Hummingbird (26 page)

God help me, she thought, I want him.

Town approached. Jesse shifted the reins to one hand and, without saying a word, considerately buttoned up his shirt. In the gathering dusk she felt herself blush. He leaned back, their shoulders touched again, then her familiar white picket fence was beside them and he pulled up before the porch steps.

He handed her the reins. They were warm from his hands.

He spoke gently. "Don't turn her so sharp this time. I don't want you tipping over."

Something too good happened within her at his quiet admonition.

He stood in the twilight watching her again cut too sharply around the pickets, holding his breath, releasing it only when she'd straightened the rig and was heading up the street. Then he clumped to the swing at the north end of the porch to wait for her He braced his crutches in the corner and swung idly, surveying the porch, which was so typical of her. It was tidy, freshly painted, surrounded by a spooled rail that quit only where the wide steps gave onto the yard. At the opposite end was a pair of white wicker chairs with a matching table between them holding a sprawling fern. He thought of her while he swung, accompanied by the soft, jerking squeak of the ropes.

She rounded a corner down the street and he watched her come on, small and straight, and felt the strength of his healing muscles and knew he'd damn well better leave this place soon.

She started slightly when she saw him there in the shadows, one arm stretched carelessly along the back of the double seat. She wondered how it would feel to simply settle down in the lea of that arm and lean her head back against him and swing away companiably until full darkness fell and he should say, "It's time for bed now, Abbie."

But he was Jesse the ominous train robber, so she stood uncertainly at the top of the steps. Only, he did not look very ominous swinging away idly there. The ropes spoke a creaky complaint about his weight, and for a moment she remembered the awesomeness of it upon her She dropped her eyes guiltily.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, unable to think of anything else to say.

"A little," he replied. He realized only too clearly what it was he was hungry for.

"Would cold chicken and bread be all right?"

"Sure. Why don't we eat it out here?"

"I don't think—" She cast a glance at the house next door, then seemed to change her mind. "All right. I'll get it." She left him swinging there, and when she returned with the tray he sensed her hesitation to approach him.

"Put it on the floor at our feet and come sit with me," he invited. "It's getting dark—nobody will see us."

But her eyes skittered to the elbow slung along the back of the swing, and only when he lowered it did she set the tray down and perch beside him.

They nibbled silently, caught up by awareness, lashed into silence by the new tension which had sprung up between them.

They ate little. She told herself to take the tray back inside, but sat instead as if her legs had wills of their own.

He crossed his near ankle over his knee, dropped a dark hand over the boot to hold it there while each stroke of the swing now whispered his knee across Abbie's skirts. Her eyes were drawn to the sturdy thigh tight-wrapped in straining denim. She clenched her hand in the folds of her skirts to keep it from reaching out and resting upon that firm muscle which flexed repeatedly with each nudge of his heel upon the floor. She could almost feel how warm and hard that thigh would be, how sensual it would feel to run her palm along its long, inner side, to know the intimate shift of muscle as it moved with the swing. But she only stared at it while her unwieldy imagination did strange things to the low reaches of her stomach.

A tightness tugged there, and queer trembles afflicted her most intimate parts. She sat there coveting that masculine thigh and becoming enamored with the mere touch of her own clothing against her skin.

He draped his wrist lazily over the back of the swing, never touching her, yet making her heart careen when she realized how close it hung to her shoulder.

"Well, I guess it's bedtime," he said quietly at last. Her pulses pounded and the blood beat its way up her cheeks. But he only removed his hand from the back of the swing and craned around for his crutches in the corner, then rose and positioned them, politely waiting for her to precede him.

He managed the screen door, and when she passed before him into the parlor, asked behind her, "Do you want the inside door closed?"

She was afraid to look back at him, so continued toward the kitchen, answering, "No. It's a warm night, just hook the screen."

Jesse felt a sense of home, coming in with her this way, putting things in order for the night, and knew more than ever that it was time to move on. He shuffled through the dark in the direction of the kitchen.

"Where are the matches?" he asked.

Her voice came from someplace near the pantry door. "In the matchbox on the wall to the left of the stove."

He groped, found, struck a wooden tip and held it high. Abbie sprang into light, hovering in the pantry way with the tray pressed against her waist, and her eyes big and luminous in the lamplight. He put the chimney back on the lamp and looked across at her, tempted… oh so tempted.

For a minute neither knew what to say.

"I'll… I'll just set these dirty dishes in the pantry."

"Oh… oh, sure," he shrugged, looked around as if he'd lost something. "Guess I'll go out back then before bed." Resolutely, Jesse headed for the door, knowing he was doing the right thing. But as he was negotiating the dark steps he found her behind him holding the lantern aloft to illuminate his way. He swung around and looked up at her.

Unsmiling, she studied his face glowing red-gold below her, his hair blending with the backdrop of the night. The lantern caught the measureless depths of his eyes, like those of a cat impaled by a ray of direct light.

"Thanks, Abbie," he said quietly, "… good night." Then his arms flexed upon the crutches and he was gone, downyard, swallowed by the dark.

She put the pantry in order for the night, and still he hadn't come in. She went to the back screen and peered out. The moon had risen and she made out his shape by its pale white light, sitting in the backyard under the linden tree. His face was in lacy night shadow, but she made out his boots and the way one knee was raised with an arm slung over it.

"Jesse?" she called softly.

"Aha."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Go to bed, Abbie."

When she did, she lay a long time listening, but never did hear him come back inside.

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The following morning a grinning Bones Binley stood on Miss Abigail's front porch, looking like a jack-o'-lantern atop a knobby fence post, with his over-large head, gap-teeth, and protruding Adam's apple.

"Mornin', Mizz Abigail. Fine mornin'. Fine mornin'. This package… ah… come for you at the depot on yesterday's train, Mizz Abigail, but there wasn't nobody around to bring it on up, so Max he ast me to this morning."

"Thank you, Mr. Binley," she answered, opening the screen only enough to slip the package through, disappointing old Bones, who'd have given a half plug of tobacco to see just what was inside that box and the other half to see what that train robber was doing inside her house. But when Bones continued to grin at her through the screen, she added, "It was very obliging of you to deliver it to me, Mr. Binley."

She was the only person ever called him Mister that way.

"Sure thing, Mizz Abigail," Bones said almost reverently, nodding and shifting enormous feet while she wondered if she'd have to swat him off her porch with the screen door, like some pesky fly.

Once when they were younger Bones had bought Miss Abigail's basket at a Fourth of July picnic, and he'd never forgotten the taste of her sour cream cake and fried chicken, or her ladylike ways and the time she had him up to do a little repair work on the shingles and how she'd asked him in afterward for cake and coffee. But he could see now that he was no more going to get inside her house than any train robber was going to get inside her pants, which was after all what the whole town was buzzing about.

"How's that there robber feller doing?" he asked, lifting his battered hat and scratching his forehead.

"I'm not qualified to give a medical opinion on his state of health, Mr. Binley. If you want that information to pass around with your snuff down at the feedstore, I suggest you ask Doctor Dougherty."

Bones had just then worked up a good hock and was about to let 'er fly when Miss Abigail warned from her front door, "Do not leave your residue on my property, if you please, Mr. Binley!"

Well, by damn! thought old Bones, if she was talking about spit, why in tarnal didn't she just come right out and say spit? Maybe folks was right when they said she got a little uppity at times. But anyways, Bones waited till he got to the road before he laid a good gob. He wasn't gonna go messin' with her—

nossir!—not old Bones. And unless he missed his guess, wasn't no man ever gonna mess with her, train robber or not!

The package was unmarked, except for a Denver postmark and her name and Stuart's Junction, Colorado. She did not recognize the handwriting. It was angular, tall, and made her heart race. In her entire life she might have gotten maybe three packages. There was one a long time ago that had brought the small picture frame she'd sent for, to hold her mother's and father's tintypes. Then there was the time she'd sent away for the bedpan when her father could no longer execute the walk to the backyard. This package now was Miss Abigail's third, and she wanted to savor its mystery as long as possible.

She shook it and it clunked like dried muffins in a pie safe. She saw Bones disappear down the street and on an impulse took the box back outside to the porch swing. She savored it for a long while before finally carefully removing the outside wrapper, keeping the paper in one piece to save away and treasure later.

She shook the box again and even sniffed at it. But all it smelled like was the pages of an old book, papery and dry. She set it on her knees and ran a bemused hand over the lid and swung idly upon the swing, drawing out the delicious wonderment while curiosity welled beautifully in her throat. She took some moments to cherish the anticipatory feeling and file it away for future memory. Finally she lifted the lid and her breath caught in her throat. Nestled within, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, was a pair of the most beautiful shoes she had ever seen. There was a folded note, but she reached for neither note nor shoes immediately, sat instead with her hand over her opened lips, remembering David Melcher's face as she had last seen it, stricken with regret.

At last she lifted the note in one hand and a single shoe in the other.

Oh my! she thought. Red! They are red! Whatever shall I do with a pair of red shoes?

But she examined the exquisite leather, soft as a gentian petal, so soft that she wondered how such supple stuff could possibly support a person's weight. They were buskin styled, with delicate lacets running from ankle to top and sporting heels shaped like the waists of fairies, concave and chic. Touching the chamois-soft texture, she knew without needing to be told that they were indeed made of kidskin, the finest money could buy. David, she thought, oh, David, thank you. And she pressed a shoe to her cheek, suddenly missing him and wishing he were here. She would have liked to put the shoes on while she read his note, but she could never put these scarlet shoes on where they might be seen. Oh, perhaps sometime in the privacy of her bedroom. But for now she laid the shoe back in the box beside its mate and read his note:

My Dear Miss Abigail,

I take the liberty—no, the honor—of sending the finest and newest pair of shoes from the shipment awaiting me when I arrived in Denver. It will please me to imagine them on your dainty feet as you snip nasturtiums and take them into your gracious home. I think of you in that setting and even now rue my rashness in speaking to you as I did. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, know that I would have willed things to take a different course than they've taken.

Yours in humility and gratitude,

David Melcher

She'd thought thirteen years ago that she'd realized what a broken heart felt like, when she was spurned by the man she'd grown to love through all her growing years. But it felt now as if this sense of a thing lost before it was ever gained was sorrier than anything she'd suffered back then. Her heart stung at the thought that David Melcher pined for her—impossible as it seemed, herself being the age she was. Such a refined man, who was just what she'd been looking for for so many years, ever since Richard ran away.

And now she had no way to reach him, to say, "Come back… I forgive you… let us begin from here."

The shoebox told her nothing. It held no company name, no color or style markings. There was no clue as to whom he worked for All she knew was that he'd mentioned Philadelphia and that this package had been posted in Denver. But they were big cities, Denver and Philadelphia, cities in which there were undoubtedly many shoe manufacturers, many hawkers. It would be impossible to find a man who did not even possess a permanent address. But at the thought of his lack of a residence, the words
Elysian Club
came back to her

The Elysian Club! Philadelphia!

That was where he stayed when he went back there. With a leaping heart she knew she would write a thank you to him in care of the Elysian Club, Philadelphia, and just hope he would somehow receive it on one of his return trips, and maybe—just maybe—he would come back to Stuart's Junction some day and look her up.

"Abbie? What're you doing out there?" A tousled Jesse, fresh up, stood barefoot, bare-chested in the front door.

Excitement animated her voice as she bubbled, "Oh, Me Cameron, look at what has just arrived for me."