grunted. He didn’t say anything
until he had pulled the bullet out of his friend’s leg. It came out
with a gush of blood that nearly made Maggie gag. Then he said,
“Yeah. I hear that stuff works pretty good.”

Maggie cleared her throat. “What—what is it,
Mr. Blue Gully?”

Dan Blue Gully shrugged. “Don’t know.”

Maggie’s eyes opened wide. “You don’t
know?”

“
No. My aunt, she give it to
me. She’s a healer over in Arizona. Married her a Hopi, so the
relatives sort of kicked her out. That bark comes off a willow tree
they got there. Grows by a river.” He grinned at Maggie, and she
blinked.

He had a nice smile. Friendly. She offered
him a tentative smile in return.

“
Well,” she said. “It worked
and I surely do thank you.” Then, because she couldn’t think of
anything else to say, she said, “You’re not a Hopi?”

Dan Blue Gully gave a little snort. “In New
Mexico? Naw. I’m Apache. Mescalero. No Hopis around here.”

Maggie was puzzled. “Then how did your aunt
meet one?”

“
Army run us out of New
Mexico Territory into Arizona,” he said as he blotted blood away
from the wound.

“
Oh.” Maggie didn’t quite
know what to say to that. Then she thought of a good question.
“What’s this man’s name, Mr. Blue Gully?”

She eyed the stranger again. His face had
relaxed into smooth lines since he had given up the conscious state
for a stupor.

“
Jubal. Jubal
Green.”

“
Green? Well, that’s
interesting,” said Maggie, more for conversation than anything
else. “He’s Green and you’re Blue. You’re a colorful pair.” She
thought about chuckling and decided against it.

Dan Blue Gully looked at her blankly and
then shrugged. “I was born on his place.” He smiled ironically. “Of
course, the Greens come to live there a long time after the Blue
Gullys, because the Mescalero have been there for centuries, but I
figure it ain’t worth fighting about anymore. Anyway, Jubal and me,
we sort of raised each other.”

Maggie only swallowed and nodded.

Dan had been nimbly working on Jubal Green’s
thigh during their conversation. He sprinkled something over the
wound and packed it tight, then bandaged it up with the clean, torn
linen strips that Maggie had set aside for the purpose.

“
How—how did Mr. Green get
shot?”

“
Saving my life.”

Maggie wondered if she had
misunderstood.

“
Did—um—did you say saving
your life, Mr. Blue Gully?”

“
Yep. We trade off.” the
grin he gave her along with those words was big.

Maggie felt terribly confused. This Dan Blue
Gully didn’t seem to be one to tell a body a whole lot at one time.
Then she remembered the wanted poster.

With a nod toward the table where the
blood-soaked broadside yet lay, she asked, “Were the two of you
looking for that criminal on the poster?” Since she still cradled
the stranger’s thigh in her arms, she couldn’t pick the broadside
up.

Dan Blue Gully looked over to see where
Maggie was indicating and nodded.

“
Yep. Kind of.”

Maggie decided to ignore that “kind of” for
the present.

“
Why?”

The Indian looked at her somberly for a
second or two. “French Jack killed Jubal’s family.”

Maggie’s eyes opened wide at that. “Killed
his family?” she whispered. “How terrible.”

“
Yep,” was all he
said.

“
He killed his wife and
children?” Maggie felt like crying at the thought.

“
Nah. His brother and
sister-in-law. They all lived on the spread. In west Texas. Near El
Paso. Called Green’s Valley.”

“
Oh.” Maggie still felt sort
of sick. “Why did he do that?”