Death Devil (9781101559666) (8 page)

“How's that?” she asked.

“I undress women with my eyes.”

Her pink cheeks became red. “I've noticed. You're quite brazen about it. How about in real life? Have you undressed a lot of ladies like me?”

“One or two,” Fargo said. “A lot of them undress themselves.”

“You're awful cocksure of yourself,” Belinda remarked, and realizing what she had said, her entire face became a beet. “Oh my. I didn't mean that the way it came out.”

Fargo laughed. “That's all right.” He looked her in the eyes. “Maybe I can show you before the night is out.”

Belinda coughed and changed the subject.

After the meal they repaired to the parlor. Belinda bid him sit on the settee and she brought a tray with a pot of coffee and a china bowl with sugar and another with cream.

Fargo had three cups while he listened to her talk about her childhood and doctoring and how difficult it was for a female doctor to be taken seriously and for females in a man's world to make a go of it.

“You're lucky you were born a man,” she commented. “There are days when I wish I'd been.”

“I'm glad you're not,” Fargo said.

She blushed again. “I'm serious. It's been so hard to gain acceptance here. Maybe a third of the community doesn't mind that I'm a woman. Another third doesn't much care one way or the other. The rest, especially the Mr. McWhertles, wouldn't let me treat them if they were at death's door.”

“So don't treat them and let them die.”

“That's harsh.”

“They want to be that dumb, let them.”

“There's more to it than that,” Belinda said. “I have a thorn in my side, a gadfly who whispers slander in their ears and they believe him.”

“Charles T. Dogood,” Fargo guessed.

Belinda nodded. “He's a quack. What he doesn't know about medicine would fill the Grand Canyon. But that doesn't stop him from selling his so-called cures. I had a couple of them analyzed by a chemist friend. Dogood's cure for what he calls night fits is eighty percent alcohol.”

“Pretty smart on his part.”

“How can you say that?”

“Get someone drunk enough and they'll pass out. No more night fit.”

Belinda looked surprised. “I hadn't thought of that but you're right. So naturally anyone who takes that thinks it works.” She paused. “But some of his nostrums do more harm than good. His cure for female complaints has opium in it.”

“I bet a woman feels right fine after taking a spoonful,” Fargo said.

“That's not the point. Opium is addicting. Take enough and you can't ever stop.”

“So he has a steady supply of customers.”

“I hadn't thought of that, either. I just figured he threw in any old ingredients. But perhaps there's more to his methods than I suspected.”

“He doesn't strike me as dumb.”

Belinda frowned. “Why do you keep complimenting him? He's my mortal enemy, for God's sake.”

“It's good to know how an enemy is.”

Belinda didn't seem to hear him and went on. “If not for Dogood, a lot more people would have accepted me by now. I've tried and tried to make them see that he's nothing but a charlatan but they swear by his cures.”

“If I was drinking eighty-proof alcohol, I'd swear by his cures too.”

“You're not the least bit funny.”

“Seems to me you need to relax a little more,” Fargo suggested.

“Relax how?” Belinda said without thinking. “I'm too overwrought half the time.”

Fargo set his cup on the low table by the settee and slid across until their legs brushed. “I know a way.”

“Oh,” Belinda said.

Fargo reached up and lightly ran a hand through her hair. She smiled nervously and placed her hand on his leg and then took it off and closed her eyes. “Something the matter?” he asked.

Belinda nodded.

“Am I supposed to guess or will you tell me?”

“I sensed . . .” she began, and swallowed. “I sensed that you were . . . how shall I put this? Interested in me?”

“That's as good a way as any.”

Belinda opened her eyes and bit her lower lip. “I'm not very experienced at this sort of thing.”

“You must see naked people all the time,” Fargo joked to put her at ease.

“It's not the same.” She bowed her head. “Oh God. I'm behaving like a child. But I've only ever been with one man in my life. We were engaged to be married. He left me when . . .” She stopped.

“We don't have to talk about it,” Fargo said. He'd rather not talk at all.

“No. It's all right.” Belinda gazed at the window. “He courted me for three years. We agreed that we would wait to marry until after I was done with medical school. But it was hard, I guess, my being so busy with my studies that I hardly had time for him. One day, clear out of the blue, he stunned me by saying he couldn't go on with the way things were. Either I devoted myself to him or he would leave me. He actually gave me an ultimatum. Be a doctor or be his wife.”

“You chose the doc.”

“What else could I do?” Belinda said, and her eyes moistened. “By then I'd invested too much time, to say nothing of money, in my education. I couldn't up and quit. I tried to make him see that. I told him that as soon as school was over, I was his. But he said that once I became a doctor, I'd be working all hours of the day and hardly ever around, and he didn't want a wife who was never home.” She sighed. “And do you know what? He was right. I haven't been with a man since.”

Fargo remembered a comment Harold McWhertle made to the effect that she arrived in Ketchum Falls three or four years ago. “That's a long time to be alone.”

Belinda nodded, and swallowed. “Now you understand why I'm a bit apprehensive.”

“Have any liquor in the house?”

Belinda chuckled. “What, you think if I'm drunk, I'll relax and enjoy it more?”

“Might work,” Fargo said. He was pleasantly surprised when she nodded and stood.

“Do you know what? I'll by God do it. It's been too long since I let down my hair.”

“Or your dress,” Fargo said.

Belinda laughed and sashayed out, saying over her shoulder, “I have a bottle of Monongahela in the kitchen. I'll be right back.”

Fargo stretched his arms along the settee. A good meal, some whiskey, and a fine figure of a woman. Life didn't get any better than this. He patted his stomach and heard the clink of glasses and she came around the corner smiling.

“Here we go.”

The bottle, Fargo noted with satisfaction, was three-fourths full.

Belinda set the glasses on the table, opened the bottle, and poured barely enough whiskey to fill a thimble into each glass.

“Is that all the coffin varnish you can handle?” Fargo said. “I like mine to the brim.”

“Sorry. I'm used to always staying sober in case my services are called on in an emergency.”

“There's no emergency now.”

From outside came the drum of hooves. A horse whinnied, and someone yelled, and in a few moments her front door shook to hard pounding.

“Dr. Jackson?” a woman hollered. “Are you in there? We need your help!”

“Who can that be?” Belinda said in alarm, hurrying from the parlor.

Fargo went with her.

The pounding grew frantic.

Belinda called out that she was coming. She opened the door and exclaimed, “Edna McWhertle! What on earth is wrong?”

The farmer's wife clasped her hands in appeal. “It's our cousin, Artemis. You have to come quick.”

“Hold on,” Belinda said. “Earlier today your husband practically threw me off your farm. Now you want me to come back out there?”

In a rush Edna said, “Harold's not there now. He went off with the others. And Artemis needs help bad. Dogood can't do anything. He's not a surgeon.”

“Try to stay calm and start from the beginning. What exactly ails your cousin? And where did your husband go off to?”

“I'm sorry,” Edna apologized. “It's just that Artemis isn't long for this world, I fear. He was shot with an arrow.”

“An arrow?” Belinda said, and glanced at Fargo.

Fargo pretended to look shocked. “How could that have happened ?”

“You don't know?” Edna said. “Orville told us it was you who sent him and Artemis out to Old Man Sawyer's place. Somethin' to do with rabies. That's where Artemis took the arrow in the back.”

“All right,” Belinda said. “You can tell us the rest on the way. I'll fetch my bag.”

“We'll be out at the gate,” Edna said, and hastened down the steps. Out by the fence were two lathered horses, another woman on one of them.

Belinda shut the door and looked at Fargo and put her hands on her hips. “You didn't.”

“I might have,” Fargo said.

“You didn't warn them about the Indian?”

“It's a white man,” Fargo said. “I went back out there and saw him but he got away.”

“And you didn't think to tell me?” Belinda shook her head and brushed past. “So much for the two of us getting better acquainted.”

Fargo watched her shapely behind sway from side to side. “Son of bitch,” he said.

Artemis McWhertle had been placed facedown on the bed in a small room at the rear of the second floor. They had stripped him to the waist. He was groaning in pain and spittle dribbled from a corner of his mouth.

The arrow had caught him between the shoulder blades and penetrated so deep, Edna hadn't been able to pull it out or work it loose.

“That's another reason I came for you,” she explained to Belinda. “I figured if anyone could cut it out, it was you.”

Artemis opened his eyes. “Who's there?”

“It's me, cousin,” Edna said. “I fetched Dr. Jackson like I told you I would.”

“I don't want no female doc cuttin' on me,” Artemis growled. “Where's Orville, anyhow? And Harold?”

“They went after Old Man Sawyer. Orville said as how he'd bury Sawyer for what he done to you.”

“Blamed idiots. I'm lyin' here dyin' and they go to kill the man who killed me when I ain't even dead yet.”

Fargo was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. “Brains sure are scarce in these parts,” he sympathized.

The woman who had ridden to the settlement with Edna glanced over sharply. She was Orville's wife, Mabel. She had sandy hair and cheeks that drooped and a body that made Fargo think of a dumpling. “Does this amuse you, Mr. Fargo? A fellow human bein' in torment?”

“I will admit, ma'am,” Fargo replied, with a nod at Artemis, “that it couldn't have happened to a nicer jackass.”

“Don't start,” Belinda said to him. “We're here to help, not cause a fracas.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “Artemis, can you hear me?”

“I got an arrow stuck in my back. I ain't deaf.”

“I can dig this out but only with your consent. What do you say?”

“Go to hell.”

“Tell me, Artemis,” she said. “Does your chest hurt when you move?”

“Everything hurts,” he grumpily responded.

“I mean a sharp pain now and then?”

“What if there is?”

Belinda turned to Edna and Mabel. “I was afraid that would be the case.” She indicated the arrow. “Judging by the penetration and the angle it went in, there's a good chance the tip is dangerously close to his heart.”

“Oh my,” Edna said.

“You can't tell that just by lookin',” Mabel declared.

“True,” Belinda said. “But if I'm right, the least little movement could kill him.”

“You're tryin' to scare us,” Mabel said, “so that Art will let you operate.” Her thin lips pinched together. “I was against comin' for you, I'll have you know. It was all Edna's doin'.”

“I imagined as much,” Belinda said, and offered an encouraging smile to Edna. “Thank you for your confidence in me. It's a shame the rest of your family doesn't see things your way.”

Artemis had been listening and said, “You ain't cuttin' on me, bitch. You hear me? Someone find Orville. He's cut on hogs and cows before. He can do me.” He started to raise his head and cried out. Slumping, he said weakly, “That was the worst pain yet.”

“I warned you,” Belinda said.

“If there's a shovel handy,” Fargo spoke up, “I'll dig the grave.”

The women and Artemis looked at him in a mix of shock and outrage.

“I ain't dead yet!” Artemis spat.

“You will be soon enough,” Fargo said. He deliberately laughed and nodded at Belinda. “Here you have a woman who studied for years to learn how to save people and you won't let her.”

“I ain't lettin' no woman doctor me and that's all there is to it,” Artemis said.

“We'll scrawl that on your tombstone,” Fargo said.

Mabel stepped to the bed and put her hand on her in-law's shoulder. “Don't listen to him, Art. He's tryin' to get your goat.”

“I ain't hankerin' to die.”

“My man Orville will be here sooner or later and he'll have you right as rain,” Mabel said.

“Maybe he won't come,” Artemis said. “Maybe that crazy loon put an arrow in him, too.”

“You could stick ten arrows in Orville and it wouldn't hardly phase him,” Mabel said.