Cactus Flower

by Duncan, Alice

  She prayed she wouldn’t dream.

  * * * * *

  Nick burst through Eulalie’s front door, and was instantly brought up short. The whole damned parlor was filled to bursting with citizens of Rio Peñasco. What’s more, they were all on their knees, and the preacher, Reverend Huffington, was in the process of exhorting God to help Eulalie heal and help the posse find Gilbert Blankenship and bring Patsy back safely.

  “Lord, in your infinite mercy, save our sister Eulalie Gibb!” he cried in his most portentous tones. “Father in heaven, allow our sister Eulalie to heal completely and rejoin your flock! And bring Miss Patsy back to us, Lord!”

  Nick couldn’t argue with the sentiments, but he didn’t have the patience to hang around in the parlor praying while who knew what agonies Eulalie was suffering. He skirted the kneeling mob and made his way to her bedroom, where he tried for silence as he opened the door and stuck his head around the jamb.

  Louise Johnson saw him first, and her face broke into a stunning smile for a moment, before the smile faded and she looked a question at him. “Patsy?” she mouthed.

  “She’s safe,” said Nick in a rumbling whisper. He’d never been much good at whispering, his voice being as big as the rest of him.

  “Thank God,” whispered Mrs. Johnson.

  Carefully closing the door behind him, Nick tiptoed into the room, at which activity he was about as successful as he was when attempting to whisper. Doc Canning glanced over his shoulder at him, saw his face, which probably looked as scared as he felt, and gave him a small smile. Nick felt moderately encouraged.

  “She’s doing pretty well, Nick,” said Canning. “The wound was clean, and the bullet came out easily enough. I disinfected the wound, and I don’t think the bullet was in there long enough to poison her. If we’re careful and infection doesn’t set in, she’ll be right as rain in a few weeks.”

  Nick had made it to Eulalie’s bedside by this time, and was looking down upon her with a heart full to bursting. At the doctor’s words, he shut his eyes and thought, thank God, thank God, thank God. Naturally, because he was a man and a blacksmith and all, he didn’t say the words aloud.

  Nevertheless, he was ever so grateful, both to God and to Doc Canning, whose hand he grabbed now, startling the man into dropping a tongue depressor he’d been about to stick into his black bag. “Thanks, Doc. You did a good job.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Nick, be careful.” But Dr. Canning looked pleased as he stooped to pick up his errant tongue depressor.

  Nick grabbed a chair from Eulalie’s dressing table and sat on it. “I’ll just sit with her for a while.” His eyes dared either the doctor or Mrs. Johnson to challenge his right to do so.

  “Well …” Mrs. Johnson appeared doubtful.

  “I’m staying here,” growled Nick.

  “Nick?”

  The tiny voice startled all of them. Nick jumped a yard and instantly fell to his knees beside the bed. He grabbed Eulalie’s hand. “You’re awake,” he said.

  Eulalie said weakly, “Patsy?”

  “She’s all right. Fuller’s got her, and he’s bringing her back right now.”

  “Thank God,” whispered Eulalie.

  “And Patsy herself. She conked Blankenship over the head with a big pot. Well, technically, I reckon she got his shoulder, but …” He shut up, figuring nobody needed to know all the details.

  “And Blankenship?”

  “Dead.”

  Eulalie’s eyelids fluttered. “Thank God.”

  Nick supposed it wasn’t very nice to thank God for someone’s death, but he didn’t blame Eulalie one iota. He said, “Yeah. He’s buried in Black Water Draw.”

  “How appropriate.”

  He grinned and squeezed her hand. Glancing around, he decided it was time for the doctor and Mrs. Johnson to skedaddle. What he had to say to Eulalie next was embarrassing and he didn’t want witnesses.

  But he’d made up his mind, as he and Junius rode back to town as fast as they could, given the blackness of the night and the perils of the desert, that he was sick of the way things were. As much as the notion of marriage made his stomach hurt, still more did the notion of losing Eulalie make his heart hurt. He aimed to make certain there were no more doubts in anybody’s mind about his union with Eulalie. He was tired of other men ogling her as she pranced about half naked on that damned Opera House stage. She was going to stop doing that from now on.

  Besides, her sister was going to marry that idiot Fuller, and Nick feared that Eulalie might decide to move back to New York or Chicago or somewhere equally far away from him, if he didn’t do something radical to secure her presence in Rio Peñasco and, therefore, his life. He knew it sounded dramatic, and drama made him sick and reminded him of his stepmother, but the truth was that he didn’t think he’d survive if he lost Eulalie. If he could help it, he wasn’t ever going to find out.

  Therefore, he intended to propose marriage to her. Right here. Right now—or soon as he got rid of the other people in the damned room. He scowled at Mrs. Johnson and Dr. Canning as he resumed his chair. “I’ll take over now,” he said.

  Doc Canning rolled his eyes. “You aren’t a doctor, Nick.”

  Nick heated up his glower some. “Neither are you.”

  “Tsk,” said Mrs. Johnson. She said it with a smile, though, and took the doctor’s arm. “Let’s leave Nicky and Eulalie alone for a minute or two, Doc. I have a feeling Nick has something important to say to her.”

  The doctor appeared puzzled for a second, but Mrs. Johnson yanked him toward the door. Nick blessed the woman as a saint.

  As soon as the door closed behind the doctor and Mrs. Johnson, Nick opened his mouth to demand that Eulalie marry him. A gentle snore smote his ears, and he shut his mouth again with a click of teeth. He stared at his beloved.

  The damned woman was asleep!

  He muttered, “Aw, hell,” crossed his arms over his chest, sat back in the stupid little dressing-table chair, and decided he’d just wait. But he’d be damned if he’d leave this room until she agreed to marry him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Three weeks after Gilbert Blankenship shot Eulalie and died as a result, Eulalie and Nick, Patsy and Gabriel Fuller, along with Junius Taggart, Sheriff Wallace and Mrs. Johnson and several other leading citizens of Rio Peñasco, stood on the boardwalk outside the Loveladys’ mercantile establishment. Eulalie still had to lean on Nick for support, although her leg was healing nicely. Anyhow, Nick was big enough to handle her weight. Thank God he favored women with meat on their bones! She didn’t fancy spending the next however many years of her life married to a man who carped at her about her weight.

  “This is so exciting,” said Mrs. Johnson, who was wearing her best hat, the one with pink flowers on it.

  “Shore is,” agreed Junius, who was in an even better mood than usual this fine autumn morning. “We don’t gen’ly get real, live actors visitin’ Rio Peñasco.”

  “I’m so happy they could come.” Patsy dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief.

  “I am, too,” agreed Eulalie. “I’d hate to get married without the family present.”

  “I’m glad mine won’t be,” muttered Nick, who kept his arm around Eulalie as if he feared she might break if he let go. That was fine with her.

  “You will, too, have family present,” Eulalie chided him. “I’d like to know who Junius is, if he isn’t family.”

  Nick swapped a big grin with his uncle. “Aw, hell, Junius isn’t family. He’s a friend.”

  “Nicky was kind of unlucky in his family,” Junius said in a confiding tone and winking at Eulalie. “But I don’t hold that against him none.”

  As ever when the stagecoach was expected, the first herald of its arrival was a cloud of red-brown dust in the west that gradually resolved itself into six horses and then the stage itself, barreling towards Rio Peñasco amid the thunder of horses’ hooves and rattling wheels and the cheers and applause of the town’s citizens. Even be
fore the stage came to a stop, members of the Gibb Theatrical Company braved the dust to lean out of the windows and wave to the assembled crowd.

  “There’s Uncle Harry!” Patsy cried, pressing her hands to her cheeks in an ecstasy of delight.

  “And I see Aunt Florence!” announced Eulalie, similarly enraptured.

  “And there are Marcus and Horatia and Irving!”

  “It looks as if your whole family decided to pay a visit,” observed Nick.

  “Yes,” Eulalie said joyfully. “I’m so happy!” And she burst into tears, proving yet again that she was still a little weak from her recent ordeal. Nick didn’t seem to mind, which proved to her once more, if further proof were needed, that he was the most wonderful man in the world.

  * * * * *

  Eulalie Gibb and Nicholas Taggart, and Patsy Gibb and Lieutenant Gabriel Fuller were united in holy matrimony on November 3, 1897, in the little Baptist church in Rio Peñasco, New Mexico Territory, in a ceremony conducted by the Reverend Thomas P. Huffington. The church was full to the rafters with attendees. Eulalie, who was accustomed to performing in front of an audience, told Patsy she didn’t need to be nervous.

  “But there are so many people out there,” Patsy said in something of a whimper.

  “They’re all our friends, Patsy. They love you.”

  “And there’s Gabriel,” said Patsy, perking up a trifle.

  “Yes,” Eulalie agreed. “There’s Gabriel.” And there was Nick, too. Eulalie’s heart trilled like a meadowlark in the springtime.

  Uncle Harry escorted the sisters down the aisle. When they entered the little church on either side of him, Eulalie couldn’t help but think that Nick was the most handsome man present, although Gabriel appeared quite spiffy in his uniform. Eulalie, who knew how much Nick disliked public displays like this one, was thrilled to see him smiling at her, as if he didn’t mind being the spectacle of the day. She loved him more than ever.

  Other members of the Gibb Theatrical Company provided music for the ceremony, with Gibb cousins Marcus and Horatia singing, accompanied on the piano by Aunt Florence. The two little Johnson girls acted as the brides’ attendants. Junius was Nick’s best man, and Lieutenant Willoughby Nash served the same role for Gabriel Fuller. The Johnson boys were groomsmen. Outside the church after the ceremony, representatives from the First Cavalry, swords crossed, created a canopy of sorts, under which both happy couples, arms entwined, walked toward the Rio Peñasco Opera House, which was closed today in honor of the event.

  “Figgered it was the least I could do,” said Dooley Chivers, his cigar drooping. “After all, she was shot right there on the stage.” Since Dooley was, this day, losing the greatest draw the Opera House had ever seen, Eulalie, along with everyone in town, considered this a magnanimous gesture on his part.

  Bernie Benson wrote several articles, both about the wedding itself and about the participants therein. He expected an influx of citizens to the village of Rio Peñasco once they read his vivid prose. Nick told him not to hold his breath, but Bernie was nothing if not optimistic.

  The party lasted far into the night. Uncles Harry and Junius discovered in each other kindred spirits. Aunt Florence’s interest in Junius couldn’t have been more obvious, and it was reciprocated with gusto.

  “I swear, Nick, I’m glad people only get married once in their lives,” whispered Eulalie as the two lay together, sated and very much in love, after sneaking away from the party about three in the morning. “I didn’t think I could go through this more than once.”

  “Hell, I hadn’t planned on getting married that often,” muttered Nick. He did it out of a sense of obligation, however, and didn’t really mean it. He loved his Eulalie.

  She didn’t see it that way. “Curse you, Nick Taggart.” She smacked his naked arm lightly.

  With a deep chuckle, Nick turned and captured her luscious body in his huge arms. “But now that we’re married, I’ll be damned if I’ll ever let you go.”

  She hugged him back, hard. “You’d better not.” After a moment of delicious intimacy, she whispered, “But I’m still wondering, Nick. Since you hate marriage so much, why did you insist that we get married?”

  “Me? Did I insist?”

  She smacked him again. “Yes, you did, and you know it!”

  He thought for a while. Then he contemplated the nature of the disclosure he could make. Then he remembered his stepmother and stepsisters. And then he realized that Eulalie Gibb bore no resemblance whatsoever to that flock of pernicious females, so he decided to just go ahead and admit it.

  “Aw, hell, Eulalie, I love you.”

  There. The truth was out. Nick waited for her scorn.

  She tightened her arms around him. “Oh, Nick, I love you, too. I love you so much, I can hardly stand it.”

  He drew away slightly and stared at her, confounded. “You mean it? You love me? Me? Nick Taggart? Blacksmith?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  But he wasn’t. He was blessed, and so was his wife.

  And so, when they arrived, were their children, who grew and thrived in Rio Peñasco, New Mexico Territory.

  About the Author

  In an effort to avoid what she knew she should be doing with her life (writing—it sounded so hard), for several years she expressed her creative side by dancing and singing. She belonged to two professional international folk-dance groups and also sang in a Balkan women's choir. She got to sing the tenor drone for the most part, but at least it was interesting work. In her next life, she’d like to come back as a soprano.

  In September of 1996, Alice and her herd of wild dachshunds moved from Pasadena, CA, to Roswell, NM, where her mother's family settled fifty years before the aliens crashed. She loves writing because in her books she can portray the world the way it should be instead of the way it is, which often stinks. She started writing books in October of 1992, and sold her first one in January of 1994. That book, ONE BRIGHT MORNING, was published by Harper in January of 1995 (and won the HOLT Medallion for best first book published in 1995). Alice hopes she can continue to write forever!