Maggie And The Maverick

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, he decided, even as every step that brought him closer to home became an agony in itself.

“Here’s my nickel, Garrick. Sell me a paper,” the tall fellow wearing a star on the left side of his vest and a patch over his right eye said with a grin, leaning on the counter in the Gazette’s office the next morning.

This must be Garrick’s brother Caleb, the sheriff, Maggie thought as she looked up from where she was doing the layout of a rate card for advertising in the Gazette. She saw the same lean, high-cheekboned features, though Caleb Devlin’s upper lip was graced with a dashing mustache, where Garrick’s was austerely bare. Caleb’s one good eye was of a paler hue than Garrick’s, almost a gray-blue, but both brothers possessed faces that reflected the presence of pain, past or present.

“Cal, I can’t take your money,” protested Garrick, returning the grin. “You’re my brother! I saved you a copy, gratis.”

“Aw, brother, you’re never gonna be a rich newspaperman if you keep refusing money—” the tall lawman began, and then Maggie saw him notice her.

In an instant, he swept off his broad-brimmed hat and smiled at her. “Sweeney told me about your new pressman—um, lady,” he said, speaking to his brother, a teasing glint in his eye.

“Yes…M. L. Harper was not quite as I expected him to be,” Garrick replied dryly. “Miss Harper, this is my brother, Cal Devlin.”

Maggie stepped forward, encouraged by the sheriffs warm smile, and offered her hand.

“Mr. Devlin, I’m Margaret Harper.”

He took her hand and shook it. “Miss Harper,” he murmured in that molasses-and-honey drawl that flowed from Southerners so effortlessly. “Call me Cal. Welcome to Gillespie Springs. I see you still have your head, so my big brother must not have bitten it off yet—good! Don’t let him. His bark is worse than his bite, anyway. I hear you have lots of newspaper experience, so my brother’s lucky you answered his ad. Don’t let him forget it.”

“Cal, if you’re quite finished subverting my authority over my employee,” Garrick said with heavy irony, “we have work to do here, and—”

The bell over the door tinkled again, and a dark-haired woman stepped inside, a joyous smile lighting her attractive features.

“Garrick, I just heard the newspaper was out!” she announced, coming forward to stand by Caleb’s side. “Congratulations on the start of your business!” She planted a kiss on Garrick Devlin’s cheek.

“Why, thank you, Olivia…” Garrick murmured, reddening slightly.

Maggie, still standing near her employer, felt her jaw drop for a second. Wasn’t Garrick Devlin wearing a black armband as a sign of mourning for his wife? Who was this woman?

Then Maggie saw Cal Devlin place his arm around the woman’s waist and smile down at her momentarily before turning back to Maggie.