West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels

by James Reasoner

  He was aware that many scientists were proposing that God did not exist, but as a believer himself he saw no incompatibility between belief in the Lord and a belief in evolution. To his mind evolution was merely the way that God allowed creatures to develop. He just wanted to open Edith’s mind up to such possibilities, hence the geography and geology trip that they were on.

  “If you look over to the east you’ll see that the stone is very different from here,” he said once they reached a plateau and he set down his saddlebags and drew out a couple of small handpick hammers. “That is Precambrian granite. Over here there the rock is predominantly Cretaceous sediment. Effectively, you will find no fossils over in the granite, because it is so old that it is older than life itself. On the other hand, the Cretaceous is much younger and we should find lots of early fossils.”

  And he showed her how to use her pick hammer to chip rock and split stones.

  “These are fossilized worms,” he said, handing a rock with the distinct cylindrical outlines of a couple of worms.”

  After an hour they had collected some trilobites, an ammonite and a near perfectly formed fossil of a beetle.

  “Have a look at them all under the magnifying glass, Edith,” he said once they had a small collection on the ground in front of them. “And then to be scientific, we need to draw them, add a map of where exactly we found them and describe each one with the date and time of the find. I’ve brought a notebook and pencils in my saddlebag.”

  Edith set too with pleasure while George smoked his pipe and arranged a small picnic.

  Once Edith had finished drawing the fossils and making a small map, then writing some notes about them they sat and enjoyed their picnic.

  “I wish we could find the skeleton of a really big animal,” Edith said at last. “Little things are interesting, but big things are better.”

  George laughed. “Not always, Princess. In science it is sometimes the very small things that matter most. The world that you can see under a microscope is often where the great discoveries are to be made. That is what clever scientists like Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch have discovered. There are little creatures that we call germs that cause all sorts of disease. And you would be surprised at what you can see down a microscope.”

  He swatted an insect that had been honing in on him as he ate. Then with a laugh he leaned over and drew out a brass field microscope that he always kept with him.

  “Look, let’s have a look at this little creature.” He put the insect on a glass slide then slid it under the lens of the microscope and adjusted first the mirror to illuminate it and then the focus to see the insect’s head.

  Edith peered down through the lens. “Goodness, Daddy, it has the most huge eyes.”

  “That’s right, dear. In comparison to the size of its head and its brain, the eyes are colossal. They can see in almost all directions, which is why it is so difficult to catch one – unless you are as fast as me!”

  Edith laughed. “Why did you become a doctor instead of a teacher, Daddy? You are so good at it. I think you’d be as good a teacher as you are a doctor.”

  George felt that familiar pang of guilt. At the moment he was going through one of the inevitable periods of self-doubt about his doctoring skills. He hadn’t been able to save his friend Doctor John Handy, or do anything for Katherine his own wife.

  “I don’t know, Princess, life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect it to. All in all I think I am probably more use as a doctor than I would be as a teacher.”

  “When can I go back to school, Daddy? I miss my friends and I think they would stop me thinking about Mama.” Her eyes welled up and George reached out and drew her to him.

  “I understand, Princess. I miss your mama, too.” He hugged her reassuringly and let her weep. But her tears did not last long, for she had a toughness that was undoubtedly inherited from George’s side of the family.

  “Couldn’t I go to school here in Tombstone for a while? Carrie Bagg goes and we are really good friends.”

  George stroked her head. “I’ll see what I can do, Princess.”

  * * *

  They returned to the ranch house by mid afternoon, where George left Edith to bombard Stella with information about fossils and geology as she showed her the fossil collection and her drawings.

  Dan Legg had arranged everything according to George’s instructions and so, after collecting his Navy Colt and his Winchester rifle, some ammunition and a carpetbag that he had brought from Tombstone, George drove towards the distant pinewoods where he knew he would be alone and left undisturbed. Dan had thought it odd that his employed had wanted the pig carcass loading onto the wagon again, yet he knew better than to question him. It was good enough for him to know that he was ‘experimenting’.

  Twenty minutes later George jumped down from the wagon and lifted out the pig carcass. He carried it over to the base of a tall pine and propped it against it. Then he brought the bag over and from it pulled out a number of his wife’s old silk blouses.

  “I know that you wouldn’t mind me using these, Katherine,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. “This is in the cause of science.”

  He dressed the carcass in two blouses, one on top of the other, then added a third, but only on one side, letting the other half hang down behind it. Finally, he draped another over its head.

  He took out a notebook and jotted down details about the date and time. Then he wrote:

  Head - single layer

  Right side – two layers

  Left side – three layers

  He went back to the wagon and took out the Winchester and laid it against the wheel while he strapped on his gun belt and Navy Colt.

  Then from the pig carcass he paced out respectively, thirty, sixty and 120 feet.

  The wind had been changing and he cursed as he felt the pattering of gentle rain.

  “Well, I guess Edith and I were lucky this morning. After all, Huachuca means ‘place of thunder’. If it gets up and starts thundering it will tone down the noise I’m about to make.”

  And starting at the most distant mark, he began firing with his Winchester. He aimed carefully and shot at the head, then at the right side and the left side of the torso, firing a shot at both chest and abdomen.

  And as he suspected it would, the thunder started to peel out, followed by an occasional flash of lighting.

  He ignored it, for in a way he had always found thunder and lightning somewhat exhilarating. He moved forward and fired his Colt at the same targets, from sixty and then thirty feet.

  “Well, let’s see the damage.” He drew out a small wooden case containing some surgical instruments.

  As he expected the rifle bullets made the most mess. The shot to the head blew a hole straight through the blouse and through the whole head, yet even then, when he withdrew the bullet with a pair of forceps from the tree trunk behind he found that it was covered in a remnant of silk. The shot to the right side of the torso had penetrated to the chest cavity, but had not ripped the blouse. The three layers on the left side, were still intact, although the bullet had lodged in the thick muscle.

  Then he compared the bullets from the Colt.

  “Pig tissue is pretty similar to human flesh,” he mused to himself. “And the shots from the Colt speak for themselves. With three layers it would hurt like hell, but a man would have a good chance of not receiving a fatal wound.”

  The rain stopped as rapidly as it had started, making his job of extracting bullets easier.

  Then he drew a diagram of the pig with a grid next to it. He filled in all the details.

  “There is definitely something worth following up on here. It will take more work, but I believe that a vest that is proof against bullets is possible. Maybe have two or three layers with a leather layer inside, like those quilted gambesons that soldiers and knights wore in medieval days. It would certainly make my life as a surgeon in these parts a bit easier.”

  He then methodical
ly checked each bullet wound and counted each bullet, just as he would do with surgical instruments, swabs or sutures during an operation in case he left something inside a wound.

  He was surprised to find that there was one more bullet hole than he expected. It had gone straight through the pig’s throat, clearly having struck where he had left the neck exposed. He dug it out of the trachea.

  Suddenly, he had the feeling that he was not entirely alone. He spun around, and ducked low, his Navy Colt in his hand at the ready.

  But there was no one there.

  Chapter 8

  ANY KIND OF GAME

  The next day George left Edith and Stella to amuse themselves at the Snake Ranch and headed off to check on his interests in the Providencia Gold Mine. He employed three miners there, all good experienced men who took a pride in their work. He made the trip at least twice a year, in order to show his interest and to make sure that he wasn’t just throwing money at a useless venture.

  Mining was in George’s blood, for his father had often taken him as a youngster to see the various mines that he was responsible for. By the age of ten he knew and could identify all of the different types of ore for gold, silver and lead.

  It was fortunate that he had chosen that very time to visit the mine, for the three men were all ill.

  “Sorry we ain’t working, Doc,” said Sam Page, the oldest of the three, a bushy-bearded veteran of half a dozen minefields and the nominal mine boss. “All three of us have had bellyache and the runs for two days.”

  “And I’ve been as sick as a dog that ate its own tail,” volunteered Ed Zimmerman, an equally hirsute man of about George’s age.

  “I only stopped being sick this morning, sir,” said Flynn O’Brien, the youngest of the three and the only one who sported a mustache without a beard. “I reckon we’ll not be eating any more Rattler stew.”

  All three were in their own beds in three corners of the cabin they shared. The other corner was taken up with a pot-bellied stove and their table and chairs.

  George examined them in turn, washing his hands each time. “You have all still got gurgling abdomens. What makes you think it was rattlesnake stew that did it?”

  Sam scratched his beard. “It started the night that we ate it.”

  “Have you had it before?”

  “Sure we have, sir,” said Flynn. “Whenever we can catch one we give it a go. We’ll give just about any creature a try.”

  “The thing is that it was tasty,” Ed added. “Have you ever had it, Doctor?”

  “I have,” George replied. “I like it with onions and lots of thyme. Tastes like fishy chicken.”

  Ed’s eyes rolled and he clutched his stomach. “Gah! I still feel sick thinking about it, Doctor.”

  “Although,” George went on, “Roast rattlesnake with garlic is my favorite way. Curiously, that seems to taste more like game.”

  Ed clapped a hand over his mouth, shot out of bed and charged out towards the distant privy.

  George grinned. “I’m going to leave you all a bottle of kaolin and morphine to settle your stomachs and stop the runs. I’ll also leave a bottle of bismuth for Ed to stop his vomiting.”

  “You are a gentleman, Doc,” said Sam. “I am sorry that none of us are able to show you around the mine this time.”

  “I’ll have a look by myself. How is it going?”

  “It is going well, Doc.”

  “Well enough to keep paying you all?” George said with a smile as he prepared the bottles of medicine from his G W Elliott medical saddlebags.

  “Ha! And enough to keep turning you a healthy profit, sir,” chipped in the ever good humored Flynn.

  “Except not so healthy this time, eh?”

  “Maybe it was the rattler that wasn’t too well, sir?”

  Ed returned, his face ashen. With a nod at George he dived back under his blankets.

  “On another matter,” George went on. “Have any of you seen Red Douglas?”

  “Ah, we heard about the fracas you had with him, Doc,” said Sam. “He came back, had a fight with one of the Polish miners and almost killed him. Knocked him out.”

  “Why?”

  “He was cross because Jarek Majewski was making fun at him. He was whistling while he talked,” said Flynn. “It was a good imitation of how the big Scot sounds now. Did you really make that hole in his throat, Doctor Goodfellow, sir?”

  “I did and it saved his life.”

  Sam shook his head. “That isn’t how he sees it, Doc. He was shouting around the camp that he was going to get even with you sometime.”

  “Is he about?”

  Flynn shook his head. “After he knocked Jarek out he gathered his stuff and lit out of the place.”

  George nodded. The image of the pig carcass with the slug in its throat immediately presented itself to him. During the thunder it was just possible that an extra shot had actually been fired. Maybe he had bent down at the moment it was fired. Maybe he was lucky not to have received a bullet through his own neck. And even if he had been wearing a silk bandana, he knew that wouldn’t have saved him.

  “Anything wrong, Doc?” Sam asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  George gave a short laugh. He realized he was probably just letting his imagination run away with itself. “No boys, there’s nothing wrong. Everything is just fine.”

  * * *

  George was pleased to get back to Tombstone and resume his practice. He was particularly pleased to see that Edith had enjoyed herself and been enthused by their fossil hunting. She had occupied herself when he was visiting the mine by making further sketches of plants, grubs and insects viewed through George’s magnifying glass.

  Although Dr. Henry Matthews had covered his practice while he was away, people having being directed to the other physician’s office by a notice pinned under his shingle, yet judging by the crowd in his waiting room when he opened his afternoon surgery, many patients had preferred to wait for him to return.

  First in to see him was the well known China Mary, a rotund Chinese lady who ran a labor agency that supplied Chinese workers to do virtually any kind of manual laboring job, from house-keeping to hefting ore onto wagons, removing dead horses or clearing privies. She ran several laundries, a general store and a restaurant and gambling hall.

  She was a pretty, rotund lady who always wore traditional Chinese dress.

  “I need your help, Doctor. The usual trouble.”

  Which meant she needed help with her hemorrhoids and constipation. George felt flattered that she came to him with it rather than seeing one of the handful of Chinese doctors who offered traditional Chinese medicine. She found his rectal ointment and enemas more effective and less unpleasant.

  After her he saw a couple of doves from one of the bordellos for some of the intimate problems that they accepted as an occupational risk. And he also saw several men who had male problems that had likely been the result of visiting the same bordellos.

  Mrs. Fiona Parker the librarian returned to see him with her conjunctivitis. She was a handsome woman in her late twenties, dressed conservatively as suited a librarian and part time teacher. She had corn-yellow hair, coral blue eyes and full lips. She was a widow of two years; her husband having died from gastro-enteritis during a particularly virulent epidemic in Tombstone.

  Her eyes still looked bloodshot.

  “I am afraid that the borax eyewash that you gave me the other day hasn’t helped at all, Doctor.”

  George nodded and picked up his Helmholtz ophthalmoscope, an instrument consisting of a handle with a lens and an attached angle mirror. He adjusted the mirror to reflect the sunlight onto the eye, which he then looked at through the lens.

  “Hmm, the pupils are working well, so there is no inflammation inside the eyes. This is definitely just a case of conjunctivitis, Mrs. Parker.”

  “Can you give me anything else to help it?”

  George went over to his medicine cabinet and took out a small oin
tment container. “I have an excellent remedy here. It is an eye ointment of my own invention consisting of one part citron and four parts spermaceti. I’d like you to smear a little on each eyelid three times a day. And keep using the borax eyewash night and morning.”

  “And is there anything you can give me for being so tired?”

  George smiled. “And what is making you feel so tired? The library or the school?”

  She smiled demurely. “A bit of both, I think. But I love both jobs. I love books and I enjoy imparting what little knowledge I have to the children.”

  “Well, you are not anemic, Mrs. Parker. I suggest that you try some beef tea. Have it twice a day.”

  She nodded. “Of course! I should have thought of that myself. Mrs. Beeton herself recommends that?”

  “Mrs. Beeton? I don’t think I know the lady.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I meant Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. It is a book, the very best book ever written in my opinion. I use it to teach the children, especially the girls.”

  “I shall have to ask my housekeeper about it. I am sure she will have heard about it.”

  “Oh please do. And if she would like a copy I can put one aside at the library for her.”

  Once she had gone George washed his hands and reflected about the irony of the different lives of some of his patients. Some of the doves he had seen were intelligent and talented women. Some were entertainers who through circumstance had been forced to sell their feminine charms simply in order to buy food. On the other hand there was Fiona Parker, enjoying her work in the library and school. They seemed worlds apart, yet the fact was that the bordellos had to be licensed to stay open and operate. Those license fees went a long way in paying for both the library and the Tombstone School.

  Stanley C. Bagg was next in, along with his daughter Carrie.

  Like her father, Carrie was small for her age. She was eleven years old, just like Edith, and like Stanley she also had weak eyesight and had to wear spectacles. But she one of the most cheerful little girls he ever knew and had a perpetual smile that lifted your spirits just to see her.