Medicine Show

by Bill Crider

  "And you think I'm like that?" Storey said.

  "Oh, no," Stuartson said. "Quite the contrary. You have accepted your pain and sought to face your demons. It's just that when you faced them--"

  "They got the best of me," Storey said.

  "No, no. Mine got the best of me." Stuartson took another drink from the bottle. "As I discovered. You seem to have discovered something else."

  "And you're going to tell me what that is?"

  "That is correct. You've discovered that you're not a natural killer."

  "You make it sound almost like a good thing," Storey said. "But some people don't see it that way."

  Louisa put a hand on his arm. "I do. Now."

  Storey wished that he could believe them. He certainly wanted to. But it wasn't easy. It seemed like there should a difference between killing because it came natural to you, like it did for Sam and Ben, and killing because it was an obligation.

  Besides, there was more to what had happened than that.

  "I should have defended us this evening," Storey said. "I didn't even do that."

  "Suppose you had," Stuartson said. "Suppose you had drawn your pistol and opened fire--"

  "It wasn't loaded," Louisa pointed out.

  "Even if it had been. Those two men had their guns already in their hands. They would most likely have killed you and the others. What good would that have done."

  Storey knew the answer to that. He would have died thinking that he was a brave man instead of a coward.

  He said as much.

  Stuartson took the last swallow of the Miracle Oil and put the bottle in his back pocket.

  "You'd still be dead," he said. "And so would Miss Mahaffey, here, undoubtedly. Look at what you did do. You went after the men didn't you?"

  "When it was almost too late. And I didn't shoot then, either."

  "You rode at that man in the face of gunfire," Stuartson said. "That showed courage."

  Louisa agreed, but Storey was still not convinced. "I should have done more," he said.

  "The secret is to know when the time has really come to use a gun," Stuartson said. "That's the real test."

  "When's that time?" Storey said.

  "When you can't do anything else." Stuartson looked through the trees at the sinking moon. "But why listen to me? I'm simply an old drunk who follows a medicine show."

  "You're a little more than that," Storey said. "After tonight, anyway."

  Stuartson patted his pocket. "Only a little more. But I have a patient to look after, if you'll excuse me." He left them and walked in the direction of the tent.

  Storey watched him go. "Do you think he's right?" he said.

  Louisa wasn't sure that she understood everything Stuartson had said. She thought that she would have been happier if Storey had drawn his guns. That was what a man was supposed to do. Lawton Stump had done it, and he was a preacher. But she would not have wanted Ray to be like one of the Hawkins brothers, or even like the sheriff, if it was true that he had ridden over Ray's brother and killed him.

  She had believed she had her thoughts all straightened out, and now she found that she was more confused than ever.

  "I hope he's right," she said finally. It was the best she could do, though it was not exactly what Storey had hoped to hear.

  * * *

  The Stumps went back to town in the buggy, leaving the sheriff behind. Stuartson had agreed to look after him through the night.

  "I don't need the sleep," The Boozer said. "I get plenty of that during the day."

  The Stumps agreed to keep the sheriff's involvement with the Hawkins brothers a secret. They would let him tell about it when he recovered, if he saw fit to do so.

  They also agreed that they would begin returning the townspeople's money to them as soon as possible the next day. It might not be easy to determine exactly how much was owed to each one, but something could surely be worked out. They knew that everyone would be thrilled to know that the Hawkinses had been put to rout and the money recovered.

  Finally, they had decided to return to the medicine show the next afternoon.

  "It will be even better," the Colonel promised. "I can assure you of that. Why, we did not even have time for the anatomy lecture, one of the most educational and enlightening parts of the entire show."

  "I won't be able to attend that part, however," Naomi said.

  "True, true. But I'm sure your husband will find it quite educational, and Dr. Stuartson is well qualified to lecture on the muscular structure of the body, as you have learned here tonight."

  Naomi did not mind being excluded. What she wanted to do was get home and try the Indian Vitality Pills on her husband, but from the attention he was showing her, she somehow felt that she might not even need them.

  When the Stumps had departed, Sophia drew her husband aside to talk.

  "I believe more than ever that we should leave here," she

  said. "I don't think that it would be wise to do another show."

  "And why is that?" the Colonel said, still feeling the enthusiasm that had come over him when he was discussing the anatomy lecture with the Stumps, the same enthusiasm that always came over him when he was talking about the show, no matter how many times he did it.

  "I wish I knew. It may be that I've been pretending to be Ro-Shanna for so long that I'm beginning to believe in Indian magic."

  The Colonel laughed and drew her to him. "You heard what Mr. Stump said. The heathen Hawkins brothers have taken to their heels and fled the country. We are not likely to be bothered by them any further."

  She yielded to his embrace, but she felt no easier in her mind about the coming show. She wished that there was some way to convince him, but she supposed there wasn't.

  She had been right the first time, however. And she was afraid that she was going to be right again.

  15

  The next morning came clear and hot, with the sun burning through a few low clouds and flaming in the blue sky.

  Sam and Ben were up early, planning to do their best to make sure that Sophia's premonition became a reality.

  They were sitting on their porch, drinking Arbuckle's coffee out of dented tin cups. There was a small fire beside the house where Sam had boiled the coffee.

  Ben put down his cup and checked the loads in his pistol. He rolled the cylinder against the heel of his hand.

  "Wonder where that damn cat is," he said, sighting down his pistol barrel at a pine cone that lay in the yard. "I'd like to do a little something to him, sort of pay him back for a few of these scratches on my face."

  "Save your ammunition," Sam said. He hadn't seen the cat that morning, either. "You're going to need it later on, when we take care of that town."

  "Those townies are in for a real surprise," Ben said, forgetting the cat and thinking about how much fun he was going to have getting back at everyone else.

  "Especially that preacher," Sam said. "I want to give him a small sample of what hell's like in the good old here and now. I'd like to blow him apart like I did that terrapin yesterday, send him spinnin' in the street with the top of that bald head split into as many pieces as that terrapin's shell."

  Ben thought that was a fine idea, but he was sorry about one thing. "That wife of his is sure a fine-lookin' woman. I wish you could see your way clear to lettin' us have a little fun with her before we leave here. I was really lookin' forward to gettin' that dress off her." He scratched savagely at the beard under his chin. "Besides, she was the one threw the cat on me, and no woman oughta be allowed to get away with doin' a thing like that to a man."

  "She was a prime piece, all right," Sam agreed. "Full of spunk, too. But we ain't got time for nothin' like that. We got to strike fast and move out. That's the best way."

  As usual, Ben knew that Sam was right. But it still seemed like a damned shame to let a woman like that go to waste on a fat preacher. Sometimes it seemed like there was just no justice in the world.

  * * *


  Just at that moment, Naomi would not have agreed. As far as she was concerned, the world was fully just and completely wonderful.

  Lawton had proved that to her last night.

  She did not know how she had ever come to doubt him, or why she had felt compelled to buy those pills. They certainly hadn't needed them. Lawton had been a different man.

  She turned over in their tangled bed and looked out the window at the sun.

  It wasn't really fair to say that Lawton had been different. At the very beginning of their marriage he had been the way he was last night, but only at the beginning. Something had changed him then, and now something had changed him back.

  She did not know what it was, but she knew that as long as he stayed that way she would never have to look at some tall stranger in buckskins and wonder how it would feel to be in his arms. She would be completely happy not knowing, just as long as she had Lawton.

  * * *

  The Reverend Stump was already in the church, kneeling at the altar. Everything should have been fine with him now, and he wondered why it was not. He was having no more luck in praying than he had experienced the day before.

  Could it be the gun that was sticking in his belt?

  He had never carried a gun into church before, and he had never allowed anyone else to do so, but here he was. He allowed his hand to stray to the handle, to move over the smooth wooden grips.

  The gun had made him feel different, more powerful, taller, even slimmer and more handsome.

  He knew the feeling was wrong, and he wondered if it was Satan's way of misleading him. He had studied the Bible for too long not to know that the way of violence really never solved anything.

  He got up from the altar and went to the room that served as his office. There was a roll-top desk in there, with locking drawers.

  He took the pistol from his belt and weighed it in his hand. The solid feel of it reminded him of the way it had bucked in his hand when he had shot at the Hawkins brothers, and he could remember the look of fear that had been in Sam Hawkins's eyes as he fled into the house.

  Reluctantly, he opened the bottom drawer of the desk. There was nothing in it except for a few blank sheets of ledger paper. He laid the gun on the paper and closed the drawer. He looked through the pigeon holes on top of the desk until he found the drawer key, and locked the gun in. It wouldn't tempt him anymore.

  His thoughts turned to Naomi.

  She had responded to him last night as she never had before, and he realized that he had been a fool ever to have rejected her love. There was no sin in it, surely not as much sin as there was in the gun. The Lord had admonished his creatures to be fruitful and multiply, and nowhere could Stump remember having read that the act leading to that fruitfulness and multiplying should not bring pleasure.

  The sin lay instead in letting the love of one's spouse, an earthly love, replace heavenly devotion and duty, and Stump knew now that he would never do that.

  He would never let the gun replace those things, either. He had not been wrong to use it, he told himself, but he had been wrong to think that it would solve all his problems.

  There was a time to use a gun, yes, he believed that. To all things there was a season. But there was also a time to lay the gun aside. He had done that now, and he would not pick it up again.

  It had brought him what he had sought, his wife's forgiveness, or so it seemed.

  Now he had to forgive himself.

  He went back out to the altar. This time when he knelt, his prayer came easily.

  * * *

  Ray Storey rode into town early to remind everyone about the show, to pass out more handbills, and to inform the people about the condition of their sheriff.

  He didn't intend to tell them everything about their sheriff, however. Everyone connected with the medicine show had agreed with the Stumps that some things were best not brought out into the open just yet.

  Storey had not made up his own mind about how he felt, either. Wilson might be the sheriff, he might be wounded, and he might even have changed his relationship with the Hawkins brothers, but he was still the man who had killed Chet.

  Storey told himself that he still had to do something about that. He just didn't know what.

  Wilson had been much improved that morning, and he had wanted to return to town, but Dr. Stuartson had not recommended it.

  "It would be best for you to rest and recuperate," Stuartson said. "Time enough for you to go into town tomorrow."

  "But the Hawkins brothers," Wilson protested. "I have to do something about the Hawkins brothers."

  "Never mind about them," Stuartson told him. "They were put to flight by an unlikely quartet." He told Wilson what had happened the night before after the sheriff had been shot.

  "I'm not so sure that Sam and Ben would just take off like that," Wilson said. "I know those two better'n anybody." He didn't explain what he meant, but Stuartson knew.

  "We don't need to discuss how well you know them," Stuartson said. "I can assure you that I saw them running, and the man who pursued them was not able to locate them."

  That last part was not exactly true, as Stuartson was well aware, but he did not want to explain to Wilson that Storey's pursuit had been half-hearted at best.

  "Besides," Stuartson went on, "you are in no condition to ride a horse, and we have no other method of conveyance here. You have lost a considerable amount of blood, and you have been weakened by your wounds. I suggest that you simply relax, rest, and wait until after this evening's show. Someone will surely be glad to give you a ride back into town."

  As long as they don't know about your relationship to those two men, Stuartson thought, and he surely wasn't going to be the one to tell them. If the sheriff had somehow managed to break his ties with those two rapscallions, so much the better. Stuartson thought it was fine for someone to change his life; he wished he could change his own.

  For a minute or two the previous evening, he even thought it might be possible, but of course it was not. He had sought out the bottle of Miracle Oil as soon as he got a chance, and he knew that within a few minutes he would be again sitting under a tree with another bottle in his had. He was full of good advice for others, but overcoming his own problems was something else again.

  * * *

  One of the first people that Storey encountered when he rode into town was Carl Gary, who was strolling along the boardwalk outside the saloon.

  Storey walked his horse over in that direction.

  The saloon owner was surprised to see someone from the medicine show, and he was even more surprised when Storey gave him a handbill and asked him to come to the show that would be held that afternoon.

  "You mean to tell me that there will be another show?" Gary said. "After what happened last night?"

  "The Colonel thought folks would appreciate seeing it," Storey said. "After all, they didn't stick around to see all of it yesterday."

  Gary thought that Storey might be trying to insult him, and he didn't like it. He didn't like the way Storey sat there on his horse and didn't get down and talk to him about matters face to face.

  "Our lives were in danger," he said, looking up at Storey and brushing his thin moustache. "We had no way of protecting ourselves."

  "I didn't mean to say you did," Storey told him. "I just meant that you missed the anatomy lecture, one of the best parts of the show. The Colonel hopes you'll all be back."

  "Humph," Gary said. "No doubt he's hoping to get more of our money to replace what the Hawkins brothers took last night. And they may well be back to do the same tonight if there's another show."

  "I don't think so," Storey said. "Haven't you heard about that?"

  "About what?" Gary said. "I was just on my way to the jail to check on the sheriff. He rode out to their shack last night, but he didn't come by to tell me what he accomplished. Do you know?"

  He looked at Storey suspiciously, wondering how someone from the medicine show could have found out more th
an one of the leading citizens of the town. He didn't like the idea of someone knowing more about things around town than he knew himself. It wasn't the way things ought to be.

  "I know, all right," Storey said. "But it might be better if you heard it from your preacher. He's the one to tell it, since he was involved in it, and he has some good news for you and the rest of the folks in town."

  "What kind of good news?"

  "Like I said, you ought to hear it from him. Why don't you go over to his house and ask him? Take a few other folks with you. They're going to like what he has to say."

  "All right, then," Gary said. He didn't like to be talked to in such a fashion, but it seemed that there was nothing more that Mr. Kit Carson, or whatever his real name might be, was going to tell him.

  Storey rode his horse on down toward the church while Gary went around talking to the people on the street and in the stores. Before long a respectable crowd was on its way to the church.

  Just as the first of them arrived, led by Gary, Lawton Stump emerged from the church door.

  He seemed surprised to see everyone, and he looked at Storey inquiringly.

  "I told them to come on over here," Storey said. "They hadn't heard any of the news."

  "Oh," Stump said. "I see."

  He was momentarily flustered by seeing such a gathering in front of his church, but he was naturally a good speaker, and it didn't take him long to regain his composure and begin telling the tale.

  Everyone was amazed to hear about the kidnapping of Mrs. Stump. There was a great deal of muttering, especially among the men, about what should be done to the Hawkins brothers if they were ever seen again, even though most of those same men had done nothing to them before.

  "Was she . . . harmed?" a woman in the front asked.

  "No," Stump said. "Thank God, we were in time."

  He went on to tell how he, Storey, and Stuartson had all arrived at about the same time, putting the Hawkinses on the run, just after the shooting of Sheriff Wilson.