These Dark Medicinal Arts

By Lincoln Reed

The bullet whistled and bit.

Roland Chadwick, Deputy U.S. Marshal, pressed a scarred hand against his blood-soaked shirt and half collapsed against the hotel’s cellar stairwell. Gunshots resounded outside where a gang of hired guns patrolled the frontier town’s streets with revolvers drawn.

The marshal stumbled down to the bottom step, where gaslight illuminated a red door at the end of a narrow hallway. His boots clumped the floor. He checked his wound. Grimaced.

“Roland Chadwick!”

The voice from the street above was muffled by the dusty walls, but Chadwick recognized it clear enough. Zhu Stone—enforcer for mining baron Tobias Riverford.

“Chadwick, you cuss.” Stone called out. “Give up the doc. Mister Riverford’s not finished with him.”

The marshal raised sticky fingers from his wound. He knocked twice. A pounding heart vibrated like a war drum as he fumed, calculating the odds of escaping alive. Not good.

The red door squeaked open.

“Roland, you’re losing blood.”

Chadwick collapsed onto a table, helped onto his back by Dr. Vernon Mortimer, a well-built man dressed in a gray suit. The fellow tossed aside his bowler hat and jacket, rolled up his white sleeves, adjusted his glasses, and unlocked his black doctor’s bag. Mortimer pulled open Chadwick’s coat and unbuttoned his shirt, assaying the wound, tongue clacking against his teeth. “The bullet’s there… but the blood. It’s too much. In this state, you won’t get farther than the door.”

The marshal attempted to sit up, but the doctor pressed him against the table. Chadwick’s vision blurred and refocused. Shouts echoed from the street.

Kerosene lamp pulled close, the doctor prepared his instruments, steely eyes darkening. “Unless you receive more blood….”

Chadwick’s teeth gritted as Mortimer withdrew the bullet. It clanked against a metal tray. The doctor readied a syringe and what appeared to be a narrow tube.

“What’re you…?”

“My blood into yours.”

The marshal scowled. “That’s—”

“Taboo, yes, but I’ve attempted transfusions before.”

“And?”

“Some success.”

“Some?”

“It’s an unpredictable procedure, I’ll admit.” Mortimer wiped sweat from his eyes. “But you’ll otherwise die and I’ll be lynched. Is that what you want?”

The scent of smoke wafted as orange dust filtered down through the wine cellar’s ceiling floorboards. Stone and his gang had torched the upper floors of the hotel. Chadwick’s eyes sagged.

Some time later, the marshal sat up and blinked. His head spun, but he no longer felt like a man falling into a deep well. Hot air filled the once cool wine cellar. Mortimer was collecting his materials.

“Vern, your wonders never cease.” Chadwick reloaded his Colt revolver. “It ain’t natural, what you did. But I’m obliged.”

“You’ll feel better on the morrow.” Mortimer put on his hat, his face paler than before. “If we should be so lucky.”

The marshal stood, staggered forward, and perused the selection of wine shelved against the wall. Mortimer buttoned his coat. “As the world burns, you raid the cellar?”

Chadwick chose a bottle and released the cork with a nearby screw. “Rescuing you from Riverford… made me thirsty.”

“And, may I say, you’ve picked a fine place to hide, too. No back door or windows. Next time we’re on the run, I choose the hideout.”

Chadwick sipped. “I knew Stone wouldn’t send his men in here. Would be a death trap.”

“For them or us?”

With flames licking ceiling floorboards, Chadwick followed Mortimer up the cellar stairs through thick clouds of smoke. He entered the street standing behind the doctor, whispering his plan in the physician’s ear, Colt revolver drawn.

Thirty yards away, five of Riverford’s men stood with handguns ready.

“About time,” Stone said. “Throw down your weapons.”

Mortimer straightened. “Roland, we’ve no chance. Let me talk to them.”

“Here’s the situation, Marshal,” Stone said. “Mister Riverford’s mad as hell, being tricked into taking slave potions instead of real medicine.”

Chadwick struggled to stand, eyes stinging. “Was hoping maybe you’d let us go.”

“Boss wants the doctor to himself.”

Chadwick lifted the wine bottle and swigged. “Prescribing a freedman’s remedy is no crime.”

“That may be.” Stone nodded. “But Mister Riverford don’t take kindly to it.”

I’m aware. Chadwick’s hand brushed his fresh stitches.

“I don’t come back with the doc, Riverford will hang me instead.”

Heat from the fiery hotel bristled Chadwick’s neck. Still standing just behind the doctor, the marshal took another drink. “If I were you, Stone, I’d find other employment.”

“Then we’re at a stalemate, ain’t we?”

Mortimer fidgeted. Chadwick cocked the hammer on his revolver. “Seems we are.”

In one swift motion, the marshal pushed the doctor to the ground and threw the wine bottle upward. As Stone and his men hesitated, caught off-guard, Chadwick slammed his left palm on the Colt’s hammer, swiveling repeating gunshots, smashing bullets into his targets. A few of Stone’s gang managed to return fire, but all missed, falling dead as Chadwick aimed his final bullet, which shattered the wine bottle before it met the ground.

The acrid scent of gunpowder lingered, mingling with the stench of fire. Stunned townsfolk peeked heads from alleyways and storefronts. They scurried for water buckets, heading toward the burning hotel with shouts and curses.

“Next time, Vern,” Chadwick steadied himself, holstering his gun, “when prescribing treatment to a former Southern aristocrat… how about you don’t elaborate about where you got his medicine?”

Mortimer stood and dusted himself off. After digging into his coat pocket, he presented the slug he’d removed from the marshal. “A keepsake, to remember a successful transfusion.”

“Bad luck.”

“Oh, please.” Mortimer’s glasses reflected the hotel’s fire. “Your superstitions, Roland… if you’d trusted them earlier, you’d be dead. Herbal remedies… transfusions, whatever the treatment, however distasteful, socially unacceptable, or bizarre to these frontier folk, the fact remains… Riverford was healed and you were saved. His prejudice, your skepticism. They’re irrelevant. The results. They’re all that matter.”

Chadwick hid a smile. “Well, when you put it that way, this trinket would make a fine necklace. Maybe good luck, too.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lincoln Reed is a professor, writer, and editor. He holds a BA in film and media production from Taylor University and an MFA in creative writing from Miami University of Ohio. More than 25 of his short stories are featured in online publications and print anthologies.

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