“Doctor Dawson!” he cried, kicking the door with the tip of his boot in an attempt to knock without letting go of Cole, who already felt like a dead weight in his arms. Anguish clutched Ned’s throat, but he would scream for help even if it bled.
A round, pleasant face appeared from behind an embroidered curtain before disappearing behind it in haste. The back door opened moments later, and a young woman in a simple dark blue dress worn under an apron appeared.
“Come in, please. My husband is getting dressed to see you,” she said, stepping back when Ned maneuvered Cole’s body into the kitchen. Smaller than Aunt Muriel’s, it smelled the same as his mornings at the ranch—of coffee, toasting bread, and eggs. He was the one to enter bearing the odor of death and spoiling the perfect harmony of this quaint morning. But he didn’t care.
“My friend, he’s been shot. He needs help immediately!” Ned stifled the sob building in his throat. This wasn’t the time to be soft.
“Come this way,” the woman said and walked him straight into the office where Dr. Dawson had spoken to Ned about Lotta’s medicine. Light came through a large window, exposing bottles in a glass cabinet, and sharp implements laid out in an open case on the wooden desk. They would soon be stained with Cole’s blood, and just thinking about it had Ned’s throat closing up.
He laid Cole on a wooden table, as if he were a bird with a broken wing, and leaned over him, helplessly counting each breath passing Cole’s lips, each rise of his chest. On pale skin, blotches that told the story of Cole’s rough life became more pronounced, like a reminder that he was as vulnerable as any man, no matter how reckless his actions, and how accurate his aim was.
If Cole was to face death, there was nothing Ned could do about it, and that knowledge sent him down a path where vultures nipped at his flesh until he finally found walking useless and let them eat his lifeless heart. His lover’s breath was quiet, flatter than it ought to be in a man so full of youth and vigor, and Ned found himself squeezing his eyes shut when tears inevitably threatened to spill.
“It’ll be okay. It will be,” he whispered, brushing Cole’s hair away to look at the slack features, hoping for a twitch, for a word, no matter how quiet. Though he wasn’t sure whom he was trying to comfort—Cole or himself.
“Mr. O’Leary,” Dr. Dawson said, entering the office with a stern expression. It now occurred to Ned that it might have not been such a good idea to use his real name when he’d come here the first time, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
“My friend was shot in the arm. He can’t die, I—I promised his mother he’d come back to her,” Ned choked out as the doctor pulled his shirtsleeves halfway up his arms and approached the washstand in the corner.
“Remove his clothes,” he said, grabbing a bar of soap and using it to lather his hands and forearms.
“Please, don’t touch the wound,” Mrs. Dawson said as she entered in a white dress that exposed her forearms, which were rosy from scrubbing.
Ned didn’t dare question her presence, but as he lifted Cole’s limp body to remove the coat, she poured some vile-smelling spirit on the table, wiping away the fresh blood and covering the surface with the alcohol. She did it all without a hint of discomfiture so perhaps assisting her husband’s more demanding work was her daily routine.
“What happened? Were you part of the posse?” the doctor asked, drying his hands on a clean sheet.
Ned’s mouth dried, but he wasn’t about to blunder again. “N-no, we were camping out by the creek, and someone tried to take our horses. We chased them off but he got hit,” he finished helplessly while the fabric slid off Cole’s shoulder revealing that the black shirt underneath was soaking wet around the wound.
“Could have been one of the gang members who managed to flee,” Mrs. Dawson suggested, opening Cole’s vest without a hint of shyness. As if he were no longer a man but a puzzle that needed solving under time pressure.
Ned forced himself to pay attention and answered all of Dr. Dawson’s questions. How long ago had it happened? When did Cole lose consciousness? Had he drunk any liquor in the hours preceding the robbery attempt? Could he feel and move his arm when he was still awake? It was endless, but at the point where they finally got to the wound, it didn’t bleed so much anymore.
When Ned saw exposed bone in the gash of swollen flesh, it took all his willpower not to bend in half and retch on the floor, but Cole needed him, so he swallowed the nausea and waited. Dr. and Mrs. Dawson operated like a well-oiled machine. She knew the location of all necessities and wasn’t fazed by the sight of torn flesh either as she dabbed a cloth soaked with alcohol over the wound.