There are always pantalooned bipeds enough to make a crowd in a town like Damascus, who have nothing to do but collect on some convenient roost and talk it over when something happens, nationally, locally, or even in the remote reaches of the earth. Local news is preferred above all others, to be sure. A fight in Damascus was of far more lively interest, and certainly of more importance in their conception of relativity, than a revolution in Mexico or the massacre of a British general in Egypt.
The crowd that had assembled to witness Old Doc Ross's suppression of competition in the medical field west of Dodge, and lend him the encouragement of its appreciative and partisan presence, reassembled on the hotel porch shortly after the downfall of their champion, to talk the thing over from all points, groping around to discover the weak spot in their tactics that had been responsible for the overthrow of Old Doc Ross.
Ed Kraus was there, and Larrimore, the town cobbler, who had a lean little stock of shoes on the other side of his cobbling room; Dine Fergus, ready with his wit, and Jim Justice, distended in his wisdom. Several others were on hand who have no part to play before you in this small drama of a far-off place and day. The downfall of Old Doc Ross was incomprehensible to them all.
The old feller was so bowed down by disgrace and humiliation, Justice said, they never need look to see him lift his head in Damascus again. In all his fighting experience Old Doc Ross never had suffered such contumelious subjection. To be boxed on the whiskers, spread out and spanked before the public eye, was more than his proud spirit could bear, Justice declared. Old Doc Ross's heart was broxen. That would be the end of him.
Doc Ross had been stunned by the vulgarity of his competitor's fighting method, they all agreed. Nobody ever had man-handled him before, putting foot to his flesh in coarse expression of scorn. It seemed to Doc Ross, they said, taking it from his mumbled expressions and maudlin tears as he left the scene of his defeat, as if the upstart doctor had disdained to fight him as an equal, mauling him that way as if he were nothing but a common ruffian. What could a gentleman with a gun do, Old Doc Ross had asked, turning a sad face upon his disappointed partisans, against a scoundrel who fought like a mule?
That was what Old Doc Ross wanted to know, and there did not appear to be anybody well enough versed in chivalry in that town to answer him. Unable to find consolation in words, Old Doc Ross had gone back to the balm in bottles that was available to the hands of downspirited gentlemen in Damascus. He had continued his carouse, his eyes black from the mauling he had taken, his little red nose rasped raw by his slide through the cinders.
That new company doctor, Jim Justice said, appeared to be a feller who always took hold of the wrong end of the stick without getting his fingers burned. By the special dispensation in favor of fools, he had come through two scrapes in as many days with a whole hide, his high opinion of himself undiminished by the slightest degree. If that kind of luck continued there would be no putting up with him; they'd have to turn the town over to him and get out. It had been Jim's great hope to see the long-legged new doctor disappear like a pair of galloping shears down the railroad. He had given humorous expression to this anticipated pleasure, which made disappointment a very large and bitter pill.
"Yes, and what's this town goin' to do with Old Doc Ross drove off on another drunk that may last two weeks?" Larrimore wanted to know. "We might all break our legs or git pizened, and nobody to look after us—nobody that I'd trust to set no leg of mine, anyhow."
"He couldn't cure a cat," Dine Fergus said, giving it such a twist of disdain in word and facial grimace that it was almost nasty.
"My wife's got to have somebody to 'tend to her purty soon, and that's a cinch," Kraus said, proclaiming the condition of his spouse with the peculiar indelicacy common to men of his class. "It ain't goin' to be a doctor that's so green he has to hold a book in one hand while he works with the other."
"Did he do that?" Fergus inquired greedily. "Did he git out a book to study up what to do to old Bill Cottrell?"
"He set there nearly all night readin' some kind of a book, it had a black back like a medicine book, but I can't say positive it was one," Justice testified. He said it with such mean innuendo that no doubt was left in the one-thought heads of the loafers assembled before his door.
"Several other women'll be needin' a doctor's attention purty soon, from what I've noticed," Larrimore said. "I'm darned glad mine ain't one of 'em. I wouldn't trust that feller to fetch a calf into this world, let alone a kid."
Larrimore was a young man, dark and surly, resentful of his condition in life, spitefully envious of everybody whose profits or earnings were greater than his own. He had a dark saying that the world owed him a living, always hinting by his manner that he was just about ready with his plans for enforcing the collection. He had a hedge of upended black hair that gave him the appearance of one of those crested barnyard fowls of Mediterranean breed which is always a trouble maker among its kind. His wife, whom he was not above giving a slap now and then, was sitting cowed and saddened in the little room behind the shop, waiting to explain to customers that her husband had been so busy he hadn't got around to their half-soles yet.
"He says he didn't come here to practice in town," Justice sneered, "but I wouldn't like to tempt him by offerin' him a case."
"He was so anxious to get one he rushed in among the bullets after it," Dine said, feigning an appreciation of the enterprising spirit in his subtle way of wit so keenly relished by his world.
"He thinks he saved Bill Cottrell's life," Justice told them, chuckling over the absurdity.
"I wonder what Charley Burnett'd say about that?" Dine speculated, with scornful lifting of his upper lip in the cute little smile so fetching among the young ladies of Damascus. "Old Charley cut loose at 'em from the winder of his office before—"
"He'll hear from Charley, don't you worry. Charley ain't around swallerin' no talk like that feller handed him at the inquest."
This came from Larrimore, whose greatest pleasure lay in the contemplation of collections and adjustments of matters in arrears.
"Do you suppose Bill's wife she'll keep him on the case when she comes?"
Kraus put it as a general question, an open bid for the opinions of all.
"I've been wonderin'," Justice replied.
Jim was sitting tilted back in his accustomed place, the legs of his chair in the little depressions which held them secure against a slip. His hands were clasped across his replete paunch, his walrus face expressed the satisfaction he always found in taking a crack at somebody behind his back. It had been a life-long diversion. Jim had started bushwhacking when he was seventeen.
"I'll bet if we could sober Old Doc Ross up she wouldn't keep Hall on the case a minute," Kraus said. "I think some of us fellers ought to take him down to the barn and see if we can't git him goin' straight."
"Couldn't be done in time," Justice said, shaking his head in sad expression of fatuity. "She'll be here on the ten-seven to-night. Judge Waters got a wire from her this morning."
"Might as well order Bill's coffin, then," Kraus declared.
"Well, Hall's got this town into a lot of trouble," Justice sighed. "If it hadn't been for him takin' a hand where nobody didn't ask him—"
"Nor want him," Larrimore cut in. "We can take care of ourselves here in Damascus."
"If it hadn't been for him interferin'," Justice continued, a little curved off from his main course, but determined, "we'd 'a' drove them fool boys off without killin' any of them. Simrall wouldn't 'a' had any come-back on us then. I told him as much last night."
"What did he say?" Dine inquired, craftily curious.
"He said did we want them fellers to murder old Bill Cottrell and go on away without anybody interferin' with 'em. I said I guessed we'd 'a' made out without any of his help."
"They know over in Simrall by now who they've got their come-back on," said Larrimore. A glance of appreciative understanding passed between him and Fergus. Kraus sat like a sack of bran, his long back against a post of the porch, his dull face inexpressive of any interest. Justice shifted a little, making his chair creak.
"Bill Cottrell was a derned old fool, slashin' around the way he did," Justice growled. "If he'd a kep' his danged old gun where it belonged they never would 'a' took a shot at him. When a man runs out with a gun in his hand lookin' for trouble, my experience has been he's purty sure to find it."
"Do you think he'll live?" Larrimore inquired.
"No, I don't. He's too old. Mortification'll set in to-morrow and he'll go. This slick doctor stands around tiptoein' like he's tryin' to lift himself by his boot-years, lookin' wise and knowin' nothin', actin like he's had a thousand cases like it, but I'll bet money he never had one before."
"The company'll wish it'd kep' Old Doc Ross—"
"Here he comes!" Fergus warned, cutting Kraus short.
Dr, Hall passed the loafers as if they were so many stones, although he recognized all of them as members of the late moral force behind Ross. He relieved the woman whom he had engaged to watch by Major Cottrell. The patient had regained consciousness, she reported, and fallen into a weary sleep.
Hall felt that he had been unfaithful to his charge, in a measure, concerned to see that he had been gone four hours, although there was nothing more to be done for Cottrell in his present state. Not altogether undisturbed by what had passed since his arrival in Damascus, nor entirely quiet concerning the future, Hall took up his vigil beside the wounded man, the black book that had brought the scorn of Jim Justice upon him, in his hand.
This was a book not more than a quarter as big as the standard medical volume, and as much like such work outwardly as it was inwardly, although it had much to say of a man who had suffered a wound. Tristram Shandy was the name of that book. Dr. Hall sat reading it by the window until the light of day failed away in the west. He was reading it by the light of the lamp when Mrs. Cottrell and her daughter Elizabeth entered the room something past ten o'clock that night.
Mrs. Cottrell was a placid lady several years younger than her husband, a capable woman, firm without severity. She still had much of the grace of figure and face that had been her fame throughout the far-set army posts of the western frontier thirty years before. A comely woman, warm in her manner, direct in her way, resourceful and self-reliant, as pioneer women, above all other pioneers, must be. Her dark, wavy hair was a little gray, embellishment, rather than detraction, to the youthful flush of her cheeks. Dr. Hall felt Major Bill Cottrell's chances advance thirty percent the moment she entered the room.
Elizabeth carried much of her mother's grace, standing tall like her, yet not assertively tall. She was wearing a broad-brimmed, low-crowned black Leghorn hat, rather floppy in appearance and pliant of brim, which was the mode among young women of that period. This headgear was adorned by nothing more than a broad ribbon.
Her serge dress had something of military look about it, probably due to the brass buttons on the jacket. Dr. Hall noted, in the quick look he gave her to see mainly chow she came up to Jim Justice's description of her, that her face appeared thin and anxious, and that her eyebrows were too heavy; that her hair was the tinge of new cider, a dusty, cloudy blonde, which might be better, or worse, by day.
Justice came puffing into the room after them, leaving some luggage in the hall. Mrs. Cottrell went straight to the bedside, where she stood a moment looking into her sleeping husband's face, which was shaded by a card thrust into the burner of the lamp. Elizabeth followed, standing silently beside her. Dr. Hall stood by the little table supporting the lamp, finger between the pages of his book.
"This is the doctor, Dr. Hall," Justice said, seeming to disclaim any responsibility for him in his off-hand way of speaking.
Mrs. Cottrell turned quickly, offering her hand. Tears were brimming her eyes, her lips were trembling, but her soft voice was steady when she spoke.
"I am Mrs. Cottrell," she said, finishing Jim's one-sided introduction. "My daughter, Dr. Hall."
Elizabeth was not as steady as her mother. Her grief at sight of her father stretched out as white and silent as if ready for the grave numbed her beyond words. The pain of it was reflected in her face and stricken eyes.
"Oh, now," said Dr. Hall, putting down his book, comfort, assurance, in his almost brisk words, "it isn't as bad as that."
"I can't tell you what relief we feel to find Major Cottrell in the hands of a competent physician," the mother said, at once brightened and cheered by his comforting manner of confidence. "We didn't know another doctor had come to Damascus, we trembled for the consequences, thinking all the time he was in other hands. Were you with him from the first?"
"I had that good fortune, madam."
"It was ours," she returned, expressing a volume in her simple words.
"Will he get well, Dr. Hall?" Elizabeth asked, pleading hope in her low-pitched voice, a great, heart-finding appeal in her solemn brown eyes.
"I think so."
Dr. Hall spoke brightly, with as much comfort in his words as if he had made no little corner of reservation at all. He looked very well satisfied, very easy in mind and conscience, very competent and kindly judicial—dang his nickel-plated eyes! thought Justice—as he stood lifting himself to his toes with slow, easy movement of confident strength.
"Oh, thank you!" breathed Elizabeth, sighing away a vast encumbrance of trouble and doubt.
"It was a godsend you were with him from the first!" Mrs. Cottrell said, her voice vibrant with emotion, softer for the great flood of thankfulness that suffused her eyes and made her hearty face pale.
"He was right here," said Justice, his coarseness so evident upon him in this refined company. "He's the feller—"
"I am the new railroad doctor, Mr. Justice would say," Dr. Hall interrupted, giving the old bushwhacker a silencing look. "I'm not a practitioner in general. The local doctor was—that is to say—I believe he—"
"Was drunk, as usual," said Elizabeth. "Thank heaven!"
"Blind," said Justice, with large elucidation. Then he added, to give it emphasis and remove all doubt: "Blind-stinkin' drunk."
Jim saw which way the wind stood for Old Doc Ross in that company. He wanted to make a show of coming over to the right side.
Mrs. Cottrell asked about the nature of her husband's wound, the cloud of trouble that had cleared for a little while out of her face settling darkly again as Dr. Hall explained. She had thought for a few moments, from the doctor's comforting assurance, that it had not been as serious as she had been informed in the news which brought her home.
"I don't look for any complications, everything is satisfactory, pointing to a quick recovery," Dr. Hall said. "He has vitality enough for two men."
"He's past sixty-five, Doctor," Mrs. Cottrell said doubtfully. "He looks so tired and hopeless."
"But, mother, Dr. Hall says he'll get well," Elizabeth reminded her.
"I'm sure he will, too," Mrs. Cottrell said brightly, either putting her fears aside or making a brave show of doing so.
"Your physician will agree with me, I'm certain," Dr. Hall declared, lifting himself with easy elasticity of muscle, settling back to his heels as if putting a period to all doubt.
"We have no doctor, there's no doctor in Damascus, nor anywhere near, but this besotted old ruffian, Ross. It was a special providence that saved Major Cottrell from his hands. It isn't a question of ethics at all, Dr. Hall—I know what you're thinking—but of necessity. You'll see him through?"
"Yes; I'll see him through," Dr. Hall returned, so quietly, so kindly, so full of that humane confidence of his that the hearts of the two women rose to him in a surge of great friendliness.
"He's sleepin' as peaceful as a baby," said Justice, determined to ingratiate himself by sympathy, strange as that way was to his scoffing habit.
"I'll stay with him till he wakes," Mrs. Cottrell said quietly. "Mr. Justice, please show my daughter to our rooms. Dr, Hall, you look tired—"
"He was with him all night, didn't shut his eyes," said Jim.
"You can tell me what there is to be done, I'm not inexperienced, to my past sorrow and anxiety, Dr. Hall. I thought his fighting days were over. He's too old for that."
Dr. Hall gave her the few instructions necessary, while Justice went away with Elizabeth. When Dr. Hall was going to his room for the sleep he needed so acutely that it was almost pain to bear, Justice stopped him in the hall.
"I didn't have a chance to explain to you how I come to be down there with that crowd of bums this afternoon, Doc," he said.
"Oh, that's all right; I understand it perfectly," said Hall, annoyed by the interference, waving him aside impatiently.
"I don't want you to git me wrong, Doc," Jim insisted. "I told them fellers when they started that I'd see 'em carry their joke—it wasn't nothing but a joke, Doc—" blandly, suave discount in his tone—"told 'em I'd see 'em carry their little joke just so fur, and no furder. I told 'em that when they started down there with Old Doc Ross. I had my old gun on me, and I aimed to square off and use it if I saw that joke goin' too fur. That's what I was aimin' to do, Doc—I was goin' to square right off and throw lead."
"Thank you," said Hall, in the tone of a man unconvinced, and too indifferent to be either sarcastic or scornful. He went on, leaving Justice drawing his bushy eyebrows in a scowl as he looked after him.
"Damn your nickel-plated eyes!" said Jim, but well under his breath, not force enough in it to move his mustache the width of its thinnest hair.