Hummingbird (45 page)

David was finally forced to desist at the final event of the day, the log rolling contest. It took the nimblest of feet and a perfection of balance to even enter the event—obviously he lacked both. He had been slapped on the back and hugged by more than one of the log rollers, though, as they slogged out of the pond, defeated, dripping, laughing. Thus, by the time he at last returned to Miss Abigail he was as wet as if he'd participated himself. He was roaring drunk too, stained with tobacco and pie, reeking to high heaven of beer—an unequivocal mess. In this deplorable state he was carried to Miss Abigail's side, to where she was working with the women who were putting away pie tins, picking up forks and glasses, and distributing picnic baskets to their rightful owners.

"Miss Abigail," roared Michael Morneau, "this man is the best goddamn sport that ever got a toe shot off!"

The women noticed how she didn't so much as bat an eyelash at the word
goddamn
. Instead she turned to find the disheveled David actually borne to her on the shoulders of the well oiled men who were to be his cohorts for as long as he chose to live in this town. They were all laughing, staggering, singing, swaggering, arms around each other so that if one of them leaned to the left, the lot of them leaned.

Swaying back to the right, the lot of them swayed.

"Town's got a helluva wunnerful newcomer here, ain't that right, Jim?"

Whomever Jim was, he roared even louder than his companions and drunkenly doubled the motion.

"Damn right, and we got Miss Abigail here to thank for bringin' him in! Ain't that right, boys?"

More amiable cussing and approval followed, and Miss Abigail looked up to where David swayed on their shoulders.

"See? We brung him back to you, Miss Abigail." But the inebriated speaker seemed unable to locate David all of a sudden and looked around searchingly. "Didn't we?" he asked, raising another hullabaloo.

"Where the hell'd we put 'im?"

"I'm up here!" called a grinning David from his perch on the men's shoulders.

The one who'd been searching looked up. "There you are! Well, how the hell'd you git up there?"

"Why, you dummy, we was bringin' him back to Miss Abigail, remember?" another voice slurred while somebody stumbled and the gleeful band swayed,
en masse
, in the other direction.

"Well, put 'im down then, 'cause here she is!"

She could see it happening even before it actually did. One minute David was up there smiling like a besotted wall-eyed pike, the next minute the shoulders separated almost as if choreographed—half in one direction, half in another. Like the Red Sea they parted, dropping David Melcher, still smiling and waving, down the chasm. Miss Abigail saw him coming and gasped, then lurched futilely to save him. He fell, octopus-like, a tangle of jellied arms and legs, but just as he plummeted, she gained the cleft in the human sea and David's disappearing shoulder caught her on the side of the neck and down she went with him! She landed flat on top of him, arms and legs splayed in the most unladylike fashion imaginable.

As soon as the crowd realized what had happened, solicitous hands reached toward the pair of casualties piled up in their midst. The men "ooh-ed." The women clucked. But David, with that pikey grin still all over his face, opened his eyes to find Miss Abigail McKenzie's face smack in front of him—and Lord! if she wasn't lying on top of him! Her hair was falling sideways out of its knot, her breasts were smashed against his damp, beery shirtfront, her blue eyes were startled, and her cheeks were a darling pink. He didn't care how she got there, or when. This was just too good a chance to miss.

He threw two very loose-jointed arms around her and kissed her so long and hard he thought he'd throw up for lack of wind and dizziness and the bump his head had just suffered.

Miss Abigail felt his arms tighten and saw his lopsided grin become even more lopsided, and she knew beyond a doubt what he was going to do, but she could not scramble off of him in time to prevent it. She felt her hair go sliding to hang over their two cheeks as he kissed her with the smell of tobacco juice and beer and sweat and cherry pies all around them.

And suddenly she was aware that a great, pulsing roar of applause had burst out. Even the ladies were clapping and cheering. Men whistled through their teeth and kids came scrambling among long legs and petticoats to see what was going on within the circle.

"Atta boy, David, give it to 'er!" somebody yelled.

Miss Abigail pushed and rolled and finally broke free, tumbled to the dirt, and sat beside him. She was positively scorching! But what made the final difference, what everyone could not quite believe they were seeing, was the way she burst out laughing, trying to hide her blushing cheeks behind a small, uncharacteristically grimy hand. Sitting there in the dirt, she reached both hands toward the hovering men and said, "Well, are you going to stand there applauding all day or is somebody going to help me up?"

Everyone was laughing with her as they tugged her to her feet, followed by David. The ladies fussily dusted off her skirts and scolded their foolish husbands. But secretly they were all well pleased. Miss Abigail, it seemed, wasn't the stick-in-the-mud she'd seemed all these years, and David—why, he was perfect for her. Every citizen of the town congratulated himself on what a tidy bit of matchmaking had been accomplished here today. From that moment on David Melcher and Abigail McKenzie were accepted not individually, but as a pair.

She felt it happening all day long, the curious tide of that acceptance. It was a new feeling to her, one that had been denied to Abigail McKenzie all her single life. The subtle change that had started that morning had grown more palpable as the day wore on. If she were to try to define it she could not, in her vast store of words, find just the right ones to describe the exclusion of the single person from the immutable charmed circle of those who live life two by two. Only in retrospect did she feel it fully. Not until the end of this day during which she had felt so much included did she realize how much she had been excluded until now.

Basking in the glow of the feeling she found herself again beside David Melcher, seated on the ground beneath the deep blue night sky of Hake's Meadow. Legs stretched out before them, faces raised, they watched the intermittent bursts of fireworks that illuminated both them and the sky.

From the corner of her eye she could see that David was watching her.

"I ought not to have… have kissed you that way," he stammered, sobering for the second time that day, admiring her chin, nose, and cheeks as explosions came and went. She kept her face raised, but said nothing. "I… I didn't exactly know… what I was doing."

"Didn't you?" she asked.

He looked up as a skyrocket exploded. "I mean, I had too much beer."

"Like everyone else."

He took heart. "You're not… you're not angry?"

"No."

The two of them leaned back, elbows stiff, palms on the grass behind them. He edged one hand sideways until his fingers touched hers, and when the next firefall burst, he saw that she was smiling up at the sky.

David's fingers were warm, his eyes upon her admiring. She was filled with a sense of well-being from the day they'd shared and wondered, when they reached the doorstep would he kiss her?

On the ride back to town aboard the crowded wagon, David held her hand as they sat side by side on a bundle of hay, their hands concealed beneath the folds of her skirt. Their hands grew very damp and once he released hers and wiped his palm on his pant leg, then found her fingers again beneath the skirt of dove gray. She thought of Jesse, of his straightforward moves so unlike David's unsure ones. Guiltily, then, as David's hand returned to hers she squeezed it.

He walked her home when the buckboard unloaded, but there were others walking their way so he kept his distance. At her door, with hammering heart, he took her hand once again in his damp one.

"I…"he began, but stopped, as usual.

She wished he would simply say what he was thinking, without these false starts. He's not Jesse, she reminded herself, give him time.

"Thank you," he said in the end, and dropped her hand, stepping back as the Nelsons came home next door.

"I didn't do anything deserving thanks," she said quietly, disappointed that he'd dropped her hand.

"Yes you did."

"What?"

"Well…"He seemed to search his mind a moment. "How about the picnic?" He spied the basket on the porch floor.

She said nothing.

"You… you did more, Miss Abigail, you know you did. You in… made… in… me accepted in Stuart's Junction today."

The night was quiet, contentment seemed to spread around Abbie like a comfortable warm wind. "No, you made me accepted."

"I… I… what?"

She looked down at her hands and joined them together. "I've lived here all my life and have never felt as much a part of this town as I do right now. You did that for me today, Mr. Melcher."

He suddenly took both of her hands again. "Why, that's what I feel like. Like… like I've found my home at last."

"You have," she assured him, "one where you are liked by everyone."

"Everyone?" he swallowed as he asked.

"Yes, everyone."

He stood squeezing her hands a long time and she heard him swallow again. His hands were much smaller than Jesse's. She tried not to compare them. Kiss me, she thought. Kiss me and chase him from my mind.

But he could not gather the courage, sober as he was now. And he knew he was in a sorry state, smelling of beer and tobacco, clothing soiled and damp.

"You'll show me the way to the mill tomorrow?" he asked.

"Certainly. The sooner the building goes up, the sooner you'll be open for business."

"Yes."

He let her hands go, disappointing her immensely, for she knew by the way he did it that he'd rather have continued holding them.

Jesse would have held them.

Damn you, Jesse, leave us alone.

"I had a marvelous day," she urged, finding an almost compulsive need within her to be kissed by this man, although perhaps not solely for the right reasons.

But David only said, "So did I," then wished her good night and turned to go.

Her heart fell. She was doomed to another night of thoughts of Jesse after all. Wearily, she went to the swing and sat there in the dark, listening to the sound of David's irregular footsteps retreating up the gravel street. Soon he moved beyond earshot and the sound of his steps was replaced by the gentle creaking of ropes as she nudged the swing. A cricket answered the ropes. She stared hypnotically up the dark street, saw not dark street but dark moustache instead.

David… Jesse… David… Jesse…

David, why didn't you kiss me?

Jesse, why did you?

David, would I have let you?

Jesse, why did I let you?

David, what if you knew about Jesse?

Jesse, if it weren't for you there'd be nothing for David to know. Why didn't you force me to leave your room that night as any gentleman should have? Why did I force my way in as a lady should not have? All it has brought me is pain. No, that's not true, it brought me David, who is all the gentle, refined and likable things I ever wanted in my life. Why must I compare him to you, Jesse DuFrayne? Why should he have to measure up to you, who did everything wrong from start to finish? David, David, I'm sorry…

believe me. How could I know that you would come back? What would it do to you, with your gentle nature, if you learned the truth about me? Why do I find fault with you for being hesitant and polite and being a gentleman? Jesse was fast and rude and nothing gentlemanly whatsoever and I hated it…

Ah, but not at the last… not at the last, her disloyal body claimed.

She crossed an arm over her stomach, rested an elbow on it, and cradled her forehead tiredly, trying to forget.

The swing ropes squeaked rhythmically, and memory descended mercilessly. A bare chest showing behind the open buttons of a shirt, an arm slung along the back of a swing, a smile that began slowly at the corner of a moustache, hands upon her skin, lips and tongue upon her skin.

At the instant tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, she realized that her breasts were puckered up like tight little rosebuds.

Get out of my life, Jesse DuFrayne! Do you hear me! Get off my swing and out of my bed so I may go to it in peace again.

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The townspeople grew accustomed to seeing Miss Abigail and David together in the days that followed.

The two of them spent long hours making the many decisions necessary for establishing a new business from the ground up. The day after the picnic, when they showed up at Silver Pine Mill, Miss Abigail was right beside David as the arrangements for the sale of lumber were handled. Demonstrating her keen business acumen, she secured his lumber at a better price than he'd have gotten on his own by insisting that they be shown the less desirable knotted pine, which brought the price down. These, she wisely noted, were good enough for building storage shelves at the rear of the building.

The plate glass for the windows, which would be shipped by train from Ohio, would have been one of their most expensive commodities had they purchased plates of the large size he envisioned. She suggested instead that they order numerous small panes that could be shipped at a far smaller price due to the fact that they were far less liable to break in transit. Thus the plan for a flat, cold, indifferent storefront was scrapped in favor of a warm, inviting Cape Cod bow window, the first Main Street was to boast. In the words of Miss Abigail, why not let women ogle the shoes from three directions instead of just one? Perhaps they could sell three times as many that way.

While the store's first studs began rising she marched one day down to the feedstore and presented Bones Binley with a proposition he found impossible to refuse: she would furnish him and his cronies with a picnic basket each day for seven days if during that time they could whittle a set of twenty-eight matched spools of which a railing would be made for the back of the display window. The railing, rather than a wall, would allow the window display items to be seen from inside the store while at the same time creating a warm, inviting atmosphere when viewed from outside.