Sawbones

by William W. Johnstone

  “Why’d you shoot Lattimer?”

  “I told him never to surrender. If he shows a yellow streak, then he’d spill his guts about me and the rest of the boys when it came to a trial.”

  “There’s something else, Hannigan. This way, you get a bigger cut of the loot from the bank,” Knight said.

  “That, too.” Milo Hannigan laughed. “You always were a clever fellow, Sam. Too bad it never got you anywhere.”

  “Are you going to take me back to Donnelly?” Knight still held the rifle. From reflections in the bank windows, he got an idea where Hannigan stood. Steeling himself for the attempt, he tensed to spin and fire. If luck rode with him, he’d come close enough to ruin Hannigan’s aim.

  “I considered it, but being under his thumb don’t set well with me. It’s personal between you and him, but it’s real personal between us, isn’t it, Sam?”

  “So you’ll just shoot me in the back?” He got ready to feint right, move left and fire until the rifle came up empty.

  “Donnelly said you shot Hector Alton in the back, but he’s the only one saying that. Everyone else in Pine Knob brags on how fast you were. I never liked Alton, but he was fast. Before long, I’d have taken him on just to see which of us was best. You outdrew him, so you’ll make a good stand-in for him. Drop the rifle. You’re wearing your iron. I see the bulge under your coat. Drop the rifle and face me.”

  Knight took a final look in the window and realized his wild scheme would end in his death. He bent, laid down the rifle, then turned, slowly straightening. He faced Hannigan and his drawn six-shooter.

  “You got stones, Sam. I’ll give you that. Let’s see if you got speed.” Hannigan returned his pistol to his holster, but he never took his hand off the butt.

  Seeing this and knowing he was at an immediate disadvantage, Knight went for his Colt. Never had he moved faster. He heard a distant gunshot. His side ached where he had been shot, but nothing new tormented him. His six-shooter still leveled, he swiped sweat from his eyes. Milo Hannigan lay on the ground, kicking feebly.

  Knight advanced slowly, keeping his six-gun aimed at Hannigan. The outlaw tried to lift his gun hand, but when he succeeded, his fingers lacked the strength to hold the six-shooter.

  A mocking laugh greeted Knight. “You’re faster’n I thought. Hell, Sam, you’re faster’n anybody in Pine Knob said.” Life left the man. He collapsed into a pile.

  “Milo. Milo!” Knight rolled the man over. They had been friends once. More. They had survived the Union prison camp against all odds. He ripped open Hannigan’s shirt. The accuracy of his shot astounded him. He had drilled the outlaw through the heart. He had outdrawn him and shot with impossible accuracy.

  He stood, his Colt dangling in his hand. He swung around, bringing up the gun when shots sounded from behind the bank.

  “Seth!”

  Knight lit out running, hoping he wasn’t too late to save the boy from his own brother.

  CHAPTER 31

  Samuel Knight threw caution to the winds. He rounded the bank and waved his six-shooter around . . . as if Ben Lunsford cared about such a clumsy display. It took a second for him to understand what he saw. Seth lay curled up in a ball. From the way he shook, he was a ways from dying.

  “Ben? Where are you, Ben?”

  Seth grated out, “Behind the pile of garbage. Where he belongs.”

  Such venom from an obviously wounded man—and Ben Lunsford’s doting brother—shook Knight into crystal clarity. He rounded the heap of trash. For a moment he stood with his six-gun pointing at the man laid out on the ground. Then he holstered his Colt. It wouldn’t be needed. He turned away from the obviously dead man with the bullet hole in his forehead and returned to Seth Lunsford. He knelt and gently unfolded the young man.

  “Is it that bad, Doc? I never seen you grimace like that before.”

  “I see four holes leaking out your blood. Are there any more?” He probed gently. Seth gasped and passed out. Those four wounds showed how much punishment Seth had taken from his brother before plugging him.

  He wondered if Seth had gotten in a lucky shot or if he had taken enough time to accurately fire. Ben had come apart in so many ways after arriving in Buffalo Springs. Knight looked up to see the reason. Amelia Parker stood over him and Seth. Her dress was partly burned off, and her face had turned to a splotchy, sooty gray from smoke. She held her right hand in her left.

  “You’ve been burned,” Knight said.

  “It’s not bad. We put out the fire and kept it from spreading. How’s Seth? He looks to be in a terrible way.”

  “I need my bag and surgical instruments. And whiskey. Did any survive the fire?”

  “None of it. Hattie’s dead. So are a half dozen others, but we kept the fire from spreading. The town didn’t burn down.” Amelia stared at Seth as if she hardly believed anyone in such terrible condition still lived. “We can take him to the hotel. We can set up a hospital there since several others are burned and were hit by splinters when the saloon blew up.”

  “Take him to my house,” came a high-pitched voice.

  “Is it closer than the hotel, Mr. Yarrow?” Knight recognized the gunsmith’s voice and never took his eyes off Seth. His breathing had turned shallow and ragged. “He needs immediate attention.”

  “He’ll get the best damn nurse in town. My Marianne—his Marianne now, I reckon—won’t leave his side. Let me help, Dr. Knight.”

  The two of them hoisted Seth. Amelia cleared the way and retrieved his medical bag from the smithy’s. They laid Seth on the kitchen table and Knight set to work. Time ceased to have any meaning but eventually all four slugs lay in a saucer half-filled with blood, and Seth was sewed up good and proper. His breathing had evened out and some color returned to his face.

  “It’ll be a week before he can do more than sit up. I don’t recommend letting him do that for the next few days.” He spoke to a girl who looked too young to have a boyfriend, but then Seth was young.

  Marianne Yarrow solemnly nodded and even wrote a few notes to herself to make sure her Seth pulled through.

  Only then did Knight turn to applying a makeshift salve on Amelia’s hand and tending the rest of the town’s injuries. It was past noon when he sat at the table and simply stared straight ahead without any idea what went on around him. As if in the distance, he heard Amelia and Marianne talking.

  “Take him to your farm. There’s no reason for him to stay in town. Besides, with your hands, your pa might need him.”

  Amelia Parker answered, but Knight had lowered his head to the table and fell asleep amid terrible dreams of Ben Lunsford and Milo Hannigan and Hector Alton. Worst of all was Gerald Donnelly laughing at him. He kept trying to see around the carpetbagger for one last look at Victoria. He failed every time.

  “There, there,” he heard. “I’ll dry those tears. You’re safe now. Safe, Samuel. Safe.”

  He felt angel wings fluttering on his cheeks, brushing away tears. Then he fell into a dreamless state akin to death.

  * * *

  “I wish you would rest more, Samuel. That bullet wound in your side’s not healing properly.” Amelia Parker pulled his coat away and ran her finger through the hole in the fabric. “I need to mend that, too. You need a new coat, but no one will notice the hole if I work closely.”

  “The only thing that’s changed is getting the outlaws buried. I wanted to be at their funerals,” Knight said as they walked along the street.

  “I can’t believe you when you said they shot each other. Their leader, the one you called Milo Hannigan, looked as if he had been in a gunfight. Did you shoot him?”

  Knight ignored that and said, “Let’s get some dinner after I check on Seth.”

  “Miss Yarrow says he is doing well. She doesn’t leave his side. I know she’s thinking about churches, but not for his funeral. For their wedding.” Amelia moved a little closer to him to give him a nudge.

  Knight stopped abruptly, causing Amelia to stumble. She caught
herself and frowned. Then she saw what he already had. Three riders came down Buffalo Springs’ main street looking for trouble. They carried rifles across the saddles in front of them. He had seen their look before. They swivelled from side to side, heads always moving, eyes darting about hunting for anything—anyone—threatening them.

  “Who’re they?” Amelia moved closer to him and held his arm. He wished he had his six-shooter strapped on instead of riding in his medical bag.

  The burly black man in the lead guided his horse to them. He touched the brim of his hat. As he moved, his duster opened enough for Knight to see the badge pinned on the man’s coat. The glimpse was all he got. The rider wanted to conceal his identity.

  “Howdy, ma’am. Sir. What sort of trouble have you had in town? The saloon’s burned to the ground, and one of my boys says the bank’s got more holes in it than a piece of wormwood.”

  “Outlaws held up the bank a few days back,” Knight said. “It got shot up then, along with the owlhoots trying to steal the money.”

  “Do tell?” The black man squinted a bit at Knight. “You remind me of someone.” He snapped his fingers. The rider to his right edged closer and held out a wanted poster.

  Knight almost panicked. With his six-shooter in the bag, he was at a disadvantage shooting it out with three lawmen with their rifles ready for action. He recognized them now from back outside Pine Knob when they had braced Ben and Seth. He had watched from hiding, a rifle trained on the three policemen. Only Amelia’s grip steadied him.

  The lawman held up the wanted poster and looked from it to Knight and back.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was your picture on the wanted poster. And that didn’t happen to be the Hannigan gang sticking up the bank, now would it?”

  The two deputies swung their rifles around to cover Knight. With Amelia beside him, he dared not move for fear that they would open fire and shoot her, too. They had the look of desperados, in spite of their leader wearing a badge.

  “Is that the name of the criminal you’re hunting?” Amelia asked. “Hannigan?”

  “He’s the leader, but this galoot looks like Dr. Samuel Knight, wanted for more crimes than can be put on a poster. You happen to be this Knight fellow?”

  “Don’t be absurd. This is my husband. He is a doctor, but his name’s Amos Parker. I must ask you to prove your identity. You can’t ride into a town and accuse a pillar of the community of being this . . . this outlaw.”

  “Me and my men are duly deputized by the state of Texas. We ride for the Texas State Police.”

  “I’ve never heard of such an organization.” Amelia stamped her foot. “You need more proof than that.”

  “These rifles are all the proof we need. I reckon we found ourselves Samuel Knight, and we’re takin’ him in.”

  “What’s going on? Hold down the ruckus.” Marianne Yarrow came from the gunsmith shop. Knight caught his breath, but Amelia headed off trouble.

  “Miss Yarrow, tell these men they have made a mistake. They have mistaken my husband, Amos Parker, for some common criminal.”

  “A killer, ma’am. His picture on this here poster matches what we see in front of us.”

  “Then you’ve made a mistake. Amos has lived here for . . .” Marianne hesitated. When Amelia made no effort to fill in the gap, she hurried on with her tall tale. “He has lived here for the last three years. He and Amelia married soon after he set up his practice.”

  “That’s the only detail in common, Marshal. The man you seek and my husband are both doctors. I am sure mine is much better than any fugitive from the law.”

  “The picture is a bit smudged, Custis,” one of the other riders said. “This gent’s a lot heavier and his hair don’t look a thing like the picture.”

  “Hair’s easy enough to change. Hell, you been scalped. Your hair’s not the way it was ’fore that Comanche took a knife to your head.”

  “My husband has not been scalped, thank you. Now, we must be on our way.”

  “You were coming in to look at Seth,” Marianne said.

  Knight almost dropped his bag to fetch the gun in it. All three Texas State Police officers reacted as one.

  “Would that last name be Lunsford, ma’am?”

  “Seth Yarrow,” came a querulous voice from inside the shop. “He’s my son-in-law.” Mr. Yarrow came out, limping. He had injured himself fighting the saloon fire, and Knight had patched him up.

  “What’s wrong with him? Hell, we’ll just take a gander for ourselves. You got that other wanted poster?” Custis motioned for the one who had held up the first poster to pass over a second. “We got a better picture of one Seth Lunsford, wanted for running with the Hannigan gang.”

  “Well, it’s not my son-in-law. He’s a hard worker and doesn’t go gallivanting off to do—what? What’s this Seth Lunsford supposed to have done?”

  “I’ll have a look at him for myself.” Custis pushed past Yarrow and went into the shop. “Where is he?”

  “In the back, in the bedroom,” Knight said. He motioned Amelia to silence. “You might want to wear a mask before you go there.”

  “What are you saying?” Custis came back, the rifle riding in the crook of his left arm.

  “He’s got scarlet fever and is still contagious. Have you had it? Most folks here are immune after an epidemic two years ago.”

  “A year after he came to Buffalo Springs,” Amelia added, if the policeman couldn’t figure that out for himself. Knight wished she would stay quiet and let him talk. He’d seen the fear on Custis’s face at mention of the disease.

  “I never had it.” He looked at his two deputies. They edged away on their horses, ready to take flight. “My duty’s clear. I got to see him.”

  “Look in on him, then,” Knight said. “I’ll help you get a look at his face, but I’ll need to scrub down after I go in.”

  Custis hung back, letting Knight go into the bedroom. Seth Lunsford slept heavily, still recuperating from his wounds. Knight held up the sheet to reveal Seth’s face. No matter what the poster’s picture was, Seth looked worlds different. He had lost weight and, while his color was good, he was pale enough to be mistaken for a corpse. To add to the tableau, he moaned softly and stirred. Before Custis got too good a look, Knight dropped the sheet back.

  “He’s not the man you want. Now, if you want to be on the safe side, scrub down real good with lye soap. You won’t have to burn your clothes but—”

  Knight held back his merriment at the way the policeman backtracked from the room, fearing some horrible contamination. Before he followed, Knight made sure Seth rested easily. He had run a fever for a day, but that had broken. He was on the mend. With the Texas State Police chased off, Seth had a good life ahead of him in town.

  He looked back at his sleeping patient, wondering if Seth would adopt the nom de guerre Mr. Yarrow had given him as his “son-in-law.” After the way his brother had turned on him, Seth might not mind being Seth Yarrow if it meant settling down peacefully, though it might bother him not passing his name along to any children with Marianne.

  “Sir, this is a wanted poster for Ben Lunsford.” Amelia looked around at the crowd that had gathered to see what the fuss was about. “Do any of you know Ben Lunsford?”

  “Was he one of them outlaws that shot up the town? May he burn in hell.”

  The murmur passed through the crowd. The three policemen huddled, passing the wanted posters around and arguing. Finally coming to a conclusion, they mounted.

  The black policeman tipped his hat to Amelia. “Sorry to have troubled you, but we wanted to beat the soldiers here, if these men were the outlaws we’re all chasing.”

  “Soldiers?” Knight knew holding his tongue was the smart thing to do, but this offhanded comment worried him more than facing down Milo Hannigan. “What soldiers? The ones building a fort outside town?”

  “A roving patrol. The captain’s got a bug up his ass to catch Samuel Knight.” The man stared hard at Kni
ght, then shrugged. “Expect him to show up in a few days. Leastways, we were only a couple days ahead of him.” With that, the Texas State Police wheeled around and trotted from town.

  The crowd slowly dispersed, leaving Knight and Amelia alone in front of the gunsmith shop.

  “You didn’t have to lie for me,” Knight said.

  “I did. Those men have no idea what you mean to this town.” She looked up at him, her bright eyes filled with love. “Or to me.”

  “Living is never easy.”

  “It can be better. You finish your rounds and come out to the farm for dinner. I am fixing an apple pie to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?” Knight looked around. The stench of the burned saloon filled the air and more than one building had windows shot out or bullet holes in the walls. Men and women had died, and the law was still hunting him down . . . Milo Hannigan and his gang, too.

  “Surviving. Us. Think of all we have. Now, I must go. I have to buy a few things for dinner.” She stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick kiss, smiled, and hurried off.

  He watched her go, wishing he felt as confident about the future. Knight turned when the woman who ran the bookstore called to him from across the street. Her husband had been the most severely burned of any who had fought the saloon fire, but he was on the mend. Everyone in Buffalo Springs was on the mend. Things looked brighter now that the outlaws were dead and life had returned to normal.

  Knight spent the rest of the day sitting on the boardwalk, talking with the good people of Buffalo Springs, hearing what they thought lay ahead for him—for him and Amelia Parker—and promising no Texas State Policeman or other lawman would ever trip them up to turn him over. He had been accepted as one of them.

  Twilight turned shadows into black curtains and lights popped up in windows throughout town. He made a quick visit to Seth Lunsford. Marianne sat beside his bed, reading a book. Seth slept without any sign of distress.

  Knight stepped out into the cool evening as stars began winking into the night sky. “Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight,” he said, remembering the old rhyme from his childhood. “May I have this wish I make tonight.”