One Bright Morning

by Duncan, Alice

  “You loved him a lot, didn’t you, Mrs. Bright?” Jubal asked. He hadn’t meant to ask that. It just snuck between his defenses and burst out of his mouth without his consent.

  Maggie didn’t notice the strain in the question. “Oh, yes, Mr. Green,” she said in a quiet, thoughtful voice. “Kenny took me away from all that misery in Indiana. He brought me here and gave me a home of my own and Annie. And he loved me.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Jubal muttered. He hadn’t meant to say that, either.

  “Even though I didn’t know the first thing about anything. He was so sweet to me.”

  Her companion cast her an angry, puzzled frown, then glared at the fire. Didn’t know the first thing about anything? What was that supposed to mean?

  The heat from Maggie’s soft chuckle seeped into Jubal’s body like the warmth of a goose-down quilt; he was melty warm before he even knew it. He didn’t dare look at her.

  “I’ve never been much good at anything, really, Mr. Green, but Kenny didn’t seem to mind. He was so sweet.”

  “Not much good at anything?” Jubal did look at her then. He couldn’t help it.

  His brows were raised into such a high, looping arch over his green eyes that it struck Maggie as comical, and she giggled. Her giggle was almost more than Jubal could stand without touching her, so his fingers tightened around the barrel of his rifle and he tore his gaze away from her.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Green. You just looked so surprised.”

  “I was. ‘Pears to me you can do damned near anything, Mrs. Bright. You saved my life, and you’ve been keeping yourself and your daughter right well all by yourself with no help from anybody. I’d like to know what you consider something, if those two things don’t count.”

  Maggie’s mouth opened up to protest, but she couldn’t think of anything to say, so she shut it again and just stared at Jubal with surprise.

  Oh, my, she thought. She’d never thought about her life in exactly those terms. She’d always just sort of used her Aunt Lucy’s standards by which to judge herself. I’ll have to think about it later, she decided. Some time when she could make her brain work properly. Away from the disturbing presence of Jubal Green.

  Jubal continued to scan the campsite, more to keep himself from staring at Maggie than anything else, and Maggie gazed into the fire. He saw, faint and far off, barely illuminated under the stars, Four Toes Smith riding back toward camp.

  “Kenny was a sweet man, Mr. Green,” Maggie said all of a sudden. Her thoughts had veered off down another unexplored turning, and her voice was low, musing.

  Jubal grunted. He really, really didn’t want to hear about how wonderful Kenny Bright had been.

  But Maggie didn’t know how little he wanted to listen to Kenny’s praises being sung. She had never spoken about her late husband to anybody before, and it felt sort of good to say these things out loud to another person, especially to somebody who hadn’t known Kenny and who couldn’t contradict the conclusions Maggie had come to about him. She loved Kenny. She knew she loved Kenny. Yet, there were some things . . . .

  “He wasn’t real bright,” she said, and then she giggled. “In spite of his name.”

  Jubal’s eyes, which had gone hard, lost some of their granite-like intensity when he again turned them upon Maggie.

  “He wasn’t?”

  Maggie shook her head and smiled. “No. He was a real sweet man, though. About the sweetest man in the world. He could build things real well, too. He made Annie’s high chair and the wardrobe and all sorts of things. And he was so good to us. He was such a wonderful carpenter. I guess he wasn’t much of a farmer, though. And he was lousy with horses.”

  “It sounds like he might have had a hard time making a go of that farm,” Jubal ventured, unsure of his ground, afraid he’d make her mad.

  But Maggie only sighed. “I’m afraid that’s so, Mr. Green. I used to worry about that some, although we always had enough food because of my garden.” She stopped speaking and hugged her knees harder.

  “But I never had flowers,” she said with a deep sigh. “I really wanted flowers. Mr. Smith was going to help me plant some, but I guess—well, I guess I won’t be having flowers for a while.” She shook her head sadly. She didn’t want to make Jubal feel guilty by saying that she knew she’d never have flowers now. Not without Dan and Four Toes to help her tend the farm.

  Jubal decided they were going to pick up some flower seeds on their way through El Paso to his ranch. And just maybe some spectacles.

  Suddenly Maggie sat up and Jubal saw her eyes get big with fright. He was on his feet in a flash, his rifle at his shoulder.

  “What is it?” he hissed.

  “Don’t you see him? That man on the horse?”

  Maggie was squinting very hard and pointing at Four Toes, who had by now reached the perimeter of their camp.

  Jubal exhaled a deep breath and lowered his rifle. “That’s Four Toes.” He tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

  Maggie felt incredibly foolish. “Oh, my land,” she breathed. “I’m sorry. I don’t see too good at night, I guess.”

  “‘Pears to me you don’t see too good at any time, Mrs. Bright,” Jubal growled. They were definitely going to pick up some eyeglasses on their way through El Paso, he decided.

  Maggie’s shoulders sagged. “I suppose not,” she said unhappily, as though her bad eyesight were something she had some control over.

  “My aunt used to tell me I didn’t eat enough carrots. She said my eyes would get better if I’d only eat more carrots. I finally ate so many carrots my skin turned yellow,” Maggie confessed. She sounded very sad.

  Jubal had a sudden vivid image in his mind of little Maggie Bright—or whatever her name had been then—cowering under the vicious tongue of a hateful aunt and stuffing carrots into her mouth in a vain attempt to improve her eyesight, and his insides clenched. He was sorry he hadn’t tried harder to curb his annoyance. She had just scared him, is all. It wasn’t her fault.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bright. It’s not your fault your eyes are bad.”

  Maggie peered up at him. He seemed so tall standing beside her holding his rifle pointed to the ground and looking down at her. He is tall, I guess, thought Maggie. She remembered how his legs had dangled over the end of her bed.

  Jubal sat down next to her again and Maggie sighed. She thought it must be nice to be a man and not be scared of anything.

  “Did you really turn yellow?” Jubal asked. His voice held a smile and Maggie relaxed some.

  “Actually, it was more of an orangey-yellow color,” she said. “My aunt thought I had the yellow jaundice and called in Dr. Willis. She was real mad when he said it was too many carrots.” Maggie shook her head. “I just couldn’t ever do anything to please that woman.”

  Jubal’s frown was back. He decided he disliked Maggie’s aunt a great deal.

  “Well, it doesn’t sound to me as though she’s worth pleasing,” he growled. “She sounds like a witch to me.”

  When Maggie turned to face Jubal again, her heart held a combination of surprise and pleasure. Nobody had ever said that to her flat out that way.

  “Do you really think so, Mr. Green? I always figured she was mean to me because I did everything wrong.” She sounded just a little bit afraid to hear his answer, as if she were worried he’d tell her the truth this time, that she really was inept and incompetent.

  “Of course I think so. Sounds to me as though she resented having to take care of you, so she made your life miserable for it. As if you had anything to do with your parents dying.” Jubal sounded really crabby about it, too. He’d like to have a word or three with that stupid aunt of hers. He’d set her straight in a hurry.

  Maggie’s eyes opened wide. “Why, what an interesting thing to say, Mr. Green!” She didn’t notice the puzzled frown on his face when he whipped it around to stare at her.

  Could he be right? Kenny always used to tell her that you should love your fami
ly, no matter what. And, although Maggie had tried to, she had been singularly unsuccessful in the attempt. It had never occurred to her until Jubal said what he said that maybe Kenny had been wrong. This would definitely take some thinking about. In the mean time, his assessment certainly cheered her up.

  “I think you might just be right, Mr. Green. Thank you.”

  Jubal’s eyebrows drew together. Maggie always seemed to be either apologizing to him or thanking him, and he never seemed to be able to figure out just why.

  Four Toes approached the fire before Jubal could ask Maggie why she was thanking him.

  “It’s real quiet out there,” Four Toes told them.

  “Good.”

  “There aren’t any no-goods lurking tonight, Mr. Smith?” asked Maggie with a twinkle for Four Toes.

  Jubal noted that twinkle and frowned. She never twinkled at him.

  Four Toes chuckled. “Don’t seem to be.” He flung himself down on the log next to Jubal and stretched out his booted feet toward the fire. “It sure is cold, though.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Maggie. “Spring seems to be coming on a little slow this year.”

  “It’ll come,” said Jubal.

  “I hope it comes soon,” Maggie said. “I’d purely love to be warm during the day.”

  # # #

  The next day, Jubal wondered if Maggie herself might be some kind of witch, as he drove the wagon across the desert in weather that just seemed to get hotter and hotter all day long until it beat down upon them as though it were trying to give them a foretaste of hell. By the time they had to stop for a rest or melt through the wooden slats of the wagon, poor little Annie was mewling pitifully under the shade her mama had rigged up for her out of a quilt, Maggie was sopping wet with perspiration beneath her straw hat, and Jubal’s leather gloves were in peril of sliding off his hands, his skin was sweating so much.

  Four Toes and Dan were feeling the heat, too.

  “Criminy,” grumbled Dan. “I never knew it to get so blamed hot so blamed fast.”

  Jubal was surprised that, in spite of the misery engendered by the heat, his muscles didn’t feel as sore today as they had the day before. Maybe that’s why people put hot rags on sore muscles, he mused. Still, he didn’t try to talk until he had grunted his way down from the wagon.

  “Sure you have, Danny,” he said when he touched ground. “It’s like this every year and every year you say the same thing.”

  Dan grinned and wiped his dripping brow. “I guess that’s so.”

  Jubal eyed him with some amusement. “I thought Indians were supposed to know everything there is to know about the weather.”

  Dan chuckled. “I guess my instincts got polluted living with whites, Jubal.”

  Jubal only laughed. His laughter died when he saw Four Toes reach up and help Maggie get down from the wagon. Jubal wished he could do that. His arm was too weak to lift and support her weight, though. He’d probably drop her, and he didn’t suspect that would make a very good impression. He’d already done too many stupid things around Maggie Bright; he wasn’t about to risk dropping her.

  They had stopped by the banks of Turkey Creek, and the animals were already drinking deeply. Maggie carried her miserable daughter over to the creek, too, and Jubal watched her squat down beside the water and comfort her baby with the cool water. He noticed, too, that she took care of Annie before she gave a thought to herself. Now that, he thought, is the way mothers are supposed to be.

  “You know,” said Dan, scanning the pitiless sky above them. “It might not be a bad idea to rest here until evening and then do our traveling. The moon’s full tonight, and it might be easier on Mrs. Bright and Annie. Not to mention us.”

  “You think so?”

  Dan shrugged, “We’ve done it before.”

  Jubal frowned as he thought about that. “Yeah,” he said at last. “We’ve done it before. But we didn’t have any women with us then.”

  “Can’t be any rougher on them at night than it will be to travel through this blamed heat,” said Four Toes, who had just dumped a hatful of water over his steaming head.

  “Mrs. Bright’s not just any woman, Jubal,” said Dan. “She won’t be scared.”

  Jubal peered again at the riverbank. Maggie was now scrubbing her own face with the refreshing water while Annie sat on the bank, splashed her feet, and laughed.

  “Yeah,” Jubal said. “I guess you’re right.”

  # # #

  Prometheus Mulrooney had been venting his frustrated rage on Ferrett and Pelch ever since their journey began.

  “Nothing satisfies him, Mr. Pelch,” said Ferrett in a miserable whisper. His mousy features looked even more pinched than usual.

  “That’s true, Mr. Ferrett,” agreed Pelch. “He’s in a rare state, all right.”

  “It’s been, ‘do this, do that; no, you did that wrong,’ ever since we left New York,” sighed Ferrett.

  “Aye,” said Pelch. “Nothing a body can do will satisfy that devil.”

  “And, oh, Mr. Pelch, the names he calls me,” whispered Ferrett, shame vibrating in his squeaky voice. “A true man would never stand for it.” He shook his head sadly as he brewed a pot of tea for Mulrooney.

  Pelch cast a sympathetic glance at Ferrett. “Well, you know, Mr. Ferrett, it’s as you told me. Once you hire on with Mr. Mulrooney, you’re there for life unless he takes pity upon you and fires you.”

  Ferrett heaved a heart-felt, from-the-gut sigh. “That’s so, all right. I wish he’d take pity on me and fire me.”

  Pelch’s sigh was every bit as heart-rending as Ferrett’s had been. “And me,” he said. “And me.”

  Both men stood in the cooking compartment of Mulrooney’s specially-hired train as the engine chugged them toward Santa Fe in the wild New Mexico Territory. Their shoulders were stooped with the burdens of their lives and their eyes held the weary dullness a man’s eyes will assume when he has been abused and humiliated for so long that he has lost hope.

  Both men’s lusterless eyes seemed to fasten upon the box of rat poison on the shelf, and both men’s brains seemed to jump to the same startled thought at the same instant. They suddenly straightened up, gasped, and turned to face each other. Then, as one, they returned their now-bright eyes to the innocuous-looking blue box.

  “Oh, my goodness, Mr. Pelch.” Ferrett’s voice sounded as though it had been squeezed out of his mouth like juice from a lemon.

  “Oh, dear, Mr. Ferrett,” breathed Pelch. His whisper was low-pitched and throbbing.

  “Do we dare?” murmured Ferrett.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Pelch.

  They looked at one another again.

  Then Ferrett said, “We’d be doing the world a favor, Mr. Pelch.”

  “That’s so, Mr. Ferrett,” agreed Pelch.

  After what seemed like hours, Ferrett lifted a trembling hand to the box of rat poison. He brought the box down and set it on the counter as though he held the weight of the universe in his hand.

  “Would it be murder, Mr. Pelch?” he asked, his voice as trembly as his fingers had been.

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Ferrett,” whispered Pelch. “I think ‘execution’ is a better word. That’s the word they use when they hang criminals.”

  Ferrett nodded. “He is a criminal,” he said, a little more firmly.

  “Aye, that he is,” agreed Pelch.

  Suddenly Pelch lifted the lid of the teapot and Ferrett opened the box of rat poison. He reached for a spoon and ladled in as much of the poison as he dared. Then he stirred boiling water into the poisoned tea until all of the powder was dissolved.

  Pelch put the lid back on the teapot and gulped a deep breath. Ferrett replaced the poison box on the shelf and turned resolutely to Pelch.

  “I’ve never killed anybody before, Mr. Pelch,” he said. His eyes looked frightened once more.

  “Nor me neither, Mr. Ferrett,” Pelch said, and his voice quavered slightly.

  Ferrett picked up th
e tray.

  “Well, here we go,” he said.

  “Yes,” agreed Pelch. He opened the door for Ferrett. “Here we go.”

  Prometheus Mulrooney was pacing around his carriage like a sulky bear.

  “What in blazes were you two fools doing in there for so long?” he roared as the door opened and Ferrett and Pelch entered. Both men were trembling.

  “Sorry, sir,” squeaked Ferrett. He put the tray down on Mulrooney’s table, as was customary.

  “Idiots,” muttered Mulrooney sourly.

  “Yes, sir,” whispered Pelch in a strained voice.

  Mulrooney walked over to the tea table and sat down in a chair that barely contained his bulk. His heavy buttocks slopped over the edges obscenely. He picked up the pot and poured himself a cup of tea. Then, as was his practice, he ladled in three heaping spoons of sugar and poured in a good dollop of heavy cream. He was stirring the mixture savagely when a knock came upon the door.

  Mulrooney’s eyes got buggy as he jerked his head up and stared at the door. His florid countenance deepened until it was eggplant-purple, and veins throbbed in his fleshy face.

  Ferrett and Pelch looked at each other as if to say maybe they wouldn’t need the poison. Maybe their boss would suffer a fatal stroke and save the two of them the vile necessity of committing murder.

  But Mulrooney didn’t die. Instead, he stopped stirring his tea and roared, “What?”

  The door trembled open and another frightened, quaking man entered. He clutched in his shaking fingers a piece of paper which he held out toward Mulrooney. The paper rustled and shivered in his unsteady grip.

  “Miserable ass,” Mulrooney muttered as he snatched the piece of paper out of the poor man’s hand. The man turned tail and ran back out of the door as soon as his errand was complete.

  Even before Mulrooney finished reading the words on the paper, Ferrett and Pelch had started backing away from him toward the door. They recognized the symptoms their employer was displaying, and wanted to be well out of the way when the eruption occurred.

  Because Mulrooney’s face had turned almost black. His jowls quivered. His pig eyes bulged. Even his thin, yellow-white hair, which generally lay in sparse strings across his enormous head, seemed to bristle in anger. By the time he lifted his eyes from the paper to pin his underlings with a stab of fury, Ferrett and Pelch had backed themselves flat against the door.