Fast-Tracked And Other Stories

Doctor in the Caravan

His first thought was for the livestock. There was no time now to scold himself for conking out. Cords and ligaments the length of his weatherworn frame coiled, he gripped the gun in his war bag and listened.

The air was sweet, which meant they were on the prairie, not the Glorieta Pass where Ed Jacobson had been on sentry. Ed had had Hugh "Wildfire" Goodwin's back in many a fistfight but the cove wasn't much of a night owl unless can-canning tavern girls were involved.

Hugh relaxed. Tonight, Big Nelson McDowell kept watch. Yesterday evening, during a hearty supper of Sun of a Gun Stew, Jethro and Dick had bantered that if the bandits were dim enough to come a-pilferin' during Nel's watch, the big fella'd lay into them with his axe and the sleeping camp would be none the wiser with no gunfire to stir them.

'Ever think it could be bandit meat on the skillet after my watch?' Nel had put to them, strong jaw set seriously with the day's last light glinting ominously in his eyes. That it seemed not to be a question at all put an end to Jethro and Dick's kidding around. The only other thing Nel had to say on the matter was for everyone to be rested and ready to move on at first light.

So, having done double-duty in the Pass, Hugh had been out for the count even before Big Nel was stationed by the campfire, hatchet axe in one hand, honing stone in the other.

The night was still; no horses whinnied, no cattle grumbled, and no one—not "Sleepy" Ed (who loved his bed), Dick "The Rustler" Crowley, Jethro "Hard Case" Eisen, Ross "The Sloth" Greene, or the Mexican muchacho they'd picked up back in Santa Fe—was snoring. There was no plink-scrape plink-scrape of Nel whetting his axe, nor did the whiff of spilt bandit blood waft on the air.

Magnificent silence abounded.

Which got Hugh wondering—just what had drawn him from his reverie? He'd been gliding through a glowing dream of his mother, whisked back to when he was nought but a boy and she was the young woman he forever remembered her to be, vibrant and seemingly eternal. She'd been softly singing him a lullaby about the big, strong cowboy he'd grow up to be.

My little cowboy, my little dear,
With your pistol 'neath your pillow, you should never fear
To sleep the night through, out under the stars,
Cos no matter the miles, your ma won't be far.

Edmund, his bookkeeper father, forbade Beulah from regaling Hughie with cowboy rhymes and stories, said he'd be damned if his son's head were to be filled with fanciful notions about those good for nothing, low-lived bank robbers.

But that was then. What remained of his mother was cold in the ground now, the rest was worm food.

His old man wanted nothing to do with him since he'd saddled up and put the dusty town to his back. The same sternness met him at the funeral. Hugh figured he'd find out about his pa's passing whenever he visited Wraithbrook Cemetery and EDMUND GOODWIN was engraved on the headstone along with BEULAH GOODWIN LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER.

On the trail, the only crooning came from Ross "The Sloth" who liked to crack Jethro and Dick up by belting out such evergreen classics as beans, beans good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you fart, the more you fart the better you feel so let's have beans for every meal! on a single breath. It beat seeing out his days in Morton's Bank with his old man, Hugh thought.

He shivered. Not a one-and-done goose-walking-over-your-grave kind of shiver, no, a bonafide stubborn shake that wouldn't be content until it had set his teeth chattering and—

And there was no crackle and pop from the fire. The camp was too quiet. Too quiet by far.

Hugh connected the dots like his father used to point out a constellation: he was awake because it was cold, it was cold because the campfire was out, the campfire was out because