When Henry Came Home (37 page)

             
"Yes." He loosened his grasp a little and she parted. "Is the woman all right?" he asked.

             
"She'll be fine, sir, thankya," returned the lady who was comforting her. "Ain't hurt 'cept inside." There was silence in the room. Everyone was listening, and a few got up and left in a hurry.

             
"This'll have to go to the judge in Hickory," Henry said aloud, mostly to Mary, apologetic. His eyes were far away, kind of sorrowful.

             
One of the men who had been sitting around the table with the wounded man stood up. "For my part," he said, "I ain't seen nothin'." He looked at his companions pointedly. "And neither've these here. He earned it straight through."

             
A hand reached out and took back the gun Henry had laid on the table. "Me neither," he said. He popped open the chamber and reloaded a bullet to replace the one that had been used.

             
"Get-- th-th—Doc," whined the man on the floor.

             
"He's been sent for," someone said. The sound was hollow in the room.

             
Henry looked back at Mary. "I guess I'm not too hungry," he said.

             
"No," she returned, quiet. "I guess I'm not either."

             
He put an arm around her waist. "Let's go." The only exit was the doorway they had come through, and that was past the wounded man. They walked by slow, Henry nearest, limping a little more than when they had come in. "I guess," he said, "maybe you won't be so quick to shoot a woman again."

             
The man looked up at him. "Damn you," he said, and then shrilly, "damn you!" Blood was pooling around him on the floor, and he turned back to gaze again at his mangled hand.

              They rode home in silence, Mary's arms tight around him.

             
"Hen," she said, when they were inside, "are you all right? Here, sit." He sat on the edge of the bed, and she took his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair.

             
"There was murder in his eyes," he said.

             
"I know." She sat next to him.

             
"I've—done something to a man that he will carry all his life." His voice was calm, toneless. He took a deep breath, weighing the thought, the action. "But he had murder in his eyes."

             
Her voice was a whisper. "I know." She looked up at him, pained. "Hen—do you need anything?"

             
He shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment, and took her hand. "I—I know what you think—" he said, hesitant to impose thoughts upon her. She nodded slightly. "You think it's odd I don't go weak," he said. He held out a hand, to show her. "I'm steady, and I'm not—that way." He swallowed. "Now you know what I got in me. I—would've killed him, if I had to, and still been no more shook up."

             
Mary looked at him. "Oh," she said.

             
"Are you afraid?"

             
She shook her head and frowned. "A—a little," she admitted. "But I guess I knew."

             
"Did you?"

             
"You do what's gotta be done. That frightens, a little, sometimes, no matter what. But that don't mean it's not a good thing, you doin' it." She understood that he was only frightened to do unnecessary things—like love. It made her smile, a little.

             
"Guess we oughta go on to bed, now," she said, after a time. Out the window, the sky was darkening. She stood. "You want some water?"

             
"All right."

             
When she came back from the kitchen, he had his shirt off, and she put down both glasses a moment to help him with his pants. He slid into bed and she handed him one of the glasses, taking the other herself and sipping carefully. She walked to the window and looked out, feeling her belly absently. For a moment she closed her eyes, humming.

             
"Come here," said Henry, at length. He put aside his glass, empty now. "I want to feel the baby."

             
She turned, a smile spreading across her face, and hurried to the bed. "It's not moving much tonight," she said. "Just kind of... bubbling now an then."

             
"It bubbles?" he raised an eyebrow, slightly.

             
She tilted her head and half-closed her eyes, setting her jaw. "Well, maybe. You don't know!" Shifting, she rolled onto her back and pressed his hand to her abdomen. "Now you gotta wait a minute. Close your eyes." He did so, and she smiled again because she had said it mainly so she could watch him without making him embarrassed. She breathed deeply, waiting, feeling his hand on her skin. "Mm—there," she said after a minute, and moved his hand down a little. "Feel? –Eyes closed."

             
He smiled, widely. "I feel it," he said. "What—what is it like?"

             
Mary closed her eyes. "It's like—havin' God Himself come down and sleep inside you. Like—sometimes wakin' up in the night and feelin' like maybe you'll just start laughing and never stop. I don't know how to say it so you'll understand."

             
Henry felt at once privileged and overwhelmed that he,
he,
spent every day with a thing, a woman, who could make
life.
"I've never felt like that," he said, softly. "No—" he corrected suddenly, "no, I have. I have. With you."

              In the morning when Mary woke, Henry was sitting up next to her in bed, reading. He looked up. "Good morning," he said.

             
She rolled over, groaning.

             
"What is it?"

             
"I feel—terrible."

             
Henry closed his book and threw aside the blankets. "I'll get the doctor," he said.

             
But she caught hold of his wrist. "No, Hen—it's just morning sickness. It'll pass." She smiled, and it was a grimace at the same time. "Anyway, how were you going to get the horses hitched?"

             
"I'd do it," he said, sober.

             
She patted his hand. "I know you would." She sighed. Slowly, she rolled back the other way, to get out of bed.

             
"No," said Henry. "Stay here." She muttered something about breakfast, but he put a finger to his lips. "Shh." Reaching for his robe, he slipped in both arms and pulled himself up by the bedpost. "Stay here," he ordered again, and left the room.

             
Perhaps three quarters of an hour later, when Mary was beginning to wonder if she should get up to check on him, he returned, a plate in hand. He gave a half smile. "Sit up," he said. She sat, and he put it before her: eggs and toast.

             
"Oh, Hen..." she murmured, her eyes tearing. "Thank you—thank you."

             
He tilted his head slightly forward. "Enjoy, madam, and if I hurry perhaps I can return with my meal before you are done, and thus have the pleasure of dining with my beautiful wife." His voice had affected a slightly English accent, and she grinned and clapped her hands.

             
"I don't eat that fast, do I?" she asked.

             
"No, dear lady, not at all. Rather, it is I who am entirely too slow."

             
She laughed. "You're not that slow, Hen," she protested.

             
He bowed, minutely, again. "No. Unfortunately, however, my legs are, so I shall bid you farewell for the moment."

             
"You're awful, Hen," she called, after him.

             
He returned in a few minutes, and peered over at her side of the bed. "You haven't eaten a thing," he said. "Now it'll be cold, and after all the time I spent!"

             
She took his plate and patted his side of the bed. "Sit. It's all right; it's still warm, and to tell the truth—" she looked apologetic, "I'm feeling a little ill, for food." She waited for him to sit, then handed him back his plate.

             
He leaned back against a few pillows piled against the brass bars that made the headboard on the bed. "What you mean, then," he said, sighing a little, "is I ruint this robe for nothing?"

             
Mary glanced over, and he held his plate away so she could see the egg and butter stains he had only half-attempted to get off. She held the laugh in for a moment and then let it out, reaching over to brush ineffectually at the material. "Poor Hen," she said, giggling uncontrollably. "I'm sorry, I am."

             
He took a casual, quietly offended bite of his meal. "No," he said, "I don't think you are."

             
"Don't you?" She bit her lips, erasing the smile that came anyway. "Well, I guess it won't make much differ'nce, then, if I—" she picked the plate up and dumped the contents into his lap.

             
Henry glanced down at the slightly nibbled toast and eggs, now spread over his robe. "Hm," he said, and took another bite of his own meal.

             
"I'm—I'm sorry--" she giggled, and finally turned and pressed her face into a pillow, her body shaking with silent laughter. After a while, she turned back, still grinning, and watched him as he finished his meal and carefully placed the plate on the chair next to the bed. "I've never seen you so—so good-humored, Hen," she told him. She slapped a hand over her mouth, giggling again.

             
He turned and smiled finally, widely. "I—think I just realized," he said. "I'm—you're—I mean, we're havin' a baby. I mean, I knew, but—I just didn't—"

             
Mary put her arms around his neck, tight. "I know," she whispered. "I can't believe it, and I'm carryin' it--" She looked up at him. "I'm sorry I ruint your breakfast—after you took so long..."

             
He smiled. "I only did it 'cause I hope you know I love you."

             
"I do."

             
"Then eat'n it don't really matter." He paused. "Though helpin' clean would sure make me like you more."

             
"Why Hen, there's likin' in you that I ain't got yet? I was sure I had it all." She turned to get up.

             
"Unless you're still feelin' poorly," he said, quickly.

             
"Nonsense. It passes quick. Come noon, I'll eat one of the horses. You stay there—I'll get a rag."

              In the afternoon that day Milton Covey rode up outside. Mary heard him from the kitchen, and, drying her hands on her apron, went out into the hall. Henry was already at the door, his hand white-knuckled on the knob. "Hen," she protested, "what're you doing?"

             
He looked at her, a little pale, and shook his head. "It's all right," he said, taking his hand from the knob. "Only Milton Covey."

             
Mary frowned slightly. "All right," she said, and went back to the kitchen.

             
Henry opened the door and went out onto the porch just as Covey was tying his horse at the water trough out in the yard. He turned, squinting in the sun so that the sides of his mouth pulled back into a tight grin. "Afternoon," he said, putting a hand up to shade his eyes. He came up on the porch and shook Henry's hand. Covey was an average-sized man, perhaps a little taller than Henry, although his back was stooped a little with age. It would not have been too much to say that the weight of Covey's life had pushed him down and bent him slightly; he was a man that tried all things and through no large fault of his own seemed to do only passing well at most, and occasionally did worse. Several years ago his wife had left him for a reason that had not been particularly clear to him, and he was left with a grown son, the product of youth and another woman who had never been his wife but who had disappeared all the same. Covey, being an amiable man who did not expect much more than contentment out of life, found himself fairly content and reasonably satisfied. He enjoyed having his son as his top hand on the ranch, and did not dread the time when he himself would die and his son would take his position. He did, however, have a good-natured desire to be able to leave the ranch in the first place rather than bankrupt it, and for this reason he came to Henry Peterson.

             
"Heard about the incident at the Dry Water," he said, as a matter of conversation.

             
"Yes," said Henry, uneasily.

             
"Turns out the man's wanted, down in Texas. Some folks're plannin' to take him to the rangers, when Doc says he's fit."