The Moment: Western Romance Series

By Pat Garrett Jr

She was alone with this hard-bitten, hard-riding band of hunted men, and she knew that there was little chance of any help coming. But if one of them could be persuaded to pull out of the gang, and go into town, send out the doctor Miranda needed...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wangunbooks Publishing
• Release date: Jun 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310355424

Pat Garrett Jr

Pat Garrett Jr was born in El Paso Texas. His interests include the history and anthropology of the old west. He has always enjoyed the shooting sports. He likes to write westerns and all about the Old Wild Wild West.

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The Moment – Western Romance Series

By Pat Garrett Jr

Copyright © 2014 by Wangunbooks Publishing

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

The Moment

MIRANDA gripped the porch-rail until the knuckles showed white against the red skin of her hands. She shut her eyes to the endless dust-grey of the prairie, and, pulling on the rail, leaned back into the refreshing stiffness of the evening breeze.

I’m wicked. She directed the information at the retiring sun. I’m vain and wicked.

She tried hard to think of Peter and Joey, tried to think of tonight’s mending and tomorrow’s wash, and this evening’s supper. She pushed from her mind the desperate thought of the inaccessible doctor for Gilly. Then there was nothing left to think about but oatmeal.

She opened her eyes, and examined her hands, trying to remember how Mama’s hands had always looked back home. If she had some time... and some oatmeal... but she had none of either. Inside the house Gilly cough of a sick child.

I’m wicked, Miranda thought again dismally, when even the cough didn’t drive away the worry about her hands; resigning herself to the prospect of a sinful life, she started around the house to the kitchen door.

She had wanted Dad to build the porch in back, against the kitchen, so they could see the crick from it. But he had said, When neighbors come, they’ll build to face our front door. A porch is a very grand thing hereabouts, Randy, and you’ll want to stand on it when you call across for a cup of sugar.

Neighbors! The friendliest neighbor in the grey country was the green-bordered stream that twisted out of sight a mile away, in back of the house. She stood there, staring out to the strip of green, but tonight the stream brought only lukewarm comfort, and the grim reminder of washday coming... and suppertime here. She turned back to the house, rough-hewn dark-grey on dust-grey.

Joey!

The boy scrambled to his feet. I was only... he started lamely.

I thought you were watching Gil! Miranda had a high voice, usually soft, but now, in anxiety almost shrill.

I was oney settin fer a minnit before I git the cow. It’s time to git...

"Get! Sitting! Only! If I can’t give you decent clothes and schooling, Josiah Hartsell, I can at least see to it you learn to speak English. You can’t talk like western trash when we go back east, you know—not when you go to school. Now get along, her primness turned to laughter at the ridiculous transition, and get the cow before she jumps the fence. I didn’t realize it was so late."

Four-feet-two of blue jeans and brown skin went off in a small boy’s erratic idea of a hurry. Back in the house, Miranda tried to hold on to her laughter long enough to offer a share of it to Gil. The four-year-old lay on her own wooden bedstead, the one that used to be dad’s, his small face as grey as the house, as the dust, as the homespun bedding. Three spots of color flashed from the interminable Oklahoma grey; the two round, incredibly blue bright eyes; the blue satin quilt that had stayed in the wagon when even the silver had to go. Dad had tossed over everything that made them heavier—and slower—in the race into the Territory for land, but Miranda had clung to the quilt.

***

THE boy pushed the comforter