Maggie And The Maverick. Laurie Grant

you can tell her that if she’s willing—” He was about to say that he’d take her back.

      “Mr. Devlin,” the old woman interrupted, “you don’t understand. Cecilia ain’t gonna recover. Her back was crushed in the accident. She’s paralyzed—cain’t move from her waist down. She don’t hardly eat, and she gets weaker every day. She ain’t gonna make old bones, Mr. Devlin. The only way she’s gonna leave Prentice—” she glanced around, to make sure the boy was still entranced with the dog “—is by dyin’. And I don’t reckon it’s gonna be too long. She jest seemed t’lose what little will to live she had left when Prentice said the boy had to go.”

      Garrick felt as if he were in the middle of a nightmare. This couldn’t be happening!

      “But she wrote me that she was coming herself!” he protested. “She didn’t say anything about a child!”

      The old woman sighed. “Mebbe she thought you wouldn’t take the boy iffen you’d knowed he was comin’, an’ mebbe she thought you wouldn’t turn him away once you seen your son’s face.”

      Just this morning Garrick had been full of nervous but happy anticipation at seeing Cecilia again—and now she was dying?

      “I—I’ve got to go to her—see her,” he mumbled, looking wildly about for the stagecoach driver, hoping the stage was going directly back to Houston. He’d be on it if it was, never mind that he’d be leaving without a word to his family and with nothing more than the shirt on his back.

      Martha Purdy reached out a hand, as if she knew he wanted to go find the driver.

      “She don’t want you to come, Mr. Devlin. She told me to tell you that, iffen you was to say somethin’ about comin’. She don’t want you to see her like that”

      He stared at her, and she looked him right in the eye. “I’m tellin’ the truth, Mr. Devlin. Please don’t go all that way fer nothin’.”

      He nodded, feeling cold all over despite the bright sunlight. “You’ll stay…for a while? Just till the boy gets. accustomed to me?”

      “I can stay for a coupla days, and that’s only ‘cos the stage won’t be back this way till then,” the old woman told him. “Sooner I get back, the better. Prentice said he’d take care a’ Cecilia till I got back, but that man don’t know nothin’ about nursin’. He’ll forget to turn her, to make her eat.”

      The image her words engendered, of Cecilia lying helpless on her bed, made Garrick close his eyes in horror. And she didn’t even want him to help her. “All right. I—I’ll get the wagon.”

      Again the woman laid a restraining hand on his wrist, studying Garrick. “Ya know, he does kinda favor you, Mr. Devlin. His hair’s lighter’n yourn, but the eyes—oh, yes, he’s your boy, all right. Just look at him.”

      She bent over and called, “Johnny, tell the doggie byebye and come say hello to Mr. Devlin.”

      Garrick watched as the boy gave the dog a last caress and obediently came back to the old woman. He was thin as smoke. Garrick knew his mother would say he needed “feedin’ up.”

      “Johnny, this is Mr. Devlin. Turns out he’s yore real papa, and he wants to meet you. Don’t worry, he don’t bite.”

      The child jerked around, visibly trembling. “How kin he be my papa if my papa’s at home?” he piped in a childish treble.

      It was possible. The boy could be his son, Garrick realized, staring at eyes that were as blue as his own. The lad’s hair was lighter, but then, his mother was a blonde, so maybe that affected such things. But it was the mouth that made Garrick think maybe the letter hadn’t been a pack of lies, after all. The boy had sensed he couldn’t be sure of his welcome, and to Garrick, the stubborn set of his lips was like looking at his own mouth in the mirror.

      Garrick knew he should kneel down, so that he wasn’t staring at the child from such an intimidating height, but although kneeling was possible with his Hanger leg, it was awkward at best. And he’d just as soon not frighten the boy any more than he already was.

      “There was a mistake, Johnny. Everyone thought William Prentice was your papa, but this letter tells me I am,” he said slowly, nodding toward the refolded paper. “Your mama wrote it, and in it she asks me to look after you for a while, till she’s feelin’ better. I didn’t know I had a little boy till I read that letter, you know.”

      “You didn’t?” The boy’s eyes grew rounder. “Why?”

      Lord, what was he to say to that? “I don’t know, Johnny,” he said. “But I’m happy to meet you, and I’ll take good care of you, all right?”

      Transferring his cane to his other hand, he extended his right hand to the boy.

      The boy seemed to see the cane for the first time. He stared at it, then up into Garrick’s face, and seemed to come to a decision.

      He dived into the old woman’s skirts. “I want my mama!”

      Garrick felt his face flame. He hadn’t yet decided if he believed the boy was his son, but it was clear Johnny wanted nothing to do with him. Yet he could hardly turn away and leave him and the old woman to their own devices!

      “Aw, don’t pay that no mind,” the old woman said calmly. “He’ll get over it. He’s plumb wore out from th’ long trip in that rattletrap box,” she added, nodding her head toward the stagecoach. “We’ve had our bones about shook outa our body. A good meal and a good night’s sleep and he’ll be right as rain in th’ mornin’.”

      Garrick sighed. “We’d best be getting on out to the farm, then. My wagon’s just down the street.”

      But the old woman wasn’t moving. “Mister, that little boy is hungry and thirsty. He’d do a lot better if he had some dinner now,” she added, with a meaningful glance at the hotel. “It’s been a long time since we et breakfast.”

      Garrick lifted his eyes from the child’s back, suspecting Martha Purdy was thinking of her own stomach rather than the boy’s. Fortunately, he had been planning to take Cecilia into the hotel for dinner, so he had some money with him. He hoped he had enough left to pay for the woman’s ticket home, if Prentice hadn’t given her return fare.

      “All right, ma’am, we’ll eat in there,” he said, gesturing toward the hotel door.

       Chapter Two

      “She sent your son all the way from Houston with that woman, instead of coming herself?” Sarah Devlin cried. She watched out the window as the boy, accompanied by Garrick’s sister, Annie, his sister-in-law Mercy and Martha Purdy, discovered the cat’s latest litter of kittens. “Why, the nerve of that.that—”

      “Hold on, Mother. I haven’t told you everything yet,” Garrick said, rubbing his eyes wearily. He hadn’t slept well last night, tormented by phantom pains from his leg and the buzzing questions that refused to leave his brain. Then, just as he’d finally dropped off, the boy had awoken screaming in his room down the hall. Garrick had heard the old woman soothe him, and in a few moments, the crying had stopped.

      Quickly he told Sarah Devlin about Cecilia’s bigamous marriage in Houston, and the carriage accident that had left her paralyzed and likely to die of her injuries soon. He also told her about Cecilia’s wish that he not come to see her.

      “Lord Jesus, have mercy,” Sarah Devlin breathed, her hand to her mouth. “That poor, misguided girl…your poor little boy…”

      “Mama, I’m not at all sure he’s my son,” Garrick warned.

      Sarah Devlin’s jaw dropped. “Why, Garrick, of course he is—anyone with eyes can see he