Little Sam's Angel

by Wills, Larion

  "Do both of you good," Sally said with satisfaction. "Looks like some rain coming in anyway."

  "And you got something to do," he teased.

  "Keep you out of the rain," she said with a sage nod. "You sure cain't take him out in it."

  "I'd get tarred and feathered if I did. You can go on home now and stop worrying."

  The house was always eerily quiet after Sally left. There was never any sound but the sound of his own voice and an occasional grunt from Danny. He kept eating because he knew he should, not because he wanted it much. Then because he was going to be there tomorrow, he left the dishes he didn't feel like doing. Since it was too early yet for Danny to fall asleep, he took the boy out of his chair and carried him into the empty living room.

  Sitting Danny down on the floor with several of the toys people had given him, Gabe stretched out beside him to watch and talk to him. Soon Gabe nodded off. When he woke, Danny was curled up in a ball against his chest, fast asleep.

  "Dang fool thing to do," he muttered, cuddling the tiny body to his chest to carry Danny to his bed.

  * * *

  Just as Sally had said, Gabe didn't feel as if he had rested much when Danny's whining woke him up the next morning. Getting breakfast was a chore for him once he had admitted to his fatigue and quit pushing himself so hard. He wouldn't have bothered with fixing anything at all if not for Danny, and then Danny refused to eat.

  "Come on, now. I know it ain't as good as Sally's, but it ain't that bad." He pushed the bowl towards the boy, and Danny pushed it away, whining again.

  That was enough to make a novice father worry, and Danny got worse as the day wore on. He whined, refused to play, and lay limply wherever Gabe put him, but followed and cried if Gabe went into a different room. About noon, Gabe thought maybe a nap would help. He put Danny in the crib, and Danny cried hard until he was flushed in the face and seemed to have trouble catching his breath.

  "I shouldn't be picking you up," Gabe said, doing just that and carrying him to his own straw bed. "You're going to get spoiled something fierce. We'll just lay down here, and you can sleep."

  Beside him on the pallet, Gabe listened to Danny hiccup until he fell asleep, then Gabe drifted off into sleep, too. The first thing he noticed when he woke up was how hot and sweaty Danny felt, clear through his shirt.

  Gabe thought maybe it was just because they were lying so close together, but when he tried again to get Danny to eat, he still refused, crying to get out of the chair and reaching for Gabe.

  "I cain't be holding you all the time," Gabe told him in frustration and worry. "Here, you drink this milk."

  He held the cup up to Danny's lips, but Danny turned his head away. "Hold," the boy sobbed.

  "Well, guess you can talk well enough when you want something," Gabe said in astonishment and delight. "Here, you drink this, then I'll hold you."

  "Hold," Danny sobbed, pushing the cup away.

  Gabe was sure then there was something bad wrong with Danny. Since he'd been so careless the previous night, allowing Danny to sleep half the night on the floor without a blanket, he figured it was his fault, too. He was suffering all the trauma of any parent with a sick child, blaming himself and feeling helpless.

  He was sure if Sally was there she'd know what to do, but she wasn't, and like she'd told him last night, it was going to rain. It started in the afternoon with thunder and lightning, and it didn't look to be letting up any time soon.

  By five o'clock, Gabe was frantic. He was in no doubt that Danny was feverish. The child seemed to get limper by the minute, wouldn't eat, and wouldn't even drink water. Gabe sponged him, but it didn't seem to help, so at six, Gabe put Danny in his bed, cringed at the wailing it caused, and hurried out to saddle his horse.

  The buckskin didn't want to go out in the rain and pitched more than usual, adding to Gabe's anxiety. What if he bucked when he mounted with Danny? If he threw them off… maybe he just better stay there with him. Sally would be back in the morning. But would Danny be all right through the night?

  "Buck, you give me a bad time, I'll kick your head in," he promised the horse before hurrying back into the house.

  He wrapped Danny in a blanket first, then his slicker. There was no doctor in Crossings, and the nearest he knew of someone to help was Sally. He headed for the Rocking M at a gallop.

  Gabe skidded to a stop at the front door, too worried to think of what was or wasn't proper. Sammy opened the door.

  "Danny's sick," Gabe yelled, running up the steps. "Where's Sally?"

  "Sally!" Sammy called, taking the bundle out of Gabe's arms without hesitation.

  He followed her, too overwrought with worry to think beyond Danny's needs. He talked rapidly while Sammy laid Danny on the couch and unwrapped him. "He's all feverish, and he won't eat or drink nothing. See how red he is? All he does is cry and sleep."

  Sally joined them, her instant apprehension hidden behind briskness. "We'll take care of him. You go get out of those wet things," she told Gabe.

  "It's my fault, Sally. I put him down to play, then like a fool I fell asleep. It was the middle of the night before I woke up. He was lying beside me on that floor without a blanket."

  "The nights are too warm for that to make him sick," she said, dismissing it without consideration.

  "Then what's wrong with him?"

  "I don't know yet," she said, using a tone that sounded as if she were placating an idiot. "You just go on now and get into something dry. Sammy and I will take care of him."

  "I'm all right," he said, reluctant to leave Danny even for a minute.

  A hand on his elbow surprised him. Morey stood there. "Better come along, young fella. Sally gave an order, and she expects you to follow it."

  Already unhappy about someone other than Gabe holding him, Danny saw Gabe was leaving and began to fight. He pushed at Sammy's arm with both of his little hands, arched his back, and made a pitiful sound, not quite a cry, yet more than a whine.

  The further Morey pulled the reluctant Gabe away from him, the louder Danny's protests got.

  "You hurry up, so's he don't make himself sicker," Sally ordered.

  "Maybe I'd just better stay," Gabe said, moving to go back to the boy.

  "You get out of them wet things, now!" Sally ordered curtly. "You'll be sick next, and he needs you dry and healthy."

  "I ain't gonna get sick from a wetting down, I ain't got no other clothes, and I ain't gonna have him cry like that the whole time it'd take these things to dry," he shot back, jerking away from Morey's guiding hand.

  "For a man fool enough not to cover himself against the rain, I didn't figure you'd think to bring a change," Sally said, her voice the closest Gabe had ever heard to a yell from her. "Morey will get you something, then you hustle back here."

  "You may as well send up a white flag, boy," Morey said, firmly taking Gabe's arm and pulling him away again. "Once them women make up their minds to something…" He hesitated with a wince as Danny began to scream. "You go in there and skin down. I'll fetch you some dry clothes."

  "Don't you forget to dry off, too. There's towels in the dresser drawer," Sally yelled before turning to help Sammy restrain the child.

  Morey shoved him through a door, and Gabe, spurred to haste by the sound of Danny's frantic screaming, jerked buttons open without the benefit of working them free of the holes that held them in place. He was vaguely aware of one flying through the air, but before it hit the wall, the shirt hit the floor. He hopped around awkwardly, trying to get the wet boots off with one hand while the other jerked at the buttons on his pants. That was when Morey came back.

  "Sit down," Morey ordered, throwing the clothes on the bed.

  "I can man—" Gabe began then broke off in shock when Morey pushed him. He landed sprawled in a chair, and before he could shove back up, a towel hit him in the face.

  "Get that hair dried," Morey ordered, jerking Gabe's foot up.

  The boots came off easy when panic driven hands
weren't doing the work, but the second hadn't hit the floor before Gabe was back up. He shrugged into the shirt Morey had carried in, not even looking at it or seeing how Morey stared at his scars without comment or how Morey followed him when Gabe ran out of the room, his shirttail slapping free of the pants he was still buttoning since it took too long to tuck it in proper, and his feet were bare.

  As soon as Danny saw Gabe, his screams changed to one word, "Hold", until Gabe had him in his arms.

  "Sure, I'll hold you. Now you just quit that crying. Come on, Danny, now don't cry so," Gabe said, swaying to rock the child while he talked to him.

  "Well, guess that sure enough answers two things," Sally said.

  "What, Sally?" Sammy asked in distraction, tucking the blanket around Danny again.

  At any other time, Gabe would have been acutely aware of her being so close and the touch of her hands as she worked the blanket around his arms to cover Danny. He was just too worried about the boy to think of anything else right then.

  "Do you know what's wrong?" he asked Sally anxiously.

  "Not what's ailing him yet, but you cain't have no doubt about him really liking you or that he cain't talk when he wants to."

  "Yeah, but what's wrong with him?" Gabe asked, ignoring the curious look Sammy was giving him.

  "Well now, there's all kinds of things it could be. We'll just have to wait and see what it comes to. Be back in a minute. You just sit down and keep him quiet."

  "Sally, isn't there anything you can do?" he asked helplessly, trailing after her like a lost dog.

  She stopped and very firmly told him, "There is, and I'll do it if you stay out of my way. Now just go sit down with him."

  "This chair is the most comfortable, Mr. Taylor," Sammy told him, pointing to the chair she stood beside.

  He glanced at the large overstuffed chair, and then looked back in the direction Sally had gone.

  "She'll make a potion to make Danny feel better," Sammy assured him. "She doesn't like anyone watching her while she does it."

  "Will it make the fever go away?" Gabe asked, still standing uncertainly in the middle of the room.

  "Sometimes it's better not to. We don't want it to get too high, but some diseases need the fever to—"

  "Diseases!" he exclaimed in horror, holding the whimpering baby even tighter.

  "I can see that was a bad choice of words," Sammy said with an understanding smile. "There are several sicknesses children get. It's all part of growing up."

  "You mean like chicken pox and such?" he asked dubiously.

  "Measles, mumps," she said with a nod. "Most times they're nothing to worry about, but the poor things are sick with them just the same."

  "I think I did it. I shouldn't'a gone to sleep like that."

  "Where was he when you woke up?"

  "Curled up next to me."

  "Were you cold?"

  "Huh?" he asked, wondering what that could have to do with it.

  "Were you cold?"

  "No, but—"

  "Then there's no reason to think he would have been. He had your warmth as well as his own, and it was warm last night."

  "But on the floor like that…I should'a taken better care. I don't know, ma'am, I thought I could do it, but—"

  "He needs the other things you give him much more," she said quickly. "I've never seen a man able to hold a child the way you do."

  "Ain't nothing to holding a babe," he scoffed.

  "Most men cain't relax. They hold a babe up, but away from them. Danny's as comfortable in your arms as he would be in a bed, and he knows he's safe there. That's why he's quiet now. Even though he doesn't feel good, he knows he's safe when you hold him."

  Gabe looked down at Danny and knew what she was saying was true. Danny was making the strange hiccupping sound that comes after a hard cry, but he still snuggled up against Gabe's chest.

  "Is that all you want, Danny? You want me to hold you?" Gabe asked softly. Danny nodded, squirming even more snuggly into the arms that cradled him. "Did you see that?" Gabe asked Sammy in amazement. "He answered me."

  "Of course, he did. Didn't you, you little scamp? You've been playing dumb."

  That question Danny chose not to answer, twisting his face away from the touch of her hand and clinging to Gabe's shirt as if he feared she was going to take him away.

  "Don't you be rude. She was just talking to you," Gabe told him. Danny made a noise, but the meaning was clear enough. "Sorry, ma'am. Looks like him and me is going to have to get some things straight when he feels better."

  She answered him, half-teasing and half-serious. "Not too many manners, Mr. Taylor, or he won't talk to me at all."

  She shouldn't have said that. It brought back to mind what Gabe considered his place. His face flushed red as he looked around, seeing the havoc he'd caused in her home. "Lord, ma'am, I'm sorry. I shouldn't'a come blundering in here like a lunatic."

  "You are one if you think we'd want it any other way," she snapped.

  "You're fixing to go flying off the handle again," Morey said dryly.

  "You explain it to him. He's such a damn knot-head most the time I cain't believe it," Sammy snapped, exiting swiftly, passing by Morey with an exasperated throw of her hands.

  "You better sit down before you get the other one mad at you, too," Morey advised and moved on into the room. "You forgot these." He put a pair of socks on the arm of the chair before telling Gabe, "Nothing makes folks madder than someone thinking what they're doing is some great favor when they're just doing what comes natural."

  "I wasn't thinking about this being her place. I was just thinking of getting Danny to Sally."

  "Way it should have been," Morey said, nodding at the chair for Gabe to sit down while he sat down on the end of the couch. "Sammy wouldn't'a had it any other way. Galls her for you to think she would."

  "I didn't mean it that way," he said uncomfortably, sitting stiffly on the edge of the chair. "It's just that, well, look at the mess I brought to her."

  Water dampened the floor where it had rolled and dripped off him where Gabe had stood and walked. The couch had a wet stain spreading out from under the slicker, and water still dripped off it.

  "Ain't nothing a mop won't fix. This house has seen lots worse. This here couch is where they laid Big Sam when they brought him in to die. That there chair was where Handley sat for Sally and Sammy to bandage his hand after a horse stomped it. He worked for them until he died last year. One time I sat there with an arrow in my leg. This house has seen a lot of misery in its time, and none of it was ever turned away or tended to with a feeling that it was a bother."

  "Big Sam must have been quite a man."

  "In some ways, the best. He come up from Texas, figuring he'd worked long enough for other men. He'd found him a woman he wanted to wed, so he built his own ranch. He never forgot what it was like being poor, never raised his nose nor turned his back to a man that worked for him or any other man. I ain't never been anything on this ranch but a hired hand, if that's what you choose to call me, but I've always been an equal, same as any man who's ever come here."

  "Some different than where I come from," Gabe said bitterly.

  Morey's eyes narrowed a bit, and then he changed the subject. "He gone to sleep?"

  "No, just quiet," Gabe said for not once had his vigilance over the child lapsed.

  "Well," Morey said, standing up, "you brought him to the best place. Sally's as good as a doc in some ways, better in others."

  The way Sally came back into the room as soon as Morey finished, Gabe was sure she'd stayed out of sight waiting for Morey to set him straight. She had a cup in her hand and proceeded without commenting on what Morey or Sammy had said.

  "He ain't gonna like the taste of it, so's you'll have to force him to drink it," she told Gabe in warning.

  "How do I do that?"

  "Hold him down and pour it into him."

  Which was easier said than done. Gabe no sooner got one of Dan
ny's hands down out of the way than the other came up to knock the cup away. When Gabe got both tiny hands in one of his large ones, Danny arched his back, flopping away from the cup. A knee raised up under his head brought Danny's head back up, but he rolled it away. Finally, with Sally helping to hold him, Danny set his teeth, causing the liquid to spill over his throat, chest, and Gabe's leg.

  "Stop that!" Gabe barked in exasperation. Danny gulped in surprise at the sharpness of his voice. "You drink it, Danny. It's good for you."

  Danny drank it, looking like he feared death if he didn't. He gagged, choked, and sputtered, but he drank it.

  "Now hug him up so's he knows you're not mad at him," Sally said softly when it was over.

  "Maybe I shouldn't'a yelled at him like that," Gabe said, feeling guilty about losing his temper.

  "He needed it," she said dispassionately. "That'll let him sleep so's you can get some rest. You look tuckered out."

  "Couldn't feel any worse if I'd worked ten days straight without a let up," Gabe admitted.

  "Humph," she grunted. "Just what you been doing."

  "It ain't that," he said quickly. "I just been fretting over him."

  "Wasn't why you fell asleep on the floor, either, I suppose."

  "Okay, I was tired, but—"

  "Close to exhaustion," she corrected. "Good thing he's sick. You'll have to stay close, and you'll get some rest, too."

  "Ain't nothing wrong with me," Gabe grumbled with embarrassment.

  Morey chuckled and went to the kitchen where Sammy was cooking dinner.

  * * *

  "Got that potion down him," Morey told Sammy standing next to her at the stove.

  "I know," she said without turning from her cooking.

  "And did you hear the rest?" He picked a piece of potato from the skillet. She didn't answer. Keeping his voice low, he said, "Had a look at him while he changed clothes. Been shot up bad, not too long ago from the look of them scars." She still didn't comment. "Makes you wonder why for. Don't know much about him. Could be—"

  She interrupted to say, "Hedges knows him."

  "Didn't appear to before he showed up here, from what I heard."