A Frontier Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  Sally frowned. “Never mind that. What do you mean, murdered the mayor’s family?”

  “You haven’t heard? It’s been in all the papers.” Elmer told what had happened to R.W. Guthrie’s son, daughter-in-law, and their children.

  “Oh, that poor man,” Sally said. “I know how proud he was of his son and grandchildren.

  Smoke turned to Duff. “And you brought them in, did you?”

  “Aye. It was three men, Sunset Moss, and Jesse and T. Bob Cave. I’m afraid that I had to kill Sunset Moss. He left me no choice.”

  “Good for you. You saved the county the price of a rope,” Smoke said.

  “That’s a little gauche, isn’t it, Smoke?” Sally asked.

  “Didn’t you just agree with Elmer when he called them bastards?” Smoke replied. “Are you saying Moss didn’t deserve to die for what he done?”

  “For what he did, not for what he done.” Sally, ever the teacher, corrected Smoke’s grammar. She smiled. “And yes, he deserved to die.”

  Rawhide Buttes

  In the Rocky Mountain Hotel, Hodge Doolin was examining his registration book. He saw that Ralph Walters was now three days past due on paying his room rent.

  “Mike, I know I said I wasn’t going to say anything to him, but how about running upstairs to Mr. Walter’s room? He’s three days late. Ask him to please stop by the desk and settle his account. Also, to let us know if he is going to be with us any longer.”

  “All right.” Mike left the check-in desk and started up the wide, foot-worn stairs that led up to the second floor. He heard a loud burst of laughter coming from the bar and shook his head.

  Reaching the second floor, he walked down the long, rose-carpeted hallway until he reached the last room on the left. He knocked on the door. “Mr. Walters?”

  No answer.

  He knocked again. “Mr. Walters, are you in there?” He still didn’t get an answer and wondered if Walters had already left, but didn’t tell anyone. He tried the door, but it was locked. “Mr. Walters?” he called again.

  When he didn’t get an answer the third time, he took out his skeleton key, inserted it in the keyhole, then turned it. He pushed the door open about a quarter of the way, then called out again. He didn’t want to take a chance on getting shot.

  “Mr. Walters?” Still getting no answer, he stepped into the room. Walters was lying on the bed, his neck swollen as large as his head. His mouth and eyes were open . . . and his skin had a bluish tint.

  “Lord in heaven!” Mike gasped.

  Turning away from the bed, Mike shut the door and locked it, then hurried down the stairs. Doolin was entering numbers in his account ledger.

  “He’s dead,” Mike said in a quiet voice.

  Doolin looked up. “Who’s dead?”

  “Mr. Walters, the feller you sent me up to see. He’s lyin’ there in his bed, dead as a doornail.”

  “You mean somebody murdered him? Damn. We’d better get the marshal.”

  “No, I don’t think nobody kilt him. He just died. Only I tell you the truth, Hodge, he’s the damndest lookin’ corpse I done ever seen.”

  “All right, don’t say anything about it to anyone else in the hotel. Just go down to the mortuary and get Tom Welch.”

  Dr. Poindexter adjusted the electric lamp in his office as he read the article in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.

  Diphtheria is a serious bacterial infection usually affecting the mucous membranes of the nose and throat. It typically causes a sore throat, fever, swollen glands, and weakness. The most telling sign is a sheet of thick, gray material covering the back of the throat.

  Symptoms are a sore throat and hoarseness, painful swallowing, swollen glands, difficulty in aspirating, discharge of the nose, fever, and chills.

  Dr. Poindexter quit reading, then he bowed his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “My God,” he said quietly.

  “Doc! Doc! You in here?”

  Dr. Poindexter looked up to see Carl and Edith Lester come in. Carl, who owned a saddle and leather shop, was carrying his son in his arms. Danny was gasping for breath.

  “Doc! You’ve got to do something for m’ boy!” Lester said in a near panic. “He can’t breathe!”

  “Put him on the table,” Dr. Poindexter said, pointing to the examining table. “Jenny, I’m going to need a scalpel and a hollow tube.”

  Jenny, who was not only his nurse but also his wife, provided the scalpel, then went back for the hollow tube. He began feeling around on the boy’s neck until he found the Adam’s apple, or larynx, then just below that, the cricoid. That’s where he put the point of the scalpel.

  “Hold on here, Doc. Are you goin’ to cut my boy’s throat?” Lester asked angrily.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do, unless you want him to die,” Dr. Poindexter said. “He’s got to have air, and his windpipe is closing down.”

  He made a horizontal cut about half an inch long and half an inch deep, exposing the cricothyroid membrane, which he also cut. Into the hole, he inserted the hollow tube that Jenny had provided him. “Breathe, Danny, breathe!” Dr. Poindexter said.

  “He isn’t breathing.” Jenny leaned over and put her lips around the end of the hollow tube.

  “What is she doing?” Lester asked, still in a high state of agitation. He started to reach for Jenny, but Dr. Poindexter pulled him back.

  “Mrs. Lester, if you want your son to survive, keep your husband away from him.”

  “Carl, I’m sure they know what they are doing,” Mrs. Lester said. Her words did seem to have a calming effect on her husband.

  Jenny blew softly into the tube, took another breath, then blew again, then again.

  “George, I feel his breath,” she said after a moment. “He’s breathing!” she added excitedly.

  “Thank God,” Dr. Poindexter said. “Good job, Jenny.”

  “Will he be all right now?” Lester asked anxiously.

  “I can’t promise you that,” Dr. Poindexter said. “I can only say that he isn’t going to die immediately. What I have to do now is get the mucus membrane from his larynx.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Look, Mr. Lester, I know you are concerned. But please, just let me do what must be done, then I’ll explain it all later.”

  “All right. I’m sorry. Just do whatever has to be done, Doc. Don’t pay me no never mind. The thing is, I’m just awful worried.”

  “I understand, and you have every right to be worried, because Danny’s condition is quite serious. But I promise you, I’ll do everything that I can. Jenny, I’ll need a solution of three parts water to one part hydrochloric acid. Would you prepare that for me, please?”

  “Do you want it in a bowl, or an aspirator?”

  “A bowl.”

  As Jenny prepared the solution, Dr. Poindexter opened a drawer and removed a feather. When the solution was mixed, Jenny came over to stand by Danny, and held the glass bowl containing the acid and water solution. Dr. Poindexter dipped the end of the feather into the acid, removed the tube he had inserted into Danny’s neck, and sticking the feather into the open hole, began twirling it around. He did that for a few seconds, then picked up a long rubber hose and stuck one end of it into the opening in the boy’s throat. He began sucking at the other end. After a moment, he removed the end of the hose from the boy’s throat and blew through the hose, expelling a combination of blood and yellowish pus.

  After several such applications, he introduced a solution of carbolic acid into the nostrils.

  Danny immediately sneezed and coughed.

  “What are you doing to him?” Lester asked angrily.

  “Mr. Lester, please,” Jenny said calmly, putting her hand gently on Lester’s shoulder. “Let the doctor do his job.”

  “Carl, if you can’t watch this, go outside,” Mrs. Lester ordered.

  “You mean you can watch it?” Lester asked.

  “Yes, if it helps my child, I can watch i
t.”

  Lester glared at Dr. Poindexter for a moment longer, then pointedly turned on his heel and left the room.

  “Close the wound on his neck,” Dr. Poindexter ordered. “Let’s see where we are.”

  Jenny put a bandage around the boy’s neck, closing up the tracheotomy wound. She bent down very close to him. After a moment, she raised up. “He’s breathing on his own, now,” she said, a big smile spreading across her face.

  “Good.” Dr. Poindexter brushed a fall of hair back from his forehead, leaving a smear of blood.

  Quickly, Jenny got a damp cloth and wiped the blood away.

  “He’s breathing on his own? Does that mean he’s cured?” Mrs. Lester asked.

  “No, but it means we have a start. Mrs. Lester, I’m going to give you a solution that you should use to swab out his throat once every hour. Also, put him in bed in a room where you can open the window to allow outside air to enter.”

  “But, Doctor, it is so cold!” Mrs. Lester complained.

  “Yes, it is, so keep him well wrapped up in blankets. But it is very important that he gets fresh air.”

  “All right.”

  “Call Carl back in. You can take Danny home now.”

  Mrs. Lester stepped to the door of the examining room and called out, “Carl, you can come in now.”

  “How is he?” Carl asked, hurrying back into the examining room.”

  “He has a chance,” Dr. Poindexter said. “I’ve given Mrs. Lester instructions on what needs to be done. Also, and this is very important. Go straight home from here, and once you get home, don’t leave the house again until I tell you that you can. Don’t leave and don’t let anyone come visit you.”

  “What do you mean, don’t let anyone visit us? We’re planning a Christmas dinner for all our friends,” Mrs. Lester objected.

  “You’re going to have to cancel it.”

  “I can’t stay away from work,” Carl said. “I have projects that need to be completed.”

  “Your customers will just have to understand. I’m putting you and your entire family on quarantine.”

  Carl didn’t understand. “Quarantine? What does that mean?”

  “It means you can’t go see anyone, and nobody can come to see you.”

  “What about goin’ to the store for groceries?”

  “No, you can’t do that.”

  “Hell, what if we run out of food?”

  “How long can you go with what you have now?” The doctor looked at Mrs. Lester.

  “Three or four days,” she replied.

  “In three days, I’ll bring you some more groceries.”

  “How come you can come see us if nobody else can?” Lester asked.

  “Because I’m a doctor, and it’s my job to take such a chance.”

  “Doc, maybe you don’t know it, but Christmas is comin’. What right you got to treat us like this?”

  Dr. Poindexter took a deep breath. “You’re right, it is nearly Christmas.” He spoke quietly, using Lester’s first name. “Carl, Do you think I would treat you like this if I didn’t absolutely have to?”

  “All right. Whatever you say, Doc,” Lester said in acquiescence.

  “Mr. Lester, Danny has diphtheria.”

  “Oh, God in heaven! Diphtheria?” Edith Lester put her hand to her mouth. “That means he’s going to die!”

  “Not necessarily,” Dr. Poindexter said. “We may have gotten to it in time. If you do what I tell you to do, there’s a chance we can save him.”

  “All right. I can understand why we need to keep Danny away from ever’ body, but why can’t I go to work?” Lester kept asking questions.

  “The reason you have to be quarantined is because you and your wife have been exposed to diphtheria. You may not come down with it . . . and chances are you won’t, or you would already be showing symptoms. But, whether you show symptoms or not, you can still be a carrier. Do you want to infect the rest of the town?”

  “No, I reckon not,” Lester said sheepishly.

  “Then please, do what I say. Now, take Danny home, and take care of him.”

  “Come on, Carl. Let’s do what the doctor says, please,” Edith said.

  Lester nodded. “All right. I’ll do what you say, Doc, but please don’t let him die. Just don’t let him die.”

  “I’m going to do what I can for him, Mr. Lester.”

  After the Lesters left, Dr. Poindexter sat at his desk, smoking his cigar and staring off into space.

  “George, are we going to have an epidemic of diphtheria?” Jenny asked.

  Dr. Poindexter sighed and ran his hand through his thinning, gray hair. “First there was Laura Hastings, and now Danny Lester. I’m afraid we just might be heading in that direction.”

  “Oh, George, surely not!”

  “Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here, but everything I’ve seen so far certainly makes me think that might be the case.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  With the Lesters gone and the immediate crisis temporarily dealt with, Dr. Poindexter continued to research all he could find about diphtheria.

  At the moment, he was reading the article on diphtheria in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. When he came to what he was looking for, he smiled. “Jenny, listen to this. ‘In 1883, a Swiss-German pathologist identified and described the bacterium that causes diphtheria. A year later, German bacteriologist Friedrich Loeffler developed an antitoxin, which has proved effective in treating the disease.’”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Jenny asked.

  “It means that if I can get hold of enough of this antitoxin, I can treat this before it takes over the whole town.”

  “Where are you going to find it?”

  “Ahh, I’m afraid you’ve got me there, darlin’,” Dr. Poindexter said. “I’m going to have to send a telegram off, asking for help.”

  “Do you think it’s wise to let people know that we may have diphtheria? Might it not spread a panic?”

  “Yes, it could well do that. Another problem is that I may wind up having to put the entire town on quarantine, and if word gets out too quickly, I fear people will panic and start leaving town. That could spread the disease over the entire state, causing an even bigger disaster.”

  “How are you going to send off a telegram without letting the telegrapher know? If he finds out something like that, the whole town will know within an hour.”

  “I just won’t use the word diphtheria. At least, not in the way that he would recognize it.” Dr. Poindexter stood and grabbed his coat. Leaving his office, he walked down to the telegraph office, where he wrote out a telegram.

  POSSIBLE OUTBREAK OF CORYNEBACTERIUM STOP REQUEST IMMEDIATE SUPPLY OF ANTITOXIN SERUM SUFFICIENT TO TREAT INFECTED STOP NUMBER COULD REACH HIGH AS ONE HUNDRED STOP DR. GEORGE POINDEXTER STOP RAWHIDE BUTTES

  “Please send this to the chief surgeon at the United Medical Center in Cheyenne,” Dr. Poindexter said, handing the message to the telegrapher, Howard McGill.

  He read it. “What is this cory . . . coryne . . . ?”

  “Corynebacterium,” the doctor said, pronouncing the word for him. “It’s a type of respiratory ailment.”

  “And this here serum will take care of it?”

  “Well, Howard, it will if we send for it instead of standing here talking about it.”

  McGill chuckled. “All right, Doc, I understand. I’ll get it sent off right away.”

  When Dr. Poindexter returned from sending the telegram, he found Tom Welch, the town mortician, had arrived in his office.

  “Hello, Tom. What can I do for you?”

  “Doc, I just got a man in that I think you’d better come have a look at.”

  Dr. Poindexter chuckled dryly. “Well, Tom, if you’ve got him, it’s probably a little late for me to be looking at him, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, that ain’t why I’m wantin’ you to see him. It’s the way he looks that I think you ought to see.”

  “All
right. I’ll come down to your place and have a look.”

  The undertaker’s business was between the lumberyard and the hardware store, a convenient location because Welch not only embalmed the bodies, he also made the coffins. For that, he needed material from both his neighboring business establishments.

  The body was that of a male who appeared to be in his early fifties. His neck was swollen to the size of his head. He was naked, and several large lesions were visible on both legs. His mouth was open as if he had been gasping for breath as he died

  Dr. Poindexter leaned over to look into his mouth and saw several deep necrotic ulcers present on the tongue and the inner surface of the cheeks. The back of his throat was covered with a thick gray membrane. He straightened and asked, “Who is this man?”

  “According to Hodge Doolin, his name is Ralph Walters,” Welch said.

  “Doolin? From the hotel?”

  “Yes, that’s where this man was staying. Hodge said that after nobody had seen him for a couple days, he sent Mike up to check on him, and found him dead in his room.”

  “Has his family been notified?”

  “As far I know, he has no family here. I haven’t been able to find anyone who knows anything about him. I’m going to have to get him declared indigent so I can bury him.”

  “So he was just passing through town?”

  “From what I’ve gathered. Hodge said he was sort of a traveling troubadour who went from town to town playing music and entertaining with stories.”

  “Did he do a show here?”

  “I don’t know,” Welch said. “So, what about it, Doc? What killed this fella?”

  “Diphtheria,” Dr. Poindexter said.

  “Diphtheria? Damn, have I been exposed?”

  “Probably not, but when you are finished with him, wash your hands thoroughly, and use a lot of soap.”

  Leaving the mortuary, Poindexter walked two blocks to the Rocky Mountain Hotel. Hodge Doolin was watching as Mike and a volunteer were hanging a large banner on the wall above the fireplace. ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOTEL WISHES MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.