Hummingbird (9 page)

There were spare bedrooms upstairs, of course. But somehow Miss Abigail thought it would be less than appropriate for her to go up there to sleep, now that she and David Melcher were getting along so well.

It would be far better for her to stay down here on the parlor settee. True, the formidable Mr Cameron was just around the other side of the wall, but their antagonism made this arrangement acceptable. After all, by now she had ceased caring whether he lived or died.

She awakened and shivered and stretched her neck taut, aware that something had roused her. It was deep night—no bird sounds came through the windows, only a chill damp, coming in on the dew-laden air.

"Miss Abigail…"

She heard her name whispered hoarsely and knew it was he calling her, and unconsciously she checked the buttons up the neck of her nightie.

"Miss Abigail?" he whispered again, and this time she didn't hesitate, not even long enough to light a lamp.

She walked surely through the dark, familiar house to the side of the bed.

"Miss Abigail?" he rasped weakly.

"Yes, I'm here, Mr Cameron."

"It's… it's worse. Can you help me?"

"I shall have a look." Something told her he was not feigning, and she lit the lamp quickly to find his eyes closed, the covering sheet kicked completely off him. She flickered it in place and bent to remove the bindings and poultice.

"Oh, dear God," she breathed when the odor assaulted her nostrils. "Dear God, no." The edge of the bullet hole had turned a dirty gray, and the stench of putrefaction all but knocked her from her feet. "I must get Doctor Dougherty," she cried in a choked voice, then hurried out.

Barefoot she ran, the always proper, always fastidious Miss Abigail McKenzie, heedless of the dew that wet the hem of her nightie, made her feet slip on the sharp gravel. Hair flying wildly, she took the length of Front Street to Doc's house. But she knew even as she mauled his front door that he wasn't home. He hadn't come to see the men tonight, which meant he could be sleeping in some forlorn barn with a sick horse or delivering a baby in a country home any number of miles away. Running back home, she alternately cursed herself and prayed, scanning her mind for answers to questions she'd never asked Doc Dougherty, never believing she'd have to know. Never should she have allowed anger to overcome common sense. But that's just what she'd done today. That man had made her so irate that she couldn't bear the thought of checking those poultices to see if they needed repacking. Oh, why hadn't she done it, even in spite of her anger? Her mother had always said, "Anger serves no purpose but its own," and now she knew exactly what that meant.

She leaped the front porch steps, night skirts lifted above the knees, and panted to a halt at the foot of her bed. He lay upon it with eyes closed, breath too shallow and sweet to be healthy. Forgotten now was her anger at him, her fear of him. All she knew was that she must do all she could to save his life. She dropped to her knees to scramble through a cedar chest at the foot of the bed, searching for a much-used book that had crossed the prairies in a conestoga wagon years before with her grandparents.

It contained cures for humans and animals alike, and she desperately hoped it held answers for her now.

He moved restlessly as her frantic fingers scanned the pages. "Where's the doc?" he whispered hoarsely.

She flew to his side.

"Shh…" she soothed. Eyes dark, hair ascatter, she flopped the pages, reading snatches aloud before finally finding the remedy. Then she lurched toward the door, cast the book aside, muttering, "Charcoal and yeast, charcoal and yeast," like a litany.

He drifted for a long time in a kind of peaceful reverie from which he was curiously removed yet somehow aware of his surroundings. He heard the stove lids clang, heard her exclaim, "Ouch!" and he smiled, wondering what she'd done to hurt herself, such a careful woman like her. Some glassy, tinkly sounds, fabric ripping, water being poured. She seemed to float in, arms and hands laden. But he was smacked from his blissful nether state when she began cleaning his wound.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Cameron, but I've got to do this."

He reached down to combat her hands.

"Please don't fight me," she pleaded. "Please. I don't have time to tie you again." He groaned, deep and long and raspy, and she gritted her teeth and bit on her inner cheek. He clasped the sheet with his one good hand while the other tapped listlessly against the mattress. She removed the useless, dead flesh, swallowing the gorge in the back of her throat, wiping at her forehead with the back of a hand.

Tears formed in her eyes, leaked down the corners while she bathed the wounds with disinfectant, then whispered, "I'm almost done, Mr. Cameron." She felt his hand grope at her chest and thought stupidly how he was using his battered hand and that he shouldn't be. Still, she let him grab a weak handful of the front of her nightgown and pull her up close to his mouth.

"My name's not Cameron. It's Jesse," he croaked.

"Jesse what?" she whispered.

But he drifted into oblivion then, his grip falling slack, his lips grown still, close beneath hers.

It became a personal thing then, refusing to let him die. She mixed warm, damp yeast with the remnants of charcoal, forming the mixture she hoped would keep him alive, all the while feeling for the second time that obdurate will to prevent the death of another human being. What he was and how he had treated her became insignificant against the fact that he was flesh and blood. Stubbornly she vowed that he would live.

If the night before had been difficult, the remainder of this one was a horror.

The book said to keep the poultices warm, so she made two, running to the kitchen to reheat them. The fire flagged and she slogged outside for more wood. Still the poultices cooled too fast, so she topped them with mustard plasters, the only thing she knew that would retain heat. But they needed frequent changing, so rather than bind them, she propped the bottom one and held the top one lightly in place with her hand. He often jerked spasmodically or tossed wildly, and when his moans brought her flying back from the kitchen, she wet his lips with a damp cloth, squeezing a drizzle of water into his mouth, massaging his throat, trying to make him swallow. Sometimes she said his name, the new name—Jesse—

encouraging him to fight with her.

"Come on, Jesse," she whispered fiercely. "Come on, help me!"

She knew not if he heard her.

"Don't die on me now, Jesse, not now that we've come this far." He tossed, wild with delirium, and she fought him, throwing what she thought was the last of her strength on him to keep him flat. He muttered insensibly.

She argued with intense urgency, "Fight with me, Jesse. I know what a fighter you are. Fight with me now!"

But she herself could fight just so long. She fought long after she knew what she was saying or who she was or who he was or where they were.

When unconsciousness overtook her she never knew it.

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Mr. Melcher was truly on top of the world the next morning. His toe gave him nearly no pain at all, so he decided to surprise Miss Abigail by going down to breakfast unaided. The house was abnormally quiet as he limped downstairs. From the bottom step he eyed the bedroom doorway leading off the parlor. He was repelled by the thought of that felon sleeping under the same roof as himself and Miss Abigail, but he had an urge to sneak a small peak at the man nevertheless. It would be something to tell the boys back at the Elysian Club just what that robber looked like after he'd laid him low.

But he hadn't expected the shocking sight that greeted him when he stuck his carefully groomed head around the doorframe !

There was the wounded robber all right, but the man had absolutely not a stitch of clothing on, save his bandages. He lay stark naked and hairy, one leg draped over a pair of bolsters, the other sprawled lasciviously sideways, riding the curve of a woman's stomach. She occupied the lower half of the bed, her gown scrunched up to mid-thigh, feet dangling, along with his, between the footrails. Her face was nearly at his hip, but buried beneath a mop of plical-looking hair in which the man's fingers were twined. But most lurid of all: the harlot had one arm stretched out across the brute's hairy thighs, her palm precariously near the man's genitals!

From the looks of her, none of this was surprising. The slut was a mess. The soles of her feet were filthy, her gown the same, smirched with ocher and gray stains; the lace cuffs were grimy. Her hands looked no better than the rest of her, fingernails encrusted, knuckles long in need of scrubbing, those of her left hand wrapped in a piece of dirty gauze, as if she'd been in a saloon brawl.

How the man had managed to get the woman in here was a mystery, but Miss Abigail would be shocked to her very core to witness such a spectacle!

At that moment the man twitched restlessly and mumbled something incoherent. The woman came out of her deep sleep just enough to sigh, grope toward the bandage, and mumble, "Be still, Jesse." Then her hand fell away limply across his knee as she slumbrously snuggled against his long, bare leg, turning her face.

"Is that you, Abbie?" he mumbled, eyes still closed.

"Yes, Jesse, it's me, now go back to sleep."

He sighed, then a gentle snore sounded as his hand relaxed in her hair. And soon her rhythmic breathing joined his while a horrified David Melcher crept soundlessly back to his room.

The scene remained fixed in his memory during the awful days that followed, during the bittersweet afternoons in Miss Abigail's garden, when he longed to ask her for explanations but feared there were no good ones. His jealousy grew, for she spent most of her time with the outlaw, who recovered at a snail's pace. There were times when David paused, passing the room, and looked inside, nursing his hatred for the man who had not only maimed him but stolen the greatest joy from his life. David's limp seemed permanent now, and it undermined his self-esteem, making him believe no woman could possibly find him attractive. He watched the care with which Miss Abigail attended the man, though he was drugged now with laudanum for his own good, and each minute she spent in that downstairs bedroom was a minute of which David felt robbed of her attention.

Miss Abigail puzzled over his withdrawal. She longed for him to kiss her again, to buoy her tired spirits at the end of an arduous day, but he didn't. David's toe seemed completely healed and she dreaded the thought that he might leave without ever again pressing his suit. When she tried to please him with small favors, he thanked her considerately, but his old compliments were part of the past.

After Doc finally gave the orders to drop the laudanum, Jesse awoke one sunny morning, weak, but hungry as a bear, and amazed to find himself still alive. He flexed his muscles, found them stiff and sore from disuse, but those grinding pains had faded. He heard voices from the kitchen and remembered the man who'd put him here, wondered how many days he'd lain unconscious.

He heard not so much as a footstep, yet somehow knew she was standing there in the doorway. He turned from his study of the trees outside the window to find her watching him with all traces of her former antagonism gone.

She looked as crisp as a spring leaf in a skirt of forest green and a white lawn blouse, her brown hair knotted in its careful coil at the base of her neck, her skin fresh and peachy. And he saw for the first time how a smile could transform her face.

"So you've made it," she said quietly.

He studied her for a moment. "So I have." Softly, he added, "Come over here."

She paused uncertainly, then drifted slowly to the side of the bed.

"You been busy?" He smiled up at her crookedly.

"A little," came her mellow reply.

He flopped an arm out, gathered her in by her forest green skirts, and boldly caressed her buttocks, saying, "I guess I owe you." It was nothing Jesse hadn't done to a hundred women a hundred times, but it was just Miss Abigail's luck he chose that precise moment to do it to her, for the sound of their voices had brought David Melcher to the doorway.

The blood flooded his face before he remarked dryly, "Well, well…"

Miss Abigail froze, horrified, helpless. It had happened so fast. She squirmed, but Jesse only held tight and drawled with a lopsided grin, "Mr. Melcher, our avenging hero, I presume?"

"Have you no decency!" David hissed.

Undaunted, Jesse only turned his grin up at Abbie as she struggled to break his hold. "None whatever, have I, Abbie?"

"Abbie, is it?" returned the outraged David while she at last managed to struggle out of Jesse's hold, her eyes on the man in the doorway.

"This… this is not what it seems," she implored David.

"Yes it is," Jesse teased, enjoying Melcher's discomfort intensely, but Miss Abigail whirled on Jesse, all her venom returned in full force.

"Shut up!" she spit, little hands clenched into angry balls.

David gave the pair a scathing look. "This is the second time I've found you with him in wh… what I'd term a c… compromising position," he accused.

"The second time! What are you talking about? Why, I've never—"

"I
saw
you, Miss Abigail, curled up beside him with your hand on—" But he pursed his mouth suddenly, unable to go on.

"You're a liar!" Miss Abigail exclaimed, her hands now on her hips.

"Now, Abbie," put in Jesse, "there were those couple nights—" She whirled on him, sparks seeming to fly from her eyes.

"I'll thank you to shut your despicable mouth, Mr… whatever your name is!"

"You called him Jesse in your sleep," David declared.

"In my—" She didn't understand. Jesse just smiled, enjoying it all.

"I thought you were such a lady. What a fool I was," Melcher disdained.

"I have never done any of what you've intimated. Never!"

"Oh? Then where had you been that night if not out romping in the grass? Your gown, your feet, your hands…"