13
Once they had Teddy at the undertakers,
Doctor Morelli set to work on him, and discovered that Abe Todd’s
slug had taken him right through the heart. This explained the lack
of blood flow to Jason, anyway. Abe didn’t seem as if he much
cared, one way or another, because all he said after Morelli made
his announcement was, “So now we only got Davis to fret
about.”
He didn’t even bother to turn around.
He just stood by the window, amid stacks of chairs and tables and
other things (the undertaker also being the town’s furniture
maker), and stared out into the street.
“We need to get back over to the
office,” Jason said, lifting his eyes from the corpse. It really was a shame, he was thinking. Teddy Gunderson had his whole life ahead of him, but he’d
chosen to throw it away. He shook his head. He turned to Doc
Morelli, who was washing his hands in the basin. “You’ll wait for
the undertaker, Doc?”
Morelli shook water droplets from his
hands, then picked up a towel. “That I will, but he’d best hurry. I
need to get up to see Solomon and Rachael’s baby.”
“How is she, anyway?”
“Not good, the last time I saw
her.”
“Whole town’s prayin’ for her, Doc.”
Well, most of it was, anyway.
Morelli nodded. “Let’s hope it
helps.”
Jason and Abe crossed the street, went
into the office, and took seats on either side of the desk before
they realized they had company. Rafe Lynch sat on a bunk in the
first cell. His head was hanging down, and Jason said,
“Rafe?”
Rafe looked up. “’Fraid so. Heard the
shot and figured it might be a good idea to get my butt over here.
Was I right?”
“You were.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Rafe Lynch,
meet—”
Rafe stood up and Abe turned toward
him. “Abe Todd!” He broke out into a big grin. “Spiders and snakes,
it’s been a coon’s age!” He walked toward them. Abe stood up and
met him in the middle of the floor, and they pounded each other’s
backs like long-lost friends instead of a marshal and an outlaw,
Jason thought. He found himself on his feet, too.
“Hold your horses!” he said, breaking
up the gabfest. “What’s goin’ on?”
Rafe, still grinning, said, “Why, me
and Abe, here, are old buddies!”
“Knowed him since he was in diddies,”
Abe said.
“Thanks for admittin’ how much older’n
me you are.”
“You better watch your step, you punk
kid!” Abe joked.
Rafe gave him a friendly punch in the
arm.
I don’t need
this, Jason was thinking. He was becoming more confused by
the hour about where the line between good and evil lay. And he was
beginning to think that Jenny was right. Maybe he should just go across the street to the boardinghouse
and put a slug between Davis’s eyes. It’d sure make things easier.
Maybe the citizens should vote in a new marshal, too. Like, for
instance, Rafe. That’d be about their speed.
Abe said, “Grab a chair, Rafe. Let’s
all sit down and take a load off. All right, Jason?”
Jason lowered himself back down without
replying.
Seated across from him, Abe said,
“Jason, you look like somebody just stole your boat.”
The analogy was lost on Jason, who’d
never lived on the water in his life, but he let it pass. “You two
just boggle my mind, that’s all. I mean, you just killed a man,
Abe, and when we got him to the undertaker’s, you didn’t pay him a
bit of attention. And then when we came across Rafe, here—an outlaw
of the first order—you treat him like your long-lost
kin!”
“He prob’ly wasn’t much help at the
undertaker’s ‘cause he can’t stand the sight of blood,” said Rafe.
“And where the hell’s the third chair?”
Jason poked a thumb over his shoulder
toward the place where he’d shoved his chair’s
remains.
“Hell, that ain’t no chair,” said Rafe
with a grunt of disgust. “That’s kindlin’!”
Dr. Morelli finally left the
undertaker’s and headed up the street to the mercantile, this time
taking care to switch to the other side of the street before he
came to the alley. Once bitten, twice shy,
he told himself, and stopped to take a long look into the mouth of
it before he dared pass.
He’d been fretting about Solomon and
Rachael’s baby all night and all day yesterday, too. He’d gotten
down his old textbooks and read everything he could on heart
problems, and on the very young, but he still couldn’t make heads
or tails of it. He just knew that there was something wrong,
something wrong inside, something that made a “whoosh” when it
should have made a solid “thump.” She was too thin, and acted
listless. And Rachael had told him that the baby hardly cried at
all.
All of which was the wrong kind of news
to hear about a newborn. He didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all.
And the poor Cohens! If this baby died, he didn’t know that Solomon
would retain his sanity. Rachael was the stronger of the two. She
would suffer, but she’d be all right. But Morelli didn’t know that
Solomon could stand to bury another child. He had changed his name
mere months after the last boy died. What would he change it to
this time?
Morelli shook his head and opened the
mercantile’s door to that damned little jingling bell. It sounded
far too happy for the home upstairs. Solomon was there to greet
him.
“Morning, Solomon,” he said. “Just
dropped by to check on little Sarah.”
Solomon looked relieved. “Glad you
could make it, Doctor. We heard a lot of hubbub on the street,
earlier.” He began leading Morelli back toward the
stairs.
“Yes. It was all rather strange. Some
man—someone I’ve never heard of—tried to gun down Father Clayton
and myself from that alley, over by Milcher’s church. A U.S.
Marshal came from out of nowhere and shot him before he could shoot
us. All very odd, very odd. And rather sad, too.”
As they began to climb the stairs,
Solomon said, “It’s a day for odd things, my friend.”
Morelli was confused until he heard the
sounds of a baby. Crying! “Is that Sarah?!” he asked,
amazed.
“It is, indeed,” replied Solomon, who
had arrived on the landing. He waited for the stupefied Morelli to
catch up to him, and then pointed to Rachael, who was sitting in
their rocking chair, trying to calm the infant.
“Hello,” she said to Morelli with tears
in her big brown eyes—but they were happy tears, not tears of
heartbreak. “I’m thinking she’s better.”
Back at the marshal’s office, Abe and
Rafe had just left to go have a drink or two at the saloon and
catch up on old times, when Salmon Kendall came through the door.
Before Jason had a chance to greet him, Salmon said, “Jason, I
believe we’ve solved our water problem!”
Jason blinked. “What water
problem?”
Salmon cocked his head and said, “Oh,
c’mon. You remember last summer, don’t you?”
Jason did indeed. The whole town had
suffered for weeks when both the creek and the well had run dry.
They lost livestock and nearly lost some citizens, too, before a
wagon train came through and saved their (by then, quite smelly)
carcasses. He nodded, and said, “So what’s your
solution?”
“We’re going to build a water
tower.”
Now, neither Fury nor its citizens had
the cash or wood or labor it would take to erect such a structure,
and he warily told the same to Salmon.
“That’s why we need to use your
office,” came the reply.
“You’re going to turn my office into a
water tower?”
“No, no!” Salmon laughed. “We’re going
to have a meeting to pick the men who’ll go up into the Bradshaws
to cut down and mill the wood. We’ve got plenty of tar, don’t we?
And more on the way?”
Jason nodded. “There’s always more on
the way.” Had Salmon lost his mind?
As if reading Jason’s thoughts, Salmon
said, “Don’t go thinkin’ I’ve got bats crowdin’ into my belfry,
Jason. We know what we’re doin’.”
And so Jason came to be thrown out of
his office on that morning while he watched the town elders slowly
file in.
“You’re the jokers who made me
marshal,” he said under his breath as he turned on his heel and
crossed the street, headed for the saloon. Muttering, “I might’s
well have a drink with Abe and Rafe while I’m in here,” he pushed
through the doors, figuring he deserved one after what he’d been
through this morning.
“Please, Doctor, say again that you
aren’t fooling with us,” Rachael said.
She appeared both anxious and
thunderstruck. Morelli didn’t blame her, for he felt much the same
way. “No, Rachael, I’m not fooling. I don’t understand why, but she
seems much improved from yesterday. We’re not out of the woods yet,
but I think we have a good chance of making it.”
Rachael scooped the squalling infant up
from the table where Morelli had been examining her, and hugged her
to her breast.
“Thank you, Doctor, and you should
pardon me, but thanks should be to God as well!” She snuggled the
child closer and Morelli could hear her whisper, “Sarah, oh, my
little Sarah, praise Jehovah for your life! Praise Him for all good
things!” Slowly, with a huge grin on her face, she sank down into
the rocking chair while she murmured to the baby.
Solomon shook Morelli’s hand, and shook
his hand until he thought it might drop off! “Easy there, Solomon,”
he said at last, and Solomon let his hand go free.
“Sorry, Doctor,” he said, a little
ashamedly.
Morelli clasped him by the shoulder.
“Your wife’s right. You shouldn’t be thanking an old country
doctor. You should be sending your thanks to God. He’s the only
explanation for this.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything
like it in my life. Well,” he added, “I’ll stop by tomorrow to see
how she’s coming along, all right?”
Solomon walked him down the stairs,
asking only three more times about the baby. Yes, Morelli was sure,
and yes, she was better, and no, it wasn’t his
imagination.
Morelli finally left the mercantile,
but he was walking a little taller. Thank You,
Lord, he said in his mind. Thank You for
watching, for paying attention, and for harkening to their words.
Amen and amen.
He went not toward his home and his
office, but out to the wagon train once more. And while he walked
down the line of wagons, he said another little prayer, in his
thoughts, for poor Frank Saulk, the man who had been hit by a
saguaro arm before the wagons came to Fury. His wounds had been
complicated by his wife’s failure to get out all the spines,
although he couldn’t blame her. Most of what was left, peppering
the back, was invisible to the eye and had to be felt
for.
He didn’t suppose a screaming husband
was the best patient, either.
He screeched when Morelli did it, too,
but Morelli hoped to get the last of them out today.
If he didn’t, Frank Saulk would
die.
When he got there, Frank was dozing
fitfully in the back of the wagon, and his missus (who’d said,
“Call me Eliza”) was off to the side, tending to a fire which
looked like it had just been kindled. He greeted her, and proceeded
to stick his head in the back of the wagon.
“Frank? Frank, are you awake?” he said,
even though he knew Frank was conscious. He didn’t like surprising
people, especially patients on their deathbeds.
Frank lifted his head and cranked it
around. “Yeah,” he said, as if from another dimension. “Mornin’,
Doc.”
Morelli climbed up into the wagon and
squatted beside Frank. He hadn’t seen their children. Perhaps their
mother had sent them off to play. He asked Frank how he was
feeling, and Frank just made a face.
Morelli could see why. Frank’s back was
an angry red and purple thing, almost a monster apart from the rest
of him, and as septic as anything Morelli had ever seen, aside from
some amputees during the War—some amputees who had later died. He
smelled of death, too. Not a good sign.
“All right, Frank. I’m going to try to
dig out the last few spines today, and then we’re going to see if
we can’t clean up some of the pus. All right?”
“Whatever,” Frank muttered, and said no
more.
Morelli began to go to
work.
Meanwhile, Salmon Kendall was closing
the meeting of the town elders, officially known as the Town
Council. The men were on their feet and a few of them had already
left when Salmon said, “Somebody should tell Solomon, up at the
mercantile. You want me to do it?”
The other men (having heard and in some
cases, whispered} about the Cohens’ sick newborn, were leery of
setting foot in a house of sorrow, and all agreed. They would have
Salmon do what they were afraid to.
When they had all filed out, he walked
up the street and pushed open the jangling mercantile door.
Surprisingly, he found Solomon in good spirits—very good, in
fact.
“Solomon?” he said. “The baby’s
better?”
“Oy, my friend Salmon!” Solomon
effused, arms held wide as if to engulf the entire town—or possibly
the entire world. Salmon couldn’t be sure, but he backed up a step.
Solomon didn’t seem to notice.
“She is much improved!” he went on.
“The doctor was here, and said she has a good chance now, but I
know better. God will not allow her to die.
She is beyond harm, a blessed child!”
Salmon hoisted his brows. “And you know
this because . . . ?”
“Because I know, that is why,” Solomon
said, and that was that. Or at least, Salmon took it that way.
Sometimes, he had learned, Solomon was intractable once he got the
bit in his teeth, which he seemed to have achieved
now.
He moved on to more pressing things. He
said, “The council just held a meeting. Sorry we didn’t call for
you, but things have been pretty rough up here, and . .
.”
“You didn’t wish to bother
me?”
“Exactly. Anyway, we’re going ahead
with the water tower. I’ve got volunteers to go up north into the
Bradshaws to get the wood, and I’ll start making a list today of
men to do the building and the tarring of it.”
Solomon considered this. “It will have
to be very strong indeed if we have another storm like we had the
other night. Can we make it that solid? And where did you decide to
put it?”
“Yes, it’ll be strong, Solomon. We have
plans to use reinforced crossbars on the legs and tie-downs. And I
believe the weight of the water will hold it in
place.”
“God willing.”
“Exactly. And you know that empty lot a
couple door downs from the marshal’s office? The plan is to put in
there. It’s centrally located so that everybody will have equal
access to the water.”
Solomon’s brow wrinkled. “No one owns
this lot?”
“Not a soul. Like most of Fury, it’s a
land grab.” Salmon laughed at his own joke, but Solomon remained
thoughtful.
“And the council members agree to all
of this?”
Salmon nodded.
Hunching his shoulders, Solomon raised
his palms into the air. “So be it, then.”
“Drink to it?”
Solomon smiled. He felt like having a
drink just to celebrate the good news about Sarah, anyway. “So be
it,” he announced, and marched over to the drawer where he kept a
decanter of red wine, and also a whiskey bottle. He picked up the
latter and held it out. Smiling, Salmon smacked his
lips.
Solomon poured out two whiskeys. “To
all good things which come from God,” he said.
“Imagine the fellers who go up to get
the wood’ll have a little problem with that. You know, thinkin’
it’ll all come from courage and muscle and dumb luck. And later,
they’ll attribute it to wisdom and foresight and a staggering
knowledge of lumbering skills. Perspective’s funny that way. But
I’ll drink to the Lord’s help, by God. May He bless this
endeavor!”
Solomon raised his glass. “L’chaim!”
They clinked their glasses together,
tossed back their drinks, and grinned.
About a quarter mile outside of town,
Ezra Welk crouched on the brushy desert beside his grazing horse
and slowly shook his head while absently scratching at his neck.
What the hell had happened here, anyway? There hadn’t been a
blessed living thing here, aside from the usual snakes and
bug-critters, the last time he was through! But now, it seemed like
somebody had not only built a good-sized stockade—and chopped down
practically every single tree that had once lined the bank of the
creek—but had sent to California for a wagon train.
At least, that was what was parked
along the stockade’s southern wall. He assumed it was the same
wagon train whose path he’d been following for the past few
days.
At long last, he stood up and mounted
his horse, having decided, after a long internal debate, to go
ahead and ride in, to see what the hell was really going on. Just
as well, because just as he settled down into the saddle and got
his reins adjusted, a big, ugly dog near the wagons spotted him and
began to bark. He would have just shot the damned thing, but it was
on the end of a rope or something, and the other end looked to be
held by a lanky kid.
“Get you later, dawg,” he muttered, and
moved his hand away from his holster. For the time being,
anyhow.
Ezra Welk didn’t make promises he
didn’t keep.
He moved his horse ahead, down the
gentle slope, and toward the stockade.