St. John exhaled. “I sure hope you doctor as good as you argue.”
“We’ll leave that judgment up to events.” He spread the patient’s shirt open the rest of the way and rolled gauze around his chest and up over his shoulder to fix the pad in place. While he was doing this he discovered the repair job to Rawlings’ wrist, inspected it briefly, and nodded approval without removing it. “There’s a mattress in the wagon box. Unroll it, will you? It should help absorb some of the bumps.”
St. John complied, unstrapping the worn, striped pad and flattening it out against the boards. “How’d you find this place, anyway? Testament tell you?”
“I interrupted him while he was telling me. I’m the chief medical officer for this county. Two years ago I supervised the destruction of a hundred head of cattle near here during an anthrax breakout.”
“You got a good head for directions for a doc. Doctor, excuse me.”
“I should. I put myself through medical school hunting buffalo. Give me a hand getting him into the wagon.”
They bore him carefully, Urquhart supporting the patient’s torso in his great arms while St. John took his feet. Afterward they tucked the blanket around him and folded the edges under the mattress to keep him from rolling or sliding. Rawlings muttered something during the transfer but remained unconscious for the most part. Perspiration gleamed on his forehead, cheeks, and chin.
“Buffalo hider, huh?” St. John wiped his own face with his handkerchief. It wasn’t that warm, but the Pinkerton was heavier than he had suspected. His heart pounded from the labor, skipping every third beat. He felt nauseated. “I wondered where you got that coat.”
Urquhart was indeed wearing a buffalo coat, the tightly coiled hair covering his out-of-proportion frame from neck to ankles. “It’s a badge of the profession, or was. When I was a boy in Denver, no doctor worth his shingle would be caught dead outside in the wintertime without one.” He adjusted his hat, a shapeless brown slouch with a worn spot on the brim precisely where he put his fingers. “Are you sick?” he asked suddenly. St. John’s face was gray.
“Just sore. I’m still getting broke back to saddle.” He straightened his shoulders with an effort. His stomach was settling and his heartbeat was slowing, though it remained irregular. The handkerchief was soaked.
“It’s your body.” The doctor mounted to the driver’s seat. “I assume you’re accompanying me into town.”
“Don’t see as I got much choice. I’m unhorsed, or didn’t you notice?”
The front door of Chloe Ziegler’s house sprang open and struck the wall with a crash that reverberated throughout the building and scattered screws and washers from the smashed lock. The redhead who had brought stores to the Buckners screamed at the sight of a mean-faced Indian crossing the threshold. She was staring at him over the shoulder of a land developer in her embrace on the sofa.
The Indian was followed by two Mexicans, one small and rat-faced with blue scars on his shadowed cheeks, the other large and long-haired, both wearing crossed ammunition belts like bandits in photographs taken below the border. The big one saw the girl and grinned. His teeth were long and yellow like a horse’s. There was black iron among them. She shuddered and held on tight to the developer.
Her companion gaped dumbly, his collar undone, his fleshy face smeared with rouge and powder. Then he disentangled himself and fumbled for the pistol in his back pocket. The Indian raised a gray steel revolver to within an inch of the developer’s right eye and thumbed back the hammer loudly. The customer brought his hand forward empty and placed both palms on his thighs in plain sight.
The parlor was full of man-smells: gunpowder and horse and leather and sharp, stinging sweat. The developer’s cologne fled before them like a maiden pursued by invading soldiers.
Chloe was standing in the curtained side entrance. The Indian halted in front of her, causing a near collision behind him.
“The door wasn’t locked,” she said firmly. “How long’s it been since your last woman?”
“It’s men we’re after.” For all his savage appearance, the Indian knew his way around English. “We’ve been following Race and Merle Buckner and Jim Shirley all day, and their trail leads right to your porch. Where are they?”
“They were here. I sent them away.”
“Took you long enough. The ground thawed out from under their mounts while they were outside.”
“It took some persuading.”
While they spoke, the small Mexican reached behind the developer and relieved him of his weapon. He laughed harshly. It was a .32-caliber one-shot derringer with a lady’s pearl grip. Its owner flushed scarlet but kept silent.
“Nothing out back,” reported yet a fourth man, appearing behind Chloe. He was tall and thin and wore spectacles. “Buggy in the carriage house and a fistulowed nag in the corral. You ought to have a vet look at her, honey.” He was addressing the madam. She made no reply and didn’t even turn to face him.
“We’ll have a look around,” said the Indian.
“Where’s your warrant?” Irony edged her tone.
“We don’t need one. We’re private citizens. Hold still, there!” The command was aimed at the fat developer, who had started to rise.
He settled back down next to the redhead. “I was just leaving. You can’t hold me here.” His voice cracked on the last part.
“Watch him, Bill.” The Indian took his gun off cock, belted it, and spoke in halting Spanish to the Mexicans, indicating the staircase. They nodded and started up the steps. Bill came in past Chloe and took a seat opposite the sofa. He removed his hat, smiling at the redhead. She smiled back tentatively. He was ash-blond and kind of handsome for a four-eyes, certainly easier to look at than the quivering mound of dough at her side.
The savage returned his attention to Chloe. His tone softened. “I’d appreciate a tour of the ground floor if you’re not busy.”
“I’m dressed, ain’t I?” She showed him her back and went through the doorway.
It was the lull before the busy hum. The cattle ranches were just shutting down for the day, and the nearest one was thirty minutes down the road by horse. George and the woman interrupted only one whore at work, Her customer exclaimed when he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the Indian, but a quick motion of the Starr double-action stopped him in the middle of reaching for a gun belt hanging on the bedpost. He returned to business as the door was pulled shut with the visitors on the other side. The remaining rooms were either vacant or occupied by women at leisure in chemises or nothing at all. One was an Indian girl with long black hair and a round, smooth faceâNavajo, George guessedâwho looked up in surprise over the copy of Harper’s Weekly she was reading on the bed, then smiled at him archly. He closed that door with regret.
“Sun’s going down,” Chloe informed him. “Twenty dollars buys an hour.”
“Kind of steep, isn’t it?” he asked. “And what makes you think I wouldn’t prefer a white woman, or is there a rule against that here?”
“Men generally leave rules at the door when they come here. Your choice, and if you still think it’s steep after the hour’s up, I’ll refund half.”
His smile was stony. “You wouldn’t be trying to buy running time for your boyfriends now, would you?”
She threw back the expression like a mirror. “I got a business to run. You’ll be making camp in a half hour anyway. There’s no moon tonight, and even an injun can’t track without light.”
He considered. It was gray in the hall and growing chilly. “Twenty, you said?”
Upstairs, the Menéndezes poked their heads through an open door to find two rather hefty women, one about thirty, the other barely out of her teens, conversing in bored tones near the darkening window. The younger one was on the bed in a nearly transparent dressing gown painting her toenails violent red; her companion, dyed blond and wearing a plain white shift with nothing on underneath, leaned against the wall smoking a cheroot. They stopped talki
ng when the Mexicans appeared, but gave no evidence of alarm.
Diego looked at Paco, whose grin came slower but stayed just as long. They holstered their Colts and entered, swaggering like dons.
As the light in the parlor failed, so did Wild Bill Edwards’ vision. He switched on a lamp and moved from his chair to the sofa to keep a closer watch on the developer, wedging himself between him and the redhead. She smelled of pink powder and scented soap. Neither of them noticed a few minutes later when the fat man picked up his hat and left, abandoning his derringer to the Mexicans.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Doctor’s Orders
Dr. Urquhart, looking more than ever like an orangutan in shirtsleeves and unbuttoned vest, emerged from his office into the waiting room wiping a fog of sweat from his bifocals with a wad of gauze. His collar was limp and drops of perspiration glistened at his temples like diamond dust in the light of the ceiling fixture; his hair was very thin there but grew profusely everywhere else, including the backs of his hands. St. John, who had been dozing on the bench, started and rose when the door opened. It was dark outside the window. The loud standard clock atop a glassed-in bookcase stuffed with leather-bound volumes read nine past ten.
“Hope you weren’t lonely,” Urquhart greeted, using the gauze to mop his fleshy palms. “Often my reception area is jammed even at this hour, but your late preacher friend seems to have taken care of that.”
“What about Rawlings?”
“Oh, he’ll live. He seems to be a remarkably resilient young man. He was shot once before, you know, in the left thigh. Several years ago, judging by the scar.”
“I didn’t know. He was in the war with Spain.”
“So was I. Sailed with Dewey to Manila as a Naval Reserve officer. Your friend’s lucky I did. I learned most of what I know about separating lead from tissue once those Mausers started popping.” He fished something out of a vest pocket and dropped it into St. John’s palm. “A souvenir.”
It was a lump of gray metal as big around as a man’s finger, flattened somewhat by its contact with bone but retaining its conical shape.
“Give you some trouble, did it?” asked the old lawman.
“Not at all. I spent most of the last four hours reading the Police Gazette and practicing my harmonica.”
St. John grinned weakly at the other’s exasperation. “Can I see him?”
“That’s all you’d be doing, seeing him. He won’t be conscious tonight, what with the ether and his blood loss. Nurse Wheeler is with him. You met her when we came in.â
St. John remembered the horse-faced woman in white cap and uniform, who had literally pushed him out of the consultation room when he had tried to follow Urquhart inside. “You might say I ran into her.”
The doctor smiled faintly. “Get some sleep. He might be up to visitors in the morning, but I can’t say for sure. He really should be in the hospital. I would have taken him there if I didn’t think the time lost making arrangements might be fatal. I can see already that this century is going to be tailor-made for clerks and bureaucrats.”
“What’s the tariff, Doc? Dr. Urquhart,” he corrected himself, mining out what was left of his bankroll from a coat pocket.
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow. I’ll hold on to Rawlings a few days for observation, maybe check him into the hospital, though he’s comfortable enough for now on the cot in back. There’s a fifty-fifty chance of infection, and if his blood pressure should go down, it means I missed some of the damage and will have to go back in. That’s a remote possibility, but there are always a lot of ifs whenever metal and flesh meet. They weren’t meant to, you know, despite your lawman’s creed.” He paused. “I just realized I don’t know your name.”
St. John told him. The physician nodded without showing surprise.
“I’d suspected as much. The city’s alive with rumors about your mission, whatever it is. You’ve made a lot of work for my fellow practitioners over the years, Mr. St. John.”
“I do what they pay me for, Dr. Urquhart. Same as you.’
âWith a difference. In my line, when someone dies it means I’ve failed.”
“Mine too.” St. John massaged his left hand with his right.
Urquhart caught the gesture. “Is there something wrong with your hand?”
“Goes to sleep on me now and then.”
“I see. Does this happen often?”
“Like I said, now and then.” He put on his hat. The sweatband felt clammy against-his forehead.
“Do you ever feel short of breath when you haven’t exerted yourself’?” Urquhart was all doctor now.
“From time to time. I’m fifty years old.” He spoke sharply. The grilling irritated him. His heartbeat quickened slightly and became ragged.
“I’m sixty-four, and I’ve never had those symptoms. Bear with me one moment.” He seized the other’s left wrist in a grip best suited to a blacksmith’s tongs and produced his watch, his broad flat thumb pressing the blue artery on the underside of the wrist.
“Your pulse seems erratic,” he said, releasing his hold. “I’d like to listen to your heart, if you’ll step into the consulting room.”
St. John rubbed his forearm. There were purple marks where the doctor’s fingers had dug in. “I don’t hunt men I don’t have paper for. You shouldn’t doctor folks that don’t come looking for it.”
The physician was grave. “I wish you’d let me examine you. To be frank, I think you’re a textbook candidate for a massive heart attack. It will only take a few minutes to confirm or confute my suspicion.”
“I don’t have a few minutes. I got to sleep fast and be riding come first light.”
“My opinion, should you askâ”
“I won’t.”
“âis that you couldn’t be in a profession more dangerous for your condition. You’re walking dynamite. I’m not talking about a few weeks in the hospital. I’m talking about the rest of eternity in a hole six feet down.”
“Save your bogey stories. I don’t scare.” St. John grasped the doorknob.
“You can say that now. See if you can when the time comes you can’t fill your lungs no matter how hard you try, and your left arm starts tingling like a telephone bell. Because when that happens, even God won’t be close enough to save you.”
St. John hesitated, then opened the door. A draft of unheated air from the hallway chilled his face. “I’ll stop by and settle with you on my way to the livery tomorrow.”
“See that you do. I’d hate to have to sue your estate for it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
On the Scout
To the west, Wyoming’s Red Wall reared the color of old blood in the emerging sun from brown and yellow grassland as flat as a bar top, the sandstone ridge looking like something picked up on another planet and hurled there just to spoil the planned effect. Still a day’s ride off, it taunted the traveler, daring him to reach out and try to touch its grainy surface. The air was crisp and the spent breath of horse and man looked like etchings in brittle pewter. The grass crackled under the horses’ shoes. They were six days out of Boulder and Chloe’s place.
“How you doing, Merle?” asked Race.
Merle didn’t answer. Riding beside him, Race’s cousin was slumped so far forward the front tip of his hat brim touched his chest. His high sheepskin collar concealed the rest of his head and the gloved fingers around which his reins were twisted lay curled and lifeless atop his saddle horn. His other arm hung limp at his side, swaying with the animal’s movements.
Alarmed, Race called his name. The hat brim rose slowly. Merle’s face shone like polished marble. His moustache and whiskers looked painted on. Only his eyes seemed alive, holes scorched into a sheet with orange sparks glowing in their centers. The hollows in his face looked deep enough to hold water. He stared in his cousin’s direction for a long moment, obviously not seeing him, and then his chin sank back down to his breast.
It had taken the trio to hoi
st him into his saddle at first light, Shirley lending support with his back and shoulders while Race got Merle’s leg up and over and Woman Watching held the skittish horse. The bleeding had stoppedâdue more to the temperature than to the bandageâbut the flesh around the wound had turned an unhealthy red. Shirley had recognized the first stage of gangrene but said it could be just a minor infection. They had poured peroxide into it and applied new dressing. This time Merle didn’t flinch, another bad sign.
Race drew rein to collect his bearings. Jim Shirley and Woman followed suit, the squaw leaning over to catch Merle’s bit chain. Their only guide was a map of central Wyoming Race had torn from a book about Butch Cassidy, and he had already discovered it to be inaccurate. Now he tugged off his gloves and got it out again, attempting to relate its sketchy features to the surrounding terrain. Merle knew this country, but Merle had all he could do to keep his head up and his heels down, and Carroll, who had crossed and re-crossed it more times than even he could have remembered, was goneâdead or in jail, and probably dead. The information that spy had acquired could only have come from Carroll, and Race knew well Carroll’s determination never to see bars again.
The map was worse than no help at all. It indicated mountains where there was only prairie and barren desert where springs fed clumps of maple and cottonwood that hid the sky. It had likely been done up out of the imagination of some New York illustrator who had never been west of Buffalo. Yessir, Race Buckner, you’re a regular criminal genius, going on the scout in territory you don’t know from black Africa. Well, he at least had the Red Wall. Nebraska was for lying low, but Wyoming had all the best places to run to in a hurry. He was refolding the dilapidated sheet when Jim Shirley sidled over, steering with his knees.
Mr. St. John Page 17
