Sanctuary (3 page)

“Out back,” he croaked, his voice overburdened with guilt and excitement.

“Already?” Johnson asked in mock amazement. “Boys, you are seeing the eighth wonder of the world. The man with the magic bladder only lasted 'til ten-thirty.”

Hoots followed the old man into the alley.

He wished he could pick up his feet, but he didn't have the energy or the balance, so it was better to keep both feet on the ground. His shuffling annoyed him, especially now when he needed to get away from the preacher, away from the preacher's eyes.

For the first time in years, there was something the old man needed to do away from the saloon. That was exciting, but frightening, too. The Silver Dollar and alcohol were blankets he had pulled over himself after … no, he didn't want to think about that.

Best that he keep moving now, get someplace where he could get his mind working before the preacher noticed he was missing the twenty-dollar gold piece.

Twenty dollars! It was his ticket out of Sanctuary, a ticket back to the respectable life he had before that day in the Bear Paws … how many years ago? Doc shook his head. He wasn't even sure what year this was. The only thing he was sure about was the letter he always kept in his coat pocket, right there.

The old man's hands, shaking with dread, probed the pocket. Empty! The damn thing was empty! His eyes rolled, and he was shaking all over. No way out now. He'd be here in Sanctuary forever. His hands roved his tattered coat. He was frantic. How could he have lost the only hope he had? And then he heard the rustle of paper. Of course, he had changed pockets because the lining was torn, and he was afraid the letter would fall through and be swept away in one wind or another.

Doc almost swooned with relief.

He was back on track now. He had the money and the letter. He sat on the step behind the clothing store. No one would bother him there, and he could think about what he needed to do.

He spent the evening fighting his need to go back to the saloon, willing his mind to function. Exhausted with the effort, he fell asleep, wedged in the corner of the door.

The cold and the ache in his neck awakened him before dawn. He pulled himself into a ball, hands squeezed tightly together. The old man was fighting for his life.

And as the sun sent shards of light over the Montana prairie, Surgeon Raleigh J. Benjamin sat rigid with pain on the alley step of the haberdashery, plotting his escape from Sanctuary as an innocent man might plot his escape from prison.

Clothes, of course—he would need a new suit. He looked at the suit he was wearing, seeing it for the first time in years, and he was shocked at its shabbiness.

Of course! That was the reason he had come to the haberdashery. Now he remembered. He sat on the step, wringing his hands. He had to make his mind work, shed himself of the fog he had thrown over himself years ago. He needed new clothing. That was the reason he hadn't been able to go home. That was the reason he had come to the store.

But he couldn't buy clothes now, not the way he was. First he had to get cleaned up. Doc ran his hand over a wispy beard. He'd need a shave, too.

So he had to get himself fit, then buy a suit of clothes and a ticket. No, he had a ticket.

He pulled the letter from his pocket, and began reading:

Dear Raleigh:

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I have bad news. My dear Emma has passed beyond. Dr. Smythe treated her to the end, but she finally turned her back on the pain and tribulations of this life, sighed, and stepped into her Maker's arms. She died as she had lived—in great beauty.

She remained fond of you, as, of course, I have, and one of the regrets of her life was your separation from the family after she and I married.

Neither of us could understand your rather reckless plunge into the army, but that was a matter of your own conscience, and we had no intention of shutting you out of our lives as you seem to have shut us out of yours.

Now I rattle about in the old family home, and it fairly echoes of Emma. I have taken of late to thinking of our youth together in this rambling estate and long to see you and make amends for whatever I might have done to alienate you. You, of course, are entitled to your share of the income from the various interests in which father invested. I might add that you have accumulated a considerable sum over the years.

I would think that time has salved the sting of whatever it was that drove you to the Montana wilderness, and I do not want to pass, as Emma did, without resolving our differences, whatever they might be. I didn't realize the depth of Emma's concern about your estrangement until I heard her calling your name from her sleep just a few days before she died.

Please return home, if only for a short visit. I would think you have fulfilled your obligation to humanity by your service these many years. I have enclosed a voucher for tickets to encourage your quick return. I remain

Your brother,

Marcus Scott Benjamin

Doc had received the letter the fall before; it was wrinkled and pocked with the tears he had shed on it. And after the tears, he had taken the voucher to the train depot to trade it for cash. But the agent explained that the voucher was good only for tickets. He had almost thrown it away then. He had no wish to see his brother again, not after Emma …

Raleigh didn't compete with his brother for Emma. He hadn't asked her that gentle spring to attend a ball or go riding or take a walk. But each time he saw her, his eyes sparkled like fool's gold on a creek bottom. He watched her with an intentness that frightened her sometimes, and his face flushed red whenever she was near.

Raleigh knew that Emma had cared for him, too. He knew that to a certainty until that night when Marcus had come to him, pacing, bobbing from one chair to the next. Emma had accepted his proposal.

Doc had drunk himself blind that night for the first time in his life. Drinking had made all the other times easier, especially after the Bear Paws.

He still felt the pain—not as sharp as his aching need for a glass of whiskey—but a dull pang that drilled into his consciousness whenever he went to bed sober enough for his mind to function.

That ache had driven him away from Atlanta, and he wouldn't be considering returning home now but for that day last winter when another pain in his abdomen had pulled him awake. That pain was easier to diagnose. His liver was enlarged and hard. Cirrhosis. The old man had seen enough men die of that disease to know that the end shouldn't be faced alone.

He had tried to stop drinking then, but couldn't.

But he could stop now. He had made it through the night without a drink, and he had money enough to get clothes and get cleaned up.

He could go home now and live the life of a gentleman. He imagined the servants at his beck and call. A few days a week at cards with friends from his youth. How he would like to see them.

And he should teach, share his experience with young doctors who would live their lives out without seeing the number and kinds of traumatic injuries he had. He guessed that he could give them a pointer or two about the care of their patients.

That thought warmed him. Doctor Raleigh J. Benjamin dropping by the hospital to lend his expertise. He tried to sit a little straighter, as befitted a man of his newfound stature, but he suddenly had a nagging need for a drink.

No! Nothing to drink! There was too much to do. First thing, he'd stop at the Barber Pole and get a shave and a haircut. Nothing like that to get a man feeling good.

Charley the barber looked up as the bell tinkled above the door.

“Hi, Doc,” he said, not bothering to climb out of his chair. Charley was a cowboy who retired when a bronc broke his hip into jagged, painful pieces. He could barely walk now, let alone ride a horse, but he could live with that, and every time a blizzard roared through Sanctuary he thanked that bronc for turning his life around. He didn't cut hair fancy, but a man got his money's worth, and Charley knew how to keep his opinions to himself.

“Little short on change, today,” Charley said, turning his pockets inside out. “You know I'd help if I could.”

Doc stood next to the door shaking his head violently. Doctor Raleigh J. Benjamin was no beggar … at least not today.

“Don't want charity,” the old man said. “Want a haircut.”

Charley tipped his head and looked Doc over, head to toe.

“Don't mean to offend, Doc, but I won't cut your hair 'less you take a bath. Got my other customers to think of.”

Doc's eyebrows rose to make room for the incredulity that spread across his face. That was no way to talk to Doctor Raleigh J. Benjamin, soon-to-be lecturer in the great medical centers of Atlanta, Georgia.

Charley watched the old man's face unravel. “Tell you what. I'll throw in the bath for free. Water's hot. You can go out back and soak that—soak those years right off you.”

“I have money to pay,” Doc said, holding the double eagle out for Charley to see.

“Told you, Doc, the bath's free, but you can pay me for the haircut. Couldn't change that gold piece for you, though.”

Doc's mind was racing. “Charley, might be that while I get ready for the bath, you could change this for me at the haberdashery.”

“And Charley, there's a suit there in the window. I remember seeing it now. Gray wool for four dollars and ninety-five cents. It'd fit me, I know it would. I measured my reflection in the window. I remember that now.”

“Charley, if you could, maybe you'd bring me that suit and take out for the haircut … and take something for your trouble, too.”

The old man's eyes were shining, and he looked at the barber as though the old cowboy were an angel about to perform a miracle.

“Reckon I could, Doc,” Charley said so softly he could barely hear himself. “Reckon I could do that much for you.”

“A shirt, too,” Doc called after him. “And a tie.”

Doc walked out of the barbershop a new man. He had soaked off years of despair, along with layers of dirt. There was even a trace of a spring in his step as he walked toward the Silver Dollar bathed, clean-shaven, dressed in a new suit, and with the jingle of real money in his pocket.

He nodded at passersby on the street, pleased that they didn't recognize him as Silver Dollar Doc.

When he reached the saloon, he paused on the boardwalk, steadying himself against the hitching rail out front. This would be the hardest part, saying goodbye to Johnson and some of the others, but it had to be done, and quickly. Then he would go out back to the shack for a night's sleep, and on the train tomorrow morning.

He opened the door and stepped in. Johnson was sitting behind the bar, reading the weekly newspaper. Reading was a skill only recently acquired. Miss Dickens, the schoolmarm, had night classes for some of the adults in town, and he had been one of her star pupils. Still he read slowly, lips moving across the words. It took him about a week to finish the weekly paper.

Johnson looked up, settled back into the paper, and then jerked his attention back to Doc.

“Doc?”

“It is I,” Doc replied, sweeping his arms out in a theatrical greeting. But the movement was too much for his still shaky balance, and he grabbed the edge of a table to steady himself.

“I'll be damned,” Johnson said. “Boys, let me present Doc, swamper of the Silver Dollar Saloon.”

Doc bowed again, but less extravagantly than before.

Silence followed, and then babble. “Been coming in here for years—I didn't even know he could talk.” “Kind of a distinguished old gent once he gets cleaned up.” “Who died?”

“Going home,” Doc croaked. “Going back to Atlanta to live out the rest of my years with my brother. I just wanted to bid you all adieu.”

“Well, adieu to you, too, Doc. Boys, this calls for a round on the house.”

Johnson lined up a row of glasses on the bar and began filling them, not with the whiskey he kept under the bar, but from one of the fancy bottles lined up along the mirror.

Doc watched the whiskey sloshing into the glasses, and he began nodding and muttering to himself. He could smell it now, or at least he thought he could, and taste it with his entire being: tongue, sinuses, throat, liver. He desperately wanted a drink.

No! Not another plunge into death. He had alcohol beaten now; he hadn't had a drink in nearly twenty-four hours.

Still, how could he know if he had it beaten if he didn't try just one drink? One probably wouldn't hurt. Then he'd stop. He'd stopped yesterday morning after one, and he could stop now.

“I'll take one of those, Ben,” he said, licking his dry lips.

Johnson shut one eye and squinted at the old man. “You sure, Doc?” he said so softly the others couldn't hear.

“I'm sure,” croaked Surgeon Raleigh J. Benjamin. “And then maybe I'll buy one for the house.”

The sun stabbed through the east window of the shack behind the Silver Dollar Saloon and into Doc's eyes. Half awake, he covered his face with his hands, consciousness flooding him as that first glass of whiskey had flooded him the day before. He couldn't remember anything past that first drink.

He lay on the rough cot, taking stock. His first impulse was to gag. He'd apparently been smoking cigars, the stale smell woven deep into the wool he was wearing. Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus, he needed a drink. His mouth was dry, and his throat felt as though someone had run sandpaper over it.

It was cold: he was cold, shivering. Then he realized he had wet himself, lain in his bed and wet himself like a baby. Shudders racked him and he wanted to cry, but his body was parched and he didn't have even a few tears left to succor his soul.

His hands probed damp pockets. Nothing! Not a penny left of the money he had needed to return to Atlanta, to live with his brother. At least he still had the voucher for the tickets. As long as he had that there was hope.