DOC MOO TRANSFORMED HIS small office into a makeshift clinic, setting up a folding field hospital bed. The big coal hewer had a list of injuries that would have killed most men. Fractures, contusions, lacerations, concussion, possible internal bleeding. He had blood in his urine and stool; Moo feared a damaged spleen. He’d lost multiple teeth, and two of his lower incisors had been kicked through his bottom lip.
Usually, Moo could separate himself from his patient, keeping his emotions checked behind a wall of professional focus. A worried, angry, or grief-stricken physician was no good to anyone. But now, for the first time in years, he felt the stones of that well-constructed wall quivering, the mortar eroded. A man beaten with less mercy than a rabid dog.
That afternoon, two men rode down from the tent colony to visit Frank and bring back news. They were twin brothers, Bonney and Lacey, coal shovelers known as the Hellfighter twins for their service in the Great War. Doc Moo let them see Frank alone. When they came out of the room, their faces were stony, eyes hooded, but he could feel the fury radiating from them, as if gasoline ran in their veins. When they swung onto their borrowed mules, he saw the imprints of pistols beneath their loose cotton shirts. He couldn’t help but think of his father riding in that Maronite militia, farmers and schoolteachers going to war.
They spoke to Sid down the street, then rode off, back into the mountains.
At the end of the first day, while Frank was sleeping, sedated on morphine, Doc went up to the roof for one of his rare cigarettes. Sid soon appeared, his hands resting on the curled butts of his revolvers, his watch chain dangling from his vest. He’d kept deputies posted outside the building since Frank’s arrival, never straying far himself. “How is he, Doc?”
“Stable for now. My biggest fear now is internal injuries. I’ve set and splinted his fractures, but I’d like to get him under a radiograph.”
“Who’s got one?”
“State hospital in Welch.”
Sid shook his head. “Death sentence to send him back there. He might go in that hospital alive, but he’ll come out a corpse. That town’s crawling with Baldwins. I can’t protect him there.”
Moo nodded. “I feared the same thing,” he said. “And the next nearest radiograph is too far. Maybe once he’s strong enough to travel.” He shook his head. “Big Frank, out of everyone. As if he hasn’t had hell enough.”
Sid nodded. “Reckon that’s why they chose him, Doc. They’re trying to send us a message.”
Doc Moo pulled hard on the cigarette, taking the smoke deep into his lungs. He knew it was bad for him, but didn’t care. Sometimes you just had to hurt something—better yourself than someone else. He blew out the smoke, looking at their little town along the river. “What are we going to do, Sid?”
Sid’s face went hard, like Moo had rarely witnessed. No smile in sight. “They sent us a message. Reckon we’ll send one back.”
Moo swallowed. “What kind of message?”
Sid looked downriver. “One loud enough they ain’t apt to mishear it.”