Fatal Justice

by Ralph Compton

  Doc was about to tell him of the horrors he’d seen. About the time a drunken freighter was run over by his own wagon and shattered bones stuck out of the freighter’s ruptured flesh. About the time a farmer was cleaning a shotgun but forgot it was loaded and blew the top of his head off, spattering brains and hair and gore all over the ceiling. Or about the awful morning Doc went to deliver a baby that came out strangled by its own umbilical chord.

  Then Doc saw Marshal Asher Thrall.

  Doc composed himself and went on in. “Close the door,” he said over his shoulder. “Don’t let anyone in unless I say.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Doc stood and quietly studied the scene: the empty benches along the walls, the stove splotched by red drops, the walls and the floor splotched too, the tall, broad-shouldered form of Ash lying on his back with a bullet hole in his shoulder and another in his leg and what appeared to be a third in his chest.

  Someone had shot the marshal to ribbons.

  Doc winced as he bent at the knees. He felt for a pulse and grunted when he found one. It was weak but it was steady. He pried open one of Ash’s eyelids and examined the pupil.

  He could tell just by glancing at them that the shoulder and leg wounds didn’t merit immediate attention. That chest wound, though . . . Powder burns on the shirt told him the gun had been pressed against Ash’s chest when the shooter fired.

  Quickly, Doc unbuttoned Ash’s blood-soaked shirt and peeled it wide open. A surprise greeted him. There wasn’t a hole. There was a furrow and then a hole. As near as he could figure, the slug struck at an angle and then penetrated. Apparently Ash had been turning when the gun went off.

  Exercising great care, Doc slipped a hand under the big lawman and felt for the exit wound. It was half a minute before he conceded there wasn’t one. Another surprise. At that range most slugs would have gone clean through.

  “Well, now,” Doc said out loud. He opened his black bag and got to work. First he brought out his stethoscope. Feeling a pulse was fine but it couldn’t compare to listening. The heart was still beating steady enough but he thought he detected a slightly erratic quality. Mentally putting it aside for the moment, he selected a probe. Resembling a large sewing needle, it was nearly a foot long. He gripped the tiny ball of metal at the top and slowly inserted the tip into the hole. He needed to know exactly how deep the slug had gone. With luck, the wound was shallow and he could easily extract the lead.

  To his dismay, Doc determined that the hole curved slightly, adding proof the slug went in at an angle. He couldn’t get the probe far enough in to make contact with the lead. Against his better judgment he tried to force it but stopped when Marshal Thrall groaned.

  Doc drew the probe out. He wiped it on a cloth and placed both in his bag and closed it. Rising, he went to the door and was reaching for it when it opened, framing a red-faced tobacco-chewing slab of muscle. “Deputy Blocker.”

  “I just heard, Doc,” the deputy rumbled. “I was out to the Tanner farm. Someone stole one of their horses.” He glanced past the physician and his mouth dropped. “God, no. Is he dead?”

  “Not yet. I might be able to save him if we can get him to my office quickly so I can operate.”

  “Say no more.” Blocker wheeled and marched outside and began bellowing for men to bring something to use as a litter and for everyone else to make room or by heaven he would bust heads.

  Doc emerged and squinted in the glare. He consulted his pocket watch. “I’ll go on ahead and prepare.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Blocker promised.

  Doc started off but stopped. “Be careful with him. Don’t jostle him more than you have to. Whatever you do, keep him on his back. Don’t roll him over or place him on his side. Understood?”

  “You’re the sawbones.”

  Doc nodded and hastened to his office. He had a lot to do to get ready. His examination room doubled as his operating room. It couldn’t hold an unlit candle to the operating rooms he had read about in the journals. The table was wood and not metal. The lightning wasn’t as bright as the journals recommended. Most of his equipment was old, but “old” didn’t mean “useless.”

  He had a surgical kit. He had a scale. He had scalpels and probes and scissors. He had surgical saws and bone saws. He had beakers and vials and bottles. He had surgical thread and splints. In short he had everything a doctor needed, including a bottle of whiskey. He poured three fingers into a beaker and swallowed it in two gulps.

  Doc held out his hand. It was steady enough. When he was younger it was steadier. Old age had a habit of wearing down the body and fraying at the nerves until a man was a shadow of his former self. He hadn’t fallen that far but he had moments when his insides quivered and his hands shook.

  Surgery was always the worst. It was all well and good to read about internal organs and correct operating procedure but it was something else entirely to cut another human being open and have their warm, wet intestines ooze over your fingers.

  Doc shook his head. He must stop thinking about that part of his job and concentrate on the here and now.

  He went to a corner cabinet and took out his surgical kit. Made of wood, it had a tray for probes and scalpels. Remove the tray and underneath was a saw for use when amputating arms and legs as well as a hammer for testing reflexes and a drill.

  Doc laid out the instruments he would need. He placed a pile of clean towels at one end. Bandages went next to the towels. He was scrubbing his hands when voices and a commotion announced the arrival of his patient and an entourage of twenty or more.

  Six men, Deputy Blocker and Floyd the barber included, brought the marshal in on a door. Where they got the door Doc couldn’t begin to guess and didn’t bother asking. “Excellent timing, gentlemen. I am just about ready.”

  “Do you want him on the table?” Deputy Blocker asked.

  “Unless you prefer I operate on the floor.”

  “That was a joke, wasn’t it?” Blocker shook his head. “You think things are funny that no one else does.”

  “When you get to be my age,” Doc said, “you don’t take life nearly as seriously as you used to.”

  Floyd said, “Those are strange words coming from a man who deals in life and death.”

  “I only deal in life,” Doc corrected him. “I took an oath to that effect. For death you want the undertaker.”

  They set the lawman on the operating table and Doc shooed them out except for Deputy Blocker.

  “I need your help stripping him.”

  “You want me to undress Ash?”

  “We’d ask him to do it if he was in any shape to try.”

  “I’ve never undressed a man before.”

  “You undress yourself, I’d warrant.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Not to me it’s not. One naked body is pretty much the same as every other. Most I’d as soon forget seeing.”

  Deputy Blocker brightened. “Say, that’s right. You get to see ladies naked all the time.”

  “It never occurs to you, does it?” Doc asked as he set to work removing the marshal’s jacket and shirt.

  “What?”

  “That women only come to see doctors when they’re not feeling well. When they have aches and pains. When they have broke bones. When they have diseases. They’re not at their best. They’re bitter and irritable and more often than not tired from a lack of sleep. The only thing they want is to get better. Asking them to take off their clothes is an affront they can do without.”

  Blocker was tugging at one of Thrall’s boots. “What’s your point?”

  Doc Peters sighed. “Nothing. Keep at it.” He was amused to note that the deputy never once looked at the marshal’s body after all the clothes were removed.

  “I thank you for your help. You can leave now.”

  “Don’t you need someone to hand you stuff?”

  “Are you giving up your badge to become a nurse?”

  “Are you loco? I’m a
man. Men don’t do nurse work. It’s not in our veins.”

  “You are a wonderment, Deputy. But do you know a retractor from, say, your boot?”

  “A what?”

  “Out you go.”

  Doc threw the bolt so he wouldn’t be interrupted. He washed his hands and dried them. He cleaned all three wounds, confirmed the shoulder and leg wounds could wait, and bent over the lawman’s chest. From a score of various probes he selected one with a wooden handle and a long curved tip. Inch by slow fraction of an inch he inserted it into the bullet hole and was surprised at how far in it went before he felt the scrape of metal on metal.

  As was his wont, Doc talked to himself as he worked.

  “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. I’ve never had a slug this deep before. Not where the patient lived anyhow.”

  Doc slid the probe out and dabbed at drops of blood that welled out.

  “Who did this to you, Ash? How did you let yourself get caught like this? Usually you’re so careful.”

  The lawman might have been a marble statue for all the life he showed.

  Doc sorted through his scalpels. He had some of different sizes and shapes. Each was suited to a specific task or specific part of the body. He chose a heavier one, for when a lot of muscle had to be cut and delicacy wasn’t an issue. Holding it poised over the furrow the slug had made, he stared at the pale face of the town’s protector.

  “I can’t guarantee anything. I’ll do my best. Sometimes, through no fault of my own, that’s not good enough.” Doc touched the scalpel to skin. “Let’s hope that this time it is.”

  Chapter 4

  Ash Thrall woke up with his head pounding. He opened his eyes and regretted it when the pain became worse. Closing them again, he took stock. He was lying on his back. It felt as if a great weight were on his chest. His mouth and throat were as dry as a desert. Swallowing hurt. Licking his lips, he cracked his eyelids again.

  The room was unfamiliar. He was in bed, a blanket drawn to his chin. Brown curtains were drawn and a shaft of sunlight splashed over a folded quilt. A dresser stood against the opposite wall.

  On it sat a tray and on the tray was a hypodermic needle and a bottle.

  A stab of comprehension caused Ash to try to sit up. The pain that racked his body was almost unbearable. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. As it was, a groan escaped him. He sank down again and waited for the agony to fade.

  “You’ve finally come around.”

  Ash looked up at Doc Peters and mustered a smile. “I figured this was your room. Frankly I’m surprised to be alive.”

  “Frankly so am I.” Doc came over and pulled up a chair that Ash hadn’t noticed. “When I say it’s a miracle you’re still breathing you can take that as fact.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Five days.”

  Ash blinked and without thinking went to sit up again. This time he couldn’t keep from crying out.

  “I’d lie still were I you,” Doc advised. “We need to have a talk, you and me. I must explain your condition.”

  “How’s that?” Ash found it difficult to concentrate. “I hurt so much I can hardly think.”

  “The morphine must have worn off. Sorry. I had to go deliver a baby and just got back.” Doc rose and went to the dresser. He filled the hypodermic. Tapping the needle so that a drop trickled from the tip, he came back and pulled the blanket away, exposing Ash’s arm. “This will smart a little.”

  Ash was in too much agony to care about a pinprick. He had never used morphine before and he was surprised at how quickly a blissful feeling of well-being spread up his arm and down his body. The pain evaporated like dew under a warm sun, leaving him floating on clouds of pure pleasure. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “This stuff is better than booze.”

  “Don’t like it too much. They say some folks get addicted.” Doc took the hypodermic and set it on the tray. Instead of returning, he leaned against the dresser and folded his arms. “Now for our talk. First the good news. Your leg wound and the wound in your shoulder posed no complications. They will heal nicely. But the other one.” Doc stopped.

  “You look so grim.”

  “For a reason.” Doc Peters paused. “We’ve known each other how long now, Asher?”

  “Ever since I came to Mobeetie. About two years, give or take,” Ash responded. His voice had an odd dreamlike quality, as if he was talking into a root cellar.

  “Time flies, doesn’t it?” Doc didn’t wait for an answer. “We’ve gotten along pretty well. You’re not as heavy-handed as our last lawman. You don’t pistol-whip drunks for the hell of it or treat everyone as if you’re better than they are.”

  “I do my job is all.” Ash was feeling so good, he was tempted to try to bound out of bed.

  “You do it well. Everyone in the community agrees. Nearly everyone likes you, me included. Which makes what I have to say next all the harder.”

  Ash forced himself to ignore the rapturous sensation brought on by the morphine and focused on what the aged physician was saying. “Spit it out, Doc. I’m a big man.”

  “Bigger than most,” Doc said. “But big isn’t everything. Goliath was bigger than David and David brought him down with a small stone. Life is about to do the same to you.”

  “You’re making no sense.”

  Doc frowned. “There’s no good way to say this so I’ll come right out with it.” He sucked in a breath. “You’re dying.”

  Ash blinked. He looked down at himself. “Am I bleeding inside of me? Is that why my chest feels as if a mule is sitting on it?”

  “It’s not a mule. It’s a slug.” Doc came to the chair. “I couldn’t get it out, Ash. I tried. Honest to God, I tried. But it was deflected by a rib into your pericardium. Do you know what that is?”

  Dazed by the revelation, Ash stared blankly.

  “Asher?”

  “What? Oh. No, I don’t.”

  “The pericardium is a tough muscle that surrounds your heart. The slug is lodged fast. That heavy feeling you’re experiencing—how did you describe it? A mule sitting on your chest? It’s the slug scraping your heart.”

  Ash touched a hand to the blanket over his sternum. “You couldn’t cut it out? Or use tweezers or something?”

  “You’re not listening,” Doc said. “It’s scraping your heart. With every beat it penetrates a fraction farther.”

  The full implications hit Ash like a physical blow. “Wait. You’re saying that it’s working its way deeper? That pretty soon it will enter my heart and that will be the end of me?”

  Doc placed a hand on Ash’s shoulder. “I’m afraid so. As to whether it will be tomorrow or six months from now, there’s no telling. A lot depends on how active you are and your constitution.”

  “Active?” Ash repeated.

  “The more you move around, the more you exert yourself, the faster your heart will beat and the faster the slug will work its way in. My advice is to plant yourself in bed and only get up when you have to. You’ll last longer that way.”

  “How much longer?” Ash bleakly asked.

  “I can’t say. You could buy yourself six months. You could buy yourself none.”

  “Hell.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I had better news. I did my best.” Doc slowly stood. “It won’t be an easy death. It won’t be easy at all.” He went out.

  Despair washed over Ash. Here he was, not even forty, and before he knew it he would be pushing up sunflowers. He’d always known he might die a violent death. Lawmen on the frontier rarely died peacefully in bed. But Ash never expected anything like this: a slow, lingering, painful-as-hell end he didn’t deserve.

  “To hell with this.” Sliding his elbows under him, Ash levered up. So simple to do yet it exhausted him. He propped his shoulders against the headboard to rest.

  Ash thought of Claire, of the fourteen months they spent as man and wife, of her terrible, terrible death by consumptio
n and his vow to never marry again. Thank God he hadn’t, he told himself. Leaving this world was bad enough. Leaving a wife and kids would be unendurable torment.

  Doc came back in carrying a periodical. He sat in the chair and showed the cover to Ash. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, the title read. “I thought I would show you this.”

  “I’m not much of a reader,” Ash admitted. He could wrestle with circulars and officials forms and wanted posters, but that was about it.

  “Only one article is of interest to us.” Doc opened to the page in question.

  “This one here about a Dr. Phillip Brewster, one of the leading surgeons in the country. Can you guess what his specialty is?”

  Ash wasn’t a lawman for nothing. “Heart surgery.”

  “He’s operated on more hearts than anyone. Quite frankly, he’s your best hope, perhaps your only one. What I propose is for you to go to Boston and let him try to save you where I couldn’t.”

  “Do you really think he can?”

  Doc Peters hesitated. “I won’t lie to you. Your chances are slim. It could be you’ll die on the operating table but the important thing is you’ll have done all you can.”

  “Boston,” Ash said.

  “You make it sound like you have to travel to the ends of the earth. By stage and train it shouldn’t take you more than a couple of weeks. The trip will exhaust you, but if he can help you, if he can get the slug out, if there are no complications . . .”

  Ash held up a hand, cutting him off. “If, if, if. It sounds to me like I could go to a lot of trouble and die that much sooner.”

  “You could, yes. But why not look at the bright side?”

  “I need to think about it.”

  “Of course.” Doc rose and pushed back the chair. “I’ll leave you be. Rest and mull it over. There’s no rush. You won’t be strong enough to get out of bed for another two weeks, if then.”

  “That long?”

  “Count your blessings you’re even alive.”

  Ash didn’t see where he had much to be thankful for. Essentially he’d be walking around with a death sentence over his head. Not a noose or a firing squad, but a fate every bit as final. The lead would penetrate his heart and his heart would stop or burst and that would be that.