Only Killers and Thieves(89)

“It was a bag of bloody flour.”

“Is business. I am sorry.”

“Sullivan told you, didn’t he?”

“He is very important customer, very important man.”

“So you pulled a pistol on a woman only trying to make some bread.”

Spruhl held up a finger. “Ah, no. I pulled pistol on you.”

“You planning on trying that again?”

“No, no, of course. Is okay, is okay . . .”

He bustled about, collecting the items, placed them into a paper bag. Folded the top, held the bag for Tommy to take.

“No charge,” he said. “Is gift from me to you.”

Tommy snatched the bag from him. The shopkeeper flinched. Tommy opened the door, then paused. “No gifts,” he said. “Put it on Sullivan’s account; he’s standing for us these days. Which I suppose makes me fucking royalty as far as the likes of you’s concerned.”

He opened the bag as he came down the steps, found the sausage, took a bite. He stood in the street chewing. The sausage was salty and fatty and good. Beau lifted his head and watched him. Water dripped from the horse’s lips and matted the hairs on his chin. Tommy rummaged in the bag and offered him one of the biscuits. Beau puckered his lips and drew it into his mouth, then chomped the thing down whole. His tongue swept the crumbs from his lips and he made a move for the bag, but Tommy jerked it away.

“These are mine, you greedy bastard. Lucky I gave you even one.”

He wandered along the street, eating. The men were gone from the hotel railing and only a couple of others were about. Shuffling beneath their verandahs, smoking in the shade. The butcher stood glumly beside a rack of bloody meat, cleaver in hand, watching Tommy pass. Tommy nodded to him. The butcher simply stared.

When he reached the doctor’s surgery he paused in the street and considered the stenciled window a long time. A dog came sniffing past him but he paid it no mind, munching idly on the stick of sausage meat. He could see Dr. Shanklin writing at his desk. Alone.

Tommy swallowed dryly. The lump slid down his throat. He went to the window and stood over Shanklin, just behind his shoulder, the other side of the glass. The doctor scratched entries into a notebook, dipped the nib, wrote again. Tommy could see only the top of his head. Thick black hair parted centrally and neatly combed. Tommy put the sausage back in the paper bag, made a fist with his hand, and banged on the window so hard the glass shook.

Shanklin jerked upright. Ink slashed across the page. He peered through the window as Tommy walked along the frontage, and was still half-risen in his chair when he came in through the door.

“Yes?” Shanklin said. He noticed Tommy’s wounded hand. “Can I help you?”

“Know who I am?”

“You might need to remind me.”

“You were meant to fix my sister only you didn’t and now she’s dead.”

Shanklin exhaled. He sank back down and dropped the pen into its holder. “Billy McBride. I didn’t recognize you. It’s been a long time.”

“Wrong brother. I’m Tommy.”

“Oh, Tommy, right . . . you’ve grown.”

Tommy was standing behind the chairs in front of the desk, the paper bag still clenched in the three fingers of his bandaged hand.

“Well?” he said. “What about it?”

“Will you sit?”

“Nope.”

Shanklin shifted uncomfortably. He was dressed in a gray three-piece suit with a white pocket handkerchief and gold watch chain. Black mustache, weathered skin, tired eyes. “Look,” he said, “I’m terribly sorry to hear about everything. What a rotten god-awful time you must have had.”

Tommy said nothing. Breathing heavily through his nose.

“You know, when I first came out west I was more sympathetic to the native point of view, even wrote to The Courier about it once or twice. But you live here long enough, your opinion will change, and frankly I believe they deserve everything they get. They ever catch the culprits, I’ll be there cheering when the trapdoor swings.” He paused and pointed. “Your hand, is it bad?”

“That’s not why I came.”

“The dressing looks fresh.”

“Weeks did it. Sullivan’s vet. Same one Mary had.”

“Would you like me to take a look?”

“Why’d you never come? She died because of you.”

Shanklin scowled. “No, she was already dead.”

“On account of you never came. That vet’s the only medic they’ve got.”

The doctor reclined slightly, interlaced his fingers and laid them on his stomach, sat there frowning and tapping his thumbs.

“See now, I think there’s some confusion here. Yes, I received a message saying a girl had been hurt, but before I could get up there I got another saying she’d died.”

“You took long enough about it.”

“On the contrary. There was barely even time to saddle my horse.”

Tommy hesitated. The bag crinkled in his hand. He studied Shanklin doubtfully. “What d’you mean there wasn’t time?”

“Well, I don’t remember it exactly, but one message followed the other, an hour between them at most.”

“She died that night.”