by Lon Williams
“He can’t mean that, certainly,” said Boro.
“Of course not,” said Bogie, although he didn’t mean to say it.
Winters sprang up. “We’re wasting time, Professor. I’ve wished a thousand times I could get out of this gun-smokin’ business.”
Boro rose unhurriedly. “It was a pleasure to drink with you, Bogannon.”
“And may we repeat again soon,” Bogie heard himself saying.
As soon as they were gone, Bogie realized what had been happening. This trickster who called himself Professor Boro was a voice-thrower. Winters ought to know that, too, but of course he didn’t; he was too completely taken in.
Bogie ran out. “Winters!”
But they were riding off. Winters appeared not to have heard him.
* * * *
Their course was a winding, upward trail. Moonlight and cliff alternated to reveal their way, and to obscure it. Doc Bogannon’s half-breed wife had said this was a warrior’s road, Athi-ami-owee! Trail of armed ones.
Winters imagined he could see feathered heads flitting from shadow to shadow. Talkative Professor Boro had become mysteriously silent.
Then, where Winters before had heard a voice coming out of a cliff, he heard it again. “Going somewhere, strangers?”
Boro reined back suddenly.
But Winters had anticipated his move and stopped first. Boro was in front of him, lighted clearly by moonbeams. “Did you hear something, Winters?”
“Sure,” said Winters. “Did you?”
“I thought so. Rather strange, don’t you think?”
“Very. I was just wondering if Little Jack Horner heard it?”
“Horner?”
“Yes. This is where you killed him, Professor Boro.”
Boro was silent, stone-still. Their horses were half a length apart. Winters had his six-gun up, pointing and cocked.
“You grossly misjudge me, Winters.”
“Chaney Few, alias Dr. Goodpasture, alias Professor Boro, do you want to go peaceably, or as a corpse?”
“There’s a terrible mistake here, Winters. But to clear matters I, of course, shall go peaceably.” Boro lifted bridle reins and swung his horse.
It was a trick Winters had seen before. Yet, though he had expected it, he hadn’t expected it to come so fast. He triggered as Boro’s hand flashed down, and Boro’s body jerked. But that didn’t stop him. His horse plunged against that of Winters, and his gun roared. For a fraction of a second fire blazed, and fury echoed from canyon walls.
* * * *
Doc Bogannon, sitting alone in his saloon, heard gunfire far away toward Elkhorn Pass. Winters and Boro! To Bogie, it could have been nobody else. This time Winters would not come back. He’d been lucky many, many times, but no man’s luck could last forever.
He heard a horseshoe strike against stone. He was tense, afraid to stir.
Then his batwings swung in.
“Winters!”
Winters stood just inside, pale and shaken. Bogie expected him momentarily to fall on his face, but he didn’t. Instead, he put his fists on his hips, like an irate woman.
“Doc, what will this dang crazy town turn up next?”
Bogie hurried for drinks. “I tried to tell you, Winters. Boro was a voice-thrower. You were too bullheaded to listen.”
Winters eased himself into a chair. “That’s it, Doc; I didn’t want you to tell me. I didn’t want Boro to know we’d caught on. Even so, that voice-throwing baboon was a humdinger. Such a pity he had to be killed.”
A DESERT HIPPOCRATES
Real Western Stories, August 1953
Deputy Marshal Lee Winters, gunfight-weary and homeward bound from Rocky Point an hour before midnight, pulled his horse to an uneasy halt on Alkali Flat. Out of starlit gloom and loneliness had come a weird, far cry. In that eery solitude, it smote upon his fancy as a voice from another world, outside of time.
“Oooooo-rand!” it called. In pitch and plaintiveness, it was feminine; because it evoked no answer, it was heart-rending and forlorn. Yet it persisted—seeming near, then far, as night winds lifted and fell. “Oooooo-rand! Oh, Oooooo-reeeeee!” Northward a couple of miles, lights of Forlorn Gap shone dimly through intervening alkali dust. They were lights of home, a tired wayfarer’s dream come true. But far away across Alkali Flat, a woman’s voice called from immeasurable tenderness and love for someone lost. Here, then, was a tug-of-war between instincts of chivalry and a longing to be safe at home. In Winters’ sentimental bosom, chivalry was a mighty force—in any other than extraordinary circumstances dominant over self-interest, over danger, fear and mystery.
But on Alkali Flat at night, experience had taught him that nothing was ordinary. This desert waste, supposedly, was a place where nothing lived, or could live for long. Yet at night it teemed with life, as if darkness had resurrected its dead; concededly honest men claimed to have seen Indians silently playing games there by moonlight, and herds of buffalo that grazed upon vast green pastures. Wolves howled there, too, though not a wolf track could be found by day. Indeed, by day it was a shimmering white desert, as bare as a floor in a vacant house.
At night it was an abode of owls, of dead things that walked, of voices as disembodied and insubstantial as their spirit origins.
This was night. When sweat popped on his face, and his skin began to sting, Winters knew he was scared stiff. Sweat was pouring, and his skin was stinging now. His big rangy horse, Cannon Ball, too, exhibited much of his master’s demoralization and fear. Like his master, Cannon Ball wanted no truck with Alkali Flat and its nocturnal creatures, real or spectral. Accordingly, when a spur raked his flank, he lifted his hoofs and set them down hard.
In Forlorn Gap’s only saloon, Doc Bogannon, its owner, began to tidy up for closing. As usual, this had been a profitable and interesting evening, an assortment of questionable strange characters contributing to both results.
Because it was a town where busy stage-roads met, Forlorn Gap had for months seen its unfailing quota of strangers. In service to boom-towns north and west, stagecoaches ran day and night—which meant good hunting for road-agents, scoundrels too unimaginative to envisage the inevitable hangropes that awaited them.
There were other types of evil men, too, Bogannon reflected while he put a shine on his bar. He had in mind a gentry more subtle and sinister in their composition and behavior (consequently more dangerous) than those blood-and-thunder badmen who robbed stages and murdered foolhardy adventurers. These were able characters, brilliant in dark inexplicable ways, living in a shadowland of intellect and motive, sometimes consummating evil deeds by devious means, sometimes striking with such simplicity that even a most cautious person could be caught unawares. From where they came, Doc Bogannon did not know. It was if they were spawned in this semi ghost-town of Forlorn Gap, born to spill its blood and to have their own blood spilled into its desert sands.
Bogie laid aside his swabber, selected a clean cloth and gave the glasses their final polish. Then he observed a stranger who had just entered through his swinging doors. Here was a character, thought Doc instantly. He was straight and handsome, swarthy of complexion, smooth of face, his mass of wavy dark hair hanging low on his neck beneath a small black felt hat.
He came up, placed his long-fingered hands on Doc’s shiny bar. “Howdy,” he said, an air about him shading between insult and insanity.
“Howdy,” said Doc, inwardly amused.
* * * *
Doc Bogannon was a tall, broad-shouldered individual with dark hair parted loosely upon a fine head. Physically he was a gentleman fit to walk with kings. He was a man of great mind, too, a philosopher in both intelligence and disposition, understanding men, good and bad, and finding them equally interesting. Despite his obvious fitness for greater things, Bogannon was, for reasons best known to himself, contented as owner and operator of a gold-town saloon—and happy as companion of a good-looking Shoshone half-breed wife.
This man who stared out of queer,
far-looking brown eyes would have irritated a less charitable person than Doc; patently he regarded himself as a superior being. “I am Spurlock Mosely,” he announced importantly.
“I am Doc Bogannon,” said Doc, as matter-of-fact as Mosely was pompous.
Spurlock Mosely nodded with condescension. “Now that we are so well acquainted, I presume I may make myself at home in your delectable whiskey palace?”
“A pleasure,” said Doc.
“Thank you.”
Doc smiled, found something to do. Prior to that interruption from Spurlock Mosely, his attention had rested quizzically upon another stranger—a small, unfriendly nonentity who sat alone, had spoken to no one and taken no drink. When he’d looked about at all, he’d done so with incomparable gloom. It was worth a drink, thought Doc, to know what this poor mortal’s trouble was. Few patrons remained; it was a leisure time, approaching midnight.
Doc filled a wine-glass, poured himself a small drink and joined his silent, lonely guest. “Mind?” he asked gently.
“I suppose not.”
“Bogannon is my name.”
“What of it?”
Doc took that one smiling. “Sorry, if I offend.” He proffered his wine. “I brought you a drink. Now, knowing your name would promptly improve our social relations.”
Free wine deserved some measure of gratitude. “I’m Winthrop—Thackery Baine Winthrop. I’m stopping in your town merely because it’s so little worse than what I left.”
Winthrop drank sparingly, found his wine good and drank some more.
“You’re not a Boston Winthrop, by chance?” asked Bogie.
“I should hope not.”
“Ah? What’s wrong with Boston?”
“What’s right with Boston?”
Bogie sipped wine. “Well, sir, you’ve put me in a quandary. But I’d say—for men like you and me—Boston is a fine place to stay away from.”
“So is every other place,” declared Winthrop. “If you leave one place because it’s sorry, it will only be to hit a sorrier one.”
Doc folded his arms. “I’d say you’re right, Winthrop. Fortunately, though, an individual like us will find circumstances fully accommodating to his nature. By that, I mean a fellow can be at no more than half a dozen places at once, but he can stay away from unnumbered thousands of ’em. Think of that blessing and smile, Winthrop.”
“I never smile.”
Bogie got up. “More wine?”
“No.”
Doc washed and dried their glasses. He was taking a peek at his watch when his batwings swung in, and a lean, middle-aged newcomer tramped in.
“Winters!”
Winters strode forward. “Wine, Doc.”
Bogie filled a glass. He also reached under his bar for a vinegar dish and clean face cloth. “Hadn’t seen you in a couple of days, Winters. You’ve come across Alkali Flat, too; your face is wet with sweat, and stinging red from alkali dust. Here, wash up”
Winters downed his drink and swabbed his face with vinegar. “Doc, sometimes I vow that I’ll never again cross Alkali Flat at night. I ought to pay my vows, or quit makin’ ’em.”
“Seen another ghost, eh?”
“You don’t believe in ghosts, and I do,” said Winters. “So we won’t argue.” He took a quick glance around. His mirthless eyes rested upon misery incarnate. “Who’s he, Doc?”
“A new friend of mine. Winthrop, by name—Thackery Baine Winthrop.”
Winters regarded Winthrop uncharitably. “Looks right downhearted.”
“Yes,” said Bogie. “Winthrop is what you might call a man with a gloomy outlook.”
“Fitting description,” Winters said with distaste. He regarded himself as potentially every man’s enemy, was slow to admit otherwise. “When I was a button down on Trinity River, Doc, our neighbor ten miles across Trinity bottoms had such an outlook. Gloomy people were not common in Texas, but this feller was an exception. He’d sit droopily on a log for hours and study how everything was going to dogs and snakes. Face got flabby and long. At forty his dewlaps were so long you could tie ’em in a double-bow knot under his chin. Finally somebody found out what his trouble was; he had a hurtin’.”
Thack Winthrop rose indignantly, came forward and stared at Winters. “Maybe you think you’re humorous; well, you’re not. Truth is I, too, have a hurting. It’s here in my chest. But that isn’t why I’m not jumping up and cracking heels, pretending happiness. There’s nothing to be happy about. As for your cheap wit, I could spit on it.”
Winters laid down an extra coin. “Doc, set ’em up for a brave man. You can tell him, too, that except for a stray bright spot or two, I agree with him. Everything’s hopeless, nothing to live for; we ought to all go off and die. Goodnight, Doc.”
* * * *
Doc’s manner, after Winters’ departure, was one of gentle reproof. “Winthrop, you’ve hurt my friend’s feelings. Deputy Winters was not trying to be funny. But, here. Winters would be hurt still more if you refused his generosity.” Doc filled a glass with wine. He passed it to Winthrop, who stared at it, finally picked it up and returned to his table and melancholy meditations.
A chair scraped and Doc saw Spurlock Mosely rise and move with impressive dignity to Winthrop’s table. He continued his work, but observed them casually.
Mosely, a wary eye on Bogannon, introduced himself to Winthrop, leaned close and spoke secretively. “I overheard your remarks to that impudent deputy marshal. That took nerve, Winthrop; you know, I like you.” He looked at Thack Winthrop’s gloomy face, particularly his nose, one part of his anatomy which he found attractive. “In confidence, I have something to tell you.”
Winthrop sipped wine, regarded Mosely with suspicion. “I don’t trust you; why should you trust me?”
“Because,” said Mosely, “deep within you, there’s nobility. Your face— especially your nose—proclaims it. I noticed that at once; being an authority in human anatomy, I admired it.”
“You a doctor?”
Mosely glanced cautiously at Bogannon. “I am more than a doctor, Winthrop. I am a great surgeon, unexcelled anywhere.” From a coat pocket he removed a bottle, uncorked it. Onto a pad of cotton he sprinkled a liquid. He pretended to smell, then passed it. “Take a whiff of that cotton. You spoke of pain in your chest. That liquid is a magic fluid which destroys pain.”
Winthrop, still distrustful, breathed conservatively. Here was an odor he’d never smelled before, sweet, penetrating fumes, soothing, almost stupefying in its effects. “What is it?”
“Chloroform.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Not surprising. It’s a new thing. I learned of it in England, my native land. I make it—also use it.”
“For what?”
“To kill pain.” He took back his cotton. “Is not that hurting gone from your chest?”
Winthrop breathed slowly, then deeply; his gloom lessened. “For a wonder, I have no pain—not a bit.”
Mosely pocketed his possessions. “Your hurting is over. This small favor I did for you was because I liked you—for standing up to that deputy marshal. But I must be going.”
Winthrop sprang up. “Wait! I’d like to buy some of that. Will you—”
“Of course,” said Mosely. “Come; I’ll overwhelm you with it.”
Doc casually noted their departure and looked at his watch. Midnight. Apron exchanged for coat, he began to extinguish lights. Suddenly his nose quivered. What’s that I smell? Something he’d never smelled before. He puzzled over it until he’d locked up. Then, remembering his amorous Shoshone, he hurried homeward.
* * * *
Spurlock Mosely and Thackery Baine Winthrop found two horses hitched back of Bogie’s saloon. Mosely explained that he had just bought an extra one. Winthrop, however, mounted without questions; they rode away into Alkali Flat.
A mild stupor was upon Winthrop; consequently time passed somewhat as it did in sleep. But his stupor was gone when they stopped in a cliff-
walled canyon, miles from their starting point. They dismounted, led their horses into an arched passage and ground-hitched them. A dim light diffused itself from unseen lamps.
“Well, here we are, Winthrop,” Mosely announced a few seconds later.
“Where?” asked Winthrop. It was an idle question, for they were in a cavernous room, lighted by brilliant lamps suspended from its ceiling.
“This,” explained Mosely, “is my laboratory, my operating room. I am a great surgeon—or did I mention that? And this—” His thumb indicated something immediately behind Winthrop.
Winthrop turned in alarm. What he faced filled him with revulsion and terror. In stature it was a man, straight and of excellent proportions, dressed in trousers and a robe of expensive quality. That which repelled and sickened was its face. It was a face without a nose. And from an inch above its ears, there was no hair on its head.
“My brother,” said Spurlock Mosely. “His name is Sir Jared Mosely. We are both great surgeons, equally great, I’d say.”
Winthrop swallowed, stared, perspired. “Wh—what happened to him?”
“That,” said Spurlock, “is quite a story. Briefly, it’s this. Misfortune drove us from England. Entrance papers into your country being unobtainable, we smuggled ourselves in through Mexico. Being doctors, we earned as we traveled. My brother operated surgically on a Comanche chief—unsuccessfully, as you may surmise. Comanches in revenge cut off Sir Jared’s nose, lips and ears, and lifted his scalp.”
Winthrop tried vainly to swallow. “B—but—”
“Yes,” said Spurlock. “You are thinking Sir Jared still has his lips and ears. It happens that those anatomical parts are not his own; they were borrowed— borrowed from, let us say, your predecessors. A rather good-looking gold-digger named Orand Hodge donated his lips. Those ears were gifts from a traveling salesman—which, incidentally, this salesman did not particularly need, a glib tongue being his main stock in trade.” Winthrop cast about in horror. This was a nightmare, he told himself. Soon he would awake, wipe away sweat and breathe a grateful sigh. Yet everything was too real to be substance dreams were made of. Where light fell brightest stood a broad table. Beside it were small cabinets filled with shiny instruments—tweezers, knives, needles…
