by J. T. Edson
‘Strange you should mention that,’ Doc remarked, with a deceptively casual tone that did not fool the other Westerner. ‘Could be it’s just what I have in mind.’
‘It is, huh?’ Royster asked, his right hand moving in what was a significant manner anywhere west of the Mississippi River but for one thing.
"It could be,’ Doc repeated noncommittally, wanting the first aggressive gesture to come from the other man.
‘Well I’ll be damned and double damned!’ Royster ejaculated, as if suddenly recollecting something of importance. His right hand rubbed at the place on his off thigh where a correctly designed holster would hang. At the same time, moving in a casual appearing gesture, his left hand reached across as if to remove the sack of tobacco from his shirt pocket. ‘Mind if I roll me a smoke to steady my nerves, Texas? Damned if I wasn’t forgetting that this ain’t back home and I’m not toting a gun.’
Even as Royster was speaking the last words, his left hand shot under the right side of the jacket with a sudden increase in the pace with which it had been moving. His fingers and thumb enfolded the butt of the Colt ‘Storekeeper’s Model’ Peacemaker xlii in his spring-retention shoulder holster. The move was made with such speed and precision that, taken with it being performed ‘southpaw5, he considered that—even against a man of the Texan’s quality—it should have had every chance of success.
Unfortunately for Royster, he was up against a man who could claim few superiors in the art of gun fighting.
Having been aware that the other was carrying a concealed weapon, Doc had drawn the correct conclusion about where it was positioned. So he had not been diverted or distracted by the actions of Royster’s right hand.
At the first positively hostile gesture, the Texan responded instantaneously. His right hand made an almost sight defying flicker. To the watching people in the bar-room, very few of whom had ever seen a highly trained Western pistolero in motion, it seemed that the ivory handled Colt had leapt from its holster and into his grasp. Before any of the onlookers could fully appreciate what was happening, held at waist level and aimed by instinctive alignment, it roared and belched out smoke tinged with the flame of the muzzle blast. The .45 bullet, passing through the rifling grooves of the four and three-quarter inch long barrel, was propelled into the center of Royster’s chest.
Struck an instant before his own weapon had reached a point from which it could endanger his assailant, shock and pain twisted at the hired gun’s face. He was knocked backwards and, as he went sprawling supine on the floor, his revolver flew unfired from his grasp. That was fortunate for him. If he had retained his hold on it, the Texan would not have hesitated before shooting him a second time. With such a man as Royster, one could not take chances and survive to tell the tale.
Seeing his opportunity, Blaby flung himself from his crouching posture by the bar. Ignoring the Colt in his waistband, his only thought being to save himself from whoever emerged as the victor in the corpse and cartridge affair, he started to race across the room.
Instantly, the other occupants of Coffee Dan’s—who had sat or stood like statues all through the confrontation between the two Western men—erupted into motion. Scattering in every direction, spurred by a mutual desire to flee from the scene of a shooting, they would have come between Doc and his quarry if he had contemplated using the Colt. However, he had no such intention.
On the point of starting to give chase, Doc remembered an earlier incident in the saloon. Looking around, he saw that the head bartender was repeating the attempt to produce whatever weapon was hidden beneath the counter. Doubting if a verbal warning would suffice on this occasion, the Texan swiveled and, cocking the Colt’s hammer, threw it upwards to allow for more careful sighting than he had used when dealing with Royster.
With his hands closing about the sawed-off shotgun that reposed on the shelf in front of his usual position, the bartender saw what was happening. So did his colleagues and they showed an equal alarm to that of his. Letting out yells and displaying a grasp of the situation worthy of workers in a Western saloon, they started to fling themselves downwards out of the line of fire.
Having no wish to injure the bartender if it could be avoided, Doc laid his aim accordingly. He watched with satisfaction the other men behind the counter disappearing and saw the consternation on the face of his intended target. Then the Colt crashed, sending its load where the Texan meant for it to go. Hearing the eerie ‘whap!’ of the lead passing close over his head, to fly on and end its propulsion without danger to anybody in the side wall of the room, the head bartender gave a frightened yelp. Taking an involuntary stride to the rear, he tripped over the feet of a colleague and fell backwards. Although he released the shotgun, its hammers were not cocked and it clattered harmlessly to the floor.
Thumbing back the Colt’s hammer without the need for conscious thought, Doc tossed a glance at the owner of the saloon. Coffee Dan was standing as he had ever since the Texan had entered, face hard and lips tight. However, as Doc’s eyes turned towards him, he glanced away. Following the direction of his gaze, the Texan saw that Tick was following Blaby’s example. However, where the Western outlaw was making for the front door, the owner’s nephew was fleeing towards a side entrance.
‘It’s Blaby I want!’ Doc stated.
Receiving a nod of acceptance, the Texan resumed his interrupted pursuit. Before he had taken half a dozen strides, his quarry was already plunging through the main entrance. Instead of running straight ahead, the outlaw made a sudden swerve and disappeared from Doc’s range of vision. However, he heard Blaby yell in alarm and the noise was followed by a heavy thud.
Running onwards, Doc noticed the Kansan saloon girl, and she reminded him of another possible source of interference. However, the two bouncers flanking the open front door made no attempt to prevent his departure.
On leaving the building, Doc discovered what had caused Blaby’s abrupt change of direction and the reason for the noises which had followed it. Finding himself confronted by one of the detectives, who had been sent by St. Andre to find out what was happening in the saloon, the outlaw had tried to dodge aside. Instead of succeeding, he had been tackled and brought down. Even as Doc arrived on the sidewalk, his captor had a knee rammed against his spine and his right arm was twisted painfully behind his back. Doc was pleased to observe that St. Andre and the two detectives were holding their revolvers, even though he did not believe there would be any need to use them. They had left their places of concealment across the street and were approaching on the run.
‘The other one took off through the side door!’ Doc announced, pointing with his Colt-filled hand in the appropriate direction. ‘Only you’ll likely have trouble telling which way he’s gone. He had plenty of company lighting a shuck on his trail.’
‘See if you can catch him!’ St. Andre commanded and, after his two men swerved towards the end of the building, joined the Texan in front of it. ‘We got the one you wanted, anyway, Doc. What was all the shooting about?’
‘I had to throw lead into that hombre who followed me in,’ the Texan explained, twirling the Colt back into its holster and accompanying the captain to the main entrance. ‘Then I tossed a shot to scare the barkeeper out of fetching up and cutting loose on me with a scattergun. At least, I reckon that’s what it was.’
‘Damn it, this place is starting to be like Dodge City!’ St. Andre ejaculated, knowing that his companion would not have started shooting if it could have been avoided. He glanced to where his remaining detective was hauling a sobbing Blaby upright. ‘Can you manage, sergeant?’
‘I reckon I can, sir,’ the officer replied, shoving his captive against the wall and taking a set of handcuffs from his jacket’s pocket. ‘Let’s have your fists behind your back, bucko.’
‘Do you think you can make him talk now you’ve got him?’ St. Andre inquired, watching the detective manacle the outlaw.
‘It shouldn’t be too hard, spooked as he is,’ Doc guesse
d, then shrugged. ‘Anyways, I reckon I’ve already learned most of what I need to know.’
By the time Doc and St. Andre entered the bar-room, every customer had gone. Full and partly empty glasses, spilled drinks, money and chips left on the various gambling tables told that their departures had been hurried. All around, saloon girls, waiters and bouncers stared either at the two men who were coming in, or at the weakly moving shape on the floor. Behind the counter, the bartenders were standing up cautiously and clearly ready to return to their place of concealment if there should be the need. Only Coffee Dan seemed unmoved by the events of the past few minutes. However, he showed signs of surprise and perturbation as he realized who was with the Texan.
‘You don’t need the revolver, Captain,’ Doc announced in a carrying voice. ‘The gent behind the bar wasn’t to blame for anything that happened. He didn’t even know his man was trying to get out that scattergun, or he’d’ve right quick stopped him.’
‘Very well, sheriff,’ St. Andre replied, wanting to establish the idea that his companion was a Western peace officer. Knowing why Doc had made the suggestion, he returned the Merwin & Hulbert Army Pocket revolver to the spring clips of his shoulder holster. ‘I’ll not take any action against him.’
‘And another thing,’ the Texan went on, as they continued to walk towards the counter. ‘Happen your men don’t catch his nephew, I wouldn’t waste sweat on hunting too hard was I you. Way he lit out of the bank this afternoon, he’s had a scare that’ll stop him trying anything like that again.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ St. Andre promised and could see the relief Coffee Dan was experiencing over the conversation. Indicating the man on the floor, he asked, ‘Is he going to die?’
‘I don’t know,’ Doc admitted, kneeling at Royster’s side. As he did so, a shudder ran through the man and his body went limp. ‘I was using town loads, but there wasn’t time for any fancy shooting. Where’s the nearest doctor?’
Like most other top notch gun fighters, Doc hand loaded much of his ammunition. He also followed the practice of responsible peace officers. As their need for a revolver would generally be at close quarters and probably with innocent bystanders around, they did not use a full twenty-eight grain powder charge. By reducing the propellant power, there was less danger of the bullet driving straight through its intended mark and hitting somebody who happened to be standing behind.
For all that, the Texan knew just how deadly a .45 caliber bullet could be even when delivered at less than its full velocity. What was more, it would still be inside Royster’s body.
‘Old Doc Crocker’s got an office along the street a ways,’ Coffee Dan answered.
‘Send for him!’ Doc commanded, taking Royster’s right wrist between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Pronto!’
‘He’s not likely to be sober enough to work this late,’ Coffee Dan warned.
‘Send somebody to see if he is, anyway,’ Doc ordered, feeling the weak pulse beat.
‘Sergeant!’ St. Andre barked, looking to where the detective was bringing Blaby into the barroom. ‘Go with one of these people and see if you can bring a doctor.’
‘Yo!’ the sergeant responded, giving the traditional cavalry signification that he understood the order. ‘You get over to the captain, feller, and don’t make no fuss for him.’
‘Sit there!’ St. Andre growled, as Blaby approached with hanging head and shuffling feet, pointing to a table. When the order had been carried out, he turned his gaze to the Texan. ‘Is there anything we can do to make him more comfortable?’'
‘He’s better off where he is until we know for sure just how bad he’s hurt,’ Doc replied, studying the blood that was oozing from the right side of Royster’s chest and visualizing the organs, veins and arteries in its vicinity. ‘There’s often more damage caused by well-meaning folks trying to make a wounded man “comfortable” than if he’d been left where he fell.’
‘Hey, me hearty,’ Coffee Dan called, glancing at the glass which the Texan had set down on the bar. ‘You never had your drink.’
‘I reckon I’ll come and take it now,’ Doc declared, deciding that the saloon-keeper might be expressing gratitude for his comments on entering with St. Andre.
The Texan’s summation proved to be correct. As he took the drink, Coffee Dan showed no hesitation about giving him information regarding Big Hadle. However, before much could be said, the sergeant and his guide returned with the doctor. One glance told Doc that the newcomer was in no fit state to deal with such a serious wound. However, an examination of Crocker’s bag disclosed that it held all that was necessary for the task.
Five minutes later, as Doc set to work with the instruments which he had cleaned, he thought how ironic a situation he was engaged in. After having shot Royster, who would not have hesitated to kill him had an opportunity arisen, he was about to use all his skill in an attempt to save the other’s life.
Eight – It’s the End of Your Career
‘Good morning, sir,’ Doc Leroy greeted, halting in the doorway. Although the message he had received via one of the Soniat Memorial-Mercy Hospital’s porters had left him with no doubt of the answer, he went on. ‘Did you want to see me?’
No student, even one of the Texan’s seniority and with a clear conscience, ever faced with equanimity the summons to visit the Dean of the Medical College in his large and somehow grimly forbidding office.
However, in Doc’s case, the request—demand would be a more accurate term—to attend had not been entirely unexpected.
Bare-headed, otherwise dressed much as he had been when taking his wife on the fateful visit to the New Orleans’ branch of the First National Bank, Doc had a long white jacket over his suit. He showed no signs of the strenuous events in which he had participated the previous day, but he suspected that they were responsible for the summons.
Watched by Captain Phillipe St. Andre, Coffee Dan and such of the saloonkeeper’s employees who had had the stomach—or morbid curiosity—to witness the sight, the Texan had gone about the task of trying to save the life of the man who had tried to kill him. Being aware of how dangerous making the attempt might prove, he had decided against having Royster moved any more than was necessary. Instead, he had the floor alongside his patient covered with sheets of clean newspaper. Then, exercising extreme care, he had had the unconscious hired gun moved on to them. Even in the urgency of the moment, he had found the thought of the use to which he was putting the New Orleans Intelligencer was not without a certain piquancy. It was, in his opinion, one of the few useful purposes to which such a newspaper could be put.
There had been no time for Doc to waste on such levity. While a couple of Coffee Dan’s saloon girls were trying to sober up Doctor Crocker, at St. Andre’s instigation, the Texan had gone to work. Exposing the wound, by cutting away the intervening clothing, had been the easiest part of the operation. As was the case with the man who had been shot by Lynn Leroy’s Colt Thunderer, the bullet had not gone straight through to emerge at the rear. However, Royster was hit in the chest cavity; a vastly more vulnerable region than the shoulder, particularly as the bullet had carried portions of the garments through which it had passed into the wound.
There had been an added complication for Doc to contend with!
By sheer bad fortune, the lead had struck the right breast pocket of Royster’s shirt. Doing so had added fragments of the tobacco sack—which had been a part of his attempt to trick his victim, offering him an apparently innocent reason for his left hand to approach the concealed revolver—and some of its contents to the other debris inside his torso.
Very careful and delicate testing with a twelve inches long, slender blunt probe had located the bullet. To a man of Doc’s experience, removing it with the aid of a pair of thin forceps—even though they were inferior to a set he had had designed to his own specifications for such a purpose, but did not have with him—had caused no difficulty.
Extracting the other foreign bodies ha
d been another matter entirely.
Nor had Doc been entirely successful in doing do.
Manipulating the instruments with a feather light but deftly sure touch that under different circumstances—and with the thorough education in such matters he had received—might have turned him into a successful dishonest gambler, xliii Doc had felt for, found, and drawn forth the small, bloody wad which formed the bulk of the problem. Pushed in ahead of the bullet, the pieces of buckskin, flannel and cotton from jacket, shirt and undershirt were together. The two slivers of thin muslin from the sack of Bull Durham xliv were among the other materials when he had separated them, but at least some shreds of the tobacco were almost certain to have been squeezed out of the container and entered the wound. Nor, in spite of his skill, with the limited resources he had available, could he hope to find and remove them all.
Crocker, having been forced to drink copious amounts of strong black coffee and doused with cold water, had recovered sufficiently to take notice while Doc was still working. However, although a qualified medical practitioner, he had not attempted to interfere. In fact, at the completion of the operation, he had complimented the Texan and stated he could not have handled the situation nearly as well. A similar sentiment was later to be uttered by the intern at the Sara-Mayo Hospital, to which Royster was taken, on examining the result of Doc’s labors.
With the hired gun treated to the best of his ability and disposed of, Doc at last found himself free to concentrate upon the matter which had brought him to the saloon and which was once again uppermost in his thoughts. From the information he had been given by Coffee Dan and the still terrified young outlaw, he had learned enough to make him sure that the owner of the two Colt Pocket Pistols was Hayden Paul Lindrick who could be found at the town of Kenton on the Colorado-Wyoming Border. The saloonkeeper had known little beyond what he had been told by Big Hadle, that the man the two Westerners had known as Haynes Lashricker was acting as boss gun on the side of the Union Pacific Railroad and apparently ruled the members of his faction, which appeared to be gaining ascendancy, with an iron hand.
