Ralph Compton - Bullet for a Bad Man

Ten-year-old Arturo Rodriquez rode his skewbald pony near to exhaustion to fetch Doc Baker out to the Rodriquez Rancho. Pedro was in bed, near delirious with fever. The family had done the best they could, but the jagged tip of the shattered femur stuck a good four inches out of Pedro’s skin.

Calmly, efficiently, Doc Baker set to work. It was Senora Rodriquez who noticed the ghastly shade of his skin and the beads of sweat that dotted his forehead and upper lip. She noted too how several times he winced as if in pain. When he was done and washing his hands in a basin, she made bold to make mention of what she had observed.

‘‘I am feeling a little poorly, is all,’’ Doc Baker informed her. He said it harshly.

‘‘Is there anything I can do?’’ Senora Rodriquez asked.

‘‘Put me out of my misery.’’ Doc Baker laughed too loud and too long.

‘‘You should see a doctor.’’

Doc Baker glanced sharply at her, but when he saw she was not being facetious, he smiled and said, ‘‘How little you know about physicians. Doctors never go to other doctors. If we can’t heal ourselves we have no business trying to heal others.’’

‘‘That is ridiculous.’’

‘‘I know. But knowing it and being man enough to go see another sawbones is something else.’’ Doc Baker wiped his hands on the towel she had provided. ‘‘I suppose if I get any worse, I will have to take your advice.’’

‘‘What is wrong? Or is it too bold of me to ask?’’

‘‘Not at all.’’ Doc Baker began rolling down his sleeves. ‘‘I can’t hardly sleep anymore. I pace the floor at night, my body all aquiver. Even hot milk doesn’t help. I have a constant headache.’’ He mustered a wan smile. ‘‘I am at the point where I might need to start taking some of that remedy Abby Harker is so fond of.’’

‘‘There must be something you can do,’’ Senor Rodriquez optimistically offered.

Doc Baker explained that he had tried Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters, but that gave him cramps so he switched to Pricklyash Stomach Bitters, but that gave him worse cramps. He figured something more mild would do and took extract of sarsaparilla for a few days, but that had no effect whatsoever. ‘‘I am trying laudanum now,’’ he concluded. ‘‘It seems to lessen the headaches but not enough to suit me.’’

‘‘What will you do next?’’

Doc Baker shrugged. ‘‘There is always opium. I have never used it myself, but from what I have seen and heard it can work wonders.’’

‘‘I am sorry for you.’’ Senora Rodriquez squeezed his hand. ‘‘I wish I could help you as you have so many times helped me.’’

Doc Baker walked himself out and climbed into his buggy. He had not gone a quarter of a mile when he broke out in a cold sweat and experienced a severe bout of dizziness that gave him a profound scare. Eventually the world stopped spinning and his insides stopped churning, but now he felt as weak as a newborn kitten. He sat back and let Mabel have her head. The old mare knew the road as well as if not better than he did and could find her way home with no help from him.

‘‘What is the matter with me?’’ Doc Baker asked aloud. He pressed a thumb to his wrist, checking his pulse. His heartbeat was erratic, weak. He tried to swallow but had no saliva. Settling back, he closed his eyes and groaned.

The ride that Doc Baker normally enjoyed became an ordeal. The cold sweats came and went. A hammer pounded inside his head, pounding harder and harder as time went by. He had bouts where he was short of breath.

‘‘Maybe it is my age catching up to me,’’ he told Mabel. ‘‘No one lives forever. Not even doctors.’’

Tucson had grown so much in the past ten years that he reached the outskirts long before he reached his office. Eight thousand souls and growing, according to the Arizona Daily Star . The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad had a lot to do with the surge in growth. New buildings were going up faster than summer corn. A new courthouse was being constructed just down the street. Local politicians were crowing about how Tucson would soon be the crowning jewel in all of Arizona.

Doc Baker was glad when Mabel finally came to a stop. He climbed out slowly, his muscles sore, his joints stiff. Afraid of another dizzy spell, he climbed the outside steps holding to the rail. Once the door was shut and locked, he moved down the hall with his left hand against the wall for support. His legs were so weak, he did not know if they would bear his weight. He placed his bag on his desk and sat in his chair and thought about his wife, long dead, and his son, killed at Gettysburg, and his daughter, drowned in a flood, and his eyes grew moist. Sniffling, he said to the walls, ‘‘I will be damned if I will sit here feeling sorry for myself.’’

Doc Baker got up and went to a mahogany cabinet where he kept his medicines, but it was not a bottle of medicine he selected. It was his pet passion: a bottle of brandy. Every night before he turned in he had a glass of brandy to soothe his nerves and his stomach. For forty years he had stuck to the habit without fail.

Tonight Doc Baker dispensed with a glass. He sat at his desk and drank straight from the bottle. He was on his tenth or eleventh swallow when the cramps hit him so bad, he doubled over. The room spun and his body grew numb. He sucked in deep breaths until the spell passed. Then, spent and queasy, he looked up.

Epp Scott was in the doorway, smiling.

‘‘What the hell?’’ Doc Baker said, his tongue feeling as if it were covered with wool.

Epp walked over and sat on the edge of the desk. ‘‘Surprised to see me? You shouldn’t be.’’

Doc Baker tried to stand but had to sink back into his chair. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’

‘‘How is your brandy these days? I have never been all that fond of the stuff. Too sweet for my taste. But everyone knows you partake before you turn in, and I figured the sweet would hide the bitter.’’

Clutching the edge of the desk, Doc Baker steadied himself. ‘‘I want you to leave. I am not feeling well.’’

‘‘As much as you have had, it is a wonder you are still breathing,’’ Epp said. ‘‘You are tougher than I gave you credit for.’’

‘‘What is this? Some childish prank to get back at me for the accusations I levied the last time I saw you?’’

‘‘I never treat dying as a prank. I always take it as serious as can be.’’

‘‘Did you say dying?’’

Epp nodded. ‘‘You have been taking it for weeks now. That’s what comes of not latching your windows. I slipped in one day while you were off on a house call and mixed it with your brandy. But you have been taking too damn long to die, so last night I snuck in again and added five times as much as before. Then today I have been keeping an eye on you, waiting for you to keel over.’’

Doc Baker’s grip on the desk was not enough. He slumped back against the chair, struggling for breath. ‘‘What is this it you keep talking about?’’

‘‘Oh. That’s right. I haven’t shown you yet.’’ Epp reached into a jacket pocket and brought out a small cobalt blue bottle that had a porcelain label with gold trim. In bold letters were NATR. ARSENIC.

‘‘Dear God.’’

‘‘Recognize the bottle?’’ Epp asked. ‘‘You should. It is yours. I was going to stab you, but when I saw this, the brandy idea occurred to me.’’

‘‘You didn’t.’’

‘‘It is better this way. More natural. They will think your heart gave out. In three days they will bury you, and my secret along with you.’’

‘‘So I was right about you and your parents?’’ Again Doc Baker struggled to rise and again he fell back, but this time the chair slipped from under him and he landed on his back on the floor. He attempted to lift his right arm, but the numbness had spread with frightening speed. He could not move anything except his mouth. ‘‘You have killed me.’’