Calvert's Last Bluff by E. L. Ripley & Ralph Compton

Author:E. L. Ripley & Ralph Compton [Ripley, E. L. & Compton, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

IT AIN’T GOOD,” the doctor said, squinting behind his smudged spectacles.

Tom was in too much pain to give voice to any of the remarks that seemed appropriate in reply to that. The rain was gone, but the clouds were staying; that much was obvious, even in the light before dawn. The air was merely crisp, still short of being frigid, and the rest of the wagon train was waking.

Asher was supposed to be getting the team ready, but he just stood there and watched, worried.

Tom still didn’t know how much the boy had seen the night before, and there hadn’t been time to talk about it. He didn’t remember all of it himself, at least not as clearly as he thought he should have. He recalled stopping the kid from opening the door to his room, the one with the blood in it, and doing what he could to clean it up.

More or less.

“I know, Doc. I was drunk. I fell.”

With that big beard to hide behind, it wasn’t easy to tell if the doctor was suspicious or not. It wasn’t even a quarter mile from this spot to that outhouse. Tom’s ears were primed, but there was no indication from town that anything was amiss.

“Hurts, does it?” the doctor asked.

“Yes,” Tom replied tightly.

The doctor frowned. In his hand was a stack of cloth strips that was bound to become a fresh bandage, but he made no move to use them.

“I have money,” Tom told him. He’d already spoken to Breeden; the train would be back on the move in less than an hour. Tom needed help from a doctor, but he also needed to be away from this place. The air of the outhouse seemed to linger in his nose even though he was away from it now.

“It ain’t that,” the doctor replied, scratching at his beard. “It’s that I don’t know if you can keep the leg.”

That hurt more than the bullet had. Tom wasn’t completely apart from his senses; losing his leg had crossed his mind. He’d known plenty of men who hadn’t been lucky in that regard. It was far from unheard of, but no matter how he turned it over in his head, it was something that happened to other people.

The kid stared.

“Is it that bad?” Tom asked, forcing a little calm into the words.

“It ain’t good,” the doctor repeated. “Feller, I simply do not know.”

Tom licked his dry lips and caught himself before he could throw a desperate look at Asher. He couldn’t do that; he was the one who was grown. The boy could rescue him from a river, but he couldn’t rescue him from this.

The doctor kept looking.

“Well,” Tom said finally, sucking in a deep breath, “I would just as soon you let me keep it. Unless you’re real sure I shouldn’t.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. “Could kill you.”

Tom saw Asher. The kid was too soft. They hadn’t even known each other two months, and now the boy wanted to make that sad face because Tom’s leg was in a bad way.

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