The first shot came before the Man With No Phlegm and Dr. Barlow reached the camp.
It struck the sign nailed to the cottonwood beside the trail. A painted hand pointed north. The shot took off two fingers.
Bulbous Bob stopped. “That sign was already giving poor directions.”
The Man looked toward the low rise ahead. A man stood there with a rifle braced against his shoulder. He wore a blanket over his head and had the exhausted look of someone who’d been awake long enough to forget what a rifle was for.
“Put it down,” the Man called.
The man blinked at him. His rifle barrel dipped.
Dr. Barlow rode up beside them, a leather case strapped to his saddle. “That’s the camp?”
“That’s somebody who doesn’t want company.”
“I can see that.”
The Man rode forward first. Bob followed at a distance that suggested he wanted it noted in writing.
The sentry lowered his rifle. A streak of yellow spit clung to his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand and stared at the Man’s coat.
“You bring the doctor?” he asked.
“Right here.”
“Good.” The man’s knees buckled. He caught himself against the signpost and looked annoyed at it.
Dr. Barlow dismounted. “How many?”
“Six. Counting me.”
“You’re one of them?”
“I’m the one still holding the rifle.”
The Man took it from him before the sentry could fall on it. The rifle was warm from his hands and smelled of old grease. He propped it against the tree.
“Let’s see the others.”
The camp sat in a shallow hollow. Three tents, a cook fire gone to ash, and a wagon whose left wheel had sunk into the mud. There were no horses in the picket line. The six men had been sleeping, sitting, or slumping wherever their strength ran out.
One was on his back beneath the wagon, a hat over his face. The Man counted him, then looked at the other five.
“Six,” he said.
“Unless the one under the wagon’s a stump,” Bob said. “He’s about the right shape.”
The Man crouched and pulled the hat away. The rider’s face was slick with sweat. His lips had cracked, and a line of dark vomit ran from the corner of his mouth to his collar.
He opened one eye. “You here to collect?”
Next
Can the Man get the armed residents to make room for six sick riders before the man in the sling loses what strength he has left?
Dr. Barlow knelt beside him. “You’ll pay me to get you out from under that wagon.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“You’re lying in mud.”
“I’ve had worse beds.”
The Man reached beneath the axle. The rider flinched at his hand, then shut his eyes again.
“Give me your arm,” the Man said.
The rider looked at him. “Why?”
“Because I’m pulling you out.”
“Could’ve started there.”
The Man hooked an arm around his shoulders and dragged him clear. The man weighed less than he looked. His shirt stuck to the mud; his breath came shallow and rattling. Dr. Barlow had a blanket down before the Man could ask for one.
“Easy,” the doctor said. “You’re not riding yet.”
The rider tried to sit up. His head lolled, then struck the blanket.
“Then I’m not going.”
“You’re going,” the Man said. “We’ll find a way to carry you.”
The doctor looked up at him. “We have one wagon, and it’s sunk to the axle. Three men can sit up. Two can manage their own horses. This one can’t be bounced down a trail.”
“Then we don’t bounce him.”
The Man walked the camp. A saddle blanket. Two tent poles. A length of rope. They could make a sling and hang it between the wagon rails. It would be ugly, but the wagon had already claimed that title.
Dr. Barlow tested the poles with both hands. “They’ll hold if we don’t put all his weight on one place.”
“Then we won’t.”
“An answer that depends on nobody stumbling.”
“Good thing I’m here.”
The doctor gave him a look, then nodded toward the mud-clogged wheel. “First we get this thing out.”
The Man set the other men to work. One hauled at a spoke; another pushed against the wagon bed until his arms trembled and he had to sit down. The Man cut a branch for leverage and jammed it under the wheel. Bob leaned his shoulder into the wagon with a long-suffering groan.
“This is how a horse breaks his back,” Bob said.
“This wagon’s not that heavy.”
“I was referring to the weight of your decisions.”
The wheel shifted half an inch. The Man planted his boots and pushed again. Mud sucked at his soles. The branch bent. The men strained, their faces reddening with effort, and the wheel rose free with a wet pop that splattered the Man from belt to collar.
Bob stepped away from the spray. “A fine victory. You’ve been decorated.”
The Man spat mud from his mouth. “Get the blankets.”
They tied the sling between the wagon rails and eased the weakest rider onto it. The doctor made them stop twice to adjust the knots. The sick man complained once, then did not complain again. That silence tightened the Man’s grip on the rope.
The remaining five were no picture of health, but they could sit upright. The sentry rode alongside the wagon, pale and wobbling, with the rifle strapped across his back. Two men rode their own horses. The last two sat in the wagon bed, leaving space around the man in the sling.
Dr. Barlow handed out cups of water and watched them drink. He kept the cups separate, then put them in a sack instead of tossing them into the wagon. He gave no explanation. The Man did not ask for one. The doctor had enough work without a lecture, and the men had enough trouble without a crowd peering over their shoulders.
Before they left, the Man searched the tents for anything the men needed. He found a tin of beans and a coat with a sleeve stiff from dried vomit. He left the coat.
“Anything else?” he asked.
The sentry looked toward the ash-covered cook fire. “We had coffee.”
“Had?”
“Spilled it.”
“Good. That would’ve been the day’s second tragedy.”
The man gave a short, tired laugh. It turned into a cough. He pressed a rag to his mouth and looked away.
They started south at a walk. The wagon creaked, the sling swayed, and the horses picked their way through ruts. The Man rode ahead and kept the road clear of branches. When the wagon bogged down, he and Bob hauled it free. When one of the riders slid sideways in his saddle, the Man caught him by the belt before he fell.
By noon, they had reached the last ridge above the county seat.
A row of wagons blocked the road below. Men stood behind them with rifles and shotguns. A few women waited farther back, holding children by the shoulders. No one had come out to meet the doctor. They had come to stop him.
The Man saw Magistrate Senn’s courthouse beyond the roofs. The livery yard lay between them and the square. A figure stood on the nearest wagon with a shotgun across his knees, watching the sick riders sway in their seats.
“Keep the wagon here,” the Man told Dr. Barlow.
The doctor’s mouth tightened. “I’ll speak to them.”
“Give me a minute first.”
The Man rode down toward the barricade. Behind him, the six sick men waited in the road, and the man in the sling let out a thin groan as the wagon stopped.