“Lived, didn’t it?” Jason asked with a grin on his face.
The doctor allowed himself a small smile. “Yes, she did. I’m very happy for them, but . . .”
“But what?”
“The baby isn’t quite right, Jason. I think there’s something wrong with her heart.” Morelli shook his head slowly. “But it was a tad early. Sometimes these things just fix themselves with time, if there is any. This may have been what killed the boys, too, but since their religion prohibits any sort of postmortem . . .” He stared at the ground for a moment, then looked up. “Well, I must go. My wife’s waiting dinner for me.” He tipped his hat and cut across the street, making a beeline for his house.
Jason leaned back against the storefront, and shaking his head, muttered, “Well, I’ll be dogged.” He hoped Morelli was right about time fixing things. The last thing he needed was Solomon shooting up the place again.
He was just opening the doors into Abigail’s place when someone fired a gun—and not too far from him! He whipped around and saw that it was Solomon Cohen himself, gun in hand, and screaming, “It’s a girl! It’s a girl!” He fired up into the air once again, then took off at a dead run, right down the center of town.
Jason took off right after him.
He caught up with Solomon only about six or seven steps later (Jason having the longer legs of the two, and not being nearly so giddy with joy) and wrested the gun away from Solomon.
“Yes, we know it’s a girl! I reckon even the Apache, practically down on the Mexican border, know it, too!”
Solomon wasn’t easily calmed or stilled, though. “But it’s a girl, Jason, and she’s alive!” he shouted, so loudly that it hurt Jason’s ears. He blinked, and had to quickly change position when Solomon tried to take his gun back.
“There’ll be none a’ that, now. Why don’t you come on over to the office, and we’ll toast her with a cup a’ coffee. I made it, Ward didn’t,” he added as an incentive. Ward made terrible coffee.
Solomon stood up straight. “Why, Jason! You’re not goin’ to arrest me!?”
“Just until you settle yourself down. I can’t have you runnin’ all over town, shootin’ and maimin’ folks.”
“I’m not—”
“I know, Solomon,” Jason said as he began to get them aimed toward the jail. “I know you’re not tryin’ to harm a soul. But you gotta admit that you ain’t the best shot. What if you was to shoot somebody by accident and they died? Think about how bad you’d feel then! And think how bad I’d feel, havin’ to hang you after all we been through together!”
By this time, Jason had Solomon nearly to the office, and Sol wasn’t fighting him. But in the half-second it took to let go of his arm and open the office door, Solomon snatched back the pistol, jumped away, and fired twice (down toward the open ground by the stockade wall), hollering, “Yahoo!”
Jason grabbed him from behind, shaking his wrist until the gun fell into the dirt. “Jesus Christ, Solomon, gimme a break, all right?”
“You shouldn’t be taking the name of a prophet in vain,” Solomon scolded.
“And you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near firearms when your wife’s havin’ a baby!” Jason shoved him back toward the jailhouse. This time, he got him clear through the front door and locked in a cell, then had to run outside again to pick up his gun.
The first thing Solomon said to him, once he came back inside, was, “So, I was promised coffee, already?”
Across the street, the Reverend Milcher sat alone in his church. Lavinia and the children were nowhere to be seen, and even the shooting and the shouted news that Solomon Cohen’s child had lived—this time—wasn’t enough to make him take his eyes from the broken clay–tiled floor.
Again, no one had come for Sunday service. No one except his family, and you could hardly count them.
How would he feed his children without some funding? How could he pass a collection plate when there was no one there to hand it to?
They had their milk cow, still, and she was heavy with calf. She’d calve any day, and then they could be sure of having milk. But he couldn’t slaughter the calf until fall, until it had put on enough beef-weight to make it worthwhile. Lavinia had the few vegetables she could coax from the desert floor, but that was it.
This was indeed the wilderness, but there was no manna from heaven.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2011 William W. Johnstone
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. The novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-2859-7