“Yeah, well the last thing the Flush needs is another man behind the bar.”
“Who’s to make that decision? The owner? Oh, wait a second, that’d be you.” Hank smirked when he saw Caleb chuckle at that. “Look here, now. You’ve worked hard to get this place off the ground, and I know you don’t want to give it up. I also know you deserve a change of scenery. You used to like working out front before we hired them others, so why not come back out from behind this desk for a while? It may just remind you of why you wanted to own a saloon in the first place.”
“Well, there is the tournament coming up. I guess it wouldn’t hurt for me to be up front for all of that.”
“There you go.”
Caleb nodded, feeling less like a kid that wanted to skip school and more like a man who was taking the reins back for himself. “All right, you talked me into it. When do you want me to start?”
Hank was already untying the apron from around his waist and handing it over. “How’s now strike you? I could use a breather.”
Caleb reached out for the stained apron but stopped short.
“I recognize that look,” Hank said. “Don’t go changing your mind on me so quickly, now.”
“Not changing my mind, but I do need to take care of something before starting my shift behind the bar.”
Hank smiled and leaned in to nudge Caleb in the side. “You want to head to the Alhambra and ask Sarah to find her way back here?”
“Not exactly. I need to pay another visit to my dentist.”
[13]
The stitches in Caleb’s jaw had become nothing more than a nuisance bothering the side of his tongue. Spending more than his share of time in a saloon, he was plenty used to the aches and pains that came along with a fight. On his way down Jefferson and heading toward Elm, Caleb came up with plenty to say to Dr. Holliday that had nothing at all to do with stitches.
When he reached A. M. Cochrane’s Drug Store, Caleb didn’t even bother looking at the shingle marking the dental practice upstairs. He instead climbed those stairs and walked up to the girl in the front office. As before, there was nobody else waiting to get in.
“I need to get my stitches removed,” Caleb said. “Can I do that now, or do I need to come back?”
The girl looked eager to see another human face and was already scrambling to knock on the door behind her. “Oh, there’s nobody else ahead of you. Dr. Seegar can take you right now.”
“Actually, I need to see Dr. Holliday. He’s the one that saw me before.”
The door swung open as Caleb had been talking, and Seegar stepped outside. “Dr. Holliday is no longer practicing at this location,” he announced in a dry, formal tone. “But I’d be happy to finish any work he might have started.”
Caleb didn’t try to hide the shocked expression on his face. “Doc’s not here? Where did he go?”
“I’m not certain right now. Would you like me to see to those stitches?”
Caleb nodded, wanting more than anything to get that blasted string out of him before he ripped it out himself.
Seegar led him past the little room where Caleb had met Doc the first time. Seegar’s work space wasn’t much bigger, but it was plain to see that he cared for it a lot more than Doc had tended to his own area. The chair was polished and covered with fresh linen, and each piece of equipment sparkled like it was new.
Even the air smelled cleaner as Caleb lowered himself onto a cushier chair and leaned back. “What happened to Doc?”
Collecting the tools he needed, Seegar spoke as if he was talking to himself. His voice sounded vaguely distracted as he sat down next to Caleb’s chair and reached for his instruments. “Nothing happened to him. He simply no longer works out of this office.”
“Is he all right?”
Blinking and studying Caleb’s face as if for the first time, Seegar replied, “He’s as well as he can be, considering his condition. Consumptives have a hard time of it, after all. The stresses of working in a professional capacity aren’t the best for a man like him over long periods of time.”
“So he’s taking some time off?”
Seegar chuckled and reached into Caleb’s mouth with what appeared to be a pair of thin pliers. “I guess that’s a simpler way of putting it.”
Caleb couldn’t feel much more than Seegar’s fingers against his jaw, followed by the tugging of those stitches coming loose. It was a strange mix of stinging and tickling as the stitches were slowly dragged from his jaw and dropped into a cup beside the chair. The smell of everything Caleb had eaten for the last day or two drifted into his nose.
“Wi Dog ee ack?” Caleb asked.
Without letting go of Caleb’s jaw, Seegar shook his head. “He won’t be back at this location, no. Are you a regular patient of his?”
“No. Jus un tine.”
“Wait a moment. You’re the owner of that saloon near the Alhambra, right? What is it?”
“The Nusted Lush.”
“Right, the Busted Flush. If Henry owes you any money, I might be able to settle his account.”
“No,” Caleb said as the last stitch was pulled out of his jaw. When he saw Seegar scoot back, Caleb sat up and dabbed at his chin with the napkin he’d been handed. “No, it’s nothing like that. I just need to talk to Doc about something I heard.”
“Is it important?”
“Actually, I’d like to thank him. Also, there is something he probably needs to know.”
Seegar thought about that for a moment. Although he seemed suspicious at first, he eventually eased up and said, “I understand Henry was looking at a place on the corner of Main and Lamar. It’s over the bank. Maybe you can find him there.”
Dr. Seegar didn’t feel like talking much after that. While he wasn’t rude about it, he did seem to rush Caleb out of his office as quickly as he could. The stitches had been removed without a hitch, so Caleb paid what he owed and moved along.
It was about a two-block walk for Caleb to get to Lamar. At the corner, there was a tall building holding the Dallas County Bank. Since it was such a walk from the Busted Flush, that bank wasn’t the one that Caleb frequented. As he stood on the street and looked up at the building, he started to wonder if he’d stopped at the right place.
After taking a look up and down the street, Caleb decided that he was either overlooking something, or Dr. Seegar had intentionally misled him. The Dallas County Bank was the only one on that corner, and Seegar didn’t seem like the type to lie when he was so contented to stay quiet only moments before. Caleb pulled open the door and stepped inside.
“Can I help you?” asked a bald man with a monocle dangling from a ribbon threaded through his lapel. He wore a dark suit that labeled him as a banker more than if he had that word stitched across his chest.
Putting a businesslike tone in his voice, Caleb said, “I’m looking for Dr. Holliday. I was told that—”
“Oh, yes,” the man said somewhat distastefully. “He’s been inquiring about renting the space over this bank. I believe his practice won’t be ready for customers for a little while, yet.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
The man in the suit let out a sigh and started glancing around for somewhere else to be. “I don’t handle his affairs. If you’d like to leave a message for him, I can see that he gets it.”
Caleb may not have liked it, but he did know what was going through the banker’s mind. While he’d been going through the process of buying property down the street and getting the financing required to set up and maintain a saloon, Caleb had dealt with plenty of bankers. It had been a while, but he soon found himself easing back into that frame of mind. All he needed to do was to reduce everything around him into potential profits and losses while also imagining that his shoes were three sizes too small.
“I know you’ve got plenty to do,” Caleb said in a dreary, defeated tone that was almost a dead ringer for the banker’s, “but I need to talk to Mr. Holliday about a pay-out from one of his old partners. I have a large sum of money that Mr. Holliday requested and he seemed to want it pretty quick.”
The banker’s ears perked up at the sound of that, confirming Caleb’s suspicion that the man did have something to do with renting out the space that Doc was after. Still, there was a little bit of suspicion in the banker’s eyes that might not have been there if Caleb had been wearing a matching suit.
“Mr. Holliday mentioned something about putting down a deposit on some property,” Caleb added, hoping he wasn’t going a little too far.
Judging by the accommodating smile that appeared on the banker’s face, Caleb had gone just far enough.
“The address he gave me was Dr. Seegar’s house,” the banker said in a low voice. Turning to one of the nearby counters, he found a deposit slip and scribbled something on the back of it. Handing the slip over to Caleb, he said, “I believe it’s just under a mile along Ross Street.”
Caleb read what the banker had written and found an address.
“That’s where I was supposed to send any inquiries or papers regarding the space upstairs. Do you think he’ll be completing the process?”
“Of renting that space?” Caleb asked. “Of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if he put down a bigger deposit after he gets the money I’m delivering.”
If the banker seemed at all concerned about the information he’d given, that went away once he heard those words spoken in Caleb’s confident tone. “Splendid! I’ll start getting the final contracts drawn up.”
Tapping the slip to his temple in a quick salute, Caleb said, “I’ll tell him the good news. Good day to you, sir.”
“And to you.”
[14]
The Seegar home was easy enough to find. Unfortunately, when Caleb knocked on the door, nobody answered. After knocking a few more times, he peeked into the closest window and swore under his breath at the utter stillness inside the well-maintained house. Just as he was about to give up, Caleb heard a shot crack through the air. His first instinct was to duck and look around for who’d fired at him. When he heard the next shot, he realized that nobody at all was firing at him. In fact, the shots were coming from somewhere behind the house.
Doing his best to step as lightly as possible. Caleb climbed down from the Seegars’ porch and worked his way around the house. Out back, there was a little patch of land containing a few trees and a small garden. One of the trees was big enough to hold a swing from a thick branch as well as the first traces of a tree house.
Standing amid the domestic trappings, Doc looked more than a little out of place with his sleeves rolled up and a smoking pistol in his hand. His arm hung at his side as though the weight of the pistol was enough to drag it down. His back was to the house, and he looked toward the end of the property, which was sectioned off by a sturdy fence.
Casually, Doc lifted the gun, extended his arm, and pivoted around to take aim at Caleb. When he saw who was approaching, he pointed the gun away from Caleb but didn’t lower his arm. “It’s not proper to sneak up on a man.”
“With all the gunshots going off lately,” Caleb said as he held his open hands in front of him. “I wasn’t too concerned with being proper.”
Doc chuckled once under his breath before lowering his arm and turning away from the house. There were several bottles lined up on the fence. When Doc squeezed his trigger, one of the bottles exploded into a shower of glass shards.
“Is there something you need?” Doc asked.
Caleb walked forward and stood next to Doc. The dentist was still impeccably groomed and had his blond hair neatly parted. He was even dressed in the imported clothes that had become one of his calling cards. But there was something odd about the shoulder holster strapped around his slender frame and under his gray silk vest. The diamond stickpin was in place as well, not too far from where the holster hung against his side.
“I had a word with Orville Deagle a few nights ago,” Caleb said.
“Really? I don’t suppose you were spared the nastiness of meeting his two dimwitted nephews as well?”
“They were along.”
In a flicker of motion, Doc’s arm snapped up, and he brought his pistol up to fire. The shot cracked through the air, but only a single chip was taken from the neck of one of the bottles.
“Better you than me,” Doc said.
“Actually, your name did come up in the conversation.”
“Ah.” Doc sighed as he lowered his arm, let it hang for a moment, and then snapped it up to take another shot. This time, the bottles remained completely untouched. “The plot thickens.”
“It sure does. They told me that you rounded up witnesses to lie for me when Ben Mays came around asking about the shooting.”
As Doc lowered his arm and rolled his head about to work a kink from his neck, he said, “
Lie
is such an ugly word. I prefer the term,
organizing your defense
.” His arm snapped up, and the gun spat its smoke and fire. The bottle that had been chipped before now lost its upper half and wobbled on the fence before coming to a stop.
“Will you stop that and listen?” Caleb snarled. “They threatened to change their story, and I’m pretty sure Mays wouldn’t mind seeing me hang once he gets a halfway decent excuse.”
Doc turned to face Caleb properly while opening the cylinder of his pistol. The gun was a Navy model Colt and appeared to be in fine condition. Emptying the spent shells, Doc let his hands do their work while his eyes remained fixed on Caleb. “Mays keeps some pretty unsavory company. He also can’t stand gambling and drunkards. That puts saloon owners pretty low on his list.”
“Great, Doc. That makes me feel a whole lot better.”
“Don’t fret too much about it,” Doc added with a wink. “I’m not too high on that list myself.”
Despite the worries filling Caleb’s mind, he couldn’t help but laugh at Doc’s easygoing wit. When spoken in his comforting Georgia drawl, matters just didn’t seem as grave as they had been a few moments before.
“One of those nephews came by my saloon with the town law,” Caleb said.