Silver Moon

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Throat.

  I knew in that flash why I hadn’t been able to shake the nagging feeling that the double murder in the bank vault had not been as simple as it appeared.

  I slammed my mug down so hard that beer sloshed over the sides. I stood so quickly that I banged my knees on the table.

  “You’ll excuse me, Ma’am.”

  She looked upward at me in disbelief.

  I didn’t explain myself further.

  Seconds later, I was on the street, half walking, half sprinting in the direction of the undertaker’s.

  Chapter 10

  Doc Harper was asleep at his desk, bent forward in an awkward position, head on his arms, legs beneath his chair. His spindled limbs reminded me of a stick insect. Yet there was a touching vulnerability about the exhaustion that would allow him to sleep in such a position, and I was reluctant to wake him.

  So I stepped back from his open doorway and took a seat in his waiting room. The undertaker had already confirmed what I needed to know, and the luxury of working for the already dead is that they are in no hurry.

  He must have heard the slight noices I made, for barely seconds after I had leaned back, webbed my fingers behind my head, and stretched my legs, Doc Harper appeared in the office doorway. He’d found a brown jacket to replace the one used as a shroud for Calhoun, and this one fit his long arms as badly as the previous one.

  I smiled a greeting.

  He stared down at me with no expression across his gaunt face.

  “Afternoon,” I said, and rose to my feet.

  He grunted. Pressure lines from the weight of his head on his arms were angry red across the skin of his forehead.

  “I’ll return,” I said, “Might be there’s a better time to —”

  “Speak your piece,” he said. “You didn’t make two trips here in one day to ask about the weather.”

  “I surely did not,” I said. If he wanted abruptness, I could match him. “Why’d you show up so soon to look at Nichols and Calhoun in the First National vault?”

  “None of your business.”

  I smiled. I could afford to. His crustiness fared poorly compared to the threat of an old drunk with a shotgun.

  “Why’d you move them?”

  “None of your business.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “None of —”

  “Turtle,” I said.

  He blinked. Twice.

  “I knew a woman once,” I told Doc Harper. “She had this saying. See a turtle sitting on top a fence post, you may not know how it got there, but you could be good and sure it had help.”

  He mulled that over. Permitted himself a tight smile. “I heard you already declared their deaths solved.”

  “Nichols pulls a gun on Calhoun at the boarding house,” I said, nodding. “Forces him to open the vault. Gets most of the money on his horse just ouside the bank. Returns to the vault, either to finish off Calhoun or to take more money, and Calhoun suprises him with a gun. They shoot each other dead. The horse wanders off. Gold is returned when the horse is found. Same with most of the money, except what the breeze blew away.” I paused. “That the way you heard it?”

  Doc Harper nodded. His eyes did not move with his head, though. Just stared straight through me.

  “Good. Cause that’s the way I told it. No loose ends. Something folks will believe.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I see a turtle, belly flat atop that fence post, legs pushing at air.”

  “So what got you thinking that turtle hadn’t figured a way to climb up there itself?”

  “You tell me,” I said. “By all indications, you saw that turtle first, and from a ways off.”

  “I might get around to it. Convince me you aren’t in Mayor Crawford’s pocket.”

  My face must have reflected the surprise I felt, because Doc Harper sighed. “You wouldn’t be here asking,” he said, more to himself, “you’d be in some alley waiting for me to pass by. And I got my doubts it’s Crawford anyway. He doesn’t have the guts.”

  “Doc, all of a sudden I’m seeing this turtle covered with whitewash, like not only it’s had help, but been places I ain’t considered.” I remembered some of Crawford’s twitchiness in his office during my first questions. “You telling me you know something about Crawford that has a bearing on this?”

  Doc shifted his weight from one leg to the other. It seemed to cause him pain, but bent like he’d been to sleep, that didn’t surprise me.

  “I’m tellin you that Lorne Calhoun and I were close friends. And he’d mentioned a couple of worries about the First National. Now Calhoun is dead.”

  He hesitated, then continued with certainty. “Samuel, Nichols didn’t kill him.”

  I didn’t expect it, the small piece of pleasure I took to hear Doc Harper soften and call me by my first name. A man gets accustomed to traveling alone.

  “Don’t let this upset you too much, Doc. But maybe we’re whistling the same tune. Because I know Calhoun didn’t kill Nichols. And I can prove it.”

  **********************

  I’ll agree with temperance people any day. Whiskey is not a cure. Any man who drinks it expecting as much only has to wait until the next morning to find out how badly he fooled himself.

  Yet — and the temperance people don’t seem to cut slack in return — there is a measure of quiet peace in sitting across the table from a friend, sipping whiskey slow and sharing considered words at the same pace.

  Which is one reason I’d asked Doc Harper to join me at the Red Rose instead of continuing our conversation in his waiting room. Doc had eased up on me, and somehow it had made me want to stand straighter like I’d enjoyed the pat on the head. That was unusual because most often when I’m pushed, I close my eyes and push right back, no matter what direction that pushing takes me. Maybe it was because I sensed Doc had no favorites, that he pushed himself just as hard as he pushed anyone else.

  After some thought, he’d agreed to meet me at the Red Rose, and had paused in his office only to leave a note directing patients to the saloon should they need him.

  I sat with a shot glass of whiskey in front of me.

  Doc had his long, gnarled fingers wrapped around a mug of black coffee.

  It was closing in on dusk now, and the saloon was half full — quiet enough that Doc and I could speak in low tones. The four rebs still sat at the bar, and had nodded hello as Doc and I walked in. Old Charlie was sitting to the left of Josh, nodding and waving his hands in animation, probably happy to have a new audience for his time-worn stories.

  I took my first sip of whiskey, enjoyed the burn of its warmth, and set the shot glass down.

  Doc stared at my whiskey, then raised his coffee to his lips. He winced at the taste.

  “More than one spoon’s melted in that acid, Doc. Sure you won’t join me and paint your tonsils?.”

  He shook his head. “What’s your proof that Calhoun didn’t shoot Nichols?”

  “It was your jacket that you laid across Calhoun that got me thinking, Doc.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. Pain, again, poorly hidden. I realized how deeply that grimace had etched lines into his old face. “Seems a poor thing, that all I could offer him was that jacket.”

  I cussed myself. Just because Doc didn’t show grief, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And I’d thrown it at him casual. I could just as easy told him Dehlia’s lovely throat had sent me running to the undertakers.

  “Doc, I’m sorry.”

  He smiled his tight smile. “What’d you get to thinking?”

  “Calhoun was a tall man,” I replied without hesitation. We’d both pretend our conversation wasn’t about a dead friend. “As tall as you.”

  Doc nodded. He had himself reined in now.

  “And Nichols was shot in the throat,” I continued. “He was a shorter man than Calhoun, but, as the undertaker will confirm, that slug took out the back of Nichols’ skull.”

  I remembered too much
of the dead man in the coffin and reached for my whiskey as some of the blood feelings came back to haunt me about my brother. Doc Harper watched the shot glass all the way to my mouth, then swallowed a gulp of his coffee.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said after a deep breath. “The bullet was going upwards when it hit Nichols yet Calhoun was the taller man. I just can’t see that Calhoun was on his knees when he shot and was shot.”

  Doc frowned in concentration. “Why not?”

  “First reason’s a slug mark,” I said. “The bullet from Nichols’ gun hit the vault door chest high to Calhoun. How could Nichols take a shot in the throat, then live long enough for Calhoun to get to his feet before shooting him?”

  I rolled another sip of whiskey over my tongue. By Harper’s envious look, I was tempted to offer him his own, but I’d already asked.

  Doc frowned again. “A smart lawyer would say different. That Calhoun was standing, and shot Nichols from the hip. Bullet would be rising then.”

  “Except for reason number two. The other slug mark—the bullet that hit Nichols. Back side of the vault. It was shoulder height. Not the mark of a bullet that was rising after it hit Nichols.”

  Before Doc could reply, Suzanne stopped at our table. She sat on the edge of the table, adjusted her shoulder strap and crossed her legs. I assumed this was for Doc’s benefit.

  “Marshal Keaton and Doc Harper,” she purred. “If I didn’t know better, I‘d say the both of you were plotting evil deeds.”

  Doc pulled at his neck tie. Her perfume did have some power. And those black stockings did contrast nice with the green cloth of our table.

  “We are,” I said sourly. “I was hoping Doc could prescribe some medicine that would keep Brother Lewis quiet in that jail cell.”

  Suzanne ran her closest hand across my shoulder and tickled my throat with the tip of her fingernail. Where was this coming from?

  Doc Harper grinned. At my discomfort? Or the thought of finding a way to quiet Brother Lewis, a subject of mutual dislike we had discussed as we walked to the saloon?

  “Marshal,” she said, “I hear you met someone in the saloon this afternoon while I was at the jail waiting for the Chinaman.”

  “Yup. Old Charlie. And he didn’t smell near as nice as you.”

  “I didn’t mean Old Charlie,” she said, not amused. “I heard you met the woman sitting at the bar with those four men.”

  I looked up in time to catch Dehlia looking away. I hadn’t noticed her join them.

  “Her,” I said. And forgot to wipe the slow smile from my face.

  Suzanne stood and sniffed disdain. “She wears pants.”

  Suzanne marched to another table before I could reply.

  Doc smiled. “For a man who was able to think through those slug marks, you show an amazing lack of perception.”

  I ignored that. “How’d you know that Nichols didn’t shoot Calhoun?”

  That put the frown back on his face. “Chicken feathers.”

  “Chicken feathers?”

  The saloon doors banged open.

  “Doc!” It came from a man in coveralls. Short, stocky, wild-eyed.

  Doc rose.

  “Doc! It’s worse now! Whatever’s giving her that bad throat is closing up now. Betty’s blue, she’s breathing so bad. She won’t even open her eyes no more.”

  “Alright, Abe. She back at the homestead?”

  Abe shook his head. “I brung her in with me. That’s how blue she is. Doc, you gotta do something.”

  The harsh lines on Doc’s face transformed into gentleness I would not have believed this tall, rigid man could possess.

  “Samuel,” Doc Harper said. “I don’t care how far it takes you, how hard you got to run to get them, and how bad this light is this time of the afternoon, but don’t return to my office unless you have a couple of sand burs.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. “Burs? Big prickly seed-type of burs? Out in the grass type of —”

  “Exactly. And each breath you waste now is one less breath left for her.”

  Chapter 11

  In the light of the oil lamps and whatever sun still came through the window, I could see on Doc Harper’s desk, a needle, scalpel, short length of leather cord, a small jar and a can of lard. I set three sharply-barbed sand burs — dry, hard, each the size of a small pea — alongside the lard.

  Abe’s wife Betty was stretched on her back on the long, low table on the opposite side of Doc’s office. She wore a gingham dress that had seen many washings, and the dress lay like a drape across her and the table. Her breathing fluttered along with her eyelids, and by the white-blue of her round face, I dreaded the moment that even the fluttering would cease.

  “Abe, you’ll step into the waiting room.”

  Doc spoke tenderly, but it was said in a way that brooked no disagreement.

  Doc shut the door behind Abe.

  “You’ll have to hold her,” he said. “Abe doesn’t have the height and muscle you do. And what I’ve got to do is nothing a man should see his wife go through.”

  Doc didn’t wait for me to agree.

  He moved to his desk and lifted the scalpel. With fine, precise movements from those ungainly fingers, movement that surprised me as much as had his gentleness, Doc Harper began to slice a narrow thread of leather off the cord.

  “Cloth thread breaks too easily,” he explained without looking up.

  He took the needle and poked a hole through the center of one of the sand burs. That complete, he threaded the sinew through the hole and tied a knot at one end, so that when he lifted the thread, the sand bur dangled below like a ball.

  With quick, sure movements, he scooped lard onto his other palm, and rolled the sand bur through it. A grunt of satisfaction, and he looked a me.

  “Lift her off the table. Hold her from behind. Reach beneath her armpits and around so that you can squeeze tight and stop her from moving.”

  I did as directed. The faint smell of soap reached me from her dress. Sick or not, she, or Abe, had determined she would be wearing her best to meet the doctor. Or death.

  “Let her head fall back against you,” Doc said. There was no panic in his voice, and I understood how easy it would be for worried patients to remain calm around him.

  She was a heavy woman, and I had to heft her and let her sag to get head lolling against my shoulder.

  “Good,” Doc said. He pried her mouth open, and with a splint of wood in one hand, and the leather thread in the other, pushed the bur far down her throat.

  She gagged and twisted and I had to brace my legs to keep from falling.

  “Nearly there,” Doc soothed. To her? Or me?

  He pulled the sand bur loose.

  “It’s caked pretty bad,” Doc said. “Get ready for another try.”

  He repeated the process. She bucked against me.

  “Once more,” Doc said.

  I took a breath and readied myself. She kicked again, like a frightened calf straining away from a branding iron.

  Doc pulled the sand bur out again and smiled at the results. With the splint, he scraped some white hard matter off her tongue. He walked to his desk with the splint, and and tapped it on the edge of the open jar, so that the hard matter fell into the jar. Doc replaced the lid, then turned to me.

  “Lay her back on the table,” he said. “It’s clear enough she can breath. If she’s over the worst of the infection, it won’t grow back.”

  As I was leaning over her to set her down easy, her eyes opened and flared with surprise.

  I found myself grinning as I set her down. “Sorry to disappoint you Ma’am. This ain’t heaven. And I ain’t no angel.”

  Doc Harper snorted from behind me. “Samuel, instead of wagging your tongue, you might want to fetch the lady a glass of water.”

  ********************

  After Abe and Betty had left, I reminded Doc Harper that he owed me a story about chicken feathers. He declined my invitation to ret
urn to the saloon to discharge that obligation.

  “I’m tired,” he told me. “I must have made twenty miles today in my buggy, and these bones can’t take the punishment they could three decades ago.”

  I thought of the inscription I had inadvertently read in the front of the book I had borrowed from Doc Harper’s shelf earlier in the day. To Cornelius, from your loving wife Sarah. Christmas ’46.

  “Thirty years is a long time, Doc.” While I was curious, that was as close as I’d get to asking him what roads he’d taken to get here in Laramie, and what had led him to his bachelor life, away from his loving wife.

  Doc closed his eyes. “Thirty years ago, I was your age. I’d have accepted your offer to return to the Red Rose.”

  He opened his eyes, an almost owlish movement, and stared briefly at me. “I hope you know a lot more than I did then.”

  I could think of no answer, only more questions, so I said nothing.

  “Chicken feathers,” he said after a few moments. Heaviness had crept into his voice, and he sagged in his chair. Had I not wanted to hear so badly what he knew, I would have insisted on leaving to give him his rest. “Proof of something I suspected anyway. Proof of something I was going to find no matter what the law said about it.”

  I nodded encouragement.

  “Calhoun was a good man,” Doc Harper said. “You can’t know that. You haven’t been in Laramie long enough, and you might hear different from others who didn’t look beyond what they saw when he walked back and forth from his boarding house to the bank. Calhoun was quiet, scared much of the time, but this was a man who cared about people. His friendship made my life bearable.”

  Doc sighed. “If he had a weakness, it was his obsession for order. I believe that was his way to make up for his fear.”

  “Fear? Of Mayor Crawford?”

  Doc shook his head. “Nerves. That’s how I first met him.” Doc waved a weary hand toward his office door. “Pull up a chair from the waiting room.”

  When I returned, Doc spoke as if I hadn’t left.