She looked up at him and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind.” She indicated the atlas.
“Help yourself, ma’am.”
“Morna.”
“Help yourself … Morna.” The familiarity did not sit easily with Gregg. “Are you feeling stronger?”
“I’m much better, thank you. I hadn’t slept since … for quite a long time.”
“I see.” Gregg sat down at the other side of the table and allowed himself a closer look at the intriguing ornament. On its outer rim were faint markings like those of a compass, and the splinter of light continued its slow pulsing beneath the glass. “I don’t mean to pry, ma’am, Morna,” he said, “but in my whole life I’ve never seen anything like that thing on your wrist.”
“It’s nothing.” Morna covered it with her hand. “It’s just a trinket.”
“But how can it keep sparking the way it does?”
“Oh, I don’t understand these matters,” she said airily. “I believe it works by electronics.”
“Is that something to do with electricity?”
“Electricity is what I meant to say—my English is not very good.”
“But what’s it for?”
Morna laughed. “Do your women only wear what is useful?”
“I guess not,” Gregg said doubtfully, aware he was being put off once again. After a few initial uncertainties, Morna’s English had been very assured and he suspected that the odd words she had used—electronics—had not been a mistake. He made up his mind to search for it in Ruth’s dictionary, if he ever got the chance.
Morna looked down at the atlas, upon which she had placed a piece of straw running east-west, with one end at the approximate location of Copper Cross. “According to this map we are about twelve hundred miles from New Orleans.”
Gregg shook his head. “It’s more than that to New Orleans.”
“I’ve just measured it.”
“That’s the straight line distance,” he explained patiently. “It doesn’t signify anything—’less you can fly like a bird.”
“But you agree that it is twelve hundred miles.”
“That’s about right—for a bird.” Gregg jumped to his feet and, in his irritation, tried to do it in the normal way with the assistance of his arms pushing against the table. His left elbow cracked loudly and gave way, bringing him down on that shoulder. Embarrassed, he stood up more slowly, trying not to show that he was hurt, and walked to the range. “We’ll have to see about getting you some proper food.”
“What’s wrong with your arm?” Morna spoke softly, from close behind him.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he said, surprised at her show of concern.
“Let me see it, Billy—I may be able to help.”
“You’re not a doctor, are you?” As he had expected, there was no reply to his question, but the possibility that the woman had medical training prompted Gregg to roll up his sleeves and let her examine the misshapen elbow joints. Having unbent that far, he went on to tell her about how—in the absence of any law enforcement in the area—he had been foolish enough to let himself be talked into taking the job of unofficial town warden, and about how, even more foolishly, he once interrupted Josh Portfield and four of his men in the middle of a drinking spree. He skimmed briefly over the details of how two men had held each of his wrists and whipped him bodily to and fro for over fifteen minutes until his elbows had snapped backwards.
“Why is it always so?” she breathed.
“What was that, ma’am?”
Morna raised her eyes. “There’s nothing I can do, Billy. The joints were fractured and now they have sclerosed over.”
“Sclerosed, eh?” Gregg noted another word to be checked later.
“Do you get much pain?” She looked at the expression on his face. “That was a silly question, wasn’t it?”
“It’s a good thing I’m partial to whisky,” he confessed. “Otherwise I wouldn’t get much sleep some nights.”
She smiled compassionately. “I think I can do something about the pain. It’s in my own interest to get you as fit as possible by … What day is this?”
“Friday.”
“By Sunday.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about Sunday,” he said. “I’ve got a friend coming to help out. A woman friend,” he added as Morna stepped back from him, the hunted expression returning to her face.
“You promised not to tell anyone I was here.”
“I know, but it’s purely for your benefit. Ruth Jefferson is a fine lady, and I know her as well as I know myself. She won’t talk to a living soul.”
Morna’s face relaxed slightly. “Is she important to you?”
“We were supposed to get married.”
“In that case I won’t object,” Morna said, her grey eyes unreadable. “But please remember it was your own decision to tell her about me.”
Ruth Jefferson came into sight about an hour before sunset, driving her cousin’s gig.
Gregg, who had been watching for her, went into the house and tapped the open door of the bedroom, where Morna had lain down to rest without undressing. She awoke instantly with a startled gasp, glancing at the gold bracelet on her wrist. From his viewpoint in the doorway, Gregg noted that the ornament’s imprisoned splinter of light seemed always to point to the east, and he decided it could be a strange form of compass. It might have been his imagination, but he had an impression that the light’s rate of pulsation had increased slightly since he had first observed it in the morning. More wonderful and strange, however, was the overall sight of the golden-haired young woman, heavy with new life, who had come to him from out of nowhere, and whose very presence seemed to shed a glow over the plain furniture of his bedroom. He found himself speculating anew about the circumstances which had stranded such a creature in the near-wilderness of his part of the world.
“Ruth will be here in a minute,” he said. “Would you like to come out and meet her?”
“Very much.” Morna smiled as she stood up and walked to the door with him. Gregg was slightly taken aback that she did so without touching her hair or fussing about her dress—in his experience first meetings between women usually were edgy occasions—then he noticed that her simple hairstyle was undisturbed, and that the material of the blue smock, in spite of having been lain on for several hours, was as sleek and as smooth as if it had just come off the hanger. It was yet another addition to the dossier of curious facts he was assembling about his guest.
“Hello, Ruth—glad you could come.” Gregg went forward to steady the gig and help Ruth down from it.
“I’ll bet you are,” Ruth said. “Have you heard about Wolf Cagey?”
Gregg lowered his voice. “I heard he was fixing to die.”
“That’s right. What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?”
“You could head north as soon as it gets dark and keep going. I’m crazy to suggest it, but I could stay here and look after your lady friend.”
“That wouldn’t be fair,” Gregg shook his head slowly. “No, I’m staying on here where I’m needed.”
“Just what do you think you’ll be able to do when Josh Portfield and his mob come for you?”
“Ruth,” he whispered uneasily, “I wish you’d talk about something else—you’re going to upset Morna. Now come and meet her.”
Ruth gave him an exasperated look, but went quietly with him to the house where he performed the introductions. The women shook hands in silence, and then—quite spontaneously—both began to smile, the roles of mother and daughter tacitly assigned and mutually accepted. Gregg knew that communication had taken place on a level he would never understand, and his ingrained awe of the female mind increased.