Maggie And The Maverick. Laurie Grant

playing about that arrogant mouth.

      “Well, perhaps a little,” she admitted, “but I really am eager to get this done, just as I promised. Perhaps I will eat something before we start running off copies.” She’d need some nourishment before lifting those heavy trays of type and repeatedly pulling back the devil’s tail—the lever that rolled the bed of type under the platen.

      “Then I shall have to go over to the hotel and purchase something for both of us to eat, or no doubt I’d return to find you swooned on top of the press,” he taunted her in that molasses drawl of his.

      “It’s not necessary.”

      “Certainly it is. I promised Jovita I would feed you, and so I shall. I, Miss Harper, do not prevaricate. I’ll return in a few minutes.” With that, he made his way to the door and went out.

       Chapter Six

      Garrick peered at his pocket watch, willed to him as the eldest Devlin son by his father. It was 3:00 a.m.

      “One hundred copies,” he murmured as Margaret Harper pulled the last one off of the press. “I believe that will be enough for our first edition, Miss Harper, so I’ll bid you good-night.”

      She stared back at him as if dazed, her green eyes dull with fatigue, her shoulders slumping slightly, and he knew a moment’s shame for having worked her so hard on the same day she had arrived on the stage. As soon as he’d finished writing the copy, he’d helped with as much of the work as he could, and bad been shocked by how heavy the typeset pages were once the tin letters were locked together. Why, they must weigh a good thirty pounds each, and Miss Harper hadn’t even mentioned it, let alone batted her eyelashes at him and praised his manly strength the way Cecilia used to do when she wanted something heavy toted for her.

      Then, after some quick instruction by Miss Harper, he’d done the tedious “pulling of the devil’s tail” and run off copies of the Gazette while she belatedly ate her supper. His right shoulder throbbed as a result, and he marveled that she, of much slighter build, had yet to utter a first complaint.

      Perhaps the Yankees were built of sterner stuff than he’d imagined. “You’ve worked very hard today, Miss Harper. That is to be commended,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for that story, of course, we needn’t have been in such a hurry, but this information can’t wait. Naturally I shan’t expect such a frantic pace out of you normally.”

      He saw her chin go up again, the shoulders straighten and the light of battle rekindle those green eyes.

      “Nonsense, Mr. Devlin,” she said briskly. “Every good newspaperman—or woman—thrives on the excitement of getting such a big story to its readers. Don’t fear you have to spare me just because I’m a woman. I’m used to working as hard as any man.”

      He knew a grudging admiration for her stubbornness. Fine—if she wouldn’t complain, he’d be damned if he’d let on how much he hurt.

      “Well and good, Miss Harper, but surely you had better retire for the night. It will be morning before you know it, and we’ll need to start planning the next edition.”

      “Oh…oh, of course,” she murmured, as she turned and walked toward the stairs. “Good night, sir.”

      She hesitated as she passed the remains of their hurried supper lying on the table, the grease-stained brown paper wrapping and a piece of crust from a steak sandwich. “I-I’ll just clean this up before I go upstairs, Mr. Devlin.”

      “Never mind, Miss Harper, I’ll dispose of it,” he said firmly.

      “Very well. Good night, then, Mr. Devlin.” He heard her trudge up the stairs, pull the creaky door open—he’d have to oil that hinge, he thought—and shut the door quietly behind her. A moment later an audible click announced that she’d locked the door from the inside.

      He turned and surveyed the pristine black-and-white stack of papers. The ink still gleamed wetly on the top copy. Each one was a big sheet of paper folded in half, forming four pages filled top to bottom with his eloquent reporting of the story from Austin and his opinions about it. In just hours the townspeople would eagerly snatch copies from that stack, and his career as the respected editor of the Gillespie Springs Gazette would officially begin.

      The moment seemed incomplete to Garrick. If his new employee had been a man, as he’d been expecting, he would have invited him to share in a celebratory glass of whiskey. He’d stashed a bottle in his desk for just such an occasion as this, the completion of the very first issue of the town’s first newspaper. But of course one did not invite a lady—or even a presumptuous Yankee woman such as Margaret Harper—to share a drink.

      The only sort of female who drank liquor was a sporting woman, and he did not associate with those, even when his long-frustrated sexual needs clamored for satisfaction. No, he wouldn’t pay for what passed as loving, knowing that if he did find a woman who would provide such services to a cripple, she’d either charge him double or do it out of pity, then laugh about it later with her sisters in the oldest profession.

      There was no help for it—he’d have to drink alone, he mused, retrieving the whiskey bottle and a glass from the desk drawer and pouring himself a two-finger measure. The amber liquid burned a fiery path down his throat and hit his stomach like a glowing ember.

      The sole of his right foot and his lower calf had begun to throb hours ago, just as they always did when he’d done too much. Now he was exhausted and could no longer ignore the pain to his shoulder throbbing in counterpoint, even with the whiskey warming his stomach. Absentminded with fatigue, he reached down with his fingers to massage his leg, only to recoil when his hand met the hardness of wood instead of the softness of flesh and bone.

      Damn it all to hell, when was he going to stop having pain in a limb that hadn’t been there for over three years? His eyes darted to the top of the stairs, afraid that Miss Harper had managed to silently creep back out onto the stairway and witness the way the phantom pains had made a fool of him again, but his eyes found only lamplit shadows up there.

      Relieved, he gulped the rest of the whiskey, and after placing the glass and bottle back into the desk drawer, he grabbed four Gazettes off the top of the stack to take home. He’d give one to Jovita, one to Johnny—he smiled as he pictured his son pretending to “read” it—send one to his mother and keep one for posterity. He set another one aside, knowing Cal would come directly here for his copy.

      Garrick let himself out into the cool spring night. Suddenly he couldn’t wait to reach his rented house, which stood over on South Street behind the bank. In the privacy of his own room, he could pull off the damned wooden leg that daily rubbed the flesh of what was left of his upper leg until the end of stump was irritated raw, sometimes even streaked with dried blood. Tonight would be one of those times, he guessed, for he’d been on his feet far too long today. When he sponged away the dark, dried blood, the stump would burn as if the cloth were made of nettles instead of cotton, and he’d have to set his teeth against the pain so that he wouldn’t wake Johnny and Jovita, sleeping in the other rooms.

      Sometimes removing his wooden leg and washing the stump was not enough to soothe the pain, and he’d have to reach to the bottom of the brass-bound trunk in which he kept his old uniform and firearms for the bottle of laudanum he kept hidden there. But he hated the sense of weakness he felt after drinking from that bottle. And he knew that once he slept after sipping the liquid tincture of opium, his dreams would be nightmares, full of horrifying sounds and the faces of the dead. He’d be even more afraid to use the drug now that he knew of Cecilia’s death. He didn’t want to see the ghost of his dead wife floating toward him as he slept, her golden tresses dull with mold.

      He remembered seeing what laudanum had done to other men, too, turning them into helpless, sniveling addicts for the rest of their miserable lives. Maybe he was better off not using it, and just putting up with the pain,