West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels
Page 79
He shook his head. “So you see, it could be much worse than we believed. Suppose those biscuits that Fiona kept sending Esme via Carlton, which Esme may have become dependent on, were made with arsenic in them.”
“Good grief! I see what you mean. You mean that Fiona Parker might have been the poisoner? But why should you think that?”
“I’m only speculating here, but she is a widow. She lost her husband to suspected gastro-enteritis during an epidemic a couple of years ago. Stanley, it is possible he died from arsenic poisoning. The symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning are exactly like gastro-enteritis.”
“Good Lord, George. We’ve got to tell Sheriff Kelton.”
George stared at his cold pipe. “There is another possibility, though.”He leaned closer and signaled for Stanley to do the same. “I am worried that –”
Suddenly, someone banged a bottle on the bar to attract everyone’s attention. They looked around to see an inebriated miner jump up on the counter.
“It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is,” he cried. “I know it, you know it and the whole town knows it. We’ve got us a man who tried to poison his wife over in the jail and he’s going to just walk away from what he deserves.”
“What does he deserve?” someone yelled.
“The rope!”
Murmurs of assent spread around the saloon
George looked worriedly at Stanley. “I thought this might happen.”
“What can we do, George. The mood of this crowd looks ugly and half of them are drunk already.”
“We’ve got to think and act fast, that’s what. You slip out and go tell the sheriff what is brewing, but don’t mention what we’ve just been talking about. If the same thing is happening in other saloons, then God help us. Carlton Levine is in grave danger of being lynched.”
“What are you going to do, George?”
“I’m going to get hold of Judge Robinson.”
They both left, unaware that someone in the crowd had been listening intently to them. They were also unaware that the eavesdropper was only a few paces behind as they emerged into the darkness.
Chapter 12
HELL’S DOOR
Carlton Levine was lying on the bunk in his cell when he became aware of the noise outside. It seemed to be more raucous than usual, as if some sort of Saturday night celebrations had stirred the town up. But then he heard a gunshot and the murmur of angry voices from a few streets away.
A footstep in the corridor between the sheriff’s office and the cells caused him to sit up.
“What’s going on?” he asked Deputy Bill Meade, a tall man in his late twenties.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Sheriff Kelton told me to let you know that he’s in the office himself and that you can have coffee when I get back.”
Carlton did not feel reassured by the news. Especially not when he had heard a gunshot.
* * *
George had gone across the street and started down an alley when he heard the explosion of a gunshot behind him. Then he heard a zing and felt a shooting pain on his cheek and a simultaneous fierce thump in his back that threw him forwards. He struggled to stay on his feet.
After all of the bullets he had dug out of men he had wondered what being shot would feel like. And now that he had, part of his mind immediately started analyzing what organs would be injured by a bullet hitting him in the right side of his back below the ribs. And there would not be anyone with his surgical skills to work on him.
His knees started to buckle and his hand went automatically to his back where he had been struck. In that moment he realized that there was no blood there. It felt dry, unlike the moistness on his right cheek, which he knew must be bleeding.
He could analyze it no further than that, for in that moment he heard a strange whistling cry and heard heavy footsteps racing at him from behind. To finish him off, he had no doubt.
“I’ll get you this time, you damned doctor from hell!”
George’s old boxing instincts rose to the surface. He forced his legs to hold up and he dodged to the left as he wheeled around, coming up with his fists ready.
The huge miner Red Douglas had swiped downwards with the old pistol that he had fired at George. The dodge had saved him, but George was well aware that the pistol could still do him great damage if he allowed Douglas to connect with him.
His head cleared and he ignored the pain in his back. He moved in and delivered two swift jabs to the miner’s chin. They caused Douglas’s head to snap back momentarily. Then with a whistling cry of rage he threw the pistol aside and launched himself at George with both fists flailing.
Anger in a boxing opponent was always a good sign, George knew. He never allowed himself to lose his temper in a fight, for once you did, you no longer had control over your actions. He was able to easily parry and block the miner’s blows, then went in with a jab to the chin and then by a straight right to the throat, aiming precisely at the tracheotomy hole.
Red Douglas winced and clutched his hands to his throat. He groaned in pain.
George followed up with another straight right to the stomach and then with a left uppercut to the chin.
The miner flew backwards to land in a crumpled heap.
George picked up the discarded pistol and threw it away.
“What’s going on here?” a voice called from the alley entrance.
George recognized it as belonging to Lance Brady, one of the town’s deputy marshals.
“This man is called Red Douglas. He just tried to shoot me,” George replied. “I’d appreciate it if you’d handcuff him and throw him in a cell.”
As the deputy obliged George pulled off his jacket and held it up to the moonlight. A bullet hole was visible.
He turned his back to the deputy. “Is there a wound in my back, Deputy?”
Lance Brady’s face registered surprise. “What are you made of, Doc. Iron? He reached up and pulled a metal slug from an indent in George’s back.
“It’s hot, but it didn’t go any further. Darnedest thing I ever saw.”
George was aware of the pain again, an area the size of a fist, as if he had been thumped by an iron glove worn by Red Douglas.
“Give me that, would you. I need to look at it later.”
Then it occurred to him that the zinging noise had been from a bullet ricocheting of the brick wall of a building before it had struck him in the back. A gouged out brick fragment must have scored his cheek.
He deposited the slug in his pocket and replaced his jacket. “I can’t stop, I have to get somewhere. “Do me a favor and don’t let this guy out until I get to see him.”
“You’ll be pressing charges, Doc?”
“You bet I will. But I’ll also want to make sure the big bear pays me for saving his life last time.”
Lance stood up. “I’d better see what all this noise is about, once I’ve locked him up,” he said. “It doesn’t sound healthy.”
“I think you are right there. And you know what mobs can do. I’d suggest that after you take care of him you get down to the County Sheriff’s office. There could be big trouble ahead.”
* * *
About half an hour later Sheriff C.B. Kelton and Deputy Bill Meade had stationed themselves on the steps outside the Cochise County Courthouse in readiness as the crowd noisily made its way down Third Street from Allen Street. There were several men at the front carrying lit torches and many firearms were in evidence.
“That’s far enough!” Sheriff Kelton called.“Whatever you men think you are about to do, you can think again.”
“We’re bringing justice to a poor woman!” someone cried.
‘There’s a murdering dog in that jail you’re protecting. He doesn’t deserve to live.”
“He needs hanging.”
Sheriff Kelton, raised his shotgun. “There will be no lynching in Tombstone! Now all of you, disperse before some of you get hurt.”
“You can’t take all of us,
Sheriff.”
“That gallows behind the courthouse is made for this purpose.”
“I said get back! This is the last warning.”
Suddenly, there was the loud clanging of a bell from further along Toughnut Street.
“Hold up, all of you!” cried out George Goodfellow. “Carlton Levine is innocent.”
Everyone looked around to see that the town doctor coming towards them, vigorously shaking the Tombstone School handbell. He was not alone. Judge James Robinson and Fiona Parker were walking on either side of him.
“What Doctor Goodfellow just said is true!” the judge cried out. “I have satisfied myself that this is the case and I have here a legal document calling for his immediate release.”
“Are you serious, judge?” one of the ringleaders asked.
“I am deadly serious and it is official. Now all of you, do as the Sheriff says, disperse and go to your homes.
There was much muttering and exclamations of astonishment and not a few of disappointment, but gradually the crowd turned and filtered away, to their homes or back to the various saloons.
Stanley Bagg came out of the Courthouse, a spare shotgun cradled in his arms. He saw Fiona Parker with George and the judge.
“What’s going on, George?” he asked in amazement.
“Exactly what I was about to ask,” said the sheriff.
“”We need to free Carlton and let Fiona here see him. I think they’ll both be pleased to see each other. But first, I have to give him some bad news.”
* * *
Carlton Levine was shocked to receive George’s news that his wife was dead.
He sat in Sheriff Kelton’s office, beside Fiona Parker. They were holding hands and staring at him as he recounted all that had happened. The sheriff, Stanley and the judge were also eager to have everything explained to them.
“Stanley and I worked out that you had sacrificed yourself, Carlton,” he said.
Carlton sighed. “I am hurting so much inside, right now.” He shook his head. “I don’t think anyone in Tombstone ever realized just what a vindictive woman my wife Esme was. I had tried to make her happy, but when I fell in love with Fiona, I think she determined to make me suffer.”
“That is how it seems, Carlton,” George agreed. “She had been slowly poisoning herself with arsenic for some weeks. And now, when she thought that she had achieved her aim, she took a final fatal dose. Judge Robinson and I found her dead in her bed this evening.”
Carlton squeezed Fiona’s hand. “When Doctor Goodfellow found arsenic in her system he naturally assumed that I had been trying to poison her,” he explained to her. “Then when the sheriff was there she implied to me that she was prepared to say that you had a hand in it, too, Fiona.”
“That is exactly the case,” George went on. “She had planned it all thoroughly, even to the point of including me in her web. She painstakingly made me aware that Fiona regularly sent her cinnamon and arrowroot biscuits, with a sprinkling of cinnamon on them. She fed them to Tabitha her cat in front of me. Then at some stage I believe she killed and probably buried the cat, so that if necessary she could imply that the poison was delivered to her in those biscuits.”
“Which is what you at first suspected, George,” Stanley said, as he lit one of his cigars.
“But then I also considered that there might be an alternative explanation. I was about to tell you, just before things flared up in the saloon. She had let me know that she knew about the liaison between you two.”
He explained his theory about chess, just as he had done to Stanley earlier in the saloon.
“If I was right in my supposition that she was playing chess with you, Carlton, then she had accepted your sacrifice. And if she had accepted that sacrifice, then that meant that she had another move to make if she needed to. That meant that she knew that you hadn’t poisoned her and it suggested to me that she knew who it was. Logically, it meant that it couldn’t be Fiona, because if she merely suspected that, she could eliminate her rival at one swift swoop. It left me with the conclusion that she knew it wasn’t Fiona, because she was actually poisoning herself.”
“This is all incredible,” said the sheriff.
“But it is true, I am afraid,” added the judge. “I don’t feel good about this, myself, since I had sentenced Mr. Levine to a life of misery. When Doctor Goodfellow came to my house and told me of his suspicions I went with him to the house. And that is where we found her, dead by her own hand.”
Carlton gasped and Fiona squeezed his hand. “I am so sorry, Carlton, my love.”
The judge removed a letter from his pocket. “I have kept this letter that she wrote to Doctor Goodfellow for my report. She knew that she was going to kill herself, so she was satisfied that she had achieved her aim. Doctor Goodfellow and I are of the same opinion that she probably wrote it this evening when she thought that a lynch mob would hang Mr. Levine. Then as soon as she had written it, she took her final, fatal dose of poison.” He handed the letter to George. “Would you care to explain?”
George opened the envelope and took out the letter. “I think if I just read it to you, it explains everything:
“Dear Doctor Goodfellow,
As you read this I expect that both I and my husband will be dead.
I apologize to you, most sincerely, for refusing your offers to operate on me, and to admit me to hospital. Neither was part of my plan, for you see, my life has been so miserable that I had decided to take my life.
I have known for some years that I have tumors on my womb. My last doctor diagnosed them as fibroids. He said that they would not harm me, but they would make it likely that I would never have children. That was the bitterest blow in my life.
My husband, as you now know, is in love with a trollop. I am sorry to have fooled you into thinking that I was ill with a malignancy, when it was actually from the small daily doses of arsenic I have been taking. In case you are interested, I obtained it from a supply of rat poison that we keep in the kitchen.
My husband believes that I planned to implicate his trollop. That is not necessary. I believe that the good people of Tombstone are about to end his miserable life very soon. And the misery that this causes her will be my gift to her for stealing him from me.
Yours most sincerely,
Esme Levine.”
He replaced the letter in the envelope and handed it back to Judge Robinson.
Fiona began to weep and Carlton comforted her.
“We will leave Tombstone, my love,” he said as he tried to comfort her.
“I have to say, I don’t know how to report this in The Epitaph,” Stanley said, as he stubbed out his cigar in an ashtray.
“There will have to be an official hearing,” Judge Robinson said. “Can I suggest that you hold back until then, considering the sensitivity of this matter?”
* * *
Later that evening, when George got home and explained everything to Stella as well as giving Edith a watered down version, he examined his back in the mirror in his bedroom. A large purple bruise had started to form over his back below the ribs. He looked at the multiple layers of silk that he had fashioned into a vest and that he had taken to wearing under his shirt.
A good thing that Red Douglas hadn’t used too much powder or it could have ended very differently for me tonight, he mused to himself. And a really good thing that he missed and I was only hit by a ricochet. If he had killed me then Carlton would probably have been hanged and the letter to him might never have been opened.
He made a mental note to himself to write a paper about his bulletproof vest.
He yawned. He suddenly felt tired. Very tired.
* * *
In October George received a formal invitation to join the Southern Pacific Railroad as their physician. It would mean a substantial amount of money and a move to Tucson.
He announced it to Stella and Edith over breakfast.
“Are we going to go, Daddy?” Edith asked.
“You will be badly missed in Tombstone,” Stella said. “People like Camillus Fly and Stanley Bagg will find life very dull without you.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I think life will always be exciting in a place like Tombstone. It’s a town that is just too tough to die.”
But although he didn’t tell them, his recent experience of being shot in the back, and only being saved by his bulletproof vest, had been instrumental in making his decision. He had no desire to end up in Tombstone’s Boothill Graveyard.
It was time to go.
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction based around events in the life of the very real Doctor George Emory Goodfellow (1855-1910), often known as the Surgeon to the Gunfighters. It is set in Tombstone, Arizona, where he practiced as a physician and surgeon from 1880 to 1891. During his years there, in ‘the town too tough to die’, he rubbed shoulders with such characters of the Wild West as Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil, Doc Holiday, Bat Masterton and Luke Short. He actually did treat the victims of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. And he regretted that he was unable to save his friend Dr. John Handy, as mentioned in this novel.
He was a truly pioneering surgeon. Throughout his career he established a reputation as the foremost expert on gunshot wounds, as well as being the first surgeon to perform a perineal prostatectomy along with other ‘first’ operations.
He wrote and published many medical papers in the journals of the day. His work on the impenetrability of silk would lead to the actual bulletproof vests of the future.
He was also a scientist, an expert in mining and geology. His research into Gila Monsters was published in The Scientific American. And in his youth he had been the boxing champion at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.