A Cowboy's Heart
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Liz Ireland
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17
Chapter 1
South Texas, 1883
Trip Peabody would have trouble staying on a horse if somebody glued him onto the saddle. At least, that was Paulie Johnson’s assessment of the man’s abilities as she watched Trip limp back into Possum Trot leading Feather by the reins. The man just didn’t have the gift of balance. Staying permanently upright, whether on horseback or afoot, was a skill he had never been able to perfect.
Paulie, who had been tilting back in her chair on the porch of the Dry Wallow saloon, enjoying the brisk winter morning, brought the front legs of her chair down with a crash and hopped to her feet. “Land’s sake, Trip,” she called out. “Don’t tell me you walked Feather all the way to Fort Stockton and back.”
Trip let out one of his thin wheezes that passed for a laugh. “Couldn’t have made it back this fast if I had, now could I?”
She had sent Trip off four days ago to deposit the Dry Wallow’s money in a bank in Fort Stockton, and to see when they might be getting some whiskey. If not soon, she would have to take a wagon and go fetch some herself. Supplies were low—down to tequila, mostly—and she’d already raised the prices high enough that men were starting to grumble. She didn’t want a riot on her hands.
But she wasn’t much fond of travelling, either. Maybe Trip had good news. “I hope that horse threw you because you had other things on your mind—like where we’re gonna put all the whiskey that’s comin’ our way.”
Trip shook his head. “Nope.”
Paulie sighed. “Darn that old fool, Oat Murphy!”
Oat, their whiskey trader since Paulie’s father had started the saloon at the end of the war, had gone and gotten himself married. And not just married to anybody, but to Mary Ann Redfern, the prettiest, most sought-after girl for sixty miles. This was an especially amazing feat considering that Oat, who was on the sad side of sixty, had no teeth and a curmudgeonly personality; and the last time Paulie had seen him, the man looked like he hadn’t said hello to a cake of soap since Christmas.
“It’s still the talk all along the road, Paulie,” Trip informed her, as if she needed to be told. Oat’s marital windfall would be big news around these parts for years. “Heck, people talk about Oat marryin’ almost as much as they talk about that durn renegade Night Bird killin’ the three men with the railroad payroll. Seems Oat’s even given up drinkin‘ whiskey, much less train’ it. Says he has to be a respectable man now that he has a respectable gal.”
“Land’s sake!” she exclaimed. “What’s he gonna do for money? Mary Ann doesn’t eat respectability, I’ll bet.”
Trip shrugged. “He’ll probably try to get himself a herd and start a cattle outfit of some kind.”
Paulie shook her head. Men definitely lacked imagination! “We’ve already got more cows than sense around here. Why doesn’t he try growin’ turnips or something useful?”
At her peculiar question, Trip staggered slightly and nearly fell off the lowest step of the Dry Wallow’s porch. The effort it took to right himself seemed to put him in mind of another puzzling question that had thrown him off balance. “Say, I wonder what Will’s gonna think about Mary Ann’s gettin’ married.”
Will! Paulie had been wondering the same thing herself. Will Brockett had been sweet on Mary Ann Redfern for years, which was no mystery—every man within three counties was sweet on pretty Mary Ann. But Will had the edge over all the others because not only was he good-looking, he was also a friend of the family. Shoot, while old Gerald Redfern had been alive, Will had been like a member of the family. He lived at the Redfern place, worked there, and was a favorite of Gerald’s. Gerald had been a lawyer back in Louisiana who through some misplaced romanticism had decided late in life to try his hand at ranching out West. Everyone knew that there was no man the Redferns would rather see Mary Ann hitched to than Will.
But Gerald had been gone for three years, dead of pneumonia. A year later his wife had married a man, Mr. Breen, who raised a lot of chickens, and Will had started driving cattle up to Kansas every season. Every winter, he had the dubious distinction of being Possum Trot’s sheriff.
But he was, to Paulie’s mind, the best-looking thing that ever wore boots, on top of being her favorite person in the whole world. Seven months he had been gone, and every hour of every day of every month had held a twinge of lonesomeness without him there. Paulie was beginning to think the hollow feeling in her chest was bound to be permanent. “Will’s been gone so long, he might never be coming back,” she said mournfully.
“Oh, I guess we’ll see him soon enough,” Trip said. “In Fort Stockton I heard that he’d been seen over in San Antonio.”
Paulie sucked in a sharp breath. The news almost made her light-headed. “Will, back in Texas?” she asked, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.
“High time. He’s been gone since spring.”
And now it was November. That meant Will would probably stick on his badge and winter in Possum Trot again. It wasn’t much of a town, so they didn’t really need a sheriff, but it was nice to have one occasionally. Especially with that outlaw Night Bird prowling around. Especially when the sheriff was Will Brockett!
Of course, in Paulie’s opinion, the man could just sit on the Dry Wallow’s porch all day whittling a stick and she’d still call him brilliant. She had been sweet on Will Brockett since she’d first clapped eyes on him. But she’d been a little kid then, and he hadn’t paid attention to her. Then, as she grew older, and even after her father died and left her the Dry Wallow saloon, he seemed to view her more as a figure of fun than of romance. He liked to banter with her, but she knew he didn’t take her seriously.
“Good old Will.” She sighed as her heart fluttered in her chest.
But Trip was once again preoccupied with the topic of the century. “I still can’t believe Mary Ann couldn’t do no better than Oat Murphy,” he said, tugging at one corner of his bushy mustache. He took one of the porch steps and nearly landed flat on his face. “It’s got me thinkin’ though.”
“About what?” Paulie asked, barely able to get her mind off Will for one minute. He’d been seen already...in San Antonio! She felt like dancing a whoop-de-jig,
“Well...” Trip conjectured slowly, “if Oat can win a girl like Mary Ann, seems like I should at least be able to rate Tessie Hale.”
Paulie rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Trip, I bet Tessie Hale’s been waiting for you to propose to her since I was in diapers. I swear, you men are so thick it’s a wonder anything can stir you up. I’m surprised that poor widow didn’t despair and propose to Oat herself years ago.”
Trip’s eyes widened in panic at the notion. “That would be terrible!”
“Well relax, it can’t happen now.”
He let out a breath. “That’s right. Oat’s married to Mary Ann.”
It was such a hard idea to swallow! Beautiful, spoiled Mary Ann and Oat Murphy!
“I wonder what made her do it,” Paulie said, joining Trip in rumination. Will would surely be disappointed to find his sweetheart married to a toothless old whiskey man.
“People are sayin’ that Mary Ann started gettin’ restless. She never did like that chicken rancher stepfather of hers none. Called him Mr. Chicken. They’re. also sayin’ that maybe she got scared with Night Bird in the area and all, on account of her blond hair. She thought he’d prize her scalp.”
“She would!” Paulie scoffed. “Mary Ann thinks everybody loves that yellow hair of hers. Trouble is, nobody seems to hold it in as much esteem as Mary Ann does herself.”
Trip laughed. “Still and all, somebody said she was afraid Night Bird was going to come after her.”
At the thought of the mysterious Comanche renegade who had been plaguing the area, Paulie let out a sigh of thanks that he had caused her no harm—yet. Twice she had awakened in the night, only to discover the next morning that there were bottles missing from the bar downstairs. Given the Indian’s reputation, she would gladly sacrifice a few bottles in exchange for her scalp.
Except now Oat wasn’t ever going to bring a shipment. That was troubling. Her stock was running low. Business had declined with Night Bird roaming the area, but it would slam to an absolute standstill if she had nothing to sell.
Yet it was hard to keep her mind on those problems for two minutes. Will was coming home!
And now, without Mary Ann to distract him, maybe he would notice her more, Paulie thought. She looked down at her rough clothes—men’s clothes—and began to worry. Will had always made fun of her for dressing like a man, and now she didn’t have anything else to wear. Coincidentally, Trip was giving himself a good onceover, too—no doubt wondering what the widow Hale would think of the worn-out rags he called clothes. Not much, Paulie was sure. She and Trip had fallen a few notches below stylishness sometime in the past decade.
“I wonder if Dwight has any duds my size,” Trip said. He was tall and lanky and always looked awkward in the clothes he got from Dwight’s Mercantile, the only other business in Possum Trot.
“I know he doesn’t have a dress,” Paulie said with a little despair.
“What call would I have for one of those things?” Trip asked.
“I meant for me, chowderhead.”
Trip’s eyes widened. “A dress? Why, you haven’t worn one of those since...” He scratched his head. “Since I don’t know when!”
“My last one split a seam back in seventy-eight.” She shrugged. She’d never been handy with a needle, and so never replaced the dress. Instead, she wore boots, breeches, and plain cotton shirts, just like all the men who came into the Dry Wallow saloon. Of course, her father wouldn’t have approved, but he’d been gone six years now. And the change in her apparel had proved good for business. After a while, people got used to seeing her dressed that way, and became more comfortable doing business with an eccentric woman than a feminine one. She owned the only saloon for thirty miles, and business thrived.
As had her feelings for Will Brockett. She wished she could do something that would make him sit up and take notice of her. “I wish my hair was blond instead of dirtcolored.” Mary Ann’s hair was the color of corn silk.
Trip assessed her appearance, from her worn-out boots and loose britches up to the crown of her hair, which she wore in a simple long braid down her back. “It ain’t so much dirt, maybe, as wood-colored,” he said encouragingly.
“Thanks, Trip.”
“At least you ain’t gone gray,” he moped, pushing his hat forward self-consciously. “I guess I look pretty old.”
“I hate to break the news to you, Trip, but Tessie’s practically white-headed herself now. I doubt she’d hold your age against you.”
“Still...” Trip shook his head.
Paulie leaned against the porch rail and let out her breath. “Oh, I guess we’re pretty silly to be sitting out here worrying about how we look at this late date. Nothing’s gonna turn my stump-colored hair blond any more than you’ll ever get your old brown locks back.”
Trip eyed her suspiciously. “Who’re you tryin’ to impress?”
“Nobody,” Paulie answered quickly. If Trip ever found out the extent of her feelings for Will, she’d never hear the end of it. “Can’t a person just wish she was blond once in a while?”
A picture entered her mind, of herself, dressed like a real lady in some shiny kind of material—maybe real silk, even. She was at a ball, the kind she’d only read about in some of her father’s books, and Will was there, too, handsome as ever. He took her hand, which was mercifully free of unsightly freckles, and lifted it gently to his lips. Then he sent her one of those naughty grins of his. Laughing flirtatiously, with her free hand Paulie tapped him on the shoulder with her fan...
“Paulie?”
At the insistent sound of Trip’s voice, Paulie shook her head. “Huh?”
“I said, I think I’ll go home. Maybe even clean up a bit.”
She felt one of her eyebrows dart up. “You goin’ courtin’ tonight?”
He stiffened, his expression immediately turning defensive. “Did I say anything about courtin’? Can’t a body just get clean after a long trip just to...to get clean?”
Paulie shrugged. “You were just talking about Tessie, so naturally...”
“Yeah, well, that road from Fort Stockton was dusty. You might want a bath, too. We’re both a sight, Paulie. Rough people for a rough country.”
That was the truth. Here she was daydreaming of dazzling Will, when really she was on her way to becoming a female version of poor Trip Peabody. And like Trip, she would probably never work up the courage to admit her feelings to the object of her affection.
Then again, her father had always said that nothing was hopeless until you gave up hope. Paulie liked to think of herself as an optimist. Now that Mary Ann was out of the picture, she just had to think of a way to make Will notice her. And, though it might not have been the most practical dream in the world, she couldn’t help hoping that once he did notice her, he would never want to look at another woman again.
“There has to be a way...”
“Way to what?” Trip asked curiously.
“To gussy ourselves up,” she said. To his continued quizzical stare she added, “Well, do you want to impress Tessie Hale or don’t you?”
“Why sure,” he agreed eagerly, nearly slipping off the bar stool. “But what I’m curious to know is, why do you want to impress her?”
Paulie rolled her eyes. “Have another drink, Trip.”
Will couldn’t take his eyes off her. He knew he was staring at Paulie Johnson, but she looked so different, so...strange. All at once, it seemed as if this tiny corner of the world had gone mad.
Possum Trot had always had its eccentricities.
But even given Will’s tolerance for strangeness bred of years of living in Possum Trot, he wasn’t prepared for the odd sight of Paulie Johnson prancing around in a frilly white dress.
He stood in the door several minutes, perfectly aware that he was gaping at her as she dried glasses behind the bar. Then at last, she looked up and saw him. She sucked in a breath and her green eyes sparked with joy, but all Will could focus on was her hair, which he had somehow managed to miss right up to this moment. Lord, it looked like somebody had taken an eggbeater to it!
In a frenzy of frills and frizzy hair, Paulie practically leapt over the bar in her hurry to get to him. “Will Brockett!” she cried, launching herself at him in her old exuberant way. “Will—it’s really you!”
“Of course it’s me,” he said. Will allowed himself to be squeezed nearly to death, then held her out at arm’s distance. “The question is, is that really you?”
She smiled, and did a lively, if not exactly graceful, pirouette for him. “Like it?”
He couldn’t help staring slack-jawed at her, his amazement utterly unchecked. “What is it?” he asked, gaping at the layers and layers of frills covering her.
Offense sparked in her eyes. “A dress!”
Paulie? In a dress? He wasn’t quite comfortable with the idea. And she didn’t look particularly comfortable herself.
“What happened to your britches?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she answered testily. “I’ve still got ’em. Can’t a girl wear a dress around here every once in a while?”
“Well sure, but...where in tarnation did you get such an outfit?” It looked like the sort of dress women had worn years and years ago, before the war, when he was a boy. “I know Dwight doesn’t keep his stock up-to-date over at the mercantile, but...”
Paulie frowned and planted her fists on her slim hips—although they didn’t seem so slim given her ridiculously flared skirts. “It’s not from Dwight’s. It was my mother’s.”
“Are you actually wearing a hoop skirt?” he asked in amazement, using his toe to investigate exactly what was beneath those voluminous skirts.
With a scowl, Paulie slapped his leg away. “Of course! I’d look pretty silly without it,” she said.
She looked pretty silly with it, but Will didn’t dare voice the rejoinder on the tip of his tongue. Paulie, engulfed in flounces, ribbons, bows and lace, already appeared defensive, her pert chin tilting belligerently. From past experience, he knew that once in a fighting mood, Paulie could be a tough one to wrangle with. And in her current state, he didn’t think that would be pleasant at all. Like wrestling a cream puff with claws.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t help asking, “What did you do to your hair?”
Immediately, he knew he’d made a mistake. She scowled. “I curled it, you cowpunching clod!”
“I see.” But while other women sported neat sausagelike ringlets, Paulie’s curls were completely untamed, crimping and sticking out at the oddest places. “Sort of looks like you wound your head around a cactus.”
She drew a hand over her unruly hair and looked at him defiantly. “Well, it’s better than it was!” she said. “I’ve been practicing. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it, actually.”
She stared at him for a few more moments, and the irate expression in her eyes slowly faded, replaced by one of her old huge smiles. She reached out and poked his arm. “Will, it’s good to see you! Come have a drink.”
He crossed the room, feeling strangely disoriented as he walked behind Paulie. Her skirt swayed like a dainty dress, but the square set of her shoulders and the clomping sound he heard every time she took a step made him shake his head. “What are you using for shoes, Paulie?”
She turned, her face a mask of long-suffering frustration. “Wouldn’t you know it—my mother’s feet must have been five sizes littler than my old dogs. So I’m havin’ to wear my work boots!” She lifted her layers of skirt and the hoops and revealed her old scuffed boots.
Will tried to control his mirth. “That’s your mother’s dress?”
She stuck out her chin. “Yes.”
Paulie’s mother had died shortly after the family had moved to Texas. “Why would you have saved that all these years?”
“Well...” She hesitated a moment, a faint blush tinting her cheeks. “Oh, well...it was her wedding dress, so I felt obliged to.”
Will scratched his head in wonder. Paulie, wearing dresses, and blushing? Things in Possum Trot sure had changed!
He eased himself up on a seat at the bar, and for the first time noticed they had company. Trip Peabody was face down at the bar. He was also wearing the most ill-fitting suit Will had ever laid eyes on, with cuffs practically skimming his elbows.
“Trip?” he asked, shaking him. “Trip?” When Trip failed to respond, Will turned back to Paulie. “What happened to him?”
“He’s thinking about courting Tessie Hale,” she said matter-of-factly.
Here was another puzzler. Old Trip had always been half gone for Tessie, but he’d never found it necessary to dress up just to think about it.
“What would you like, Will,” Paulie asked, “tequila, or tequila?”
Will frowned. “Don’t you have any whiskey?”
Paulie looked uncomfortable. “Nope, just tequila.”
Will frowned. “Say...what’s happened around here?”
The expression on Paulie’s face turned from uncomfortable to downright miserable. She opened her mouth to say something, but still she didn’t speak.
“What is it?” Will asked with growing impatience.
“Our whiskey trader sort of...” Her eyes said she would rather talk about anything else. “Well, you remember Oat Murphy, don’t you?”
Of course! Will felt his shoulders fall a few inches. Somehow, seeing Paulie in that strange getup had made him forget his troubles for a few moments. But Oat Murphy was right at the center of them. Now Will felt about as low as Trip.
How could Mary Ann have married that old man? It seemed impossible. He wished it wasn’t true. But it was, apparently, and now there was nothing he could do about it.
Gerald Redfern would probably haunt him for the rest of his days for this, Will feared. The older man’s last breath had been spent asking Will to take care of his wife and daughter. For Will, making the deathbed promise had been easy. He owed Gerald so much—for taking him in when he was a raw youth with no home, giving him a job, treating him like family. There wasn’t a time from the moment he met the Redferns when he hadn’t thought of taking care of Mary Ann. Even after Gerald died, and Mary Ann’s mother had married Mr. Breen, everyone had always assumed he and Mary Ann would marry. Including himself.
Until he’d gone off to Kansas this year. As much as he liked Mary Ann, and was positive that she was the woman he would marry, he’d always known she was a little...well, immature. She tended to be flighty, pouty, and overly whimsical in her ideas. None of these were good characteristics for a ranch wife, and Will wanted to start his own ranch. He had been saving for it for years. He was just waiting till he was good and ready to settle down; actually, he was waiting for that day when he fell in love with Mary Ann and couldn’t stop himself from proposing to her. And yet love, which every man seemed to find at least once in his life—and some cowboys he knew found on a weekly basis—eluded him.
At first Will had thought that Mary Ann would grow out of her childish side. Then they would fall in love. But finally, two months ago, while lying on the hard ground, his bones aching from the discomfort of the trail, he realized he wasn’t getting any younger. And, unfortunately, Mary Ann didn’t appear to be getting any older. And neither of them seemed any closer to being in love with the other. She was still as much a flirt as ever, still putting off the idea of settling down in Possum Trot. A decision had to be made; and the very next day he wrote Mary Ann a letter, telling her they would both be better off if they stopped letting her mother entertain the notion that they would be married one day. He remembered now writing that he would always feel as a brother to her....
Now he could have kicked himself. Some brother! Poor Mary Ann had been alone all autumn, and apparently out of desperation she had turned to the first man who came along. Oat Murphy—a whiskey-stained old geezer. What business did that broken-down wreck have asking a girl half his age to marry him?
A sharp, sickening pang of regret shot through him.
Paulie shoved a jigger of tequila across the bar at him. “Have some Mexican milk. You don’t look so good.” He drank it, and she stared at him evenly. “So...I guess you heard.”
“About Mary Ann?” he asked, stiffly, still not comfortable discussing the topic even after endless practice. “I heard.”
Paulie leaned her elbows on the bar. “I sure am sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “If it’s Oat she wanted, then I’m glad she got what she was pining for.”
Paulie tossed her head back. “I don’t think she knew what she wanted. Couple of months ago everybody said she was sweet on some gambler who came through here, a man named Tyler. Your Mary Ann never has been exactly discriminating, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
Paulie ducked her head and refilled his glass. “Well, anyways, I’m sure sorry. I know you set a store by her.”
He looked into Paulie’s eyes, wondering what she would think if he told her the truth. That he was being torn in two directions—relief that he had escaped marrying someone so flighty as Mary Ann, and regret that she had run off with someone so inappropriate. If only she had married Dwight the storekeeper, or...well, just anybody besides Oat. Then he could have rested easy at night, knowing Gerald Redfern wasn’t looking down from Heaven, scowling at him for breaking his promise to look after his daughter.
That’s why he’d come directly here, to the Dry Wallow. Paulie and Trip were always good listeners, and both were adept at putting a man’s head straight, too, most of the time. But now this place was topsy-turvy. Paulie was flouncing around in her late Ma’s wedding dress, and dependable old Trip Peabody was passed out at the bar.
He gave Trip a slap on the shoulder. “Hey, Trip, aren’t you even going to say hello?”
Trip raised one bleary eyelid. “That you, Tessie?”
Will laughed. “Not even close.”
Woozily, the man lifted his head of gray hair off the bar. “Why, it’s Will! Son of a gun!”
The two men shook hands, and Will couldn’t help noticing again the freshly store-bought state of Trip’s clothes. “Those are some stiff new duds you’ve got on, Trip. I don’t see how you were even able to pass out in them.”
“I was just restin’,” Trip said.
Paulie laughed. “He’s been ‘resting’ for two solid days now, trying to screw up the courage to propose to Tessie.”
The awkward silence in the bar stretched almost past bearing. Trip cleared his throat. “So I guess you heard about Mary Ann Redfern.”
“You mean Mary Ann Murphy,” Will said shortly.
Trip nodded. “I guess everybody’s heard.”
Paulie shifted impatiently. “Everybody’s heard too much about those newlyweds, if you want my opinion. The way people talk, you’d think Mary Ann was the only unmarried girl in this county.”
Trip’s eyebrows knitted together, and even Will was intrigued away from brooding by this statement. There weren’t many unattached females in the area, and that was a fact. Now that Mary Ann was out of his life for good, he supposed he would have to give more consideration to these matters.
“There’s the Brakemen twins out north, I suppose,” Trip said.
Will smiled. “What about Tessie Hale?”
Trip shivered nervously.
“But most people consider her accounted for,” Will assured him.
Paulie cleared her throat, patted down her voluminous skirts, and smiled. “Aren’t you two forgetting someone?”
“Tunia Sweeney!” Trip exclaimed. “Nobody’s married her yet.”
Will wrinkled his nose, dismissing the idea. A woman people called Tunia the Tuna wasn’t exactly his dream gal.
“You can’t think of anybody else?” Paulie asked, glaring at them as if they were dumb clucks.
Will shook his head. “Still, even counting Tunia, that leaves pretty slim pickings around here.”
A bottle shattered on the floor, sending glass shards shooting off in all directions.
“Oh, darn!” Paulie yelled. “Look what you made me go and do!”
The two men looked at each other and blinked. “Us?”
“What did we do?” Trip asked.
“Never mind!” Paulie said, bending down to wipe the clear liquid off the floor before sweeping up.
“Well, what are you so lathered up about?” Will asked her.
“I’m just tired of hearing about weddings and courting and such. I swear that’s all you men talk about these days. Don’t you have anything else to keep yourselves occupied?”
“I guess I should start thinking about what I’m going to do now,” Will said.
Trip glanced at him anxiously. “We could sure use a sheriff again with Night Bird roamin’ around.”
Will frowned. He’d had his heart set on starting a ranch. “Night Bird,” he said, repeating the name that he’d heard spoken with fear so often since returning to South Texas. “Is he harassing folks around here?”
“He’s been here several times,” Paulie informed him. Mention of the renegade seemed to have shaken her pettish mood a little. “I haven’t seen him, but he’s taken several bottles of my whiskey.”
“How do you know?” Will asked.
“’Cause they say when he comes you can’t even hear him,” Paulie answered. “Those three railroad men who got their throats slit probably never knew what hit them.”
Trip shivered. “The first one maybe. But I bet the second and third knew right enough what was happening.”
Will frowned. “When it comes to renegades, people are likely to swallow any tall tale.” Granted, some gruesome stories were true, but usually people believed what they wanted to believe. “Folks will blame Night Bird if cattle prices fall,” he said.
Paulie lifted her chin. “He was here. I know it.”
“Maybe,” Will allowed.
“Anyways, we sure could use a lawman hereabouts,” Trip put in again. “I know I’d sleep better.”
“I’ll think about it,” Will said. If he was going to start up that horse ranch, with or without a wife, it would take him a while to get his hands on a place and accumulate stock. He might as well winter in Possum Trot as anywhere else.
“You sound like you aren’t even sure you’re going to stay,” Paulie said, looking at him anxiously. “You know you’re welcome to bed down here, Will. There’s a room in the back, next to Trip’s.”
He looked into Paulie’s shiny green eyes and felt gratitude welling in him. “I’m obliged, Sprout,” he said, using his old nickname for her.
She blushed again and pushed back a lock of frizzy hair that had fallen across one eye. “There’s no obligation, Will. You know that.”
For a moment, he stared at her, rapt by those eyes of hers. He could almost swear there was something different-looking about Paulie—besides the obvious change in her getup. Yet in spite of the shambles her hair was in, it was the same light brown color. Her eyes were the same lively pools. She was still skinny, and still had freckles galore, too. Yet, when taken all together, she seemed...different More frail, more vulnerable almost. He couldn’t explain it.
And then it struck him.
“Say, have you been feeling poorly?”
Paulie blinked at him, seeming to snap out of the same daze he’d been in for the past few minutes. “What?”
He shrugged. “You look different somehow,” he remarked. “I thought maybe you had been sick.”
“Sick!” she cried, sounding offended.
He stared at her quizzically. “What the beck’s gotten into you, Paulie? You didn’t used to be this prickly unless I commented on that freckle crop of yours.”
“I don’t have that many freckles,” she shot back heatedly. “Never did.”
“Ha!” He laughed. “Knit them together and you’d have skin as brown as an overripe berry.”
Her face turned a fiery red. “Why you—”
Before she could explode, and before he had a chance to elaborate on his remark, bootsteps were heard coming up the Dry Wallow’s porch. Paulie was the first to look up to see who their visitor was.
From the look of horror on her face, Will was half expecting Night Bird himself. But when he turned, he found himself staring at someone even more surprising. Oat Murphy.
Oat’s expression was even more hangdog than usual. Will felt a pang of anger rise sharply in his breast. What did that old man have to be sad about?
Paulie was a bit more generous. “Land’s sake, Oat. What’s the matter with you? You look like you just lost your best friend!”
Slowly, the grizzled ex-whiskey trader looked from one to the other of them. His droopy eyes were bloodshot and edgy, and his shoulders slumped even more than usual. Even his gray beard seemed to droop.
“Ain’t my best friend I lost,” he said in his gruff rasp of a voice. “It’s my wife.”
