The West of the Big River series continues with THE DOCTOR, an all-new, exciting novel based on actual historical characters and incidents by acclaimed Western author Clay More, author of STAMPEDE AT RATTLESNAKE PASS and many other novels from the Western Fictioneers Library. One of the most stirring time periods in Old West history comes to vivid life in this tale of vengeance and heroism and a frontier sawbones dedicated to healing.
Excerpt:
Tombstone, Arizona Territory,
1891
Dr. George Goodfellow removed his stethoscope from the
man’s bare back and went back to his roll-top desk.
“You can get dressed now, Stanley,” he said as he
picked up his pen and made some notes on the record card in front of him. “You have
a slight bronchial irritation, but nothing too serious. I’ll make up a cough
linctus for you and drop it off at your office before lunch.”
Stanley C. Bagg, the five-foot tall owner and editor
of the Tombstone Prospector and
laterally, also the owner of the Tombstone
Epitaph, tucked his shirt into his pants and pulled on his jacket. Then he
pulled out a pair of wire-framed spectacles from his breast pocket and settled
them on his thin nose.
“Thank you, George,” he said, standing and immediately
provoking a coughing fit. He covered his mouth with his hand and then thumped
the front of his chest, which seemed to have the desired effect in stopping the
cough. “I guess it is inhaling all that darned paper dust and ink fumes that
does it.”
The two men were old friends, as were their wives and daughters.
Or at least, their wives had been good friends until the month before when Dr. Goodfellow’s
wife Katherine died in Oakland from the tuberculosis that had plagued her for
years. And both men were known to be forthright in their opinions and in their
manners. Stanley was a bullish, combative newspaperman who for all his lack of
height was a formidable man to cross. He had been prepared to serve a jail
sentence for contempt of court when he refused to pay a fine imposed upon him
by District Judge Barnes. Fortunately, several of his friends, including his
friend and doctor had donated money to keep the newspaperman out of jail, while
leaving his personal integrity intact.
As for Dr. George Emory Goodfellow, he had built the
premier medical practice in Tombstone and garnered a considerable reputation
throughout the Southwest as the surgeon to have operating on you, if you had a
choice. He was prepared to push back the frontiers of his craft and perform
operations that no one had tried before or even thought to be possible.
“It is probably more to do with those evil-smelling
cigars that you insist on smoking. I’ve told you before, you are poisoning your
system.”
Stanley guffawed. “And that is coming from a man who was
advising me that a good pipe keeps a lot of diseases away when we were chatting
just last week.”
George stood up. He was taller than the newspaperman. He
was thirty-six years old and powerfully built, like the boxing champion he had
been at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in his youth. He had been hotheaded
back then and gotten involved in a fight at the Academy, the result being a win
for George. Unfortunately, his prize was expulsion and discharge for lack of respect
for discipline. That had been the time when he had chosen to make his career in
medicine.
He had black hair with a central parting, a full
mustache and steely eyes that could smolder with anger, twinkle with amusement
or which could be reassuring in the extreme. As usual he was wearing a bow tie
and a dark suit with his polished knee high boots.
He pointed to the wall above his desk upon which hung
his framed medical degree beside a framed copy of the Hippocratic Oath, and in
a small glass-fronted box a silver double-headed eagle medallion of Austria,
which had once been the property of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Stanley had
written an article about it when it had been presented to Doctor George
Goodfellow by President Porfirio Diaz, along with a horse named El Rosillo in
1888 following the Sonora earthquake. They were given as tokens of Mexican
esteem after he had loaded up his wagon with medical supplies and led a party
ninety miles to Bavispe, Sonora, Mexico to treat survivors and injured. Then in
the following months he had returned along with Camillus Sidney Fly, the town
photographer, to study and record the effects of the earthquake. Together they
travelled over seven hundred miles through the Sierra Madre Mountains. Both
Camillus Fly’s photographs and George Goodfellow’s maps and reports earned
national praise. The photographs of the earthquake rupture scarp were widely
syndicated and George’s geological study had been praised by the united States
Geological Service.
Stanley knew that his friend was proud of the award, yet
he was far prouder of the fact that the townsfolk of Bavispe had called him El Santo Doctor, the sainted doctor. His
fluency in Spanish had helped, since he could communicate, explain and reassure
the injured in their own tongue. It was typical of the man that he cared more
about what his patients thought of him as a doctor than he did for all the
accolades and prestige that he seemed to accumulate with little effort. He was
just a natural subject for newspaper coverage, one of those characters that the
frontier seemed to throw up every now and then.
But it was to the framed Oath that George directed his
attention. “See that Hippocratic Oath, Stanley?” he asked rhetorically. “You
know as well as I do that I live by it, as best I can. If I take someone on as
a patient I’ll give him or her the best treatment I can and advise them to the
best of my ability. You have to accept that sometimes, like when we were
chatting last week, my best may be impaired. If you recall we were playing
poker at the time in the Crystal Palace saloon and we had both drunk four or
five whiskies. I actually said that a good pipe kept some diseases away, on account
of pipe tobacco’s natural ability to keep pesky flies and bluebottles away from
the vicinity. And as you well know, the good Lord blessed us here in Tombstone
with more than our fair share of the creatures.”
His hands went up to grasp the lapels of his coat, a
slightly pompous mannerism of his that many folks found intimidating, because
it was usually accompanied by a slight raising of his jaw and a triumphant
twinkle in his eye that signaled, at least in his mind, that he had either won,
or was about to win an argument.
“So, my friend, you can see that the advice I gave you
was the best I could give under the circumstances.”
Stanley opened his mouth to protest when there was a
sudden commotion from the waiting room outside. Voices were raised and there
were exclamations of amazement. Then there was the noise of heavy boots racing
across the wood floor and a beating on the door was followed by it being immediately
thrown open.
“Doc Goodfellow! You’ve got to come over to Campbell
and Hatch’s Pool Parlor. There’s a guy dying there.”
George recognized the messenger as Walt Harper, one of
the ushers from the Schieffelin Hall. He could see the panic in his face.
“I didn’t hear any shooting. What is it, a knifing?”
“It’s Red Douglas. He’s choking and seems to be having
some kind of fit.”
The doctor had already sprung into action. He had
grabbed his black bag then dashed to a cupboard from which he took out a couple
of small wooden cases which he threw into the bag.
“Stanley, don’t you come. That cough will start up if
you try to run. Get going, Walt, I’m right behind you.”
“And miss a story?” Stanley rejoined him. “Not on your
life. I’ll just take the stairs nice and easy and I’ll meet you there.”
But the town doctor had already gone. As he charged
through the waiting room he barked a quick, “Emergency call, folks. I should be
back in half an hour.”
Then he was out the door and dashing down the outer
steps of the Crystal Palace Saloon from his office.
As was often the case when folks saw Dr. Goodfellow
racing someplace he attracted a number of followers who tagged on behind him. Tombstone
was that sort of place. It had a lot of folks who seemed to have an unhealthy
interest in sudden death. As long as it wasn’t their own.
Clay More is the western pen-name of Keith Souter, a part time doctor, medical journalist and novelist. He lives and works within arrowshot of the ruins of a medieval castle in England. In 2014 he was elected as Vice President of Western Fictioneers and he is also a member of Western Writers of America, The Crime Writers’ Association, International Thriller Writers and several other writers organizations.
He writes novels in four genres – crime as Keith Moray, Westerns as Clay More, Historical crime and YA as Keith Souter. His medical background finds its way into a lot of his writing, as can be seen in this novel about Doctor George Goodfellow as well as in most of his western novels and short stories. His character in Wolf Creek is Doctor Logan Munro, the town doctor, who is gradually revealing more about himself with each book he appears in. Another of his characters is Doctor Marcus Quigley, dentist, gambler and bounty hunter. He has recently published a collection of short stories about him in Adventures from the Casebook of D Marcus Quigley, published by High Noon Press.
If you care to find out more about him visit his website: http://www.keithsouter.co.uk
Or his blog http://moreontherange.blogspot.co.uk
Or check out his regular contribution about 19th Century Medicine here on the WF blog.
