James Gunn: Wherever you may be

"I always been good at finding things," she said. "Places things that are lost. Like a cat, I guess."

"But — but — " Matt spluttered, "How did you get here?"

"I rode," she said. Instinctively, Matt’s eyes switched to the broom in the corner. "Paw loaned me the mule. I let her go. She’ll get home all right."

"But you can’t stay here. It’s impossible!"

"Now, Mr. Wright," Abigail said soothingly. "My Maw used to say a man should never make a decision on a empty stomach. You just sit there and relax. Supper’s all ready. You must be nigh starved."

"There’s no decision to be made!" Matt said, but he watched while she put things on the table — thick slices of fried ham with cream gravy, corn on the cob, fluffy biscuits, butter, homemade jelly, strong black coffee that was steaming and fragrant. Abigail’s cheeks were flushed from the stove and her face was peaceful. She looked almost pretty.

"I can’t eat a bite," Matt told her.

"Nonesense." Abigail filled his plate.

Glumly, Matt sliced off a bite of ham and put it in his mouth. It was so tender, it almost melted. Before long he was eating as fast as he could shovel the food into his mouth. The food was delicious; everything was cooked just as he liked it. He had never been able to tell anyone how to fix it that way. But that was the way it was.

He pushed himself back from the table, teetering against. the wall on the back legs of his chair, lit a cigarette and watched Abigail pour him a third cup of coffee. He was swept by a wave of contentment.

"If I’d had time I’d a made a peach pie. I make real good peach pie," Abigail said.

Matt nodded lazily. There would be compensations in having someone around to —

"No!" he said violently, thumping down on the two front legs of his chair. "It won’t work. You can’t stay here. What would people say?"

"Who’d care? — Paw don’t. Anyways, I could say we was married."

"No!" Matt said hoarsely. 'Please don’t do that!"

"Please, Mr. Wright,' she pleaded, "let me cook and clean for you. I wouldn’t be no trouble. Mr. Wright, honest I wouldn’t."

"Look, Abbie!" He took her hand. It was soft and feminine. She stood beside his chair obediently, her eyes cast down. "You’re a nice girl, and I like you. You can cook better than anyone I’ve ever known, and you’ll make some man a good wife. But I think too much of you to let you ruin your name by staying here alone with me. You’ll have to go back to your father."

The life seemed to flow out of her. "All right," she said, so low that it was difficult to hear her.

Dazed at his sudden success, Matt got up and walked toward the door. She followed him, and Matt could almost feel the tears welling in her eyes.

Matt opened the car door for her and helped her in. He circled the front of the car and slid into the driver’s seat. Abbie huddled against the far door, small and forlorn.

Since Matt’s speech, she hadn’t said a word. Suddenly, Matt felt very sorry for her and ashamed, as if he had hit a child. The poor little thing! he thought. Then he caught himself. He shook his head. For a poor little thing, she had certainly managed to browbeat her father.

He thumbed the starter button, and the motor growled, but it didn’t catch. Matt let it whine to a stop and pressed again. The motor moaned futilely. Matt checked the ignition. It was on. Again and again he pushed in the button. The moans got weaker. He tried to roll the car — but the brakes locked.

He glanced suspiciously at Abigail. But that’s absurd, he thought. Since he had met Abbie, his thoughts had taken a definite paranoid tinge. It was foolish to blame everything that went wrong on the girl.

But the car wouldn’t move. He gave up.

"All right," he sighed. "I can’t put you out this far from home. You can sleep here tonight."

Silently, she followed him into the cabin. She helped him tack blankets to the upper bunks on each side of the cabin. They made an effective curtain around the lower beds. As they worked, Matt discovered that he was unusually sensitive to her nearness. There was a sweet, womanly smell to her, and when she brushed against him the spot that was touched came to life-tingling awareness.

When they finished, Abbie reached down and grasped the hem of her dress to pull it off over her head.

"No, no," Matt said hurriedly. "Don’t you have any modesty? Why do you think we tacked up those blankets?" He gestured to the bunk on the left-hand wall. "Dress and undress in there."

She let the hem of her dress fall, nodded meekly, and climbed into the bunk.

Matt stared after her for a moment and released his breath. He turned and climbed into his own bunk, undressed, and slipped under the blanket. Then he remembered that he had forgotten turn out the lamps.

He rose on one elbow and heard a soft padding on the floor. The lamps went out, one by one, and the padding faded to the other side of the room. Rustling sounds. Darkness and silence.

"Good night, Mr. Wright." It was a little child’s voice in the night.

"Good night, Abbie," he said softly. And then after a moment, firmly, "But don’t forget — back you go first thing in the morning.

Before the silence wove a pattern of sleep, Matt heard a little sound from the other bunk. He couldn’t quite identify it.

A sob? A snore? Or a muffled titter?

The odor of frying bacon and boiling coffee crept into Matt’s nightmare of a terrifying pursuit by an implacable and invisible enemy. Matt opened his eyes. The bunk was bright with diffused sunlight; the dream faded. Matt sniffed hungrily and pushed aside the blanket to look out.

All the supplies from the car had been unloaded and neatly stowed away. On a little corner table by the window were his typewriter and precious manila folders, and a stack of blank white paper.

Matt dressed hurriedly in his cramped quarters. When he emerged from his cocoon, Abbie was humming happily as she set breakfast on the table. She wore a different dress this morning — a brown calico that did horrible things for her hair and coloring, but fitted better than the blue gingham. The dress revealed a slim but unsuspectedly mature figure.

How would she look, he wondered briefly, in good clothes and nylons, shoes, and make-up?

The thought crumbled before a fresh onslaught to his senses of the odor and sight of breakfast. The eggs were cooked just right, sunny side up, the white firm but not hard. It was strange how Abbie anticipated his preferences. At first he thought that she had overestimated his appetite, but he stowed away three eggs while Abbie ate two, heartily.

He pushed back his plate with a sigh. "Well," he began. She got very quiet and stared at the floor. His heart melted. He felt too contented; a few hours more wouldn’t make any difference. Tonight would be time enough for her to go back. "Well," he repeated, "I guess I’d better get to work."

Abbie sprang to clear the table. Matt walked to the corner where the typewriter was waiting. He sat down in the chair and rolled in a sheet of paper. The table was well arranged for light; it was the right height. Everything considered, it was just about perfect for working.

He stared at the blank sheet of paper. He leafed through his notes. He resisted an impulse to get up and walk around. He rested his fingers lightly on the keys and after a moment lifted them, crossed one leg over the other knee, put his right elbow on the raised leg, and began to finger his chin.

There was only one thing wrong: he didn’t feel like working.

Finally he typed in the middle of the page:

THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF WITCHCRAFT

With Special Reference to the Salem Trials of 1692

He double-spaced and stopped.

It wasn’t that Abbie was noisy; she was too quiet with a kind of purposeful restraint that is worse than chaos. With one ear Matt listened to the sounds of dishwashing and stacking. And then silence.