Read Online Slocum and the Socorro Saloon Sirens by Jake Logan - Free Book Online

horses’ hooves thudding on dusty streets that crawled with vermicular shadows. The sonorous melodies of a guitar floated on the evening air in a minor key. A hush seemed to envelop the city until they turned down the main street toward the lamplit hulk of the Socorro Saloon, where riderless horses and mules stood at the hitch rails like mourners at a funeral.

8
    Paddy Degnan strode into the hospital room. He carried a package under his arm. He walked to the farthest bed in the room, where a Mexican doctor stood next to Roger Degnan. The doctor, Alonzo Jimenez, was stooped over, his head close to the bandaged wound in Roger’s side.
    â€œNo sign of blood poisoning,” Jimenez said. “You are lucky. The bullet passed through the flesh and did not strike a vital organ.”
    Paddy heard the doctor’s words as he stood at the foot of his brother’s bed.
    â€œIt is good that you have a little fat around your middle,” Jimenez said. “Or that you are the victim of a man who shoots poorly.”
    Jimenez, a young man in his mid-thirties, stood up and looked at Paddy.
    â€œSo, Roger can come home?” Paddy said.
    â€œHe wears stitches in his side. As long as he does not become an acrobat for two or three weeks, his wound will heal very soon.”
    Roger flashed a weak grin at his brother. His face was pale, his blue eyes slightly bloodshot.
    â€œWell, Roger, was the man who did this to you a poor shot?”
    â€œHe was a quick shot,” Roger said. “He sure buffaloed the hell out of me.” This last sentence was delivered in a wry tone as Roger remembered the incident. “I should have plugged him, but his hand was like lightning.”
    Both men had pale orange hair. Roger’s hair was wiry, tousled, unruly. Paddy’s was pasted down flat with pomade and covered by his Stetson. The two resembled each other, although Paddy’s features were scarred and distorted by previous fistfights, while Roger’s face was smooth and still bore the copper coinage of freckles, though these were faded and few.
    â€œRoger,” Jimenez said, “you can go home, but you walk very slow, do not ride a horse. You might pull those stitches loose. Keep the wound dry and the nurse will give you some salve to put on it once or twice a day.”
    â€œThanks, Doc,” Roger said. He looked at his brother. “Will you walk me home, Paddy?”
    â€œI ought to kick your sorry ass home,” Paddy said. “I got something to show you.”
    â€œI’ll have the nurse ready for you when you leave,” Jimenez said. He had been educated in the East and his Mexican accent was slight. He was from a privileged family in Mexico City. His mother took him to New York when he was small so that he could learn to speak English and improve his lot in life. But he had encountered prejudice and had come out West, where he could live among his own people and the whites and speak his native language. He wasn’t bitter about his rejection at the Eastern hospitals but, under his mother’s influence, was practical about it. He was content to practice medicine in this desolate place, which was still more prosperous than most of the small towns in Mexico.
    â€œIs that young nurse, Penelope Swain, on duty?” Paddy asked.
    â€œNo, she has taken leave,” the doctor said.
    â€œLeave? You mean she quit?”
    â€œI think only for a week or two. Why? Did you wish to see her?”
    â€œNo,” Paddy said. “I just wondered.”
    â€œWell, I must go and put an order in for the medicine your brother must take home with him.”
    â€œSee ya, Doc,” Paddy said as Jimenez walked through the room, past beds with aging Mexicans and derelict white patients.
    â€œPaddy, will you get my clothes out of that cabinet by my bed?” Roger asked.
    â€œIn a minute, boy. I got something for you.”
    Paddy walked around the bed to stand in front of his