Firefly

by Linda Hilton

  “Don’t worry, Ada, everything’ll be fine. What goes on will come off, believe me,” Morgan assured her. “Here, Julie, you take Bridget and sit up on the table. Ada, help yourself to a shot of whisky there. It’s some of Horace’s best imported stuff.”

  Julie took the child from her mother, which seemed to calm Bridget. She really didn’t seem bothered at all by her heavy bracelet and immediately began to investigate the long row of buttons down the front of Julie’s blouse.

  Morgan took a jar of petroleum jelly from the cabinet and opened it, then smeared a generous amount all over the adorned hand. In a matter of seconds, the shears slid off. Ada hadn’t even swallowed her second whisky.

  But those few seconds were enough for Morgan to see again how natural Julie looked with a child on her lap.

  From then on the morning went more or less normally, although pulling a candle stub from Sid Ackerman’s ear did provide mild amusement between extracting a couple of teeth and stitching a cut knee. Sid claimed it was an accident, but the smell of cheap whisky was so strong on him even at ten o’clock in the morning that Morgan insisted afterwards the candle had probably been put there on a dare or as a bet in a card game.

  “Sid has bet crazier things,” Morgan explained while they cleaned up after repairing a ranch hand’s knee. “Once, when I was more or less sober, I had a straight flush and there was a huge pot on the table. I was pretty sure Sid had a full house at least, but he was also out of cash and I didn’t want him to fold. So he said he’d bet me a bald head. If he won, I had to shave my head. If I won, I got the pot and he’d shave his head.”

  “And you won?”

  “Luckily, I won. If I’d been drunk, I wouldn’t have.”

  A howling scream from some distance away cut through the conversation in the full waiting room.

  “My God, what was that?” Morgan asked as he ran through the waiting room and out to the front porch with Julie right behind him.

  Within seconds, young Skip Jenkins, the blacksmith’s apprentice, came charging clumsily down the street. His hands were clasped behind him, and his frequent screams drew patrons from the Castle, the post office, and the shops to see what the commotion was about.

  He bounded up the stairs of the physician’s office, and the odor of scorched denim and burnt flesh trailed the explanation.

  Face down on the surgery table, he didn’t need to say a word. The fabric of his trousers and underdrawers was crisply burned away, and the blistered red shape branded onto his buttock could not be mistaken.

  “I sat on a horseshoe,” he gasped.

  “Better send someone for new pants,” Morgan suggested to Julie. “This pair is going to need patching.”

  It wasn’t as serious a burn as it could have been, but Morgan ordered the youth to rest for a few days at least and to come back in a day or two to have the wound checked for infection. Limping, and dressed in an old bathrobe to keep from chafing the injury, the boy walked out of the office with a face as red as the burn on his other end.

  In between a smallpox vaccination and a woman with a chronic cough, Simon McCrory arrived to pay for his daughter’s extrication and to let Del know another shipment had come for him on the noon stage.

  “I took the liberty of bringin’ one box over with me, but there’s two more waitin’. You want me to have Ard bring ‘em over from the depot, or you want to pick ‘em up yourself?”

  Glancing toward the still half-full waiting room, Morgan chose the former.

  “I don’t know when I’m going to get away from here, and you know how it is on Friday nights. We’ve gone too long without a shooting, and I have a feeling in my bones we’re going to pay for it tonight.” He tossed the half dollar to Julie, who took it to the desk and entered the fee in the ledger while the men talked.

  But they talked much longer than it took her to write a few numbers and a name in the book, and she couldn’t help enjoying the chance to sit down for a few minutes. She ached everywhere, and her eyes would hardly stay open, and she couldn’t believe how scribbled her writing looked compared to her normally neat penmanship. She was utterly exhausted, and she probably wasn’t doing anyone any good by trying to work when she ought to be asleep. But all she had to do was look at Morgan and she knew she could not have left unless he commanded her to do so.

  He doesn’t hate me, she had told herself a thousand times since last night. I told him the truth, and he doesn’t hate me.

  Nothing else seemed important. She had been so afraid that once he learned of her true nature he would banish her from his presence as unfit to treat decent human beings, but he hadn’t. It was too much to think that perhaps he felt something more than pity for her, but at least that was better than the disgust she had expected. Watching him talk with Simon McCrory, she let her mind, so busy all day with patients and instructions and medications, wander a bit, both back into the recent past and forward into the very new future.

  She had liked the feeling of little Bridget McCrory on her lap. When Willy was a baby, she had enjoyed him, too, and she had looked forward to his growing up and being something of a companion to her. But holding Bridget had struck a strange chord in her, maybe because of the way Morgan had looked at her for a fleeting second while he took the jar of Vaseline from the shelf. Was he just contemplating the procedure ahead, or was he looking at Julie with a child on her lap and thinking what she was thinking? Because she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to hold her own child—his child—on her lap.

  “Julie?”

  The voice was muffled, as though from a great distance, but the hand on her shoulder was warm and very close. She opened her eyes, then raised her head.

  She found herself looking right into the bottomless green-black eyes of his.

  “You fell asleep,” he scolded with a smile. “Have I been working you that hard today?”

  She blushed and jumped to her feet.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Who’s next?”

  Morgan leaned back against the side of the desk and flipped the ledger closed, using a slip of paper with a multitude of scribblings on it to hold his place.

  “All gone.”

  “But the waiting room was full just before Mr. McCrory came.”

  “I know. In the past three hours I’ve pulled two teeth, set a broken arm, prescribed a strong dose of castor oil for Mrs. Lindner’s stomach ache, diagnosed mumps for Elias Stowe, and confirmed Mrs. Hildebrand’s suspicions that she is pregnant again.”

  “And where was I all this time?”

  “Sound asleep, right here at the desk. No, I didn’t bring the patients in here; I used the other room and gave them a believable excuse.”

  She felt like an utter fool, and yet he was so kind about her blatant dereliction of duty. That in itself was embarrassing enough, but worse was the feeling that his nearness sent through her. She had wakened from a continuation of that dream, and the warmth of desire failed to recede as reality took over. Though she backed away from him, the desire remained.

  And the smile he gave her didn’t help at all. It made her think maybe he had been reading her thoughts, though he certainly did not leer at her the way her father had said men leered at the women they wanted. Stephen Reilly had sometimes looked at her that way, she remembered, but Del Morgan never had. Not even now.

  “If it weren’t for your family,” he said, “I would offer to buy your supper at Daneggar’s, but I know you have them to take care of. And frankly, Leif’s cooking isn’t all that great.”

  He laughed, and Julie managed to find a trace of humor, too.

  “Why don’t I invite you to dinner at the Hollstroms’?” she replied without really thinking. “It’s just a pot roast I put on this morning that I hope Mama kept a fire under. It was a larger cut than I usually have and I put extra carrots and potatoes with it, so there’s more than enough to go around.”

  Sunday dinner was one thing. Guests on the Sabbath was a social ritual, one performed without comment
necessary later. For all that had gone between them in the past few days, Morgan would have accepted an invitation to Sunday dinner with little hesitation, though some reservations. Friday night, however, was not so socially sterile. Gossip found fertile soil here and grew wilder than Cincinnati ragweed.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, both of her and of himself.

  “I told you I had plenty to go around. No applesauce cake, though.”

  “I’m not worried about dessert. I may have to leave abruptly, you know,” he warned. “Friday night can be rather boisterous, and accidents have been known to happen.”

  He was going to accept. Julie’s heart leaped to her throat, pounding so rapidly and so loudly that she doubted she could speak without a warbling tremolo. Even Hans had never come but on Sunday, and Julie knew very well the significance of having Morgan sit down with the family for Friday night supper. Surely he understood, too, didn’t he?

  He pulled out his watch and snapped it open.

  “It’s quarter past four now, and I have one call to make,” he told her. “What time shall I come?”

  “Six o’clock will be fine. Do you want me to stay and put these supplies away?”

  He had almost forgotten the three large wooden crates that had come from Denver. The lids had been pried off, but none of the contents had been removed. Even if they worked together, it would be an hour at least before they finished.

  “No, let it go for now. We’ll do it in the morning. Go on home, and I’ll clean up here.”

  But Julie insisted she had shirked enough duty for one day and refused to leave before she had finished recording the day’s business on the ledger and straightened up the surgery.

  “It won’t take long, and you can make your call while I’m here to watch the office.”

  She illustrated her determination by sitting back down at the desk and reopening the ledger. As she reached for the pen she had laid aside earlier, she asked, “Is this piece of paper supposed to be a record of the patients you saw today?”

  The writing covered both sides from top to bottom and margin to margin, and some of the names were blurred to illegibility, to say nothing of the numerals.

  “Can’t you read my writing?” Morgan asked with friendly sarcasm. “Ansel Porter, two teeth pulled, two dollars paid. Harry Blum, set and splint arm, five dollars paid.” He began to pull coins and a few bills from his various pockets and laid them on the desk top beside the ledger. “Hettie Lindner, consultation, one dollar not paid.”

  Julie scribbled as furiously as she could but still failed to keep up with him and finally gave up.

  “You’re doing that on purpose!” she laughed, setting the pen down and flexing cramped fingers. “All right, all right, I’ll go home, but I just hope you can remember all this tomorrow, because I know I can’t begin to decipher these chicken scratchings of yours.”

  “I’ll remember, don’t worry. Now, scoot, and I’ll lock up after you. If anything comes up, I’ll be at Nellie’s. One of the girls has been running a fever, and I said I’d look in on her.”

  He spoke as casually of the girls in the brothel as he would of the McCrory children, and Julie knew the ailing prostitute would receive the same conscientious care. Was that why Morgan felt no animosity toward her despite her past, because he held nothing against anyone, even the whores who serviced the miners and ranch hands and drifters? Did he consider Julie Hollstrom no worse than they? She suddenly realized that considering her no worse was not enough. She wanted him to think her something—someone—special.

  But she could not let her feelings show, not now. Whatever he thought of her, he had indeed consented to join her and her family for supper, and surely he would not do that if he did not think her respectable at the very least.

  *

  “For the last time, Papa, I assure you I meant nothing of the sort!”

  With one hand on her hip and the other brandishing a long-handled wooden spoon, Julie confronted her father angrily.

  “It is not proper!” Wilhelm repeated. “You are promised to Hans and should not be consorting with an unmarried man.”

  He kept his voice down, but the anger rang in the tightness of the words, the strangled sort of breathlessness at the end of each sharp sentence. Julie let her eyes stray from her father’s furious countenance to the cowering shadow of her mother.

  Katharine had, Julie admitted, warned that this would happen. Though she had agreed with her daughter that there was nothing essentially wrong with inviting the doctor to dinner—his patients did it frequently enough—there was the matter of Julie’s past reputation to think of. Hans knew her for what she was, and he would probably think the very worst of this episode.

  Oddly enough, Katharine had not suggested that Julie cancel the invitation as a way of avoiding trouble. She seemed, rather, quite content to leave the situation as it stood.

  Wilhelm did not. As if echoing Katharine’s earlier admonitions, he took a half step closer to Julie and asked, “Just what do you think you will tell your fiancé? That you had dinner with another man? And what do you think he will say to that?”

  “Must I tell him anything?” Surprised at her own defiance, Julie turned back to the gravy that was just beginning to thicken. “No, Papa, I’m not trying to keep anything from Hans, and of course I will tell him that we had Dr, Morgan for dinner. I have nothing to hide.”

  It was just as well she had turned around, because a guilty flush crept up to her cheeks. Those kisses loomed much greater suddenly. And her feelings. Stirring the gravy slowly, she began to think about hiding those feelings, not just for a day or two or even a few weeks, but for the rest of her life.

  “Papa, it’s over and done with. I invited him, and whether it was a mistake or not, we can’t turn him away. I promise not to do it again.”

  “You most certainly will not. And I think it is time to start thinking about a date for this wedding. Hans and I will discuss it Sunday.”

  The spoon nearly clattered to the floor, but Julie caught it just in time. When she looked around, Wilhelm had already retreated to the parlor.

  Julie spoke very little through the meal, except to acknowledge Morgan’s compliments, both on the food and on her work at the office. She kept a watchful eye on her father, who said even less than she, and on her mother, who talked almost incessantly.

  Julie heard very little of that constant chatter, because her mind was staggering under a weight of confusion. Seated across from her, Morgan rarely so much as glanced her way, but there was something about his manner that suggested he was more than just grateful for a decent meal. But how much more? Enough to encourage her in the enterprise that impish little voice proposed to her? If not, she’d make a complete fool of herself, worse than before. On the other hand, she cringed at the thought of losing something that could be hers for the asking.

  If only she knew how to ask. The men she had known before Morgan had all come to her without any conscious effort on her part. She knew that. Even her father and mother had told her that she could hardly help herself and must put herself under their guidance to avoid additional transgressions. What, she tried to remember, had she done differently then? The eyeglasses were gone, but other than that, she could think of nothing. Her clothes had never been different from what the other girls wore, nor her hairstyle.

  “Julie?”

  Morgan’s voice brought her back to the present with a blink.

  “Would you pass the gravy, please?” he asked politely, but his little wink suggested something else. “It’s been quite a busy week, hasn’t it. You’d better turn in early and get a good night’s sleep.”

  She didn’t dare sigh her relief that he had thought her lack of concentration due to nothing more than exhaustion.

  He seemed about to say something else, but a loud pounding on the door interrupted him. He set his silverware down and waited alertly while Wilhelm went to the door. Just a few seconds later, he returned.

  “A patient for y
ou, Doctor,” he muttered, barely civil.

  Morgan pushed his chair back and set his napkin beside his plate.

  “Excuse me,” he said quietly, his face a mask of concern.

  At the door stood a boy of twelve or thirteen, his clothes dirty and threadbare. Morgan didn’t recognize him. Another person, a woman, sat on the top step of the porch.

  “You the doc?” the boy asked.

  “I am. What can I do for you?”

  He stepped outside, strode past the boy to the woman, who moaned in pain.

  “It’s my ma,” the boy said. “She’s havin’ a baby only Pa says it’s too early. She’s in a awful bad way.”

  “Take her over to my office,” Morgan ordered. “Carry her if you have to. The door’s locked, but I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Is she gonna die?”

  “I can’t tell that, son, until I take a look at her. Now get going.”

  He waited just long enough to see the pair on their way, then turned to re-enter the house, but Julie was already standing in the doorway.

  “I’ll come if you need me,” she said.

  He had only a second or two in which to make up his mind. She was exhausted, more so even than he, but he knew he might very well need her help.

  “Thanks, Julie.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The long struggle was over. The surgery smelled of blood, of sweat and tears and pain. One lamp had guttered out, leaving the room bathed in sharp shadows.

  Morgan dried his hands on a clean towel and stepped away from the table where Alice Elroy’s body lay still.

  “I did everything I could,” he sighed. “Everything I knew how.”

  He dropped the towel to the floor with the dozens of others and then turned to Julie. She was bent over the makeshift crib on the counter. At first he thought she was just checking on the tiny infant nestled among the flour sacking in the hastily emptied packing crate, but when he saw her body shake and then stiffen, he knew she was desperately fighting tears.