The door clicked softly shut behind me. My eyes struggled against the dim light. While I could not see a thing, the smells fell upon me, a sharp tonic. The musk of the talc powders converged on the mint in the muscle creams. The sting of the cleaning alcohol twisted around and through the spicy scents of the drying herbs. The medicinal cocktail floated over low smoky hints at charred wooden crates and burning wax. And the air was thick and heavy, old.
"Hello, Lucene." Philip was not yet visible to me. I closed my eyes and imagined his voice itself could heal. I imagined I could swallow the sound, that his voice could be transformed into white light inside me, that the light could expand from my head to my feet and coat me in brilliant benediction, illumination, heal me from the inside out, might mend every crack, stitch every tear, soothe every ache. I imagined Philip's voice didn't sound so strained.
"Are you just coming from the ranch?" he asked. His words were tight, but listless as he offered me the damp replica of a greeting.
I cracked my eyes to the relief that my vision was returning. Revealed there before me was strange incarnation of my old friend. He sat perched upon a high stool close to the low counter. He was hunched down far over some journal or ledger, so that the whole of his back resembled a spiny candy cane. Without sitting up he wrenched his head high upon his neck to look at me. A candle burning on the counter reflected in his glasses so that I could not see his eyes, but rather two glowing flat discs. On the whole he looked remarkably like some fabled sea monster dragged to shore and made to parade about as a human druggist.
"I - well - I came - well - yes, " I stammered. "Yes, I've just come from the ranch." I barely recognized my oldest friend and love there in that dim apothecary. He bent his head back down, much to my surprised relief, and continued scribbling chaotically in his book.
I walked to the counter. He said nothing. I leaned down to look at his book, clearly a ledger, when he slammed it shut and jumped from his stool.
"Have you come here to read over my shoulder, Lucene?" He snapped uncharacteristically.
"No." I answered stepping back and looking away. From his standing position I could clearly see his eyes again, and they were burning a small hot fire. "No. I came to have a conversation with my friend. I've had a rather trying morning, and I could use the company. But if you're too busy, or not in the mood, I can go."
His face softened at its edges. "I'm sorry. I've had a trying time of it lately myself. I shouldn't have barked at you like that. I could use a friend right about now too, I suppose," he confessed.
"What's eating at you?" I asked with growing concern.
"Its my finances," he gestured at the ledger. "They're in a quite messy state."
"Ah," I answered. "No wonder you don't want anyone nosing around in your book. What about your uncle's inheritance?" A thin layer of jealousy wrapped tightly around me. I had no inheritance, no promise of one, and no chance of squandering one.
"I used some of it to open this place. Business has been slow and getting slower. The whole town's living on credit. I have a little left, but I've been trying to save some, well, save a lot actually." The thin layer of jealousy hardened into a veneer of resentment. Less than half the town was earning any money or enough to survive, including Pa and me. My concern for Philip vanished. His frustration with not saving enough reminded me more of a cruel joke than a valid ailment.
"What are you saving for? Are you going on another trip?" I asked coolly. A vision of Paris flashed in my mind. I was sitting in a cafe, happily sipping red wine, alone.
"No. Not a trip exactly. The problem is I've been distracted lately and I haven't been paying close enough mind to what I'm putting into my account. If anyone were to look they might not get the right idea about my solvency."
I wondered momentarily who might be looking into Philip's finances. No one came to mind. I moved on.
"Distracted by what?" I asked.
"Honestly?"
I nodded my head.
"This Daniel character." The old familiar pit rose darkly in my throat. I swallowed hard.
"What about him?" I asked.
"We're waiting on word from the Sheriff in Abilene. We think he may be up to some trouble."
"We?" I asked.
"Sheriff Chaney, really, but Curtis Hembrey and I too."
"Since when are you close with the Sheriff or Curtis?" An edge curled into my voice and sharpened my words.
"Since this con artist came cheating and fighting his way into my town." Philip answered growing an edge of his own. His hands were trembling. I had not ever noticed until then how fragile and delicate he seemed.
"What do you mean cheating?" I asked.
"Oh, you haven't heard? Our dear little stranger cheated Curtis at a poker game. That's how they came to fight in front of the station. Seems after several hours of whiskey and losing hand after hand, this Daniel goes in for one last round and puts everything he's got out there on the table; money, a knife, an old locket, everything. Well wouldn't you know it, by some great miracle, Daniel gets dealt four of a kind, aces high." Philip tipped his head low and added darkly, "That kind of luck is truly unbelievable."
He let his pause fill the room. He let this moment of quiet reflection pull him a great distance from me, form the world. From that distance he continued without ceremony.
"Daniel takes Curtis for everything he has, but when he stands up to walk away Curtis calls him out, calls him a cheater and demands his money back. And that's when the stranger really put on a show. He puffed up his chest and bellowed at Curtis that he'd never cheated a game in his life. Then he insulted Curtis by adding he had never embarked upon an unfair fight either, and that to make matters fair Curtis should take the first swing. And swing Curtis did. Infuriated, he clocked Daniel square on the mouth, liberating him of one of his teeth. Next thing anyone knew they're knocking each other around in the street. The man is a cyclone, Lucene. He's going to leave disaster in his wake. He's going to ruin everything."
His words dripped a venom that evaporated, but clung to the air. The poison choked me and burned my lungs. The candle on the counter sputtered and died. The shop grew even more dim. Briefly, Philip was obscured by the smoke from the wick and my own dizziness.
Nothing was adding up. The facts were plain. I heard them and I believed them, but the more I heard, the more certain I felt that nothing was certain. Daniel was and wasn't these things he stood accused of. A stranger. A cheater. A fighter. A con artist. A cattle wrangler. A liar. Information was missing. Only part of the story was being told. I needed to hear the rest, the part that reconciled with a different truth, a truth I rather more suspected, that this gap toothed grinning idiot had a deeper and more noble purpose than even he was letting show. A savior.
"Was there any mention of women?" I asked.
"What women?" Philip's voice was a snapping twig.
"Myself, perhaps," I let the words meander and carry with them, "or Aida Bingham," like a caboose.
Philip breathed heavily through his nostrils.
"Why would there be any mention of Aida Bingham?" he asked softly through clenched teeth.
"Well, I happened to have heard another version of this story, from Daniel himself, at the ranch this morning. The way he tells it there was a matter of defending the honor of a young lady. Does that sound at all familiar to you?"
Philip's voice sank impossibly lower and his words took a heavy and metered cadence.
"What...was...he...doing...at...the...ranch?"
"He's working. Breaking horses and wrangling cattle." I met Philip's intensity with antagonistic nonchalance.
I came here to forget Daniel, to fall further in love with Philip, but everything was wrong. Philip wasn't Philip anymore. I was struck dumb by the realization that he had only been home for a handful of weeks, really. When he returned I had expected the old Philip, assumed this was the old Philip. I hadn't actually seen more than a glimpse of the old Philip since he'd been back. This was a man changed, by Europe, by time, perhaps. Perhaps I was changed too then. Perhaps our mutual changes severed us beyond repair. Perhaps the chemistry in our bodies was simply no longer compatible. Whatever the reasoning, the darker and more inflamed he grew, the more compelled I was to press him.
Philip stared out the shop window as he asked, "Do you think he's handsome?"
"I do." I answered honestly, without stopping to think.
"And Miss Bingham? Does she think he's handsome?" The question confused me, but I answered it too honestly and without thinking.
"I believe so. I believe she thinks every man is handsome to one degree or another."
Philip looked down at his ledger and for a moment it appeared as though he stopped breathing. Without looking up, the muscles in his arms tensed. He let out a choked grunt as he flung the heavy tome into the shelf of small glass bottles lining the wall. The bottles exploded. Chips and chunks of green and brown and yellow glass threw kaleidoscopic fragmented light against the walls and ceiling. Shards and slivers rained down over our faces and hands. Thick, sticky blood dripped down my cheek.
Philip bounded over the counter and was in instant on top of me. He dug his long fingers into each of my arms and shook me violently. His eyes were frenzied and feral and terrified me. He shouted as he shook.
"He is a con artist! He is not there to break any horses! What does he want with her? What do you know? What do you know?"
"It isn't her he's after!" I screamed.
Philip's hands went dead. I pried my fingers underneath his and wrenched myself free from his grip. He fell backward against the counter and slumped on to the floor. Cradling his head in his hands he released deep and labored sobs. I ran to the door, but turned to look back at him. He was a pathetic and pitiful mess, more a stranger to me now than Daniel.
"Philip what has happened to you?" I hissed.
"Lucene," he cried, "I'm sorry Lucene." He didn't look up at me, and were it not for the use of my name I wouldn't have known he was speaking to me at all. "None of this is your fault. I didn't mean to hurt you. I tried to tell you before, but we were interrupted. I have a secret, such a burdensome secret. I am in love, desperately, painfully in love. I have carried my love like a cross, worn it, a crown of thorns since we were children. It has been a dagger I carry in my side all day everyday. I dared never to speak of it, not even to you. I am consumed with Aida Bingham. She is in the air I breath, the water I drink. She is my sleep my life, and my death."
What looked pathetic before now seemed one hundred times more so. All of this over Aida Bingham. Such agony, such frenzy, such panic for a woman who easily spent more time thinking about herself, than even poor Philip did.
He looked up at me now. Fat tears welled in his eyes and streaked across his face, mixing with the blood from his own cuts, such that he had the look of a creature that has been toyed with and ultimately discarded by a fiercer predator. This is what Aida could do to a person.
"I thought if I went to France, got an education, I could maybe win her attention. When Uncle John died, I opened the shop. I hoped if I was a successful entrepreneur with money of my own, I might impress her father and they would both see that I am worthy of her. But my love has caused such agony within me that I am left paralyzed to her. I cannot speak to her or even look directly upon her. I vowed this week I would ask her father for her hand. I will marry her. I cannot have Daniel interjecting and prolonging my suffering. I am infected with her."
My arms and legs grew numb as I stood there. My heart grew numb. I stared at Philip for a long time trying to recognize him and failing time after time. He dropped his head back into his hands and wept.
"Philip, you needn't worry yourself over Daniel, believe me. It isn't Aida he's after." As I said it, I knew it was true.
I opened the apothecary door and stepped out into the light.
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