Andy Ayres was ten years old.
It wasn’t really good fishing weather: too hot. But he called his old dog, Shep, to heel and went off down the creek in the afternoon sunshine, hoping to find a pool somewhere that might have a catfish wallowing in the pool shadows. His fishing rod was a supple willow pole, his bait some chicken bits his mother had given him, and his faith boundless. Shep bounded ahead, happy to be out and free on the open grassland, sniffing away under bushes at the faint remaining scent of prairie chicken or gopher, quartering back across the boy’s path, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to make sure his master was still coming.
There was a good pool by the shoulder of the creek bed not far from the road to town that Andy hadn’t tried yet, and he headed for this now. He scrambled down the steep shelving bank of the creek and meandered along, picking up pebbles for Shep to chase. As he approached the pool the dog started barking wildly and the boy looked up in alarm. He was frontier bred, and poised if the need arose to run fleet and fast towards the farm —• although there hadn’t been an Indian scare for the past ten years, his father always drummed vigilance into the boy. There was always danger on the open frontier: he must never take chances. He saw Shep circling around a jumble of rocks, barking wildly at something inside them.
‘Shep!’ he shouted. ‘Come out o’ there. What you got, anyway — a gopher?’
The dog took no notice, but went on barking, rushing at the rocks and then backing off warily, dancing from side to side. Andy went nearer, his eyes widening as he saw what looked like a bundle of old clothes thrown among the rocks. Then he realized that the bundle was in fact a man and that the man’s chest and back were covered in blood. The man was sitting up — no, trying to sit up would have been a more accurate description.
He was trying to say something, but the boy could not make out what it was. He was very frightened and did not know whether to go nearer or run away. His father’s stern warnings came back to him but his curiosity was stronger: he went nearer. The man saw him and leaned back against the rocks his face streaming with sweat, twisted with pain.
‘Boy,’ the man said. ‘Boy.’
‘What’s the matter, mister?’ Andy said. ‘You hurt? Who are you?’
‘Boy,’ the man said again. ‘Water.’
He made a little gesture with his arm, and Andy realized the man was badly hurt, maybe dying. He was frightened again.
‘Please,’ the man said.
Andy ran down to the creek where there was a slow trickle of clear mountain water. Then he realized he had nothing to carry the water in. He ran back to see if the man had a hat.
‘Water,’ the man said again. His voice was fainter.
‘You got to come to where the water is,’ Andy told him. ‘Can’t you walk?’
‘Water,’ the man said. ‘Walk.’
Andy just looked at him. There was nothing he could do. The man was too heavy for him to lift.
He didn’t know what to do. He wished his father was here.
‘Wait,’ he said to the man. He went closer to him, gingerly touching the man’s arm. ‘Wait here. I’ll get help. Wait here.’ The man looked at him through eyes washed pale by pain. But he seemed to understand. He nodded.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Get help.’
‘That’s right, mister,’ the boy said, and turned and ran as if all the devils in Hell were chasing him, the dog bounding along beside him,
running ahead and barking as Andy scooted fleet-footed across the burned plain along the side of the creek, then bore right and up the path towards his home, running, running, running until he saw his father and ran to him shouting, ‘Pa, Pa, Pa!’
John Ayres was a big man with muscles corded from years of hard work on the little farm in the fold of the hills. He ran towards his son, snatching up the pistol and belt that hung always close to him as he worked.
The boy blurted out his discovery and Ayres frowned, buckling the belt on as Andy spoke. His wife came out of the house, having heard the boy’s excited voice, and Ayres quickly told her what had happened.
‘Stay here with your mother, boy,’ he told his son, and when Andy made a moue of disappointment, went on, ‘Someone’s got to look after her.’
His words brought a quick smile of pride to the youngster’s face.
‘I’ll go down there and take a look, Martha,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’d better get a tub of hot water ready. If what Andy says is true, this man’s bad hurt.’
He strode off without another word, a tall dark man moving purposefully across his own land, the dog loping beside him through the scrubby grass and sagebrush. Within ten minutes he was beside the wounded man, dipping his neckerchief in the
creek and bathing his bitten lips.
‘Thanks,’ Wells said. ‘Thank you.’
He started to talk and Ayres bade him be silent.
‘Talk all you like when I get you back to the house,’ he said. ‘Right now you better save your strength. From the look of that hole in your back you’re going to need it.’
Angus Wells was not a small man nor a light one, and he was too weak to give the tall farmer any real help. But John Ayres picked him up as if he was a baby, and got Wells across his shoulder.
Wells cried out once and then collapsed into unconsciousness. Ayres nodded as though obscurely pleased by this fact, and then strode off back towards his house, covering the ground in good long strong strides, his wife coming to the door as she saw her husband approaching with the burden. They got Wells into the house and Mrs. Ayres stripped away the bloody shirt with a butcher knife. She pulled the breath sharply between her lips as she saw Wells’ wounds.
john,’ she said. ‘This is work for a doctor. If the man doesn’t get medical help, he’ll die.’
‘You’re right as usual, Martha,’ John Ayres said.
‘Andy, you go out and harness the mare. I’ll take the wagon. With luck I can be in Vegas before nightfall. Come, help me, love. We’ll at least wash his wounds and bandage them before he has to travel. It’s a bad road.’
Two hours later, John Ayres swung his wagon
out on to the road, and by late afternoon he had reached Las Vegas. It was only a small place, huddled around the tree-shaded plaza, its old streets narrow, dusty, crowded. Women were standing near the fountain, gossiping. They looked up incuriously as the Anglo drove past with his wagon. John Ayres was a familiar figure in the town. He pulled up outside a brick building three doors down the street from the offices which housed the local newspaper, the Optic. A wooden sign jutted from the wall, its paint faded by many years of sun. Ayres recalled when it had been fresh and golden, eight years ago when Jack Cox had come to town. He was an ambitious young doctor then. Now he was just a doctor. He had found his vocation in Las Vegas, no child ever needed to suffer pain or sickness if Cox could help. The Mexicans rarely had money. When they could, they paid. When they had nothing, he treated them anyway. Ayres happened to think he was a very fine human being, but of course they had never been able to talk about things like that.
He pushed into the office and explained quickly why he had come. Within ten minutes Wells was lying on the long leather—covered table in the back room, while Cox surveyed his wounds with a practiced eye that did not miss any of the other scars on Wells’ body.
‘Led an active life, this one,’ he said, stripping away the bandages Ayres’ wife had wound around Wells’ body. ‘Martha did a good job, john. As usual. Who is he, do you know?’
‘We didn’t try to ask him questions, Jack,’ Ayres said. ‘He was out most of the time anyway.’
‘Hmm,’ said Cox. He got a bottle of sal ammoniac from the bag and waved it under Wells’ nose.
After a minute or two, Wells flinched from the bottle, his eyes flickering.
‘That’s the boy,’ cooed Cox. He waved the bottle around again and this time Wells opened his eyes.
‘Where—’ he said, trying to sit up. Cox restrained him with a firm hand.
‘Easy, now,’ he said. ‘Don’t you go getting excited.’
Wells nodded. ‘You a doctor?’ Cox inclined his head, and Wells asked a question.
‘You’re in my office in Las Vegas,’ the doctor said. ‘This is john Ayres, who found you and brought you here.’
‘I’m — I don’t know how — ’
‘Ach, no need of that,’ Ayres said. ‘What’s your name, man? What happened to you?’
Wells told them his name and what he was, told them what had happened to him on the road and his suspicions about the reason for the ambush.
They listened without speaking, and then Cox said, ‘You’ll be wanting us to get word to Fort Union, then?’
Wells nodded. ‘Most urgent,’ he whispered.
‘Matter of life and death.’
‘Whose, laddie?’ Cox said, wryly. ‘Theirs — or yours?’
Wells didn’t answer. He had fallen back on the bed, out again. But Cox looked at his friend.
‘Was he telling the truth, do you think?’
‘Why would he make up a story like that, Jack?’
‘Why indeed,’ Cox said. ‘All right, john — get yourself out of here. I’ve serious work to do. I’ll try and patch up our friend so that he’ll hold together until they can send an ambulance down from the Fort. If you go down the street and see Pedro Chavez y Chavez, he’ll send one of his boys over to the Fort. You can write some kind of note for him to take, can’t you?’
‘I can do that,’ Ayres agreed. ‘And I will. But what about Wells? Will he live?’
‘Aye, he’ll live, John,’ Cox said. ‘Whether he’ll like it when he finds out his spine has a bullet lodged against it, I’m not so sure.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I wish I had the knowledge and the equipment to tell you the answer to that, John,’ the doctor said. ‘A fifty-fifty chance he’ll never walk again.’
He looked down at his patient and stifled a curse as he realized that Wells had regained consciousness and had been listening to every word he said.
‘Hell,’ he said hastily, ‘I don’t know anything, of course. I’m more than likely completely wrong. Lie still, there, now. john, won’t you get on and arrange that other business. Go on, go on, go on,’ he ranted on, bustling the big man out of the room, making a big show of sorting out his instruments and washing his hands, avoiding the eyes of the man on the bed. Finally he turned to face Wells and his eyes widened with surprise when he saw that Wells was grinning.
‘This is no damned laughing matter, you know,’ he said, mock-angry, alarmed lest perhaps Wells was becoming delirious or might even have tetanus. God, what he’d give for proper equipment!
‘Take it easy, Doc,’ Wells said. ‘Take it easy. Five hours ago I was as near dead as a man can be. Now you’re giving me a fifty-fifty chance. I reckon by tomorrow morning I’ll be up and around at this rate.’
Cox looked at his patient with new respect. ‘By God,’ he muttered. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all.’