Kathleen Kent - The Outcasts

The clerk slipped a master key out from under the desk and handed it to Nate. A window at the top of the stairs showed the sky beginning to turn more gray than black. The men climbed the stairs and walked quietly down the hall to room 12.

Dr. Tom pressed his ear to the door for a few moments, then nodded for Nate to unlock it. The door hinges squeaked, but the form lying in the bed across the room, mouth open, arms flung wide, did not stir. The sleeping man woke only to the unmistakable clicking from the hammer on the navy Colt being cocked and readied at his head.

Dr. Tom said, “Hello, Innis. Nate, take that rope and tie his hands together.”

Nate tied Crenshaw’s hands tightly in back and pulled him off the bed, then gagged him with a strip torn from a shirt thrown to the floor. After gathering up Crenshaw’s pistols and boots, they walked him barefoot down the stairs.

As they passed the desk clerk, Dr. Tom tossed him the key and told him, “You can go back to sleep now.”

They collected the grulla mare at the stable, and, once they’d heaved Crenshaw into his saddle, they rode north again along the San Jacinto for several hours before stopping in the shade of some oak trees. Dr. Tom dismounted, yanked Crenshaw from the saddle, and threw him roughly to the ground. He hunkered down and studied the prisoner, saw the gag pulling the corners of his lips grotesquely back from his teeth. Crenshaw’s eyes above his beaked nose were alternately frightened and enraged; his black hair, long and pomaded to a greasy sheen, spread out wildly over the ground.

To Nate, he looked like a tethered stud horse about to be gelded.

Dr. Tom stood back up and motioned Nate to walk with him out of earshot. The ranger’s face was shaded gray from lack of sleep, and more disturbing to Nate was knowing how much of the laudanum bottle had been emptied since leaving Houston.

Dr. Tom began searching for something in his saddle pack. “You remember Maynard Collie?”

Nate nodded uneasily. A vivid image of Collie’s lifeless feet and blue lips came to mind. For the first time in a good while, he thought of the cyanide-filled rifle cartridge in his own pack.

“George spent less than half an hour with him and got him to swallow poison.” Dr. Tom pulled from the pack his medical kit and turned to face Nate. “You know how he did that?”

“I imagine with threats.”

Dr. Tom nodded. “He threatened his wife.”

“His wife?” Nate thought of Maynard’s crimes, brutally murdering prostitutes, and had a hard time believing that a man like that would have a weakness for any woman.

“George threatened to shoot her. She was the only one that meant anything to Maynard.”

“Would he have done it?”

“He only had to convince Maynard that he would.”

“What’s his weakness?” Nate nodded to the prisoner.

Dr. Tom looked over at Crenshaw, who had worked himself up to a sitting position, his darting eyes evaluating the options for escape. “His vanity.”

Dr. Tom opened the medical kit, revealing a neat array of scalpels, lancets, and probes slotted into green felt. “Nate, you’re either in this, or you’re out. If you feel your resolve fading, just think of that woman and the children of hers that he helped to murder.”

He closed the case and directed Nate to drag and tie Crenshaw to a tree.

Dr. Tom crouched close to Crenshaw, setting the medical kit down where the prisoner could see it. He placed his hat carefully aside and said, “Innis, I’m not going to bother asking you right away to tell me the whereabouts of Purdy or McGill because I know it’d be a waste of my time. Isn’t that right?”

Crenshaw moved his tongue against the gag, exhaling air.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then. I say this because I know that you know if McGill found out you’d given us his whereabouts, he’d shoot you in the gut and leave you to die a long, slow death. A man can take a whole day to die from a gunshot wound to the belly. It’s painful, no doubt. But there are worse things.”

Dr. Tom opened the kit. “I want you to think on what I’m going to tell you, and I want you to look at my face to know that what I’m saying is true.”

Crenshaw’s eyes tracked back and forth between Dr. Tom’s face and the kit.

“I went to medical school a while back, and I’ve had occasion to use those skills from time to time. And it’s left an impression on me of just how much suffering a human body can endure before expiring.

“During the war, even though I’m not truly a doctor, I helped saw through shattered arms and legs while the patients were awake, fully aware of their own limbs being hacked off. I once had to remove a woman’s cancerous breast with only a pocket scalpel. The operation lasted for over an hour, her screaming the whole time. It saved her life, but I don’t think that woman ever regained her power of speech.”

Dr. Tom pulled a small scalpel from the box. He spread his fingers close to Crenshaw’s face, placing the edge of the scalpel against the big knuckle of his own first finger.

“Do you know how many nerves are in the human hand, Innis? Thousands. That’s why it hurts so bad when you scald your palm on your mama’s stove. I could sit here and saw on your fingers and hands all day until the only thing left to yank yourself with would be the stumps of your arms. And the beauty of it is, you’d still be alive.”

Crenshaw’s mouth stretched even wider, chuffing out air, and Nate realized he was laughing, or trying to.

“So here’s what I’m going to do for you, Innis. I’m going to remove the gag and you’re going to tell me where McGill has gone, and I give you my word I won’t hurt you.”

Dr. Tom untied the gag from Crenshaw’s mouth.

“You go to hell.” Crenshaw worked his mouth, spitting and hawking. “I tell you where McGill is and you’ll hang me. Besides, you don’t scare me with your talk, you runty little bastard—”

The gag was replaced and pulled tighter, exposing more of Crenshaw’s teeth. Dr. Tom slipped from the box a pair of pliers with a rounded head. In one practiced move he fastened it onto a tooth, and with his other hand he grabbed Crenshaw’s hair.

“I’ve also been known to practice dentistry.” Nate heard a cracking sound as Dr. Tom forcefully twisted the tooth key and pulled the tooth along with the living root from the bone. Crenshaw opened his jaws wider and screamed against the gag. He continued screaming and thrashing for a long time while blood pooled and ran from his mouth.

Dr. Tom took his time removing a piece of linen bandage from the box and soaking it with some of the laudanum from his flask. He carefully packed it into the cavity made by the missing tooth and waited for Crenshaw to quiet down.

After a while, Dr. Tom tapped him on the forehead to get his attention. “I give you my word that I won’t hang you. But I also give you my word that if you don’t tell me what I need to know, I will carve every protuberance from your face.” He pulled out a larger scalpel and held it eye level with the prisoner. “Starting with your nose.” He ran the scalpel in a light-handed stroke down one side of Crenshaw’s face, and a thin line of scarlet appeared.

The prisoner began to shake his head from side to side, tears seeping from his eyes. Dr. Tom removed the gag.

Crenshaw said, “They went to a settlement to the south called Middle Bayou.”

“What for?”

“Some farmer found gold. McGill went to get it.”

“Why didn’t they take you?”

Crenshaw just looked at him. Dr. Tom smiled tightly. “You were supposed to be watching for us to ride over with the ferryman. Was there a woman traveling with them?”

“No.”

Dr. Tom prodded the prisoner with his boot. “You sure about that?”