Shaye hadn’t seen a fist fight since high school when her boyfriend punched Ryan Halestone in the nose for kissing her in the hallway. But that fight had been a tea party compared to this one.Alejandro fought with a single-minded intensity the likes of which she had never seen, seemingly impervious to the blows that he received. Blood oozed from a cut on his lower lip, and another on his right cheek. McCrory looked far worse. He was bleeding from his nose and mouth, his right eye was turning black.
Cheers and catcalls rose from the crowd as the two men exchanged blows. Beside her, men were taking bets on the outcome of the fight. The odds were five to two on Alejandro. She would have bet on him herself, had she been so inclined. Even to her untrained eye, it was easy to see that Dade McCrory was no match for Alejandro. McCrory was tiring rapidly, his punches were badly timed and falling short. Alejandro hit him again, and McCrory went down on his hands and knees. When he came up, there was a knife in his hand.
Alejandro stared at him a moment, and then there was a knife in his hand, too, pulled from the inside of his right boot.
For a moment, the two men glared at each other. There was a subtle shift in the atmosphere and the crowd fell silent as what had been an ordinary fight suddenly turned deadly.
Dade McCrory knew how to handle a knife, and the fight, which had been pretty much one-sided until now, took on a whole new dimension.
Shaye bit down on her lower lip, hardly daring to breathe, as the two men circled each other, bodies slightly crouched, knife hands outstretched. It was a silent and deadly dance, oddly compelling.
Without warning, McCrory lunged forward and when he pulled away, there was blood dripping from a long gash in Alejandro’s left arm that started just below his elbow.
A buzz ran through the crowd as Alejandro fell back. McCrory pressed forward, his lips pulled back in a snarl, his knife driving for Alejandro’s heart.
Shaye gasped, felt her own heart skip a beat, and then, in a swift, cat-like move, Alejandro ducked under McCrory’s blade. Shaye blew out a deep breath, her fingernails digging into her palms as the two men circled each other again.
They came together in a rush, the sounds of their labored breathing punctuated by the ring of steel striking steel.
McCrory’s blade slid over Alejandro’s ribs as Alejandro’s blade came down toward his chest. McCrory’s upraised arm deflected the blade and it sank to the hilt in his shoulder instead of his chest. Alejandro jerked the blade out with a quick twist. McCrory let out a howl, then turned and staggered down the alley.
Several men followed him. The rest clustered around Alejandro.
Shaye elbowed her way through the crowd. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’ve been better.” He cleaned the blood off his knife by wiping it across his pant leg, then slid it back inside his boot. “Damn coward.”
“Come on, you need a doctor.”
“I’m all right.”
“Sure you are.” She slid her arm around his waist. “Which way?”
One of the men handed her Alejandro’s jacket. Another stepped forward and wrapped a red bandana, which looked none too clean, around the bloody gash in Alejandro’s arm. Several men slapped Alejandro on the back as they threaded their way through the crowd.
“Way to go, Rio!”
“McCrory’s had it coming for a long time, the damned one-eyed man!”
“You should have put that knife between his ribs.”
“One-eyed man?” Shaye asked as they walked toward the mouth of the alley. “What on earth does that mean?”
“Means he’s a no-good, yellow four flusher.”
Shaye rolled her eyes. “Speak English.”
“He’s a cheat,” Alejandro said curtly. “I never should have sold him my share in the Belle, but I wanted out. I didn’t know what a low-down bastard he was until it was too late.”
Shaye glanced right and left when they reached the street. “Which way?”
He grinned at her. “Stop worrying. I’m fine.”
“I want you to see a doctor.” She looked at the kerchief wrapped around his arm. It was soaked with blood. Blood darkened the front of his shirt, too.
“Shoot, there isn’t a doctor in this town that I’d trust. Doctors are responsible for more deaths than mine cave-ins and pneumonia.”
Shaye frowned, wondering if he was serious. There was a hospital on Mills Street south of Green if she remembered correctly. “Be that as it may, your arm needs to be stitched up, and I can’t do it.”
“I can.”
She looked up at him. “You?”
He shrugged. “I’ve done it before.”
“Well, you’re not going to do it now. Come on.”
The hospital was a large two-story frame house. A sign out front said Doctor Rogers, M.D.
The waiting room was crammed with people, mostly miners with a variety of injuries that seemed to range from sprains and breaks to pneumonia. There was no place to sit down.
The doctor emerged from his office a moment later. He surveyed the patients, then summoned Alejandro.
“Hey,” one man complained. “We was here first.”
“Yes, indeed, you were,” the doctor replied. “But all you’ve got is a sprained ankle. This man’s bleeding.”
“Dammit, Doc…”
“I’ve put in twelve hours today,” the doctor said brusquely. “I haven’t had lunch and I’ve missed my supper. You can wait your turn, or you can leave. You,” he said, pointing at Alejandro, “come with me.”
Shaye hung Alejandro’s coat on a hook beside the door, then glanced around the room. Like every doctor’s office she had ever been in, there was a pile of old magazines on a table: Scribner’s Monthly, Ladies Home Journal, Carriage Monthly, the Illustrated Police News.
She skipped the magazines and picked up an old newspaper. Thumbing through the pages, she perused the ads. Joseph Wasson was running for State Assembly for Mono and Inyo Counties, the Patterson Brothers were advertising their photography shop, Silas B. Smith was having a going-out-of-business sale. The ad for Boone & Wright, located at the corner of Green and Main Street, stated they were dealers in General Merchandize, including groceries, crockery and glassware, pure whiskeys and brandies, wines and cigars. They were also agents for Weiner’s Milwaukee Beer, Ale, and Porter. They also had stabling facilities for two hundred horses. An interesting combination, Shaye mused.
A small article on the back page listed the businesses available in Bodie. One opera house, five newspapers, six stage lines, four shoemakers, a dozen cigar stores, fifteen restaurants, forty Chinese wash houses, ten barber shops, two banks, sixteen law offices, four drug stores, two assay offices, one harness maker, twenty-one lodging houses, as well as a number of bakeries, stables, and clothing stores.
She folded the paper and put it back on the table, glanced at the closed door of the doctor’s office, tapped her foot impatiently. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, she crossed the floor and entered the office.
Beyond the office, which was sparsely furnished with a small desk and a large file cabinet, was a curtained off area. She hesitated a moment, then drew back the curtain. Alejandro was stretched out on a narrow table, his eyes closed. A wide bandage was wrapped around his middle. It looked very white against the dark bronze of his skin. His shirt had been carelessly tossed on a wooden stool in the corner.
The doctor was frowning in concentration as he stitched the long, narrow gash in Alejandro’s forearm. The cloth under his arm was stained with blood. Shaye felt her stomach turn over at the sight.
The doctor looked up. “Is something wrong?”
“No. No, I was just…”
“I’d advise you to sit down,” the doctor said, gesturing at a chair, “and put your head between your legs.”
“I’m fine,” she said weakly.
“You’re about to faint,” the doctor said curtly. “Sit down.”
“If anyone’s going to faint, I think it should be me,” Alejandro remarked drily.
Shaye sat down, lowered her head and closed her eyes. The sight of blood had always made her sick to her stomach.
Some time later she felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw Alejandro grinning at her. It was a rather lop-sided grin, since his lower lip was swollen on one side. He had put on his shirt. It was, she noted, past saving. His right arm had been bandaged from his elbow down to wrist.
“You think you can make it back to the hotel?” he asked.
“Oh, shut up.”
He paid the doctor, Shaye retrieved his coat, and they left the hospital.
“I’ll say one thing about living in the past,” Shaye muttered as they walked back to the hotel. “It’s never dull.”