The Lon Williams Weird Western Megapack. Lon Williams
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odor he’d never smelled before, sweet, penetrating fumes, soothing, almost stupefying in its effects. “What is it?”
“Chloroform.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Not surprising. It’s a new thing. I learned of it in England, my native land. I make it—also use it.”
“For what?”
“To kill pain.” He took back his cotton. “Is not that hurting gone from your chest?”
Winthrop breathed slowly, then deeply; his gloom lessened. “For a wonder, I have no pain—not a bit.”
Mosely pocketed his possessions. “Your hurting is over. This small favor I did for you was because I liked you—for standing up to that deputy marshal. But I must be going.”
Winthrop sprang up. “Wait! I’d like to buy some of that. Will you—”
“Of course,” said Mosely. “Come; I’ll overwhelm you with it.”
Doc casually noted their departure and looked at his watch. Midnight. Apron exchanged for coat, he began to extinguish lights. Suddenly his nose quivered. What’s that I smell? Something he’d never smelled before. He puzzled over it until he’d locked up. Then, remembering his amorous Shoshone, he hurried homeward.
* * * *
Spurlock Mosely and Thackery Baine Winthrop found two horses hitched back of Bogie’s saloon. Mosely explained that he had just bought an extra one. Winthrop, however, mounted without questions; they rode away into Alkali Flat.
A mild stupor was upon Winthrop; consequently time passed somewhat as it did in sleep. But his stupor was gone when they stopped in a cliff-walled canyon, miles from their starting point. They dismounted, led their horses into an arched passage and ground-hitched them. A dim light diffused itself from unseen lamps.
“Well, here we are, Winthrop,” Mosely announced a few seconds later.
“Where?” asked Winthrop. It was an idle question, for they were in a cavernous room, lighted by brilliant lamps suspended from its ceiling.
“This,” explained Mosely, “is my laboratory, my operating room. I am a great surgeon—or did I mention that? And this—” His thumb indicated something immediately behind Winthrop.
Winthrop turned in alarm. What he faced filled him with revulsion and terror. In stature it was a man, straight and of excellent proportions, dressed in trousers and a robe of expensive quality. That which repelled and sickened was its face. It was a face without a nose. And from an inch above its ears, there was no hair on its head.
“My brother,” said Spurlock Mosely. “His name is Sir Jared Mosely. We are both great surgeons, equally great, I’d say.”
Winthrop swallowed, stared, perspired. “Wh—what happened to him?”
“That,” said Spurlock, “is quite a story. Briefly, it’s this. Misfortune drove us from England. Entrance papers into your country being unobtainable, we smuggled ourselves in through Mexico. Being doctors, we earned as we traveled. My brother operated surgically on a Comanche chief—unsuccessfully, as you may surmise. Comanches in revenge cut off Sir Jared’s nose, lips and ears, and lifted his scalp.”
Winthrop tried vainly to swallow. “B—but—”
“Yes,” said Spurlock. “You are thinking Sir Jared still has his lips and ears. It happens that those anatomical parts are not his own; they were borrowed— borrowed from, let us say, your predecessors. A rather good-looking gold-digger named Orand Hodge donated his lips. Those ears were gifts from a traveling salesman—which, incidentally, this salesman did not particularly need, a glib tongue being his main stock in trade.” Winthrop cast about in horror. This was a nightmare, he told himself. Soon he would awake, wipe away sweat and breathe a grateful sigh. Yet everything was too real to be substance dreams were made of. Where light fell brightest stood a broad table. Beside it were small cabinets filled with shiny instruments—tweezers, knives, needles…
Suddenly he screamed. “I’m getting out of here.”
But as he fled, Sir Jared Mosely stepped into his path, enclosed him in strong arms. Immediately Spurlock stepped forward with rawhide thongs and bound him, hand and foot. Together they laid him down, strapped him tight, and began to cut away his coat and shirt. They removed a derringer and its holster from under his left arm and they tossed them aside.
“Have no fear,” Spurlock bade him. “You will feel no pain.”
“Wh—what are you going to do?”
“We are going to borrow your nose,” Sir Jared said happily. “You see, I haven’t any. It’s rather embarrassing, too, this having no nose. You have a splendid one—fortunately. My brother has been prospecting daily for a good nose, one like my own—that is, what was once my own.”
Winthrop screamed again, then glared. “You mean you’re going to cu-cut off my nose?”
“It amounts to that,” said Spurlock. “My brother will lie on this table beside you. Very close, indeed; so close you will seem to be kissing each other. His nose scar will be trimmed and freshened with a knife. When he awakes he will have your nose, sewed to his face. When you awake—No, that’s right, you won’t awake.”
Spurlock Mosely moved away, washed his hands, lighted small lamps under a rectangular, silvered boiler. He returned with a bottle and a pad of cotton which he laid over Winthrop’s nose. Winthrop saw and felt a liquid sprinkling down. He screamed, shook his head, tried to break his bonds, but soon he relaxed—into a sleep too deep for dreams, even.
* * * *
Deputy Winters stirred from half-sleep and lay wide-eyed, staring at a starry sky. Beside him lay his beautiful wife, Myra, sleeping soundly. She had been left a widow in Forlorn Gap. In marrying her, Winters had come into a neat story-and-half cottage with this upstairs bedroom; a reasonably-good mining claim, on which he set foot occasionally for possessory reasons; and a companionship that daily grew more enchanting. Someday he was going to give up being a deputy marshal and settle down, work his mining claim or, better still, stake out a ranch in some mountain valley and raise cattle and a family.
But as he gazed out of their bedroom window, he had a premonition that this dream of a peaceful life might not come true. Danger was abroad; he sensed it, as he had sensed danger on other occasions and lived to face it. That voice on Alkali Flat had unnerved him—more so than he had thought possible at first. He could still hear it in fancy, calling plaintively, receiving no answer, calling again—and again. Oooooo-reeeeee! Like a cry from far, mystic shores of eternity.
Next day he rode to Pangborn Gulch. Three days later he was in Brazerville to deliver a prisoner and collect a reward. A week later he was in Elkhorn Pass, where he came upon a crowd of miners congregated around a man on a store platform, a well-dressed man, straight, dignified, eloquent.
“And here, gentlemen, I have your answer. A bit of this wonder-drug dissolved in water in your palm and sniffed up your nostrils will relieve that tightness and dryness that afflicts so many people in these semi-desert regions. You will instantly feel it tingling upward, into your head, soothing, cleansing, adding to your joy of living, lengthening your days. Come right up and for one dollar take with you one of these small cubes of my great discovery…”
Winters rode close and tossed a silver dollar over intervening heads. “There, you great windbag; toss me one of your pieces of hocus-pocus.”
“Ah, sir! But you err when you call Dr. Spurlock Mosely a windbag. I am a benefactor to mankind; what I have to sell is worth many times what I’m asking. But here, you impudent deputy marshal.” Mosely tossed a cube to Winters, who rose in his stirrups to catch it. “Who will be first to follow officer Winters’ sensible example? Ah, there you are! And you— and you—and you—”
Winters pocketed his purchase and rode to Forlorn Gap. Several days passed uneventfully, and then late at night