Jed shoved the old man towards the table. Gramps harrumphed at this harsh treatment but his expression changed when he saw the ailing figure on the bed.
“Prosper!” he gasped.
“I wish I could,” said Doc Brandy.
***
The old men spoke for hours, interrupted only by coughing fits, each one longer and more alarming than the last. Jed and Willoughby stood back, unable to follow most of the technical aspects of the discussion.
“You should pay attention,” Jed nodded towards the two old men. “Town’s going to need someone to take over this office some day.”
Willoughby gaped.
“Yes, you!” Jed pre-empted the question. “I reckon Doc Swallow’d be a good name for a young man just setting up his practice.”
Willoughby closed his mouth. Blushing, he looked around the room with fresh eyes. All those charts and bottles and books...
“Do you really think so, Jed?”
Jed clapped him on the shoulder.
“I reckon so,” he smiled.
Finished!
Doc Brandy was buried under the name he had assumed, the name by which he was known to the townsfolk of Tarnation. The whole town turned out to see him laid to rest in the little graveyard. Old Gramps, keen to make amends, took Willoughby under his wing and found the boy a keen learner and an able practitioner. The girls found work. Lilimae became quite a hit in the Last Gasp saloon - Miss Kitty had her trained up in no time - but Belle opted for a more modest occupation in the feed store. She hoped Jed would look upon her and smile but the gunslinger never spoke to her again. Dawson, now officially sheriff, took to dropping by the store more often than perhaps he needed to but Belle was never more than civil towards him.
Jed paid the stable boy for the fodder but unhooked Horse from the tubes himself.
“Time to go,” he patted Horse’s neck.
“I should think so,” Horse agreed. “To Wheelhub.”
“Won’t hurt to pop by,” Jed climbed into the saddle, just as the stirrup formed around his foot.
“And then what?”
Jed took the reins and Horse headed along the street. The town was already looking a good deal better. Pretty soon there’d be no trace of the devastation it had faced.
I guess, Jed put the words directly into Horse’s mind, there’s worse things I could be than a roving gunslinger, keeping the peace.
“Ooh,” Horse shivered, “I never realised how much it tickles when you do that.”
A small figure saw the gunslinger and his gleaming white horse pass by. It tore out into the street and called out to the receding figures.
“Where you going, Jed?” young Billy cried. “Come back! Come back, Jed!”
But the gunslinger and his Horse were picking up speed. The boy watched them go. Distraught and yet exhilarated, Billy saw his hero and that marvellous critter streak across the evening sky like a shooting star.
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