‘‘What have you done to him?’’ she yelled.
‘‘Nothing,’’ McBride protested. ‘‘Well, I sang to him and he cried even worse. He’s hungry. I was going to fry him up some bacon or salt pork but Saul said he needs—’’
‘‘I know what he needs,’’ Julieta snapped. She took the baby from McBride and hurried into the cabin, but paused at the door and looked back. ‘‘Maybe you hadn’t noticed, Mr. McBride, but he has no teeth.’’ She shook her head, her eyes blazing. ‘‘Salt pork indeed!’’
McBride stepped out of the saddle, aware that he’d just been scolded but having no idea why. He was the first to admit that he knew little about women and even less about babies, but Julieta’s reaction surprised him. He’d seen that Simon had no teeth, but he’d planned to cut up the salt pork in real small pieces so the kid could swallow them.
He walked into the cabin and watched as Julieta prepared food for the baby. She looked incredibly pretty in a pink gingham dress and seemed to be recovering from her ordeal at the hands of the Apache.
‘‘There’s coffee on the stove,’’ she said. ‘‘You look like you could use some.’’
McBride poured himself a cup and sat at the table, watching the girl feed the now silent baby. ‘‘So that’s what a pap boat is,’’ he said, nodding toward the ceramic dish in Julieta’s hand. He smiled. ‘‘Kind of looks like a gravy pourer . . . thing.’’
‘‘Who told you about a pap boat?’’ Julieta asked, surprised.
‘‘Saul Remorse. I’d never heard of it before.’’
‘‘Mother’s milk is best, but when there is none, this is what we do.’’
McBride looked down at the coffee in his cup. It seemed to him that the silence stretching between him and the girl went on and on forever. Finally she said, ‘‘Tell me what happened.’’
There was no easy way, and McBride said it straight out. ‘‘Clare O’Neil is dead.’’
Another silence. McBride heard the tiny sucking noises made by Simon and he saw the sudden start of tears in Julieta’s eyes. ‘‘How did it—’’
McBride told her.
And when he was finished, he said, ‘‘Thad Harlan is still out there somewhere. I plan on catching up to him.’’
Julieta bent and kissed the baby’s head, bathing him with her tears. ‘‘Poor little orphan,’’ she whispered. After a while her eyes lifted to McBride. ‘‘Clare’s mind was not in a good place. You knew about her and Dora Ryan?’’
McBride nodded. ‘‘Yes, I knew about that.’’
‘‘I’m sure that Dora could have helped her, given time. The only problem was that time was something neither of them had. In the end Clare could only cling to her dream of passing the silver mine on to her son.’’
Managing a smile, McBride said, ‘‘You’re holding a very rich young man in your arms there.’’
‘‘A child without parents. How rich can he be?’’
‘‘Will you raise him, Julieta? Be a mother to him?’’
‘‘Of course I will, and I’ll see that his inheritance is kept for him.’’
‘‘Maybe now that Jared Josephine is dead and his ambitions with him, you could move back to town. It’s lonely for a woman out here.’’
Julieta shook her head. ‘‘This is my home. This is where I’ll raise Simon and watch him grow to manhood.’’
McBride rose to his feet. ‘‘Julieta, you have courage, a rare kind of courage I can only guess at.’’ He smiled. ‘‘I only wish I was as brave.’’
The baby was asleep and the girl placed him in his crib. She straightened and looked McBride in the eye. ‘‘Your own courage will soon be put to the test, I think.’’
‘‘Harlan?’’
‘‘Yes, him. A few nights ago I had a dream and at the time I did not know what it meant. I saw a gallows, covered in blood, and a man hanging, a man who had been whipped with a lash.’’ Julieta shuddered. ‘‘The man had your face.’’
McBride felt a chill, but he tried to shrug off what the girl was telling him. ‘‘I’ll be careful, Julieta.’’ He smiled. ‘‘Take care of the baby.’’
He stepped to the door and walked into the rain to his waiting horse. When he looked back, Julieta was standing at the door, watching him. A cold, green light showed in the sky to the east and McBride shivered.
Chapter 33
John McBride rode into Rest and Be Thankful at the coolest hour of the morning, just as the night was shading into a rainy dawn that made the town look like a smeared watercolor. The Main Street was a sluggish river of yellow mud and the gray buildings seemed to be dissolving slowly into a background of brush flats and distant blue hills.
He rode into the barn, climbed down from the saddle and turned as Jed Whipple stumped toward him on his bandy legs. ‘‘Welcome, young feller,’’ he said. ‘‘Am I ever glad to see a paying customer.’’ He glanced over McBride’s shoulder. ‘‘Where’s the preacher?’’
McBride grinned. ‘‘He’ll be along shortly. What’s been happening, Jed?’’
‘‘Happening? It seems every outlaw in town’s suddenly developed a bad case of ‘It’s time I was someplace else.’ Them dang Rangers raided every saloon in town last night, cussin’, shovin’ an’ arrestin’. Stillwater Jack Quinlan got hisself kilt. Sassed a Ranger, then drew down on him.’’ The old man shook his head. ‘‘Bad mistake.’’ He sighed. ‘‘Hoodoo Hester, as good a man with a knife as ever was, is lying over to the hotel with three bullets in him an’ he ain’t expected to live. He should’ve knowed better than to pull a Bowie on gunfightin’ men. Oh, an’ Tick Anderson, nice feller, ran with Jesse an’ Frank an’ them for a spell. Well, anyhoo, he jumped out a top window of the Silver Garter cathouse tryin’ to get away. Broke his fool neck an’ he ain’t expected to last out the day.’’
‘‘So the outlaws are leaving town in a hurry, huh?’’ McBride said.
‘‘Leaving? They’ve left. Well, except for a dozen of the worst of ’em the Rangers are holding over to the jail. One of the big mustaches told me they’re loading them boys into their wagon later this morning. He says they’ll take ’em back to Texas where they can get a fair trial and be hung legal-like.’’
‘‘You seen anything of Marshal Harlan?’’ McBride asked.
‘‘Neither hide nor hair. You huntin’ him?’’
‘‘Yes, I am.’’
‘‘Then more fool you, young feller.’’ He nodded in the direction of his office. ‘‘Coffee’s biled. He’p yourself.’’
Whipple took McBride’s horse to a stall and when he returned McBride had coffee in a tin cup, holding it by the rim, waiting until it was cool enough to drink.
‘‘Know how them boys paid me for boarding their horses?’’ Whipple said. He didn’t pause for an answer. ‘‘Rangers’ scrip. They said it would be honored by the great state of Texas.’’ The old man spat into the mud as his feet. ‘‘I got as much chance of seein’ that money as a steer in a packin’ plant.’’
McBride tried his coffee, burned his tongue and wished he’d waited longer. ‘‘At least they’re not planning to stretch your neck,’’ he said.