Firefly (10 page)

* * *

The argument with Katharine lasted just as long as it took Julie to fetch a shawl and a pair of gloves and to give final instructions for supper.

"I'm going, Mama, because the woman may die if I don't," she explained, wondering if what Morgan had told her was really a lie.

"But what will I tell your father?  This Mr. Morgan is so...so...."

"So unsavory, Mama?  Yes, I suppose he is, but he is also a doctor.  He said he might be able to find something for your headaches, but he has to see to Mrs. Baxter first." 
Pacify her
, Julie thought.
  Play on her own needs
.

"How come I can't go with you?" Willy asked.

"Because it isn't a place for children," his mother explained.  "It isn't as though Julie is going visiting, you understand."

And yet as she dashed out of the house and ran towards Morgan's, Julie felt as excited as if she were going to a party.

* * *

Woody was a sorrel mare with a broad white blaze and a pink nose.  Morgan introduced the girl to the horse in four or five words and then hoisted Julie roughly onto the saddle.  She settled her skirt around her and under her legs to prevent leather burns.  When he had hooked his own version of Opper's black bag over the saddle horn, Morgan mounted a buckskin gelding he called Sam.

Julie had little experience with horses, but she knew enough to stay on even when Morgan quickly urged them to a loping canter up the road and towards the mountains.  He said nothing, though he did glance at her often, probably just to make sure she was still in the saddle.  The road was wide and rough and very dusty, and Julie finally dared to let go the horn in order to hold one corner of her shawl over her nose and mouth to keep from choking.

Steve Baxter's ranch nestled in a shallow valley in the mountains some four or five miles north of Plato.  Morgan pointed out the log and stone house as soon as they had crested the last hill.  It was a small building, single storied, with a porch at one end.  Chickens pecked in the yard until scattered by the horses, and a barking dog bounded up to greet them, too.

The woman in the doorway must be Grace Fulton, Julie guessed.  Iron-haired and built as sturdily as many of the men in Plato, she looked at the visitors with cautious eyes.

"You sober, Morgan?" she called before they had dismounted.

"Yes, ma'am.  And alive, which is more 'n you can say for Horace."

She didn't appear to approve of his humor, but she backed up enough to let him enter.  Julie followed.

"Who's she?"

"Julie Hollstrom.  I'm training her to be my nurse."

Grace Fulton snorted.

"What happened to Winnie Upshaw?"

But by the time she finished that question, Morgan had already passed through the main room of the house to the bedroom where Steve Baxter stood guard.

"We lost one last year," the rancher said quietly.  "She wants this one real bad."

* * *

Julie sank to the bench at the kitchen table and stared at the cup of coffee in front of her.  She was too tired even to pick it up.  The clock on the mantel chimed softly eleven times.

Morgan Julian Baxter was an hour old.

Seated next to Julie, Grace Fulton commented, "I seen breech births before, but never one like that, with the cord around the neck."

Steve Baxter poured another tin mug full of coffee and held it out to Morgan, who sat across from the two women.  He took it and blew gently as he wrapped his fingers around it.  Even though he braced his elbows on the table, his hands still shook.

He sipped the scalding coffee and said, "Your wife's a good healthy young woman and I don't see any reason why she shouldn't be up and around very soon.  Just remember to take good care of her and that baby, and watch for any signs of fever.  If anything goes wrong, you come get me, understand?"

The young rancher nodded gravely.

A gentle silence descended for several minutes, broken only by the occasional snap from the fire in the cook stove and the chirp of crickets outside the open door.  When he had finished his coffee, Morgan set his cup down and got to his feet.  It was a queer feeling to stand up and not sway or feel like the floor was made of pudding.

"Thanks, Morgan."

Baxter extended his hand, and Morgan shook it with a firmness he himself found surprising.

"You're welcome.  You coming, Miss Hollstrom?"

Grace put a hand on the girl's weary shoulder, but she addressed her words to Morgan.

"You can't mean to ride all the way back to town now. This poor child will fall right out of the saddle, if her horse don't stumble in the dark and throw her first."

Julie smiled weakly.  The thought of that long ride when she was so utterly exhausted was terrifying, but more so was the thought of arriving home in the morning.

"Miss Hollstrom is needed at home," Morgan explained. "Her mother isn't well."  He pulled her shawl from the wall rack where someone had hung it earlier and draped it around her shoulders.  "Here, you'll need this now that it's cooled off.  Got your gloves?"

"Yes, here in my pocket."

Reaching for them, she felt something else in the pocket of her skirt and for a single instant she panicked.  When had she taken the glasses off and put them there?  Had anyone noticed?  Had she even had them on when she arrived, or had she taken them off on the ride up here?  It was too late to worry about it now, and she wouldn't need them in the dark.

And the night wasn't so dark after all.  A brilliant yellow moon rode high in the western sky, almost full and bright as a lantern.  Julie's eyes had adjusted to it by the time she unhitched Woody and let Morgan boost her onto the animal's back.  Shadows of mesquite and cactus stood out eerily in the pale light, and the skittering of nocturnal birds and animals set Julie's nerves on edge.  But at least she was awake and alert.

After they had passed that first hill and were out of sight of the little ranchstead, Morgan said, "I must say, you surprised me, Miss Hollstrom.  You held up pretty good."

"Thank you, I think.  I mean, that was a compliment, wasn't it?"

He chuckled.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan, but I'm very tired, and I guess I'm not thinking very straight.  I'm probably not speaking very straight, either."

"You're doing fine.  And yes, it was a compliment."

When was the last time he had paid a woman a compliment? He must be out of practice, if she didn't recognize it. 
Or maybe she's out of practice
, he thought. 
Probably doesn't get too many, tall skinny girl like her with that hair pulled back and those glasses
.

He looked at her, riding next to him.

"What happened to your spectacles?"

"What?  Oh, well, I...I took them off when we left so I wouldn't lose them if I fell asleep."

She held her breath and prayed that he wouldn't--but he did.

"No, you didn't have them on all evening.  In fact, I don't remember you having them on since we got to Baxter's place."

She had one more chance, a slim one, but she took it.

"Of course, I did.  You just don't remember, because you were busy with Mrs. Baxter."

"No, I remember perfectly."

He was tempted to rein in Sam and question the girl out here where she'd be scared to death and would tell him anything, but he let the horse plod on towards home.  He didn't want Julie Hollstrom afraid of him.

Not after tonight.

So he dropped the subject abruptly and went on to something else.

"I kind of enjoyed tonight myself," he said quietly. "It's been a long time since I helped deliver a baby, saw the way a woman looks when she holds him for the first time.  I kinda missed it."

The horses negotiated the path down into a rocky wash and then up again.  Julie used those few moments to frame the response she knew she really shouldn't make but was going to anyway.

"All you need to do is go back to the work you left," she said when they'd reached the other side. "It's waiting for you."

"It wouldn't be quite that easy.  I'd need some help."

"Someone to keep you rehabilitated?"

"No, more than that.  Well, that, too, but before I…when I was practicing before, I always had a nurse, someone to lend an extra hand, and calm people down in emergencies when I wasn't right there."

It was painful to talk about it even in such an oblique way.  Julie heard it in the lowering of his voice and saw it in the way he turned his face away from her.  She wondered if he had ever talked about it to anyone.

"What about Miss Upshaw?"

"Winnie?  Winnie faints when she pricks her finger with a darning needle."

"But I thought when Grace Fulton mentioned her that…"

"Winnie is a dreamer.  She comes over and cleans my house once in a while and she pretends she's my nurse and we are saving lives by the thousands.  She was fourteen when...when I stopped practicing medicine, and I think she had it in the back of her mind to bring me back to it someday."

"Oh."

"What, is that guilt I hear?"

She lifted her eyes from her hands to look at him and saw that he was smiling at her.

He had a nice smile, she decided, if a little bit crooked, and there was warmth in the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.  If he shaved regularly and had some of that shaggy hair cut, he might be quite a handsome man.  A bath wouldn't hurt, either.

"I just feel rather sad that Miss Upshaw, after all her dreams, couldn't have been the one to do it.  I mean, I'm a newcomer, and I feel I've taken a prize someone else has been trying for."

"Well, you haven't saved me yet, Miss New Girl in Town. And we aren't far from town now, so you'd better put those spectacles of yours back on before somebody else notices you took them off.  Vanity can put some pretty big obstacles in your path to trip over, too."

So that's what he thought!  Rather arrogant of him to presume she'd removed the things because she wanted to appear more attractive to him.  But it was probably less dangerous that way.  If she went to work for him, she would simply have to be more careful.

But working for him was a terribly big "if" right now.  Katharine might be persuaded because she needed a doctor's care, and that need was Julie's leverage.  Katharine had already consented to tonight's errand, and with surprisingly little protest, as Julie recalled with a puzzled frown.  In fact, Katharine had hardly argued at all.  But of course, Wilhelm had not been home at the time.

Wilhelm was a different matter entirely.

Chapter Seven