suggested.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I am more interested in getting a ranch started than I am in poking around in a mine, and this way you could keep looking. Only, you would be working for me, and you wouldn’t have to eat bugs, rats, and the like.”
Gleason laughed. “I don’t mind tellin’ you that sounds pretty good to me.”
“We’ll build you a cabin down by the mine,” Duff said. “You can live there, and, anytime I am gone, you can keep an eye on the ranch.”
Gleason smiled broadly, then he spit in his hand and held it out. “Sonny, you got yourself a deal.”
Duff looked at the extended hand, then looked at Falcon. Falcon laughed. “If you want to close the deal, shake his hand.”
Duff started to extend his own hand.
“Un-huh,” Falcon said. “You have to spit in it.”
“My word,” Duff said. “Ye Americans be quaint people indeed.” He spit in his hand, then grasped Gleason’s in his.
The pain in Garcia’s wound had eased somewhat and a warming numbness set in. Garcia was thankful for the numbness because it allowed him to stay in his saddle as they rode away from the bank holdup. But he had lost a lot of blood and was getting weaker and dizzier with every passing moment. By the time they rode into the tiny town of Tie Siding, Garcia was barely able to stay in his saddle.
“Hey, Malcolm, Garcia’s not going to make it if we don’t find a doctor pretty soon,” McKenna said. McKenna was riding alongside Garcia as well as leading Garcia’s horse, because Garcia needed to hold on to the saddle pommel with both hands just to keep from falling off.
“He’ll be all right. He was just hit in the shoulder,” Pettigrew said.
“No, he ain’t goin’ to be all right if we don’t find us a doctor soon to patch him up,” McKenna said. “He’s a’ bleedin’ like a stuck pig.”
“Maybe we can find a doctor here,” Malcolm suggested.
“We don’t have time,” Pettigrew said. “You know damn well they’ve got a posse together by now.”
“We rode outta town headin’ east,” McKenna said. “We’re west of town now. It’s goin’ to take ’em a while to figure out that we swung around and come back to the west. And I’m tellin’ you, Garcia can’t go on much longer if we don’t get him a doctor.”
“Hell, as much blood as he’s lost, he’s probably goin’ to die anyway,” Pogue said. “Seems to me like takin’ him to a doctor just to have him tell us that Garca is goin’ to croak is a’ goin’ to slow us down more.”
“Pogue, what kind of thing is that to say?” McKenna asked.
“Yeah, well, I’m with Pogue,” Pettigrew said. “I don’t plan on gettin’ myself caught by the law ’cause I’m wastin’ my time tryin’ to save a Mex who is more than likely goin’ to die anyway, no matter what we do.”
“I’m with McKenna,” Carter Hill said.
“Me, too,” his brother, Johnny, said. “What if it was you that was shot?”
“If it was me, I wouldn’t be complainin’ about it,” Shaw said.
“If you notice, Shaw, he isn’t complaining,” Moran said.
“We’ll find a doctor,” Malcolm said.
“If it was up to me, I’d just leave him there,” Shaw said.
“We’re going to stay with him,” Malcolm said.
“Anyway,” McKenna said. “Maybe we can get somethin’ to eat there.”
“How we goin’ to get somethin’ to eat?” Moran asked.
“More’n likely the doctor is married,” McKenna said. “We’ll have his wife fix us some food.”
“What if she doesn’t want to?” Johnny Hill asked.
Pettigrew laughed, a sharp, evil-sounding laugh. “I think we can talk her into it,” he said.
It was early, just before noon, as Malcolm and the others rode through the street. Tie Siding was a quiet, sleepy little town with very few people out in the street, and even fewer who paid any attention to their presence. Malcolm saw a boy of about seventeen painting a fence. Separating from the others, he rode over to him.
“Good morning, lad,” he said as pleasantly as he could.
The young man didn’t reply vocally, but he nodded his head at Malcolm, then looked by him at the other eight riders.
“Are you fellas cowboys lookin’ for work?” the boy asked. “’Cause if you are, you ain’t likely to find nothin’ here. Mr. Lyman Byrd, he owns a ranch twixt here ’n Walbach and I was ridin’ for ’im, but he let a bunch of us go last month. Said he couldn’t afford to keep us on.”
“’Tis grateful I am, lad, for your report on the availability of employment, but our quest is to find a doctor.”
“We ain’t got no real doctor here, ’cept for Dr. Tillman, and he’s an animal doctor is what he is. But seein’ as we ain’t got no doctor, well, he sometimes treats folks, too.”
“And where is he domiciled?”
