Firefly (30 page)

Amy's remembered voice went on as clearly as the click of the crickets.

"Daddy didn't agree with your plans.  We all knew he wanted to set you up at one of his companies or in the bank, but he knew you were too independent.  'Stubborn as a Welsh terrier,' he used to laugh about you, but he liked that in a man.  And he knew you loved me.  Me--not my daddy's money."

"How I courted you, and courted him and your mother, too.  Anything, just so they'd let me have you."

What Amy told him next was not something he recalled from old conversations.  Yet it was her voice, with that soft southern Ohio drawl, just a bit husky as it always was when they lay together and talked in the summer dark.

"Then court Julie, Del.  The way you courted me.  Do you think I like seeing you all alone and miserable?  You need someone to love, to be loved by. If you love her, if you hate the thought of her with that other man, then go after her.  Don't be a quitter, Del.  Don't let me down.  Show me the old stubbornness that Daddy liked so well."

"But she doesn't love me the way you did."

"I didn't love you at first either, darling.  Don't you remember that first picnic?  You were such...such a string bean!  All long legs and arms and that horrible moustache.  I thought you the most clumsy oaf I'd ever seen.  Then later, when you started spouting poetry at me, I began to wonder where on earth one of Daddy's employee's sons had ever learned Shakespeare.  You were very forward, Del Morgan.  Why aren't you forward with Julie?"

He grumbled, "She's promised to someone else."

"Is she?"

He was forced to recall his own disturbed doubts about Julie's willingness to marry Hans.

"I'd have to be very careful.  Her father isn't a man I'd like to cross."

"Was Adam St. Rogers?"

"No, but at least I trusted Adam.  Wilhelm Hollstrom is a mystery.  Maybe he's all right, just a bit odd.  He might be uncomfortable, like a lot of immigrants.  But I can't shake the feeling that there's something underhanded about him."

"If I remember correctly, Daddy had you investigated that first time you came to call on me."

Morgan laughed and rolled onto his side again.  He reached for the bottle of scotch and wrestled the cork from it.

"Adam had sources and resources I can't even begin to imagine.  And he was in Ohio, a civilized state of the Union, not a wild Territory like Arizona."

"Don't forget, darling, that Daddy is still in Cincinnati, and he still has all his sources and resources."

Propped on one elbow, Morgan poured the glass full and swirled the scotch slowly.  He could just barely see it, and when some spilled out onto his hand, he wiped it on the seat of his pants.

Julie had told him this morning--yesterday morning now--that her father had worked in a bank.  In Indiana.  Adam St. Rogers was right next door in Ohio.  If anyone could find out the truth about Wilhelm Hollstrom, it was Adam St. Rogers.

How strange
, Morgan thought. 
I can't lie to Adam.  I'd have to tell him about Julie and the reason I'm so curious about her father.  But Adam never blamed me for what happened, and maybe he'd understand.  Maybe.

He would write the letter in the morning.  A long letter, one he had owed Adam for years.  He needed answers.  Julie Hollstrom had brought him back from one corner of hell, but the torment hadn't ended.

No amount of liquor could bring Amy back, and Morgan discovered suddenly that he no longer wanted the empty oblivion.  He wanted Julie, and whisky wouldn't pry her loose from Hans Wallenmund.

What would? he wondered as he yawned and stretched and finally closed his eyes.  Money?  Was it to pay off that mysterious debt to her father that kept Julie tied to Hans?   Morgan rolled over in anger and knocked the whisky bottle on its side.  He grabbed it and set it safely away from his impromptu bed.

*   *   *

Julie called his name twice, then climbed the stairs with a heavy heart.  The doorway to the rooftop stood open, and Julie saw the bare mattress with the whisky bottle not far away.

Morgan stood by the wall, facing the backyard and the rising sun.  Bare chested, bare footed, unshaven, he turned and greeted her quietly.

"Good morning, Julie.  I'm late again, aren't I."

She nodded, unable to speak, then quickly averted her eyes.  She had been devouring him unashamedly with her gaze.

"Have I embarrassed you, Julie?"

"Yes…no…I mean, I wasn't expecting...."

Her voice trailed off even as he watched her.  In the morning light she looked fresh and innocent, though her green skirt showed signs of mending and her yellow blouse, clean from yesterday's laundry, was worn thin at the elbows.  He knew her hair was long in that tightly coiled bun, but even the severe style couldn't dim the shimmer of summer sun on spun silver.  It glowed like a halo above her bowed head.

She's beautiful, he thought, more beautiful than I ever imagined.

He walked to the bottle and leaned over to pick it up.  Julie watched, trying to hide her disappointment.

"Here, take it," he ordered.  "Look at it."

"No, I don't even want to touch it."

"But I want you to.  See?"  He pointed to the level of liquid inside.  "It's full."

Finally, slowly, she looked up.

He gave her a grin that crinkled his eyes, that glittered in those gold-green depths.

"You didn't drink it?"

"Not a drop."

She hesitated a moment before mirroring his smile, and when his arms opened, she went into them just as reluctantly.  It wasn't proper, not at all.  He was practically naked, and she was more than practically engaged.  Worse yet, she understood the danger far better than he, because if Morgan was merely seeking congratulations on his victory, Julie found much more.

Chapter Eighteen

July sizzled its way toward August, one busy day at a time.  Thaddeus Burton left Plato the Thursday after his arrival, taking the stage to Prescott.  He managed his crutches well, and left behind his horse at the livery to ensure his return, though by then no one doubted the big man's honesty.

His absence from the doctor's office was keenly felt, however.  With Burton gone, Julie found herself slipping into her old shyness again.  She had been able to laugh with him, and with Morgan sometimes, too, but in the house alone with the doctor, she retreated into herself.

Morgan noticed it and had no trouble locating the cause.  It didn't matter that, as the days and weeks went by, neither Julie nor her parents formally announced her engagement.  With or without a firm date set for the wedding, she considered herself betrothed, and she had betrayed her promise when she let Morgan wrap her in his arms that Monday morning.  More guilt, and he felt it too, because he blamed himself.  He swore there would be no repetition.

He also swore to find the cause of her other guilts.  Promptly after sending her on her way that morning, he sat down and wrote to Adam St. Rogers.  A telegram would have been faster, but Morgan could not avail himself of that convenience with the object of his investigation manning the telegraph office.  So the letter was long, containing confessions and apologies as well as questions.  When Morgan had written it over several times to make certain he had left out nothing, he carried it to the post office before opening the clinic for the day.

Some of his patients, like the McCrorys, paid him cash which, after paying his bills, he faithfully deposited in a growing account in the bank.  His long-standing debt at the general store was soon erased, and by the time Burton had been gone a week, Morgan decided to spend some of his hard-earned riches on himself.

He let Ezra Farnum fit him for a new coat, silk-lined.  The old one needed alterations, and it was worn enough that it wouldn't last much longer anyway, so buying a new one, Morgan told himself, made perfect sense.

He did not tell Julie about it.

The more skilled she became at her work, the more he fought against taking her for granted.  It wasn't easy.  She learned quickly, more quickly than he had ever imagined she would.  When he caught her reading his medical books and discovered she had no course of study, he made a list for her.  Every night she took books home, and he knew she read while fixing supper because he had picked up one of the volumes and found a page spattered with cooking grease.

He didn't dare wonder what he'd do without her.

He could only wait, and hope for a reply to his letter to Adam St. Rogers that would tell him something, anything.  He didn't even know what.

Two weeks after Burton left for Prescott, Morgan was making his Thursday morning errands in the sweltering heat, and he couldn't get that long-awaited reply out of his mind.  When he stopped at the post office, he crossed his fingers for an instant before pulling the door open.

"Hey, g'mornin', Doc!" Mr. Nisely called over the counter.  "Been waitin' fer ya.  Got a letter fer ya t'day.  Mebbe it's the one ya bin waitin' fer."

But by the time the elderly postmaster had finished all that, Morgan had the envelope in his hand and could see for himself that it wasn't.  The postmark was Prescott.

Inside the envelope was a folded sheet of paper, but when Morgan opened it, another smaller sheet fell out, almost dropping to the floor before he caught it.  It was a bank draft in the sum of one hundred dollars made out to Dr. Morgan.

He let out another low whistle but did not say anything in front of the postmaster, who had never been accused of keeping a secret.

Outside in the late morning sun, Morgan squinted to read the note while he walked to the bank, the only detached building between the post office and the boardwalked shops.

"Dear Doc," the slightly scrawled letter read.  "I made it to Prescott and got my claim filed all nice and legal.  Found out too that my partner Jim Spence, r.i.p., had stashed some money in a bank here in the mine's name.  Damn fool place for money, if you ask me, but he didn't.  Anyway, I figger a chunk of it belongs to you and Miss Julie.  Don't you go paying none of my bills in Plato with this.  I'm spending part of the loot on myself, resting up here at the hotel like you told me to.  But soons I get solid on my feet again I'll be back to pay all my bills.  I kinda miss that old strawberry horse anyway."

Morgan laughed, remembering the detailed instructions Burton had left for Gus at the livery. 

He had reached the bank but didn't immediately go in.  He leaned against the brick wall in the last sliver of shade before noon and continued reading.

"I know I don't have to worry about you cheating Miss Julie outta her share, so I won't tell you how to split this.  But just don't go getting married to her until I get back to Plato.  I just love weddings and will be very hurt if I don't get a invite to yours."

Morgan coughed, folded the letter quickly, and put it in his pocket.  He'd have to make sure Julie didn't see it.

He put half the hundred dollars into his account and took the other fifty in cash, including the shiniest double eagle Dan Kincheloe had in his drawer.  Dan said nothing about the gold coin, but Morgan suspected the teller had suspicions of his own.  Still, neither man said a word, and Morgan walked back outside to finish his errands.  He tucked the gold piece in a pocket separate from the rest of his money.