The Grim Reaper Comes Calling

by Darrell Maloney

Tony, on the other hand, was like a lot of men and fiercely protective of his woman.

  And despite Red’s protestations to the contrary, he considered her his.

  He was curious as well about Dave’s relationship to Red. How they knew one another. Whether they knew one another in a special way. In that way.

  He hoped not.

  He liked Dave instantly when they met.

  He got the sense that if they spent any amount of time together they’d become good friends.

  He certainly didn’t want to see Dave as a rival for Red’s affections.

  If he found out that Dave had ever been intimate with “his girl?”

  He might have to cut the man’s heart out and drop-kick it down the highway.

  And that’s certainly not the way to treat a new friend.

  Not for something as innocent as falling for the same girl.

  Tony thought about it all the way to Blanco.

  By the time he pulled up and dismounted in front of Doc Matlock’s office he’d been able to discount his earlier concerns.

  For one thing, Dave was standing next to his wife when he asked about Red.

  No man cheating on his wife would have the… guts to do such a thing.

  The other thing was this: Dave’s wife Sarah, the woman in the wheelchair, was beautiful in her own right.

  Granted, she wasn’t Tony’s type. He had a thing for redheads, and Sarah was brunette. She was a bit older than Tony liked his women. But she was gorgeous, nonetheless.

  The little angel sitting on Tony’s left shoulder went to bat for Dave.

  “Why would a man cheat on one beautiful woman with another?

  “It just didn’t make any sense.”

  Then the devil on his right shoulder weighed in.

  “Men do it all the time. Men are just animals with shoes.”

  It was true.

  He’d give Dave the benefit of the doubt.

  At least until he learned more about his past relationship with Red.

  And he’d keep a very close eye on him in the meantime.

  He rushed into Doctor Matlock’s office and almost bowled the good doctor over.

  Doc stopped short and said, “Tony, what’s the matter?”

  Tony had his own question.

  “Where you goin’, Doc?”

  Doc, heading for his office door with his keys in his hand and his Stetson upon his head, said, “I’m heading over to the boarding house for lunch. Why? What’s going on?”

  “There’s a family about three miles or so to the north of us. They’re in pretty bad shape. Woman’s dying of dehydration and can’t keep anything down. Not even water. Daughter’s got a badly broken leg.”

  “Oh, my. Okay, I’ll skip my lunch and get ready for them. How soon do you think they’ll be here?”

  “That’s just it, Doc. The father’s on his last leg, trying to push the injured daughter while his little spit of a younger daughter’s struggling to push her mom’s wheelchair. They’re coming, but at a snail’s pace.

  “I’d like to take your buckboard to bring them back, if that’s okay.”

  “Go ahead. The team’s already hitched up. I loaned it out to old man Simmons this morning. It’s around back. Do you need any help?”

  “Nope.

  “I’m gonna put Red to work.”

  It was a calculated move on Tony’s part.

  He’d keep his word to Dave and go back to help them, despite his suspicions that Dave might be in competition for Red’s heart.

  It was the neighborly thing to do, after all. The Texas thing to do. And, if he and Dave ended up being friends, the type of thing one friend would do for another.

  At the same time, though, he’d run by the police station and drag Red along with him.

  By the time they made it back to Dave and his family he’d have the full scoop on any relationship Dave may have had with his girl.

  And he’d know, by the time he saw Dave again, whether they’d really be friends, as Tony hoped they could be, or something different.

  Rivals, perhaps?

  Maybe adversaries?

  Maybe even mortal enemies, though he certainly hoped not.

  In any event, only time would tell.

  He told Doc, “Go ahead and have your lunch. It’ll take me half an hour to get there. Another hour to get them loaded up and back.”

  Doc had been tending to a woman with a problem pregnancy since the evening before. A woman who was in labor all night, and had delivered a breech baby over the breakfast hour earlier that morning. He’d missed two meals in a row and was starving.

  Starving enough not to want to miss a third.

  “Very well. Go get them. I’ll be back here within the hour and start preparing for them.”

  Before the good doctor’s words finished echoing in the near-empty office, Tony was out the door and running toward Red’s office.

  Chapter 26

  Actually, Tony was lucky to find Red in her office.

  She was frequently out and about.

  Red ran the police department as an old marshal ran his Wild West town.

  When she was a girl she and her father watched television together.

  One of their favorite shows was Gunsmoke, an old CBS western one of the cable networks ran on Thursday nights.

  Thursday night happened to be “ice cream and popcorn for dinner night” at the Poston house. It was something Red’s mother implemented, as a joke more than anything else, shortly before she died.

  Red was seven at her mom’s passing, and they kept the tradition alive as a tribute to her.

  Red looked forward to Thursday nights. Any child would, to a night which started out sitting at the dinner table eating her two favorite snacks and telling her father about her school day.

  The night ended with her sitting on the couch, watching Marshal Dillon beating the bad guys, finishing up what was left of the popcorn and letting the dishes sit in the sink until the next morning.

  Watching Gunsmoke was how Red learned how to protect a small town from bad men.

  Red made her rounds of the town square at dusk and dawn, just like the big marshal had. Dillon visited the Long Branch Saloon at least once per episode to see his girl, Miss Kitty.

  Red visited Mrs. Montgomery’s boarding house once a day. Not because Mrs. Montgomery was her girl, though they were good friends.

  Red visited and mingled with the guests because it was a great way to keep tabs on the town’s goings-on. Who was ill, who was gone to Austin, whether anyone had seen strangers in town.

  Red had just returned from the boarding house and was chasing an elusive spider across her office floor when Tony walked in.

  “Red, grab your hat.”

  “Well, good morning to you too, Tony.”

  Despite her greeting, she did what he asked and reached for the hat on her desk.

  Though he could be a thorn in her side at times, Red knew him to be all business when the situation called for it. And she could sense something in his voice which told her something serious was in the works.

  “What’s up, Tony? Where we going?”

  “There’s a family a few miles north on the highway. They’re in bad shape. A woman near death, a daughter with a busted leg, a father struggling to get them here to Doc’s.

  “I told Doc I’d gather them up and bring them in. We can get them here a couple of hours quicker if we load them up on the buckboard.”

  It was bare-bones as far as information goes, but it was enough for Red.

  Another thing she had in common with Marshal Dillon: she was wired to spring into action immediately. Not a lot of explanation was necessary. Just a hint that someone needed their help and both of them were out the door. Seriously, how many times did someone stick their head in the door of the Marshal’s office to notify the big cowboy of an emergency? And did Dillon ever fail to grab his gun belt and go running?

  Never.

  It wasn’t until Tony saw Red unt
ying Bonnie from the hitching post in front of police headquarters that he realized he’d made a tactical mistake.

  He’d assumed that Red was going to ride on Doc’s buckboard with him. That they’d get a chance to talk along the way.

  And that by the time they met back up with the Spear family Tony would have the full scoop on Dave and any relationship he may or may not have had with Red.

  Tony felt like a fool.

  He should have foreseen that Red would ride Bonnie instead of riding on the wagon.

  Riding Bonnie would get her there much faster.

  She could administer rudimentary first aid if it was needed.

  If it wasn’t needed, she could help prepare the sick mother and injured daughter for transport.

  On the way back, she could ride ahead on Bonnie, and again, she’d beat the wagon back to town.

  She could brief Doc Matlock, not only on the injuries, but the condition of his patients.

  Red knew a lot about rudimentary medicine; much more than Tony. She’d been a surgical nurse in her early twenties and had taken a lot of courses on medicine. Not enough to be a doctor; far from it.

  But enough for Doc Matlock to call on her from time to time when he needed a second set of hands or another point of view.

  Red could assess the patients and make a determination as to which was the more critical, and exactly how bad they were. She could triage them. Determine whether Sarah might need an immediate infusion of saline or Ringers.

  She could instantly tell whether Lindsey’s wound was infected and how bad.

  She could make critical care determinations which might determine whether the patients lived or died.

  Of course she’d want to get there as quickly as possible, and riding Bonnie would enable her to do that.

  Tony should have seen that coming.

  As he walked to the back of Doc’s office to retrieve the buckboard he watched Red disappear into the distance.

  Tony was conflicted.

  Half of him cursed himself for not seeing it coming.

  He was so busy thinking of what questions he’d ask her regarding Dave and any past she had with him that he didn’t even realize he’d never get to grill her.

  The other half of him felt ashamed.

  Ashamed because two of the four people he’d just met were in dire straits.

  Yes, he was taking action to help them. The action he was taking to get them to Doc faster could quite possibly save Sarah’s life or Lindsey’s leg.

  But while he was doing the right thing, his mind was in the wrong place. His mind was on Red and his own relationship with her.

  His every thought should have been to help those two women. Whether Red had a relationship with Dave should have been cast from his thoughts as quickly as it invaded them.

  Tony was a good man, and a much better man than this.

  And he felt truly ashamed of himself.

  Chapter 27

  Tony had driven this buckboard before, to help move one of Mrs. Montgomery’s guests over to Doc’s office after he’d fallen down her stairs.

  Even before he gave the two horse team their go he knew the old wagon to be a comfortable ride.

  For one, the bench seat was cushioned, which was highly unusual in itself for such a wagon.

  Perhaps the genteel women who once rode alongside the wagon master when the wagon was new insisted upon it. Or perhaps the wagon master himself wanted a comfortable ride.

  Whichever the case, when Doc acquired the wagon the previous spring the torn remnants of the original cushion still clung stubbornly to the wooden bench beneath it.

  Doc paid the Duncan brothers handsomely to restore the wagon to its original 1871 condition. Not in money, for money no longer existed. But rather with a promise of a lifetime guarantee of free medical treatment.

  Barter was quickly returning as the primary means of trade in modern America.

  People were trading what they had for what they needed. And guaranteed free medical care was a hot commodity in a world where most doctors were no longer in practice.

  It turned out that Doc Matlock had a secret. One he never shared with anyone, for it was rather embarrassing.

  Now, there was nothing shameful about having a lifelong problem with hemorrhoids. Many people suffered from them.

  As a medical doctor, Matlock knew that as well as anybody.

  But Matlock, like most people so afflicted, was embarrassed talking about his condition.

  He found it much easier to tell the Duncan brothers he needed a three inch cushion because he had a bad back.

  What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, he reasoned.

  The other modifications the Duncans made to the old wagon were for the patients’ comfort.

  The wheels were rebuilt and several of the wooden spokes were replaced, but were eighty percent original.

  The steel banding on the wheels was still in place, but was covered over by two inches of semi-hard rubber.

  The Duncans recommended harder rubber which wouldn’t have to be replaced as often. But Doc was very specific.

  “Hard rubber won’t be much better than the steel. It won’t absorb any of the shock from the roads. The softer rubber will act as a shock absorber and will provide a much more comfortable ride for my patients.”

  Not to mention it would be easier on his own hemorrhoids.

  Again, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

  In the back of the buckboard they’d placed a single mattress which would accommodate one patient quite comfortably.

  The mattress was removed the month before after an unexpected rainstorm left it sopping wet.

  It was replaced with a full-sized blow up air mattress.

  It was almost as comfortable as the foam mattress and had the added benefit of being washable. That had already proven to come in handy when washing off blood and other bodily fluids which shouldn’t be shared with the next patient to occupy the mattress.

  The other big feature the brothers added to the old wagon was a medical box.

  It was originally a tack box they took from their stable, but it served the purpose. They cleaned it out, made it waterproof, and stocked it full of things Doc deemed necessary in event of an unspecified emergency. Venipuncture gear and iodine wipes, bandages of all types and sizes, antivenom (because this was rattlesnake country) and intravenous fluids.

  Painted on each side of the wagon, and on the gate, were large red crosses. Just so there was no misunderstanding about what the wagon was for.

  One thing Doc had added after the fact were the hand-painted words:

  NO DRUGS OR

  MEDICATIONS INSIDE

  on the top of the box.

  The afterthought came about when a highway nomad walked into town one Tuesday night and saw the buckboard parked in front of Matlock’s office.

  He was a recovering dope fiend, recovering not because he wanted to but because dope was getting harder and harder to find.

  He tried his luck at the medical box by kicking the padlock off with his oversized and very determined boot and was dismayed to find nothing he could use inside.

  To save himself the trouble of replacing padlocks and hasps occasionally, Doc decided to remove both and to post the notice. He figured that by leaving the box unlocked so the druggies could see for themselves they’d leave less damage to deal with.

  Bill Duncan had his own solution.

  He advocated changing the wording of the notice to:

  DANGER: BOX WILL

  EXPLODE

  IF TAMPERED WITH

  Doc won the debate. After all, it was his wagon and he was paying for the upgrade.

  In any event, Doc’s idea seemed to work. For while the box had been rifled through three other times since then no damage was done and nothing was taken.

  As far as the two horse team Doc had already hitched up in anticipation for his ride to Mrs. Montgomery’s, they were carefully chosen.

  They we
re young enough and strong enough to tow a loaded wagon up hills. Yet well-behaved enough not to try to bolt from a snake or a coyote.

  And they didn’t mind towing the wagon at a moderate trot.

  Tony wouldn’t catch up with Red.

  But he wouldn’t be far behind her.

  Chapter 28

  As for Red, she wasn’t waiting for him.

  She respected Tony and trusted him. If it were someone else who dispatched her, she might have been a bit leery. It wouldn’t be the first time a lone lawman (or lawwoman) was sent into an ambush to rid evildoers of them.

  Tony, on the other hand, despite his dogged persistence, had a good heart. He’d proven himself to be a faithful and loyal friend. And the fact he was unashamedly and unabashedly in love with her?

  Well, that would just make him extra sure he wasn’t sending her into something she couldn’t handle.

  Actually, for all his efforts to provide Red with information about the family she was on her way to help, he could have saved some of his breath.

  All he really had to say was, “someone needs your help, three or four miles north.”

  Her horse Bonnie was just as eager, for she loved being ridden.

  As for going just a bit faster than was prudent, Red could be forgiven.

  She and Bonnie were lifelong friends. Red got her when she was a young girl. She knew Bonnie to be surefooted and obedient, and to have plenty of energy for a horse her age.

  Red’s belief, though probably biased just a bit, was that Bonnie was the best horse in the world.

  Or at least in Texas. And there are an awful lot of horses in Texas.

  She had that in common with Tony and a lot of other cowboys and cowgirls. Horse people, in general, tend to think their horse is the best.

  And who can argue otherwise?

  Red kept her just off the pavement, on the hard shoulder.

  The hard shoulder was made years before for drivers to pull their cars onto when they were disabled or wrecked.

  It typically was sturdy enough to support a disabled vehicle, but not as hard as the blacktop. It didn’t suffer the abuse of constant traffic and wasn’t rated for thirty tons of rolling weight.