a while this time of night. I’ll have him look at Mr. MacCallister.”
“Thank you,” Jane said. She looked at Clark. “I wonder if you would arrange to have the smaller of my three suitcases sent to the hotel. And if you would, keep the other two here for me. I’ll be taking the morning stage on to Providence Wells.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll take care of it for you,” Clark said. He sighed, and looked up at the coach. “I’d better get Gene Nunlee down here as well. He’s got two bodies to take care of.”
Falcon was eating a supper of beans and tortillas when a couple of men stepped up to his table. Looking up from his meal, he recognized Gentry.
“Mr. Gentry,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“This here is Doc Andrews,” Gentry said. “You can let him look at your wound.”
Falcon waved him off. “I told you, there’s no need.”
“Sorry, you can’t get rid of me that easy. I promised Mrs. Stockdale I’d have the doctor take a look at you,” Gentry said. “And she ain’t a woman that can be easy put off.”
Falcon chuckled. “I think you’re right about that. But there’s nothing to my wound.”
“Then you won’t mind me taking a look at it,” Doc Andrews said.
Falcon sighed, then took off his hat and leaned his head forward. “All right, go ahead, take a look at it if you must.”
“Gentry, get that lantern over here and hold it close so I can see.”
“All right,” Gentry said, going over to take a burning lantern down from a shelf. He brought it back over and held it above Falcon’s scalp while Andrews examined it.
“You are a lucky man,” the doctor said. “If that bullet had been half an inch farther to the left, you’d be dead.”
“Yeah, I know,” Falcon said. “But so far my luck has held out.”
“Looks like you cleaned it out pretty well. That was smart of you.”
“I can thank Mrs. Stockdale for that,” Falcon said.
“Thing is, if it festers it could still kill you, so you better let me treat it,” Dr. Andrews said. He opened his bag and took out a bottle. “This is going to sting a little,” he said as he poured alcohol onto the wound.
“Ouch! Damn right it stings,” Falcon said.
“Shame on you,” Dr. Andrews said. “Think of all those kids who are reading about you in dime novels now. What would they think if they saw you wincing like this?”
“They’d think it hurts,” Falcon said.
“Yes, well, at least you came out on top of the deal. I saw the other man.”
“You saw the other man? What do you mean, what are you talking about?”
Dr. Andrews turned to Gentry. “Didn’t you tell me it was Fargo Ford that robbed the stage?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I treated one of the men who robbed you. They called him Ponci. He’s in real bad shape.”
“You say one of them is hurt?” Gentry said. He shook his head. “Don’t know how that could be. Didn’t none of us get a shot off.”
“It wasn’t a gunshot wound,” Dr. Andrews said as he finished treating Falcon’s wound. He put his equipment away and closed his bag. “They came through town about mid-afternoon,” he said. “There were five of them, including Fargo Ford.”
“And one of them was hurt?”
“More than just hurt. He’s going to die if he doesn’t get treatment.”
“I thought you treated him.”
Dr. Andrews shook his head. “No. I tried to, but he wouldn’t let me.”
“How was he hurt?”
“Well, to quote Fargo Ford, he brung it on by himself by messing with some girl, and she cut him in the leg.”
“I’ll be damn,” Gentry said. “It had to be the Indian girl.”
“It’s a leg wound, yet you say he will die if he doesn’t get treatment?” Falcon asked.
“He has the onset of gangrene,” Dr. Andrews said. “It’s going to require a very aggressive treatment to stop the spread, but Ponci isn’t going to allow it. In fact, it may already be too late. The idiot is trying to treat it with laudanum.”
At that moment a tall thin man with white hair and a white handlebar mustache came into the saloon. He was wearing a white collarless shirt and a black leather vest. A star was pinned to the vest. He stepped up to the bar.
“Dooley, is Gentry in here?” the sheriff asked.
“I’m back here, Sheriff,” Gentry called to him, having heard the question.
“Mr. Gentry, I understand you were robbed today,” the sheriff said, coming toward the table where Gentry, Dr. Andrews, and Falcon were.
