“I think we’re going to have some cold ham for supper, Noah, if that’s alright with you and Mr. McQuade. It’s just too darn hot to cook today.”
Callie sat beside Noah on the buckboard seat as he easily guided the horse and wagon toward home. Not able to wear her Stetson with a dress and her hair up, the widow had succumbed to holding a parasol, frippery she usually didn’t bother to use. She tilted the yellow and white confection so that it would shade the youth’s face as well. He glanced at her under his hat, smiling.
“Ma’am, that sounds right heavenly. A heck of a lot better than what I make. You shoulda seen Mr. McQuade’s face, eatin’ my sorry oatmeal this morning! Looked like he was chewin’ a bushel full of lemons, the way his mouth was screwed up!” Noah laughed uproariously at the memory, causing Miz West to join in at just imagining what the usually stoic gunfighter looked like swallowing his lumpy breakfast.
When she was through with the giggles, Callie sobered enough to comment innocently, “I was so surprised to see Mr. McQuade in church today. He doesn’t seem like the type to revere God.” No way could she mention their late-night tete-a-tete. It hadn’t been proper for the two of them to be together last night on the porch, with her in her nightgown and him in an obvious state of undress. But the gunfighter’s attitude had needed her care; she wouldn’t change her behavior one whit. The youth just didn’t need to know.
“Well, Ma’am, I did kinda nudge him into going this morning. He looked sorta lonely, sitting at the breakfast table eatin’ that slop.” The boy grinned again at the thought of the gunfighter ingesting the lumpy oatmeal.
“I’m glad you did, Noah. That man needs some divine intervention. No one realizes what a kind soul Mr. McQuade really is.”
Noah canted a disbelieving, sideways look at the widow. Kind? That wouldn’t be how he would describe the gunslinger! Patient, smart, quiet, and fast; those were words he equated with McQuade. But, kind?—
And then the companionable atmosphere was shattered; shattered by a single gunshot from somewhere behind their wagon. It echoed down the trail toward them, startling a flock of birds out of the brush and fading immediately, interrupting all conscious thoughts.
Noah pulled up the horse instantly, tying the reins around the brake and yanking out the rifle he’d stowed down beside his left leg. Callie West did the same, grabbing her shotgun and turning in her seat to look the way they’d come.
“Get down, Miz West! Now!”
Although Callie hunched over, she still pointed her shotgun over the seat back, eyes darting left and right, the discarded parasol rolling lazily in the bed of the wagon.
“Miz Callie, I can’t protect you if you don’t listen!”
“Hush, Noah! There’re no more shots.”
Both youth and woman remained motionless, listening for sounds of hoof beats, shouts, or more shots. Nothing.
After several tense minutes, Callie and Noah looked at each other, thinking the same thing.
“Do you think it was Mr. McQuade?” The boy asked, looking back down the dirt trail as if trying to conjure the gunfighter.
Callie glanced at Noah.
“Who else could it be? Maybe he shot a rabbit, or a, a rattlesnake.”
They both knew they didn’t believe either scenario.
“That was a rifle shot, Ma’am. Mr. McQuade doesn’t carry a rifle.”
Callie nodded, and then nudged the boy.
“Turn the wagon around, Noah. We won’t know till we get there.”
Noah sat still, his opinion warring with his boss’s. Finally he spoke.
“I think I should take you home and come back myself, Ma’am. Mr. McQuade asked me to take care of you, Miz Ca—“
Of course Callie rounded on him like a spitting cat.
“He is not in charge of my well-being, Noah Lawson! Now, turn this wagon around or I’ll just jump out and walk!”
“Yes, Ma’am!” Glad to have the decision-making taken out of his hands, though still puffed up with responsibility, Noah gee’d the horse around and whipped it into a trot. They covered ground quickly and silently, neither person wanting to hazard a guess as to what they might find over the next hillock. But already buzzards had gathered in the sky ahead, wheeling and circling. Callie shivered, even in the midday heat. Everyone knew what buzzards meant.
“Hurry up, Noah,” she urged, though the boy didn’t need encouragement to do so. He clucked to the horse to speed it up.
And then they topped the rise and there was no more guesswork involved. At the bottom of the hill, in the middle of the road, stood Sonny McQuade’s horse, placidly chewing scrub grass next to a lump in the dirt. A body-size lump.
“Oh, my Lord! It’s him!” Callie gasped, trying to rise from the bouncing seat to see better, holding onto the side of the wagon as she did so.
“Stay put, Ma’am!” Noah barked, leaning forward to coax more speed from the gelding in the traces. He pulled the horse up sharply in the road, close enough that McQuade’s mount snorted and tossed its head, though it remained by its fallen master.
Callie was out of the wagon like a shot, clambering down and darting over to the gunfighter’s body where it lay so still. A spreading bloom of blood covered his shirt front, causing the widow to cry out in alarm as she dropped to her knees beside the man.
“Oh, no! No, no, no! Please Lord, don’t do this to him! Not him; not after the changes he’s tried to make! He deserves a second chance!” On her knees in the dirt, with the noonday sun glaring down on them, Callie reached out a shaking hand to touch Sonny’s face oh, so gently. All the while she prayed aloud to a God who’d ignored her pleas during her marriage, but who had seen fit to release her from the monster she’d married in a very final way. For that reason alone, Callie had made her peace with the good Lord some time ago. But she found herself calling on His intervention once again, in the middle of this south Texas dirt road, at the behest of one of His lowliest: a killer by trade.
Sonny’s face was hot to the touch, tilted up to the sun as it was and his hat tumbled beside him, but he did not move. Callie couldn’t tell if he was alive or not. Apparently the vultures were hopeful he wasn’t, for they continued to circle and wheel above, with more in their midst. Noah knelt beside Callie, bending over the gunfighter’s face and putting an ear close to the fallen man’s lips. He and the widow each held their breath. Seconds ticked by. At last Noah looked up at Callie, eyes bright.
“He’s breathing, Ma’am! He’s alive!”
They hugged each other briefly over the unconscious McQuade, and then Callie reached for the gunfighter’s shirt, intent on seeing the bloody wound. As she attempted to pull it away from his body, the gunslinger’s hand rose from the dirt swiftly and manacled itself around her wrist, grasping tight enough to cause Callie to cry out in surprise. Her first reaction was to pull back, but common sense warned the widow not to do anything that might harm McQuade, so she remained in his grip. As Callie stared down into the gunfighter’s face, with Noah waiting in shock as well, they both noticed when Sonny slowly raised his eyelids, revealing pain-filled, glassy eyes. Those hypnotizing eyes, now foggy with torment, latched onto Callie’s countenance, as his parched lips begin to move in a whisper. The widow leaned in closer in order to hear.
