Of Grave Concern Part 20

25.

Suddenly shot back into my body, I vibrated with only one thought: to breathe. My lungs burned for air and my brain felt as if it would burst, and I felt the burlap sack being jerked up and out of the grave. Then there was the sound of a blade cutting the rope and slitting the sack, and the night air brushed my cheeks.

A dark figure stood over me, knife in hand.

I pleaded with wide eyes.

Jack Calder threw the knife into the ground and knelt. He placed one hand behind my head, while he hooked a finger in my mouth and dislodged a clump of dirt and sand.

"Breathe," he said. "Breathe!"

Then he pushed me forward and slapped me between the shoulder blades so hard that I thought my ribs would break. Still, I could not force air into my lungs. Blotches of red and black and brown stained my vision.

"d.a.m.n it," Calder said. "I will not lose you."

He pulled me back, put his left arm beneath me, took a great gulp of air, and then put his mouth on mine. As he forced his breath into me, I could feel his chin stubble bruising my jaw, smell the sweat that stained his collar, and taste the coffee and cigar he'd had not long before.

Then my lungs fluttered and trembled. When his lips released mine, I greedily sucked in air, but I could not seem to get enough. I gasped and coughed and shook for more as Calder held my shoulders.

"Slow down," he said. "You can't drink in the whole night sky at once."

Then he picked me up and carried me down from Boot Hill into town, along North Front, where the cowboys and gamblers and wh.o.r.es gave way for us, and to the door of City Drug. He kicked the door so hard that it splintered the bottom hinges.

"Who the h.e.l.l is breaking down my door?" Doc McCarty called from the back room.

"We need you, Doc."

Calder carried me into the room and put me down on the same table that Shadrach had died on. Doc emerged from the back, pulling up his suspenders and holding a coal oil lamp.

"Tell me, quick."

Doc was leaning down and was lifting each of my eyelids with his thumb while shining the lamplight in my eyes.

"That d.a.m.n fool Murdock threw her in the open grave on Boot Hill."

"Just threw her in?"

"And buried her."

"How long was she under?"

"Couldn't have been very long," Calder said. "A few minutes, maybe."

No, I tried to say. It was much longer than a few minutes. All night, it seemed. But Doc was now looking down my throat and examining my nose and ears.

"I met Murdock and two new friends on Tin Pot Alley, and one of them had a shovel slung over his shoulder," Calder said. "I had seen Miss Wylde earlier at the Saratoga. But before I knew it, she had slipped out. I had a bad feeling something like this was going to happen, Doc."

"And you just knew what Murdock had done?"

"He told me after I beat him with the shovel."

"How bad did you hurt him?"

"Pay attention to the patient in front of you, Doc."

McCarty frowned, but he leaned over and spoke in my face.

"Do you know your name, dear?"

I didn't answer right away.

After a few minutes, he asked again.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Want me to spell it, too? It has a Y in there."

Up like thunder, my mind was back.

"She's all right."

"How do you know I'm all right? You haven't looked at me for thirty seconds. There could be all sorts of things wrong with me from being at the bottom of a grave. Just the grave air alone might have given me something."

"You have some dirt packed in your nose and ears," McCarty said. "That's all. Your eyes react to light well, nothing appears broken, and your mind is obviously intact. Your coastal defenses are manned and ready, as usual."

I paused.

"Was it awful?" McCarty asked.

"Doc," I said, "I was scared witless."

"It was a cruel thing to do," McCarty said. "And likely fatal, if Jack Calder hadn't been watching out for you."

"Why would you do that?" I asked.

"Anybody would have dug you out."

"No," I said. "I mean, watch out for me."

Calder shrugged.

"I don't know, either," I said.

McCarty had pulled on his shirt now, and he was gathering up some things in a little satchel.

"Where's Murdock?"

"Still on the alley off Chestnut, I reckon."

"Then I guess I'd better go have a look," McCarty said. "Jack, the old days of the Vigilance Committee are over. You can't just go around beating confessions out of people. You'll wind up with a murder charge yourself."

"Are you saying I should have let her die?"

"I'm rather glad you didn't," McCarty said, and winked at me.

"Doc," I said.

"Yes?"

"It was fearful, at first. Voices. But there was something else. Something peaceful. It wasn't Summerland. But it was . . . something good. Angelic, even. A part of me was sad to come back."

McCarty thought for a moment.

"If I were of a judgmental nature," he said, "I might say that sounds like humbug to me-childish, as you told me not long ago. Or, if I were strictly a man of science, I might say that during suffocation one blacks out and is p.r.o.ne to fantasies. But I am just a man."

"Then what do you say as just a man, Doc?"

"That the wise among us know where the limits of their wisdom stop," he said. "It seems you have found yours. Welcome back to the race of human animals, Miss Wylde."

I didn't know what to say.

"A long, hot bath-that's what I recommend," McCarty said. Then he frowned as he slid past the broken door. "Did you have to kick it in, Jack? You know where the key is."

"I was in a hurry," Calder said.

"Well, you're going to have to pay to get it fixed."

McCarty left.

"Let's find you a bath," Calder said.

"Where?" I asked. "It must be three o'clock in the morning. The Dodge House has long since closed the bathing rooms."

"You can get a bath twenty-four hours a day here during cattle drive season," Calder said. "There are two or three bathhouses down on South Front, and two of them are in tents."

"It doesn't sound very private."

"It is, if you're willing to pay," Calder said. "I'll come with you."

"I think not."

"I meant that I would stand guard outside."

Calder propped the door of the City Drug back in its frame and locked it with a key he took from the nearest rain barrel. He shoved on the door, and it only gave a little toward the bottom. He p.r.o.nounced it good enough for now.

We walked across the tracks to South Front, where we found a big canvas concern that was all lit up from the inside. There were plenty of tubs inside and water being heated over fires, and a dozen cowboys or so were sitting in tubs in the main part, soaking off the trail dust. Most were smoking cigars or leisurely sipping whiskey. A few of them had girls in little or no clothing helping to scrub.

For three bucks, we got a private tub in the back, with a canvas part.i.tion. It didn't take long to fill the tub with hot water, and Calder grabbed a stool and sat outside while I undressed.

"If you slide those clothes out under the tarp," Calder said, "we can get them washed."

"Now?"

"Where you have hot water, you have a laundry," he said. "They won't be dry until morning, but we can find something for you to wear back to the Dodge House."

I came to the tarp and pa.s.sed my filthy clothes beneath it. I was aware that the lamp near the tub was throwing my shadow on the canvas. I didn't mean to be provocative; I was just bone-tired. I nodded toward modesty, however, by keeping my arms folded and my legs together.

I slid into the tub. It felt so good that I closed my eyes and emitted a slight moan.

"You want a cigar?" Calder asked.

"No, thanks," I said. "And you've apparently already had one tonight."

"How did you-"

"I tasted it."

"I like to smoke in the evenings," he said. "It's relaxing."

"It's a filthy habit," I said.

But it didn't seem so filthy when I imagined Calder smoking.

"It is somewhat less filthy," he said, "compared to many other vices."

"True," I said, scrubbing my left arm.

"Mrs. Wylde," Calder said. "May I ask-"

"You have earned the right to call me Ophelia, I think."

"Ophelia," he said, "what you told Doc about the angel or whatever . . ."

"Yes?"

"Is that true?"

"It wasn't part of my act, if that's what you're getting at," I said.

"That's not it," he said. "I was curious as to whether any revelations accompanied the angelic visitation."

There was something, wasn't there? I tried to remember.