Ralph Compton Frontier Medicine

by Robert J. Randisi

  “Thanks, Sheriff.”

  The lawman left and Kincaid finished his breakfast.

  * * *

  * * *

  Later in the afternoon Kincaid was surprised when the door opened and Abby Cottrell walked in. She was wearing a plain cotton dress with a white apron over it, and the apron was stained with blood. With her right hand she was holding a towel around her left hand. The towel was soaked red.

  “Come with me,” he said, immediately taking her into the other room.

  He unwrapped the hand, cleaned the blood off to inspect the wound.

  “It’s a clean cut, but deep. I’ll have to stitch it.” He took out a hypodermic syringe.

  “What’s that for?”

  “I’m going to administer a small dose of liquid made from a coca leaf. It will numb the area so I can stitch it.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Very.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “It’ll sting for a moment,” he told her. “This was discovered during the 1850s, after dentists had been using gases for anesthetics for years.”

  “When will you do it?” she asked.

  “I just did, while we were talking.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Really? I didn’t feel it.”

  “We’ll wait for that to take effect,” he said. He placed a piece of gauze over the cut and held it in place. “How’d you do this?”

  “I was cutting vegetables for dinner. Franny came running in to show me something she found. She frightened me, and I slipped with the knife.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “With a neighbor. Her husband hitched up my buggy. He wanted to drive me in, but I told him I’d be fine.”

  “What did Franny bring in to show you?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, “but it was something dead. That child’s always finding dead things she thinks she can make into pets.”

  He removed the gauze, used a pin to prick her finger.

  “Do you feel that?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “How wonderful.”

  “Let’s begin,” he said, and started stitching.

  * * *

  * * *

  You must think me such a fool,” Abby said, later.

  Right when Kincaid started stitching her hand, she passed out. He laid her down gently and continued to stitch while she slept. She woke feeling ashamed.

  “You’re not a fool,” he said. “People don’t usually react well to being stitched. Here, sit up.”

  He took her uninjured hand and pulled her to a seated position.

  “No, don’t try to get up,” he said. “Let’s first see if you get dizzy again.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “How’s your hand?” he asked.

  She looked down at the now bandaged left hand.

  “I don’t feel anything,” she said.

  “You will.” He took a vial of pills from his bag. “When it starts to hurt, take one of these whenever you need it. But don’t ever take them less than six hours apart.”

  She took the pills, put them in the pocket of her bloody apron.

  “Do you want to get rid of that?”

  “Oh no,” she said, “I’ll wash it. The blood will come out.”

  “All right, then,” he said. “Let’s get you on your feet and see what happens.”

  He helped her down from the table, held her right hand for a moment, then released it. Looking at her face, he thought that she and Nora Legend were probably half a dozen years apart, with Abby the younger. But he found both of them attractive, physically and personality-wise. And yet he still wasn’t ready to pursue a relationship with either woman. Not with the practice to consider, Doc Edwin’s condition, and now the presence of other gunmen in town.

  “I have to get home, collect Franny, and then finally make supper without cutting my good hand.”

  “I’ll walk you to your buckboard.”

  He accompanied her outside, helped her climb up on the seat.

  “Would you like to come to supper?” she asked. “Franny would love it.”

  “So would I,” he said, “but I can’t tonight. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Doc Edwin’s in a coma, and I need to stay close to town.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard that,” she said. “Of course, I understand. Do you think—Will he recover?”

  “I don’t know,” Kincaid said. “That’s why I’m staying close.”

  “I’ll tell Franny another night, then,” Abby said.

  “Definitely.”

  “Thanks for this,” she said, waving with the bandaged hand as she drove off.

  * * *

  * * *

  Kincaid had no patients the remainder of the day. He was about to lock up and leave when the door opened and three men stepped in. He immediately knew who they were, thanks to the sheriff’s description.

  “You the doc?” the shorter man in the middle asked. The red sash around his waist was a dead giveaway.

  “That’s right,” Kincaid said. “What can I do for you?”

  “My friend here hurt his arm,” the man Kincaid assumed was Ed Santee said.

  “I’ll take a look,” Kincaid said. “Come with me. Your friends can wait here.”

  He took the man into the examining room, sat him on the table, and told him to roll up his sleeve.

  “What’d you do to it?” he asked.

  “My stupid horse yanked on me when I wasn’t ready,” the man said.

  “Do this,” Kincaid said, demonstrating flexing his arm.

  The man followed, flexing his left arm, and hissing with pain. It didn’t escape Kincaid’s notice that the gun in the man’s belt was set up for a right-hand draw.

  Kincaid probed the man’s arm with his fingertips, then said, “It’s a sprain. You’ll have to keep it still for a while, until it heals.”

  “How am I gonna do that?” the man asked, annoyed.

  “I’ll put it in a sling,” Kincaid said. “You can take it off when you take a bath, but that’s about it.”

  Kincaid fashioned a sling for the man out of some cloth, then led him back out to the other two men. They all appeared to be in their thirties.

  “He’s going to have to keep that arm still for a while,” he told the others.

  “How much do we owe you, Doc?” Santee asked, as the other two men left.

  “A dollar should do it.”

  Santee handed him a silver dollar.

  “I notice you don’t wear a gun,” Santee said.

  “There’s no need for one in my office,” Kincaid said.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Santee said. “Wear one when you leave?”

  “No,” Kincaid said. “I don’t treat very many people with a gun.”

  Santee grinned, said, “That ain’t what I hear,” and followed his two friends out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kincaid didn’t know if Ed Santee had deliberately sprained his partner’s arm, but he felt certain the visit to his office was more to take a look at him than anything else. That suited him, because it gave him the same opportunity. He now knew what Santee looked like, as well as his two partners. And with the red sash as well as the white sling, he’d sure as hell see them coming.

  After closing the office he stopped at Doc Edwin’s house to take a look and give a listen, but there was no change. He turned down Maggie’s offer of supper, although he felt bad doing it. She seemed to want company, but the house had lately become a depressing place to be. Poor Maggie had much more work to do with the old sawbones unable to do anything for himself. She had to wash him several times a day and change the sheets with him still in the bed. Kincaid offered to bring another person in to help her, but she refused.

>   “Doc wouldn’t want anybody else in the house,” she said, “except for me and you.”

  Every so often Kincaid would make sure he was there to help her, but tonight wasn’t one of those times.

  As he left the house he found himself wishing he had taken Abby up on her invitation to supper. Seeing her and Franny might’ve lifted his spirits. Then he recalled the last invitation he’d accepted, and how Franny’s constant chatter had become grating.

  He felt like going to a saloon for a couple of drinks, but there was always the chance he’d run into Santee and his partners. He wasn’t ready for that. The weight of his gun in his bag was anything but comforting.

  He decided to have a quick supper at the Sunflower and then go upstairs and drink in his own place.

  As Kate came to his table he asked, “Don’t you ever get time off?”

  “What would I do with time off?” she asked him. “If I was ten or fifteen years younger and knew a handsome doctor like you, then maybe . . . what’ll ya have tonight?”

  “Something quick,” he said.

  “I know just the thing.”

  “And coffee.”

  “Comin’ up.”

  She hurried to the kitchen and back again with a pot of coffee, then back to the kitchen again. Kincaid was glad she hadn’t stopped to talk some more.

  When she returned it was with a steak sandwich, which suited him just fine. He decided to get it wrapped and take it upstairs. She was happy to do it for him. In moments he was sitting on his sofa, eating his supper and washing it down with whiskey . . .

  * * *

  * * *

  Kincaid woke the next morning, still on the sofa, with an empty whiskey bottle in his lap and the paper the sandwich had been wrapped in at his feet. He rubbed his face with both hands, looked toward the front window in an attempt to figure out what time it was. He finally dragged himself to his feet to go to the kitchen and look at the clock. It was after nine a.m. He was usually up, dressed, and out by eight, sometimes earlier.

  He went to his water closet, stripped down, washed off, then got dressed. He felt only slightly better. He had consumed way too much whiskey the night before. Luckily, no one had come banging on his door with an emergency.

  He got to the office late, didn’t find anybody waiting there for him—gunmen or patients. Then he heard hurried footsteps on the boardwalk outside just before the door slammed open.

  “Doc,” a man called out, “we needja!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the sheriff,” the man said. “He’s been shot.”

  Kincaid grabbed his bag and followed the man out . . .

  * * *

  * * *

  When he reached the street in front of the sheriff’s office there was a crowd gathered.

  “Look out! Look out! Let the doc through!” the man shouted, roughly elbowing men and women out of the way.

  Sheriff Llegg was lying on the ground with blood on his shirtfront. Kincaid couldn’t immediately tell if the wound was mortal. The shirt seemed soaked, but it could have been from a chest wound, or a shoulder wound.

  “Excuse me,” he said, pushing a man aside and dropping to his knee. “Sheriff, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I can hear ya,” Llegg said. “I’m shot, I ain’t deaf.”

  “Let’s see were you’re shot,” Kincaid said.

  He located the source of the blood, high up on the right shoulder, away from the heart.

  “All right,” he said, “we’ve got time to get you to my office.”

  “It’s not bad, right?” Llegg asked.

  “Doesn’t look too bad, but I’ll know more when we get you to my office.” He looked over his shoulder at the man who had come to fetch him. “Get me some men to carry him to my place.”

  “Right,” the man said, and started pointing at men. “You, you, you, and you.” The men he chose stepped forward and Kincaid stood up.

  “Lift him carefully and carry him to my office,” Kincaid said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Gotcha,” one man said, and they all bent to the task.

  “Jesus, take it easy!” Sheriff Llegg snapped. “I ain’t never been shot before.”

  As the five men carried the sheriff to Kincaid’s office, he rushed ahead of them to get the doors open all the way to the examining room.

  “Put him on that table.”

  They set him down.

  “All right. I have it from here,” he told them. “Thanks.”

  The man who had come to get him asked, “Is it all right if I wait?”

  “If you like.”

  “I’m his deputy,” the man added, taking a badge from his pocket.

  “Then shouldn’t you be out there clearing the street and finding out who shot him?”

  “Oh, we know who shot ’im,” the deputy said.

  “Who?”

  “Feller named Santee.”

  That was what Kincaid was afraid of.

  * * *

  * * *

  He got the sheriff’s shirt off and cleaned the wound so he could get a good look at it.

  “The bullet’s still in there,” he told Llegg. “I have to dig it out.”

  “Goddamn! Gettin’ shot hurts like hell.”

  “I’ve been told that before,” Kincaid said. “Just relax, I’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  “Good,” Llegg said, “then I can go after that bastard and his partners.”

  “Your deputy told me it was Santee who shot you,” Kincaid said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Was it because of me?”

  “Don’t flatter yerself,” Llegg said. “It woulda happened, anyway.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They want me out of the way,” Llegg said. “I have a feelin’ they’re not only here for you.”

  “What else would they be here for?” Kincaid asked.

  “The bank.”

  “Ah . . .”

  “I caught them casin’ it, and Santee shot me.”

  “Did they rob it?”

  “No, they took off,” Llegg said, “but they’ll be back. And I hafta be ready.”

  “I don’t know about that, Sheriff,” Kincaid said. “Maybe you should let your deputy handle it. You’re going to need some rest.”

  “My deputy?” Llegg laughed. “Let me tell you somethin’ about James—he ain’t no deputy.”

  “But he showed me his badge.”

  “Yeah, I gave him a badge and told him to keep it outta sight.”

  “Well, he waved it at me.”

  “That dimwit is gonna get himself killed.”

  “If he’s a dimwit, why give him a badge?”

  “To shut him up, mostly.” He chuckled. “I keep tellin’ him to stay out of trouble, and look what I do. Hey, what the hell is that?”

  “Forceps,” Kincaid said.

  “What is it for?”

  “To help me get the bullet out,” Kincaid said.

  “Jesus . . .” Llegg closed his eyes . . .

  * * *

  * * *

  Kincaid got the bullet out, the wound cleaned again, and then bandaged.

  “Can I sit up?” the sheriff asked.

  “Not yet,” Kincaid said. “Rest there awhile, and tell me what happened.”

  “It seemed to me Santee and his partners were casin’ the bank. I told them it wouldn’t be a good idea to rob it, and that they should leave town. Obviously they didn’t agree.”

  “So they shot you?”

  “He did,” Llegg said. “Then they mounted up and rode out.”

  “So you want to get up, put together a posse, and go after them?”

  “Normally, yes,” Llegg said, “but I think
they’re gonna come back and hit the bank. So that’s where I should be.”

  “Well,” Kincaid said, “if you’re there, you’ll have to be sitting in a chair. And will you have that one deputy with you?”

  “James? Hell, no. He’d get killed, and get me killed. So I’ll draft a few deputies, men who can use guns . . . Say, how about—”

  “Sorry, no,” Kincaid said.

  “But you can use a gun.”

  “I’m trying to live that down, Sheriff,” Kincaid explained. “Acting as a deputy to foil a bank robbery isn’t going to help me do that.”

  “Well then, Doc,” Llegg said, “help me up, because I got work to do.”

  “You need rest, Sheriff.”

  “Those men ain’t gonna rest,” the lawman said.

  “I just patched you up,” Kincaid said. “If you get killed and ruin my work . . .”

  “Well,” Llegg said, “there’s a way you can keep that from happenin’ . . . ”

  * * *

  * * *

  In the end Kincaid agreed to go to the bank with Sheriff Llegg. He didn’t agree to wear a badge, though.

  But first he walked Llegg back to his office, where some men were still gathered. The lawman immediately drafted six of them into service. Kincaid was surprised when he took that many badges—and more—out of a desk drawer and dropped them onto his desk.

  “Pin ’em on, boys,” he said. “Those jaspers are gonna be comin’ back for the bank, and I want us to be ready.”

  None of the men picked up a badge.

  “Wasn’t that feller who shot you Ed Santee?” one of the men asked.

  “It was,” Llegg said. “That’s why I’m gonna need you fellas, and the doc, here, because I can’t handle him alone.”

  Still, nobody picked up a badge.

  “Look, Sheriff,” one of the men said, “we’re here to help you, but . . . this Santee is a killer. I mean, he just shot you down.”

  “Didn’t kill me, though, did he?”

  “He will when he comes back, if you get in his way,” another man said. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, but I’m out.”