Enchanted Christmas

by Craig, Emma

  Mac, of course, presided over the gathering as if he were Old King Cole himself, watching everyone’s goings-on with a benevolent eye, and contributing a tidbit here and there to keep the conversation going. Noah didn’t have to say much of anything, thank God.

  The three kids sat at a table made of crates hauled in from Mac’s store. Their special table was set apart from the adults because there wasn’t enough room at the grown-up table. They didn’t seem to mind at all. Noah remembered the tea parties his sister and her friends used to have. This reminded him of those long-gone days.

  When supper was over, Grace and Mrs. Merchant cleared the two tables. Then Grace vanished into the kitchen and came back holding a masterpiece of a chocolate birthday cake for Maddie. Noah was impressed. He hadn’t eaten a piece of chocolate cake for centuries. He’d never eaten one that tasted as good as this one.

  When they retired to Mac’s parlor after devouring the cake, the room was plenty crowded, what with four more people in it than it generally had to hold. No one seemed to mind, though. Even Noah didn’t get to feeling too crowded, although he did make sure he remained near the door, just in case.

  Maddie modeled the new dress her mother had made her. “And see? She made Priscilla one just like it.” She held up that old rag doll of hers—and rag pretty much described it—and her eyes danced with joy.

  “That’s so pretty.” Anastasia held her hands together at her chest and didn’t seem to notice Priscilla’s deficiencies. Noah admired her for it.

  He cleared his throat. This was the time, he reckoned, if ever there was one. “Uh, I have a little something for you in honor of your birthday, Miss Maddie.”

  Maddie’s face lit up and her eyes widened, and she looked so happy, Noah got embarrassed.

  Grace gaped at him. “Oh, Mrs. Partridge, there was no need for you to go to the trouble of—”

  “It was no trouble, Mrs. Richardson. I already had it.” He shrugged. “Just thought maybe Miss Maddie here could use it. I sure can’t.”

  That didn’t sound altogether chivalrous, but Noah was out of practice. People kept telling him that. Well, he guessed they were right. He dug in his breast pocket and withdrew the locket. He didn’t even feel a pang when he opened his hand and allowed the chain to dangle from his fingers. He took his lack of emotion as a good sign.

  The golden locket glinted in the light from the fireplace as it twirled on its chain. Everyone in the room gasped as if he’d performed some sort of magic trick. That embarrassed him too.

  “Ooooooh,” Maddie breathed. She didn’t step forward to take the locket, but only stared at it, mesmerized.

  “That’s much too fine a gift, Mr. Partridge,” Grace said after an awed moment. “Much too fine. It’s—it’s beautiful.”

  He lifted his head and looked at her. Hell, what was he supposed to do now? Take it back? He couldn’t do that. He shook his head. “I don’t think so, ma’am. It’s just a small locket, and it’s something I already had. She can put a picture of—” Of what? Inspiration struck. “—of her daddy in it. If you have one small enough to fit.”

  Damn. Noah hated even hearing about the sainted Frank. But Frank had been Maddie’s father. He guessed she’d like a keepsake of him. She probably couldn’t even remember what he looked like anymore.

  He saw Grace swallow. “Yes,” she said. “I do have one that will probably fit.”

  Aw, hell, she was crying. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.

  Maddie slowly walked up to him. “Can I really put a picture of Daddy in it? Does it have a place for a picture?” Her tone was reverent, as if Noah were presenting her with a holy relic instead of a small locket.

  He blessed her for the question, because it gave him something to do other than stare at Grace and wish he could put his arms around her and wipe her tears away. “Sure, Miss Maddie. Let me show you.”

  So Noah sat on a chair by the front door, and Maddie promptly climbed onto his lap. He couldn’t remember ever having a kid on his lap before. He didn’t even feel odd about it. In fact, it felt kind of nice to know that Maddie both liked and trusted him. Him, of all people! Crazy old Noah Partridge. Wonders never ceased, he reckoned.

  “Let me see that thing.”

  Noah looked up to find Mac grinning at him. The old man walked over and stood behind Noah to watch while he fingered the catch to the locket. When Mac put a hand on Noah’s shoulder, Noah felt a strange tingling sensation there. He wasn’t altogether surprised when he saw sparkles in the air. Good old Mac. Up to his magic tricks again. He blinked and endeavored to ignore the glimmering dots floating in the air.

  “See here, Miss Maddie? What you do, is you press this little latch here.” He showed her. “Your fingers are real small, so it’ll be easy for you to work it.”

  “It’s so pretty, Mr. Noah. Thank you very much.”

  “You’re very welcome.” He returned her smile. Shoot, he couldn’t recall ever having been smiled at like this by a little kid. He’d never known any kids except for Julia’s bratty brother, and Noah’d never liked him. “Anyway, when you press that latch, the locket springs open. See?”

  He pressed the catch, and Maddie squealed with joy when the locket opened up. There were spaces for two pictures in it, one on either side of the heart. Noah had once believed his likeness and Julia’s would share the locket, fool that he was.

  Maddie’s little fingers indicated each space in turn. “There a place for two pictures in here, Mr. Noah.”

  “Um-hum.”

  She lifted her head and stared straight into his eyes. “Can I have a picture of you to put in there? Along with my daddy’s picture?”

  Noah stared at her. She wanted a picture of him? What the hell for? “I, ah, I don’t think you want to carry a picture of me around with you, Miss Maddie. You need a picture of your mama to put in there with the one of your daddy.”

  “Oh.” She frowned.

  Noah got the feeling she was dissatisfied with his answer. He shot a glance at Grace and felt almost desperate to clear up any misunderstanding. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. “I—ah—I mean, if you have a picture of your daddy in there, wouldn’t you rather have a picture of your mama to go in there with it? I mean—I mean, they were married and all.”

  He heard Mac chuckle softly behind him and didn’t appreciate it. Shoot, he could use some help here, not one of Mac’s enigmatical bouts of hilarity.

  “But I have mommy here all the time. She told me you might go away again and if you do, I want to be able to remember what you look like.”

  Stunned, Noah muttered, “You do? Why?”

  “‘Cause I like you. ‘Cause you’re nice. And ‘cause you gave me this locket and I love it. It’s the prettiest thing I ever saw.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Noah saw Grace lift a hand and brush it across her eyes. She looked like she was trying to pretend she wasn’t crying, but she was, and he knew it. Cripes. He hadn’t meant to make anyone sad here; he’d only been trying to give a kid a birthday present. He’d been improvising, for the love of God, like he used to do in church on the organ when there was too much time left over after the preacher finished spewing out his sermon.

  “I, uh, don’t have any pictures of myself, Miss Maddie.”

  “Oh.” She sounded terribly disappointed.

  “Maybe you can draw a picture of Mr. Partridge, Maddie,” Grace suggested. Her voice sounded as if her throat was tight.

  “Good idea!” exclaimed Mac.

  “But—but, you don’t really want my picture in there, Miss Maddie.” Criminy, she was just a kid. Noah kept reminding himself of that, because the idea of her wanting to keep his likeness in her locket was beginning to appeal to him way too much. He couldn’t afford to get attached to anyone, much less a little child like Maddie Richardson.

  “Sure she does,” said Mac.

  “I can help you, Maddie,” said Grace. “We can draw a fine likeness of Mr. Partridge.”

  Noah looked u
p and his gaze got trapped in hers for a moment. Her expression was almost unbearably tender. He looked away first, unable to take in so much blatant caring. He wasn’t used to it. It was like after they’d hauled him out of that prison camp, when he’d been nearly dead with starvation and illness and he could take in nothing but thin soups and dry bread for weeks and weeks. Anything rich would have come right back up again. That’s the way he felt about Grace Richardson’s expression. It was too rich. Too sweet. He couldn’t tolerate it.

  But, shoot! They didn’t really want his ugly face in that locket with a likeness of Maddie’s daddy. Did they? They couldn’t possibly.

  “That’s just the sweetest thing, Mr. Partridge. Just the sweetest thing.”

  Noah jerked his head to the right and saw Mrs. Merchant wiping her eyes, too. Well, hell. He’d just been giving a child a birthday present.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Noah.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss Maddie.”

  He was getting awfully itchy, being the center of attention this way. He could feel the pressure building up inside of him and hoped it wouldn’t bubble over into an explosion of craziness. Not now. Not here. Not during Maddie’s birthday party.

  Then Maddie gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek, and any thought of cracking up flew right out of his head. She scrambled down from his lap and Noah was left to press his hand to his cheek and wonder why being kissed by a little girl should make his whole miserable life feel so much less miserable

  # # #

  Grace watched Maddie and Noah and thought what a nice man he was, underneath all his nervousness and battle-scarred memories. She felt silly crying until she saw that Pauline Merchant was sniffling too, and then she felt a kinship with her rather than an alienation from the rest of the parlor-dwellers. Mac gave her one of his ever-ready winks, too, and she knew she wasn’t being merely overwrought and emotional. The moment was genuinely tender, and Grace suspected she’d cherish it forever.

  Imagine that hard man giving her daughter such a delicate, lovely gift! What a surprise. What an enigma he was. Not for the first time she wondered what Noah Partridge might have been like if he’d lived in easier times; if there hadn’t been a terrible war to rip his life to tatters and spit him out the damaged creature he was today.

  She heaved a sigh, and was just in time to catch Maddie when she hurtled out of Noah’s lap and into her arms.

  “Look, Mommy! See what Mr. Noah gave me? Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It certainly is, Maddie. It’s perfectly lovely.”

  Grace’s sentimental mood lasted for several more minutes, as Maddie showed everyone in the room her locket, how it opened, and exactly where she was going to put her daddy and Noah’s pictures. Grace caught Noah’s eyes a couple of times, but he glanced away immediately whenever it happened. Poor man. Poor, wounded man.

  Gradually the atmosphere lightened, as it always seemed to do. Pretty soon, the two little girls began singing songs. Grace joined them, and so did Pauline. Then Paul’s teetering reserve crashed and he sang, too, along with his father and Mac.

  Grace’s evening was complete when she heard Noah Partridge, very softly and looking as if it embarrassed him to do so, join in the happy group when they all sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She very nearly teared up again, but didn’t, and was proud of herself.

  # # #

  The Merchants stayed at Mac’s wagon yard until three days after Maddie’s birthday party. They set off again on a Tuesday, in spite of the icy wind blowing over the plains and the pile of black thunderheads hovering in the sky to the east like monsters about to pounce on the puny folks who dared to live on the earth below them.

  The Merchants were determined to make it to Pauline’s brother’s ranch near the New Mexico Territory-Arizona Territory border before Christmas, they said. Noah wished them luck.

  He watched Grace and Mrs. Merchant embrace, tears streaming down their faces, and wondered why people chose to put themselves through the agony of uprooting themselves, tearing themselves away from friends and family, and starting over in precarious new settings. For the sake of cheap land? To make a new life because the old one was so rotten? He guessed he could understand that because it’s the reason he was in Rio Hondo himself.

  Still, it was hard for him to watch those two women bid each other farewell. They’d never see each other again; he knew it and they knew it, and the truth made them both sad. Truth had a way of doing that in his experience.

  Anastasia and Maddie, too, were sad to be parting company. Even Paul looked like he was having a hard time appearing bored with the females’ leave-takings. Noah knew exactly what Paul was feeling inside, though, and it was anything but bored. The poor lad was doing his level best to “act like a man,” whatever the hell that was. Noah remembered doing the same thing when he was six, about a million years ago.

  Grace and Pauline waved hankies at each other when the Merchants’ wagon lumbered off. Both ladies were still crying.

  “I’ll write!” Pauline called out. “As soon as we get settled somewhere!”

  “Please do!” Grace called back. “It will be so good to hear from you! I’ll write back!”

  Noah wondered if they’d ever hear from each other again. For all anyone knew, the Merchants might get wiped out by cholera or diphtheria or any one of a million other illnesses that preyed on the folks who traversed the hard trails west. Or they might be attacked by a roving band of desperadoes or Indians—although, Noah knew, Indians generally didn’t bother settlers’ wagons.

  He admired the Indians for their forbearance. If he saw a bunch of people trying to take over his land, Noah wasn’t sure he’d be so tolerant. On the other hand, the army’d pretty much eliminated the Indians from the area. His heart felt heavy as he contemplated the Indian situation.

  Oh, well, that was merely one more problem over which he had no control. Hell, he didn’t even have control over his own life more often than not.

  The wagon trailed a huge cloud of dust behind it as it rocked over the hard, dry, cold land away from Rio Hondo. Grace, Maddie, and Mac stood outside and stared for a long time before they turned and headed back to the house.

  Noah saw Grace and Maddie trying to be brave in the face of their latest loss. Then he looked after the retreating wagon, and he waved, too.

  Chapter Ten

  “My goodness, I know the weather out here is changeable, but I’ve never known it to change this fast.”

  “Aye,” said Mac with one of his more mysterious smiles. “‘Tis a fine day for a drive out on the plains, lass.”

  Grace glanced up at him from the pot of hot fat in which she was frying doughnuts. He looked extremely self-satisfied, as if the weather were somehow his doing. She laughed. “Don’t get any ideas in that canny old head of yours, Alexander McMurdo. Mr. Partridge and I are only trying to mend some fences.” She frowned. “We had more words the day before the Merchants rode into the yard.”

  Mac raised his eyebrows. They were full and white and looked like the wings of a bird when he did that. “Did ye now?”

  “Yes.” Grace shot him a glance. She felt guilty about having pursued Noah that day and forcing him to talk to her, especially now, since he’d been so kind to Maddie on her birthday. Maddie wore her new locket everywhere, and she was very careful with it. Grace sighed over her doughnuts. “I think perhaps I was too hard on him. A little bit. Maybe.”

  “You? Grace Richardson? Hard on a fellow?” There went Mac’s eyebrows again. Grace grinned at his expression of incredulity.

  “Yes. Can you believe it of me? I actually butted into the poor man’s business and tried to pry his problems out of him. I thought that if he talked about them, he’d feel better, you see.”

  “Tish, Grace, a crime, that.”

  Grace laughed. “Well, it wasn’t very nice of me. After all, his problems are none of my business. But the poor man! He needs friends, Mac.”

  “Aye, lass, he does, and ye’ll be a
good one to him.”

  “Do you think so?” She was pleased to hear Mac’s opinion on the matter. It made her feel not quite so much like a nosy Parker and a bully.

  “Aye, I do, if he can let himself accept ye.”

  Vaguely troubled by Mac’s qualification, Grace lifted a doughnut out of the pot with a big slotted spoon. She laid it on a piece of butcher paper to blot up the excess grease. “He wants to buy Frank’s land, you know.”

  “Aye.”

  “I wish you hadn’t shown it to him.”

  “And why not? D’ye think he’ll steal it from ye?”

  She gave a startled laugh. “Heavens, no! But I know he thinks I’m being merely stubborn in not selling it to him. He told me it would be too difficult for me to work the land by myself. He got rather huffy about it, actually.”

  “Mayhap the lad’s right, lass. Runnin’ a homestead in the territory’s a hard business, ye know.”

  “Mac!” She was so alarmed by his words that she nearly dropped her spoon. “That land is all I have left of Frank. It was Frank’s legacy to our children—child! I can’t give it up!”

  “Don’t take on so, lass. I’m not faultin’ ye for your desire to cling like a bulldog to that land o’ yours. But, lass, Frank’s dead. He’s been dead these two years and more.”

  Feeling betrayed, Grace bowed her head. Tears filled her eyes. “I know that. Do you think I can ever forget?”

  “Nay, lass.” Mac came over to her and patted her on the shoulder. “But ye might consider movin’ on one of these days.”

  She sniffled and felt foolish when she had to pass the back of her hand over her eyes to wipe away her tears. She must have pressed too hard because stars swam before her eyes for a moment. That had been happening a lot since she came to live at Mac’s wagon yard. Those sparkling dots were an odd, not unpleasant, phenomenon. Mac’s words filled her heart with dread, though.

  “What do you mean, I should think about moving on? Do you want us to move? Are we a bother to you?” She didn’t want to get in Mac’s way. He’d been their most compassionate friend ever since she and Frank had moved out here. If he was tired of having her and Maddie living with him, Grace wasn’t sure she could survive. She might have to move back to Chicago, and she didn’t want to do that, because it would mean giving up.