Read Online Play a Lone Hand by Luke; Short - Free Book Online

it.”
    At the Plains Bar the crowd of men around Traff gave way for Dr. Miller. He knelt beside the still unconscious Traff, sought for the pulse in his wrist, found it, then gently probed along the bruises on Traff’s jaw.
    Cass saw him shake his head in discouragement and a slow delight came to Cass. Don’t overdo it, Doc , Cass thought.
    â€œIs it broke, Doc?” one of the Torreon punchers asked.
    â€œHow do I know, man?” Dr. Miller retorted irritably. He looked up at the puncher who had spoken, “Isn’t there some place we can take him where I can get to work?”
    The puncher addressed looked at the second Torreon rider who said, “What about the hotel?”
    Dr. Miller rose, said decisively, “Good. Lend a hand, you men.”
    Remembering the Doctor’s admonition to stay out of this, Cass did not volunteer his help, but he trailed the crowd over to the hotel and watched the five volunteers stagger up the steps under Traff’s inert hulk and vanish abovestairs.
    He bought a cigar and settled down in a lobby chair to wait. The more he reflected on what he and Dr. Miller plotted, the more the idea delighted him. He hoped passionately that Dr. Miller would crucify Traff, for in some manner Traff had come to symbolize everything Cass and the whole country hated in Torreon. Sebree was too smooth, too remote, too bloodless to nourish real hate; while Traff, the open executor of Sebree’s dirty schemes, was a tough, cool bully. Cass had occasion to remember just how tough he was.
    The galling memory of that day had been with Cass for five years. Even now he could smell the bitter smoke of his burning stand of wheat that Traff and the Torreon crew had set afire. He remembered how he had run from his shed to the house for a gun and how Traff had ridden him down, his horse knocking him, sprawling, against the cabin. He could even remember the color of the horse Traff rode that day. That wasn’t remarkable, for while he had lain in the dust of that hot August day, his arms and legs tied with Traff’s lariat, he had time to watch it all—the cabin go up in flames, the sod barn pulled down, his barbed wire fence uprooted, his field ablaze and his homestead wrecked. He hoped Doc Miller would make it long and painful.
    When the first of the five men who had remained upstairs to assist Doc came down, Cass prudently left the lobby and went back to the livery office. He had been there only a few minutes when Dr. Miller stepped in the doorway, black bag in hand.
    â€œWas it broken?” Cass asked.
    Dr. Miller said solemnly, “There’s no sure way of telling. Still a doctor can’t afford to assume that it isn’t, can he?” He winked, but his sober expression remained. “I managed to get a wire loop around the base of seven of his teeth. The wire must be very tight in order to hold the bones in place—if they are broken, that is! It’s extremely uncomfortable,” he paused. “The word ‘uncomfortable’ is a medical understatement for ‘painful.’”
    â€œPoor man!” Cass said. “Will he have to wear them long?”
    â€œI believe he will,” Dr. Miller said. They looked at each other in what might have been called mutual admiration; then Dr. Miller stepped out.
    The five o’clock dimness of the hotel corridor was no help to Fiske in fitting his key into the door. After seconds of fumbling, he found the lock, opened the door, stepped into the room and halted.
    Giff Dixon was seated in the armchair across the room, his feet propped up on the window sill. His hat lay on the floor beside him, and the expression with which he looked at Fiske held a certain disappointment.
    â€œWelling with you?” Giff asked.
    â€œNo. Come for your money?” Fiske walked across to the table and threw his hat on it, eyeing Dixon quizzically. How did he get in a locked room? he wondered, and thought he ought