The Kid wondered uneasily how the doctor was taking this abrupt change in his destination, whether the half-drunk Irishman would be frightened or angry at the rude intervention, but he didn’t remain long in doubt on that score.

  As they snaked down into the valley with doubletrees rattling against the haunches of the flying team the doctor’s rich baritone floated out into the night above the drum of hooves and the alarming creaks of the careening vehicle.

  The Kid couldn’t distinguish the words of the doctor’s song, but it was a stirring, martial Irish air, and it didn’t seem to indicate that Conroy was either frightened or angry. Indeed, it gave the opposite impression—that the doctor was delighted with the turn events had taken, and the Rio Kid grinned to himself as he wondered if that was because the doctor remembered the bottle of Irish whisky in his hip pocket which had been promised as a reward after his job in Hidden Valley was finished.

  The grin faded from the Kid’s face as they neared the lighted cabin below. He leaned from the saddle to shout, “Pull ’em up now. We’re stoppin’ here.”

  The driver obediently sawed on the lines but the headlong gallop of the team did not slacken. With the bits in their mouths they were running free on the level, galloping straight ahead on a course that would take them past the cabin and beyond into the broken country where an overturn would be almost a certainty.

  The Kid sent Thunderbolt lunging ahead in front of the runaway team, swerved the stallion to the left to break the rhythm of their stride and start them circling back to the cabin. Their speed slowly slackened as they were forced to circle, and the driver gradually regained control.

  He had them slowed to a panting trot when they approached the cabin again, and they were glad to stop in front of the door.

  Jenkins had ridden directly to the cabin while the Kid was circling the team back, and he met him with a worried look on his face. “You shouldn’t of done it, Kid. The Boss’ll be mad as hops when he finds out about this.”

  “The Boss can chew on a railroad spike,” said the Kid harshly. He rode up to the halted vehicle and ordered curtly, “All out. Yore patient’s inside, Doc.”

  “What about my arm?” whimpered the wounded man, holding the broken limb straight out in front of him. “Cain’t thuh doc take a look at it first?”

  “A broken arm’ll wait. You keep an eye on these yahoos, Jenkins. C’mon, Doc.”

  The Kid slid off Thunderbolt and approached the side of the buckboard. The doctor laughed jovially and stepped down over the wheel. “And that I will, my fine bucko. Though I’ll require a bit of a nip, no doubt, to steady my hand for the work before me.”

  “You’ll get it,” the Kid promised. He waited impatiently while Doctor Conroy lifted his shabby black bag from the rear of the buckboard, then seized his arm firmly and guided him to the cabin.

  Sam looked up listlessly from a game of solitaire when they entered the cabin. The Kid noted that the whisky level in the jug had gone down a full inch since he had last seen it, and he judged that the bearded man remained seated because he knew he would be unable to stand up if he left the safety of his chair.

  Half-Breed Joe still lay in a twisted heap on the floor where the Kid’s bullets had left him. The doctor hurried forward with professional interest and knelt beside the dead gunman, then looked up at the Kid with an angry shake of his head.

  “What devil’s game is this you’re playing on me, laddie? ’Twill do this man no good to relieve the overdose of lead he’s swallowed. He’s been in hell this long since, as well you should know.”

  “It’s not him I’m worried about.” The Kid nodded toward Hank Greenow in the corner. “There’s your patient.”

  The doctor strode on to Hank, stopped dead still when he saw the old man’s lined face. He leaned down swiftly and felt for the heartbeat, then ordered over his shoulder, “Hot water, and lots of it.”

  He was ripping the blood-soaked clothing away from Hank’s chest with one hand while he fumbled with the catch on his bag with the other.

  The Kid looked around the room helplessly. There was a soot-blackened wood range in one corner, but the fire was out of it and there wasn’t even any wood to kindle another.

  He anxiously told the doctor, “There’s no fire to heat water. Can you wait while I build one?”

  “Hell’s kettledrums and prostrated goldfish!” roared the doctor. “This man can’t wait another five minutes. Bring that jug of whisky from the table. From the aroma as we entered I judge it’s rank enough to kill any germs that may be in the vicinity.”

  He had Hank’s chest bared and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows when the Kid brought the half gallon of whisky. He held out his hands and directed the Kid to pour the high-proof liquor over them while he rubbed them together vigorously, then he tore a strip of cloth from Hank’s shirt and soaked it with the whisky, cleaned the wound with the makeshift disinfectant while he snapped, “Get that lamp down here close so I can see what I’m doing. It’s going to be nip and tuck … and we’ll pray to God nip wins.”

  He was calm and collected now, sure of himself and of his steady hands. Every outward trace of drunkenness had disappeared, though the strong fumes rising from the spilled liquor caused the Kid’s head to reel and he marveled that the doctor could work under those conditions at all.

  He held the lamp low to give Conroy the best possible light and watched with fascination while the surgeon selected a gleaming instrument from his bag, washed it in whisky and then went at the delicate task of probing in Hank Greenow’s chest for the lead slug from the Kid’s gun.

  The old man mercifully remained in the depths of his coma while the probing went on, with only his faint breathing to indicate that he still lived.

  After what seemed to the Kid hours of breathless waiting, Doctor Conroy rocked back on his heels with a grunt of satisfaction. He held a pair of blood-smeared tweezers in his hand, and between the tips of the tweezers was a misshapen lead bullet.

  He laid the tweezers and bullet aside carefully, picked up the jug and poured whisky into the gaping wound in Hank’s chest. He started to lift the jug to his lips, and the Kid noticed that his hand was shaking violently again, now that the emergency was over.

  He hesitated, though, and set the jug aside, remembering happily, “You’ve got something better than that rot-gut in your hip pocket. Have I earned my drink?”

  “Will he live?” the Kid asked anxiously, pulling the bottle of Irish whisky from his pocket and handing it to the squatting surgeon.

  “Him?” Conroy snorted derisively. “He’ll be riding the range looking for more rustlers in a couple of weeks. Tough as whit-leather, he is.”

  He uncorked the bottle and tilted it to his mouth, held it there and gurgled until it was empty. He looked at the Rio Kid with bright suspicious eyes when he put it down. “Which brings me around to asking … why did you shoot him and then go to such trouble to have me come and save his life?”

  “How do you know I shot him?” growled the Kid, taken aback by the abruptness of the question.

  For answer the doctor rocked forward on his knees and picked up the bullet he had taken from Hank’s body. He rolled it around between thumb and forefinger while he studied its shape and size, then dropped it into the palm of his left hand and hefted it, with his eyes closed and a frown of concentration on his face.

  He said, “It’s a forty-five, but then there’s lots of forty-fives in these parts.” He laid the slug down carefully as though it was a precious jewel and reached forward to lift a loaded cartridge from the Kid’s belt without giving any explanation of his action.

  He nodded tranquilly after examining the brass cylinder and the snub-nosed bullet protruding from the end of it. “I could go into court and prove you shot him,” he told the Kid with positive certainty. “Hereabouts the taste runs to Colt’s ammunition. You bought your shells some place else. That piece of lead matches this cartridge in your gunbelt.”

  “Hell, a forty-five is a forty-five, ain’t it?”

  The Doctor shook his head placidly. “Not always. Different manufacturers use a different amount of lead molded in different shapes. I’ve made a hobby of studying bullets for years,” he went on. He delved into the depths of his shabby black bag and brought out a little tin box which he handled with loving care. He opened it and proudly displayed forty or fifty misshapen lead slugs that to the Kid’s untutored eyes looked exactly like the one he had taken out of Hank. Each bullet was glued to a small piece of paper bearing a name and a date.

  “Each one a death bullet,” Doctor Conroy told him. “For twenty years I’ve been saving and studying and classifying bullets. Here’s a complete record of the gun-deaths I’ve attended during the last twenty years. If old Hank had croaked,” he added cheerfully, “I could have added this slug to my collection … but I got here too soon.”

  The Rio Kid leaned over and studied the collection of death pellets with narrowed eyes. “An’ you can tell what gun any bullet was fired from?” he asked incredulously.

  “Not at all. By weight and measurements it’s easy to determine the caliber and the make of ammunition.” The doctor’s eyes gleamed with interest as he expatiated on his hobby to a willing listener. He seemed to see nothing incongruous in the fact that the discussion was taking place in a rustler’s cabin with a dead man on the floor behind them and a man who had just been snatched from death outstretched in front of them.

  “There’s a new science called the study of ballistics coming to the fore,” Conroy went on. “I’ve read all the literature I could find on the subject, and made some experiments of my own. Every gun treats a bullet differently as it expels it through the barrel. The grooves or rifling in a barrel leaves distinctive marks on each bullet that enables an expert to identify the gun from which it was fired by comparing two bullets under a microscope. I’ve used my medical microscope for such examinations, and I’ve learned some curious things from these old bullets here.”

  The Kid’s breath was coming faster. His forefinger trembled as he poked among the doctor’s sinister souvenirs. “You been savin’ ’em for twenty years, huh? Got ’em all tagged an’ dated?”

  “That’s right. Every last one. And that reminds me, I might as well add to my collection by digging one out of this corpse conveniently waiting for me here on the floor.”

  The doctor picked up a scalpel and approached the breed’s stiffening body with professional interest.

  The Kid paid no attention to him. He found what he sought at last, turned to the doctor with a slug whose attached slip of paper bore a date three years previous, and the inscription: “Sheriff Edwards.”

  “Jest happened to notice this one,” he apologized for interrupting the doctor at his ghoulish task. “Sheriff Edwards? I thought that was the name Mart said tonight in Bloody Gap of the sheriff that’d jest been shot.”

  “That’s right. The present sheriff’s father. And that reminds me, by the Saints.” The doctor jumped to his feet holding a bullet he’d been digging from Joe’s body. “I must be getting along to Chapparell. If Les Edwards has kicked the bucket in this interim—and it’d be small loss to the community—I certainly must add his bullet to my collection. Interesting, eh? Father and son.”

  He was busily closing up his bag and getting ready to depart.

  The Kid went to the door and found Jenkins sitting on the threshold outside. He said, “The doctor’s ready to leave. Where are the fellers that were drivin’ his rig?”

  Jenkins shook his head and spat disgustedly. “They run off in the dark when I turned my back. Look here, Kid. I don’t like none of this. By God …”

  “No one,” said the Kid coldly, “is askin’ you what you like or don’t like.”

  He stepped out of the door as the doctor bustled forward. “You’ll have to drive the team yourself, Doc. I’ll ride ahaid an’ guide you up to the main road.”

  He went on to Thunderbolt and stepped into the saddle without wasting further words on Jenkins. A showdown was building up, but it could wait until he’d seen Conroy on his way.

  He loped up the long slope ahead of the buckboard, reached the road from Chapparell just in time to intercept two riders on their way to Bloody Gap. They were going to pass him without speaking, but when they recognized the buckboard behind him they hailed Doctor Conroy:

  “If you’re headin’ for Chapparell to work on Les Edwards, you ain’t needed, Doc. He’s dead as hell.”

  The Kid stayed unobtrusively back in the shadows unnoticed and listened.

  “Dead, eh?” Conroy asked cheerfully. “That still leaves me a job … I’m official coroner, you know.”

  “No inquest needed,” one of the riders growled. “They already got the feller that killed him … locked up in jail.”

  “That so? Who did the good deed?”

  “Charlie Barnes, dang it. Cain’t understand how-come Charlie done a thing like that. He don’t hardly never tote a gun. But I reckon they got him dead to rights. That was the talk around Chapparell when we left town.”

  15

  “Charlie Barnes?” Doctor Conroy echoed disbelievingly. “Don’t seem possible. He never liked Les much, but he’s not the shooting kind.”

  “Reckon it was a mix-up over a gal,” one of the riders said wisely. “Mexican gal at the Bar L.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Charlie either,” protested Conroy. “He’s been going steady with Peggy Aiken for years … never fooled around with other girls.”

  “Way the talk is aroun’ town … Peggy gave him the mitt tonight. Decided tuh marry Henry Pelham all of a sudden. An’ Charlie took a hay-cuttin’ job from Pelham, just for a chanct tuh be close aroun’ the Mex gal, I reckon … but Les Edwards figgered he already had her staked out an’ didn’t take kindly tuh Charlie hornin’ in. They fought over the gal, I reckon, an’ Charlie pulls down with a borrowed gun an’ kills him.”

  “Too bad,” murmured the doctor sadly. “It’s tragic sometimes … the things a jilted lover will do. Well,” he went on more briskly, “I’ll drive in myself and see what’s what.”

  He spoke to the team and they moved forward on the road to Chapparell.

  The Rio Kid waited back in the shadows where he had been forgotten until the two riders had passed on beyond him toward Bloody Gap. Then he put Thunderbolt to a gallop and quickly overtook the doctor, leaning from his saddle and shouting, “Pull up a minute, Doc. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Oh, it’s you again?” Conroy frowned at him but pulled the team up. “What more have you to say to me?”

  “Just this, Doc. I heard what them fellers said back there. They lie. Charlie Barnes didn’t kill Les Edwards.”

  “What’s that? How do you know?”

  “I know,” the Rio Kid told him in a tone of passionate conviction. “I cain’t tell you how or what I know jest yet,” he went on rapidly, “but I’m askin’ you to take my word for it an’ do this. When you dig that bullet out of Edwards for yore collection, check up on it the best you can an’ see was it shot out of Charlie’s gun. Then you’ll know I’m tellin’ you the truth.”

  “Were you at the Bar L when Edwards was killed?”

  “Yeh. I was there,” the Kid told him unemotionally. “But I didn’t do it neither. You can prove that by comparin’ the bullet with the one you took outta Hank … if all that stuff you tol’ me back at the cabin is true.”

  “It’s true enough,” Conroy told him sharply. He hesitated, suspiciously studying the Kid’s aquiline features in the soft moonlight. “You’re right in the middle of a lot of queer things for a stranger to these parts,” he commented. “I keep having the feeling that I’ve seen you before … though I can’t remember where or when.”

  “I aim to start clearin’ up some of them queer things right now,” the Kid promised recklessly. “All I’m askin’ is for you to go slow on Charlie Barnes. That ain’t much.”

  The doctor said curtly, “Barnes will get fair treatment … the same as he would have gotten if you hadn’t put in your oar.” He seemed on the verge of saying more, then clamped his lips together tightly and gave his team loose rein.

  The Rio Kid sat astride Thunderbolt, a statuesque figure in the moonlight, and watched the buckboard disappear swiftly from sight. By God, it was amazing the way the Irishman could sop up whisky. He’d drunk more than a pint back there at the cabin after saving Hank Greenow’s life, on top of all he’d had previously in Bloody Gap, and his voice wasn’t even fuzzy at the corners. For a moment the Kid regretted that he hadn’t confided fully in Conroy before letting him drive away. He felt the doctor was a man he could trust—even with the secret of his identity—but that could come later just as well as now.

  Right now there were a lot of things to be done. He hadn’t had time to consider the full impact of the staggering news he’d heard about Peggy. His sister had jilted Charlie Barnes for Henry Pelham! Why! What had happened?

  No wonder Charlie had acted funny when he talked about Peggy tonight.

  The Kid swore a long-jointed violent oath at all girls in general and sisters in particular. Peggy must have changed a lot in the last three years. He wheeled Thunderbolt about and sent him plunging back to the turn-off leading to Hidden Valley. It was time Jenkins answered a few questions.

  Jenkins came to the door of the cabin and stared out at him when the Rio Kid rode up to the door. He flung himself out of the saddle and strode forward. Jenkins stepped back to let him enter. He gestured toward Hank lying in the corner and said, “Guess the doc fixed him up all right. He’s breathin’ easy now, an’ ain’t coughin’ up no more blood.”

  Sam sat hunched in his chair at the table with head and shoulders slumped forward laxly. His eyes were closed and he breathed stertorously.

  The Kid said, “That’s good aboot Hank.” He faced Jenkins in the center of the small room with both thumbs hooked in his gunbelts.