Coming Up Roses (35 page)

“
Yes. A poultice.” She apparently
detected a certain unwillingness to endure poulticing in his voice,
because she turned around to shoot him a good, hot glare. “This is
good medicine, H.L. May, and you’re going to keep it pressed to
your head for at least a half-hour. Little Elk’s mother taught me
how to make it, and if you balk about using it, you’ll be worse
than an idiot.”

“
An Indian poultice?” For some reason,
knowing that she was going to doctor him using Indian medicaments
made H.L. feel less like a simpering weakling. In fact, his
reporterly instincts made a stab at awakening, although they, too,
were unsteady on their feet. “What’s in it?”

Rose kept puttering on the other side of the
tent. H.L. missed her and wished she’d finish up over there and get
back to the bed. If they couldn’t make love, maybe they could at
least hug for a while. “Lots of things. There’s witch hazel and
yarrow and aloe and several other plants and herbs that grow in
Kansas. It’s really quite soothing. I’m going to fix you an old
Sioux remedy for headache to drink, too, and I don’t want any guff
from you.” She frowned.

Since he hadn’t said anything to account for
her frown, it worried him. “Why are you frowning?”

“
I beg your pardon?” She turned and
gazed at him blankly for a second. Then, as if she realized what
he’d asked, she said, “Oh. Well, that horrid man bruised me when he
put down the burlap sack he’d stuffed me in.”

“
He
what
?” H.L. wished he hadn’t yelled when pain
stabbed through his head. Pressing a hand over the growing lump, he
eyed Rose. He knew he was going to have to kill Pegleg. There were
no two ways about this. Pegleg was going to pay with his life for
having bruised Rose. Forcing the words out through gritted teeth,
he said, “Where did he bruise you?” He squinted hard at her. “Did
you say he carried you in a burlap sack?” Perhaps he’d
misunderstood her.

“
Yes. It was very uncomfortable, too,
let me tell you. But I kept hollering, and he got mad and dumped
the bag down on the ground. It hurt.”

“
Where did he hurt you?” After he
killed Pegleg, he’d kiss Rose’s bruise and make it well. Maybe he’d
kiss it before he went out to kill Pegleg, since he wasn’t in any
condition to kill anything yet. And if it didn’t make her better
when he kissed it, it would certainly make him feel better, and
that was a good thing.

“
My—” She stopped speaking abruptly.
H.L. thought he detected a faint flush invade her cheeks. She
cleared her throat. “My, ah, leg. The upper part of, ah, my
leg.”

“
Ah. I understand. That bastard bruised
your butt.” H.L. was going to kill him. That was all. There needn’t
be any muss or fuss about it. He’d shoot him, and it would be an
execution of a vicious criminal, pure and simple, and nobody, not
even the president of the anti-capital-punishment brigade or the
Purity League, could find fault with him. Pegleg had bruised Rose’s
buttocks; therefore, Pegleg must die. It was simple, really. H.L.
hoped his head stopped throbbing soon so he could carry out his
plan. The prospect of kissing Rose’s injury increased the
pleasurable aspects of retribution a lot.

“
You needn’t be so blunt,” Rose
muttered.

“
Nuts. That man is vicious and a danger
to society.”

“
I won’t argue with you about that.”
She finished doing something that required the jamming of
ingredients into a cloth bag and dipping the bag into a bowl of
water. Then she tied a string around the open end of the bag.
“There. It’s all ready for you.” Turning and eyeing him critically,
she said, “You really do look terrible, H.L. Loosen your tie and
take off your shirt and jacket, please, then lie down. After I
adjust this poultice, I’m going to go find someone to take a
message to the police. Then I want to see if you have any other
injuries.”

He actually managed a grin. “Yeah? Take off
my shirt? Your friend Annie won’t be shocked?”

Rose huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re
injured, and you need medical attention. Now take off your shirt
and jacket and lie down.”

She sounded ferocious, and he did as she
ordered. He was pleased to see the avid expression on Rose’s face
as she watched him bare his torso. He had a rather fine torso if he
did say so himself. Lowering himself carefully, and painfully, he
lay flat on her bed. His head underwent excruciating agonies as his
head nestled against her pillow, but the sweet-smelling pillowcase
eased his nerves. “This pillow smells like you, Rose.”

“
It does?” She appeared flustered for a
moment. “Well, that’s not surprising, I suppose.”

“
It smells wonderful. Like you. You
smell like vanilla and wild flowers. Did you know that?” His eyes
had squeezed shut from pain, but he opened them now and gazed up to
see her looming over him. Looming in a good way. If he felt less
pitiful, he could come up with a better word for what she was
doing. For now, looming would have to do.

He realized he was already composing an
article about this incident in his sore head and came to the
conclusion that Rose was good for him. She provided endless copy
for his fertile imagination. Besides, she smelled great. So did her
pillow.

“
Here,” she said softly, leaning close.
“Press this to the sore spot.”

H.L. had just begun to enjoy having her
face practically touching his when the poultice struck.
“
Aaaagh
! That
stings.”

“
The skin’s broken.” Rose straightened
away from him, and H.L. felt doubly awful. “But it’s not a bad
scratch, and soon it will stop stinging. Mostly, it’s the swelling
that’s going to hurt. I’m afraid that spot will be tender for some
time, but this poultice will help if you give it time.”

His eyes squeezed shut in agony. “God, I feel
awful.”

“
I’m sure you do.” She sounded as if
she were at least a little bit worried about him, and he thought
that was nice. He heard sounds from across the tent that he
presumed were made by a spoon being stirred in a glass. He wasn’t
looking forward to drinking whatever noxious concoction she was
brewing.

Her footsteps came closer and stopped beside
the bed. “Here.”

H.L. pried his eyes open and frowned at the
glass she held out to him. “What’s that?”

“
Don’t sound so reluctant. This is the
best cure I’ve ever taken for headache, and you need
it.”

“
You sound like a prison guard,” H.L.
grumbled.

“
Just drink it.”

He drank it. “God, that stuff tastes
horrible!” He wasn’t altogether sure he wasn’t going to return it
to Rose against his will and had to hold his breath for a minute
before he was sure it would stay down.

“
Horrible or not, it will help you.
Here. Chew this.”

He squinted at her and took the dried twig
she held out to him. “What is it?”

“
Mint. Chew it. It will help the remedy
stay down.”

Thank God for small favors. H.L. popped the
twig into his mouth and chewed. He was glad to discover Rose was
right. He thought he might just live through her ministrations. He
sank back against her pillow, pressing the poultice to his
throbbing skull, and wishing it were a couple of weeks from now and
he didn’t hurt anymore.

“
You just stay there now, and keep that
poultice on your sore spot. I’ll be back in a minute.”

H.L.’s eyes popped open in horror. She was
going to abandon him! Before he could voice a protest, she’d left
him all alone in the tent with nothing but his pain and his
poultice to keep him company. He felt really rotten.

Before his sense of being marooned in a
desolate place could flourish, however, Rose was back, looking
pleased with herself. H.L. frowned at her. “Where’d you go?”

She appeared surprised by his brisk tone.
“Just over to the Sioux village. I sent a couple of the children to
find a Columbian Guardsman and the colonel. I’m sure the Guard will
get a message to the police, especially if Colonel Cody steps in
and orders him to do so.”

“
Ah. Did you write a note to the
police?”

She looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”

All right. H.L. guessed she wasn’t going to
tell him what her note said. He also guessed he didn’t care a whole
lot. He asked with hope, “Are you going to fix a poultice for
yourself?” He thought he’d recover quicker if he could see Rose’s
sweet bottom, even if it sported a bruise and a poultice. “I
promise I won’t do anything untoward.” Bitterly, he added, “I
couldn’t if I wanted to, dammit.”

She frowned, narrowing her eyes in thought,
as she contemplated his suggestion. “I suppose I might as well.
That poultice really does wonders for bruises and swellings. I’m
afraid I might not be able to perform for a day or two, because the
spot is really quite sore. I don’t think I ought to try to work my
act unless I’m in top shape.”

H.L.’s heart cried out in terror at the
thought of Rose trying to perform some of those tricks of hers with
a bum leg. “Good God, no!”

She blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

He tried to sit up, but she dashed over and
held him down, shrieking,

“
Stop it!”

“
No! You can’t perform, Rose. Not until
you’re all better. Good God, Rose, you’ll kill
yourself!”

She patted his shoulder. “Calm down, H.L.
I’ll speak to the colonel as soon as possible.”

He subsided but was still worried. It also
occurred to him that while Rose was doctoring his head, Pegleg was
probably busy escaping. He let out a groan as he settled back onto
her bed. He wished she’d join him there, but knew there were more
important things to think about at the moment. Damn it, he wanted
to make love to Rose. He didn’t want to have to heal first.

Hell. First things first. He looked up at
Rose as he obediently pressed the poultice to his sore spot again.
After the first appalling seconds, during which the moistened herbs
inside the calico bag felt as if they were eating the skin off his
head, the spot actually began to feel sort of better. Cool. It felt
cool. “So, you managed to escape from the burlap sack. Did you run
away from him, or what?”

“
What?” Rose had gone back to the table
upon which she’d prepared

H.L.’s poultice. It looked to him as if she
were getting another one ready for her own use. He hoped she’d
apply it where he could see her do it. “Oh, you mean the men who
kidnapped me?”

“
Men? There was more than one of them?”
H.L. frowned. “Oh, of course, there was more than one of them.
There had to be, or I wouldn’t have been beaned from behind, would
I?”

“
Exactly.”

“
So. They didn’t just let you go, did
they?”

Her sudden wicked grin tickled him. “Not on
purpose, they didn’t.”

As she told him how she’d escaped, H.L. felt
a swelling in the area of his heart. He’d never experienced its
like, and he didn’t know whether to be pleased or aghast, because
he feared it meant something he’d never even contemplated happening
to him.

Yet could it be happening? Could H.L.
May, who’d always considered himself above such things, actually—he
swallowed as the thought smote him—be falling in—he could hardly
bear even think the word—
love
with Rose Gilhooley?

“
So,” Rose said as she tied up another
calico bag into which she’d stuffed moistened herbs. “That’s how I
escaped from the man you call Pegleg. As far as I know, he’s still
out cold, but I have no idea what happened to his friend. Wherever
he is, I expect his jaw is pretty badly swollen.”

She looked about as proud of herself as H.L.
expected she could look, and he gave up the struggled. He was too
weak to fight any longer. Dammit, he loved her. He allowed his eyes
to drift shut, still pressing the poultice to his lump, and waited
for the dread to strike him. He couldn’t imagine falling in love
and not dreading the consequences of such a damn-fool
happenstance.

“
I’m going to turn down the lamp,” Rose
told him.

H.L. opened his eyes to slits and glanced
over at her. “All right, I guess, but don’t you think we ought to
wait for the police?”

She sniffed, reminding H.L. of a grand lady
objecting to something one of her servants had done. He grinned in
spite of the state of his emotions.

“
They’ll get here eventually, I’m sure,
especially when the colonel gets involved. As for waiting for them
. . . Well, what have the police ever done for us?” Rose asked
coldly. “If they want to talk to us, they can do so after we take
care of our bruises and bumps. If they even care.”

H.L. grinned as he allowed his eyes to
close again. “Oh, they’ll care. After Cody gets on their case and
they read my article about
this
night’s work, they’ll care, all right.”

“
Fine,” Rose said. “Let them care,
then. My . . . leg is beginning to stiffen up, and I need to get
this poultice on the bruise.”

H.L. felt sort of dreamy. “I don’t suppose
you’ll come here and lie beside me, will you? I won’t be able to do
anything to you, unfortunately.”

“
Unfortunately
?”

She sounded shocked, and H.L. considered this
reaction to his comment disingenuous, considering they’d been about
to consummate their passion until those two bastards showed up and
kidnapped her. Tried to kidnap her. He chuckled. “Fudge, Rose. If I
try anything, you can just bop me like you did those two crooks,
and push me off the bed.” Straining his eyes open one last time, he
added, “Besides, where else can you do it? There’s only one place
in here to lie down.”