One Bright Morning (4 page)

The Indian shrugged. “It wasn’t
personal.”

Maggie gaped at him. “Not personal?”
Although she had never tried before, Maggie didn’t think she could
come up with of too many things more personal than somebody killing
one’s family.

“
Naw. He’s bein’
paid.”

“
Paid?”

“
Yeah. Another feller wants
us dead.”

Maggie swallowed hard. “Why?”

Dan shrugged again. “He’s crazy.”

Just then Maggie heard a crash at the
kitchen door.

“
Oh, I think Ozzie’s
back.”

“
Maggie!” It was Sadie
Phillips shrieking.

Maggie suddenly wondered if asking for Sadie
had been a good idea. Sadie was a very nervous sort of person. It
was rather pleasant to be around this stolid Indian who seemed so
calm. She sighed.

“
I’d better go talk to
Sadie, Mr. Blue Gully. She’s come to help.”

Dan grunted a “Hmmph.” It didn’t sound like
a happy hmmph.

“
I’ll—I’ll get rid of her,”
Maggie stammered.

Dan smiled at her then and nodded. “Good
idea.”

Chapter Two

“
Maggie, what on earth is
going on? Ozzie said something about a gunshot cowboy come knockin’
at your door and you took him in and laid him out. Is he dead?”
Sadie’s voice was pitched low and throbbed with
excitement.

“
No. He isn’t dead.” Maggie
eyed Sadie curiously. “Why are you whispering, Sadie?”

Sadie’s eyes were bright with intrigue.
“Why, if you had a dead man in here, I didn’t mean no
disrespect.”

Now Maggie really wished she hadn’t sent for
Sadie.

“
No, he isn’t dead yet,
Sadie. He’s bad hurt, though. We had to dig two bullets out of him,
and he’s unconscious. I know he lost a lot of blood.”

Maggie remembered the blood-filled boot and
shuddered. She figured she’d best take care of that next, before
the blood dried and ruined the boot completely.

Sadie had backed up some and was now looking
at Maggie with wide, horrified eyes. Maggie didn’t know what was
wrong, but she sure hoped Sadie wouldn’t scream.

“
What’s the matter,
Sadie?”

“
Your dress,” Sadie said in
a low, dramatic whisper. She pointed an artistically quivering
finger at Maggie’s shirtwaist.

Maggie looked down at her bodice and
sighed.

“
Oh, yeah. I got some blood
on me, I guess. I’ll have to clean it up when I have time.” She
shook her head in perturbation. “Blood leaves stains, too. Oh,
well, I guess it can’t be helped. I’ll just soak it in cold water
and soda powder when I get a chance.”

“
Vinegar might help that,
ma’am,” came the deep, rumbling voice of Dan Blue Gully from the
bedroom doorway.

Sadie looked up and then she did shriek.

Maggie grimaced, recalling her recent
headache and hoping it wouldn’t decide to come back for a visit.
She didn’t trust shrieks and departed headaches to hang out in the
same room without getting together and paying her a call.

“
Please don’t scream,
Sadie,” she said in a tight voice. “Stop that noise. You’ll upset
the baby. This here is Mr. Dan Blue Gully. He’s the wounded man’s
partner, and he’s been helping me. Or I’ve been helping him. Or
something.”

Since Maggie was incurably honest, she
didn’t want to usurp any credit due Mr. Blue Gully, but she
honestly wasn’t sure exactly how to express their relationship in
this instance.

“
He’s an Indian,” came
Sadie’s throbbing whisper.

Maggie wondered if Sadie thought that fact
had escaped her attention. “I know, Sadie,” she said acidly.

“
But—but—he’s an
Indian
.” Sadie was
visibly trembling.

“
It’s all right, Sadie. He’s
not a wild Indian. Mr. Blue Gully is a friend of the stranger’s.
His name is Jubal Green and he’s got a spread near El Paso. Some
criminal named French Jack shot him because they were looking for
him because he was looking for them and he killed Mr. Green’s
family. Not his wife and children, but his sister and
brother-in-law.”

“
Brother and sister-in-law,”
Dan Blue Gully corrected her conscientiously.

“
Right. Brother and
sister-in-law,” amended Maggie, glad for the
clarification.

Sadie just stared at Dan Blue Gully, her
normally rather squinched-up brown eyes now opened so wide in
terror that they displayed a small halo of white around the
pupils.

“
It’s all right, Sadie,”
said Maggie again.

She wondered what on earth to do with the
woman now that she was here, and she finally took her by the arm
and led her over to Annie. Maybe Sadie could be useful in spite of
herself.

“
Would you please watch
Annie for me, Sadie? I’ve got to tend to Mr. Green a while longer.
All I’ve been able to give the baby for breakfast so far is a
couple of biscuits. Maybe you could clean her up some and get a
little milk down her from the back porch. If it isn’t froze
over.”

Sadie sat with a thump and stared up at
Maggie.

“
Sadie?”

Maggie hoped she wouldn’t have to slap
Sadie’s face if she went into hysterics. She’d heard that happened
sometimes with ladies who possessed fine sensibilities. Maggie
didn’t figure she herself possessed any sensibilities at all, but
she wasn’t sure about Sadie.

“
I—I—”Sadie swallowed hard.
“All right,” she said, and turned her attention to
Annie.

Annie said a chipper, toothless, “Ho, Say,”
to Sadie.

That won a delighted smile from her mama,
but Sadie didn’t even notice Annie’s perfect sentence of
greeting.

Maggie sighed and turned back to Dan Blue
Gully, who was watching the scene with serene brown eyes. He
stepped aside so that Maggie could enter the room before him, and
Maggie wondered why all men weren’t that polite.

She walked with him over to the bed and they
both looked down at the unconscious Jubal Green. The gunshot man
was quite a specimen, all right, thought Maggie. He surely took the
shine out of what she remembered of Kenny. Then she shook her head
at her disloyal, wicked thoughts.

“
What should we do now?” she
asked.

Dan didn’t answer her, and she finally
noticed that he was looking down at her with a puzzled frown. Then
she realized that this was her house and he most likely figured it
was up to her to say what happened next. She cleared her
throat.

“
I mean,” she started over,
“I guess he’ll have to stay here for a while. Will you wait here
with him?”

Dan Blue Gully still didn’t answer
immediately, and Maggie wondered if she were making herself clearly
understood. This had been such a confusing morning so far. She
pressed a hand to her forehead. Maybe she had a fever and this was
all some kind of a vision caused by brain waves. Maggie had read
about brain waves.

“
You got a man?”

The question startled Maggie into a little
twitch of surprise. She turned her gaze toward Dan Blue Gully’s
face, which was still staring down at her, the expression it
contained unreadable to her.

“
He—he died,” she
stammered.

Dan uttered a “Hmmm,” that didn’t mean a
thing to Maggie.

Then silence reigned once more. It loomed
about them like a huge, palpable thing, so big and scary that
Maggie felt as though she were about to smother on it. She had an
irresistible impulse to send that overwhelming silence-thing to
grass, and began to chatter in reaction. She plucked at Jubal’s
bedclothes as her tongue ran on like a locomotive.

“
He died three months ago.
Got himself kicked by a horse. Never was much good with horses. He
was a fine man, though. His name was Kenny. Kenny Bright. Mr.
Kenneth Anthony Bright. He was born in New York, but he moved to
the Territory after the war. His whole family came out here, though
some of them stopped before they got this far. Don’t say as I blame
them much. It’s pretty rough out here. I don’t know if I’d be here
if it wasn’t for Kenny. He married me in Indiana and brought me to
this farm. It’s real hard living here in the Territory. I never
farmed before. I’m not much good at it. And then there’s Annie. I
don’t know if it’s good to raise a baby all alone like this. And
there’s also a lot of rough types always wandering into Lincoln.
But it is pretty here. And the place mine. That counts for a
lot.”

Maggie ran out of breath and stopped
talking. Like an engine losing steam, her words just sort of
chuffed out and died. She felt her cheeks get hot with
embarrassment and hoped it was too dark in the room for Mr. Blue
Gully to notice.

Then Dan said, “I had to cut them britches
off Jubal. He won’t be usin’ them no more. Your dead man got any
britches he can wear?”

Maggie wondered if he had heard a word she
had said. Then she wondered how he could have avoided hearing them,
they had all tumbled out so loud and fast. She swallowed hard.

“
Kenny was a lot smaller
than Mr. Green, I’m afraid. I don’t know if they’d fit
him.”

“
You any good with a needle
and thread?”

Maggie didn’t answer for a minute as she
considered the question. Dan Blue Gully seemed to home right in on
the important things. Cut straight down to the nub, he did.

“
Oh,” she said finally. “Oh,
sure. I guess I could let some out for him.”

The man nodded. “That would be right nice if
you could, Mrs. Bright,” he said. “Otherwise, Jubal’ll have to ride
out to kill French Jack buck naked.”

Maggie stared up at him in surprise. “You
mean, you’re still going after him?”

Dan just looked at his partner and said,
“Yep.”

“
Oh.”

“
Can I leave Jubal to your
care for a day or so, ma’am? I think he’ll be all right, if you
keep them wounds clean and sprinkle ‘em with this powder.” He
dangled a hide bag with a leather drawstring in front of
Maggie.

Maggie gave him a lopsided smile. “Your aunt
in Arizona?”

He didn’t smile back. “Yep.” Then he said,
“You got to clean them wounds twice a day and sprinkle this stuff
on ‘em. Wash them with warm water. Not hot. Not cold. Just tepid.
Sprinkle this stuff on ‘em and bind ‘em tight. Not too tight.”

“
Right,” said Maggie,
memorizing the instructions.

“
This here’s some different
kind of bark that’s good for fever. Boil it up in some water.
Better do that now, because I expect he’ll be feverish before very
long.”

“
Right,” Maggie said again,
and went to do exactly that. She put the bark in a little pot of
water and set it on the stove to boil. Then she returned to the
room.

“
Er, Mr. Blue Gully, do I
feed him that bark and water like—like tea?”

Dan Blue Gully considered the man on the bed
for a moment before he spoke.

“
Might have to spoon it down
him, if the fever’s bad. He might not know enough to drink
it.”

Maggie blinked at the naked man on her bed
and felt so inadequate all of a sudden that she almost cried.

“
What about that bark you
gave me for my headache? Can I boil a piece of that up for his
pain?”

“
Better not do that yet,
ma’am. If he don’t hurt, he might move around too much.”

“
Doc Pritchard should be
here soon if Ozzie could find him. If Doc’s sober. If Ozzie’s
sober.” Maggie was watching Jubal Green with bleak eyes.

Dan frowned. Maggie looked up in time to
catch that frown and it worried her. The man looked fierce when he
frowned.

“
I don’t know that I want no
white doctor messin’ with my friend, ma’am,” he said stolidly after
a moment or two.

Maggie took a breath to protest, but was
suddenly assailed by the recollection of Doc Pritchard reeling down
the street in Lincoln and shut her mouth. She wondered if Mr. Blue
Gully might not have a point after all.

“
Well,” she said
diplomatically, “I don’t suppose Doc Pritchard is any worse than
most doctors.”

Dan peered down at Jubal Green thoughtfully.
Then he turned somber eyes on Maggie.

“
You see, Miz Bright, Jubal
Green and me is more than just friends. We grew up together. We
were kind of like each other’s family. We’re almost sort of like
brothers. Like kin. I don’t know as I want anybody dealin’ with him
unless I trust him. I trust you. I don’t know who this Doc
Pritchard is, but if you’re ‘feard he’s drunk, I don’t know as I
want him messin’ with Jubal. You understand me, ma’am?”

Maggie understood him. She nodded.
“Yes.”

Neither one of them spoke for a few
moments.

“
I’ll tend him,” Maggie said
at last. “I won’t let Doc Pritchard touch him. I
promise.”

Dan smiled. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

“
What will you do?” Maggie
asked.

“
Got to keep track of French
Jack,” he said. “I don’t suppose he’s gone far.”

Maggie’s eyebrows shot up.

“
Don’t you think he’d try to
get away from the scene of his crime?”

Dan Blue gully shook his head. “French
Jack’s bein’ paid by a man who hates Jubal Green worse than
anything else in the world. French Jack will want to make sure he’s
dead so’s he can collect his pay. He won’t go far.”

That information entered Maggie’s brain and
settled like sour milk. The more she thought about it, the more it
didn’t make her feel particularly good. Her brow crinkled up.