Hummingbird Read Online Free PDF Page B

way.
    She pressed her knuckles to her teeth, despairing, near tears. Suddenly she had an inspiration and ran through her house like a demented being, flew out the back door, and found Rob Nelson playing in his backyard next door.
    "Robert!" she bellowed, and Rob jumped to stand at attention. Never in his life had he seen Miss Abigail look so bedeviled or raise her voice that way.
    "Yes, ma'am?" he gulped, wide-eyed.
    Miss Abigail grabbed him by the shoulders so tight she like to break his bones. "Robert, run fast up to the livery stable and ask Mr. Perkins for a handful of straw. Clean straw, do you understand? And run like your tail's on fire!" Then she gave Rob a push that nearly put him on his nose.
    "Yes, ma'am," the amazed boy called, scuttling away as fast as his legs would carry him.
    It seemed to Miss Abigail that hours passed while she paced feverishly, waiting. When Rob returned, she grabbed the straw without so much as a thank you, ran into her house, and slammed the screen in the boy's face.
    Leaning over the robber's dark face, she tipped up his chin and forced two fingers into his mouth. His tongue was ominously hot and dry. But the straw was too flimsy, she could see after several unsuccessful attempts to get it down his throat. Harried, she scoured her mind, wasting precious minutes until she found an answer. Cattails! She plucked one from a dried bouquet in the parlor, reamed the pith from its center with a knitting needle, and—hardening her resolve—lifted the dark chin again, pried open his mouth with her fingers, and rammed the cattail down his throat, half gagging herself at what she was doing to him.
    But it worked! It was a small success, but it made her hopeful: the ginger tea went down smoothly. With not a thought for delicacy, Miss Abigail filled her mouth again and again, and shot the tea into him, but as she was removing the straw from his mouth, some reflex in him decided to work and he swallowed, clamping down unknowingly upon her two fingers. She yelped and straightened up in a pained, arching snap, pulling her fingers free to find the skin broken between the first and second knuckles of both.
    Immediately she stuck them in her mouth and sucked, only to find a trace of his saliva on them. An outlaw! she thought, and yanked a clean handkerchief from within her sleeve, fastidiously wiping her tongue and fingers dry. But staring at his unconscious face, she felt her own flood with heat and her heart thrum from something she did not understand.
    Realizing it was near noon, she left the man to prepare David Melcher's tray. When she brought it to his doorway, Melcher's jaw dropped.
    "Miss Abigail! What's happened to you?"
    She looked down to find flecks of blood strewn across her breasts from beating the steak, maybe even some from the body of the man downstairs. Raising a hand to her hair, she found it scattered like wind-whipped grass. As her arm went up, a large wet ring of sweat came into view beneath the underarm of the trim blue blouse which had looked so impeccable this morning. Too, there were those two bloody tooth marks on her fingers, but those she hid in the folds of her skirt.
    Gracious! she thought, I hadn't realized! I simply hadn't realized!
    "Miss Abigail, are you all right?"
    "I'm quite all right, really, Mr. Melcher. I've been trying to save a man's life, and believe me, at this point I think I'd be grateful to see him with enough strength to try to harm me."
    Melcher's face went hard. "He's still alive, then?"
    "Just barely."
    It was all David Melcher could do to refrain from snapping, "Too bad!"
    Miss Abigail sensed his disapproval, but saw how he made an effort to submerge his anger, which was altogether justifiable, considering the man downstairs had done Mr. Melcher out of a big toe. "Just don't overdo it. I don't think you're used to such hard work. I shouldn't want you becoming ill over the care of a common thief."
    An undeniable warmth came at his words, and she replied,