“Swore you weren’t coming back, Eric,” said Mathias. “I wouldn’t have been so stupid.”
The doctor at once knelt down beside Blue. The joints of his knees popped. It took him hardly a moment before he said, with what Lawson thought was a Scandinavian accent, “It’s bad. Let’s get her up on the bar, ya?”
“And smear blood all over my bartop?” Cantrell’s temper flared again. “Hell no, Fossie, leave her where she is!”
“Up on the bar,” the doctor repeated, with admirable grace under pressure. “Now,” he insisted.
“You two.” Lawson motioned at Mathias and Presco with the Colt’s business end. “Do it, quick.”
“I don’t think we will,” came the half-jeering reply. “You won’t—”
The vampire slapped Mathias across the face so hard with his free hand that the man’s eyes almost burst from his head. It was just a fraction of Lawson’s strength, and he was hardpressed to hold back so as not to rip the melon from its stalk. At full tilt, when he had to, Lawson could likely knock down a horse or kick a stagecoach onto its side, thus even the small matter of shaking a man’s hand was a challenge.
A thread of blood drooled from Mathias’s lower lip. He was going to have a black bruise in the shape of a hand on his right cheek and his right eye would be swelling shut. The smell of this new blood did nothing for Lawson’s disposition. He grabbed a handful of Mathias’s hair, jerked the head back and nearly shoved the Colt’s barrel up a nostril. Pure terror put a gleam of phantom light in the man’s eyes.
“Yes sir, movin’,” said Keene Presco. The rusty sawblade voice skreeched and scratched. “Movin’, sir.” He was already bending down to get Blue’s legs.
Lawson put his face right in Mathias’s. He let the man get a close glimpse of the vampire, as if releasing that most vile part of himself for just an instant. He knew the crimson cat-shine at the center of his eyes and the briefest impression of a lower jaw thrusting forward to unhinge itself would be enough. He added, in a nearly inaudible whisper, “There are worse thingsssss than death.”
The next sound was that of liquid spattering onto Mathias’s boots. Lawson could smell the beer in it.
The man shuddered. Tears surfaced in his eyes. For some reason Lawson doubted this man had cried since he was six years old. Lawson released him, and Mathias made a whimpering sound and scurried over to help Presco.
When Blue was up on the bar the doctor went to work, opening his bag and bringing out wads of cotton and a pair of wicked-looking forceps. The wound was visible above the gown’s neckline, which was gore-soaked and no longer anywhere near blue. The doctor checked her heartbeat with a stethoscope. Blue began to moan again, and her body trembled and shivered. Her hands came up to claw at the bullet-hole.
“Keep her hands down, please,” said Fossie, whose real name Lawson figured was a Nordic jawbreaker. Without being asked Mathias and Presco did the job.
“What about me?” Johnny Rebinaux called from his slumped posture on the floor. His accent was grits-and-cornbread Southern. South Georgia, Lawson figured. “I’m bleedin’ to death over here, ain’t nobody gonna hep’ me?”
“Someone pour me a big glass of whiskey. Strongest you’ve got, ya?” said the doctor, Cantrell went behind the bar and obliged, pouring a glass from a fresh bottle labelled Black Lightning. Fossie soaked a wad of cotton in the dark caramel-colored potion and cleaned the wound as much as he could. Blue was thankfully out once more and made no sound. Then Fossie put the forceps in the whiskey.
“This pain may cause her to come around. I’m going to probe for the bullet. It’s so near her heart…yet her heartbeat is still strong, for the moment. Hold her, please.”
Eric moved in to help. Which was good, because in the next few seconds as the forceps entered the wound Blue began to buck and fight with extraordinary strength. It took all of Mathias, Presco and Eric to keep her down. Though Blue’s eyes were still closed the trauma of pain wracked her face, causing the muscles to jump in her cheeks and jaw. Fossie worked with a careful and patient hand, silent in his concentration.
“Can you find it?” Eric asked, but Fossie didn’t reply.
At last the bloody forceps was withdrawn from the wound. It was empty.
Blue stopped fighting. She lay still, but she yet drew her breath in shallow whispers.
“The bullet,” said Fossie, “is lodged beside the right atrium. I can’t get hold of it without causing further damage.”
“But you can remove it in your surgery, can’t you?” Lawson asked.
“My surgery?” Fossie gave him a crooked and rather sad smile. “My barn, would be a better description. My efforts are limited by my circumstances and surroundings, sir. Not only does she need a surgical specialist, she needs a transfusion of blood. I don’t have the instruments or facilities for such procedures.”
“What are you saying? You’re giving up on her?”
Fossie pushed his spectacles up on his nose with a bloody finger. “Sir, it’s a wonder she’s still alive. Although…I would give her only a few hours before her heart…as a layman would say…gives out.”
“Then do something! The best you can!”
“My best,” the doctor replied, “would be to pack the wound, go to the telegraph office and inform the hospital at Helena that a female gunshot victim is on the way. They would have a medical wagon ready at the station.”
“The station?” Lawson was usually as sharp as a new razor, but all this perfume of gore in the air had him dazed.
“Of course. The road from here to Helena would be impassible.”
“All right. You’ll take her?”
“I cannot. There’s nothing more I can do for her except keep her sleeping. And to leave here…what if I’m needed by someone I can actually help? No, I’m sorry. I can’t take her.”
“But we can, Mr. Lawson,” said Eric. “The train’s going to Helena. They can meet us with the wagon as soon as we get there.”
Lawson had already considered this. It was the right thing to do, but the blood smell…it taunted him, it stirred the restless and horrifying currents within him, it made him want to drink, made him want to…
As LaRouge had told him, in the half-flooded mansion in Nocturne…learn to be a god.
Lawson lowered his face. He feared that his desires were showing, and also his struggle.
“If she’s going to live until morning,” Fossie said, “she’ll have to get to that hospital.”
“What about me?” Rebinaux squalled. “My hand ain’t worth a Yankee’s promise!”
“Stop whining,” the doctor told him. “There’s nothing wrong with you a bonesaw won’t cure.”
“We’ve got to get her where she needs to go,” said Eric, speaking to his savior. “Forget these three. We can’t let her die!”
Lawson looked up from the blood and the sawdust, because it was time for a decision. “You’re right. But forget these three? No. Doctor, will you send the telegraph message?”
“I will. First…” He turned his attention to Eric. “Jacob’s closed his store by now. Go get him. Tell him we need two blankets and something to carry her on. He might have a stretcher, I don’t know. Tell him to put it on my bill.”
“Yes sir,” said Eric, and he was off again.
“I’ll pack her wound and then I’ll see to you,” Fossie told Rebinaux. “Make any more noise and I may have to cut off a few fingers.”
“Take off your gunbelts,” Lawson said to Mathias and Presco. “Drop them easy. Then sit down at that table and be still.” He pointed with his Colt where he wanted them to settle, and they obeyed him as if indeed he already had reached godhood, or something nearly like it. Deuce Mathias kept staring at the floor and running his hands over his face as if trying to wake himself up from a bad dream.