“Now, that,” said Ben owlishly, squinting across the table, “is part of the problem.”
Gabriel’s squint in return turned to a deep frown. “Huh. Typical. Why is it none of you high-powered males consider consultin’ with a physician when it comes to handlin’ a gently bred bride? But, no, you just go it alone, never think about askin’ questions that might make things easier for both of you. Instead, you just bumble along and cause all sorts of trouble. At least, I think that’s what I’m hearin’. Am I correct?”
The man winced. “Pretty much hit the nail on the head.”
“And as for you takin’ off, first thing in the mawnin’...well, can’t say I blame her for gettin’ in a temper. Which is only matched by your own, my friend. I get the feelin’ you two are gonna be like fire set to tinder at any hour of the day.”
“Yeah, so I figured. And your advice?”
“You are buyin’ my supper, ain’t you? So, then, here’s my advice: either cancel the trip or ask her to go with you.”
But there Gabe went too far. As usual, in the discussion of some thorny issue, Ben would, to his credit, listen and ponder. But once he took a stand, pro or con, he was done. If God and all His angels couldn’t change the man’s mind, then the doctor’s paltry argument would hardly make a dent in his determination to do exactly what he had intended to do. In fact, prodding too forcefully only tended to stiffen his resolve. The word compromise did not exist in Benjamin Forrester’s vocabulary.
“I’m doin’ neither, and that’s that,” he told his friend flatly. “I reckon I’m old enough, and smart enough, to make my own decisions. She’ll just haveta abide by what I say.”
“No discussion allowed, huh?” Gabe folded both arms across his sturdy chest. “All these years, I didn’t realize you were such a hard nose. Your pride may be headin’ for a fall, son.”
“Better a fall than gone forever. A man ain’t much of a man if he don’t take a stand on what matters.”
Gabriel cocked his head slightly to one side, like an inquisitive raven. “And it matters that much to you, winnin’ this here dispute with your wife?”
“Darned tootin’ it matters. I’m the head of the household, and she’d oughta learn that fact.”
An autocrat, no less. And adamant. An adamant autocrat, the worst of every world. The doctor sighed and took another sip from his glass. Amazing how, the more you thought you knew someone, the less you really knew him.
The hour was much later than an exhausted Gabriel would have preferred when the two of them finally left the Sarsaparilla. By then, both were considerably far along in their cups, and the Café’s owner had had to kick them out.
“And it’s Sunday night and all, anyway,” Wilbur Knaack, exasperated by having to stay so long past closing, reminded them. “You hang around much more, and I’m gonna be chargin’ you rent.”
“Sorry, my friend,” Gabriel apologized. He had risen to help Ben to his unsteady feet, and they were making their way to the door. “It won’t happen again.”
“You’re goldarned right it won’t,” grumbled Wilbur. Following them with keys in hand, he was already stripping off his apron and blowing out lamps.
“See, now you’ve got somebody else mad at you,” chuckled the irrepressible doctor. “You’re addin’ up a right smart score of folks who’d like to kick your tail.”
By stepping down off the boardwalk, in near dark, Ben suddenly stumbled and almost took a header into the street. Gabriel sighed again with the expression of a martyr and flung the merchant’s arm over his own shoulders, for support.
“You takin’ me home, Gabe?”
“Yeah. I don’t think you could make it on your own, you worthless son of a jackal.”
Even in his less than sober state, Ben took umbrage at the insult, and then Gabriel took more umbrage because Ben had taken first umbrage. Both were feeling in fine feather by the time they had ambled the considerable distance to the Forrester house and clumped up onto the front porch.
“Dark, I see.” Ben’s squint had somewhat straightened his crossed eyes as he offered this officious pronouncement.
It was anyone’s guess how the man would get himself up and going in the morning, let alone climb into a buggy for his half-day’s trip. And, as for conducting any sort of business while suffering from a hangover... Well, Gabe just couldn’t figure how that might be done. A few drops of Laudanum would help ease the pain, did Ben happen to have a bottle handy. And if he didn’t—well, he would just have to go on suffering, with little sympathy from the doctor.
Having no lamp lit to guide their footsteps, and only the pale rays of a burgeoning moon cast through the windows, both stumbled into things and tripped over things and knocked against things. Each, with every bit of noise, urged a sententious “Sssshhh!” upon the other.
“Man,” muttered Gabriel uneasily, looking around. “The place is awful quiet. You think maybe she’s up and left you?”
“Naw.” Plopping down onto the upholstered sofa, Ben leaned back and yawned. “Upstairs. No doubt about it. I’ll find her there—come mawnin’.” Another yawn. “Thanks, Gabe. ’Ppreciate you—lookin’ after me.”
A great gush of air whooshed out of his collapsed lungs, and suddenly he toppled over sideways, like a logger’s felled tree, and began to snore.
“You don’t need me, you half-witted cretin,” muttered Gabe. He picked up his friend’s legs, one at a time and heavy as sin, to drop on the length of the cushions. “You need some danged dedicated guardian angel. Especially when Mrs. Forrester finds you here in a few hours.”
Shaking his head at the determined idiocy of most males, and this one in particular, he made his departure. It was much less noisy than their entrance.