Chapter Four

Milo

Harper stays true to his word over the next three days of uneventful travel. He does nothing more to alarm me and is respectful, though not cowed. I enjoy the wry sense of humor he lets loose from time to time, a sort of battered witticism. For the most part, he stays quiet and seems to have a contemplative nature. In fact, he rarely speaks unless I ask him something first, or we are discussing how to make the Huddleston job work. A heavy weight presses down on him, it is easy to see, and often he has a far off, hunted look about him. It is plain that the horizon beckons him. Instead of talking, he stays tuned in to the horse he sits like he was born to, or soaking in the scenery as though he was blind and is suddenly gifted with sight.

The country sure gets prettier the further north we travel. And the temperature cools. I imagine that it must be nothing short of spectacular to see trees, green grass, and water after staring at white rock, dirt, and iron bars for months on end. He falls into a dead sleep at night just as soon as he hits the bedroll like he is catching up on eight months worth of sleepless nights. Every meal we eat, he wolfs down, and our supplies start to run low prematurely, so we make them stretch toward the end. I am anxious to get the man home and fatten him up a little with some of Sue's good cooking. He is as thin as a strip of rawhide, though packed with muscle.

I own a small spread of land, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in quality. It is a pretty place, with a creek flowing right through my front yard. The grass is good for grazing, and I run a few head of cattle, but not many. I am away far too often as a marshall to expand any further, although I do hope to retire as a lawman soon. My bones are getting tired of carrying my heavy body all over creation. The bad men that I bring to justice seem to get meaner and nastier, too. Maybe that is why I am such a bleeding heart for this Harper. Minus the war, I've been a lawman for over half the years of my life, and I know how to read a man. Harper is solid. He just needs his feet redirected and a little help getting on the path to being the upright and good kind of man that I know he is. Too many rough breaks and hard knocks have come his way in twenty-one years, and I am sure I don't even know the half of it.

I have a hired hand that stays on while I am away. He is an old-timer and a fellow I deeply trust to run the place in my absence and as protection for Sue. Although, my woman would argue that she can defend herself as well as any man, and 'thank you very much,' she would add if questioned on the matter. She is handy with a rifle and a handgun and as tough as nails, despite the tremors that run through her at times. I pity the soul of anyone who might ever end up staring down the business side of the double-barrel she keeps propped inside our door. I find myself strangely anxious to introduce Harper to her. Sue, that is, not the shotgun. I think the two of them will get along just fine. And the young man can sure stand for something else that Sue is very good at. Although the Lord Above never saw fit to grant us children, she is good at mothering. After all of the rough living, he needs a healthy dose of that particular gift she has, I think, especially before I send him into the wolve's den in a few short days. I am starting to feel pretty guilty and uneasy about having to do that now.

My ranch is three miles from a small town called Stillwater, a dot on the map, really. But it is a good place, with good folks making it their home. And the last few times I have had to leave, Sue has stayed with friends there. Huddleston's gang is too much of a threat, even this far west of Forest Hill, for her to stay home in my absence. I am getting back a day later than planned, and I am anxious because I am certain she is home now, waiting for me.

"This is your place, Milo?" Harper asks, surprising me out of my reverie. I am not accustomed to him speaking out of the blue. We have almost reached the swinging gate that has The Malone Ranch etched on a small painted sign.

"It is," I answer, and I feel a little puff in my chest to show it off.

He lets out a low whistle.

He hasn't even seen the best part yet… that would be my wife. Second, to that is the house. I give Red a little spur after we have gone through the gate.

"Dadgum," he marvels with his hat tipped back, about fifteen minutes down the winding road leading in.

Dadgum is right. I have a nice little log home, see. Sue plants flowers all around the front and up the earthen path that leads from the barn. She has a nice big garden, too, off to the side of the house. A few rows of corn look green and proud at one end. I can even see the bright pop of juicy red tomatoes from here. The creek that cuts through the front yard is a ribbon of shimmery silver meandering through the green grass. There are fish in there, none of them too big, but slippery and enticing to wile away the hours trying to catch, pole in hand. A couple of craggy cottonwoods stand tall and lordly behind the place, and the whole thing looks like paradise because it is.

I catch sight of a few of my cattle. I get a real satisfied feeling at how fat and happy they look.

Shep, that's my dog. He is as quick as a streak of lightning and as skilled as any seasoned cowboy at wrangling cattle. I hear him yip, and now he is tearing toward us in a blaze of black and white fur.

But what is making my heart swell to twice its size is the sight of Sue with a hand raised in greeting, standing on our front porch.

I glance over at Harper, and where he had looked awed and enraptured minutes ago, he now looks as nervous as a groom on his wedding day. I told him he would meet my wife, but it seems the warning did little to prepare him.

"I promise she doesn't bite," I say, trying to read his mind and his emotions.

"No, sir, she don't look like she does," he says with a bit of a smile and eyes that cut toward me. "This place is really sumthin'. Beats the heck outta me why you'd be willing to leave it for marshaling, nor to come after a no'account gunhawk, freefallin' jailbird like me." He ends on a sad, self-effacing note.

I can tell he is feeling bad, and maybe the beauty of the place is making him feel like his life is worthless; I'm not sure, but now I am feeling a little down myself.

I rein back and come to a stop. He follows suit because he has been cautious about following my lead to the letter since that first escapade where I put the fear of God in him. And right now, to him, that is the same as the threat of going back to prison.

"Jess," I urge. "You have a wide streak of good inside. I can see it. Though, the wildness in you and the cards you've drawn got a nose-length ahead of all that good. It will catch back up, and things will level out. You are a fine man, Jess. Don't think any different. In another year, you're going to have all of this behind you and can start over, make a good life. I am getting old, son. It has taken me a lifetime and a good woman by my side to build up to having a place like this. And trust me, I made my own mistakes along the way, getting here."

By the look on his face, he is on the edge of making a spiteful remark at my preaching.

"I aint interested in hearin' your song and dance, Marshall," he cracks out.

It is the first heated remark he has made since our first meeting. He regrets the caustic remark instantly, I can see.

"Jess, bitterness is like an open sore," I warn, "Don't let it take hold of you and fester."

I think he realizes the defiance that rises in him is just a shield he puts up to protect his inner wounds. And he sure has plenty of those. The man works that small muscle in his jaw while I stare him down.

"Sorry, Milo," he gives me a sincere look. "It weren't right'a me to jump down yer throat just now."

I reply with a nod, still looking at him sharp and steady.

"What're we waitin' for? You've been actin' like a barn sour horse 'til just now. Thought you were anxious to get home?" He says, but it comes out friendly. It seems that he is putting effort into setting aside his testiness.

Shep reaches us then, beside himself with excitement, bouncing around joyfully like the happy pup he is.

"I'll stay back for a minute, Milo, if it's alright. Get to know your dog here a little, so's you can have a minute with yer wife," Harper buys himself a few minutes alone, already dismounting.

I nod.

"And, Milo, thanks for them kind words and for bringing me to your home, lettin' me meet yer wife. You ain't obligated to do none'a that. I'm wanting you to know I appreciate it."

Shep is jumping all over him and receiving enthusiastic petting in return, but Harper turns up his head at me with something like a woebegone face.

"And about them kind words you said. I'm trying to make it so's I can accept 'em as truth. They're hard for me to swallow, though, 'cause I for dang sure don't feel worthy of 'em."

I'm itching to get down to Sue and wrap my arms around her, but Harper is pulling at my free-dangling heartstrings again.

"You are more than worthy of those things I said, Jess. And I think you will prove that to yourself by the time this is all over." My words came out a bushel of lame, but I sure meant them. "Come on down whenever you are ready, okay?"

"Sure," he says in that low grind of his. "Me and the dog here have lots to talk about."

And indeed they do; it seems because Shep likes him so much that Midnight starts prancing around, showing out, tossing her black locks, acting like she's jealous of the collie getting all of that attention from her man. I smile at the sight and head down the hill.

Sue meets me as I pull up in the yard, hugging me tight as a cockleburr just as soon as I dismount. Her head barely reaches my chest, and from where it rests, I am sure she can hear the steady pump of my full heart. I bend down to kiss the top of her silver-streaked hair. She smells like everything I love most in this world.

"Hello, stranger," she smiles up at me with brown eyes and crow's feet.

"Hello, yourself, sweetheart."

I think I miss her more and more each time I leave. It won't be long before I cannot make myself part ways with her anymore.

We kiss with the passion of newlyweds, and I am downright thankful that Harper had the foresight to hold back.

"Bringing home another stray, my love?" She queries laughingly. It is said to tease me, though, because she is well-aware I planned to bring the man home.

I take a minute to drink in the sight of her face, wrinkles and all, with my huge hands cupped gently around it. "I love you, Sue," I say and mean it from top to bottom of my lumbering 6' 5" frame. So the way I see it, that is a whole lot of love.

"I know," she says. "And I love you."

I can hear Harper hoofing it on foot down the hill, leading the horse, and I turn to watch. As is his custom when a saddle empties, Shep has leaped onto Midnight's back and is swaying to the mare's rhythm perched up there, riding in the saddle like a prince surveying his kingdom.

Sue looses her throaty laugh at the trio coming our way.

"It seems you have some competition, Milo. Shep must like our new friend. He has never not followed in at your heels, love."

"He is damaged goods, Sue," I say quickly and solemnly because Harper is close now. She is familiar with his story, at least until the point I left to fetch him.

"I imagine so," she replies compassionately. "Did your instincts prove correct? He is a decent man?"

"I would stake my life on it. He has character, Sue, a lot of it. But he sure has had some rough breaks." I toy with a strand of her hair. "He is nervous as all-get-out to meet you."

"And I suppose that's because you told him I bite," she teases and pinches my roll of flesh that hangs like a thick lip over the belt that keeps my britches from drifting the way gravity, and a shapeless back-end want them to.

Before I can answer, she works herself loose from me and begins to cross the distance to the smaller, much more handsome man who has almost reached us now.

Harper eases to a stop, and Shep, still perched in the saddle, looks disappointed that his free ride has come to a halt.

Sue has a lame left foot, and it drags a little with each step taken. Her hands do not work correctly, either, but I think they do twice the work, yet, they are gentler than the healthy hands of anyone else. She has been this way since birth, and doctors have diagnosed her as having cerebral palsy. To the eyes of another, Sue is not an attractive woman. Her body is not thin nor well proportioned. Neither is she graceful, and her face is not arranged in a way that might be defined as classically beautiful. But Sue is my Helen of Troy. She is the most beautiful woman in the world. My love for her spans the breadth and width of this great state and then some.

Harper grabs the hat from his head, and if he is surprised by Sue's disability, he does not show it. I never mentioned it to him.

"Ma'am," he says, and if he was nervous before, it is not evident now because he gives her a confident, boyishly charming smile. It disguises the darkness that attaches itself to him like the black clothes of a mourner.

"Jess, it is so wonderful to meet you. Welcome to our home. Call me Sue, please." She reaches up a twisted hand and places it softly on his cheek as though he is an old friend. "You certainly are a handsome young man."

That shakes him: either the touch, the welcome, or the compliment, and he must have just been doing a good job at hiding the nervousness because he stumbles all over himself next. "Yes, ma'am," he says, "I mean, no ma'am…I...uh…that is, thank you, Mizz Malone… is what I'm tryin' to say."

"Sue," she reminds with a laugh in her voice and slips her arm through his to lead him toward me.

"You brought home a charmer, Milo. And a hungry one, too." She looks up at him. "By the looks of you, anyway, young Mr. Harper. You haven't much meat on your bones, have you? Why, you are just about thin enough to take a bath in a shotgun barrel."

He gives a little amused smile at that.

"Maybe I can remedy some of that," Sue continues. "Supper is ready, just as soon as the two of you are ready to eat."

A sinking sun lights the backside of downy rolls of clouds, and the sky looks something like a blueberry cobbler as the two of us put up the horses, then wash for supper. We are both starving, and the smells coming from the kitchen do nothing to ease the rumblings of our stomachs.

"Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses…" I start the meal with prayer, and I wonder how long if ever, it has been since Harper sat down at a real kitchen table and enjoyed a delicious, home-cooked meal. He seems so out of place and is finding it hard to relax. Until he starts in with the food, that is. And then he eats with reckless abandon, putting away more than it seems should fit inside his shrunken middle.

Sue's expression alternates between concern and pleasure as she watches the young man devour the heaping helpings. She has made an apple pie for dessert, and after he finishes a third piece, he finally looks up from his plate to find both of us staring a little wide-eyed.

"Son, you eat anymore, and Sue and I are going to have to carry you to your bedroll tonight."

He gives a sheepish grin, casts his gaze to the red-white squares of the tablecloth, and pushes the crumb-less plate aside, clearly embarrassed.

I feel a little bad about my teasing. "Eat as much as you want," I smile encouragingly, "No extra charge."

"Didn't mean to chow down like I was raised in a barn," he says abashedly with his blues hidden beneath dark eyelashes that remind me of a newborn calf's long, curled fringe. "Couldn't help myself, though. Don't know that I've tasted food as can hold a candle to your cookin', Mizz Sue."

He doesn't even mention that he has been eating prison food for months.

"Just, Sue, Jess, and you have no idea how much it pleases me to see you enjoy my cooking." She stands and moves to clear the table. "I'll take your plate if you are finished."

At that, he springs from his seat and starts gathering the dishes. "Ma'am, it'd please me to thank you for this fine meal by doing the clearing and the cleaning," he says, and hidden from her, he darts what I can only describe as a flicker of a mischievous smile at me. "Figure you two could use some time alone."

Sue begins to protest, but I take her worn hand, with its bent, calloused fingers, and say, "Will you let him, Sue?"

And that is how my wife and I find ourselves in our rockers on the front porch, with her hand in mine, listening to the crickets, the banging of pots and pans in the kitchen, and marveling at the stars in the vast Texas sky.