Maggie And The Maverick. Laurie Grant

How am I to trust the word of a woman like that?”

      “He’s yours, I’m tellin’ you. And you can’t turn your own son away,” Sarah Devlin said.

      Garrick sighed. His suspicion that Cecilia had lied to him about Johnny’s paternity had already begun to waver as he’d observed the boy closely over the past twenty-four hours. It wasn’t just the color of his eyes, but things he did—little things, like the way he walked, or the way he slept with the pillow turned lengthwise against his face and chest—that convinced Garrick; they were pure Devlin, and nothing like Cecilia. And now, in the face of his mother’s certainty, he began to think that Johnny was indeed his.

      He sighed. “No, I didn’t intend to. But the boy’s scared of me. I can’t get him to come within three feet. And who could blame him?” he added, glaring down at his artificial leg, which, covered by his trousers and shoe, looked identical to the other. “I walk like a drunken sailor.”

      “Son, just give it some time,” suggested his mother. “He’ll warm up to you. He won’t think about your wooden leg if you act as if it’s nothing unusual.”

      Easy for you to say, Garrick thought, but just then his mother, standing by the window, said, “Look yonder. Here comes little Johnny carryin’ a kitten. You tell him he can keep it if he wants to—it’s old enough to be weaned.”

      Sure enough, flanked by Mercy, Annie and Martha, Johnny was coming toward the house, carrying a black ball of fur with all the care a three-year-old was capable of. As the trio came through the door, Garrick could plainly hear the kitten’s mews.

      He saw the child look uncertainly at Annie and then at Mercy.

      “Johnny, remember, you have something to ask your papa,” Mercy murmured, nodding toward Garrick.

      Johnny looked pale but determined. “P-Papa, I want this kitty. Please?”

      Garrick found he had been holding his breath and had to catch it again before replying. The boy—his son—had called him Papa. He felt as if the sun had just come out from behind the clouds after years of gloomy days. He felt tears sting his eyes, and blinked, sure it would only confuse the boy to see him cry. He certainly didn’t want the other adults to see it.

      “I reckon so, Johnny,” he said. The boy smiled shyly. Moved even more by the gift of that smile, Garrick felt his own lips curve upward. Smiling felt almost foreign to him, as if it had been years since he’d last done it. He added, “What’re you gonna name it?”

      

      “I don’t know how those Conservative Republicans can even claim to be Southerners,” Garrick muttered, crumpling the week-old Austin newspaper in disgust. Then, belatedly remembering the presence of his son, he looked around, but Johnny had just chased his kitten out of the room. “They’re Unionists and always have been, even during the war! Tarnation, they might as well burn Texas to the ground now, ‘cause there’s not going to be anything left to bury once the carpetbaggers and scalawags are done plundering.”

      “If we elect a Republican government, maybe Texas will get readmitted to the Union that much quicker,” his brother Cal remarked. It was a week after little Johnny had arrived, and Cal and his bride, Olivia, had come for an overnight visit before leaving on a delayed wedding trip to Galveston. Garrick, Cal and the youngest Devlin brother, Sam, were arranged on chairs in the parlor while the women talked and did dishes in the kitchen.

      “Good! Maybe that’ll mean all those bluebellies occupying us like we were a conquered foreign country can go back to the rocks they crawled out from under,” Garrick growled. “Ahem! Beggin’ your pardon, brother,” he said, turning to Cal. “I imagine you’ll be sorry to see them go.”

      Cal raised an eyebrow. “Even those of us who served with the Union army aren’t happy when we see federal troops helpin’ Northern swindlers get by with wholesale robbery,” he said mildly.

      Garrick realized he’d gone a little far, and looked back at the crumpled newspaper, saying nothing for a moment. Then he changed the subject. “So there’s nothing much going on in Gillespie Springs?” he asked, looking at Cal again. “It must be pretty calm if you’re fixin’ to go away for a while.”

      Cal tipped his chair back until it rested against the wall. “Yeah, my deputy’s going to watch over things while I’m gone. I’m happy to leave that tin star at home—I’ve been looking forward to a little time at the seashore with my bride.”

      “Well, I hope you two have a fine time,” Garrick said, still feeling awkward about the way he’d talked to Cal a moment ago.

      “Whoa! Can this be our brother, Garrick the cantankerous, speaking?” teased Sam, who was sitting just beyond Cal, his long, booted legs stretched out before him. “Sounds like the little feller’s been good for you, Garrick,” he added, nodding toward Johnny, who was now trotting from room to room, pulling a strand of yarn for his kitten to chase.

      Sam always knew just how to rile him. “If ‘the little feller’ weren’t within earshot,” Garrick growled, “I’d tell you what particularly hot place you could go to, little brother. I’ve never been without family feeling.”

      Sam just grinned.

      “He’s a good-looking boy, that Johnny,” Cal said, before Sam could tease any more. “I believe he favors you, Garrick.”

      Garrick couldn’t help his pleased smile. “You think so?” Then he grew more serious, and noting the boy had followed the kitten into the kitchen, out of earshot, added, “He’s a good boy. I wish I hadn’t missed his first three years. I—I want to make it up to him, somehow. You know what I mean?”

      His brothers nodded. “You’ll do a fine job bein’ a father, Garrick,” Cal assured him, and Sam murmured in agreement.

      Garrick frowned, feeling the old familiar despair. “What kind of an example can I be, a cripple? How can he learn what a man is from watchin’ me clump around this farm? Oh, I can teach him to cipher and spell and read, but so could Annie or Mama. How’s he gonna ever look up to me, unless I make somethin’ of myself?” Despite the difficulty of moving around, he grabbed for his cane and hobbled over to the window, then stood staring out into the darkness.

      Behind him, his brothers were silent, waiting.

      “I think maybe it’s time I did somethin’ more than clump around the farm,” Garrick mused, then raised his hand when Sam started to interrupt. “Now don’t tell me that what I’m doin’ here keeps this household runnin’. You know very well Mama leaves writin’ and figurin’ chores to me so I’ll feel useful,” he said. “Cal, didn’t you tell me that banker fellow Gillespie that used to run Gillespie Springs had been just about to start a newspaper before he got put in jail?”

      “Yep, sure did,” Caleb said. “In fact, the printing press was delivered by freight wagon just the other day. It’s just sittin’ there in that vacant building across from the hotel, where Gillespie was gonna have the newspaper office. Mayor Long sure was disappointed. He was lookin’ forward to havin’ a newspaper to read. He said he reckoned that printing press belonged to the town by rights, after all that swindler Gillespie had done, so he said he’d donate it to anyone who’d start up a paper in Gillespie Springs.”

      “Any reason I couldn’t be the one?” Garrick said, still staring out the window so that he wouldn’t see the expressions of doubt he was sure were painted all over his brothers’ faces.

      Now Sam spoke up. “You? You talkin’ about bein’ the editor? I don’t know why not, big brother. You’re smart as a treeful of owls. You can argue circles around me about politics and such.”

      “Shucks, Sam, anyone can talk circles around you,” joked Cal, but he grinned to show it was all in fun. “But Sam’s right, Garrick. You’ve got a fine mind and you don’t use it for much but keepin’ the farm’s accounts paid up and writin’ letters to the editor