Chapter Thirty-one

Jesse left the sheriff’s office, but not without first noticing that Dalton Franklin’s car had reappeared and now sat parked across the street. There was no sign of the fat ex-sheriff, though.

He drove to Mort’s Garage. If he remembered correctly, Mort had a busted-up Model T sitting in his back lot. Its front end was all smashed in, but he thought the motor and drive chain might be workable. If it was, and if he could jaw-bone a deal from Mort, he’d have his power supply to drive the saw.

Mort was agreeable to a little haggling and they made a deal. Jesse was very pleased with himself and drove back to the Mercantile. Willie had his work cut out for him. Somehow he’d have to find a way to fit a wider wheel to the back end of the T Model. The wheel that mounted a tire would be several inches too narrow to accommodate the belt that powered the saw blade.

He found Willie working his way through a stack of clean rags as he oiled and wiped the rig’s track.

“I got us a power source, but it’ll need some work,” Jesse said as he shed his jacket and grabbed a handful of rags.

“What’d you get?”

“After Mort and I did some jawboning, the back end of a Model T. The motor runs and the wheel spins. We’ll need to resurrect the radiator and modify the wheel, though.”

“And just where did you jaw Mort down to?”

“If it works, we owe him ten dollars. If it don’t, it’s on us to get the carcass to the town dump.”

“Fair enough. How’re we going to get the old wreck here?”

“I reckon I’ll borry me a truck somewhere.”

The rifle’s report, a sharp crack of a Lee-Enfield that Jesse would recognize anywhere, arrived at the instant he saw Willie spin and heard him gasp. Willie crumpled to the ground.

Jesse yanked his pistol free and snapped off four shots back along what he assumed to be the line of fire. He had no illusions about his .32 caliber pistol. He knew it did not have the range to hit anything at that distance, but he hoped if he put enough elevation on the barrel, he might lob one or two bullets into the general area. He thought he heard a thump, but couldn’t be sure.

DeGroot burst through the door and stared at Willie on the ground.

“You shot this man?”

“No. Hand me some of them clean rags.”

He grabbed a handful from DeGroot and packed Willie’s wound.

DeGroot stood by, shuffling his feet. “But I hear shots, there you are with the gun. So, why did you—?”

Jesses tore some rags into long strips, tied them together, and cinched them around the crude dressing he’d made.

“Didn’t, Mister DeGroot. Give me a hand with Willie. I have to get him to the hospital. Help me put him in the car.”

DeGroot did as he’d been asked. “But, Jesse, your gun and the shooting?”

“Call the sheriff and tell him what happened. I have to get going, okay?”

He slammed the door shut, jumped into the driver’s seat and tore off. Not to the local dispensary. Jesse knew a serious gunshot wound when he saw one and this one for sure wasn’t the first. He headed to Christiansburg. It boasted a full-scale hospital. He’d have gone all the way to Roanoke if he thought Willie would survive the trip. Willie needed a surgeon and some real nursing if he was going to survive this, and the order of the day was to get to them as quickly as possible.

An attendant and a nurse helped Jesse wheel Willie into the emergency area. The attending physician shook his head and wondered how long the man would last, considering the nature of the wound. Jesse wanted to knock this young whelp silly. Instead, he asked if there was a surgeon handy and an OR.

“We got an operating room, but I’m what you get for a surgeon. I don’t have an anesthetist. I’ll have to send for one and I don’t have an OR nurse to help me, either.”

“Okay, listen. This ain’t the first wound I seen like this, Doc, and I worked a few patch-ups in my time in France. If we wait for all them folks to get here, get themselves scrubbed up, and so on, Willie, here, will die.” He turned and surveyed the meager staff. “How about you, Sis? You up to dropping ether for the doc?”

The nurse glanced at the attending and then at Willie. “I reckon I could try. Yes, sir.”

“Okay, then, Doc, let’s us scrub up in some carbolic and fix this man.”

“This is beyond my authority. You have no training. The nurse is not permitted to administer anesthesia and—”

Jess let his jacket flap open. The doctor saw the gun on his hip and swallowed.

“Just so you know, Doc. I am one of them men you have heard about who lives up on Buffalo Mountain. I reckon you know what that means.”

“The OR is this way.”

As it turned out, the nurse was a more-than-capable anesthetist and Jesse quite adept as the operating room nurse. Except for scalpel, and sutures, the nomenclature of the OR was a mystery to Jesse. The doctor had to point to the various instruments he needed. When the doctor had extracted the bullet and held it out on the end of a forceps, Jesse offered a pan and smiled when it clanked in as the doc released it. That slug was going home with him.

They found Willie a room, made him comfortable, and agreed that the operation never happened. Jesse had brought him to the hospital in pretty much the state he currently was in. The nurse seemed pleased with herself. Jesse couldn’t tell what was on the doctor’s mind. He fished out a pint of his grandfather’s best moonshine from under the backseat of his car and pressed it on the doc. They had an understanding.

The registrar was another matter. That stern woman had paperwork to complete. Two twenty-dollar bills and the assurance that he, Jesse, would be good for all further costs, persuaded her to accept the new patient. So, Bill Cook of Buffalo Mountain was admitted to the hospital, listed as having incurred a superficial wound in a hunting accident.

Jesse headed home. He needed Serena’s brain working on this, but wasn’t sure how he was going to tell her how they’d come to this point.