One Bright Morning

by Duncan, Alice

  Jubal still couldn’t sit a horse for very long at a stretch, so he drove the wagon loaded with Maggie’s goods. That hurt, too, but he just gritted his teeth and didn’t say a word about it. Maggie sat beside him with Annie on her lap and watched mournfully as her happy home bounced further and further away into the distance.

  Maggie couldn’t seem to stop sighing, and every one of her sighs ripped through Jubal like the thrust of a knife. He slumped lower and lower in the seat the more she sighed.

  But the funny part was that, the further away from her home they rumbled, the more Maggie’s mood perked up. She thought at first that she was going to cry all the way to Texas but, instead, she discovered a long-buried spirit of adventure that began to assert itself as the scenery changed. She found herself pointing things out to Annie, even though Annie herself had no basis for comparison and didn’t care anyway.

  They followed the Hondo River down the mountainside, and the landscape changed gradually. It was the first week in April, and spring was getting a sluggish start this year. Only a few flowers bloomed beside the banks of the river, but Maggie showed them to her daughter eagerly from the seat of the wagon.

  “Oh, look over there, Annie,” she said in an excited voice, “Pretty red flowers.”

  “Fowers,” Annie agreed happily, imitating her mama with a chubby pointed finger.

  Jubal hadn’t noticed the flowers, but now he peered over to his right, following Maggie’s finger toward the river. Sure enough, there were some spiky red flowers sticking up, right next to a little nestled clump of tiny lavender blooms. Jubal waited for Maggie to mention those blossoms, too. She didn’t, and he had the absurd notion that she was deliberately holding out on her daughter for some obscure reason, and that aggravated him.

  “What about the purple ones?” he finally asked, with a trace of grumpiness in his tone.

  “Purple ones?”

  Maggie turned wide blue eyes upon him and Jubal got lost in them for a minute. He had to shake his head and clear his throat before he could talk again.

  He shrugged toward the river bank. “Those purple ones next to the red ones.”

  Maggie squinted at the river and then sighed. “I can’t see them, I guess,” she admitted.

  Disappointment made her words seem very poignant to Jubal. He eyed her curiously.

  “You really can’t see those flowers?”

  Maggie shook her head and hugged Annie. “I don’t think my eyes are very good,” she told him in a little voice, as though her poor eyesight were all her fault somehow.

  Silence reigned momentarily.

  “Maybe you need spectacles,” Jubal suggested after a second or two.

  Maggie nodded. “Yeah. I think so. Kenny was going to get me some before that horse kicked him.” She sounded very sad.

  Jubal’s brows drew together. There she went again, talking about her dratted husband. Still, he guessed he couldn’t really blame her. A thought occurred to him suddenly, and he eyed her once again.

  “But you shot French Jack’s partner.”

  Maggie grinned as she remembered that episode. It was a high spot in her life, all right. “Yeah, I did,” she said. “I waited until he shot at me, saw the flash, and aimed at that.”

  A small smile quirked at Jubal’s mouth. “That’s the way you did it, huh?” He admired that. It was a reasoned action that demonstrated thoughtfulness and enterprise, two traits of which he approved. They were also two traits he hadn’t encountered in a female before.

  Maggie nodded. She was very pleased with herself about that shot. Kenny would have been proud of her. When she peeked a glance at Jubal Green, and he looked as though he were proud of her, too, she felt her cheeks get hot.

  “Look, mama,” Annie said, diverting her mother’s attention.

  Annie was getting into the spirit of adventure, too, and she pointed at more red flowers in a meadow across the stream.

  “I see, Annie,” said her proud mama with a happy grin.

  Jubal noted with relief that Maggie didn’t seem unhappy anymore, and he was glad. He was very nearly light-hearted about it, in fact. He decided to take advantage of Maggie’s good mood.

  “It’s pretty around here, isn’t it?” he said, as an experiment. Jubal wasn’t used to making small talk.

  Maggie sucked in a breath of fresh spring air and smiled. “It sure is. Is this land anything like where your ranch is, Mr. Green?”

  Jubal chuckled. “No, it’s nothing like this where I live. This is still in the mountains. I’m way down there.”

  He pointed toward the southwest, and Maggie squinted off into the distance. She couldn’t see a thing except trees.

  “Is it pretty, though?” she asked, a bit timidly. She hoped it would be pretty. One thing about Bright’s Farm, she thought, was that no matter how hard life got, it was real pretty.

  Jubal thought about her question. He hoped Maggie would like it. It wasn’t like the mountains, though. If she liked green trees all around her, she’d be disappointed. He didn’t want her to be disappointed.

  “Well,” he said finally. “It’s different. It’s got a river running through it with cottonwoods along the bank. I guess it isn’t like your place in the woods, but I like it.”

  Maggie thought he sounded a little defensive, and rushed to soothe him. She certainly wasn’t about to disparage his ranch, no matter how awful it looked.

  “I’m sure it’s a nice place, Mr. Green. I just wondered.”

  “Well,” said Jubal, “I sure hope you like it.” Then he felt like blushing and couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

  “I’m sure we’ll like it fine,” Maggie said complacently, and hoped she was right.

  “Fine,” agreed Annie.

  Jubal grinned at the little girl, and realized all at once that children could be a convenient place to rest one’s attention if one were embarrassed about something else.

  “You’ll like it, Annie. I’ve got me a dog named Rover. You’ll like him.”

  “Dah?” Annie was interested. She liked the Phillips’ dog Pete. He was big and furry and licked her face and made her laugh.

  “Yep, a dog,” Jubal said. “He’s bigger than you are, but he’s friendly.”

  Maggie was smiling broadly now. She loved it when people paid attention to her daughter.

  “His name is Rover, Annie,” she said. “Can you say Rover?”

  Annie’s big brown eyes sparkled. “Wover,” she said and seemed pleased when the adults sitting with her laughed.

  They camped that night by the Hondo. Their route was about to leave the river behind as they headed on south, but Jubal thought it might be nice to have the luxury of easy water tonight since, once they passed Turkey Creek on the morrow, it was going to be the last water of its kind for a while.

  “There will be lots of little streamlets in places, but we aren’t going to hit another big river until the Rio Bravo,” Jubal told them. Then he stopped what he was doing and thought for a minute. “I guess most folks call it the Rio Grande up here.”

  “I didn’t know they were the same river,” admitted Maggie, who had just assumed there were two big rivers flowing through Texas into Mexico.

  “I guess you’re not alone there, Mrs. Bright.” Jubal thought Maggie’s mistake was a particularly female one, and for some reason he kind of liked it.

  Four Toes rode up to the little camp then. He’d been scouting on ahead of them, watching for signs of malevolent forces. Jubal had told Maggie he didn’t expect any more of Mulrooney’s people to accost them yet because he didn’t think there would have been time to send more murderers after them from that quarter.

  “But that don’t mean the rest of the no-goods who live around here won’t want whatever’s in your wagon, ma’am,” Dan Blue Gully told her.

  Dan had ridden beside the wagon while Jubal drove. Maggie watched with interest as the Indian scanned the landscape around them. He seemed very alert, and she was glad, especially after
he told her about the no-goods.

  “Are there lots of them around these parts?” she asked, a little worried.

  Dan chuckled. “I reckon you could say that, ma’am, and not be contradicted much, yes.”

  Jubal was building the fire and he grunted at Dan’s words. “Shoot, every no-good who’s got people after him in the States high-tails it into New Mexico Territory, Mrs. Bright. It’s almost like somebody tipped the country and all the riffraff in it rolled out here.”

  Jubal thought his arm would break off before he got the wood carried over to the fire. He was certain his leg was rotting and would fall off any second now as he tried to walk without limping about the campsite. In fact, he was so sore that he could barely move, but his orneriness and pride wouldn’t allow him to admit it. Whether he admitted it or not, though, bouncing on the hard seat of the wagon and guiding the mules with his bum arm had taken their toll on his poor muscles. Maggie’s next comment didn’t make him feel any better.

  “Yes,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Kenny used to say just about the same thing, now I come to think about it.”

  “Got us some rabbits for supper,” Four Toes said, holding out the four rabbits he had shot on his scouting trip. “I’ll skin ‘em for you, Mrs. Bright, if you’ll cook ‘em.”

  “I’d be happy to, Mr. Smith. Thank you for skinning them. I don’t like to do that very much.”

  Actually, Maggie hated it. She hated skinning rabbits even more than she hated gutting and cleaning fish, and she hated that job a whole lot. For some reason, plucking chickens didn’t bother her as much those other two chores.

  “Think I’ll fix these pelts up for Annie, too,” Four Toes murmured, as he walked off out of camp again to take care of the skinning. “I bet she’ll like the soft fur.”

  Maggie smiled after him. “What a nice man he is,” she mused aloud.

  Jubal turned to stare at Maggie, and his face held an expression that was half bemusement and half aggravation. Dan noticed that expression and laughed.

  Maggie peered at the two of them, puzzled, for a second or two, but neither one of them seemed inclined to enlighten her about what was funny. In fact, Jubal turned to glare at Dan. That was when Maggie noticed that Jubal was stiff and grimacing as he moved around the campsite.

  “Are your wounds paining you, Mr. Green?” she asked.

  Jubal heard the concern in her voice and his mood softened some. He had become quite cranky when she went directly from mooning about her dead husband to praising Four Toes Smith.

  “Some,” he said, and then Dan accidentally bumped his leg with a log he was bringing over to the fire, and Jubal let out a ragged bellow of pain and nearly fell over.

  Maggie jumped right up from where she had been setting up cooking things and ran over to him. Supporting him by his good arm, she held him tight and began right in scolding.

  “Mr. Green, you stop moving around right this minute. You come over here and lie down, and I don’t want an argument.”

  Jubal didn’t swear at her because he saw that her expression held genuine concern, and he knew it was for him. He grimaced, his leg still throbbing painfully, and started to protest, but Maggie put her other hand over his mouth before he could say a word. Her hand was surprisingly soft and smelled a little bit like lilacs. Jubal sniffed appreciatively.

  Instead of the words of protest he had been going to say, when Maggie withdrew her hand he found himself murmuring, “You smell good.” Then he felt silly.

  Maggie flushed up a little bit, and her face looked almost golden in the last rays of the afternoon sun. Jubal liked looking at her. Her soft breast pressed against his good arm as she led him over to the quilt she had laid out for him, and he liked that, too. He allowed her to help him lie down and wondered if he was getting so soft that he’d never recover.

  “I’ll help you get your boots off, Mr. Green, and then I’m going to see if Mr. Blue Gully thinks it’s a good idea for you to chew on another one of those bark chips of mine.”

  She gave him a firm nod, as though she wasn’t about to take any guff from him, so he decided not to give her any. He’d already built up the fire, and his two friends were setting up the rest of the camp. He guessed he could lie down and play invalid for a little while. His mood had lightened unexpectedly with Maggie’s nagging, and he found that circumstance odd in the extreme.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a small grin.

  Maggie eyed him suspiciously, but he just smiled at her. His smile sent a funny, swimmy feeling shimmering through her middle, and she couldn’t watch him while she pulled off his boots because she was too nervous. That alarmed her. She tried to cover her nervousness with chatter.

  “Tomorrow you’re going to use a pillow to sit on, Mr. Green. I’ll fix you up something, either rolled blankets or a bed pillow or something.”

  Jubal was too busy gritting his teeth to answer her.

  Annie had been sitting on a log, playing with a corncob doll as her mother had instructed her to do, and she was yawning occasionally. When she noticed Jubal lying back on the quilt, however, she moseyed over and plopped her little bottom down next to him.

  “Ho, Juba,” said the little girl.

  “Hello, Annie,” said Jubal.

  “See my dolly?” Annie held up the corncob.

  Jubal noted with interest that the doll was dressed in the same calico print that the little girl wore.

  “I see your dolly, Annie. Did your mama make it for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a pretty dolly, Annie,” said Jubal gently.

  “Yes,” agreed the little girl.

  Then she yawned again and knuckled her eyes. Jubal crooked his good arm out and the baby took the invitation. By the time Maggie got back to the quilt, Annie was curled up next to Jubal, asleep, with her doll hugged to her chest. Jubal’s hand was stroking her soft hair and Maggie’s heart clutched at the sight.

  This is what life should be like, she thought suddenly, unexpectedly. Annie should have a daddy to hold her when she’s sleepy. And she herself needed a man to tend. She hadn’t realized how much she missed that aspect of marriage until right this minute.

  Jubal smiled up at her when she joined them. “Your little girl likes to sleep with me.”

  Maggie smiled down at him. Then his eyes captured and held hers for a moment and she got all confused. Somehow, Maggie knew Jubal’s words didn’t quite mean what they said, but she couldn’t sort out his ulterior meaning because her heart was doing crazy flip-flops in her breast. She broke eye contact with an almost physical effort.

  “Yes, she seems to, all right.” Her attempt to make the words sound light was somewhat strained.

  She had brought an armload of nursing equipment with her, and she sat down on the quilt next to Jubal and Annie with a poof of calico cloth. She slapped her skirts down around her legs as though sitting on the ground in a rough camp were an every-day habit for her.

  Jubal smiled at that. He approved. He liked unflappable people and the fact that, except when faced with gunfire or the loss of her home, Maggie Bright was very nearly unflappable pleased him. It was another first for her, too, in Jubal’s opinion. Maggie was the first nearly unflappable female he’d ever met up with.

  She held out a piece of her careful store of magic bark to him. “Here, Mr. Green. You chew on this and drink this water. That will help your pain.”

  “I don’t want to take your medicine, Mrs. Bright. You’ll need this stuff a long time after I’m well again, I reckon.”

  Maggie tried to give him a nurse-like and efficient glare, but she failed completely and dropped her eyes instead.

  “Just eat it, Mr. Green, and stop arguing with me. You need it right now and I don’t, so—so just eat it.”

  She looked adorable as she failed so completely at being stern, and Jubal’s insides grinned in spite of himself. “Yes, ma’am,” he said softly, and Maggie could hear the amusement in his voice.

  He took the b
ark from her and watched while she laid her medicines out in a neat little row.

  “I’m going to check your shoulder wound, Mr. Green. I want to wash it off and make sure you haven’t damaged it driving the team.” She couldn’t quite make herself look at him while she delivered her lecture.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jubal said obediently.

  “Mr. Blue Gully gave me this lineament to rub into the scar. He says there’s plants ground up in there that will ease the aching. It smells real good, too, Mr. Green. Then I’ll rebandage the wound again so it won’t get dirty. If it gets dirty, it might still fester.”

  “yes, ma’am,” Jubal said again.

  Maggie took a deep breath. Now came the really embarrassing part. “I’ll help you with your shirt, Mr. Green.” She still couldn’t look at him and tried to appear busy shuffling her nursing things.

  He was eyeing her curiously, aware of her nervousness. He wondered if she’d be just as nervous around any other man in the world, or if he held some special power to alarm her. He hoped it was the latter.

  “What about my leg?” Jubal figured it was pure wickedness that made him ask that.

  Maggie turned her big eyes upon him and he read the shock in her expression. “Well, really, Mr. Green, I—I can’t wash your leg.”

  Even through the fast-falling dusk, Jubal could see her face flush a fiery red. He wished he’d had more experience with good women. He’d like to tease Maggie some more because she was so cute when she was embarrassed, but he didn’t know how to go about it. That one suggestive comment about his leg just about used up his reservoir of repartee. So, rather than tease her, he got embarrassed instead.

  “I didn’t mean anything, Mrs. Bright,” he mumbled. He swallowed a big gulp of water and bit viciously on his medicinal bark after that big lie.

  Now Maggie was even more embarrassed. She was just sure that she had suspected him of intentions of which he was innocent.

  “Well, anyway,” she muttered, “Let’s get this shirt off.”

  Jubal carefully nudged Annie aside so that he could sit up, and Maggie unbuttoned his shirt for him, since his hands were full. That embarrassed him, too, although the feel of her fingers on his skin was heaven. A flitting, foggy thought that was almost a memory floated through his brain, about soft, sweet hands stroking him when he’d been burning with fever. He couldn’t catch the image and make it stay put long enough for him to examine it, but he began to burn again with a fever of an entirely different nature. Damn. His reaction to this woman was getting out of hand.