Hummingbird by Lavyrle Spencer Page B

"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.

Chapter 5
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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