Dr. Kildare's Crisis by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medical, Romance
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2019-09-11T22:00:00+00:00

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X. — AN EYE AND A GIFT

KILDARE walked all the way back to the hospital but he could not walk the preconception out of his mind. The whir and slosh of wheels on the wet streets ate into his mind like the noise of buzz-saws. It was not Douglas Lamont that held his attention, but Mary, Mary, Mary, like a sad song.

The walk was not long enough to get the ache out of his heart. He turned toward Mike Ryan’s saloon. Twenty steps from it he heard a noise of heavy scuffling, so he went in at the family entrance and found Joe Weyman engaged with his famous big fists on a fellow still bigger than the ambulance driver.

They fought with gasping, silent ferocity, and even stepped softly, in and out, for fear the noise of their trampling might bring in the police; and there was a rich delight of battle in the eyes of both.

A dozen spectators stood around the room, with Mike Ryan in person presiding over the shennanigan. No one spoke above a murmur. There was hardly a sound louder than the heavy smacking of fists against head and body that went home, now and then, like the clapping of hands.

Mike Ryan’s heart was equally divided, it seemed. When he saw Kildare, he side-stepped toward him like a crab, and seized his arm.

“What will you have, doc?” he asked. And then he whispered: “Go it, Danny—go it, Joe.”

He encouraged the fighters as a cheer-leader encourages the rooting section, waving his arms frantically. Danny, a big black- haired Irishman, fought with a sneering contempt, as if confident that youth and twenty extra pounds were sure to win for him; Weyman was the rushing aggressor. A moment later, Danny hit him away with a fine one-two and cornered him.

“The wind, Joe,” said Kildare. “Come in on the wind!”

Through a smear of blood, Weyman glanced across at Kildare. His grin of acknowledgment bared his teeth. Then he brought up a lifting punch that doubled Danny like a jack-knife, his guard low. It was simple as drinking beer for Weyman to whip the next blow to the chin; and Danny sat down heavily.

He started to rise, still embracing his aching stomach, but Ryan stepped before him.

“That’s enough, Danny,” he said. “You’re clean gone, poor lad. It’s over, Danny. It was a good go. You done fine and we’re proud to know you.”

Danny slumped into a chair. He gasped: “I could of beat him black and blue, but I couldn’t handle his damned big fists and the brains of the doc. Not all at the same time.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” said Ryan.

Kildare was opening his medical kit and getting out tape and iodine and small surgical pads.

“Sit down here beside Danny,” he said to Weyman.

The ambulance driver obediently took the chair next to the Irishman.

“I thought you had me with the one-two,” said Joe. “It’s a honey, that one. Where’d you get it?”

“I seen Gene Tunney in the slow movies,” said Danny.

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