Vigilante! by John J. McLaglen

Author:John J. McLaglen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: wild west, cowboys, vigilantes, herne the hunter, western pulp fiction, gunfighters in the old west, john j mclalgen
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Eight

Herne and Charlie rode slowly down the main street. Powderville looked to be awash. It had obviously borne the brunt of the storm. There was over an inch of water splashing up around the hoofs of their mounts. Several of the boards had been pulled away from the terracing over the bank and hung down towards the boardwalk that shone black with rain. It wasn’t yet full evening, but kerosene lamps were lit up and down the street.

Now that the rain had stopped falling, the air was clear and fresh but the wind kept it bitter cold.

Streams of water poured from the guttering on the roof of The Cattleman’s House, splashing up from the boards below. Herne had a few dollars in his back pocket from the advance Nate had arranged for him that first day, before things had changed. He thought of going in for a drink as soon as he had found the doctor and the idea warmed him more than a little.

He’d remembered the shingle attached to a stanchion opposite the rooming house where he’d stayed. It was hanging loose from the metal bar which supported it, but still there. Raymond Douglas M.D.

Herne helped Charlie down from his horse, glancing over at the rooming house, half hoping that he might catch a glimpse of the woman. He realized that he had never heard or seen her name, didn’t have an idea what she was called. After the way she had thrown him out it wasn’t likely to matter.

‘Take it easy. Let’s get you over to this door.’

The doctor came quickly, possibly readied by the sound of horses stopping outside. He looked at Herne and Charlie, taking in their coats, their distinctive hats.

‘You’re Drummond’s men, ain’t you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I don’t take too kindly to treatin’ the likes of you. Them as live by the gun should—’

Herne pushed him aside with the flat of one hand. ‘For Christ’s sake, you a preacher or a doctor?’

He helped Charlie over the threshold and along a short corridor. ‘Which way?’

‘My friend, I didn’t say—’

‘Which way!’

‘My surgery is on the left.’

Herne opened the door and led Charlie inside. There was a long wooden table in the center of the room; a leather arm chair to one side. Two more chairs with straight backs. A folding screen. A jug and bowl set on a high table. By one wall was a bookcase with a number of heavy-looking volumes and a stack of pamphlets.

‘Shut the door and get movin’, doc!’

The man’s face tightened. He lifted a pair of wire-framed spectacles from the top pocket of his coat and set them on the end of his nose. The eyes behind the lenses were small and light. His hair was gray and receding at the temples. Herne put him at close to fifty years of age.

‘Doc, this man’s got a bullet in him an’ he’s likely to get a whole lot worse while you stand there lookin’ down on him.’

The doctor looked for a moment longer, then turned his back and set his hand on the door handle.

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