In Cheyenne, he heard a couple of cowboys brag in a saloon that they had lynched a damned old sodbuster. Dooley dropped his beer—half-full or half-empty, depending on your point of view—and said out loud, “Iowa.”
At Fort Bridger, Wyoming, he had paid four dollars and thirty-five cents to a doctor, who had treated Dooley, given him a tincture of some medicine that tasted most foul but caused Dooley to sleep like a baby and gave him some of the wildest dreams. The doctor said that this amnesia—which was the word he used to describe Dooley’s loss of memory—could end, could be permanent, and even could cause Dooley to die an early death of a stroke or aneurysm or suicide.
“But it doesn’t appear to be that bad of a case,” Dr. Smoker had said, and he smoked like the 2-4-0 locomotive on the railroad tracks nearby. “You remembered the dog’s name. You remembered your horse’s name. You assumed you are Dooley Monahan and that is likely correct.”
“Assumed?” Dooley had asked.
“You could have stolen the wallet from the real Dooley Monahan.”
“Nah.” Dooley shook his head. “I think I’m Dooley Monahan.”
“Why’s that?”
“Who the hell would call himself Dooley Monahan if that wasn’t his name?”
Dr. Smoker, between coughs, went on to say that various things would cause Dooley to regain most of his memory. And that’s what happened.
In Cheyenne, he understood that he hailed from Iowa. The word sodbuster jogged that memory back into place, and Dooley remembered he was a farmer. So he rode back.
Other memories would come back to him—but some of those he didn’t care to remember. Besides, he was sleeping right now—unconscious—and wondered if he would remember anything when he woke up. Right now, though, he didn’t care if he ever woke up because he was having a might fine dream. And he had used up the last of that opium or whatever the sawbones had called it years ago.
It was the plump girl from Omaha. And Dooley had saved her life. And now she was showing proper respect by kissing him all over, and Dooley’s hands were going to some places on her body that were plump where they should be plump and felt might fine. But then the plump blonde started licking his face. And she kept right on licking. Wet, sloppy licks from a tongue that felt like coarse leather. And Dooley had no choice but to open his eyes and say . . .
Notes
1 The above account is loosely based on the 1887 murder of a prostitute known only as Sally who was found nailed to an outhouse door in the Acre. Her identity was never discovered and her murderer never found. This killing brought on a major reform campaign by real-life Mayor H. S. Broiles and County Attorney R. L. Carlock. But even as late as the 1890s, the Acre continued to attract gunmen, highway robbers, card sharks, con men and shady ladies, who preyed on out-of-town pilgrims and the local sporting crowd.
Hell's Half Acre Page 24