Luther Hawkins was short, but sturdy and strong and already had twenty-two prior experiences moving his unconscious subjects to his prearranged operating settings. Calmly, he bound and gagged Evina Cameron after dragging her unconscious body into her bedroom, pulling her up onto the bed, and arranging her as if peacefully sleeping. Checking the clock on the nightstand, he saw that Ned Cameron would not be home for several hours yet. As luck would have it, this was his day for checkers over at Stony Parker's farm after their usual farm work, and he would have his mid-day meal there. Then he washed the three cups, saucers, and cake plates, disposed of the partially-eaten cake slices and poisoned coffee, and carefully looked around the house to see if he had missed anything.
"Now for my patients!" he said with an eager smile. Taking a deep breath, he put his strong hands in the big lawman's armpits and dragged him to the spring wagon outside the back door. The wagon was built by Ned for transporting the big blocks of ice to his ice house, and was long, narrow, and designed for one horse to pull. After laboriously hefting Matt up into the wagon bed, Hawkins hurried back for Kitty, who he easily picked up in his arms. Stooping, he grabbed the big Stetson from the seat of the rocking chair by the front door, and carried his second patient out to the small wagon. Neatly patting perspiration from his face with a clean white handkerchief, he hurried to the front porch where Matt had tied his and Kitty's horses, untied them and retied their reins to the back of the spring wagon. Before heading for the ice house, the meticulous doctor sat quietly on the wagon seat with eyes closed, slowed his breathing, and mentally went through a check list to ensure nothing had been overlooked, and especially since this had been an unexpected, fortuitous hastening of his plans for the subjects of his twenty-third research journal.
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Her eyes flew open, not recognizing the cave-like surface above. Then she was overwhelmed with realizing that she could not move more than an inch in any direction due to several straps from the hard table she lay on. She was naked down to her waist under the sheet pulled up to her chin, and it was so very cold. Her mind whirled desperately trying to understand what had happened. As panic threatened to overwhelm her, she heard the unmistakable deep tones of Matt's voice.
"KITTY! Honey, stop struggling! You'll hurt yourself on those leather straps." Being tightly strapped to a hard table with thick leather straps over his ankles, thighs, waist, wrists, upper arms, and forehead, he was just able to slide his eyes far enough to the left to see her terrified profile about two feet away. He figured that Kitty was similarly restrained. Matt had come to a few minutes before her, and had been trying to figure out what had happened after finding himself immobile, bare-chested, and very cold. His first concern had been to frantically locate Kitty, and once he had, to agonizingly wait for her to awaken. When she had, he had breathed a sigh of relief before having to deal with their dire situation. Thoughts of the serial killer that Doc had told him of ate at him, and he was glad that he had not told Kitty about him yet, wanting more details first.
"MATT! What's happened to us? I can't remember getting here, wherever 'here' is!" Her wide blue eyes strained to see him off to her right, so close but so far away. She concentrated on his voice and presence as the panic began to rise again.
"Honey, I think we were drugged, and before I passed out, I saw that strange man from the Long Branch watching us. He must have been Evina's new hired man."
"But MATT! What in the world does he want with US?! Why is your shirt gone? And, and, oh, Matt, why is my blouse and shift gone?" Her voice cracked on "gone," and she began to softly cry, as hard as she tried not to.
Straining as hard as he could against the straps around his body, the furious man was powerful but only managed to exhaust himself. The thought of that weasel of a man undressing her nearly drove him mad as he fruitlessly struggled. "I've got to calm down, for Kitty's sake!" he told himself, as he collapsed back, panting. "Kitty. You aren't hurt, are you?" he asked in a soft voice.
"No…no…I don't think so. Are you all right?" she asked in a calmer voice as she sniffed in determination to not break down again. "Get it together, woman!" she reprimanded herself.
"I'm fine, Kitty. You know, from what the ceiling looks like and how cold it is in here, this obviously must be the Camerons' ice house. Remember how Evina said that her hired man had moved things into it?" It wasn't much, but just knowing where they were started the calming process of his sharp, analytical mind working on solving this life-or-death "problem."
"Matt. I sure hope Evina is all right," Kitty said in a soft, troubled voice.
"So do I, Kitty, so do I."
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"Well, Chester, where exactly did Matt say he was going with Miss Kitty?!" the frustrated man asked, pulling out his old pocket watch from his vest to check the time again. He had expected to meet them at Delmonico's an hour and a half ago.
"Doc, I don't think he said! Jest 'I'm going ridin' with Kitty,' and he told me to watch the place 'til they got back in a couple o' hours." The lean young man ran a hand through his long brown hair as he tried to remember anything more the Marshal may have said. "I was sweepin' out the mountain o' dirt in here, and weren't payin' much attention, I guess. I'm sorry, Doc." Pulling out a chair, he sat down at the small, battered table in the middle of the room, stretched out his stiff right leg, and looked up at the older man with big, sorrowful brown eyes.
"Er, I'm sorry too, Chester. It ain't your fault. I'm worried over probably nothing. Why, I bet those two stopped to sit under a tree somewhere, and are right now having a refreshing, short nap!" he said emphatically, slapping his right palm down on the table.
"Ya really think so, Doc?" Chester asked hopefully, searching his friend's face.
"Of course!" Doc blurted, then rubbing his right hand over the grey stubble on his chin, added, "but I'm going over to see if Moss knows anything else, like what direction they took."
Chester scrambled to his feet and quickly followed the small man who was walking purposefully down the dirt street towards the stable. "Hold up, Doc!" he called, swinging his straight right leg in his uniquely graceful and effective gait.
"MOSS! MOSS!" Doc called, raising his right hand and gesturing at the lean old man who was unsaddling a customer's horse by the open double doors.
"Howdy Doc, Chester. Sure is gonna be another scorcher today!" Resting his arms on the horse's back, the ageless, leathery-faced man turned to smile at his approaching friends. "What's goin' on? Is something wrong?" he asked as his smile slipped away after seeing their anxious eyes.
"Which way did Matt and Kitty take when they left this morning?" Doc demanded abruptly.
"Well, let me think…" Moss said, rubbing his chin as he squinted his bright blue eyes upward in thought.
"It ain't that hard a question, Moss!" Chester blurted impatiently.
Looking at the young man with surprise, the stable owner replied, "Seems they musta gone west, since Miss Kitty said something 'bout wantin' to ride over by that hill with the 'blanket of sunflowers' on it, as she said. That's over by that homestead down in that pretty valley there." Wiping his face with a bandana pulled from his back pocket, Moss turned back to his task of undoing the cinch of the saddle of the patient horse.
"Doc, there ain't many families over that way. The Camerons live the closest, about ten miles west of that hilly area," Chester said, looking from Moss to Doc.
"Well, let's get going, then! Moss! Hitch up my buggy, will ya, while I go get my bag." The old doctor never went anywhere unprepared, and always kept his medical bag stocked and ready to go. Now he hurried off towards his office. A few minutes after Doc went inside and closed the door, there was a firm knock on it. Muttering to himself, the harried man yanked open the door, anxious to hurry back to the stable but always dutiful to being a doctor when needed.
"Shorty!" A tall, sturdy man in his early fifties stuck out a large hand at his startled friend.
"Amby?! Ambrose Gillett! I didn't send for you, but I'm sure glad you're here! Let me get my bag and come with me to the stable where my friend Chester is waiting. He's the Marshal's assistant, and the Marshal and Miss Kitty Russell are missing. I may be overreacting, but I fear 'The Surgeon' may be involved. From what you have told me, he targets couples who are very 'close,' as these two are." As he talked, Doc turned, picked up his medical bag, grabbed his old friend's elbow and hurried him down the stairs.
Gillette was a sharp, experienced lawman, and knew when to listen and when to speak. His intelligent, intense blue eyes narrowed as Doc spoke, and his big, leonine head nodded in understanding of the situation. His shoulder-length mane of white-blond hair, combed straight back, thick red-blond mustache, and the crinkles by his eyes gave him a jovial appearance that had misled many a sorry criminal over the years. Police Chief Ambrose Gillette had earned a reputation as the hardest but fairest lawman in Bostonian history. He always "got his man," no matter how long it took, and he was particularly determined to stop 'The Surgeon's' reign of terror.
"Shorty, you're way ahead of me, as usual," Gillette said, slowing his long-legged stride to match his hurrying friend's. "I heard about the unfortunate old couple in Kansas, and decided to come straight here without even wiring."
"As I said, Amby, I'm so glad to have you here. You were always hapless at checkers, but as a lawman, you are second to, and maybe even comparable, to only one other man I know. And he is the very one who may be in extreme danger right now!"
To be continued
