Walking on Air

  Though the moon had ducked behind the clouds, the mongrel, golden fur brushed to a fare-thee-well by Laney yesterday, was easy to spot as it came out from behind the café to wolf down the pail’s contents. Gabe gazed off up the street, casually blowing smoke rings. Do I see a dog? Hell, no, I don’t see a dog. It’s dark as smut out here.

  When the dog slipped away to its lean-to, Gabe stamped out his smoke and crossed the street to collect the bucket.

  Striding off the distance, he returned to the shop in record time. He was slightly breathless after stepping inside and leaned against the closed door to recover. His skin itched as if he’d raced through a mile-long patch of poison ivy. His scalp had gone clammy beneath his hat. Deep down, he knew that his celestial watchdogs saw almost everything, and they’d probably seen him as well.

  “Play me out a little rope, Gabriel,” he whispered, then paused to listen. Nothing. “For a bothersome angel who scared the shit out of me on purpose a couple of times, you sure know how to keep quiet when it suits you.”

  It was all Gabe could think of to plead his case. If he got punished for what he’d done, he guessed he had it coming. At least he’d be able to sleep tonight, knowing the boy and dog had been fed.

  • • •

  Well before daylight, Gabe once again delivered food, using the cloak of darkness to conceal his activities. By dawn, Laney’s fever had broken, and about ten the next morning, she hacked up what looked like a quarter cup of green glue. Gabe rinsed out towels while Nan held the child’s head. By noon the crackling sound in the girl’s chest had lessened to a slight wheeze when she breathed, prompting Gabe to announce, “We’ve seen the worst of it now.”

  Nan, pale from lack of sleep and worry, smiled wearily. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  By six that evening, Laney was clamoring for something to eat. No, she didn’t want broth. She was hungry and wanted real food. Nan conceded by making her finger-size slices of toasted bread, which Laney dunked in the dratted beef bouillon. Gabe wished he could laugh at the youngster’s shrewish behavior as she started to rally. But his chest felt as if he’d swallowed one of his boots and gotten it caught crosswise in his windpipe. Not all little girls in Random had Laney’s sturdy constitution, and Gabe knew for sure that one of them was going to cock up her toes unless he did something.

  Even as he stole through the night again later to take food to the boy and dog, Gabe couldn’t shake the dark gloom that had settled over him. He could only be thankful that Nan sought their bed early, so tuckered out from caring for Laney that she couldn’t stay awake once the danger had passed.

  When Gabe joined her, sleep eluded him. He tried counting sheep. When that didn’t work, he came so close to reaching for Nan that he had to ball his hands into fists and clench his teeth to resist the urge. Oh, how he wanted her. He imagined how sweet she’d feel in his arms, how the silky, gentle warmth of her bare skin would mold against his. How damned good it would be to bury himself deep inside her moistness and forget everything for a while.

  He was still imagining the glory of it when he finally fell asleep.

  • • •

  By the weekend, Laney was well on her way to recovery. In the interim, Gabe tried several times to broach the subject of the Pinkerton report with Nan, but when she wasn’t racing about to care for Laney, she was nodding off in the rocker. On Saturday night, he sat at the end of a sleeping Laney’s bed, rested his arms on his knees, and leaned slightly forward to catch Nan’s gaze. Head bent, she intently studied a dress bodice to which she was affixing seed pearls.

  “Honey, there’s something I need to tell you,” he said softly so as not to awaken the girl.

  Nan lowered her sewing to her lap and smiled at him. “You don’t look very happy about it.”

  “I’m delighted about it,” Gabe assured her. “It’s only that I feel bad about not telling you sooner.” He swallowed, whether to clear his throat or gain time before speaking again, he wasn’t sure. “Horace Barclay didn’t die, Nan.”

  She stared at him with parted lips. “What?”

  Gabe repeated himself.

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “I hired a Pinkerton agent to investigate. Barclay is not only alive and well, but he never even filed a report about the incident, probably because the whole situation embarrassed him and he feared that the truth might come out—namely that he assaulted you, not the other way around. How could he have explained being stabbed with a knitting needle?”

  The chair creaked as she shifted her weight to lean forward slightly. “Are you certain he’s alive? Manhattan is very far away, and the agent may be mistaken.”

  Now Gabe understood why he’d been told by the angel to get a detailed report. Until Nan saw it, her fears could never be completely allayed. He set her sewing on the foot of the bed and drew her up from the rocker. “Come downstairs with me.”

  Nan glanced at Laney. Gabe tugged on her hand. “She’s fine. After a good night’s rest, she’ll be fit as a fiddle tomorrow.”

  Gabe had hidden the report on a top shelf in Nan’s downstairs work area. When he withdrew the missive, she took it and sat at the table, staring at the writing on the envelope. “Pinkerton,” she said softly. “It’s a company of incomparable reputation. I didn’t know they were based in Chicago.”

  “They run investigations all over the country.” Gabe took a seat across from her. “Don’t study the address all night. Look at the report.”

  Slender fingers trembling slightly, she lifted the envelope flap and drew out the document. Gabe settled back on his chair, watching her expressions as she read. She glanced up. “It’s the correct Horace Barclay. I recognize the street they say he lives on, and the age is about right.”

  “Of course it’s the right man, honey. Pinkerton doesn’t hire imbeciles, and his men are very well trained.”

  Nan finished reading and closed her eyes. “Oh, my.” Her lashes fluttered up. “All this time, with me worrying myself sick about being arrested and also feeling guilty for killing him, he’s been carrying on as if nothing ever happened. It says here that he remarried barely six months after I stabbed him.”

  “He stabbed himself,” Gabe reminded her. “And God help the young woman he selected to take your place as his second wife. She’s probably miserable.”

  “No ‘probably’ to it. He’s an awful man.” She searched Gabe’s gaze. “You said you wished you’d told me sooner. When did you initiate this investigation?”

  Gabe wished he could ignore that question. “The day of our marriage.”

  “Whatever prompted you? I never implied that Barclay might be alive—just the opposite, in fact. What made you suspect he survived?”

  “Intuition.” Gabe wasn’t sure where that had come from, but he was glad the word had popped into his mind. “A huge man like Barclay is thickly layered with blubber, and a knitting needle isn’t that long. To kill him, it had to have pierced a vital organ, and unless you took aim, which you said you didn’t, there was a chance the needle hit nothing vital.”

  “But . . .” She studied him in bewilderment. “How did you know he was fat? I said he was huge, but I don’t remember telling you that he’s fat.”

  Oops. Gabe had never been good at telling half-truths. “You must have mentioned it.” He shrugged and tugged on his earlobe. “What does it matter? I wanted to know for certain, one way or the other, so I wired Chicago, transferred funds to cover the costs, and then waited for the report. It came in the mail last week, just before Laney got sick. I tried to tell you about it that night in the kitchen, but I got interrupted when she woke up with a fever, and we haven’t had any chance to talk privately until now.”

  Nan passed a hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe it. He’s alive. All this time I’ve been so afraid, and now I learn there was no reason
to hide.” She smiled. “Gabriel, have you any idea what this means? I’m not a fugitive!”

  He could almost see the weight of guilt lifting from her shoulders. That alone made him glad that the angels had sent him here. Even so, he had to say, “No, you aren’t a fugitive, but Laney’s whereabouts still can’t be revealed.”

  Nan’s smile dimmed. “True. If our father learns where she is, he’ll come for her immediately.” She sighed and settled her gaze on the document again. “I’ll have to remain in hiding until she comes of age. Even so, knowing I didn’t kill Barclay . . . Well, words cannot describe how I feel! It’s terrible to believe you’ve ended a man’s life.” Her eyes went sparkly. “Thank you so much, Gabriel, not only for believing me when I said he fell on the needle, but also for hiring an agent to investigate. I might have gone to my grave believing that I’d killed him.”

  She sprang up from the chair and spun in a circle, her skirts billowing around her legs. Lifting her arms, she cried, “I feel free, like a bird just released from its cage.”

  Gabe understood exactly what she meant and shared her feeling of release. Allowing Nan to go on believing that she’d killed Barclay had bothered him deeply. Now, if he could only think of a way to save that little girl, he’d die a happy man.

  • • •

  By Sunday afternoon, Laney was pestering Nan unmercifully to be allowed to visit the dog. Nan, fearful that the cold air would give the girl a setback, kept saying no.

  “I’ll wear two capes and my heavy wool gloves!” Laney argued. “I’m fine now, Mama. You already said I can return to school tomorrow and sleep over at Melody’s after the Christmas sing-along tomorrow night! What difference can one day make?”

  Nan felt that giving Laney permission to attend the party tomorrow, plus stay the night so soon after being sick, was already a huge concession on her part, and she quickly grew cross with the girl for asking repeatedly to visit the dog. She was about to get stern and tell the child that she would countenance no more arguing when Gabriel intervened.

  “How’s about if she wears a muffler and keeps her face covered?” he suggested. “You’re mostly worried about her breathing the cold air. A thick muffler would take care of that. She does have one, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes!” Laney cried. “Mama knitted me an extra heavy one. After the snows come, I wear it every day to school and back!”

  Stirring the contents of a pot on the stove, Nan let go of the spoon and threw up her hands. “Oh, all right!” she cried. “But mind that you keep that muffler over your face every single second, and—”

  Laney was already racing for her room. “I will!” she promised over her shoulder.

  Nan gave Gabriel, who sat hunched over a periodical she felt certain he hadn’t been reading, an admonishing frown. “You’ve been as quiet as a Methodist at a Baptist revival all day, and you choose now to get chatty?”

  Normally he would have smiled and winked at her, but this afternoon, his expression remained somber. Nan, still feeling joyous over the Pinkerton report, felt irked because he didn’t seem to share her elation. He sat back on the chair, rocking it onto its two rear legs. “I’m sorry, but it’s clear to me that she’s fine as a frog’s hair. If she wears the muffler, she’ll be safe.”

  Laney raced back out of her room, wrapping the length of knitted yarn around her neck without missing a step. She grabbed the food pail, hit the door, slammed from the apartment, and, judging by the sound of her footfalls, descended the stairs at a dangerous speed, banging the bucket against the wall all the way down.

  “I hope you’re right,” Nan said.

  “She doesn’t die,” he replied. “So stop coddling her.”

  Nan turned slightly from the stove, bewildered by the way he’d worded that pronouncement. She doesn’t die. It was as if he were referring to a character in a story he was telling her about. “What does that mean, ‘She doesn’t die’?”

  He shoved so quickly to his feet that the chair teetered before it landed on all four legs with a loud thunk. “I just misspoke. What’s the matter with you today? You’re picking at every little thing.” He wheeled toward the archway. “Let the child be a child. She’ll grow up way too fast as it is.”

  “And where are you off to?” Nan asked, her voice laced with irritation because his criticism had hurt her feelings.

  “I’m taking a short nap. Maybe you’ll be in a happier mood when I come back out.”

  The way Nan saw it, she wasn’t the one in need of a mood change. Normally Gabriel laughed, cracked jokes, and made light of things. He also usually helped her fix dinner, but he hadn’t the last few nights. Nan had laid that off on the fact that he’d been stuck with the duty of delivering food to the boy and dog morning and night, but deep down, she knew she was only making excuses. Something was troubling Gabriel, and he was in grim spirits because of it. Now that he’d shown her the Pinkerton report, that couldn’t be what ate at him.

  Concerned, Nan set the pot on the warming shelf so the contents wouldn’t scorch, and followed her husband to the bedroom. Whatever was wrong, she sensed it was serious. It wasn’t in Gabriel’s nature to get in a black mood over anything trivial.

  She found him sitting on his side of the bed, his elbows braced on his knees, his head in his hands. The dejected slump of his strong, broad shoulders made her heart pang. She closed the door softly behind her and then went to sit beside him.

  She chose to say nothing for a moment, giving him the opportunity to shoo her away if he didn’t want her there. When no rejection occurred, she said, “Something is troubling you, Gabriel, and has been for days. Won’t you please tell me about it? A problem shared is often a problem solved.”

  “The problem isn’t one I can solve, Nan, or you either.”

  Studying the side of his dark face, every line of which had been etched upon her heart, Nan saw him grimace, as if he wished he might call back the words. Then he straightened and released a long breath.

  “It’s just that a lot of people have gotten sick, and more people are bound to come down ill over the next week.” He slanted her a quick glance but failed to meet her gaze. She was reminded of how often he’d said during games of poker that a woman should never believe a man who wouldn’t look her dead in the eye. “We were so lucky with Laney. She’s strong, and getting sick was barely a hitch in her get-along. But not everyone has been or will be that fortunate.”

  Nan had learned of Mrs. Barker’s death, and despite the fabulous news Gabriel had given her last night about Barclay being alive, she’d spent the morning engaged in a battle with tears. She’d loved that old lady, and accepting her death hadn’t been easy. Now Nan kept Mrs. Barker and the family in her prayers, hoping that her dear friend was in a better place and that her loved ones would recover quickly from their grief.

  “And that’s what is troubling you?” she asked, strongly suspecting that Gabriel was circling the truth. “Contagions strike towns all the time, sometimes taking lives, sometimes not. We can only hope we don’t get sick ourselves and pray for our friends and neighbors. There’s little else to be done. Getting in a dark mood surely won’t help.”

  “What if you could do more?” He swung around to look at her, and the intensity in his dark eyes made her nape prickle. “If you knew how to save someone else from dying, but in the doing, you knew you’d catch this ailment and die yourself, would you risk your own life to save that person?”

  Nan took a moment to mull that over. “Gabriel, why torture yourself this way? If not even Doc Peterson, with all his knowledge and tonics, can save those with weak constitutions, you and I surely can’t. It’s a purely hypothetical question you’ve asked me.”

  “Well, hypothesize, then! If you had the cure for this and could save someone, but you knew—if you were absolutely convinced—that going into the person’s home would end up killing you, would you go anyway?”

/>   His expression was so tortured that Nan yearned to cup her hand to his lean cheek, or pull him into her arms as she often did Laney. But tension rolled off him in waves, and she knew any sympathetic overture from her would be unwelcome.

  “If I had a cure I’d go in a heartbeat, and then, after leaving the house, I’d have a dose myself.”

  He stared at her for an endlessly long moment. “Sweet Christ, the way your mind works could drive a man mad. What if you had only enough cure for that one person, Nan, and if you went to administer it, you knew you were going to die? Is that defined enough for your linear-thinking brain?” The moment he finished speaking, he closed his eyes and held up his hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” His lashes fluttered back up. “I admire your mind, and your thinking patterns don’t really irk me. It’s just that I need you to answer the question, and you’re dancing around it.”

  Nan could tell that he truly did need her to answer him. She simply couldn’t understand why. There was no cure for this illness, and even the town doctor was at his wit’s end. That said, she thought carefully, trying to imagine herself in the situation Gabriel had just described.

  “To protect myself from the miasma, I suppose that I would cover my face with a cloth soaked in camphor and go to save the person’s life.”

  “Even if you knew the camphor wouldn’t work and you’d die?”

  Nan lifted her shoulders high and held them rigid. “It’s a very difficult question, isn’t it?”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Nan gave herself a little body shake. “I don’t know why you’re torturing yourself with what-ifs that can never possibly happen, but hypothetically, it is a commonly held belief that all decent, God-fearing human beings would, under certain circumstances, sacrifice their own lives to save another’s.”

  He sighed, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes. Nan stared at the muscular column of his arched throat, fascinated by the bob of his large Adam’s apple as he swallowed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”