hell.'
This didn't mean a heap to Rafe, but the way those eyes in that tub of lard kept flattening and swelling was enough to set a man's teeth on edge. The whole deal was unsettling, three days gone straight out of your life, waking up with no clothes in someone else's bed, and then this feller. Rafe would about as soon have been watched by a cobra.
'That—girl?' he gruffed, swallowing, nervous.
'Matter of opinion. My keeper, some would tell you, and they wouldn't be far wrong.' The vast bulk heaved as with internal convulsions. If Rafe hadn't known better he might of figured the old fool was growed to that chair; he sure didn't look like he could get around much with his short stumpy arms and great barrels for legs. He was the craziest sight Rafe had ever run into, and yet—those damned eyes, the way they swelled up and flattened, always picking and prying, seemed to dig right into a man's quivering marrow.
Rafe snorted to think he could be such a ninny. 'Well,' he said, defiant, 'who is she?'
'Name's Bunny. You may be hard put to believe this, but she happens to be my daughter.' He cleared his throat with an avalanche of sound so sharp and sudden Rafe's good hand shot out to clamp hold of the bed. 'I'm Wilbur Pike,' the old walrus said, seeming to own to it grudgingly, afterwards growling, 'Who're you?'
'Yell 'Rafe' and I'll come if I'm in shoutin' distance.'
'That all the handle you got?' Pike said.
There was a limit to how beholden a man ought to be, and Rafe didn't figure it included personal history— especially since he hadn't asked to be saved, and particular by no he-hog who was living off a chit of a girl and sneaking drinks every time she turned her back. He shut his eyes, feeling kind of lightheaded, but they came open quick enough when the old boozer said, 'Somebody camped on your shirt tail, boy?'
'Look,' Rafe snarled, 'if you don't want me here just fetch my clothes an' I'll shake your dust so golram fast —'
'Tsk, tsk, tsk. If there's nobody hunting you, why so edgy? You're being took care of.' Pike leaned forward, grunting a little, and it was like a damp wind coming off a distillery. 'You want a shot at that elixir?'
So tangled and excited he was pretty near shaking, Rafe threw back the covers and sat up. He was trying to find the floor with his feet when he heard the girl coming. With a burn blazing through the anemic look of his cheeks he was forced to get back and yank the sheets up again.
Bunny appeared with a bowl and some crackers. She could see he was riled, and looked at her father. The old reprobate grinned. 'He was fixing to get up and put on his duds.'
'Oh, he mustn't,' Bunny cried, hurrying over, blue eyes reproachful. 'Why, you're weak as a kitten.' She put a hand on his forehead. 'He's burning up!'
'It's the exposure,' Pike wheezed. 'He'll feel better when some of that broth gets into him.'
She set the bowl and the crackers on a stool and bent to lift and prop the pillows back of him. She got an arm under his shoulders. 'Scrooch up a little. There ... that's more like it.'
The clean woman smell of her was like an ambrosia, albeit somewhat disconcerting with so much of her so close. Rafe, self-conscious as a cow in bloomers, ungraciously growled, 'I can feed myself!'
'Well...' she said, stepping back, 'go ahead.' She handed him the bowl and the crackers and a spoon, still hovering over him, blue eyes dark with concern. The old tub, watching, chuckled silent as an Indian. Then his look winnowed down. 'What's the matter with that hand?'
Seemed for a moment Rafe wasn't going to answer. He couldn't conceal his awkwardness and apparently his pride was touchy about it. Then his glance, crossing Bunny's, kind of yawned away. 'Arm wasn't set right. Horse rolled on it.'
Bunny's eyes got awfully big. 'In the war?' she whispered.
Rafe testily nodded. He managed to get the bowl anchored with the paw, transferring the spoon to his good left hand. 'Didn't waste much pains on us Rebels up north.'
'Daddy could fix it.'
Rafe nearly missed his mouth with the spoon. Way he looked at Pike he would sooner have sawed the arm off. 'Reckon I can live with it.'
'If he's pig-headed enough, I guess,' Bunny said, 'a man can live with anything.'
When Rafe didn't back off enough to open his mouth, her chin came up. 'Dad was the best man on bones in Grant's army!'
Rafe crumbled the crackers into his broth. With his eyes on the bowl he began spooning it into him.
Bunny glared resentfully. Her father cleared his throat. 'How long did they keep you out of circulation?'
'Till the end of the war—two years,' Rafe said, his tone making it plain he'd had enough on that subject.
When the bowl was empty Rafe held it out. 'That wasn't half bad,' he gruffed, 'for a sample. If you got any more, how about throwin' in a couple dozen dog bones?'
It began to appear that Bunny might have a bit of temperature herself. Never in all her born days, she was thinking indignantly, had she come up against a more uncivilized specimen. If this hadn't been one of her most cherished bowls—the only one left of Great Aunt Delia's orange blossom set—she'd have been mightily tempted to wham it right down on his shaggy-haired head.
She shot a glance at her father.
'Why not?' Pike shrugged. 'Wasn't that mutt of Pearly Smith's digging a while ago in that bed where you set out those rose cuttings? If two years in a Yankee prison wasn't able to put this joker out of business, a dirty old bone isn't likely to bother him. Go ahead and get it.'
It was a pity to find all this irony wasted. But what could you expect of an unreconstructed Rebel? You could go on and talk till you were blue in the face but there wasn't any law that impelled them to listen. That
