‘Then why did you take the gun belt?’ asked the storekeeper.
The Doctor gave him an isn’t it obvious? look. ‘For this.’ With a flourish, he pulled out his sonic screwdriver, twirled the device around his fingers and slipped it into the holster. ‘There. Perfect!’
Joe had a trio of chestnut mares waiting for them at the livery stable, and Martha grinned widely. She’d not ridden a horse since the Doctor had taken her to the Lake District, but this would be very different to that ride through the English countryside. She was looking forward to galloping across the dusty range at full tilt. But the Doctor’s expression turned stormy when he saw the face of their trail guide.
‘Nathan,’ he said, in a blunt tone. ‘What are you doing here?’
The boy sat tall in the saddle, putting on an outward show of strength. Still, Martha saw where his eyes were puffy from where he had been crying. ‘Doc,’ he replied. ‘Joe told me you need someone to take you to Ironhill.’
The Doctor glared at the stableman. ‘Find someone else.’
But Nathan shook his head. ‘That’ll be a long wait for a train that don’t come, Doc,’ he insisted. ‘Fact of the matter is, everyone in town is afraid to leave.’
‘Boy’s right,’ said Joe. ‘No one wants to ride out while those two demons are still around.’
‘They’re not demons,’ growled the Doctor. ‘I’ve seen demons, and they’re not them.’ He strode over to Nathan’s mount. ‘Do you really know the shortcut?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why do you want to come to Ironhill with us? Don’t lie to me, Nathan. I’ll know it if you do.’
The boy swallowed back emotion, and glanced at Martha and Jenny, his eyes shimmering. ‘I want justice for my pa. I want to make sure no one else gets hurt like he did.’
‘So do I.’ The Doctor reached up and pulled out a pistol hidden in Nathan’s belt. ‘But this is not how we do it. You understand me? Cos if you think different, you can get off that horse right now and go . . .’ He paused, failing to find the right words. ‘. . . drink your milk.’
After a moment, the boy nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
He handed the pistol to Joe. ‘Give that to Loomis to look after.’
‘Good luck and Godspeed,’ said Jenny.
With a swift motion, the Doctor swung up into the saddle and took his mount’s reins. ‘Right then,’ he said, smiling slightly as Martha worked her way carefully onto her horse. ‘Ready?’
Martha nodded. ‘Ready!’
The Doctor filled his lungs with a deep breath and tipped a finger to his hat. ‘Let’s ride!’ he called, with obvious glee, cracking the reins. ‘Yah!’
With a thunder of hooves, the horses raced away into the wilderness, dust trailing into the air behind them.
NINE
ALVIN GODLOVE HELD up his hands and grinned widely, his pearly teeth shining. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please, please! One at a time!’ He flashed his winning smile back and forth. Alvin’s teeth were one of the best things about him, his momma had always said, and he made sure he kept them gleaming. Something about his smile made the dumb rubes in these hick dirt-farmer towns come over all trusting, and that was just what he wanted. Many a time had Alvin used his cheeky grin to win over the hearts of communities just like this one – what was it called again? Iron-Swill? Iron-Pill? – and open their pockets too.
Of course, now he didn’t actually have to lie about his amazing medical abilities. Not like before, when he was mixing up batches of rot-gut whiskey with sulphur and sugar, and calling it a remedy.
Now he had the cure-all. He had, if it wasn’t too pompous to think it, the power of life and death in his very hands.
And the cashy money was rolling in. Behind him, Walking Crow followed with his perpetually morose expression, dolefully taking the offers of coins and paper dollars, even family jewels and other rarities. Heck, back on the medicine show’s box wagon, they even had an oil painting that some rancher had traded for a little of Alvin’s tender care.
He halted at the steps to the old woman’s house and held up his hands again. ‘Please! Good people, there is but only one of me and I can move only so fast to do my works.’ Godlove looked out and saw desperate faces, all of them turned to him, pleading and imploring. The little mining town was crying out for help; the smallpox had come and ripped through their populace like a tornado, and those that weren’t already newly interred in the bone orchard with the rest of the deaders, were either dying in the sick tent off main street or perishing by inches in their own homes. This place was perfect. Already a lot of folks were back up and walking around, thank to his ministrations, and in a day or so the old biddy who lived here would be joining them . . . Provided, of course, that she could cross his palm with silver. Or gold. Or whatever valuables she had to give.
‘Allow me to do what I can for the poor lady . . .’ He glanced at Walking Crow, unable to remember the name.
‘Weems,’ whispered the Pawnee.
‘Mrs Weems!’ Alvin smiled wider. ‘I must attend to her!’
Inside the house, Godlove once again allowed Walking Crow to deal with the business of the payment from the old lady’s son while he climbed the stairs to the bedroom. Entering, he fought down the urge to choke. The air inside the room was foul with sweat and that nasty old-people funk. A frail thing, more a bag of skin full of bones, lay on the bed.
‘Hello?’ said a reedy voice. ‘Are you the doctor?’
He bowed. ‘Professor Alvin Q. Godlove at your service, ma’am. I am here to rid you of the vile smallpox.’
She pointed feebly to a brown bottle on the nightstand. ‘I’ve been taking your potion, but it’s done me no good.’ Alvin came closer and saw the now-familiar scarring of smallpox lesions on her aged face.
‘Don’t you worry none,’ he soothed, in his best Southern Gentleman accent. ‘I’m going to administer a proper treatment, now that you’ve made a suitable donation.’ Godlove reached inside his jacket and drew out something that resembled a handgun. He gasped as he touched it; out of sight, tiny needles nipped at the flesh of his palm where he held it, and the skin seemed to merge into the strange organic metal of the device.
‘Oh my!’ gasped the woman. ‘Is that a pistol? Are you going to put me out of my misery like some lame mule?’
‘Nothing of the sort.’ Alvin shook his head, twisting a dial on the side of the device. Usually they didn’t talk back to him when he was working. Most of the time, they were too out of it to even know there was another person in the room, and he made sure that he had his privacy. ‘Doctor-patient confidentiality,’ he would say.
The lengthy barrel shifted and retracted, revealing a glowing green nodule. His breath came in short gasps, as it always did when he used the cure-all. ‘You just hush up now.’ He aimed it at her body and squeezed the trigger; at once a fan of emerald light washed out and engulfed her. The old woman moaned, and slipped into unconsciousness. Gradually, the pockmarks and scars across her flesh became faint and faded, as something approximating a normal tone returned to her skin.
Walking Crow found him on the back stoop of the house after he was done. Alvin was panting and sweating.
The Pawnee folded his arms. ‘It’s getting harder, isn’t it?’
Godlove got up abruptly and stalked away. ‘What the hell are you talkin’ about?’
‘I watch you,’ he said, following him back toward the wagon. ‘I see you.’ He pointed to where Alvin had his hand clenched tight. ‘It is like a wild beast. You may think you have tamed it, but you have not. It bites you and draws blood.’
Godlove glanced down at his hand. Where he had held the cure-all there were whorls and circles writhing in his palm, dots where tiny wires like the spines of a cactus had implanted themselves in his living flesh. There were moments when he felt the thing working at him, shifting the bones and meat of his hand; and lately he was feeling it in his arm and shoulder too. His hand contracted into a ball. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he r
etorted. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re richer than we’ve ever been! This thing—’ He tapped the pocket where the device rested. ‘This thing is the greatest boon a man could ever have!’
Walking Crow shook his head slowly. ‘I have touched it too. I heard the voice inside it. It is hungry. All you have done is make that hunger strong.’ He looked away. ‘The thing is a curse. We should kill it.’
Godlove snorted with harsh laughter. ‘No wonder you people couldn’t hold on to this land! You got no guts!’ He prodded the Pawnee in the chest. ‘This “thing” will make me wealthy, you’ll see! You don’t like it, you can go back to that rat hole where I found you!’
The Pawnee turned away. ‘It feeds on decay,’ he said quietly. ‘What can anything that feasts on death be but bad medicine?’
TEN
AT FIRST IT wasn’t fun at all; as Martha Jones clung to her horse with one hand, using the other to keep her hat pressed to her head so it wouldn’t fly off, riding felt very far away from fun indeed.
Nathan was as good as his word, taking them on a winding course through the foothills, and within a short time they were racing through narrow canyons and arroyos, riding like the wind.
The Doctor kept pace with her, eagerly urging his mount on and grinning wildly. His coat crackled and flapped out behind him like a cloak. ‘This is great, isn’t it?’ he thrilled, and he let out a yee-hah rebel yell at the top of his lungs. That was the Doctor, he could make a good time out of anything, never mind if it was terrifying as well.
Martha managed a faint smile, but concentrated more on staying in the saddle. This wasn’t some gentle canter about the countryside; they were going full tilt here, at Pony Express speeds. But little by little, Martha got into the swing of it. The slightly brittle smile on her face began to widen and, by the time they had crested the hills and started down the other side toward a distant smudge of buildings, she was starting to let herself enjoy it. It was a bit scary to be on the back of a wilful animal galloping along at breakneck pace, but the thrill of it gradually tipped the balance against the fear. Martha dared to sit taller in the saddle, and soon she felt like she had the measure of it.
‘Easy,’ she said to herself. ‘A walk in the park. Uh, desert.’
Joe had picked a swift but even-tempered horse for her, and she felt a bit bad about forgetting to ask its name. She shot the Doctor a sly look that he missed completely and bent down to whisper in the animal’s ear. ‘I know. I’ll call you Rose, how about that?’ She grinned to herself. Growing up, Martha hadn’t been one of those girls who adored books like Black Beauty, gymkhanas and that kind of thing. Living on the outskirts of London’s sprawl, all that horsy countryside stuff had seemed a million miles away from the world she came from; but now, she was starting to see the appeal of it.
With her panic fading, Martha took in some of the landscape as it flashed by. The rusty earth ranged away toward the distant horizon beneath a brilliant cobalt-coloured sky dappled with thin streaks of cloud. Buttes – great flat-topped mountains with sheer, rippled sides – reached up towards the blue. From a distance they resembled gigantic anthills, the vast pedestals carved from the living rock by wind and erosion. This was the beating heart of the American Frontier, the West in all its vibrant glory. It struck Martha how lucky she was to be able to see it like this; how many people could say they had seen this country when it was still a blank page, with history being written upon it?
The ground flattened out and the trail became better defined. Martha had to admit that Nathan seemed to know his stuff. Even if she’d been walking, there was no way she would have spotted the shortcut through the hills, let alone guide mounted riders along it. It had taken them the best part of a day, with a couple of stops for shade and water, but he’d got them to Ironhill just as he promised. The only thing that bothered her was the teenager’s grim, morose expression.
She knew shock when she saw it; Martha had seen the same thing at the Royal Hope, when a doctor broke the news to someone that a loved one had died. Denial, refusal to believe the truth, anger. She could see all those emotions churning away behind Nathan’s haunted eyes. The boy would never have admitted it, but he was very fragile right now. It hadn’t even been a day since he lost his father, and he was hiding his bereavement behind a wall of anger; but she also knew that she couldn’t force him. He’ll have to grieve in his own time, in his own way, she thought to herself.
They slowed to a gentle trot as they approached the edge of town. A battered sign reading ‘Welcome To Ironhill’ arched over the main road. Faces turned to study them as they came closer.
At first glance, Ironhill didn’t seem a lot different to Redwater; the same kind of clapboard buildings, a dirt main street, wagons here and there and horses at hitching posts. But then Martha saw the grubby white sick tent isolated off at the far side of town; and then she took a good look at the people.
They had arrived at Redwater and found a town united in celebration after the defeat of an epidemic. Ironhill, on the other hand, was still reeling from the passing of the disease. Hollow-eyed, grim faces looked up at them from street corners and out of windows. The town had a derelict, ruined feel to it.
The scent of decay hung in the air along with the stringent chemical smell of harsh soap. Many buildings had been hastily boarded up, or they had makeshift red banners hanging outside in the limp breeze, marking the places where infection had been found.
She heard Nathan gasp. ‘Mother of mercy. They must’ve had it a lot worse than back home.’
The Doctor grimaced as they passed the undertakers, spotting a dead body in a casket as the lid was being nailed down. ‘It’s smallpox all right. That poor bloke had the scars on his face.’
They halted at the livery stable. Martha threw a nod towards the main street. ‘It’s weird, though. If this place was hit by an outbreak, then you’d think people would be keeping to themselves, staying indoors.’ Wherever she looked, townsfolk were still coming and going. She could even hear the mangled notes of a poorly played piano wafting out from a saloon toward the other end of town.
‘Maybe that’d be true back East,’ said Nathan, ‘but out here folks don’t like to admit they might be licked by something they can’t see.’
The Doctor nodded in agreement. ‘People always try to put a brave face on things, no matter how bad it gets.’ Nathan didn’t see the Doctor glance at him and then to Martha.
‘So what next?’ she asked.
He dismounted with a twirl of his coat. ‘Nathan, if you would be so kind as to hitch up the horses. And then we’ll go see a man about a cure.’
Martha made a move to climb out of the saddle and then paused. ‘Now, how do I get down and still look ladylike?’
Nathan shook his head with a faint smirk. ‘City folk. Huh.’ He offered her his hand. ‘Let me help you, Miss Martha.’
‘Howdy!’ The Doctor tipped his hat and smiled. ‘I do love this hat, you know. It’s a very fine hat indeed.’
The stableman, a bald, stocky chap in a stained leather apron, gave the Doctor an up-and-down look. ‘You’re not familiar to me,’ he noted.
‘No?’ he replied. ‘Well, don’t let that worry you. I’m very nice once you get acquainted with me. What’s that old saying? Strangers are just friends you don’t know yet.’
‘You’re drawin’ attention, that’s for sure,’ said the man.
He was right; nearby, the Doctor saw a few thin children, a wary-looking Pawnee and a chubby washerwoman studying the new arrivals.
‘I so often do,’ he agreed.
‘I don’t mean to seem inhospitable, but it’s my estimation you might be best off getting back in the saddle and riding on.’ The stableman frowned.
‘And why might that be?’
The man gestured around. ‘Ironhill’s shaking off a sickness. Town ain’t in no state for whatever kind of business you’ll have.’
‘We ain’t here for work,’ Nathan said curtly. ‘We’re here to fi
nd a—’
‘A friend.’ The Doctor quickly spoke over him. ‘Well, more of a passing acquaintance really. I suppose you could call him a fellow academic, if you used the term loosely.’
‘Very loosely,’ murmured Martha.
‘You’re talking about the Professor?’ The stableman’s expression changed. ‘Why didn’t you say? The man’s brought a ray o’ light to this godforsaken place, and that’s a fact!’ He grinned. ‘Last I heard, he was doing his good works over at the Widow Weems’s place. He’s made a lot of folks better with that potion of his. We’re mighty grateful.’
‘No one’s had the nightmares yet, then?’ said the boy. ‘The bad dreams?’
‘The what?’ The bald man’s brow furrowed.
‘Nothing,’ said the Doctor. ‘You were saying?’
The stableman thought for a moment. ‘His wagon’s parked over yonder.’ He pointed. ‘In the street behind the bakery.’
‘But where’s Godlove?’ Nathan’s voice was almost a snarl, and his hands tightened into fists.
Martha shot the Doctor a warning look.
‘Can’t say for sure where he is now,’ answered the stableman.
The Doctor pushed back his hat with a finger. ‘Martha, why don’t you and Nathan have a look at Professor Godlove’s wagon, see if he’s about?’
She nodded, catching the unspoken addendum in the Doctor’s look that said And stay out of trouble! ‘Gotcha. What are you going to do?’
‘I think I’ll take a stroll down main street, see if I can’t look up our good pal Alvin.’
The music inside the saloon was feeble, but it was mildly entertaining. The few patrons at the bar were largely quiet, leaving the tables to the man of the hour.
Three of them, a group of roughneck brothers and apparent ne’er-do-wells, hoisted their glasses in salute. ‘Here’s to you, sir,’ said the tallest of the trio. ‘Anythin’ we can do to repay you for all you did, you just say the word!’
Alvin Godlove saluted back. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ He smirked. ‘You see, my dear,’ he said, reaching around the bar girl sitting on his lap to pick up his glass, ‘it is the burden of intelligent men to do their best for their inferiors. That is the path of righteousness, to use one’s skills for the betterment of one’s fellow human beings.’ He knocked back the whiskey and gave her a squeeze. ‘Don’t you agree?’
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