Coming Up Roses (28 page)

“
Take us to Louie’s,
cabbie.”

Louie’s. Rose wondered if the food would be
as good as that at Joe’s had been. People seemed to name their
eating establishments after themselves around here. As soon as H.L.
flopped into the seat opposite her, making the cab rock as he did
so, she asked. “What’s Louie’s?”

“
Steak house. It’s not fancy, which is
why I asked the cabbie to take us there.” He lifted his hands and
looked ruefully at his knuckles. “I’m not looking too elegant at
the moment, and neither are you.”

Rose gasped since she, too, was seeing those
battered and bloody knuckles fully for the first time. “Oh, my
goodness! Mr. May, we need to get you fixed up before we even think
about eating. It looks like your knuckles are smashed!”

“
They’ll be all right.” He sounded
nonchalant, but Rose saw him grimace as he flexed his
hands.

“
Nonsense! Before we do another thing,
we need to get your hands cleaned and bandaged.”

“
Bandaged? But—”

Rose didn’t wait around to listen to him fuss
at her. She’d had enough experience with men to know they’d never
admit when they needed help. She leaned out of the cab and used her
Smith and Wesson to bang on the side of it to get the cabbie’s
attention. He jerked and swiveled to stare down at her from his
perch.

“
Take us to a hospital or a clinic, if
you will, please, sir.”

“
Beg pardon, ma’am?”

“
We have an injured man in here.” She
used her most regal tone. It was one she’d copied from Annie, and
it generally got people’s attention. It worked with the cabbie.
“And we need to get him bandaged.”

“
There’s a hospital up on
Silverdale.”

“
Good. Take us there.”

“
No! Wait. For God’s sake, Miss
Gilhooley!” H.L.’s face emerged from the window across from hers.
“Take us to ten eighty-nine Gilcrest, cabbie.”

“
What’s that?” Rose demanded. “I’m
warning you, Mr. May, I’m going to get your hands taken care of
before we eat.”

“
Good God,” H.L. muttered. “All right.
I admit I need to get washed up, but I’ll be damned if I’ll go to a
hospital. I have bandages and carbolic at my place.”

“
Your place?”

“
My place.”

Rose saw his eyes twinkle, and she
stiffened.

“
Don’t worry, Miss Gilhooley. I won’t
take advantage of you. Not with a witness.”

“
Mr. May!”

He only laughed.

Deciding she couldn’t win, especially with
Bear in Winter watching everything with fascinated eyes, she turned
to the boy and patted his arm. “This won’t take too long.”

H.L. May sighed.

Chapter Fourteen

H.L. had to admit that his hands hurt like
hell. He didn’t think any of his knuckles were permanently damaged,
although that bastard’s jaw had been as hard as a rock and H.L. had
pounded it about a hundred times.

“
You’re a bloody mess,” Rose grumbled.
“Keep your hands in that water!”

“
Yes, ma’am.” This was a mighty
comedown for a hero. Dammit, he’d just won a battle with a man
twice his size, he thought grumpily, and here he was, being bullied
by a woman. Rose Gilhooley could make him feel about as big as
nothing without half trying.

Nevertheless, he appreciated her nursing
skills. She’d scarcely balked at entering his place of residence,
although she had cast one or two apprehensive glances around to
make sure nobody saw her walking up the stairs to a single man’s
flat. But, what the hell, they had a chaperone. Damn it.

Bear in Winter was curious about his place.
H.L. took time to be glad he was a basically tidy man, or he’d have
been embarrassed to bring Rose here. But he didn’t care for messes,
and he kept his place neat. It helped, of course, that a cleaning
woman came in once a week to dust, sweep the floors, and prepare a
meal that kept him going for a day or two. The rest of the time,
H.L. ate out. Chicago was a great place for eating
establishments.

As his hands soaked and Rose set out the
bandages, scissors, and carbolic acid, Rose too glanced around.
“I’ve never been in one of these newfangled apartment
buildings.”

“
They’re not so newfangled,” he told
her. “This is a nice one, though. It’s new. Built just a couple of
years ago. I leased one of the very first flats they
offered.”

“
It’s convenient, too, I
imagine.”

“
Yup. I only have a short walk to
the
Globe
, and the El’s just
down the street.”

“
The El?”

“
The Elevated Railroad. It’s a great
Chicago convenience. I tell you, Miss Gilhooley, Chicago’s a
wonderful town.”

“
Hmmm.”

The most time-consuming aspect of H.L.’s
medical treatment was the quarter-hour Rose insisted he soak his
hands. She snapped at him when he said he didn’t want to waste
fifteen minutes. “This will prevent infection, Mr. May, and you’d
be a fool not to take the time. Better fifteen minutes soaking in
antiseptic water than a lifetime without the use of your
hands.”

Put that way, H.L. guessed a quarter of an
hour wasn’t all that long. She was darned good at bandages, too. By
the time he changed shirts and they left his apartment, his hands
looked like hams wrapped for the butcher to sell, but he could at
least still use his fingers. That would come in handy when he wrote
his article.

Rose had demanded that he sit still to have
his face attended to, as well. He supposed he had been punched once
or twice, before he’d overpowered the big brute. God, he was proud
of himself! He’d done a piece of work on that bastard, and no
mistake.

“
Your jaw is going to swell up like a
pig’s bladder, Mr. May, and you need to get carbolic on those
scratches.”

“
A pig’s bladder?”

She huffed. “We used them as balls when I was
growing up.”

Interesting. H.L. vaguely recalled doing
something of the sort back home in Missouri. When he wasn’t
fighting with other kids about his name.

They didn’t get Bear back to his kin at the
Wild West until almost dawn. Little Elk was still awake, sitting
cross-legged beside a fire. Two women and an old man had also been
waiting for Rose and H.L.’s return.

H.L. had told the cab driver to wait for him
as he deposited his fellow travelers. The cabbie agreed to wait and
settled in for a snooze.

As they approached the campfire, H.L. watched
with satisfaction when Bear broke into a trot, in a hurry and happy
to be back in the arms of his family. When he spotted the
approaching trio, Little Elk rose slowly from his seat beside the
fire. The two women jumped up and ran to meet Bear, and the old
man, whose face looked as if it had been drying in the sun for a
century or more, cracked into a broad smile and hobbled over to
embrace Bear. When H.L. glanced at Rose, he was not surprised to
see that she was surreptitiously brushing away tears.

A chorus of voices speaking Sioux swirled
around H.L. and Rose as they were subsumed into the small reunion
circle. After a minute or two,

Little Elk turned to speak to them. “You
found him.”

H.L. thought Little Elk’s statement might
perhaps be both simple and profound, although he’d have to think
about it to be sure. He nodded.

“
We did,” agreed Rose, smiling. She
apparently didn’t have H.L.’s penchant for analyzing other people’s
statements. “And Mr. May had a terrible fight with the man who
kidnapped Bear.”

Little Elk appeared interested. He lifted an
eyebrow and asked H.L. “Did you kill him?”

H.L. shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

The Sioux nodded, but said, “Too bad.”

Too bad he killed him, or too bad he didn’t
kill him? Another, more searching, survey of the Indian’s face
answered H.L.’s question. The law of the frontier apparently
dictated that a man be killed if he kidnapped a child. H.L. guessed
he could understand that, but he’d read often enough that Indians
kidnapped children. Would Little Elk think it was all right if
somebody killed him for snatching a child?

As he watched Rose and Little Elk converse
softly about the tracking skills Rose had used in determining the
place where Bear in Winter had been held captive, H.L. answered
that question for himself, too. Little Elk and his Sioux brethren
seemed to accept the rules of their culture as a matter of course.
H.L. didn’t quite understand it, having grown up among his own
kind, in which culture people expected others to forgive them but
didn’t necessarily believe in turnabout being fair play. It looked
from where he stood that Little Elk would have expected reprisals
if he’d stolen somebody’s child.

Hell, he was confusing himself. Rubbing eyes
that felt as though they’d been through a sandstorm, he decided he
was way too tired to think about different philosophies of the
world. He kept no particular hours, since his job as a reporter
required him to cover stories at any hour of the night or day, but
he’d put in more than a full day today.

Not only that, but he’d fought a noble fight
and won it, against a powerful foe. It occurred to him that it
might be nice if, say, he were a knight of old and somebody wrote a
song about him and his skill as a warrior and his dashing exploit
in rescuing Bear in Winter. He’d read that Indians did that, too,
and he had a sudden hope that Little Elk or Bear or somebody in his
tribe would sing about his brave deed in the future. Keep his
legend alive, as it were.

He laughed out loud at his foolishness.
Hearing him, Rose turned and gazed at him. “What’s so funny?”

H.L. shook his head. “Nothing. I think I’m
just dead beat.” The word reminded him of his battered hands, and
he added, “In a manner of speaking.”

Rose smiled at him. “Yes. I’m very tired,
too.” She turned back to Little Elk. “I’m awfully glad we could
help, Little Elk. Please tell everyone to be careful. I don’t know
anything about the man who kidnapped Bear, but I wouldn’t be
surprised if he’s the vindictive sort. He might try to take someone
else or do something to retaliate.”

A trifle irked, H.L. muttered, “If he can get
around. He looked pretty badly maimed when we left him.”

Rose patted his arm, and he got embarrassed.
“Yes, yes. You did a wonderful job of overpowering him, Mr. May,
and rendering him defenseless, at least for a while. I’m sure
you’re a hero in everyone’s eyes.”

He didn’t appreciate the way she said
that, but he didn’t object, knowing that if he did so he’d be
putting himself in an awkward light. But, dammit, he
had
done a wonderful job in
overpowering that bastard and rendering him defenseless. “I’ll see
you to your tent,” he muttered.

“
Thank you. Yes. I’m ready for bed, all
right.” As if to prove it, she yawned suddenly, then put a hand
over her mouth as if she thought she’d done something wrong. “I beg
your pardon.”

Amused, H.L. said, “It’s quite all right,
Miss Gilhooley.”

They bade Little Elk good-night. H.L. had
sort of expected the Sioux women to come over and thank him, maybe
give him some kind of Indian cake or something as a thank-you gift,
but they didn’t. Hell, he guessed he really didn’t know beans about
Indians.

“
I really mean it, Mr. May,” Rose said
after they’d walked a little way in silence. “You were wonderful
tonight, and Little Elk and his kin truly appreciate
it.”

“
They didn’t act like it.” H.L. wished
he hadn’t said that as soon as the words were out. They sounded
whiny, as if he expected somebody to build a statue in his honor or
something. Although that would be nice, and he admitted it—to
himself—he knew the real point was getting Bear back to his
folks.

“
The Sioux don’t express themselves the
way we do. I have a feeling you’ll be thanked in no uncertain terms
in the days to come.”

“
Hmmm.” That made him feel
better.

He glanced down at Rose, noticed she appeared
weary, and decided there was something else that would make him
feel even better. “Say, Miss Gilhooley. We’ve known each other for
quite a few days now, and we did rescue that boy together. Don’t
you think it’s about time we started calling each other by our
Christian names?”

“
Oh!” She glanced up at him and looked
as startled as she sounded.

H.L. frowned, wondering what the hell was so
astonishing about calling each other by name. It wasn’t as if he’d
asked her to marry him or anything.

Where in the name of holy hell
had
that
thought come from?
He had no idea, and hadn’t thought one up before Rose spoke
again.

“
Why—certainly. I guess. I mean, I’m
sure that would be all right. Um, but I don’t know your name, Mr.
May.”

“
Everyone just calls me H.L.,” he said,
deciding to shelve the marriage issue for the moment. Cripes, he’d
never, ever, not once, even thought about himself and marriage,
except to be glad he wasn’t saddled with a wife. The mere word
generally made him shudder. That he didn’t shudder now, he chalked
up to his being particularly tired.

“
I see. Well, as you know, my name is
Rose. And—well, I should think it would be fine if you call me
Rose.” A small frown marred the perfection of her piquant face. “I
suppose I can call you H.L., if that’s what you prefer, although
I’ve never known anyone who goes by his initials before.