By Layne and Jo

(Layne writing Hannah, Jo writing Ben)

 

Chapter Twenty-four:

 

 

Walking down the sidewalk on Benjamin's arm, Hannah actually felt happy, despite everything that had happened.  Many times, she'd walked down the streets in New York on the arm of Richard, but she had never enjoyed it so much.  She wondered at herself.

In the dry goods store, she was delighted to find that there were some ready-made dresses available.  She needed something now, not something she had to sew herself.  That set her mind working again.  Would they even be here long enough for her to sew anything if she wanted to? 

Benjamin's way of living seemed to be from one day to the next.  Would that be her way of living now, too?  Was that what she wanted?

Looking at the dresses, she chose a green one to match her eyes.  The storekeeper showed her a back room where she could try it on.  "What do you think?" she asked Benjamin, turning in front of him.

"Mighty fine," he said, nodding his head, then repeating, "Mighty fine."  The light in his eyes showed just how fine he thought she looked.

She blushed at his look, pleased.  "I should probably get a change.  Maybe something comfortable for riding?"  She looked at him questioningly.

"That'd be good. Get what you need, but not too much.  We ain't travelin' by stage."

Hannah looked at some simpler calico dresses, then gazed thoughtfully over toward the men's pants and shirts.  If she was going to be riding a lot, maybe those made more sense.  Walking over to them, she picked up a pair of pants and held them up to her waist.

"Too big," Ben smiled. "Try somethin' for a boy if you wanna go with pants."  He spied a giant sombrero and plopped it on her head. It came halfway down her face and he chuckled. "That'd keep the sun off your face."

Laughing, Hannah tilted her head far back enough to see him under the huge hat brim.  "It'd keep me from being recognized, too!"  Then her laughter stopped.  That might not be such a bad thing these days.

"I'd never be able to see where I was going, either."  She picked up a straw bonnet with green ribbon ties, which matched the dress she had chosen.  "How about this?"

"Much better. You goin' to get pants, too? You might need boots."  He looked at her. "You want boots?"

For a moment, Hannah pictured herself in pants, boots, and a hat.  A far cry from some of the beautiful ball gowns she'd worn to parties at home.  Home.  She thought about the concept. 

The large house in New York where her parents lived and where she and her sisters had grown up no longer seemed like home to her.  The little house with her office in Green Valley didn't seem like home, either.  For the first time in her life, it felt as though she had no home to go to.  Tears welled in her eyes at the thought.

Ben had been looking at her and when a tear began to roll down one of her cheeks, he stopped it with a fingertip. "What's this, little one? You don't have to get pants if you don't want them."

Hannah laughed a little and brushed away the rest of the tears.  "It's not the pants."  She tried to smile at him.  "It's just-"

Looking into his eyes, she said, "I just realized that this is the first time in my life that I've never really had a place to call home."  She put a hand to his cheek and asked, "Doesn't that ever bother you, Benjamin?  How do you live with it?"

For a moment he looked intently over her head, out the large front window of the store, then back down at her upturned face.  "I ain't had a home since I was a little kid, Hannah, and what

I had even then wasn't all that...homey.  What I had, well, it wasn't nothin' like what you're rememberin'. Nothin' at all. So I ain't never had much to feel I was leavin' behind. Kinda left

me just takin' home with me on my back...sorta like some turtle or somethin'."  He smiled, just barely. "Home ain't never been bigger'n the width of my shoulders."

Wiping her eyes, Hannah raised her hands and laid them on those shoulders.  Broad and strong.  Without warning, she rested her head against one of them.  She could call those home, too.  If he wanted her to stay, she could.

Somewhat surprised, he hesitated a moment, then lifted a hand, curving it over the back of her head. She felt real good tucked into him like that, real good. He closed his eyes, thinking how he was walking into unknown territory here, land that might well prove to be quicksand under his feet. Why, then, did he find himself wanting to take another step?

Raising her head, she tiptoed to kiss his lips lightly.  "I guess I'd better be trying on pants and boots.  This is going to feel strange!  I've never had on a pair of pants in my life.  My mother would faint at the thought!"  She grinned at him.

"I won't faint. I promise."  He was, in fact, rather looking forward to seeing how she might look.  As she stepped behind the curtain, he set about looking for a small leather belt that would fit her. When he located one, nicely tooled with Indian designs, he handed it to her over the top of the curtain. "Gotta hold them pants up. For now," he added, then asked the salesperson if there were a leather vest for sale that would fit a teenaged boy.

When Hannah had on the pants, shirt, and boots, and the vest and belt he had picked out for her, she came out to let him see.  Her long red hair hung out well below the hat and the boots felt strange on her feet.  She nearly tripped over her own feet when she first tried to walk in them.

"You know," he commented thoughtfully, "you tuck that hair up under that hat and you just might pass for....."  He stopped, shaking his head. "No, you got them there...."  His voice trailed off as his eyes settled on the curves of her breasts.

Blushing a little when she saw where his eyes were fastened, she teased, "I'm sorry, but they come with the rest of me!"

"If you'd like me to pass for a boy, I could get a looser shirt maybe?"

He thought about it. "Might not be all that bad. Might be times when....  Yeah, get a bigger shirt."  He watched her as she looked for a different size, wondering again what he was doing, where he thought this was going. Under his breath he said to himself, "Or are you even thinkin', Wade?"

When she'd selected a larger shirt, along with some new underthings, and had all of her things in a pile, Hannah looked at him questioningly.  "Aren't you getting anything for yourself?"

He ran his fingers along a counter, picked up a brush. "Guess I need to give this here jacket a good brushin'," he said. "An' if you think you can find some thread that matches my vest and a needle, I think I'm pretty well taken care of."

She picked up needles and spent a long time fussing over the right thread.  She wanted to get this right.  Seeing Benjamin looking impatient, she told him, "This is a lot different from stitching up wounds!" 

That thought startled her a little.  First, she'd sewn up the man and now she'd be sewing up his clothes.  Another one of those very strange turns her life had taken since she'd come out west.

Finally, they were ready to pay.  "So, are we going to see this Dr. Norris now?"

"You don't forget about nothin', do you?"  Ben held the door open for her.  "You want to see this guy 'cause he might have supplies or 'cause of why he's here in Nogales?"

"Both," she told him honestly, looking him straight in the eye.  She did want to make sure her medical bag had everything she might  need in an emergency.  She was running low on a few things after he'd used them to treat her wound.

And her curiosity was burning as well.  She wanted to know the reason why a doctor had killed.  Had he simply abandoned his medical ethics?  Was there some good reason why he had killed and, if so, how did he justify it?  Hannah had always believed that, as a doctor, she could never injure or kill anyone.  Then, she had shot Benjamin, out of fear for herself and what would happen to her.  And that had been troubling her ever since it had happened all those weeks ago out on the desert.

"I need to know how he could kill someone after taking the oath he took as a doctor," she said, as they walked down the street.

When they got to the small building where Norris had his office, or what passed for a doctor's office anyway, Ben put his hand on her shoulder, keeping her out on the boardwalk a second. "You ain't got no plans to walk up to this man an' just flat out ask him why he done killed folks, do you? 'Cause I'm tellin' you, Hannah, here 'n now, that ain't gonna make him feel all that friendly-like.  Don't you go an' rile him so's I gotta put a bullet 'tween his eyes or nothin' to

keep him from doin' the same to you. You hear me good on this 'fore I go an' open this here door."

Actually, that was exactly what Hannah had been planning to do, but she listened to Benjamin's warning, not wanting him to kill anyone else on her account.  Charlie Prince had been enough, even if he had brought it on himself by attacking her.

Smiling at Benjamin, she said, "I'll be very polite to him, Mr. Wade."  She gave a mock curtsy.  "We'll just talk medicine like any other two doctors in the world."

"You ain't any two other doctors in the world, Miss Doctor McLaren. Neither of you can't go freely over the border no more.  This ain't no Boston medical convention and the man you're plannin' on seein' ain't no respectable surgeon. This here's a man heals when it's convenient, when there's cash involved, kills when it ain't.  I'd truly rather not have to go and shoot him today, but that's up to you."

Now Hannah was more curious than ever.  Just what kind of man-and doctor was this?  Benjamin made him sound like a man who simply plied his trade like any common blacksmith--for money.  But doctors were supposed to truly care about their patients, about healing.  That was what her father had taught her.

She'd almost laughed at his mention of a Boston medical convention.  As though she herself would have been welcomed at one of those!  A female doctor.  Very few doctors at a convention would have even talked to her.  Fewer still would have accepted her as an equal, medical degree or no.

"I'll be careful, Benjamin," she told him softly, still anxious to meet this man.

Ben could easily read her eagerness on her face. He sighed heavily, then opened the door for her. Once inside, he shifted their parcels to under his left arm, keeping his right hand free and fairly close to his gun belt, even going so far as to tuck his coat back on that side. 

Doctor Alvin Norris sat behind a desk, his chair tipped way back against a wall, his booted feet up atop the desk, their heels in the midst of a small array of medical equipment.  He was in his early 50's, slightly plump, with receding silver hair and a bright red and very large moustache. Sweat beaded his forehead and an open whiskey bottle sat on the desk beside a glass with a long crack down its side.  At their entrance, he didn't move except for a slight wiggle of his bushy red eyebrows.

"Mornin', Doc," Ben said.

"Mr. Wade," Norris acknowledged, his eyes moving to study Hannah.

"This here lady's a doctor herself," Ben continued, "an' she has somethin' she'd like to ask you 'bout, doctor to doctor like. I'd be obliged if you could be of help to her."  He set the parcels down on a vacant chair and smiled at Norris, though he kept his jacket back and his right hand where it was.

Hannah couldn't help but stare at the man.  And his office.  At the slovenly, unsterile way he kept his instruments.  At the whiskey bottle and the cracked glass.  It looked as though a fair amount of the the liquid that had been inside the bottle was now inside the doctor, judging the the look of his flushed, sweaty face.

Speaking carefully, in order to hide her disgust, she said, "Dr. Norris," and nodded politely.  "I was hoping you might be able to sell me a few medical supplies."  Although she wasn't really sure she wanted anything from this man's supply.

Norris eyed her thoroughly, his eyes lingering on her bustline. Then he snorted and a bit of spittle came out of his mouth, finding a nest in his moustache. "You can't be no doctor. You

ain't nothin' but a woman."

Ben's lips still smiled somewhat, but his eyes were hard. "The lady is what she says she is, Norris. I know it for a fact. So mind what little manners you got and answer her question."

Norris frowned at Ben, very aware of what the man's posture indicated. Slowly he moved his boots off the table, knocking a couple of instruments onto the dirty floor as he did so.  The front two legs of his chair settled down and he ran the thumb and forefinger of his right hand through his moustache, paying no attention to the wetness from his spittle.

"Well, now, little lady doc, just what is it you have in mind that you might need from me?" 

The way he said it made the words sound lewd and suggestive and Ben's hand drew slightly closer to his holster.

Biting back the retort that came to her lips immediately, Hannah replied quietly, "Some alcohol, laudanum if you have it.  And some clean bandages."  She couldn't help adding in the word clean, wondering if anything in this office would match that description.

Norris' eyes went to Ben. "You got cash? That there kinda stuff ain't easy to come by."

"I got cash. You got what she wants?"

Norris looked at Hannah again. "I got just what the lady wants."  He meant something completely different than what Hannah had asked for.

"Then get it," Ben said, his voice as hard as his eyes.

Norris got up and went to a cupboard on the back wall. One of the doors hung by a single, bent hinge and nearly fell off as he pulled it open. He picked up a couple of bottles, put them back, reached to a different shelf, then turned with two bottles in his hands. "Gonna cost you a purty penny, Wade."

"How much?"

"Five dollars each."  Norris smiled, showing brown teeth.

Ben knew that was nothing less than highway robbery, but he reached in a pocket and pulled

out a ten. "I expect the bandages to be included in that, Norris."

"Ain't got much in the way of bandages. Just these two rolls here."

"Give her one of them then we'll be on our way."

Benjamin and Norris were transacting business as though she wasn't even there, Hannah noted.  She almost sighed.  That was the way of it.  She and Norris might be the doctors, but he and Benjamin were the men.  Always seemed to go that way when men were involved.

As she continued to look around curiously, Hannah couldn't help asking, "Where did you go to medical school, Dr. Norris?"

"I doubt that there's any of your business," Norris said brusquely.  "I ain't gonna ask you why you're hangin' with the likes of Ben Wade and you ain't gonna ask me...nothin'."

Ben gave her a warning look as he took the bottles Norris proffered.

"What do you mean, 'the likes of Ben Wade'?" she couldn't help asking, having come to see Benjamin now with the eyes of a woman in love.

"Hannah," Ben cautioned.

Norris snorted again. "He knows what I mean, don'tcha, Wade?"

"I know," Ben said. "Hannah, we should be goin' now."  He really didn't want trouble with Norris, not with Hannah so close.

So many questions she wanted to ask this Dr. Norris, but the caution in Benjamin's words and

in his eyes was plain.  If she had been alone, she would have asked anyway.  She didn't want Benjamin killing anyone.  Biting her tongue, she took the bandage roll Norris was holding out.

The man calling himself a doctor was robbing them blind, but Hannah didn't want to be without something she needed.  What if she or Benjamin were hurt again?  These things would be necessary. 

She took a last look around, thanking God that she didn't need this man to operate on either

one of them.  No wonder men had died under his care.  More than likely of infection.  She'd seen cleaner stables than this.

Ben slid the bottles into two pockets in his coat, picked up the parcels he'd laid on the chair, never taking his eyes off Norris. "We'll be bidin' you good day," he said, opening the door, waiting for Hannah to pass through, relieved this little visit was drawing to its close.

"If'n I was you, Wade, I'd put half that there bottle of laudanum in her tea, have my way with her."

"You ain't me, Norris. I ain't never had to drug no lady to share my bed an' you'd best be watchin' what you say 'bout Doc McLaren here 'cause I ain't a patient man when it comes to such talk 'bout her."

Norris laughed. "She's a right bit more fetchin' than most gals we get in this here God-forsaken town."

"It ain't the town, Norris, that's God-forsaken, just some of its residents."

"You should know about that, Wade. More'n most you should."

"That ain't none of your business, neither," Ben said, taking Hannah's elbow with his free hand, guiding her out the door, letting it slam behind himself.

 

ON TO PART 25

BACK TO PART 23

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE