At least Frank Morgan was in town. It would be nice to sit and talk about old times with good ol’ Frank.
After leaving the undertaking parlor with Marshal Price, Frank said good-bye to the lawman and led Goldy toward the livery stable, with Dog padding along behind them. Patterson greeted the three of them with a friendly grin and set aside a wagon wheel hub he was greasing.
The liveryman grew more serious as he said, “Heard you found another fella in the woods who’d been unlucky enough to run into the Terror.”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. His body’s down at the undertaker’s. I’d be obliged if you’d go down there and take a look at it if you get a chance.”
“Me?” Patterson asked with a surprised frown. “Why me?”
“Because you have the best livery stable in town, from what I’ve seen, and probably a lot of strangers come here first when they get to Eureka. I’d like to know if you’ve seen this fella around, and more importantly, if you’ve seen him with anybody else.”
Patterson scratched at his close-cropped beard. “Well, I reckon that makes sense. Sure, I’ll mosey down there after a while and have a look. Can’t say as I’m real eager to take a gander at a corpse, though.”
“I don’t blame you for that,” Frank said.
He led Goldy into the stall where the horse had spent the night and started unsaddling him. When he returned to the forest this afternoon, he would take Stormy. Having two superb mounts enabled him to switch out between them and keep both horses fresher.
When he was finished with that chore, he walked back to the front of the barn. He had his bedroll in his hands.
“I’m hoping you can tell me who the best doctor in town is, if there’s more than one.”
Patterson looked surprised again. “You sick or hurt?”
“No, I just need to ask him a couple of questions.”
“We got three doctors here in Eureka, that I know of…but I’d say Dr. Connelly is the best one.” Patterson told Frank how to find the physician’s office, which was on a side street at the other end of town. Frank thanked him, and then Patterson added, “Why don’t you just leave the dog here? I was about to step out back and eat some lunch, and he seems mighty fond of my table scraps.”
Frank grinned. “Sure. Stay, Dog. I’ll see you later.”
Carrying the bedroll, he headed along the street toward Dr. Connelly’s office. As he did, he thought about Jack Grimshaw and wondered what his old comrade in arms was doing in this part of the world. A disturbing possibility occurred to him. If Emmett Bosworth had indeed hired a gang of killers to go after Chamberlain’s men, then Grimshaw could be one of them. Even though they had been friends, Frank was honest enough with himself to realize that Grimshaw had always been more willing than he was to sign on for a job strictly for the money. Over the years, Frank had heard rumors that Grimshaw was mixed up in some pretty shady deals.
But a little freelance outlawry was different from bushwhacking innocent men and then chopping them up with axes, Frank told himself. He didn’t want to believe that Jack Grimshaw was capable of such a thing, and until he saw proof of it with his own eyes, he wasn’t going to believe it.
Dr. Patrick Connelly’s practice consisted of a neat little cottage containing his surgery and examination rooms, backed up by a larger house that was obviously the doctor’s home. No one answered Frank’s knock on the office door, so he walked around back to the doctor’s living quarters.
The door there was opened by an attractive woman in her thirties with auburn hair and green eyes. “The doctor’s having his dinner,” she said in a tart voice. “He’s not seeing any patients right now. You can wait on the front porch of the office if you’d like.”
“I’m not a patient,” Frank said, “and I hate to disturb a man’s dinner, but I need to ask him a question. Shouldn’t take but a minute, and then I’ll let him get back to his meal.”
The woman got a stubborn look on her pretty face. She wore a wedding band on her left ring finger, so Frank figured she was Connelly’s wife. She was about to dig in her heels and tell Frank to go away, when a man’s voice came from somewhere else in the house.
“Who is it, Molly?”
The woman turned her head and called back, “Just an old cowboy. Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Patrick.”
Frank heard footsteps, and then someone opened the door wider. The man who stood there was burly, built more like a prizefighter than a physician. He had a shock of gray hair and a salt-and-pepper beard.
“I heard you say you have a question for me, sir,” he said. “I hope for both of our sakes that it’s a good one. Otherwise, we’re both risking the wrath of my wife here.”
“I think it’s a good one,” Frank said.
The man raised his rather bushy eyebrows when Frank paused.
“It’s about a bone.”
Interest sparked in the man’s eyes. He stepped back and said, “Come in.”
Molly Connelly blew out her breath disgustedly, shook her head, and retreated out of the room. “It’s a poor doctor who doesn’t take care of himself first,” she said over her shoulder.
Connelly grinned and waited until she was gone before he said quietly, “My wife thinks my practice causes me to miss too many meals.” He patted his thick belly. “You couldn’t tell it to look at me, though, could you?” He ushered Frank into a parlor and then said, “Now what’s this about a bone?”
Frank nodded toward a divan and said, “I need to unwrap it.”
“By all means.”
He set the bedroll on the divan and unrolled it. When he lifted the bone and held it up where the doctor could see it, Connelly’s eyes widened.
“You were right, my friend. That’s definitely a bone.”
“Human, isn’t it?” Frank asked.
“Yes. That’s the radius, one of two bones that form the skeletal structure of a man’s forearm. Or a woman’s, although judging by the length and diameter of that one, I’d say it came from a man.” Connelly turned toward a bookcase that sat against one wall. “Let me show you…”
He took a thick, leather-bound volume from one of the shelves and began flipping through it.
“Gray’s Anatomy?” Frank asked.
Connelly glanced up in surprise. “You’re familiar with it? You’ve had medical training?”
Frank shook his head. “Only enough practical experience to patch up a bullet wound or a knife slash or set a broken bone. But I do a considerable amount of reading when I get the chance, in all subjects.”
Connelly took a long look at Frank and then nodded. “Yes, I’d venture a guess that you’ve encountered more wounds of violence than an average man.” He flipped a couple more pages in the book, found what he was looking for, and jabbed a finger at one of the illustrations. “You see, here’s a man’s arm. The upper bone, between the shoulder and the elbow, is the humerus. The two lower bones, between the elbow and the wrist, are the radius and the ulna. What you have there is a radius, as I said. Where did you get it?”
Before Frank could answer, Molly Connelly appeared in the doorway. “It would only take a minute, you said,” she told Frank in an accusatory tone. “Patrick, your food is getting cold.”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Connelly said. “Our visitor…By the way, what is your name, sir?”
“Morgan. Frank Morgan.”
“Mr. Morgan has brought me a very intriguing artifact.”
Molly snorted. “That? That’s just an old bone.”
“Indeed. And Mr. Morgan was about to tell me where he got it.”
Molly shook her head and left the room again. Frank smiled and said, “Reckon I’ve caused some trouble in your household.”
Connelly waved a hand. “Don’t let it worry you. Molly is quick to anger, but even quicker to forgive. And she’s an excellent nurse, not to mention easy on the eyes.” He put out his hand, palm up. “May I?”