CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The elderly doctor, a tall, thin white-haired man by the name of Tom Malone, declared Red Ryan’s wounds to be superficial except for the last cut that was deep enough to cause him concern but was not life-threatening, and he discounted any danger from tetanus.
Directing his pedantic words at T. C. Lyons and Buttons Muldoon, not his patient, he said, “Bleeding wounds are always alarming to the nonprofessional bystander, but—”
“Doc, they’re alarming to me,” Red said.
Malone ignored that and continued, “In this case a bandage may be conveniently employed, once the wounds have been thoroughly cleaned with alcohol. Later, if the patient expresses discomfort from pain, laudanum may be administered at the caregiver’s discretion.”
Hope fled Lyons’s face. “So, Ryan is going to pull through?”
“I appreciate your concern, Sheriff, but I see no reason why he should not,” the doctor said.
Lyon’s nodded, disappointment writ large on his face.
After Red was freed from the ropes that bound him to the bed, Dr. Malone bandaged his chest, left a bottle of laudanum and then stepped aside as Thaddeus Wraith and an assistant carried out Skull Jackson’s body, the death mask of the gunman’s face made even more grotesque by the manner of his dying.
After the doctor and the undertakers were gone, Red got up from his bloodstained bed and with difficulty dressed.
“How are you feeling, Ryan?” Lyons said.
Red managed a smile. “Sorry to dash your hopes again, Lyons, but I’ll survive.” He stuck out his hand. “Thank you for saving my life. You played a man’s part tonight.”
Lyons thought it over and finally shook Red’s hand. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” he said.
“You didn’t kill a man, you killed a monster,” Red said. “Skull Jackson intended to slice me up piece by piece.”
“Maybe you should thank Trudy True,” Lyons said.
“You mean the treacherous little whore that got me into this mess?” Red’s shirt bulged over his bulky bandage, and he felt light-headed.
“She thought Seth Roper was playing a practical joke on you,” Lyons said.
“Roper hired her?”
“That’s what she told everyone in Joe Dolan’s saloon. One of my sometime deputies heard her.” Lyons smiled. “Whores don’t keep secrets.”
“And Skull Jackson was the practical joke?” Red said.
“The girl didn’t know that. But her loose talk in the saloon led me here, so if I were you, I wouldn’t be too hard on her.”
“All right, what did the girl know?”
“Roper told her it was all a big joke, that’s all. The girl didn’t know he planned on Jackson killing you one cut at a time.”
“He wanted Stella Morgan’s carpetbag.”
“And you didn’t tell him?”
“No. I told him nothing.”
“You’re a tough man, Ryan.”
“I don’t know how tough I’d have been after a few more cuts. I think I would’ve told Jackson what he wanted to know.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Lyons said. His watch chimed, and he snapped it open and looked at it. “One o’clock.”
“Then Stella doesn’t have much time,” Red said. “She sent two killers after me, Danny Kline and Jackson, and she’ll send more. The first train out of El Paso leaves this morning at seven, six hours from now, but without the carpetbag she won’t be on it.”
“I still don’t have the proof I need to arrest her,” Lyons said.
“You can arrest Roper.”
“He wanted to play a practical joke on you, Ryan. He didn’t know that Jackson would show up to avenge his friend. He’s horrified about what happened, just horrified. That will be his defense, and there’s no way around it.”
Buttons Muldoon said, “On the bright side, so long as she doesn’t have the carpetbag we can keep Stella Morgan in town until Pip Ogden can pin a murder charge on her.” Buttons gave Red a sidelong look and said, “Though me and Red won’t be in El Paso much longer.”
“I’m not leaving until I see this through,” Red said. “Now it’s become a personal thing with me.”
“Just to remind you, Red, we got a date with a yellowbelly in Fort Concho,” Buttons said.
“He can wait. I have a feeling that one way or another, this whole business will be settled real soon.”
“Ryan, watch your step,” Lyons said. “I don’t want you breaking the law.”
“Whatever it takes,” Red said.
“Ryan . . . I don’t like where you’re headed,” Lyons said.
Red looked the sheriff in the eye. “Neither do I,” he said.
* * *
Lyons left, to be replaced by the hotel owner and a couple of maids who had been roused from sleep and looked irritable.
“I’m here to assess the damage,” said the manager, a bearded man named Pollock who looked a heap more irritable than the maids. “Door wrecked, bedsheets destroyed,” he said. “Mr. Ryan, you’ve brought ruination to my house.”
“Send the bill to Sheriff Lyons,” Buttons said. “He busted down the door and did the shooting. And as it’s still early yet, Mr. Ryan will need another room.”
“Then he can move in with you,” Pollock said. “I won’t trust him with another of my rooms. Not after what he’s done to this one.”
One of the maids looked at the bloody bed, shrieked, and scampered out of the room, adding to Pollock’s annoyance. “That’s it!” he yelled. “Ryan, get the hell out of here, or do I have to throw you out?”
A split second later he found himself looking into the muzzle of Buttons Muldoon’s Remington, the hammer back and ready. “I don’t advise that,” Buttons said. “But you suit yourself, mister, state your intentions.”
Pollock’s gaze went from the Remington to Buttons’s bleak eyes, and he decided he wanted no part of either. “At your convenience, of course, Mr. Ryan,” he said.
“Now is convenient,” Buttons said. “Gather up your stuff, Red.”
* * *
Red Ryan sat on the corner of Buttons’s bed and said, “Well, where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know,” Buttons said. “Do you?”
“Wait for Stella Morgan to make the next move, I guess,” Red said.
Buttons nodded. “I thought that might be your way of thinking.” He stepped to the corner of the room and grabbed Red’s shotgun. “Keep this close. You do a sight better with the Greener than you do a Colt’s gun.”
“Danny Kline is the one that’s dead,” Red said, slightly miffed.
“Yeah, he is,” Buttons said. “And you’re the one that was almighty lucky.”