Between Hell and Texas (5 page)

“You are one lucky fellow, Crayton Dawson,” said Doctor Orville Peck, standing over Dawson’s cot in the back room of the doctor’s office.

Dawson raised his head off of the pillow enough to look down at the thick white bandage wrapped around his waist. He saw the wide pinkish circle where blood had begun to seep through the gauze. “Yeah?” said Dawson. “Then how come I don’t feel real lucky from where I see it?”

The doctor smiled. “Because we’re looking at it from two entirely different perspectives I suppose.” He reached over and picked up Dawson’s belt from a chair and held the buckle out for him to see. Part of the buckle had been flattened and mangled by Randall’s bullet. “See? I call this a stroke of luck,” he said. “You might call it just ruining your belt buckle. If this hadn’t deflected the bullet and split it in two, it probably would have gone deeper into your belly and just cut everything you’ve got to pieces. Instead it only nicked your intestines a place or two. We’ll talk about that later.” He dismissed the matter, then went on. “As it is you’re going to be pretty sore for awhile, but nothing inside your gut is damaged. I say you must have been born under a lucky star.”

A deep, dull pain caused Dawson to collapse back onto the pillow with a moan. “That must be it,” he rasped. “Where’s Mad Albert Ash? I suppose he’s all right?”

“Oh, yes, he’s fine, discounting insanity of course,” the doctor said. He shook his head. “Just listening to that man speak is unsettling.”

“He saved my life,” said Dawson, in Ash’s defense.

“That doesn’t mean he’s sane…that just means he was present,” said the doctor. “The fact is, he says
you
saved
his
life, warning him those two fools were out to kill him.”

“I want to tell him I’m much obliged,” said Dawson.

“Next time you see him maybe,” said the doctor with a shrug. “He left town as soon as he heard you were going to live.” Considering it, he rubbed his chin and said, “I shouldn’t speak harshly about Mad Albert. He
did
pay your medical bill…in
full
. All in
cash
! Which must be some sort of record for any doctor in this town.”

“Those two ambushers were nothing but kids,” Dawson said with a tone of regret. “Ash killed them both without batting an eye.”

“Mad Albert Ash would
never
bat an eye over something as trivial as killing a man,” said Doctor Peck. “But under the circumstances, aren’t you glad he did? And of course, now the big question, wouldn’t you have done the same if you could have gotten a gun in your hand?”

“Yes, Doctor, I would have,” said Dawson. “But it all just comes so easy, the killing, the justification for the killing. Where does a man lay it down and walk away?
How
does he walk away from it?”

“Mister Dawson, it seems to me you haven’t been in this insane gunman world long enough to be asking those questions yet. Don’t tell me you already want out?”

“I never wanted in, Doctor,” said Dawson, feeling nausea deep down in his stomach, partly from the wound and partly from the conversation. “How soon can I ride?”

“If I tell you one week you’ll likely leave tomorrow. So I’m going to say
two
weeks, on the outside chance you’ll wait
one
week.”

“The problem is, Doctor, Sheriff Neff wants me out of town, before somebody shows up wanting to do me the same way they wanted to do Mad Albert.”

“I’ve already spoken to Sheriff Neff on your behalf,” said Doctor Peck. “He said take a few days and get healed up, but get out as soon as you’re up and around. Before the word gets out that you’re here, is what I think he meant. But let’s not worry about that right now. Get yourself some rest. If you think you’re sore today, wait until tomorrow.”

Stepping forward, the doctor held up a long steel syringe and examined it closely, then bent slightly and held it down toward Dawson’s forearm.

“What’s that, Doctor?” Dawson asked as the doctor held his arm in place.

“Just a little something to get rid of the pain and make you take a nice long sleep,” said Doctor Peck. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. The best way to get it back is to rest, let it replenish itself. When you wake up we’ll get some blood-rich food in you. But first, I want to put you to sleep.”

Dawson protested as the sharp needle slid into his arm. “But I don’t want to be knocked out, Doctor! I want to know what’s going along around me.”

“Oops, too late then,” said the doctor, plunging the syringe. He smiled, pulling the needle from Dawson’s arm and placing a short strip of gauze on the puncture. He patted Dawson’s forearm. “Don’t worry, I’ve never had a gunfight break out in here.”

“That ain’t the point, Doctor…” Dawson said, already feeling a silvery gray fur begin to engulf him.

“You’ll have to tell me about it later,” said Doctor Peck. He laid Dawson’s limp arm across his chest, and stepped away from the bed and out of the room.

Dawson slept the rest of the day and most of the night, awakening only once for a few moments to the sound of the falling rain on the roof. He stared up at the ceiling, recounting the recent events that had so greatly changed his life. He’d come a long way, from breaking horses and driving cattle, to drinking morning whiskey with the likes of Mad Albert Ash. He pictured the two young men with guns in their hands, then he pictured them as he’d last seen them, both lying dead in pools of their own blood. Shaking his head slowly to put the picture out of his mind he murmured aloud to himself, “Lord, I’ve got to get home…” Then the gray-silver fur returned, taking him back into a mindless world of gentle darkness.

When Dawson awakened again it was to the feel of a cool, damp rag on his forehead, the same cool damp feeling he thought he’d felt on other parts of his body moments earlier, before the veil of sleep began to lift. Opening his eyes, he looked up at a young woman who stood over him, dutifully washing his face, his throat, his chest. “Who— Who are you?” he asked, coming more and more awake.

“I’m Suzzette,” said a soft, melodious voice as she
continued washing him. “We met before, but you probably don’t remember me.”

Coming even more awake, it dawned on Dawson that he lay stark naked except for a bandage on his lower belly. His hands went to cover himself as he suddenly tensed up beneath the young woman’s touch. “Ma’am, will you please throw that sheet over me?”

Suzzette laughed playfully. “Don’t be embarrassed, Mister Dawson. It’s okay. I’m a whore. I see naked men every night of my life.”

“Still,” said Dawson, reaching out with his right hand toward the sheet and blanket she’d pulled to one side.

“All right, lie still,” said Suzzette. With her free hand she lifted the sheet and blanket as one and laid them gently over him, just high enough to cover him up to the bandage. “The doctor said for me to keep the dressing uncovered…‘to let it breathe,’ he told me.”

“Obliged,” Dawson said. Growing more at ease, he looked closer at her face, then said, “Yes, I do remember you now. I met you and another lady at the Big Spur, my last time here.”

“Yep.” Suzzette smiled warmly. She stopped wiping his chest and said, “That was Lizzy. She and I worked our way here from Missouri. Now she’s gone, and I miss her something awful.”

Dawson just looked at her for a second, then said, “So, you work for the doctor, taking care of patients?”

“No, not exactly,” said Suzzette. “I asked him if I could take care of you for a couple of days.” She gave him a coy smile. “Is that all right?”

“It would be,” said Dawson, “except I don’t need any help, thank you all the same.”

“Don’t worry,” said Suzzette, “you won’t have to pay me anything.” She shrugged. “I’m just doing this for you, to help you out.”

“And…?” Dawson asked, encouraging her to speak further on the matter.

“All right,” she said in resignation. “I was hoping maybe when you leave here you might take me with you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dawson. “I travel better alone.”

She blurted out, “My friend Lizzy left here with Sammy Boy White, and I bet she’s made him real happy he brought her along…that’s what I would do for you, make you
real
happy, I mean any time you wanted me to. And it would be
free
. Just think, I’d be good company and a helping hand during the day, and someone you could have your way with of a night,
every
night for that matter.”

“Suzzette,” said Dawson, “I wouldn’t envy your friend Lizzy if I were you. Living with a gunman ain’t the kind of life you might imagine it to be.”

“Oh, I don’t envy her,” said Suzzette. “I just want to be like her. When she said she was leaving with Sammy Boy, I told her she was crazy. But then I saw the way she looked up on that horse, waving back at everybody, the whole world before her. I decided I have to do that, first chance I get.”

“And I’m that first chance,” said Dawson.

“Well, is that wrong, for me to want that?” she asked. “All I’m asking for is just one man to sleep with who’ll treat me land, instead of wallowing with every man in town and having them treat me like dirt—most of them drunk half the time.”

“If that’s the way you feel, what you need to think about is changing your occupation,” said Dawson. “But I can’t take you with me.”

“Am I not pretty enough for you?” Suzzette said, looking a bit hurt. “Everybody tells me I’m real pretty, especially with my clothes off.” Her expression made it clear that she was willing to step out of her dress if Dawson so desired.

“Suzzette, you’re a beautiful woman. A man would have to be blind not to see that, with or without your clothes on. But the answer is still no…and believe me, I’m doing you a kindness not taking you with me. I’ve gotten caught up in this gunman’s world and it appears it’ll take some doing for me to get myself out of it.”

“Get out of it?” she asked in disbelief. “Why on earth would you want
out
of it? Most men would give anything to get
into
it!”

“Not once they saw it from inside, they wouldn’t,” said Dawson. He gestured with a hand at the bandage on his belly. “This is what it’s gotten me so far. This and a peppering of buckshot back in Brakett Flats, and a bullet graze before that.” He offered a smile of irony. “I’m beginning to think of bullet wounds as a way of remembering what day it is.”

Suzzette smiled. “I heard what happened here,” she said. “You wouldn’t have had to warn Albert Ash. Not many gunmen would have. So, you took that on yourself.”

Dawson nodded. “All right, you got me there. I’ve always had this problem of trying to do what’s right, no matter what the cost. In this case it got me shot. Still, what was I supposed to do? Let a man get backshot? Then I’d have to live with that from now on.”

Without realizing why, he began talking to Suzzette about things that had been on his mind. As he talked she nodded and sat down carefully on the side of his bed. Dawson caught himself and said, “Listen to me, going on this way. I reckon it’s just having this belly wound and not being able to get around for awhile. I don’t mean to take up all your time.”

“Talk about whatever you want to, Cray Dawson,” she said. “I’ll be here for you…for as long as it takes.”

There was comfort in her words. Dawson found himself relaxing, finding a peacefulness that he hadn’t felt in years. He noted the gentleness of Suzzette as she laid a hand softly on his chest and idly drew circles with her fingertips.

The following week passed quickly for Cray Dawson. It took very little effort on the part of Suzzette Sherley to convince him he should move from the small room behind the doctor’s office to her larger room in a two-story dwelling house, behind the Big Spur Saloon, that she had once shared with her friend Lizzy Carnes. “Don’t worry,” she’d assured Dawson the day she helped him walk up the stairs to her room. “We never brought any men up here…not customers anyway. This place is just for you and me. Our special place,” she’d said, taking off her bonnet and shaking out her long auburn hair.

Two days later Doctor Peck stopped by to examine Dawson’s wound and the incision he’d had to make to get in and remove the bullet fragments. Probing the tender flesh carefully with his fingertip, inspecting the thick black stitches where two incisions
intersected below Dawson’s navel, he said, “No sign of any infection sneaking up on you. How are you eating?”

“Good,” said Dawson.

As if he couldn’t take Dawson’s word for it, the doctor looked for verification at Suzzette over the spectacles perched on his nose.

“He hasn’t been eating heavy food, but he’s been eating the soups and broths like you told him to,” she said. “I don’t think he’s eating
enough
yet, but he’s eating.”

“I haven’t been all that hungry, Doctor,” said Dawson. “I’m not doing enough to give me an appetite.”

“Oh, really?” This time Doctor Peck gave Dawson a skeptical look, shooting a quick glance toward Suzzette.

Dawson looked embarrassed. “You know what I mean, Doctor. I’m used to a day’s work, or at least a day on the trail. I’m not used to laying around in a bed.”

Again giving a quick summary glance at Suzzette, the doctor said, “I would think you might welcome such a change.”

Letting it pass, Dawson said, “The thing is, Doctor, I’m feeling good. I just need to get up and around. There’s no need in all this attention. It’s a small wound.”

Raising a finger for emphasis, Doctor Peck said, “Now here is where I can express my authority. It may be a small wound, but the damage it has done can be lethal, if you don’t take care of yourself. This is the sort of wound that can linger for a long time, and even come back years later if you’re not careful. The human intestines are not made up of hickory and rawhide, Mister Dawson.”

“I’m doing everything you said, Doctor,” Dawson replied. “I’m taking it easy, except for…well, you know.” This time
he
gave a short glance in Suzzette’s direction. She busied herself tucking up a loose strand of hair as if not hearing them.

“I’m not opposed to a man doing
that
,” said the doctor, “although I can’t see how, given the pain. But I suppose a man finds a way?”

Dawson let his question go. “I’m eating good enough for now, Doctor. That’s all you wanted to know, wasn’t it?”