The Historians
Chapter 12
Doc ate lunch. The shepherd's pie was good – at least better than some of the food he was used to eating at Delmonico's. He turned on the device known as television. It was an amazing contraption, by changing channels he could watch a whole variety of things. He settled on something called a western. It depicted life in a town much like Dodge City, in a time he was familiar with. He watched as the Sheriff chased down the bank robbers and brought them to justice. He laughed to himself at the thought of people watching life in a time so remote from when and where they lived. Finally he dozed off for a while until the door buzzer wakened him. He let Thomas in, and was pleased to have some company.
"Hi there Doc, how are you doing?"
"By golly I am tired of people asking me that. I am just fine, thank you."
Thomas smiled, he knew Doc and his ways, and had grown to admire him and consider him to be a good friend and a remarkable physician during the time he had been in Dodge.
"I just wondered if you would like a game of checkers, or maybe you would like to come and look around the place where I work."
"I'll tell you Thomas there are a couple of things I'd like to know. Who are you and how did I get here."
"It's a little complicated. Sit down and I'll make us some coffee."
Two blue coffee mugs sat on the table between them as Thomas started to recount his story about the Historians and how he'd been chosen, or maybe obliged was a better word, to work for them. Doc listened with interest, but to him the whole thing still seemed impossible, maybe he was still dreaming.
"C'mon, I've got an hour or so to spare, let me show you some of the tools we have available to help us in the practice of medicine today. Just be careful what you say to folks, no one must know that you're from another time.
Doc notices that they are headed for someplace called Medical Imaging. Thomas tries to explain a little, "I think it was the early part of the 1900's when a man called Rontgen discovered X Rays. I can't tell you much about that, but he found they could pass through the human body and leave an image on a photographic plate. He was amazed to see all the bones of the hands and feet and the like. Things have come a long way since then, it wasn't long before they started making radiographs of the chest, abdomen and limbs. In the last thirty years imaging has just taken off with a whole set of new inventions. I think it has become one of the best tools available to us today."
He unclips the name badge from his pocket and slides it through a device that opens a door into a room with a vast array of lights, buttons and devices Doc has no words for.
"Here let me show you something." Thomas sits in front of the terminal and touches some buttons then scrolls down a list that appears on a screen. Finding the one he wants he selects it and the screen shows a normal chest x ray. Adam's is astounded, he realizes he is looking at the heart and lungs inside a chest. Something he can only imagine by listening and tapping.
Thomas brings up another image
"See this down here is fluid," Thomas points to a solid white patch at the base of the left lung.
"That's where I would hear no breath sounds and it would sound dull on percussion."
"Right, with this simple radiograph you can see fluid or pneumonia or even a mass – in your time you could have located a bullet without having to probe for it."
Doc is amazed. "I need one of those machines."
"Oh but now we go a lot further."
He scrolls through a few more screens and explains, "I know you don't have sliced bread in your time, but imagine a loaf of bread and you cut it into slices but still leave it all stacked together. Now I can pull out one of those slices and look at it, like this." The screen shows an image Doc can't make out at first.
"See we are looking at a slice through this part of the chest," he points out a line through the first picture he showed.
"By golly Thomas, how do you do that?"
"Now I can do even better, this computer will put together a 3D image so I can look at each structure in the chest, turn it around and see it in detail – almost like I could take it out and hold it in my hand."
Doc watches, for once at a loss for words. Finally he asks
"How does all that work?"
He points through a window to a second room where Doc can see an enormous piece of machinery with a small hole in the middle, somewhat like a large doughnut.
"That's the machine that gathers all the information for the computer to reassemble, I don't even pretend to understand all the physics and technology behind it, but it works with powerful magnets."
Doc looks, swipes his mustache and pulls on his ear, thinking.
"This is a lot of stuff to understand, you Doctors of today have to know a whole lot more than I ever did."
"But Doc, look at the skills you do have and how you make the most of them, most of us would be totally lost given only the tools you have to work with."
"Come on, I'd better get you home before Jennifer says I'm wearing you out. Would you like to stop by the cafeteria and get something for supper?"
Matt and Kitty were enjoying their own supper that Mrs. Phipps had left for them. She had written a clear set of instructions on how to heat it up when they got home. She had also left them a bottle of wine in the refrigerator to go with it.
Supper over they were about to go for a walk and visit another local pub, when Matt's phone rang, it was Cranbourne. Matt talked with him for a few minutes, explaining that he had some idea of how things were being done. Cranbourne didn't want to talk over the phone, and said he would try to fly down tomorrow or the day after for an hour or so and maybe Matt could meet him at the airport.
Matt and Kitty both enjoyed their pub evenings. They had met a lot of interesting people and never ceased to be amazed that no fights broke out and everyone had a good time. All the pubs they had visited were unique and had their own individual characteristics.
They headed for The Ship Inn.
Their landlady – Mrs. Phipps, had told them that it was a nice pub to visit and gave them directions on how to get there. It was barely half a mile down the street towards town.
The walk was quiet and the pub warm and welcoming. They spent a pleasant hour talking with another couple who were visiting the area. Matt said nothing but became aware that someone was watching him. He couldn't be sure but it was that lawman's instinct honed over several years of trying to avoid trouble coming at him from dark alleyways or lonely prairie trails.
When they left the pub it was already dark. They walked through the parking lot and headed along the narrow street, the little town was quiet at this time of evening.
They had just got to the corner where they would turn to go up to the cottage when a shadowy figure appeared from a dark doorway. He was wielding what looked like a metal pipe about twelve inches long and was trying to hit Matt over the head with it. He miscalculated the speed of the Marshal's reactions, and instead caught him on the arm. Matt landed a backhand across the man's chin then pulled him up from the ground by the collar of his coat.
"What are you trying to do mister? Who sent you to bushwhack me?"
The man said nothing, he managed to wriggle free and took off up the street running. Matt watched him go but didn't bother going after him, he probably wouldn't learn much anyway. He couldn't be sure but he thought he had seen the man out at the Bar D.
"Are you okay Matt?" Kitty asked, "I thought you said this job was going to be a simple one. Looks to me like they are on to you already."
"Yeh I'm fine," he said rubbing his arm and looking up the street in the direction the man had run. "I've had the feeling that someone was watching us since we left the Bar D, we need to be a little more careful from now on. Cranbourne did tell me to keep that gun with me, maybe he was right."
TBC