Chapter Nine
Risking Scott's anger and inwardly wincing at what he was about to say, Johnny spoke softly. "Put the gun down, Boston. This isn't your fight, and you have no business interfering." All the while his eyes stayed on the black-clad Deal.
If he had been thinking clearly, Scott would have known immediately why Johnny was saying what he was. However, in his foggy mind, the words bit deep. He looked up at Johnny and frowned. There was a touch of bitterness in his voice when he said, "I'm not helpless, Johnny, no matter what you may think, and I'm not letting you do this alone."
Johnny closed his eyes. He should have known that Scott was in no fit state to understand what he was trying to do, not to mention being too stubborn to stand aside and let Johnny face a situation and a person he was familiar with. Now, he had hurt his brother with his words. He longed to apologize and explain, but there was no sense in doing so now. There was just too much at stake to let hurtful words get in the way, as much as it hurt Johnny himself to have said them.
It all made him feel frustrated and trapped in indecision. At the moment, Scott was aiming his gun at Pony's heart, while Pony had his pointed straight at Scott's head. Even as fast as he was, Johnny knew there was no way he could take Pony down before the man could pull the trigger and kill his brother.
Scott attempted to get to his feet. It was a pitiful sight. The normally posture-perfect ex-soldier was almost boneless in his effort to rise. He swayed precariously, but hadn't the strength to complete the maneuver.
Johnny's instinct was to grab for Scott and try to keep him down, but even that he couldn't risk doing. The situation was critical. It could be fatal for either one of them, if he took his eyes and his concentration off of Pony.
"I'll kill you, Deal," Scott said with a menacing tone that gave intensity to his faltering strength.
Pony laughed. "I'll give your brother one thing, Madrid. He has grit. Too bad it won't do him no good." As he said the last two words, he pulled the trigger.
In the same instant, Scott, falling sideways, fired his own gun and Johnny, having seen Pony's trigger finger twitch, drew and fired his weapon.
Three shots rang out, first one and then the next two sounding almost as one. The smell of cordite was strong, as it hung in the air. Quickly, though, a light breeze lifted the gun smoke away and dispersed it like fading ghosts.
No one moved. No one spoke. No one breathed. Only stunned silence prevailed.
A dark crimson stain began to cover the left side of Pony Deal's shirt. It was soon joined by a similar stain spreading out from the center above his heart. The shiny saturation spoke volumes about what had happened to the shirt's occupant.
Johnny stared as Pony Deal fell over backwards and lay still in the dust beside the water trough. When he turned to look at Scott, his brother had a similar red stain on his shirt near the left side of his neck. In the seconds it took him to react, Johnny saw the blood soak down the front of Scott's shirt.
Johnny, who had been the center of this whole situation, had no visible wounds of any kind. He didn't have time to consider the irony of that miscarriage of justice. He holstered his gun, grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket as he bent down, and pressed it firmly against the wound just above Scott's left collarbone. Spotting more blood down Scott's back, he bent over his brother's shoulder and saw another hole in the blue shirt. Realizing there was a second wound, he moved his fingers down to cover the it, as well.
"Matt," Johnny yelled out, "get Doc Jenkins!"
"No need," came a familiar voice, as an elderly, gray-haired man rushed up toward them. "I was already on my way here."
Sam Jenkins kneeled down and leaned over the eldest Lancer son. He gently pulled Johnny's hand away, not sure what he would find but hoping it wouldn't be as bad as the amount of blood indicated.
The bullet had been fired at point blank range, so it had gone straight through. That was the good thing. There was no lead to dig out. The bad thing was that it left two wounds instead of one, causing twice as much bleeding.
Sam was pleased to see that there was no spurting blood, which would have shown that the artery in the blond's neck had been greatly compromised. The wounds, however, were still bleeding freely, so the artery could have been nicked.
"We need to get him to my office, Johnny. And quickly."
Johnny's heart seized up at those last words, but he yelled out for Matt, who he saw had come out onto the boardwalk in front of the store.
"Matt, will you help me carry Scott to Sam's office?"
"'Course, Johnny," Matt replied eagerly. He wanted to help Scott, but he was also happy he hadn't ended up having to shoot anyone.
With Sam's hand holding the handkerchief against Scott's wounds, Johnny leaned down to pick his brother up by the shoulders.
"I can walk," the elder Lancer said, somewhat groggily but no less determined.
"Maybe, you can, for about two feet, but you're not going to," Sam admonished sternly. "Stubborn Lancers," he muttered under his breath.
Matt secured a hold of Scott's lower legs ad the two young men lifted the blond up and began the trek toward Sam's office, which was in the front of his house not too far from the General Store.
In order for Sam to keep a good amount of pressure on his patient's bullet wounds, the procession had to move slower than he wanted. The elderly doctor had spent so many years in situations like this that he was able to keep his emotions in check. An over-anxious doctor could not do his job properly, and Sam had never been accused of that.
Johnny, on the other hand, was a bundle of nerves. He also had a lot of experience with gunshot wounds and other serious injuries and could handle himself well in any crisis he had ever faced. However, this was his brother, and that intensified his feelings tenfold.
Matt was just plain nervous, because he didn't want to do the wrong thing. He kept telling himself not to drop Scott's legs. The horror of him possibly doing that almost made him sick to his stomach.
It wasn't long before Sam's house came into view around a corner and moments later, they were laying Scott on his examination table.
"Sam, do you need Matt any more?" Johnny asked.
"No. You can help with what needs doing." A nervous, but experienced, brother was better than he was sure a nervous Matt would be.
"Good." Johnny turned to the young store helper. "Matt, go down and make sure that Deputy Billings is let out of the jail. He'll need to take care of the bodies by our wagon."
"I'll do that for you, Johnny."
"Thanks, Matt. Tell Ron I'll be here whenever he needs to talk to me about the fight."
Matt nodded and rushed out the door, eager to do as he had been asked.
"Don't you want someone to ride out to Lancer?" Sam asked. "Murdoch needs to know about Scott."
"Not until I know what to tell him. He'll be upset enough without the added fear from not knowing. So, how bad is it?"
Sam almost chuckled. "Give me a minute, Johnny. Even as good as I am, I need a little time to check it out."
Despite all the pressure that first Johnny and then Sam himself had placed on the wounds, the doctor could easily see how much blood the oldest Lancer son had lost. Blood loss killed, so even if internal organs weren't damaged, the patient could still be in danger.
Johnny stared at he blood - his brother's blood - that now covered Sam's hands. "Too much blood," he mumbled.
He hadn't realized he'd spoken out loud until he heard Sam say, "Yes, it is. We've got to work fast."
"Just tell me what to do," the dark-haired young man said in a tone that held a note of fear, despite the determination it also held to do whatever was necessary, however unpleasant.
Sam started to tell Johnny all the things that he would need, but decided that it would be faster for him to get them himself, since he knew right where to look. Instead, he said, "Here, Johnny, I need you to keep the pressure on the wound, front and back, the same way you did before. Firm but don't press too hard." Squeezing off blood vessels for too long was not a good thing, either.
Scott groaned when the pressure was re-applied. His eyes were now only slits. He was making an unsuccessful attempt to keep them open.
"Don't worry, Boston," Johnny reassured, "Sam'll have you fixed up in no time."
"No worries, brother," Scott said, as he gave his own reassurance.
Sam was soon back with both arms loaded. On the table near one side of where Scott lay, he set down two metal bowls, a small cloth, a bottle of liquid labeled Chloroform, two large towels and a metal box, whose lid was soon opened to reveal, needles, threads, scalpels and other items used in surgeries.
Johnny had seen this array of supplies before, often in regard to wounds of is own, but, seeing them laid out, knowing they were meant for his brother made him shiver. He knew they were lucky they had been in town and not out on the range, but somehow that made his heart feel only marginally easier. The bottom line was that seeing surgery of any kind, anywhere was hard when it was about to be performed on someone you loved.
When Sam had finished laying out everything he needed, he looked at Johnny, who was staring at Scott's pale face. He placed his hand on the young man's shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. "Ready?"
When, Johnny nodded, Sam handed him the small cloth that he had just finished dampening with the chloroform. "Place this over Scott's nose and mouth. It has enough chloroform in it to put him to sleep. Hold it down for a few minutes. I'll give you instructions on how to add more when we need to."
Johnny's eyes widened, when he smelled the sweet odor of the chloroform. "Oh shit, Sam, I forgot to tell you something."
"Tell me what, Johnny?" The doctor had a nagging feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.
"When the gunfight started, I pushed Scott out of the way, trying to keep him from getting shot." The irony of that statement, considering the present circumstances, wasn't lost on the youngest Lancer. "He fell between the wagon and the boardwalk." Johnny paused before continuing. "He hit his head pretty hard. It knocked him out a while."
"How long a while?"
"Not too long, I guess. A good five or six minutes maybe. He was pretty groggy and unsteady on his feet after he woke up."
Sam sighed deeply and held his chin in his left hand. This was not good. It sounded like Scott had suffered a concussion, and giving him Chloroform this soon could have adverse effects, even disregarding the other possible undesirable consequences Chloroform was believed to cause.
"This means you can't give him that Chloroform stuff right now, doesn't it?" Johnny sounded as worried as Sam was.
"It could cause some problems, Johnny, I won't lie to you. But, I can't put the surgery off. Pressure alone isn't going to do the job. If we wait, Scott could bleed to death."
Johnny stared at the doctor. "Then what do we do, Sam?"
TBC