doctor’s office. The men who brought them in stopped by and told me that they would be returning later with the bodies of the miners who were killed in the explosion.”
Frank jerked a thumb at the dead saboteurs. “Need a hand with these?”
Langley reached for the reins and said, “No, I can handle them. Roy’s inside. I’ll call him to help me get them off their horses.”
Frank handed over the reins and turned Stormy around. He rode at an angle across the street toward the doctor’s office. All the windows in the building glowed yellow with lamplight.
“Stay,” Frank said to Dog as he dismounted and looped Stormy’s reins around the hitch rail. He stepped to the door and didn’t bother knocking, just opened it and went inside.
He had met Dr. William Garland briefly when the man came to Buckskin and hung out his shingle, but hadn’t spent any great amount of time with the medico. Garland was young, probably no more than thirty, and slightly built with a shock of brown hair, a thin face, and intense brown eyes. When Frank came in, he was winding a bandage around the arm of a shirtless miner. The miner also had bandages around his torso.
Several other men sat around the doctor’s front room, all of them sporting bandages and taped-on plasters in various places. Frank didn’t see Garrett Claiborne among them.
“Hello, Doctor,” he said.
Garland glanced up from his work. “Marshal Morgan,” he said. “I understand you were there when these men were injured.”
“That’s right.”
“The way they described that explosion, I’m surprised there weren’t more serious injuries…and more fatalities.”
“Where’s Garrett Claiborne? How’s he doing?”
Garland leaned his head toward the door into another room. “He’s in bed in there. I’ve given him medication to ease his pain and help him rest.”
“How bad is he hurt?”
“Well, if you saw him, you know his left arm is broken.”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, that was pretty obvious.”
“He has burns on the back of his neck from the explosion itself and in other places on his back because his clothes were set on fire. None of those are too bad, though. He has at least one cracked rib. I can’t be certain yet if there are any other internal injuries. I’m hopeful that there’s not.”
“What about the others who were hurt bad?”
“I have four beds for patients,” Garland said, “and they’re all full. I’m pretty sure that one of the men has a fractured skull. I don’t know if he’ll pull through. He hasn’t regained consciousness, and he may not. He’s the worst of the lot, though. One of the other men has a broken leg, the other one a dislocated shoulder and a possible broken ankle. They’ll be laid up for a while.”
“I sure appreciate what you’re doing for them.”
Garland gave Frank a thin smile. “That’s why I came to Buckskin, to help the sick and injured.”
“Can I see Claiborne?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if he’ll be awake enough to talk to you.”
Frank went into the other room and stood beside the bed where Garrett Claiborne lay. A single lamp burned in here, and it was turned low. But there was enough light for Frank to see how pale and drawn the engineer’s face was.
“Claiborne,” he said. “Garrett, can you hear me?”
After a second, Claiborne’s eyes flickered open. He seemed to have trouble focusing on Frank, who remembered what Dr. Garland had said about giving him something for the pain. Laudanum, more than likely, which meant Claiborne’s brain would be pretty foggy.
“F-Frank…” Claiborne whispered.
“You’re at the doctor’s in Buckskin,” Frank said. “You’ll be well taken care of. Don’t worry about a thing.”
“The…mine. The stamp mill…”
“It’s gone,” Frank said, “but we’ll rebuild it, better than before.”
“Mister…Browning…will be…upset…disappointed in…me…”
“Not hardly. This wasn’t your fault, Garrett. If anybody’s to blame, it’s me for not taking the threat seriously enough.”
But that wasn’t really true either, Frank thought. The only people really to blame for such evil destruction were the ones who had carried it out—and the one who had paid to have it done.
“Mister…Browning…” Claiborne began.
“Let me worry about him,” Frank said. “I’ll ride to Virginia City and wire Conrad to let him know what happened.”
Even in his drugged state, Claiborne frowned. “C-Conrad…?” he said.
“Yeah. He’s my son. You didn’t know it, Garrett, but you’ve been working for me, too.”
