Medicine Show

by Bill Crider

  "He sounded kinda funny today, though," Ben said, after listening for a minute at the door to make sure that there was no ruckus from inside the house. "You reckon he really thinks he can run us off if we don't want to go?"

  "He knows better than that," Sam said. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the sack of money. "Let's see what we got us here."

  He opened the bag and they sat down on the porch to count the money. The moon was easily bright enough for them to do the job. The cat sat and watched them with indifference, now and then scratching vigorously at its ears with one or the other of its back feet.

  "Sixty-three dollars," Sam said. "I thought damn near ever'body in town musta bought some of that fake medicine, and all we got here is sixty-three dollars."

  "Yeah," his brother agreed. "Sixty-three dollars sure ain't much for a night's work. The way Coy talked, I'd have thought we'd get a hunnerd dollars easy."

  Sam was beginning to get mad. The more he thought about things, the less he liked the way Wilson had talked to them that afternoon, as if he was trying to tell them what they had to do. Wilson had been a part of the gang, but he hadn't been the boss. They had all been equals.

  "Seems like Coy's gettin' a little big for his britches here lately," Sam said.

  Ben nodded quickly. He'd been thinking that for a good while. "Seems like we take all the risks, and he gets most of the money. All he has to do is fool folks into thinking he's a real sheriff. We're the ones that might get shot at."

  Sam thought so too. True, they hadn't been at much of a risk at any time, and the money had come easily, but it did seem like they were the ones doing all the work.

  "And now he thinks he can tell us just to move on," Ben went on. "Hell, if it wasn't for him runnin' down that kid, we wouldn't be stuck down here in goddamn Texas in the first place. He thinks we ought pick up and leave just because he's lettin' us have a whole sixty-three dollars."

  Naomi was able to hear most of what was said. The door did not exactly fit its frame, and there was a fairly large crack through which the men's voices carried clearly.

  She did not know what to make of all she heard, but it was clear that Sheriff Wilson and the Hawkins brothers were in league with one another. No wonder the sheriff had never taken any action against them!

  But there was more. Something about the sheriff telling them to leave. She fervently hoped they would do so, and that they would do it soon.

  Sam wasn't inclined to leaving, however. "Coy might think he can take over the town for himself," he said. "That'd be just about his style. Get rid of us and have it all to himself."

  "I bet that's it," Ben said. "I bet he wants to get rid of us some way. I bet he ain't even plannin' to go with us back to Kansas."

  "Sometimes you're smarter than you look, Ben," Sam told him, thinking over what his brother had said. It made sense. Old Coy was going to try making himself look like a hero by running the Hawkins boys out of town, and then he was going to settle down and live the high life. In the meantime, Sam and Ben were supposed to hang their heads and ride back to Kansas like good little boys.

  "We ain't gonna do it, though," Sam said.

  "Do what?" Ben said.

  "Go back to Kansas like good little boys."

  "Why not? I'm ready to go back, and that's the God's truth. I'm tired of this damn place. Look at those trees there." He gestured at the tall pines that virtually surrounded them. "It ain't natural to have all those trees growin' around a man's house."

  The cat, having lost all interest in the conversation, went to the edge of the porch, jumped down, and disappeared around the side of the house without so much as meowing. If it had learned nothing else, it knew that it paid to keep your mouth shut around the Hawkins brothers.

  "Coy's tryin' to get rid of us all right," Sam said. "But we ain't gonna let him. Before we leave here, we're gonna show this town what the Hawkins boys can do when they get riled. And we're gonna get more than a piddlin' sixty-three dollars out of it, too."

  Ben didn't know what Sam was planning, but that didn't matter. He was always willing to go along with Sam's ideas, since they were usually good ones. They were a damn sight better than any ideas Ben ever had.

  "What about the woman, then?" Ben said.

  "Yeah," Sam said, smiling. "What about her?"

  * * *

  When Wilson rode away from the show wagon, the Colonel and Storey moved the dead man inside the tent. Storey usually slept in the tent, and so did The Boozer, but Storey wasn't sure he wanted to sleep there tonight.

  Someone had to stay with Mr. Sanders, however, in case he woke up, and Storey agreed to do so.

  The Mahaffeys went to the wagon, and Storey could hear them engaged in a heated discussion. He hoped that he was not the subject.

  He was not. Sophia Mahaffey was trying to convince her husband that they should leave the site as soon as the sun rose and make their way to another town.

  "I had a bad feeling about this place all along," she said, voicing the foreboding she had experienced earlier that day. She did not remind her husband that he had expected to have a very successful show.

  "We are not leaving," the Colonel said. "We promised those people tonight that we would do another show tomorrow, and so we shall." His blue eyes snapped. "I am not going to let two common ruffians deter me from giving my performances."

  "But we have no protection," Louisa said.

  "What do you mean?" her father said. "We have Mr. Storey. He has a gun."

  "Ha," Louisa said.

  "You are too hasty to judge," the Colonel said, eyeing his daughter and noting the way the mention of Storey's name brought the color to her cheeks. "You refused to let Mr. Storey make idle comments about Dr. Stuartson, but you are quite ready to pass judgment on Mr. Storey. How are we to know that he has not suffered as much as Dr. Stuartson? Or even more?"

  "Ha," Louisa said again. She didn't believe for a minute that Ray Storey knew the meaning of the word "suffer." How could someone so young have suffered? All she knew was that he had stood by and let things happen all around him, terrible things. He had betrayed her image of him, and she was not likely to forgive him easily.

  "I think it might be time for you to have a talk with your daughter, Sophia," the Colonel said.

  "Oh, she's my daughter, is she?" Sophia's eyes snapped. "And why can't you be the one to have a talk with her?"

  "I have to prepare for tomorrow's show," the Colonel said. "I have to make sure we have enough Miracle Oil and Vitality Pills."

  "I'll help you with that tomorrow," Sophia said. "That is, if you're sure we can't just leave here. It's bad luck. I can feel it. Please. Let's leave with first light."

  "I do not believe in luck," the Colonel said. "I believe in hard work and good medicine. With those two things we can overcome all adversity."

  "I'd like to see medicine overcome two men with pistols," Louisa said.

  "Sophia," the Colonel said. "Speak to her."

  * * *

  Ray Storey sat on one of the benches and looked at the two men, only one of whom was breathing. He told himself that he was not responsible for the death of the one or the injury to the other, but for some reason he kept thinking of Chet, the way Chet's eyes had looked just before the horse trampled him that hot summer day.

  There was something in that look, something that was as hard to explain as it was to forget.

  It was more than the boy's fear, though that was part of it. There was something else that had haunted Storey ever since. It was a plea, almost a demand.

  "Help me," the look said. "Help me."

  I tried, dammit, Storey thought. I tried, Chet.

  But he had not tried tonight. He had done nothing. He had watched and done nothing.

  Barclay Sanders stirred, moving his head and turning his body like a restless sleeper as he came out of his stupor. Storey got up and walked over to the storekeeper.

  "It's all right, Mr. Sanders," he said. He put a hand on Sander's s
houlder to keep him from sitting up too quickly.

  "Wha' . . . Where?" Sanders' voice was thick. His eyes wouldn't quite focus.

  "You're in the medicine show tent," Storey said. "You had a pretty good knock in the head." He didn't want to try explaining that Sanders had been shot. That could come later.

  Sanders swung his legs around slowly and sat up, with Storey's help. His head was throbbing, and he lowered it into his hands.

  "You'll be fine," Storey said. "You just sit here for a while. I'll tell the Colonel that you're awake. He'll put some Miracle Oil on your head, and you'll be fine in no time."

  Sanders was feeling dizzy; unable to speak, he waved Storey away. Storey went to the wagon. He knocked at the door frame, and Louisa opened the door.

  "What do you want?" she said, looking straight into his eyes.

  Storey hoped he was imagining the emphasis she put on the word "you," but he didn't think he was. The emphasis was there in the eyes, too.

  "Mr. Sanders is awake," he said. "The Colonel might ought to have a look at him."

  "I'll tell him," Louisa said. "Thank you." She shut the door sharply and left Storey standing there looking at it.

  He resisted the impulse to take off his hat and throw it at the ground. Instead, he turned and walked to the trees where he had hobbled his horse.

  He had to do something. It didn't matter to him if he got killed or not. He couldn't stand the look in Louisa's eyes anymore.

  That was funny when he thought about it. Until tonight, he hadn't cared one way or another about what Louisa thought, though it had been pretty obvious that she liked him more than a little. Now that she hated him, it seemed that her opinion was more important than anything. It was bad enough that he despised himself, but somehow having her despise him was more than he could stand.

  His saddle trappings and blanket were under a tree near his horse. The mules were nearby, and they watched him with a sleepy curiosity. He put the blanket across the horse's back, pitched on the saddle, and tightened the girth.

  Then he thought of something else he had better do. He reloaded the pistol, with real bullets and real lead this time. He didn't know if he would be able to use them, but by God he would at least deprive himself of the cowardly excuse he had used earlier.

  Maybe he would be able to do something after all. He didn't have anything against that sheriff, but Wilson didn't look like the kind of man who could stand up against Sam and Ben Hawkins all alone. It wouldn't hurt him to have a little backing.

  Storey climbed on the horse. He hoped that they got there in time to save the woman.

  * * *

  The Boozer watched Storey saddle the horse and load the pistol. The Boozer was a drunk, but at the moment his mind was clear. No one had to tell him where Storey was going. There was nobody better than him at being able to tell when a man was feeling useless, and unlike The Boozer himself, Storey was still young enough and fool enough to think that there was something he could do about it.

  The Boozer watched Storey ride away. What the hell, The Boozer thought. If he can try to do something about it, why can't I?

  He walked to one of the mules. "Why can't I, indeed?" he said.

  The mule looked at him drowsily, twitching its ears.

  The Boozer had been something of a horseman once, having ridden more than a few miles in visiting his paitents, and he still remembered how to fashion a hackamore from a rope of the proper length. He looked around the outside of the tent until he found a piece that suited his needs. Before he went back to the mule, he paused a minute to listen to the voices he heard in the tent.

  One of them belonged to the Colonel, and the other must be that of the wounded man. The Boozer felt a wave of futility wash over him. The man had been hurt, bleeding, and he had been able to do nothing to help him. He had been a doctor once; now he was nothing.

  He walked back to the mules and talked quietly to Sunny, the one who was used to being ridden. Sunny had gotten its name from its disposition, which was pretty much the opposite of sunny, but The Boozer had always gotten along with the animal fairly well.

  The Boozer constructed the hackamore with swift sureness, his hands betraying none of the tremors of only a short time before, and slipped it over Sunny's head.

  "Life is no longer quite so wonderful," The Boozer said as he mounted the mule with more agility than anyone would have suspected possible by looking at him.

  Sunny snorted and began plodding slowly in the direction that Ray Storey had taken.

  "Life, in fact, gives off a strong odor of manure at the present moment," The Boozer said. "At least for some of us it does."

  He looked up at the yellow brightness of the moon. "The world could be such a beautiful place, Sunny," he said. "Why is it that we make of it such a spittoon?"

  The mule snorted again and twitched its ears.

  "Precisely," The Boozer said, wondering vaguely what he hoped to accomplish by following Storey. Once, long ago, he had read a book about a man named Don Quixote, a man who had thought a herd of sheep was a mighty army and had fought them valiantly until the shepherds got to him and half killed him. Quixote had a squire, whose name The Boozer could not quite recall.

  He thought that the squire had ridden a donkey, but it might just as well have been a mule.

  11

  Lawton Stump had a pistol that he kept in the back of the bottom drawer of the chiffonnier that stood against one wall of the bedroom. The pistol was old Shopkeeper's Model Colt's Peacemaker, and it had never been fired. It had been given to Stump by his father, years before.

  He still remembered what his father had told him. "You'll be preachin' in some places where nobody's gonna care whether you're a preacher or not, son. The time might come when you need this."

  Stump had taken the gun from his father's hand and looked at it as if it were some strange, ugly animal that his father had offered him.

  "I know you don't feel that way now," his father said. "But you never know when you might change your mind. You take it, and you and me both'll hope you never have to use it."

  Stump had wrapped the shiny pistol in its flannel cover soon after that and more or less forgotten about it.

  The gun had been shiny and new when he got it, but now its finish was dulled from the years of lying in the back of the drawer wrapped in a piece of red flannel. Stump had never even taken it out to practice with it.

  It was not loaded, but there were six bullets wrapped in a separate piece of flannel. The bullets had been in the gun when he received it from his father, and he had never bought more. He had, in fact, thought it a foolish gift, and he had certainly never intended to use it.

  There was no corrosion on the bullets that Stump could see, and he thumbed them into the chambers. He closed the cylinder and hefted the pistol in his hand. It was surprisingly heavy, and he wondered if he could hold it steady to fire it. Well, he would soon find out.

  Stump did not have a saddle horse, but he had a buggy and a horse to pull it. Both were kept at the livery stable, and Stump knew that Rook Peterson, who owned the stable and lived next door to it, wasn't going to like having to get up in the middle of the night to let Stump in and hitch up the horse, but that was too bad. Stump paid a goodly sum each month for the care and feeding of the horse and the storage of the buggy. Peterson would just have to be upset.

  Stump wasn't exactly sure why he had left the church and gone home for the pistol. He just knew that he had to do something about his wife, and that he could not wait until morning as Carl Gary had told him the sheriff was planning to do. He had to do something tonight, because he was sure that the Hawkinses would not wait until morning to do something to Naomi.

  He wished that he possessed the gumption to tell the sheriff about her, but he didn't. To do so would have been too humiliating, and now he had to do something to make up for his silence, not only to the sheriff but at the medicine show earlier. He might have kept silent forever and no one the wiser, but his consc
ience would not let him rest if he did that.

  It would not even allow him to pray.

  He stuck the pistol into the belt below his hard belly and started to the livery stable.

  * * *

  The cat jumped in through the window, frightening Naomi as she listened at the door. She jumped back with a sharp intake of breath. She was quietly relieved when she saw the gray cat looking at her from the puddle of moonlight.

  The cat stared at her for a moment, then shook its tail and began walking around the room as if looking for something in the shadows. It stopped and sniffed at one of the mattresses, then at the other.

  Naomi hoped that it was not looking for mice, but she would not have been surprised if the place were infested with them. There was really no place for them to hide, however, unless they were in the mattresses. She watched in silence as the cat made a circuit of the room.

  When it was finished and satisfied that there was nothing for it to eat or stalk, it walked over to Naomi and rubbed against her skirts. She reached down and patted its head, hoping that it did not have mange.

  The cat began purring. It was not used to any show of affection.

  Naomi forgot her surroundings for a while and thought that she was like the cat in a way. If only Lawton would show her a little bit of fondness, she would purr for him in much the same way the cat was purring for her now.

  She reached into her reticule, the drawstring of which she had somehow managed to hold onto throughout her whole ordeal. The Vitality Pills and the Miracle Oil were still there. She felt foolish now about having bought them, but at the same time she wondered how her life might change if the pills really did work, if they really were able to give to Lawton the spark of vitality that he seemed to be lacking.

  The cat had stopped rubbing against her leg and walked over to the splash of moonlight, where he lay down on his stomach and began licking his front paws.