by J. T. Edson
‘Hey!’ wailed the wounded outlaw, still holding his shoulder. ‘Hey, doctor. I’ve been shot—’
‘I’d never have guessed,’ the Texan snorted, without looking around.
‘You—You’ve got to—!’ the outlaw yelped and tried to shove himself up from where he was sitting.
‘Stay put there, bucko!’ commanded the bank guard, taking his attention briefly from the second outlaw who was also seated and holding his head with both hands. ‘I reckon the doc’ll get to you when he’s finished with that gent.’ Agony and weakness had brought about what Doc required, rather than a desire to be compliant. What was more, Lynn had eased the woman around until the injured man was able to see her. Giving something that was between a groan and a sigh of relief, he relaxed.
‘That’s some better,’ Doc drawled. ‘Can you see all right?’
‘Yes,’ the man replied, but there was an edge of doubt in his voice.
‘Don’t try to show us how tough you are,’ Doc warned. ‘If your eyes aren’t right, tell me so.’
‘I can see all right,’ the man insisted. ‘Except that my head hurts.’
‘That’s to be expected,’ Doc said calmly. ‘It doesn’t tell me anything—’
‘What about?’ the man gasped, beginning to move again.
‘Anything I don’t know,’ Doc replied, still in calm and soothing tones. ‘So just sit nice and easy. You’ve been hit at the side of the head by a bullet, which it could have been a whole heap worse. As far as I can tell, you’ve got nothing more than a bad graze across the side of the head. It’ll need stitching and I can’t do that here, not having anything to work with. So I’ll just bandage it and see about getting you somewhere that it can be done.’
‘I thought—!’ the man began, but the words died away as there was a disturbance at the door.
‘Shucks, way you’re jumping around and taking on, there’s nothing bad wrong,’ Doc declared cheerfully and looked at the three men whose entrance had brought the patient’s words to an end. ‘Howdy, Sherry.’
‘I thought it was you I saw outside,’ Phillipe St. Andre stated, glancing around the room. ‘What happened?’
Dressed in much the same manner, with the exception of their footwear, and matching Doc in height, the Captain of Detectives was a handsome man with curly black hair and a neatly trimmed moustache. His wide shoulders and slender waist suggested great strength and physical fitness. For all his aristocratic upbringing, he had a reputation for being exceptionally efficient at his work and real tough when the need arose.
‘Those yahoos thought they was the James and Younger boys,’ Lynn explained. ‘They figured on robbing the bank.’
‘That’s what an informer came in and told me,’ St. Andre admitted, throwing a smile at the girl. ‘So I gathered some help and came to stop them.’
‘You got here a mite too late,’ Lynn stated. ‘We couldn’t wait.’
‘Did you catch the two who took the greaser stand-off?’ Doc inquired.
‘Huh?’ said the puzzled Captain.
‘The two’s ran out on their amigos,’ Lynn translated, wondering why her husband was showing so much interest in the pair. ‘A couple of your boys were headed after them when I fetched Doc in here to do something more useful.’
‘They waited for us when they saw us coming,’ St. Andre explained. ‘I sent the men I brought with them after the escapees. How is that gentleman, Doc?’
‘He’s not too badly hurt,’ the Texan replied. ‘I’ll put a bandage around his head and then I want him taken either to a doctor, or to the Hospital, whichever’s nearest, so he can be attended to better than I can manage here.’
‘I’ll have it done,’ St. Andre promised, turning his gaze to a man who was earning into the building.
‘They’d gone from sight when we went through the alley, sir,’ the newcomer reported. ‘Lieutenant Redon’s got men asking around if anybody’s seen ’em and others going along the streets. But if they once get down towards the river—’
‘Finding them won’t be easy,’ St. Andre finished for the detective, then he looked across the room. ‘Will you attend to that wounded man when you’ve finished with this gentleman, Doc?’
‘You can count on it,’ the Texan answered, wondering if he could persuade the injured outlaw to give him information that would help to locate the man who had had the two Colt Pocket Pistols.
Doc wanted to know how the weapons had come into the young outlaw’s possession and, if Hayden Paul Lindrick was still alive, where he could be found. The Texan had a score to settle with the original owner of the Colts.
Four – It’ll Hurt Less If You Talk
Pompous though he might look and act, the manager of the New Orleans’ branch of the First National Bank proved to be a man of some forethought. Seeing what was going to be needed, he—not without an expression of extreme relief—handed the three revolvers to Captain Phillipe St. Andre and scuttled into his private office behind the counter. On his return, he was carrying a small bowl filled with water and a wooden box which held the other items Doc Leroy would need for the temporary treatment of the wounded man’s head. Nodding his gratitude, the Texan set to work bathing the graze and then began to affix one of the bandages from the box.
‘We came prepared for trouble,’ St. Andre remarked, watching Doc’s slim and almost boneless seeming hands moving with such deft assurance. He found himself remembering how swiftly they had drawn and fired the ivory handled Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker during the demonstration. ‘But we didn’t expect to arrive and find that you pair of wild cowboys had been shooting up everything in sight.’
‘Seemed like a right smart thing to be doing at the time,’ Lynn Leroy put in. ‘And, happen you figure I’m a cow boy, it’s time I had a long talk to Alice about you.’
‘I stand corrected, cherie,’ St. Andre declared, favoring the girl with a bow and employing the French word which, in its corrupted Americanized form had given him his nickname. Then he glanced from the two wounded outlaws to their dead companion. ‘Hum! I wonder what the Intelligencer will have to say about this?’
‘Tell them it was the owlhoots who did all the shooting, only they were mighty poor shots,’ Doc suggested, having seen examples of the kind of distorted reporting which appeared in the very ‘liberal’ New Orleans Intelligencer when the police or anybody else in authority were concerned. Then an idea came to him and he went on, ‘Those kind-hearted soft-shells xxx who write for it won’t be any too pleased about you leaving that poor hurt hombre over there to suffer, for shame. You get him taken in a back room some place and I’ll ’tend to him.’
‘Can’t you treat his wound where he is?’ St Andre inquired.
‘Nope, not the way it has to be done,’ Doc stated, with such a definite air that his wife and the detective looked at him. Glancing at the outlaw, who was staring at them, he called, ‘You-all don’t mind if I take you in back someplace and work on you, now do you, hombre.’
‘No!’ the man moaned. ‘Only come and do something for me. I’m bleeding real bad.’
‘Just what’s on that tricky Texas mind of yours, Doc?’ Lynn inquired, beating St. Andre to the question; although he had intended wording it somewhat differently.
‘Nothing more than wanting to do the best I can for that poor hurt gent, honey,’ the Texan replied and, if his demeanor was any guide, butter would have had a difficult time melting in his mouth. ‘Which all these sober and upright, tax-paying members of the community have heard him say he doesn’t mind it being done my way.’
‘Very well,’ the detective sighed, his curiosity aroused and making him willing to co-operate. He turned to the manager, saying, ‘Can we use your private office, Mr. Duprez?’
‘I—’ the official began, then saw St. Andre’s brows knit in an unpleasant frown. He remembered that the other was not only a senior member of the New Orleans Police Department but belonged to a very wealthy and influential family who had connections with the b
ank. ‘Er—of course you can, Captain.’
Helping the groaning criminal to his feet, St. Andre’s two detectives hustled him across the room. They left his handcuffed companion sitting on the floor under the watchful gaze of the bank guard. Having completed his work on the robbers’ victim, Doc straightened up.
‘Is—!’ the woman gasped, moving away from Lynn who was taking her vanity bag and money from one of the tellers. ‘Will he—?’
‘I’ve done all I can, ma’am,’ Doc answered reassuringly. ‘Now Captain St. Andre will have you both taken somewhere, so that the wound can be treated more adequately than I can manage with what I’ve got on hand. You can do that, huh, Sherry?’
‘Of course,’ the captain confirmed and called to one of the uniformed officers who were keeping the growing crowd away from the bank’s door. ‘Take this lady and gentleman to the hospital in the paddy wagon, O’Reilly.’
Waiting until the man and woman were leaving, Doc turned to go towards the manager’s private office. On the point of following, Lynn asked St. Andre for her Thunderer. Taking out the weapon, having thrust it and the Pocket Pistols into his pockets, he handed it over. Tucking it into the vanity bag, she accompanied him as he went after her husband.
Like the detective, Lynn had no idea of what might be causing Doc to behave in such a fashion. However, even more than St. Andre, she could sense that he was deeply perturbed by something. It was, she suspected, linked to the pair of fine looking Colt revolvers which had been dropped by the fleeing outlaw. Restraining her interest, knowing that at least part of the answers might soon be forthcoming, she preceded the detective in following her husband through the door of the manager’s office.
‘Don’t you reckon those boys of yours should go and make sure that other jasper stays put and can’t escape, Sherry?’ Doc remarked, indicating the plainclothes officers with what some people would have taken for a casual gesture.
‘Very well,’ St. Andre replied, as he could not be counted in their number, giving a nod of approval to his subordinates. He did not know why the Texan had made the suggestion, but was convinced that there was a sound reason for it. Waiting until the pair had left, he anticipated a further request by closing the door. ‘Now what?’
‘Now I can start work,’ Doc answered, in the same flat and unemotional tones that had aroused his wife’s and the detective’s suspicions. Turning towards the outlaw, who was slumped on a chair by the manager’s desk, he continued, ‘I’m going to have to take off your clothes to get at that wound, hombre.’
‘Y-Yes—?’ the man groaned and the Texan was pleased with the fright he showed at the prospect.
‘Yes sir,’ Doc went on, exhibiting a relish that looked very convincing and saw the other’s fear growing more intense. ‘It’s going to be painful as hell Fact being, I don’t reckon you’ve ever felt anything hurt so bad.’
‘Wha—Wha—?’ the man croaked, sinking even lower on the chair.
Listening, Lynn and St. Andre exchanged puzzled glances. They knew it was anything but sound medical policy to emphasize how much a proposed treatment would hurt. Nor did they doubt that Doc was equally, even more, aware of the fact. Certainly it was doing nothing to calm the patient.
‘Shucks, ain’t no point in hiding the truth from you,’ Doc declared, advancing with what the wounded mail imagined to be an air of eager pleasure at the prospect at starting such painful work. ‘Tell you, though, it’ll hurt less if you talk.’
‘T—!’ the outlaw gasped. ‘Talk?’
‘Why sure,’ Doc agreed. ‘Tell us a few little things to take your mind off the pain. Like what kind of liquor you drink. Who your favorite gal is—Or where those two butt-dragging yahoos who ran out on you-all might have gone.
‘Huh?’ grunted the outlaw, having noticed and drawn the correct conclusions from the way the sentence following the brief, dramatic pause had been spoken. ‘You want—?’
‘I don’t want anything, except to help you forget how I’m going to have to hurt you and to get started afore you bleed to death,’ Doc interrupted. ‘Shucks, it’s not like they stood by you all loyal and true after that loco son-of-a-bitch started all the fussing. Why, as soon as they saw things were going wrong, they just up and took to running, leaving you to face all the blame.’
A faint smile of enlightenment came and went from St. Andre’s face as he realized what the Texan was hoping to achieve. There was a chance that the two outlaws would evade their pursuers and the information, if it was obtained could help to locate them. However, he was too experienced a peace officer to offer any comment. He felt sure that they would learn more if he remained in the background and allowed his companion to extract the answer.
‘You—I—!’ the outlaw spluttered, fortunately without looking at the detective and asking for official intervention.
‘Look at it this way,’ Doc drawled, taking a flat leather wallet from his coat’s inside pocket. ‘I’m a mighty strange hombre. When I want something and don’t get it, I kind of forget things. Like now. Damned if I haven’t forgotten I’ve got this knife with me. So I’ll have to tear your clothes away instead of being able to cut them off.’
‘D-Don’t forget what happened last ti—!’ Lynn began, stepping forward with an attitude of well-simulated alarm.
‘Shut your damned mouth, woman!’ Doc blared, swinging around and showing none of the delight he was experiencing over his wife’s intervention.
‘Ye—Yes—husband!’ Lynn replied, backing away as if afraid of the anger she had caused to be diverted upon her. ‘Only the last time—.’
‘You mind your own affairs, woman!’ Doc snarled and turned his gaze to the now terrified criminal. ‘Now which is it, hombre, are you going to talk all soothing to me while I work?’
‘Th-They got away?’ the man asked.
‘Would I be wasting my damned time if they hadn’t?’ Doc spat back and made as if to return the wallet. ‘Oh well, let’s start by hauling off that cloak—’
‘You’ll maybe find them at Coffee Dan’s!’ the outlaw decided hurriedly, after a moment’s thought and staring at the sadistic features of the man into whose hands he had placed himself. ‘Yeah! That’s where they’ll go to. Tick’s Coffee Dan’s nephew and that Blaby son-of-a-bitch’s never been anywhere else.’
‘Coffee Dan’s, huh?’ Doc repeated, in tones redolent of disbelief, despite having thrown a quick look at St; Andre and received a nod which told him such a place existed. ‘Now you’re right sure of that?’
‘Hell, I don’t know for sure!’ the outlaw practically sobbed. ‘It’s the likeliest place for Tick and Blaby to head for. Even without Dan being Tick’s uncle, ain’t neither of them over smart. They’re not likely to know anywheres else to go and hide out. It’s where we was supposed to meet up again if anything happened and we got separated.’
‘Doctor!’ St. Andre barked, deciding that they would be unlikely to learn any more through the present means. ‘I can’t have this. Either take care of the prisoner, or I’ll have somebody fetched who will.’
‘All right, all right!’ Doc grumbled. ‘I’ll start. Here, woman, take my case and I’ll get to ripping off his clothes. He might be lying and I’d hate like—’
‘Honest, Cap’n,’ the outlaw wailed, becoming aware of St. Andre’s presence and feeling relieved. In spite of the lies which were published by the New Orleans Intelligencer, it was generally accepted among the criminal class of the city that, while tough, St. Andre was fair and did not sanction the mistreatment of prisoners. ‘I’ve told this feller all I know. If you don’t catch those two yellow bellied sons-of-bitches afore, you’ll be likely to find ’em at Coffee Dan’s.’
‘I believe you,’ the detective declared, truthfully, deciding the man was too terrified to lie. ‘Start work on him, doctor. And do it properly. Cut the clothing away.’
‘Why sure,’ Doc assented sullenly, knowing better than to make a change in his behavior that would let the outlaw find out a trick ha
d been played. Opening the wallet, he took out a sturdy scalpel. ‘It’s not everybody’s are so damned soft hearted where lousy thieves are concerned.’
Displaying a surprising delicacy, considering his callous attitude up to that point, the Texan started to slit first along the cloak-coat’s shoulder seam so as to remove its sleeve. At first, the outlaw was wary and frightened. Then he saw the change in his tormentor and attributed it to St. Andre’s opportune ‘arrival’ and presence.
Calling on Lynn for help, Doc continued to work. Still slitting with the scalpel, he removed the jacket’s and shirt’s sleeve until he had exposed the man’s shoulder. Granted his first clear view of the wound, he felt relieved to find that he had been correct in his assumption with regard to it
When ignited by a spark of flame from the percussion cap, either as a separate item or when built into the metal base of a cartridge, the black powder charge burned to form a vast volume of gas. This in turn served to drive the bullet forward. In a weapon such as the type of Colt Thunderer used by Lynn, complete consumption of the powder had not been attained before the lead emerged from the two and a half inch long barrel. So there was a noticeable loss of thrust as the gases were able to disperse on leaving the muzzle instead of being compelled to expand along the metal tube.
Even at so short a range, the Thunderer’s .41 bullet had suffered a sufficient loss of velocity that needing to cut a passage into the thick cloak-coat and other garments had prevented it from going right through the bulky man’s shoulder. While it had been painful and—particularly as it had been delivered by a beautiful young woman—unexpected, the wound was far less serious than would have resulted from a weapon which made a fuller utilization of its propellant charge.
Having had an extensive acquaintance with injuries that had resulted from gun-shots, Doc had of necessity studied their effects. Drawing on his knowledge, he had been satisfied that the man would not bleed to death, or even be as badly hurt as he had obviously imagined. To give the Texan his due, if he had felt that the other’s life might be endangered, he would not have delayed in starting the treatment. As it was, he had played on the outlaw’s state of shock and fear of being seriously injured to obtain the information he required.