Medicine Show

by Bill Crider

  "He was probably from that medicine show, too," Sam said, and then he remembered the worst thing of all. "And that bitch took all our money."

  "All of it?" Ben said.

  "All but that piddlin' sixty-three dollars. I've still got that much. But we had nearly two thousand dollars in that flour sack."

  "I knew we shoulda found a better place for it," Ben said. "I told you more than once--"

  "Shut up," Sam said. He was thinking. There had to be something they could do about the money. And he didn't like being shot at, either. Somebody was going to have to pay for that in a way that would give Sam the upper hand.

  "What're we gonna do, Sam?" Ben said.

  "We're gonna get our money back," Sam said. "And we're gonna make that preacher sorry he was ever born."

  "What about his wife?"

  "Her too," Sam said. "Her too."

  * * *

  Storey found Stuartson in the show wagon with a bottle of Miracle Oil in his hand. The bottle was two-thirds empty, and Stuartson was about to slug down the rest of its contents when Storey grabbed his wrist and jerked the bottle away from his mouth.

  Stuartson dropped the bottle, and the Miracle Oil splashed his on medical bag and trickled onto the floor. The Boozer watched sadly as it soaked into the boards.

  "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," Storey said.

  "I needed it," Stuartson said. "Look at my hands." He held them up for Storey to see the trembling.

  "They weren't shaking when you looked that sheriff over while ago," Storey said. "I think that's just an excuse."

  The Boozer looked at him shrewdly. "You're very astute when it comes to analyzing the failures of others."

  "Never mind about that," Storey said, his face reddening. "You pick up that bag and come on. They're waiting for you in the tent."

  Stuartson bent down and took his bag by the handle. "Don't make me do this," he said as he straightened.

  "If there was anybody else who could do it, I wouldn't. But you're all we got."

  Stuartson looked at him pleadingly. "But what if he dies? What if I can't save him?"

  "What difference does that make?" Storey said. "He's going to die if you don't help him, isn't he? This way, at least he's got some kind of a chance."

  "I never thought of things in exactly that way," Stuartson said.

  "Well, it's time you started," Storey told him. "Now come on." He took Stuartson's arm and pulled him to the rear of the wagon.

  "We need alcohol," Stuartson said. "For antiseptic. And something for bandages."

  Storey located a bottle and a few yards of material that Sophia Mahaffey had been saving to make a new dress with. He picked it up.

  "This ought to do," he said. "What else?"

  "That will serve," Stuartson said. "I'm ready now."

  "Good. Let's go."

  "Ah, there you are," the Colonel said as they stepped outside. "The sheriff is in a great deal of pain."

  "Dr. Stuartson will get the bullets out now," Storey said. "He was looking for his bag."

  When they got inside the tent, Wilson was unconscious. The pain had been too great, and he had passed out.

  "Probably for the best," Stuartson said. "I'll need the men to stay here and hold him. The women might want to go inside the wagon."

  The women did not want to go. "We might be able to be of some help," Sophia said, speaking for all of them.

  "Very well," Stuartson said, taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves. "If you'll pour a little of that alcohol on my hands, Mr. Storey, I'll begin."

  Storey poured the alcohol while Stuartson rubbed his hands together. They had stopped shaking.

  * * *

  Sam and Ben rode back to their house. They figured that they would be as safe there as anywhere.

  "The way we were runnin', they'll think we're in Kansas by now," was the way Ben put it.

  Sam knew Ben was right, but he didn't like to hear the part about running.

  "We weren't runnin'," he said. "Just tryin' to keep from gettin' killed."

  Ben couldn't quite see the difference, but he didn't say anything. Sam had always been smarter than he was.

  The cat was sleeping on the porch when they rode up, but he jumped off and ran under the house when the horses came into the yard. Sam's usual mount was still in the lean-to.

  "How about Coy's horse?" Ben said. "We gonna keep him?"

  "Might as well," Sam said, looking around the yard. "Looks like they carted Coy off, though."

  "We didn't have any use for him, now did we?" Sam said.

  They put up the horses and went to the house. Sam lit a lamp that sat in the middle of the table, and they sat in the two chairs.

  "You decided yet what we're gonna do?" Ben said. He didn't bother trying to make any plans of his own. Sam was always the one with the plans.

  "Yeah," Sam said. "We're gonna check out that medicine show tomorrow. If they stay in town, we'll wait till ever'body goes out to see the show and then we'll ride into town and kick the damn place apart. If anybody's there and gets in our way, that's just too bad."

  "What about the buryin'?" Ben said. "Won't that be tomorrow? Maybe we could go then."

  It wasn't a bad idea, but Sam didn't pay any attention to it since he hadn't thought of it.

  "We'll wait. It'll be better to go in later. That way, it'll be dark if they try to chase after us. Besides, after we finish in town, I want us to go out to that show and kick them apart, too."

  That sounded fine to Ben. "What about that woman?" he said. "She threw that damn cat on me. I'd like to whip her for doin' that."

  "We won't have time for foolin' with women, this time," Sam said. "We won't be stickin' around. I think old Coy was right about one thing. It's time we were gettin' ourselves back up to Kansas. After this, I think Texas might get a little too warm for us."

  "What'll we do for money?" Ben said.

  "I'll think of somethin'," Sam said.

  Ben nodded. Sam would think of something, all right. He always did.

  * * *

  Sweat was rolling off Dr. Stuartson's forehead, and Sophia Mahaffey blotted it with a piece of cloth. The lantern light made the tent glow.

  The Colonel and Ray Storey were holding Coy Wilson's arms while Stuartson worked on him. Lawton, Naomi, and Louisa stood off to one side, watching quietly. There was a strong smell of alcohol and blood in the air.

  As far as Stuartson could tell, there was no bullet in Wilson's shoulder. The lead had passed through cleanly. But there was no exit wound in the sheriff's side. Stuartson believed that the bullet had struck a rib and been deflected downward. However, although he had made an incision near where he thought the bullet should be, he had not as yet been able to locate it.

  No one spoke as Stuartson probed for the bullet with steady hands.

  Occasionally the sheriff's body gave a severe twitch, but the Colonel and Storey had a firm grip. Wilson hardly moved on the bench.

  Stuartson bit his lip in concentration. He was barely conscious of the sweat that threatened to drip into his eyes before Sophia wiped it off. His only concern was to find the bullet.

  What if I'm wrong? he thought. It was certainly possible. The bullet could be anywhere. It could have deflected upward, or it could have gone straight into the back muscles and not been deflected at all. The trouble was that Stuartson couldn't afford to be wrong. He couldn't simply continue to cut on the sheriff, looking for the bullet first in one place and then in another. The sheriff would bleed to death before Stuartson ever found a thing. He had to be right the first time.

  Stuartson closed his eyes as Sophia wiped his brow again. He was suddenly convinced that he had made a fatal error. He would never find the bullet he was looking for, and the sheriff would surely die.

  What difference does that make? Stuartson asked himself. You didn't shoot the man.

  It was no good to tell himself things like that, however. Knowing that he had not shot Wilson made no real differe
nce. If the sheriff died, Stuartson would take the blame for the death upon himself.

  "How you doin', Doc?" Storey said.

  Stuartson spared him a glance, and Storey said, "Remember what I told you."

  "What was that?" the Colonel said.

  "Nothing much," Storey said, knowing that Stuartson remembered, all right.

  Stuartson knew that Storey had been right, up to a point. If Stuartson didn't get the bullet out, the sheriff would die even more surely than if Stuartson made a mistake, but the fact that the bullet was there was not Stuartson's doing. Stuartson wasn't solely responsible for the man's life. The men who shot him had made sure of that. Stuartson was merely being given an opportunity to undo some of the harm that others had done. If he succeeded, that was fine; if he failed, then others were much more to blame for the death than Stuartson was.

  The same thing could be said to be true of any death that occurred under a doctor's care, Stuartson supposed, as long as the doctor did his utmost to ensure the patient's survival. If the doctor made no mistakes, did the very best that he knew how, then there was no need for him to carry the guilt for the patient's death.

  But what if the doctor did make a mistake, as Stuartson was becoming increasingly sure he had done now? What if--

  Stuartson's probe encountered the bullet. He had been right after all. His knees threatened to give way under him as the relief flooded through him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  He put the probe down and took a forceps. It was only a matter of seconds before he had removed the bullet. Then he cleansed the wound and closed it, along with the shoulder wound. It seemed to Stuartson that the sheriff was already breathing easier.

  "Congratulations, Doctor," the Colonel said, extending a bloody hand, which Stuartson took in his own, even more gory. "You did a superb job."

  "Sure did," Storey said. "I knew he had it in him."

  "We all did," Louisa said.

  I didn't, Stuartson thought as he accepted their congratulations. He badly needed a drink, and he needed it soon.

  14

  "There's something I think everyone should know," Naomi said, interrupting the acclamation for Doctor Stuartson, who took the opportunity to slip out unnoticed.

  Everyone turned to her. "What is it, Naomi?" her husband said.

  "It's something I overheard the Hawkins brothers saying," she told them. "Something about the sheriff."

  "What about him?" the Colonel said.

  Naomi told them as much as she could remember of what she had heard.

  "And do you mean to say that he not only knew of their villainy but participated in it?" the Colonel said when she was finished.

  "I'm certain that's true," Naomi said. "But he seemed sorry for having done it. He wanted to them to go away and leave the town alone now. He seemed to know that he had been wrong."

  "The Bible tells us that a man can be born again," the Reverend Stump said.

  "But those men appear to have been bleeding the town white," Louisa said. "And with the help of their chosen officer."

  "Yes," Naomi said. "And think of what they did to the church when you spoke against them, Lawton. The sheriff refused to do a thing."

  "The Bible also tells us to be forgiving, to turn the other cheek," Stump said, trying to sound convinced. At the same time, he felt his fingers straying to the butt of the pistol in his belt, and he had to force his hand away.

  "There's one other thing," Naomi said. "I think they blamed the sheriff for running someone down, maybe killing him. A 'kid,' they said. It happened in Kansas." She recounted what she had heard of that part of the story.

  "We must not be too hasty to judge," the Colonel said. "It may be that you misunderstood. We'll have to ask the sheriff about these things when he recovers."

  Storey was aghast at this last revelation, however, and had no desire to ask the sheriff about it. His entire body was drenched in a cold sweat as he thought about how he had been deceived for so long and about how the very man who was actually responsible for Chet's death was lying unconscious right there in the tent.

  It had not been Sam Hawkins who had ridden over Chet. Storey had only assumed that because he had learned Sam's name. He could have fixed on Ben just as easily and been just as wrong.

  It had been the third man, the one whose name Storey had learned only now, just after having encouraged Stuartson to save the man's life.

  Storey's own hands were shaking now as much as Stuartson's had been earlier, and he pressed them into the sides of his legs so that no one would notice. His mind whirled in confusion. He needed to get out of the tent, to go somewhere and think things over.

  While the others continued to talk, he slipped out of the tent and went into the trees. His horse was there, still saddled. Louisa had taken the horse there, along with Sunny, but she had not taken care of the gear.

  Storey uncinched the girth and slid off the saddle. Then he took the reins and led the horse down to the spring for a drink. Storey knelt down beside the horse, dipped his hands in the water, and splashed his face with the cool liquid.

  He sat back in the grass and looked up at the sky and the lowering moon. He could feel the skin of his face tighten as the water dried.

  His thoughts were confused and angry. For a year now he had been looking for a man, wanting to kill him. When he'd finally found the man, he hadn't been able even to draw his gun on him, though the desire to kill him was just as strong as ever.

  And now he'd found out that the man he'd been wanting to kill wasn't the right man after all. The man who had caused Chet's suffering and death was lying back there in the medicine show tent, nearly dead himself, and Storey had not had a hand in things at all.

  It just didn't seem right to Storey. There was something wrong with all of it, some essential failure of justice.

  The horse was through drinking, and Storey stood up and led it back to where the mules waited, where he hobbled it. He removed the bridle and then took Sunny down to drink. When Sunny was through, Storey took off the hackamore. The mules didn't need hobbling. They never seemed to wander off.

  "You take good care of those animals," Louisa said.

  Storey turned around and saw her standing there. There were shadows on her face, but he thought she might be smiling.

  "I like horses and mules," he said. He didn't know what else to say. His hands felt unexpectedly large and clumsy, and he didn't know what to do with them.

  "I saw you leave the tent," Louisa said. "You looked upset."

  "I guess I was, a little bit," he said. "Can't stand the sight of blood."

  "That wasn't it." Louisa walked over to where he was standing. "It was something else, something that Mrs. Stump said."

  Storey had never told anyone about his brother. He believed that a man kept things like that to himself, and he had not wanted to explain to the Colonel that his only reason for joining the show was to hunt for a man he wanted to kill.

  "It was when she told about that child that the sheriff ran down," Louisa said. "I saw your face."

  Storey had thought of Louisa as a very pretty young woman, when he allowed her to intrude on his thoughts at all, but he had never before realized how observant she was.

  "That kid was my brother," he said.

  "Your brother! How awful!" Louisa's eyes were shining with tears.

  Storey decided that he might as well tell her the whole thing, so he did.

  "And you were going to kill the man responsible?" she said when he was finished. There were no tears in her eyes now. "I don't blame you."

  "But I didn't," Storey said. "I didn't do anything."

  "You would have been killing the wrong man if you had."

  "They were all a part of it. And that doesn't make any difference anyway. I thought Sam Hawkins was the right man, and I should have done something about it, for my brother's sake."

  "Your brother doesn't care," said a voice from the opposite side of the tree where Storey and Louisa were
standing.

  Dr. Stuartson came out around the tree trunk where he had been standing. He was holding a half-empty bottle of Miracle Oil in his right hand.

  "Forgive me for having listened to your conversation," he said. "I just happened to be where I could not avoid hearing you."

  "You're not supposed to have that," Louisa said, with an accusatory look at the bottle Stuartson was holding. "Father will be very disappointed."

  "We don't have to tell him," Stuartson pointed out. He held up the bottle and looked to see how much Miracle Oil was left inside. "I think I deserved it, to tell the truth."

  "You did save that man's life," Louisa admitted.

  "Maybe," Stuartson said. "And now Mr. Storey is wondering if it was even worth saving."

  "The man killed my brother," Storey said.

  "And how do you feel about that?" Stuartson said. "Outraged? Or is it just a kind of sadness?"

  Storey realized for the first time that he really no longer felt the same way he had when his travels had begun. Then the desire to kill Sam Hawkins had burned in his gut like a prairie fire, but now there was nothing more than a dull ache there in the spot. And even the fact of Chet's death did not hurt him the way that it once had.

  "How did you know?" Storey said.

  "I am a man of some experience when it comes to sadness and regret," Stuartson said. He put the bottle to his mouth, tilted it, and took a swallow of the Miracle Oil. "I simply found a different way of dealing with those things than you did."

  "You mean drinking," Louisa said. "I wish you'd give me that bottle."

  "Not until I'm finished," Stuartson said. "Allow me to explain what I mean."

  "There's no need for that," Storey said. He wasn't interested in what Stuartson had to say. What could The Boozer know about how Storey felt?

  "I believe there is a need," Stuartson said. "I think our stories might be similar in some ways."

  Storey shook his head. "I don't see how."

  "That's what I'm going to tell you. I never wanted to kill anyone, of course, but I did have a deep pain that I had to somehow learn to deal with. I should have faced it, but I found a simpler way. I lost everything of value I ever had, but I didn't have to face my pain."