THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE
When Sawdy rode into Sleepy Cat next morning it was known that he had
come from the Reservation and he was besieged for news from the Falling
Wall. At Kitchen's, where he put up his horse; on his way up street to
his room over McAlpin's pool hall, he was assailed with questions.
Pretty accurate reports of the two exciting days in the North country
had already trickled into Sleepy Cat. To these, Sawdy listened with
stolid attention but he managed to add to them very little. He
possessed to a degree the faculty of talking freely, sententiously
even, without contributing anything strictly pertinent to a subject.
What he conveyed, when he meant to withhold information, was really no
more than an air of reserve in which wisdom seemed discreetly
restrained. On this present occasion he realized it would be known
that he had encountered the raiders the day before at Laramie's--but
while admitting this profusely, he minimized all else.
Not until he had bathed, slept, shaved and set himself down near
nightfall at Belle Shockley's did he tell any considerable part of his
story. But all that prudence would permit he told, or rather, Belle
demanded and received at his hands. Where the heart is involved the
strongest men are helpless.
"I ran into the bunch on my way down, right at Laramie's cabin," Sawdy
said to Belle. "Laramie and Doubleday were having the hottest kind of
a row when I rode up. I made sure we'd be shooting in the next couple
of minutes. But John Lefever was watching pretty close and holding Van
Horn. Barb cooled down when he saw three of us on deck. I told him on
the side, the Governor had telephoned Pearson and the Colonel was going
to send cavalry down after them and they'd better scatter. It was a
bluff, but for a few minutes I had him and Van Horn guessing. They
said they'd go home when they got Hawk. Lefever is staying up there
for a day or two."
"What did they do after that?" demanded Belle, referring to the men
whose names were on everybody's tongues.
"Beat the bushes from Laramie's to the Reservation," answered Sawdy.
"Didn't leave a square yard of country unturned from the Falling Wall
to the Crazy Woman."
"Will they ever find Hawk?"
"Did you ever find a needle in a haystack?"
"I never looked for one."
"Them fellows are looking for the stack. They can't locate the hay.
Slip me that Worcestershire sauce, Belle. Yours truly. No more
potatoes. This is a good piece of ham, Belle. I wish to God you'd
serve a glass of beer with a man's supper."
"You can get all the supper and all the beer you want at the hotel,"
flared Belle. "This is no blind pig----"
"It's the only place in Main Street, then, that ain't."
"And it never will be," averred Belle, indignantly.
"Come up to the hotel with me right now," returned Sawdy coldly, "and
I'll buy you a bottle of beer. Bet you ten dollars you da'ssent do
it--who the devil--" Sawdy almost choked as the two heard a knock at
the door--"who the devil is that?" he repeated. The door opened and
Jim Laramie walked in.
He sent his hat sailing toward a side table, stepped forward and,
catching at a chair on the way, greeted Belle and her guest and sat
down before a plate cover opposite Sawdy. He pointed to what remained
of Sawdy's supper and, with knife and fork, started in: "There's enough
for me right here, Belle," he said.
Sawdy raised his chin: "Not this time, Jim. Not on your life. That's
the way you always eat my supper."
"You eat too much, Henry--it will kill you some time," observed
Laramie, losing no time in his initiative. He ignored Sawdy's stare
and the big man, disgusted, sat dumb: "Don't surrender, Sawdy,"
counseled Laramie. "Keep going, and excuse me if I seem to begin."
Sawdy paused, his knife and fork firmly in hand, but pointing
helplessly into the air: "This is the first square meal I've had for
two days," he said, as one whose hopes have been dashed.
"First I've had for ten days," returned Laramie.
"What are they doing up there, Jim?" asked Sawdy peremptorily.
"Killing their horses."
"They won't find him," Sawdy predicted in words inaudible six feet away.
"I hope not."
"How's he holding out?"
"Hard hit, Henry."
"Will he make it?"
"You can't kill a cat."
"Well"--Sawdy resumed his supper, "it's your game, Jim, not mine; but
I'd think twice before I'd get that range bunch after me on any man's
account."
Laramie's eyes flashed, but he spoke quietly: "I couldn't see Abe
killed like a rattlesnake."
"What are you down for?"
"I've got to have a couple of needles, a little catgut and some gauze."
"Where are you going to get them?"
"Going to steal them over at Doc. Carpy's."
"Nervy."
"You can do it for me, Henry."
"Me?"
"I'll give you the key to his cabinet."
"Where'd you get that?"
"Met him on my way in. He was going up to Pettigrew's to look after
the wounded. The window in the end of the wing opens into the
operating room, where the supplies are."
"I'd look fine climbing into a window at two hundred and twenty pounds."
"It's on the ground floor," returned Laramie, unmoved.
"What will the family be doing while I'm burgling?"
"Mrs. Carpy and the girls are in Medicine Bend. The house is empty.
When you're through, leave the key in the skull of the skeleton behind
the door."
Sawdy stared without much enthusiasm at the little key that Laramie
passed to him; then he slipped it without comment into his pocket. The
talk went on in low, leisurely tones until the second portion of ham
had been served, when both resumed their supper as if nothing had been
eaten or said. Afterward, Laramie spent an hour getting together some
things he needed at home. He met Sawdy later at Kitchen's barn.
Sawdy, with abundance of grumbling at his assignment, had the gauze and
the catgut, but he had brought the key back. He could not find the
surgeon's needles. There seemed nothing for it but for Laramie to go
to the office and make the search himself. He thought of Belle; she
would do it for him, he knew, but he felt it would not be right to mix
her up in what might prove a still more tragic affair. After brief
reflection he started for Carpy's himself.
The doctor's house stood back of Main Street, a block and a half from
the barn. Laramie walked half a mile to reach it, choosing unlighted
ways for the trip. The night was dark and by crossing a vacant lot he
reached the rear of the house unobserved. The office, divided into a
consulting room and an operating room, consisted of a one-story wing
connecting with the residence--the consulting room adjoining the
residence, the operating room occupying the end of the wing. This
latter was the room Laramie sought. The window that Sawdy had already
burglariously entered, opened easily, and Laramie, standing alone in
the dark room, felt in his pocket for a match.
He had been in the office more than once before and knew about where
the cabinet containing the surgical instruments stood. A connecting
door led from the room he had entered to the office proper. He tried
this. It was unlocked and he left it closed. The curtains of the
windows were drawn and he took a match from his pocket, lighted it and
looked around. The first thing he saw was the articulated skeleton
suspended near the door from the ceiling. It would have been a shock
had he not seen it before and been familiar with the label fastened to
the breastbone reciting that this had once been Flat Nose George, an
early day desperado of the high country.
Turning from this relic, Laramie set about his work, disdaining to
inspect various gruesome specimens in alcohol ranged along a shelf.
Aided by an occasional match which he lighted and shielded in his left
hand, he found the cabinet and with his key opened the door. The flame
of his match too carefully guarded, flickered in his fingers, failed
and went out. He thrust it hastily into one pocket, drew a fresh match
from another and was about to scratch it across his leather wristlet
when he heard a door open. The next moment he saw, under the door
leading from his room to the consulting room, a flash of light.
Awkward as it was to be interrupted, he faced the surprise with such
composure as he could muster. Who could it be? he asked himself. The
family was accounted for, the house locked. He scratched the match
again. As it flared up he looked into the cabinet, found the packet of
needles, tore a card of them in two, slipped one piece into a waistcoat
pocket and closed the cabinet door. He turned to listen to the office
intruder. Laramie hoped that nothing would bring the unwelcome visitor
into the operating room, but as he stood awaiting developments the
unlocked door was pushed open and a tiny flashlight was thrown into the
room in which he stood.
Fortunately Laramie outside the circle of light was left in the dark.
The intruder was a woman. He shrank back and she luckily turned her
light from him but only to encounter, as she stepped forward, Flat Nose
George, no less forbidding now than he had been in life. The woman
with the light started back in horror and a sharp little exclamation
betrayed her identity; Laramie was at once aware that he was facing
Kate Doubleday.
Nothing could have pleased him less. In so small a room it was
impossible to escape detection. He could almost hear her breathe and
would have reveled in her presence so close, but that the apprehension
of frightening her weighed on him like a mountain. Hardly daring to
breathe himself he cursed the erratic doctor's skeleton pet--hung, of
all places, where every little while he was cutting people open.
The skeleton had already set the girl's nerves on edge. What would
happen if she discovered a live man as well as the ghastly remains of a
dead one--not to mention alcoholic clippings from other subnormal
notables of the mountains? With the flashlight she was evidently
searching for something and Laramie surmised it must be the electric
light switch: "I think," he suggested in as steady a tone as possible,
"you'll find the light button to the right of the door behind you."
He was prepared for a scream or a swoon. Instead, the flashlight was
turned directly on him: "Who are you?" came sharply and quickly from
behind it.
"I might ask the same question. You can see I'm Jim Laramie. I can
guess you're Kate Doubleday."
"I am, and I've come here for dressings for wounded men at Pettigrew's.
What are you doing here?" she demanded, peremptorily.
His lips were sealed for more reasons than one. Least of all would it
do for him to expose Doctor Carpy's friendliness and embroil him in a
feud which Laramie knew he ought to face alone.
Kate held the light excitedly on him. It was an instant before he had
his answer in hand: "I've lied to a good many people at different times
about different things," he said deliberately. "I've still got my
first lie to tell to you, Kate. And I certainly won't tell it tonight.
Don't ask me what I'm doing here. Turn on the light by the door, or
let me do it, so I can see you. You here alone?"
"No, there are plenty of men outside with me," she exclaimed abruptly.
"I shouldn't have asked that question," he continued in the same tone.
"I know you're alone. You say 'men' because you're afraid of me----"
"I'm not the least afraid of you. And don't deceive yourself. There
are men here."
"But they are mostly in bottles, Kate--and in pieces. Live men don't
ride up to a place like this without making a noise. Flat Nose George
is the only man here besides me, outside the alcohol, and I can claim
him as well as you can."
"I'm sure you would feel perfectly at home with Flat Nose George," she
retorted swiftly.
If the words stung, Laramie kept his temper. "Probably there's a good
deal I deserve that you haven't heard about me," he said slowly. "But
from the way you talk, you've heard a few things maybe I don't deserve.
Nobody's got any right to class me with Flat Nose George or anybody
else in Carpy's museum."
"You've classed yourself with him," she exclaimed vehemently.
"Defending cattle thieves and harboring them! Everyone knows that!"
"I did talk rough to your father this morning. I was pretty angry.
Just the same, don't believe everything you hear about me. At present,
it's just us two. What do you want to do, surrender to me?"
"No!" she snapped the word out furiously. "I won't, not if you kill
me."
"Suppose I surrender to you? What do you want me to do--stick up my
hands? So far, they haven't been up--if I remember right. But I
expect I'll have to learn sometime how to surrender."
"I want no surrender, no parley with you. The doctor told me his house
was empty and directed me here for the dressings. When I come, I find
you. I'll get away at once. Before I go----"
"No, I'll go. But let me turn on the light." He stepped to the door
and pressed the button. "I wanted," he continued, as a light flooded
the queer room, "to have just one look at you before I go." She stood
before him quite unafraid. Her eyes flashed as if she were actually
mistress of the situation instead of really helpless in the presence of
her father's most resourceful enemy.
Laramie half-smiled at her serenity: "Why don't you go?" she exclaimed.
Still regarding her, he shifted his position a little and replied with
entire good-nature: "I only live along, from one sight to another of
you. I'm just filling up, like a man at a spring. You don't object to
my only looking at you for a minute?"
"I object to being delayed and annoyed," she declared in a blaze.
"I've come here for dressings needed for wounded men----"
"Well, so have I, if you must have it."
"I was sent here by Doctor Carpy for things he wants tonight; you have
no more right here helping yourself to his property than you have
taking other people's."
"Don't say I take other people's property!" Laramie spoke fiercely.
"Don't call me a thief." His words burned with anger. "My hands may
not be as white as yours--they're just as clean!"
Stunned as she might well have been at the outburst, Kate stood her
ground: "Did Doctor Carpy give you permission to come here tonight?"
She shot the words at Laramie without giving him time to breathe.
Laramie checked the flood of anger he had loosed: "I don't need
permission from Doctor Carpy to come here night or day. Ask him if you
want to," he said with scornful disgust. He sank down on the chair at
his side in complete resentment of the whole situation and, leaning
forward with a hand spread over one knee and one fist clenched on the
other, he stared not at Kate's eyes, but at the floor, with only her
trim boots in his field of vision. "What's the use?" he exclaimed,
drawing the words up seemingly all the way from his own disorderly and
alkali-stained foot coverings. "What's the use?" he repeated, in
stronger and more savage tones. "I've treated her from the first
instant I saw her, and every instant since, as I thought a woman ought
to be treated--would like to be treated. Now I get my reward. She
calls me a thief--and, my God! I take it. I don't ride out and kill
her father who taught her to do it, quick as I can reach him; I just
take it!" he exclaimed.
He hesitated a moment. Then he flung a question at her like a
thunderbolt: "What do you want here?"
She was frightened. His rage was plain enough; who could tell the
lengths to which it might carry him?
She kept her dignity but she answered and without quibbling: "I want
some gauze and some cotton and some medicines."
He strode to the cabinet and, concealing the movement as he unlocked it
with Carpy's key, he threw open the glass door: "You'd be all night
finding the stuff," he said curtly, taking the supplies from various
cluttered piles on different shelves. "You say he wants this tonight,"
he added, when her packet was complete: "How are you going to get it to
him?"
"Carry it to him."
"At Pettigrew's? What do you mean? It would take an experienced
horseman all night to ride around by Black Creek."
"I'm going over the pass."
He could not conceal his anger: "Does your father know that?"
"He said I might try it."
Laramie flamed again: "A fine father to send a tenderfoot girl on a
night ride into a country like that!"
She was defiant: "I can ride anywhere a man can."
"Let me tell you," he faced her and his eyes flashed, "if you try
riding 'anywhere' too often, some night your father's daughter will
fail to get home!"
Ignoring the door, he stepped to the open window by which he had
entered and, springing through it, was gone.