Chapter 3 In Town

Once in the purlieus of town, near Second St., Maverick slid off his horse, tying it up to a rail. He staggered towards a couple—man and wife—standing and stooping before a shop window. She had a great big poke bonnet on, so he couldn't see her face. He bent his hat to them, then shoved it back off his forehead. Holding his side, which was very bloody, he approached them and asked where the nearest doctor's was.

A point, a few words, and soon he was stretching his weary limbs towards the far end of town. He clung to the shadows of building overhangs, glad to avoid the broiling sun in the street. The doctor was in, luckily for Bret, for he didn't know what he would have done. Bled to death, for sure.

Entering the door marked 'Office,' he fairly fell forward onto the doctor's desk. The aged man, small but agile, pulled him into his examining room and helped him to lie down on its high examining table.

"Who shot you?" asked the doctor, moving off to wash and dry his hands, after which he pulled a long pair of tweezers and a probe out of an alcohol bath sitting on a small table.

"Never mind, Doc," said Maverick, wincing as the doctor ripped his shirt away and began his exam. Opening one eye upon him, he asked, "How bad is it?"

Dr. Flagler, using the tweezers to pull fine fibers of cloth out of the wound, said, "It's kinda deep, but not life-threatening. You got here in good time."

"Fix it up for me, Doc. I can pay. Name's Maverick. Bret Maverick."

"I'll have to dig the bullet out, and you'll need ether. Cracked a couple of ribs, too, I should imagine." The doctor left a moment, going back into his office to the outer door. He called down the steps to someone, then returned.

"I've just sent for the Widow Thomas. She usually helps me with the ether."

"Sure, Doc, anything. Just get it out, will you? It hurts like fire."

"Ever been shot before?"

"Yes!" cried Maverick, as the doctor cleaned the wound with an alcohol-doused cloth. There was no more talk, but after the Widow Thomas came and set up the ether cup over Maverick's mouth and nose, letting a drop or two wet the cloth inside, knocking him out, Flagler was all business, inserting a pair of forceps to dislodge fragments of lead from Maverick's side.

In an hour, he was lying on a bed in a nearby recovery room, one arm across his chest, the other down by his bandaged side, when the three Harbingers strode into the doctor's outer office.

"Half-killed my horse getting' in, Doc. Can you see to it?"

"Charlie," said Amos Flagler, speaking to the older of the two boys, "when are you going to learn? I gave up horse doctorin' six years ago. Got my human patients now. Try the livery." Dr. Flagler sat down tiredly at his desk, running his hand over his whiskery face. "I just finished with somebody in there. Shot up."

"Doc, his name Maverick?"

Flagler looked up at Old Mr. C. with incredulous eyes. "Your bullet?"

"Naw! Charlie's there. He done it."

"Why?" asked the doctor, shaking his head in astonishment. "What's the man done to you three that you'd go 'nd shoot 'im?"

"Like pa tol' you," said Clancy, "his name's Maverick. Bret Maverick. He helped me out when I was sick a few months ago after the Salmon P. Chase exploded."

"The man you told me about? Who gave you sips of water, carried your sorry carcass to the outhouse, and wrote letters for you? That Maverick?"

"Yep."

"You let your brother shoot 'im 'cause he saved your life?"

"Naw, he was running away," said Old Mr. C.

"He was seein' way too much of Corrie, too. Way, way too much," said the droll Charlie with a wink at the doctor.

"So you shot 'im 'cause he's been familiar with your sister?"

Charlie grinned. "Somethin' like yat."

"No call to put lead into a man, son," said Dr. Flagler with a sigh. Flagler was of the opinion that the whole hot afternoon could have gone by without all of this hoo-rall.

Obviously wanting to make tracks before the town marshal began to ask questions, Old Mr. C. said, "How much do we owe you, Doc?"

"Owe me?" Dr. Flagler chuckled as dryly as a man with sand in his mouth. "Not a penny. The lad himself said he'd pay. I guess, under the circumstances, he'd want to."

"I'll his pay his bills. How much?"

"Two thousand dollars."

"Doc, don't trifle with me," said the old rancher. "I just come off that hot blazin' prairie and I could lap up the milk of a rattler right about now. So don't play."

The doctor turned his head and looked up at the wall above his desk. On it was his medical school diploma framed very handsomely in oak. "Sometimes I wonder why I got into this profession."

He turned back to the three anxious Harbingers. "Twenty dollars for a bullet."

"Awful steep."

"Next time, take your business elsewhere. Had to dig out a lot of bits and pieces. He oughta be pretty sore for a couple of days."

He looked up at Charlie as the huge man said, "Don't care none how he feels. I'm gonna out to look after my horse."

"Just don't try to ride 'im over to the livery, Charlie," said pa. "Give 'im a break, will ya?"

Charlie smirked with a loud, rude noise, clapped his hat back on his head, and lumbered out. His pa, a woeful, short, grizzled, and threadbare old coot, stared after him.

Flagler stared at him. Dressed like a tramp, Old Charlie never cut his hair, he hardly ever shaved, and liked his handlebars to match his sideburns in depth and breadth. Sun-weathered from the holes in his floppy hat, even with a couple hundred thousand to his name, Old Mr. C. looked like a cookie from a branding outfit.

"We'll be taking him back now." As he forked over a twenty dollar gold piece, Old Mr. C. turned to Clancy and said, "Go get us a buckboard. Here's two dollars to rent it, and get us a couple of livery horses to pull it, hear?"

Clancy went out too, pocketing the two dollars in his vest. That left the two older men in Flagler's office.

"No," said Flagler, flatly.

"No, Doc?"

"No to his going anywhere. Not today. Not even tomorrow. He's bled a lot so far. Want to bleed 'im dry?"

"Don't believe he's hurt that bad. Fakin' it, more'n likely."

With that, the bold old man strode through the inner office door into the hall, finding the bedroom where Bret lay still, eyes closed, deep in sleep. His left arm had moved to join the right across his chest. Dr. Flagler lifted it and felt his pulse. Looking quizzically at Old Mr. C., he laid the arm on Maverick's chest again.

"Don't wake him, you terrible old brute," he said, talking low. "Leave 'im be for now. And—how's Corrie? That Chinese cook's still trying to poison her with his tonics?"

"Hang Wan? You bet, Doc. He's always feedin' her yarbs and roots he pulls out of ditches."

"Aren't there any ladies 'round your farm, Charlie, to help out? What about ol' Mrs. Duncan? Surely, she can come over when I can't get out there."

"She has rheumatism bad, Doc, you know that."

"You just don't want to have to pay 'er!"

"That might be! You can read me like a book, Doc."

Flagler sighed. He put a consoling hand on the other man's shoulder. "Come on out, Charlie. I'll shut the door." He nodded down at Bret. "He needs sleep right now more'n anything."

Once out in the office again, Flagler offered a padded brown chair to the old rancher. "Sit down there. I'll get us both something stiff."

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The next day, Maverick eased around in the bed in which he found himself. Not the same as the thin mattress on the examining table, but a thicker one made of real feathers. In a different room, too. It appeared more like a bedroom than a hospital room, and didn't have that carbolic smell. He pushed back the covers and looked down. He had no shirt on, only the bottom half of his red Union suit. He felt the bandage around his middle.

So it wasn't a nightmare. He really had been out on the plains, been accused of fathering Corrie's child, and shot.

He looked right hard at the doctor when Flagler opened the door. Flagler strode in, followed by Old Mr. C. at his heels. Maverick pulled the covers up to his throat, taking some precaution.

"How are you today, Mr. Maverick?" asked Flagler.

"What's he doin' here?" Bret indicated the old man who still wore his hat in the doctor's house. "Come to get Charlie's bullet back?"

He was very weak, but if the old man wanted a fight, he'd fight him.

Flagler laughed, a hoarse, throaty laugh that reflected his habit of cigar smoking. "He's come to take you back to the ranch. I said no for now, not until you're feeling more up to it."

Maverick's eyebrow shot up and he glanced at Old Mr. C. again. "Where's my things? I want 'em brought here."

"When you're able to go to the ranch," said Harbinger, "you'll get them back then."

"I'm not goin' to the ranch." Maverick ground his teeth on the words. "No use talkin' about it. I'll be leaving town."

"You got to do the right thing by Corrie!"

"Boys, boys, now," said Flagler. "None of this squabbling. My patient has to sleep, and you, Mr. C., you go."

Old Mr. Charlie gruffled about going out, but he went. He did have a parting shot. "Saturday next's the weddin'! Tonight, we'll be in town. Don't try anything, Maverick." With that he was gone.

"What kind of man is he?" Maverick groused. "He won't take my word for anything."

"But he did take is daughter's. Which would you take?"

"I guess Corrie's. But she's lying!"

"You … never?"

Bret took a second before he saw Flagler's point. "Well, no. Not with Corrie."

"I don't know. She got that way by someone. Why not you? You could be fibbin'."

"I'm not. We dated, went around together, walks, buggy rides. Picnics, that sort of thing.

"Well, picnics! That's all it takes sometimes, boy."

"But we … we weren't alone."

"Ever?"

"No use talkin' about it," Bret said again, echoing himself. "That man's wrong."

"What do you do for a livin'?" asked Flagler, changing the topic to Bret's relief.

Deep in thought about his problem with the Harbingers, père et fils et fils, Bret said, "Play cards."

"Oh, I see," said Flagler, rubbing his chin again. He hadn't shaved that morning. Sometimes he didn't get around to it for days. "That explains it," he said decisively, as if Maverick had no morals because he was a gambler. "How tall of a weddin' cake would you like, son?"

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Flagler awakened at cock-crow, shaved and gave his patient a soapy rag to wash his face and the back of his neck with, then he sat down across from the bed and resumed the conversation from yesterday as if the night had not intervened.

"Why a gambler, Mr. Maverick?"

"It's an honest profession, the way I play," Maverick said, and he wasn't lying

"And you—Corrie, I mean … never?"

"Cross my heart," said Bret, and he wasn't lying then, either.

"Well, don't hope to die. It may happen, what with the look I saw in young Charlie's eye."

"That's why you have to help me get out of town, Doc. I swear I can pay the freight. Need a horse, grub, saddlebags, the whole lot."

"For an innocent man, you're sure hurryin' to escape the noose."

"Doc, how can you prove I'm innocent? I know it, but do we have to wait till the baby's born with blond hair or blue eyes before we'll all know for sure?"

"Well, at any rate, I believe you, Maverick. I guess I'd be scared, too. A lady with child hardly lies."

"Well, this one has."

Flagler sighed, a characteristic habit when he was faced with a conundrum like this. A guiltless man, a baby on the way, and the lady's pa and brothers bent on a shotgun wedding in less than a week!

"What do you want to eat for breakfast?" Flagler asked. "You can order up anything you like. I run a good hospital here."

"Nothing, Doc. I'm too pent up about this whole thing. That Charlie ought to be put in jail for shooting me!"

"He could claim you were stealin' one of their horses."

"Three men don't have any excuse to shoot another for a borrowed horse."

"Well, it's done. And you must eat. Tell you what, what if I go over to Emma's and get some hotcakes, fried bacon and eggs? Like that?"

"Fine." Even with how wonderful all of that sounded, Maverick was still in no mood to eat.

"Want some water now?"

"No."

The doctor got up to leave. He wanted to go lap up some hotcakes himself.

When Flagler had gone, Maverick eased out of bed and staggered over to the mirror above the dry sink. He saw bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes in the glass. Holding his side with his hand, he poured additional water in the basin, plunged his other hand in and splashed his face a few more times. Grabbing a towel, he dried off, hung it back on the bar and turned around, looking for his clothes.

His jeans hung on the back of a chair, but no shirt hung there with them. His boots sat side by side under the chair. He sat, bent and retrieved them, then with worked up breathing, pulled them on. The pants next. On a hook to one side of the door was his brown corduroy coat. In the breast pocket was still his wallet with money—a couple hundred dollars from the poker tables in Westport.

Putting the coat, its lapels and collar trimmed in black velvet, over his bare upper body, he swayed. He needed air, fresh air and lots of it. He threw open the door and leaned on the jamb a second before going out. Stumbling into the hall leading to the living room, he detoured and entered the kitchen, making for the back entry. He went out, taking ginger steps on the old paving stones.

Finally hitting the side of a cast iron garden table, he sat down on a similarly styled bench and regarded the way the doctor had flowers and hedges growing all around. Quite a gardener! Who else but a true man of the soil could have pulled such beauty out of the dry, futile and unforgiving rock-dust of the area?

Maverick admired him. Admired him, too, for not caving in last night to the Harbingers, although he knew Old Mr. C. had not liked the rebuff.