Hummingbird (17 page)

Come and hold the mirror!"

"You have one and a half good hands and can sit up again. Hold it yourself!" She listened, heard him sigh disgustedly. Then—lo and behold!—out came the magic word.

"Please?" That brought an enormous smile to Miss Abigail's lips.

"I'm sorry, did you say something, Mr. Cameron?" she called, the smile growing wider.

"I said please, and you know damn well I did, so quit basking in self-righteousness and get in here."

"I'm coming," she sang. She was fast learning what exquisite joy it could be to be snide. From the doorway she said pleasantly, "How can I refuse a man with such sterling manners?" She eyed his foamy face, which spoke for itself. "What would you have me do?" His eyes, like chunks of coal in a snowman, were stark and snapping.

"Just hold the damn mirror, Your Highness!"

Taking it, she noted, "You're obviously in more than one kind of a lather. If you'd like, I'll shave it for you. My hand is undoubtedly steadier anyway—see the way you're shaking?" He ignored her and peered at himself sideways in the mirror, scraping a cheek, circumscribing a black, thick sideburn, outlining one side of his precious moustache.

She raised a little finger. "Ah, be careful of the moustache," she warned, watching the lather come away black-speckled while his scowl was revealed beneath it.

"Just hold the thing still so I can see." He drew his top lip down, curling it against his teeth, shaping the moustache. "It's damn hard to follow… a shape… that isn't there anymore."

"I think you should have etched it a bit more deeply along this side," she advised, lowering her brows as if seriously studying the fault.

"Damnit, Abigail, shut up! You were easier to put up with before you found your sense of humor. You moved the mirror again!"

"Oops, sorry." She settled back and watched him finish. It was surprisingly enjoyable. Amazing, she thought, how fast the man's beard grows. When he finished his shave, the moustache stood out blackly again. Funny thing, she thought, but the fool actually looks better with it.

"Intriguing?" he asked. She jumped, abashed at being caught regarding him that way. "You can feel it any time you want. The pleasure will be mine."

"I'd as soon feel the whiskers of a billy goat!" she snapped.

"You're excused," he laughed, as she headed for the door. On second thought, added, "But just be good."

It seemed to take forever until it was late enough to go over town while she wondered just what "be good" meant. Would he try to stop her with that gun again? She tiptoed to the back door, knowing she could not cross the open bedroom doorway without being seen. But the spring gave her away, and his voice told her he knew exactly what she was up to.

"While you're gone, see if they have any meat in this town besides liver, will you? Nobody's going to come for me tomorrow. It's Sunday."

She gave into some deep, deep need and slammed the screen door until it whacked against the frame and bounced halfway open again before settling shut. Naturally he laughed.

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"I can't send no such wire on your say-so," Max insisted.

"Why ever not?" Miss Abigail bristled.

"Got to be the sheriff does 'at," Max said importantly. "You go over and see Sam about it, then he'll send the wire. He knows who's the right person to send it to anyways. I don't."

Stymied, Miss Abigail stood, stiff-backed and upset, at a loss now. She didn't want to traipse all over town letting the entire citizenry know she was anxious to have that man out of her house. What rankled was that he was partially right. She was afraid that if she ran all over saying "I want him out," people would wonder why. And then what would she say? That he'd drawn a gun on her and made her kiss him? No power on earth could make her confess such a thing. Could she say he drew a gun on her to make her fix him his breakfast? Hardly. After all, she was being paid by the railroad to do those things for him. How would it look if she admitted she'd tried to starve him out of her house? What if she said he'd forced her at gunpoint to help him shave? The implications became worse all the time. Oh, why did that fool Maxwell Smith have to get all uppity with her? One quiet telegram is all it would have taken. Against her better judgment she went to Sheriff Samuel Harris next.

"Sorry, Miss Abigail," Sheriff Harris said. "Got to have a release from Doc Dougherty first. It's the law.

Any prisoner under a doctor's care has got to be released officially by the doc before he can be transferred from one jail to the next—oh, begging your pardon ma'am, that's not to say your house is a jail. You know what I mean, Miss Abigail."

"Yes, of course, Mr. Harris," she condescended. "I shall speak to Doctor Dougherty then."

But Doc Dougherty wasn't home, so she went back to Main Street again, headed for the butcher shop, thoroughly disgusted now.

"Howdy, Miss Abigail," Bill Tilden greeted, coming out of his barbershop.

"Good day, Mr Tilden."

"Hot, ain't it?" he observed, glancing at her unhatted hair. She nodded briskly, moving on. "Going over to Culpepper's for dinner," he called after her conversationally just as Frank Adney hung up his sign next door that said out TO lunch.

"How do, Miss Abigail," he greeted.

"Mr. Adney," she acknowledged.

"Some scorcher, huh?"

"Indeed." She headed on up the boardwalk thinking how limited the range of conversation was in Stuart's Junction. Behind her, Bill Tilden asked Frank Adney, "You ever seen Miss Abigail uptown without her hat and gloves before?"

"Come to think of it, I ain't."

"Well, wonders never cease!" they turned to watch Miss Abigail as she entered the door of Porter's Meat Market, shaking their heads in disbelief.

"Howdy, Miss Abigail," Gabe Porter said.

"Good day, Mr Porter."

"Heard tell you took in that train robber up to your house."

"Indeed?"

Gabe stood with his ham-sized arms crossed over his mammoth, aproned stomach, the flies buzzing around the blood stains there, one occasionally landing on the fly paper that hung coiled from the ceiling.

"Shucks, everybody knows about it. He ain't giving you no trouble, now, is he?"

"No, he's not, Mr. Porter."

"Heard 'at other city dude cleared out on the train yesterday, huh?"

"Yes, he did."

"Ain't it a little risky, you bein' up there all alone with 'at other one?"

"Do I look as if I'm in jeopardy, Mr. Porter?"

"No, no indeed you don't, Miss Abigail. Folks is just wonderin' is all."

"Well, folks may cease their wondering, Mr. Porter. The gravest danger I'm in is that of being eaten out of house and home."

Then Gabe jumped, realizing she was waiting to buy some meat. "Ah… right! And what'll it be today?"

"How are your pork chops today? Are they fresh and lean?"

"Oh both, ma'am. Fresh cut today and kept on ice for as long as I can keep it from melting."

"Very well, Mr. Porter. I shall have three of them."

"Yup, coming right up!"

"On second thought, perhaps I shall need, four—no, five."

"Five? These ain't gonna keep till tomorrow, Miss Abigail, even down the well."

"I nevertheless shall take five, and a length of smoked sausage, oh, say—this long." She held up her palms six inches apart, then lengthened the span to ten or so and said, "No, this long."

"What in Hades you feedin' up there, Miss Abigail, a gorilla?"

It was all she could do to keep from replying, "Exactly!" Instead she thrust poor Gabe into total dismay by requesting, "I should like one pig's bladder added to my order."

"One… pig's bladder, Miss Abigail?" Gabe asked, bug-eyed.

"You just butchered, did you not? Where are the entrails?"

"Oh, I got 'em. I mean, they ain't been buried yet, but what—"

"Just wrap up one bladder, if you please," she ordered imperiously, and he finally gave up and did as she requested. When she was gone Gabe muttered to the flies,"… a pig's bladder… now what in the hell is she gonna do with that?"

When Miss Abigail reached her house again there were fresh buggy tracks in the fine, dry dust out front, and she realized she'd missed Doctor Dougherty again. What dismal luck to have missed him when she needed his help to get that man out of here.

In her customary way, she stopped to peak at her reflection in the mirror of the umbrella stand. There was no hat to remove, so she smoothed her hair, her sleeves, her waistband, then quickly tested the tautness of the skin beneath her chin with the back of her hand.

"Is it firm?" a deep voice asked, and she whirled and jumped a foot off the floor, pressing a hand to her heart.

"What are you doing up?" He was standing just this side of the kitchen archway, leaning on crutches, his dark chest, calves, and feet sticking out of a sheet he had wound around himself.

"I asked first," he said.

"What?" All she could think of was, what if that sheet dropped off!

"Is it firm? It should be, the way you point that saucy little chin at the ceiling all the time." As if to verify it, up went her chin.

"If you are up, you are strong enough to get out of here. How heartening!"

"Doc brought me the crutches and I needed to go out back after he left, so I decided to give it a go. But I'm not as strong as I thought."

"You traipsed clear across the backyard dressed in that sheet?" she gasped. "What if someone saw you?"

"What if they did?"

"I have a reputation to uphold, sir!"

"Don't flatter yourself, Miss Abigail," he smirked. She stood there with the blood cascading into her face, until even her ears felt hot. "You know, I'm getting a bit lightheaded," he said.

"Lightheaded? Don't you dare pass out wrapped in that sheet! Get back into bed, do you hear? I should never be able to budge you if you collapsed on the floor!"

He stumped his way across the far end of the parlor and all went well until he came to a hooked rug that lay in the bedroom doorway. One crutch caught in it and he began to waver. She hurried across, grabbed him around his middle to keep him from tipping over, and when he was steadied, went down on one knee to remove the rug. But the crutch was still planted on it, holding it down. "I can't pick it up. Can you move the crutch?" she asked, looking up the long length of him. It was a long, long way indeed to the top of that length, and she warned, "Mr. Cameron, if you tip over on top of me I'll never forgive you."

"There'd be nothing left to forgive with. You'd be one… squashed… hummingbird." He swayed against the doorjamb as one crutch crashed to the floor.

"Quickly, get to bed," she ordered, taking his arm over her shoulders. He was as tall as a barn door and nearly as broad at the shoulders, but they made it to the bed all right and sat down on the edge side by side. She quickly unwound his arm from her shoulder and rose.

"I'll thank you to use some common sense from now on. First of all, if you intend to parade around, you shall do so in pajamas and a robe. Secondly, you shall tend to necessities and not stand around yammering while you make a hazard of your big self in my house. If a… a gorilla like you ever fell, how would I ever get you up?"

In spite of his haziness, he asked, "Did you send your telegram, Miss Abigail?"

"Yes!" she lied, "and they cannot come too soon to get you off my hands."

"If you want to get rid of me, you'd better start feeding me better. I'm as weak as a mosquito. Did you buy some decent meat?"

"Yes! I bought something perfectly suited to you!"

He awakened from a dream that there was rain spattering on the canvas of his tent, but it was the pork chops splattering away on top of Miss Abigail's kitchen range. He stretched, feeling the skin of his right leg tight but healing and hurting less all the time. Something smelled so good his stomach lurched over, his mouth salivated, and a rumble sounded somewhere deep inside of him. By the time she brought the tray in he was ravenous.

"Mmm… it smells like pork chops. Is it some real meat at last?" He brightened as she set the tray on his lap. She had even considerately covered the plate with an upturned bowl to keep it hot.

"Yes, real meat," she confirmed, all smiles.

"Could it be you have a heart after all?"

"Decide for yourself," she replied saucily as the bowl came up in her hands, revealing the raw pig's bladder. She simply had to stay long enough to see the expression on his face. It was a black, shaking visage of anger while a spate of filth poured from him. At some time while he cursed, he asked what the hell it was on the plate.

"Real meat. Isn't that what you wanted?" she asked innocently, enjoying every minute of this. "As a matter of fact, it is pork. A pig's bladder… simply perfect for a goat like you."

He glared at her venomously and roared, "I smell pork chops, Abbie! Don't tell me I don't! Now do I get some or do I walk uptown in my sheet and tell them that the hussy Abigail McKenzie refuses to feed me as she's being paid to?"

She was in a fine fury, little fists clenched into tight balls, eyes bright with vindication as she stamped her foot.

"It is mv turn to teach
you
a lesson,
sir
! I have pork chops, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, everything to sate your fool appetite and get you strong and out of here. All I want from you in return is some decent treatment. You give me that filthy gun!"

"Bring me my pork chops!" he shouted, glowering at her.

"Give me the gun!"

"Like hell I will!"

"Then you shan't have pork chops!" But the gun appeared so quickly she'd have sworn it was there in his hand all the time. It shut her up like a sprung trap.

"Give… me… my… pork… chops," he growled.

She stammered, "Keep th… that filthy thing out of in… my sight!"

"I'll put it away when you bring me the pork chops you're being paid to give me!"

"Please!" she bellowed now.

"PLEASE!" he bellowed back.