The doctor peered over his spectacles at this statement. He looked knowing. “In that case,” he said, showing no surprise, “your bushwhacker wasn’t too good a shot.”
“It was pretty dark…there were a lot of shadows, a lot of moving men in front of Fleharty’s place when he fired.” Parker strolled over to stand opposite the doctor, watching him work.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad enough to keep him down for a spell.” The doctor, whose name was Albigence Spence, was an old man. When he had come to manhood, guns were called muskets and bullets were called musket balls. He had never bothered to keep abreast of changes like this, so now he said: “Musket balls do strange things, sometimes. Now you take this one. By rights, when it struck Hubbell, it should have gone straight through, because it was flying straight when it hit him. If it’d done that, you see, it’d have exited through his right lung, busted one, maybe two ribs, and gone on.”
“Didn’t it?”
“No, sir. It got deflected by the gristle underneath Hub’s shoulder blade and went skitterin’ off on a right angle and busted out five inches below the armpit. It tore through a section of the lung, but a small section, and, what’s most unusual, it passed out between two ribs without breaking either of them.” Spence straightened up, dipped both hands into the pink water, wiped them, and put a critical gaze downward at his handiwork. “He’s hemorrhaging in the lungs…you can hear it in his breathing and the shock will keep him unconscious a while longer, but, unless he catches cold…damned unlikely this time of year…or gets jostled around, he’ll probably make it. Anyway, I’ve done all for him I can do for now.” The old man rolled both sleeves down, took up his shapeless coat, and shrugged into it. “I’ll look in on him from time to time.” He considered Parker. “You going to sit with him?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. When he comes around, if he wants water, let him have it. But he’s not to move. Not so much as his little finger, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“See you later.”
Parker drew a chair up, sank down on it, looked at the flushed, slack face of Hub Wheaton, then turned to watch dawn come over the land.
Later, he called downstairs for coffee and resumed his quiet vigil. He wasn’t particularly tired but he felt drained by the night’s ordeals, bowed down in spirit, troubled in thought, depressed. When the coffee came, he drank two cups of it, felt better, and had a smoke. When restlessness came, he found the sheriff’s razor and shaved. Afterward, still restless, he also shaved Hubbell Wheaton. By then that creeping yellow brilliance was coming over the land, the air was turning breathless again, and suddenly Hub reached up, pushing at the blankets over him. But it was an instinctive thing; he was still out of his head.
Parker stripped all but the sheet off Wheaton. He wiped perspiration off him, and, when he seemed especially feverish, he kept wet, cool rags on him.
It was nearly ten o’clock when Lew and Amy Morgan came into the room. Parker looked over where they halted in the doorway. Amy crossed to the bedside and gazed down. Her steely eyes were dark with feeling as she gazed upon Wheaton.
“Have you any idea who did it?” Lew asked.
Parker had an idea, had had it for several hours now. He looked unblinkingly at Lew. “Who told you?” he asked.
Amy, speaking ahead of her uncle, seemed to be probing Parker for what he really thought. “One of the men…he heard it in town.”
Parker looked down. “It’s too bad he’s still out. I’m sure he’d like to know you rode in.”
“That’s not the only reason we came,” said Amy, still staring at Travis. “We were coming anyway. To warn you.”
“Warn me…against what?”
“Charley Swindin.”
“Yes,” spoke up Lew. “He hasn’t gone. At least, I don’t believe he has.”
“You have him at the ranch still?”
“No. You were right last night. I told Charley to run for it. Only he evidently didn’t run far.”
“What d’you mean?”
“The thoroughbred horse is gone. So is Charley’s saddle and most of his outfit. But he didn’t take his bedroll or razor.”
Parker, conscious of Amy’s stare, muttered: “I see.” He looked at the lovely girl, then back to her uncle again. “I had a hunch it was Swindin. Wheaton hasn’t been sheriff long enough to make that kind of an enemy. But even if he had…that bullet wasn’t meant for him…it was meant for me.” Parker walked to the window, looked downward into the busy roadway, stood that way a while, then twisted to say: “You two stay with Wheaton for a while.” He took up his hat and started toward the door. “I’ll be back after a while.”
Amy said: “Parker…” She had never before used his first name. “Parker…let my uncle and some of the townsmen go along.”
From the door Parker shook his head. “Swindin’s only one man, too,” he said, and passed out of the room. He didn’t hear Lew say softly: “I’m not so sure of that.”
Amy looked quickly at her uncle. “What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Charley has friends. There are those six riders from west of town, for example. They are hard men. They’re the kind that likes trouble. Their own trouble or anyone else’s trouble.”
“Then go with him. Please, Lew.”
Morgan’s head came slowly around. He put a widening glance at his niece. He said nothing, but he stood there running a brand new idea through his mind. Then he put his hat on firmly and cast a final look at Hub Wheaton.
“You sure you can care for him?” he asked Amy without looking at her.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Morgan frowned downward, but obviously he was not thinking of Wheaton now. “Amy…,” he murmured, but did not finish it. They looked long at one another; something came out of her and passed over to him. He barely nodded as he turned and went across the room. At the door, with the knob in one hand, he looked back. “Are you sure?” he asked as though they had discussed what was in his mind. “Plumb sure, Amy?”
“I’m certain, Lew. I was certain after I first met him up in the mountains.” Her eyes darkened with this admission, turned misty, and something very close to sadness came out of her in a warm wave. “Please don’t let anything happen to him.”
“Sure not,” muttered Morgan, and left the room.
Outside, the heat was piling up, but there was something different in the air, too, something Johnny Fleharty didn’t understand, and therefore didn’t like. He wasn’t sure what this was, but for one thing Laramie wasn’t as noisy as it usually was each early day.
He put the glass aside, fished in the oily water for another glass, and scowled fiercely. Sure it was too early for most men, but this time almost every day, since he’d opened the Great Northern, there’d been four or five town loafers drifting in for ale, a beer, or a slug of raw rye whiskey.
Johnny could think of only one reason why he was being avoided this morning, and that was the one thing he wanted to keep as his own dark secret. He finished the second glass, turned to place it face down upon the backbar, and over his shoulder he saw in the backbar mirror a tall, sun-blackened man move in out of the hurting heat, and Johnny froze like that, not turning around at all until that big man flicked him a look, then walked across to the bar, hooked both elbows there, and waited. Then Johnny turned. “Ale?” he weakly said.
Parker shook his head, saying nothing and staring.
“Another scorcher,” said Johnny, feeling in the bucket for a glass. “Sometimes it rains, though, in midsummer.”
Parker’s gaze never wavered, neither did he move or speak. “Too bad about Hub, isn’t it?” Parker finally said.
Johnny polished the glass and inspected it very closely. “Sure is,” he replied huskily.