camp would mean certain death.
As Sarah called to him that the beans and fatback were ready, he turned and shook his head. The man didn’t stand a chance in this weather, he thought, but at least freezing to death was probably less painful that a bullet.
TWENTY-ONE
Pearlie jerked his horse to a stop in front of Dr. Colton Spalding’s office, bounded out of the saddle, and raced through the front door without bothering to knock.
Spalding, who was called Cotton by all of his friends due to his ash-blond, almost white hair, looked up from his rolltop desk in the corner of his parlor. When he saw the agitation in Pearlie’s face, he got to his feet and began putting on his coat before the young man had a chance to speak.
“Doc, you gotta come!” Pearlie gasped, still out of breath from his breakneck ride into town.
Cotton picked up his black bag and a pair of gloves from the side table in the hallway. “Of course, Pearlie,” he said. “Is there trouble out at the Sugarloaf?”
“No, Doc, it’s Monte Carson,” Pearlie answered. “His hoss was shot out from under him and he took a terrible fall. He hit his head an’ he ain’t been exactly actin’ right since then.”
“Where is he?” Cotton asked as they exited his door, followed by his wife Mona, who’d heard the commotion and joined them in the parlor. He gave Mona a quick kiss good-bye and told her he’d be back as soon as possible. When she went back in the door, he didn’t bother to lock it in case someone needing his care wanted to come in and wait for his return, in which case his wife Mona, who was also his nurse, would take of that person.
“Out on the road north of town, ‘bout five or six miles by now,” he answered.
“By now?” Cotton asked, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me he is being moved.”
“Uh . . . yes, sir,” Pearlie said. “Louis is riding double with him to keep him on horseback.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Cotton said under his breath as he climbed up into his wagon that was hitched in front of his office.
“You’d better take me there as fast as you can, Pearlie, and let us hope we’re not too late and that moving him has not caused irreparable damage to his brain.”
When they met up with Louis and Sally and Cal on the road into town, Cotton pulled his wagon to the side of the road. “Pearlie, scrape that snow out of the back of the wagon and get those blankets out from under the tarp there under the seat. Make a bed for Monte as best you can.”
Monte was sitting unconscious in front of Louis, being held in place by Louis’s hands around him. The sheriff’s head lolled limply to and fro as the horse moved.
“Cal, get over here and help me take Monte down and get him in the back of my wagon, but be as gentle as you can,” the doctor ordered.
Moments later, Monte was lying on his back in the rear compartment of Cotton’s wagon and the doctor was leaning over him, checking his pupils and feeling of his pulse.
“Has he had any violent purging . . . uh, vomiting?” he asked Sally.
“Yes, once, right after he tried to get up after the fall,” she answered.
Cotton shook his head. “That’s not a good sign. It means he’s definitely had a concussion.”
Sally, standing at his side, said, “I know a head injury shouldn’t be moved, Cotton, but I thought the time saved getting him under your care and out of the cold was worth the danger of moving him.” She gave Monte a worried look. “There was no shelter on the trail and we had no way of keeping him warm in this storm.”
“You’re probably right, Sally,” Cotton said, not looking away from his patient. “At any rate, it’s hard to say which is worse, exposure to the elements or movement.”
He straightened up after tucking the blankets around Monte to keep him as warm as possible. “Now, I need to get him back to my office where he can be properly cared for.”
As he climbed up onto the seat of the wagon, he looked back down at Sally. “Perhaps you’d better swing back by Monte’s house and tell Mary what is going on,” he said. “She can come to my office and sit with him if she wishes.”
“How serious is it, Cotton?” Sally asked.
The doctor shrugged. “Well, it’s a good sign that he survived the trip on horseback. He’s obviously had some minor bleeding in his head and a severe concussion. The only question now is will he have any more and just how much damage what he’s already had has done to his mind.” As he took up the reins, he added, “He’s going to need some luck.”
After Cotton slapped the reins on his horses’ rears and moved off down the trail, Louis asked Sally, “What do we do about Smoke?”
She shook her head. “First, I need to go talk to Mary and tell her what happened.” She hesitated. “We can’t do Smoke any good right now, not with those men blocking the trail.”
“Miss Sally,” Cal said, “we could get a big posse together in less time than it takes to say it. Heck, just about everbody in Big Rock would go along if’n they thought Smoke was in trouble.”
“He’s correct, Sally,” Louis agreed. “With a large number of men we could get by that ambush and go after the men who took Smoke.”
Sally turned tortured eyes to Louis. “Yes, Louis, I believe we could do that. But how many men would get hurt or possibly killed trying to get past that ambush site?”
When he paused, unable to answer, Sally smiled sadly. “See what I mean? Do you think Smoke would want a lot of townspeople getting hurt trying to rescue him?”
