The Heart Remembers (26 page)

The Barton gang rode away from Idaho Springs with Bud Finch holding desperately onto the pommel of his saddle. After several minutes, Chick led them down a trail into a canyon and stopped beside a creek.

The three men dismounted, and Wagner and Loomis eased the bleeding Bud Finch from the saddle while Barton took a tin cup from his saddlebag and dipped it into the creek.

When Barton moved to the spot where Finch lay on the ground, Wagner said, “Chick, the slug hit him high enough that it couldn’t have hit his heart or punctured a lung, but he’s gonna bleed to death if we don’t get him to a doctor. I just packed my bandanna against the wound to help slow the bleedin’.”

Barton knelt down and placed the cup of water to Finch’s dry lips. “Sip it slow-like, Bud. We lost Clete. I sure don’t want to lose you.”

Finch took a couple swallows, then asked in a weak voice, “Clete’s dead?”

“Yeah. Bank officer shot him in the head.”

Chick gave Bud more water, then looked up at Ed Loomis. “You’re the only one of us who’s been in this area before. You got any idea where we can find a doctor? Other than where we just were, I mean.”

“The nearest town is Central City. It’s about eight or nine miles to the northwest. There was a doctor there when I was in these parts before.”

Barton nodded. “Now we’ve got to do some thinkin’. It’s too dangerous to just take Bud into a doctor’s office. The doctor will want to know how he got shot, and no matter what we tell him, he might be suspicious and insist on the law bein’ brought into it.”

“You’re right about that, Chick,” said Vincent Wagner.
“Doctors are supposed to report any suspicious bullet or knife wounds to the local law.”

“Best thing to do is hole up in some store where there are people we can hold hostage. We’ll threaten to kill them unless a doctor comes in and tends to Bud’s wound. After Bud is taken care of, we’ll take a couple of the hostages with us for insurance. We’ll threaten to kill them if lawmen or anyone else follows us.”

The gang leader gave Bud Finch the last of the water in the cup, and rose to his feet. “All right, boys, let’s get Bud to Central City.”

They mounted up, with Vincent riding on Bud’s horse with him. Ed was leading Vincent’s horse as they rode out of the canyon.

In Central City at ten minutes after two o’clock, a group of ladies were gathering in front of the town hall for a quilting bee. They were chattering happily, anticipating the joy they always experienced when they got together for a bee.

Betty Anderson, the mayor’s wife, was always in charge of the sewing bees. Almost half of the women in the group were members of the church where Mark Shane was pastor. Betty inserted a key in the lock of the door, and told the ladies to go inside the building. She added that Mayor Anderson had already come into the building an hour ago and built fires in both stoves.

At the same time the ladies were filing into the town hall, Chick Barton and Ed Loomis were riding into town, looking for just the right store in which to carry out their plan. Vincent Wagner had stayed at the edge of town with Bud Finch, hiding in a grove of trees.

As Barton and Loomis rode along Main Street with people moving up and down the boardwalks and light traffic busying the dusty thoroughfare, Chick pointed off to the side and said, “Look over there, Ed.”

Loomis immediately saw the sign beside the front door of the building that read:
DANE LOGAN, M.D
.

Barton said, “There’s our doctor.”

Ed grinned as he noticed a man and a woman coming out of the doctor’s office. “Sure enough. Dr. Dane Logan doesn’t know it, but he’s about to get a new patient.”

Suddenly Barton pointed up the street a half-block and said, “Look up there, Ed. See the town hall sign?”

“Yeah.”

“Take a gander at all those women filin’ into the buildin’.”

Ed nodded. “Looks like some kind of women’s meetin’.”

Barton’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, it’s perfect! Let’s go get Vincent and Bud. There’s gotta be a back door. We’ll go in that way and surprise ’em!”

Inside the town hall, Betty Anderson stood before the group of forty-seven women who were now seated at long tables with their quilting material spread out before them, needles and thread at hand.

“Ladies, it’s nice to see such a good turnout today,” Betty said. “May I remind you that this is a charity bee. We’ll be donating these quilts to the less fortunate families who live in those shanties on the east edge of town. As I told you at our last bee, I know those poor folks could certainly use some extra bedding for winter, which is not far off.”

The ladies nodded their heads. Betty sat down at the head table with Peggy Shane and two other women, and soon all the ladies were busy with their heads bent over the colorful material, their needles flashing in and out as they made their quilting stitches.

There was happy chatter as they worked, and everyone was having a good time.

Suddenly there was the sound of glass breaking at the back door of the building. A man’s hand reached through a broken windowpane, grasped the knob, and flung the door open.

What had been happy chatter a moment before was now gasps and screams as the frightened women saw three men come in with guns drawn. One of them was also holding up a bleeding man who was leaning against him.

“Quiet, all of you!” roared Chick Barton, his voice cruel and menacing while waving his revolver. “Sit still! Don’t move!”

The frightened group sat stock still, afraid to breathe.

“Who’s in charge here?”

Betty Anderson lifted a hand. Fighting to subdue a quiver in her voice, she said, “I am, sir. My name is Betty Anderson. I am the wife of Mayor Mike Anderson.”

“Mrs. Anderson, I want you to go right now to Dr. Dane Logan’s office and tell him we have a wounded man here. He has a bullet in his chest and is bleeding bad. You tell the doctor I demand that he come instantly!” Barton glanced up at a large clock on the wall. “If that doctor isn’t here in fifteen minutes, Mrs. Anderson, one of these women will die! You come back here with the doctor, too, or I’ll still shoot one of these women!”

Betty rose to her feet shakily, fear showing in her eyes, and headed for the front door.

Barton called after her, “Mrs. Anderson, if you or the doctor bring the law, we’ll spill blood all over the place! Do you hear me?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

When Betty stepped out of the town hall, she was shaking like an aspen leaf in a cold winter breeze. “Dear Lord,” she muttered, breathing heavily, “don’t let those evil men hurt any of the ladies.”

As Betty hurried along the boardwalk, people noticed the frightened look on her face and asked if she was all right. She hurried on without a reply, leaving them staring after her.

When Betty stepped into the doctor’s office, Tharyn was at her desk. The waiting room was almost full.

“Betty, are you ill?” Tharyn said.

Betty bent over Tharyn’s desk, and in a trembling whisper, said, “I’m not ill, but I must see Dr. Logan in private at once. It is a matter of life and death.”

Tharyn studied Betty’s eyes and said in an undertone, “Something really is very wrong, isn’t it?”

Betty nodded. “Like I said … life and death.”

Tharyn rose to her feet, rounded the desk, and put an arm around Betty’s quivering shoulder. “Come with me,” she whispered, and led her into the back room under the watchful eyes of the people in the waiting room.

Dr. Dane was working in curtained section number three on the broken arm of a ten-year-old boy. The curtain was not closed.

Tharyn seated Betty on a nearby wooden chair, patted her shoulder as if to say she would be right back, and stepped into the section.

The doctor had the boy’s arm in a cast, and was just finishing tying the sling.

Tharyn said, “Doctor, Betty Anderson is here. She has an emergency she must tell you about.”

Dr. Dane cinched the knot on the sling. “All right. I’m finished here. Would you take Raymond out to his mother while I talk to Betty?”

“Sure will,” she said, extending a hand to the boy. “Let’s go, Raymond.”

As Tharyn and the boy headed for the door, Dr. Dane stepped up to Betty where she sat on the chair. At once he could see that she was very pale, and her forehead was clammy. Her eyes stared at him in horror. “Betty, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She uttered a choked cry, strained to speak, and finally got it out. “There’s real trouble at the town hall.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Betty hastily told Dr. Dane about the four men who broke through the back door of the town hall and interrupted the quilting bee. “One of them has a bullet in his chest, Doctor, and the leader wants you there no later than six minutes from right now, or he is going to shoot one of the women! He warned me that if we brought the law in on this, they’d spill blood all over the place.”

Dr. Dane dashed to the medicine cabinet, grabbed his black medical bag from a shelf, and hurried back to her. “I’ll leave you here.”

Betty stood up and shook her head. “No, Doctor! The outlaw leader said if I didn’t come back with you, he would still shoot one of the women!”

The doctor shook his head. “I hate to let you go into danger again, but I guess there’s no way around it.”

“None. I can’t let someone else die because I disobeyed that awful man.”

When Dr. Dane and Betty entered the office, they paused at the desk. The doctor said in a low voice, “Honey, I can’t explain anything right now. This is definitely an emergency, and we must go quickly.”

With that, the doctor and the mayor’s wife hurried out the door, leaving the patients in the waiting area looking on in bafflement, and Tharyn with a puzzled look on her face.

Again, people on the boardwalk saw the anxious looks on the faces of the doctor and the mayor’s wife, and asked if something was wrong. Neither Dr. Dane nor Betty replied. They kept their hasty pace on down the street.

As they drew near the town hall, Dr. Dane prayed aloud, “Dear Lord, please help us. Don’t let any of those ladies get hurt.”

Betty was praying the same thing in her heart.

Unnoticed by the doctor and Betty, Deputy Marshal Len Kurtz was across the street. His attention was on them as they
dashed into the town hall with Dr. Logan carrying his medical bag.

“Hmm,” Kurtz said to himself, “something must’ve happened to one of the ladies at the quilting bee. I’d better go see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

NINETEEN
 

W
hen Dr. Dane Logan and Betty Anderson entered the town hall, they found themselves facing the black muzzle of Ed Loomis’s revolver.

Scowling at the tall, slender man with blazing eyes, Loomis noted the black medical bag in his hand and growled, “It’s a good thing you made it, Doctor. In two more minutes, one of the women would’ve been shot.”

Dr. Dane glanced at the table where he saw the wounded man lying, with the other two standing over him. From the side of his mouth, he said, “Betty, you go sit down.”

Then, ignoring Loomis, he hurried toward the wounded man.

When Betty sat down in the chair where she had been earlier, Peggy Shane put an arm around her and squeezed her tightly. Tears were in Betty’s eyes.

At that moment, Loomis glanced out the window by the front door and caught sight of a man heading toward the building, and the sunlight flashed off his badge.

Over his shoulder, Loomis said, “Hey, Chick! They brought the law with ’em! A guy wearin’ a badge is comin’ toward the door!”

Anger glinted in the outlaw leader’s dark eyes. Over his shoulder, he told Loomis to lock the door, then he set his blazing eyes
on the doctor and hissed, “You shouldn’t have done that, Doc! Now blood’ll be shed!”

Dr. Dane shook his head. “We didn’t talk to any lawman. He must have spotted Mrs. Anderson and me coming into the building. She told me about your threat. I wouldn’t go against it and put these women in any more danger.”

Barton studied him for a brief moment, then said, “Okay, I believe you. Get busy on Bud.” With that, he wheeled and headed toward the door where Ed Loomis was standing, gun in hand.

As he was drawing near the door, he heard the door handle rattle. Barton moved up to the door and called loudly, “Who is it?”

“Deputy Marshal Len Kurtz!” came the reply. “What’s going on in there? Why is the door locked?”

Barton shouted back, “Well, Deputy Kurtz, my name is Chick Barton. There’s a gang of us in here, and I’m the leader. We’re holdin’ guns on these women and the doctor, who’s removin’ a slug from the chest of one of my men. If you and your boss try to interfere, we’ll start killin’ women! You hear me?”

Kurtz’s voice came back strong. “Barton, listen to me! You and your men can’t hope to escape!”

“Oh, yeah?” blared the outlaw leader. “When we leave here, we’re takin’ two or three of these women with us. If you or anyone else tries to interfere, or if we’re followed, you’ll have some dead women on your hands! Now, you get outta here, or I’ll shoot one of these women right now! And if you bring the marshal back with you, I’ll kill
two
women! You got that?”