Fergal waved a hand over his shoulder, signifying the wagon.
“He is. He’s a traveling man, too. This was his once. Now I run the old family business.”
“So, he’s alive?”
“I guess so. I’ve not seen him for a few years, but I like to think he’s alive.”
This rare personal comment from Fergal surprised Randolph so he said nothing more as they rode to the buildings and swung into New Hope Town’s main drag. As the wagon trundled along, Randolph waited for the inevitable moment when someone they’d sold the universal remedy to yesterday recognized them.
They didn’t often return to a town as quickly as this. However short the townsfolk of New Hope Town’s memories were, they wouldn’t fail to remember the effect the universal remedy would have had on them yesterday.
Although in Randolph’s experience, he probably didn’t need to be too cautious. Aside from Morgan, any person who had consumed the universal remedy didn’t stray too far from their home on the day afterward.
Ahead, a woman walked by the store. From behind, she resembled the red-haired woman they’d sold the first bottle of universal remedy to yesterday. As Randolph gritted his teeth, waiting for the inevitable reaction, Fergal pointed to the saloon on the opposite side of the main drag.
“That’s Quinn’s horse. I recognize the big bay. They must still be in the Lazy Dog Saloon.”
“Yeah, but we’ll have bigger problems in a moment,” Randolph said.
As the wagon drew level with the red-haired woman, she turned away, and then whipped her head around to face them again.
“It’s the tonic seller,” she screamed and then hitched her skirts and dashed away into a store.
“Are you sure that you don’t want to run?” Randolph asked. “We can escape before the word gets out.”
“The O’Briens don’t run from anybody. We can brazen this out for gold.”
Randolph smiled. In his experience, this O’Brien ran from everybody.
“If we’re staying, I reckon you ought to get in the wagon. This will be tough and you’re too tempting a target in that bright jacket.”
“It’s too late,” Jed said.
A wave of people surged from the store and spilled onto the main drag. As they emerged, they pointed to the wagon and then dashed toward them, blocking their exit out of town. When Jed drew the wagon to a halt, Randolph checked behind them, seeing if they could turn around, but people filled the main drag behind them, too.
“I hope Morgan’s vague hint of gold is worth what’s about to happen,” Randolph said solemnly.
Fergal gulped as he faced the people who milled across the main drag.
“I’ve never seen so many irate customers.”
“I have. You’re normally hiding in the wagon.”
“What do you normally do?”
“Normally we’re galloping out of town by now.”
Fergal got to his feet. “Welcome, welcome, welcome!” he shouted. “I bid you welcome. You are the most honored guests of Fergal O’Brien’s traveling medicine service.”
Randolph rubbed his forehead as he faced the massing crowd.
“That was a good try. You forgot to ask someone to say, ‘Howdy, Fergal.’”
A man stepped forward from the crowd. “Howdy, Fergal!”
Despite the situation, Randolph chuckled. “They’ve started friendly, but you’re about to receive a polite request to take pride of place in a lynch mob,”
Fergal faced the man. “Who have I the pleasure of addressing?”
“I’m Jim McDonald. I own the Lazy Dog Saloon. My wife bought your universal remedy yesterday to cure my backache.”
“She made a most wise and noble choice,” Fergal said while rubbing his hands.
“Here it comes,” Randolph said, and nudged Jed. “I can’t see many people with guns. If we go straight down the center of the main drag, we might get through.”
Jed sighed. “Only if enough of them move.”
Remembering Jed’s previous unwillingness to call Vance’s bluff, Randolph stood up. He searched for other potential exit routes, while Jim folded his arms and the red-haired woman who had bought the universal remedy to cure her headache joined him.
For long moments, everyone stood quietly. Then a band marched out of an alleyway, producing an off-key melody that Randolph didn’t recognize. He watched the band until a group of children distracted him.
The children dashed across the main drag, clutching a huge roll of cloth, untangling it as they ran. The tuneless noise from the band grew. With the roll of cloth unfurled, an apron-clad storekeeper took one end from the children and threw it to another man in an upstairs window above the store.
The roll of cloth blew in the breeze. Writing covered it, but as it was still tangled, Randolph couldn’t read the wording. The crowd grew, chatting and laughing. If this crowd were a lynch mob, they were unlike any that Randolph had seen.
While Fergal stood with his mouth open, with no choice, other than to await developments, Randolph did the only thing he could do. He checked that his gun was loaded. The storekeeper threw the opposite end of the roll of cloth through an upstairs window on the other side of the main drag.
The cloth tightened as the people in the upstairs windows secured it. Randolph could now read the banner headline.
Written with two-foot high, red letters across the banner were the words: “Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Fergal O’Brien. The Finest Tonic Seller on This Side of the Mississippi.”
Fergal coughed and cleared his throat. “What’s this?” Why the big reception?”
“Because you cured my backache,” Jim said.
“And my headache,” the red-haired woman said. She swirled around in a circle while pointing. “You cured everybody.”
“Did I?” Fergal said.
The red-haired woman pointed up to the wagon. “You sure did. I can see why the man whose bad leg you cured is with you. Anybody would want to work for a miracle man like you.”
Randolph sighed. He remembered his act from yesterday and patted his leg.
“He sure did,” Randolph said, the words seeming to come from someone else. “I was so grateful that I stayed with Fergal to help him in his endless and noble quest to do . . . whatever it is he’s doing.”
“That was a nice speech, Randolph,” Fergal said.
“I thought so.”
The red-haired woman pointed to Jed. “There’s the man from Redemption City.”
Jed checked behind him. “Where?”
“What a universal remedy,” the red-haired woman said, raising her hands over her head. “It can cure anything. It even cured that man of remembering Redemption City.”
While Randolph considered this development, a small group gathered at the side of the wagon, their arms stretched out. With a bemused smile back to Randolph, Fergal jumped to the ground and shook a few hands.
Then the crowd hoisted Fergal to their shoulders and danced him down the main drag. The crowd cheered and applauded, launching their hats into the air every few seconds. The band followed on behind, an attempt at a merry marching tune emerging from their small collection of instruments.
The crowd bunched and marched into the Lazy Dog Saloon, holding Fergal aloft and leaving Randolph and Jed alone. They sat in silence at the front of the wagon, facing a main drag, which was empty except for a few stray hats and the big banner.
“Fergal once told me that if you travel far enough, you get to see everything,” Jed said.
“Maybe that’s right, but that isn’t something I ever expected to see,” Randolph said. “Nope, not ever.”
Chapter Eight
WHILE SITTING BY THE campfire that evening, Randolph poured a steady trickle of beans into their large pot. As the beans slipped into the brew, the pot bubbled and spat. Fergal always left Randolph and Jed alone while they produced a new batch of the universal remedy.
This time, he stood over the pot as if he could discover why the unive
rsal remedy had started to cure people, merely by inhaling the cloying fumes. All day, the townsfolk had shook Fergal’s hand and danced him up and down the main drag on their shoulders.
He’d met the mayor, had three offers of marriage – all refused – and received enough free gifts to avoid having to stock up on supplies for months. Best of all for Fergal, the townsfolk had talked up the price they were prepared to pay for another bottle of the universal remedy to ten dollars.
With Randolph having purchased a new bag of beans from the town’s storekeeper, after a number of bemused questions as to why he was purchasing yet more beans, they were ready to reap the reward. From the nervous manner that Fergal shuffled from foot to foot, Randolph assumed that for once, his conscience was weighing on him.
“Have you forgotten about the gold we returned to find?” Randolph asked.
“For now I have. With luck, I’ve found something better.” Fergal poked at the bubbling mixture in the pot. “Are you sure you’ve added enough beans?”
“Relax. We’re doing the same as we always do.”
“Except what we always do makes people ill, and what we do now is make people better.”
Randolph frowned. “You mean you’re planning to produce another batch of the universal remedy that works? Instead of running, once everybody’s paid an exorbitant amount for this one.”
Fergal smiled and nodded. “It sounds odd, but that’s what I intend to do.”
“You surprise me.”
Fergal frowned. “Don’t be. I’m curing people because it’s more profitable than making them ill.”
“You’re all heart.”
Randolph stirred the mixture and then pounded the beans into a pale slurry. Once the heat had reduced the beans to a thin gruel, Randolph bound his hand in cloth. He raised the pot and poured the mixture through muslin into a pan.
The muslin dripped. When he’d collected a full pan of juice, he slopped the pile of congealed beans back into the pot, and added a few more handfuls of fresh beans and a slosh of water. The mixture bubbled.
Fergal kneeled beside the pan, watching the cooling liquid that had dripped from the muslin. He dabbed a finger in the liquid and licked it with the end of his tongue.
“It’s horrible,” Fergal said and spat away from the pan. “Who’d have thought that bean juice could taste so disgusting?”
“Nothing that’s good for you tastes nice.”
“If we’re selling more of this, maybe I should find a way to make the universal remedy taste more palatable.”
Randolph stirred the pot again. “I’d worry more about making it cure people first.”
After three hours of careful work, they had enough juice to fill half of the one hundred bottles they owned. With the liquid cool, Fergal tapped a bottle and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Randolph asked.
“I’m thinking about whether to add four drops or one drop of my recipe into the bean juice.”
“I’d add one. The universal remedy cured the townsfolk with one drop and Morgan needed four drops, but he was more ill than the rest.”
Fergal smiled. “That’s my thinking exactly. We’ll make a tonic seller out of you yet.”
Despite the recent change of circumstances, Randolph shook his head.
“That’ll never happen.”
Fergal lowered one drop of the amber recipe from his flask into the bean juice. As Fergal shook the new mixture, the campfire lit the universal remedy. For the first time, the warming glow suggested that it possessed the properties that Fergal claimed it had. With the bottle shaken, Fergal held it at arm’s length.
“Who’ll be the first to taste it?”
“There’s no way that’s me!” Randolph said. “I’m still recovering from the last time. Anyhow, Jed said that he’d try the next batch.”
“Thanks,” Jed said. “Anyhow, shouldn’t we test it on the townsfolk?”
“I don’t want to risk it. We must ensure that we’ve done this right and anyhow, I have my new reputation to uphold.”
As his boss discovered a moral outlook, albeit late in his career, Randolph smiled. A magnanimous feeling hit him and he picked up the offered bottle. With a flourish, he swallowed a gulp of the universal remedy.
The slimy liquid hit the back of his throat and for a second, he tasted nothing, but then his senses caught up with what his mind was telling him. This universal remedy had a taste beyond the usual rancid flavor.
Unbidden, he spat the liquid to the ground and coughed and spluttered as he freed his mouth of the thick lining that made his tongue and teeth itch. Even with the universal remedy no longer in his mouth, Randolph’s stomach lurched.
In desperation, he dashed to the wagon’s water barrel. Without ceremony, he dunked his head in the barrel. With his head underwater, he drank as much water as he could drag into his eager mouth.
Gulp after gulp of water sloshed down to his stomach, diluting the corrosive effect of the universal remedy. When his need to breathe forced him to the surface, Randolph leaned against the barrel and dragged in great racking gasps of air.
While his vision swam, he weathered several dangerous moments before the churning in his stomach ebbed to leave him feeling merely giddy. He turned back to the fire and ran the back of his hand over his mouth.
“Excellent!” Fergal said and rubbed his hands. “We’ve cooked up another winner.”
Randolph raised his hat. He ran a hand through his hair, freeing a shower of water, and slopped his hat back on.
“You’re kidding. I’d have thought we couldn’t make the universal remedy taste worse. Somehow, we have.”
“Perhaps this batch will cure more ills. I’ll be bringing people back from the dead soon.”
Randolph breathed deep as an acrid taste filled his mouth. He gulped down the feeling.
“Anybody foolish enough to drink that concoction will need you to bring them back from the dead.”
“You mean that it’s that bad?” Fergal said with his eyebrows furrowed.
“Yeah, the only thing this batch will cure is an enjoyment of life.” Randolph waved the bottle at arm’s length. “Here, if you don’t believe me, have a taste for yourself.”
With his nose wrinkled, Fergal shook his head and faced the fire.
“Anybody have any ideas as to why this batch didn’t work?”
“Perhaps your recipe doesn’t work no more,” Randolph mused while considering the thick amber liquid in the flask.
Fergal tapped the flask containing his recipe and shook his head.
“The recipe works. That is, it works as much as it ever did.”
Randolph shuffled back and sat beside the fire. The warmth burned away the last effects of his ill-advised consumption of the universal remedy.
“Perhaps you should do the same as you did for Morgan. You gave him four drops of the recipe.”
“I don’t see why that would solve the problem.” Fergal rocked his head from side to side. “Like you said, one drop worked on the rest of the townsfolk. There’s no need to do anything different.”
“It doesn’t matter what you do as long as it works. Perhaps we should try different strengths of beans and recipe.”
“That’s right, but first, give me the bottle. I’ll add three more drops to this batch and you can taste the result.”
Randolph ignored Fergal’s outstretched hand. “Whatever I promised I’d do for you, I draw the line at doing that. Nobody can make me swallow more of your universal remedy.”
“Perhaps having four drops of recipe will make it taste better.”
“You could marinate a dead skunk in it and it’d probably taste better, but I’m not finding out if four drops improves it.”
“Neither am I,” Jed said and folded his arms.
They sat in silence while Fergal frowned at the bottles of bean juice. He shuffled along the rows of bottles, examining each as if he could work out which ones would provide a genuine cure for all ills.
�
��I didn’t like to ask before, but has the universal remedy ever worked before?” Randolph said.
“To be honest—” Fergal said, but Jed interrupted the statement with a snort. “Shut up. I can provide honest answers, and the answer is, not exactly. That doesn’t mean that what’s in the universal remedy isn’t good for you. It’s just not as good as I claim, except if you’re of good heart.”
Randolph examined the nearest bottle. “What do you mean?”
Fergal smiled. “You know my tale. The old medicine man who saved my life told me that the recipe only works for people who have done a selfless act. I’ve had my moments, as your brother knows, and look what it did for me.”
Fergal slapped his thin chest and winced as he hit himself too hard.
Randolph put down the bottle. “Perhaps you ought to take another dose of your universal remedy and build yourself up a bit.”
“There’s no way I’m doing that. The medicine man told me that if you drink too much, you become too healthy and you’ll never die. I’ve never fancied that.”
“That’s another nice story, but what’s the real reason?”
Fergal laughed. “It tastes disgusting.”
Randolph nodded. “All right, but you can tell your tale of native tribes and so forth to your gullible customers. Just don’t expect me to believe it, too.”
“Believe what you want, Randolph. You just need faith.”
Randolph shook his head. “Anyhow, the same ingredients, cooked in the same way and strained in the same way, ought to have the same result.”
“That sums up my thoughts.”
Randolph pondered, but having stated the problem, no solution came to him. An unbidden yawn escaped from his lips. Randolph realized that they’d had no sleep through the previous night. He slipped down to lie on his back and pulled his hat over his eyes.
“Don’t go to sleep,” Fergal said. “I need someone to taste the next attempt.”
Beneath his hat, Randolph sighed. He folded his arms over his chest and shuffled around to lie away from Fergal.
The Legend of Shamus McGinty's Gold Page 5
