Firefly (7 page)

It took longer than any of them anticipated, thanks in part to Wilhelm's frequent interruptions and in another part to a fishhook that had to be cut out.  That meant more bleeding and two extra stitches, none of which Willy took with much fortitude.  Julie held his hand and let him give vent to all his pain, while Morgan waited patiently, his own brow as sweaty as the boy's and his face almost as white under its unshaven tan.

No one noticed when Horace Opper left.  Wilhelm, despite repeated orders, did not leave the parlor any longer than was necessary to escort his wife to her room and pour her a glass of sherry.  He stood in the archway between parlor and dining room, arms folded across his barrel chest, blue eyes trained coldly on the man and woman and boy.  Julie shivered more than once when she caught that icy stare, but Morgan never turned away from his task.

The black sutures wandered almost two inches from the inner edge of the eyebrow upward in a drunken diagonal. There'd be a scar, no doubt about it, but at least the fishhook was out, the bleeding was stopped.

Julie began to pick up the damp, bloodied towels and cloths that littered the floor.  It gave her something to do while she thanked Morgan.

"I greatly appreciate your coming here this afternoon. I know you didn't want to, but I'm glad you did," she whispered.

"Yeah, well, you're welcome," he stammered in a similarly quiet voice.  He recalled the way he had left her last week, demanding that exorbitant fee.  She probably expected him to ask three or four times that much now that he had actually done something.  "Uh, I think I'd better be going, Miss Hollstrom.  He'll be all right now.  The stitches might draw and itch in a few days.  See if you can keep him from pulling them out for a week or so and then just let Horace remove them.  I think he can handle that."

He couldn't remember making a speech that long in years and quickly bit his lip to keep from blabbing even more. Besides, now that the job was done, all the quivery queerness returned to his stomach.  If he was going to lose its contents, he'd rather do it at the Castle or at home, not in front of the girl who had for some strange reason trusted him.

"I must owe you something for what you did here today," she said.  "I can't pay you right now, but I'll try to get you something as soon as I can."

Oh, God, the nausea was worse now that he was on his feet.

"Let Willy sleep as long as he wants; it's the best thing for him.  I'll, uh, I'll stop by tomorrow and get him that ice cream."

Without another word, he turned and bolted for the door, pushing Wilhelm out of his way and slamming the door back on its hinges in his flight.

He made it to the stairs before the first convulsion hit him.  He controlled it only long enough to charge down the stairs and then lose his balance.  The sunlight and the heat and the frayed ends of all his nerves combined to topple him in the dust as the bitter taste flooded upward.

There was dust in his nostrils, and the bright red and white of flowers danced in front of his dizzy eyes.  His whole body curled fetally as his stomach emptied itself on the ground.  The red and white petunias turned to blood-stained petticoats in the tormented vision of his memory.

Chapter Four

The nightmare lingered even after he was certain he had wakened.  There was light on the other side of his mattered eyelids, and he thought he smelled bacon frying.  But the aroma brought back the nausea and that was part of the nightmare, so he couldn't be truly sure of anything.

Had he slept, or had he just been unconscious all that time?  He didn't know.  Vaguely he was aware that he lay on something hard and relatively smooth, just as he vaguely remembered collapsing in the girl's flowerbed and throwing up his liquid breakfast.  He had almost reached the memory of sewing the boy's forehead back together, an essential part of the nightmare, when his head cleared enough that he heard voices and could actually understand the words.

"You mean he just died?"  A child's voice, it sounded like the boy's.

"Apparently."  The reply came from Julie.  He had no trouble recognizing her voice.

"Well, who found him?  I mean, how did they find out he was dead?  And where did he die?"

"Mr. McCrory found him early this morning in the alley behind his store."

"How'd you find out about him?"

There was a clattering and the tapping of an eggshell on the edge of a skillet, followed by the unmistakable sizzle.

"Mrs. McCrory came over earlier, before you were awake, and told me.  The funeral is to be this afternoon."

"How come so soon?  When Mr. Callahan died they had that big wake for him, with all the--"

"That was in Minnesota, Willy, and here they just can't wait that long.  Besides, Mr. Callahan was Irish, and it's a custom with the Irish to do that."

Morgan struggled with his eyes, tried to open them and wondered if perhaps they were held shut with coins, maybe even silver dollars from Julie Hollstrom's apron pocket.  No, he seemed able to move his limbs, though with a great deal of stiffness and plenty of pain, too, so he didn't think he was the person scheduled for burial this afternoon.

He rolled onto his back and discovered a small pillow.  He eased it under the back of his neck and then rubbed his eyes, feeling the rough granules that stuck his lashes together finally loosen.  After a few tentative flutters, he opened his eyes and struggled to focus them.

Despite the pain it brought, the blinding morning sunlight was one of the most beautiful things Del Morgan had ever seen in all his thirty-four years.  His head pounded, his eyes felt as though they were being slowly burned from their sockets, his hip and shoulder joints practically squeaked with aching stiffness, his belly growled with hunger he knew he didn't dare satisfy right away or he'd lose whatever he ate, and his mouth tasted as if some old buzzard had dragged a piece of carrion in there and left it.  Yet he was so relieved just to be alive that he smiled and then stretched with a loud yawn.

And he realized he hadn't felt this good about being alive for years, though he felt so lousy that he didn't care to wonder why he felt so good.

He was now aware that he lay to one side of the Hollstroms' porch, and the pillow under his head was a well-worn cushion from an old wicker chair at the other side of the porch.  He was indulging in another yawn and stretch and wondering where the nearest privy was when the front door opened.

If there hadn't been a railing to the porch, he would have tumbled into the petunias again, but he was not going to lie down while Julie Hollstrom came out with his breakfast.  He clutched the turned pillar with numb fingers and prayed that the world would stop spinning quite so recklessly, but at least he was on his feet before the door had closed behind her.

"Look, Miss Hollstrom, I--"

"I thought I heard you waking up out here," she rudely interrupted.  "Do you take anything in your coffee?"

"No, but I--"

"And would you prefer strawberry preserves or orange marmalade on your toast?"

"Strawberry, but you don't--"

"I hope you don't mind, but I only fixed you some toast and coffee; I didn't think you'd be up to much more after the way you felt yesterday."  She walked past him and set the tray on the railing, then pulled one of the wicker chairs closer to him.  "Why don't you sit down while you eat?"

Well, did you really expect her to invite you into her kitchen for breakfast?
he asked himself caustically. 
It ought to be enough she's feeding you here on her front porch, instead of calling someone to drag you home and out of her sight
.

So he did as he was told and sat down on the chair that still had its cushion and let Julie set the tray on his lap before she uncovered the plate of lightly buttered toast.  The slices had been cut into neat little triangles, and there were two dishes of jam, one red and one yellow to match the color of their contents.  Morgan stared, then picked up the knife and began to spread strawberry jam on one slice of toast.  He was about to pop the morsel into his mouth when he suddenly realized where he was and what he was doing.

"Look, Miss Hollstrom--"

"No, you look, Mr. Morgan."

She was a tall girl, as he remembered from last week, and he rather enjoyed looking up at her, even if he was about to receive a lecture.

"I won't flatter you by telling you how you miraculously saved my brother's life.  We both know he was in very little real danger."

She wore a dress of faded green calico with that ever-present apron tied around her waist.  Morgan noticed that it was a small waist, and he turned back to his toast with a mumbled, "
He
sure thought he was a goner."

"Be that as it may, I still want to thank you for the help you gave me.  My parents are inordinately fond of Willy, and I confess I would rather have had the blame for any disaster fall on your head than on mine."

"So all I was was a scapegoat?"

"If I thought that, I wouldn't have told you.  No, I wanted to thank you for doing a much better job than I could have done, and certainly better than poor Dr. Opper."

"'Poor' Dr. Opper?  Hell, Horace rakes in more dough than I ever did, and he does less for it, too.  I'd hardly call that old quack 'poor.'"

He crammed the toast into his mouth and chewed furiously, both because he was hungry and because he was already saying things he had no right to say, to Julie Hollstrom or to anyone else for that matter.

"Well, you needn't worry about him any more.  Dr. Opper is dead."

Morgan choked.  If he had had any more in his mouth, he probably would have choked to death.

"Horace is dead?"

"As the proverbial doornail.  Mr. McCrory found him lying in the alley behind the general store.  Apparently he just died."

"People don't 'just die,' Miss Hollstrom.  Probably his heart gave out, or he had a stroke.  He didn't look too good yesterday afternoon, but I sure didn't think he'd croak this quick."

He sipped the fresh, hot coffee slowly, careful not to burn his mouth, and mused on the passing of Horace Opper, a man he had never liked but never really gave a whole lot of thought to.

"Shall I pour you some more coffee?" Julie asked, breaking into his thoughts.

"No, thanks."  Then he looked up at her suspiciously.  "Just what is it you want from me?  I'm a drunk, Miss Hollstrom, and it was only sheer luck I wasn't out cold when you came looking for me yesterday.  You have Sid Ackerman and his card game to thank for that, not me."

"I didn't go around asking questions about you, so you can rest easy on that," she began.  "But I've been around enough doctors to know one when I see him."

"All right, I
was
a doctor," he snapped right back. "I'm not any more, haven't been for a long time."

"Well, you see, my mother and brother are not exactly in the best of health."

"They both looked pretty damned healthy to me."

"Looks can be deceiving," she shot at him tartly.

"Yes, they can.  For instance, why do you wear those ridiculous spectacles?  Every time I've seen you, they've been about to fall off the end of your nose, and you're always looking at people over the top of them."