Deep in the Valley (9 page)

As June put away John’s folder, she thought about the irony of the day. Here was Cliff Bender, a farmer they were all so used to he didn’t even frighten children, but damned if he didn’t look like a psycho. He had beady eyes and was always sneaking up on her. That big old gun was not for show, he’d shoot a trespasser in a heartbeat. He had no family, and worked a small piece of land at the base of the mountains. He might be scary looking, but he had never given anyone in Grace Valley any cause for concern. Cliff was safe as a puppy.

But was the handsome and charming new doctor someone to worry about?

Jesus, she thought in frustration, even I’m thinking of him as the Handsome New Doctor!

June gave Cliff twenty minutes to make sure his foot was clean. Then she slipped on gloves and trimmed back the nail and any necrotic flesh. She lectured on cleanliness, soaking, resting, and all of it. He wasn’t likely to take her advice any more seriously than in the past, but she was honor-bound as a doctor to push the issue. She then gave him a butt full of antibiotic, being every bit as careful as she would if he were a small child. He complained bitterly just the same. She packed up a parcel of Epsom salts, salve, sterile gauze and tape, and six brand-new pairs of socks.

“I think we’d have fewer problems with this toe if you’d just invest in a pair of new, waterproof boots, Cliff.”

“I’d hate to do that, Doc. These are just now broke in good.”

“Well, I tried. Come on, I’ll let you out the back and clean up.”

“You want me to hang around a little? Till you get your stuff put away?”

She looked at him in confusion.

“Seems like maybe you’re a little het up.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I was. I was worrying about…a patient. But I’m fine. I’ll just lock the door.”

“Must be a bad patient if you’re lockin’ doors now.”

“I should have had it locked before. Then you wouldn’t scare the pants off me.”

As she opened the door and held it, he gave a slow, deliberate look at her bottom half as if to check for pants. And she laughed. There was a lot of character to the old coot.

“You ought to have a dog, Doc. To look after you now and again. Keep you safe from scary old codgers like m’self.”

“Go on, now. And keep that foot as dry as possible, you hear?”

“Yes’m. I’ll do that.”

June locked the clinic’s back door and went to clean the treatment room. She chuckled as she did her chores. There had been no discussion of fees and there wouldn’t be any invoice. She didn’t ever charge Cliff. He would find any figure unreasonable, and would argue and grouse and threaten to lop off the toe. Truth was, he probably had a pile of money stashed at his house. Elmer remembered Cliff had once had a lot
more land than he currently did, and Lord knew he wasn’t wasting money on clothes or boots. Sometime in the next couple of weeks June would find vegetables or eggs or some slaughtered animal on her doorstep. Vegetables could be washed and eggs cracked, but she was never sure about meat. Elmer always threw it out, so she did, too. Elmer said it could be roadkill, coming from Cliff. Once, when Cliff was hunting wild pig, he’d come upon a mother and ten piglets. He said he just couldn’t kill a mama pig and leave those babies without anyone to take care of them. So he’d killed the piglets. Such was a woodsman’s logic.

It was nearly eleven when June was leaving the clinic. As she opened the back door she found herself face-to-face with two enormous men in plaid flannel shirts, jeans and long, heavy, fake beards.

“Clinic is closed, gentlemen,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Ah, we’re going to have to keep it open awhile, Doc. Got us a little problem here,” the nearest one stated.

“I said—”

“We just need you to take out a bullet, Doc. Won’t take you five minutes.”

“Okay, let me just make a quick call to—”

“To Chief Toopeek? I don’t think so.” And with that, he pulled out a very mean looking gun and pointed it at her. “Like I said, this shouldn’t take long.”

“And like
I
said, come on in, boys.”

J
une’s patient sat on an examining table with his shirt and fake beard removed—an absolute necessity if she were going to treat his injury. She cleaned, anesthetized and numbed the area of his shoulder where the bullet had entered. Unmasked and irritable from pain, he reminded her of an ornery, oversize two year old. And thus her fear began to yield to annoyance. How
dare
they abuse the privilege of medical care!

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather lie down?” she asked him tersely.

“Ummff,” he grunted, looking away and remaining upright.

His partner sat on the stool in the treatment room, watching.

“You might as well take your stupid beard off, too,” she said to him. “It’s not as though there’s going to be a lineup.”

“You never know,” he said.

“Fine, suffer. See if I care. But put that stupid gun away. I mean, really. Look at you, look at me. You
think I’m going to make a break for it or something?” She then tapped the injured area of the man’s shoulder with a scalpel. “Feel that?” Again he grunted. “Okay then, here we go…” She opened the area with her knife and held up a gauze wipe as the fresh red blood flowed down the man’s chest. She reached deeply into the fleshy wound with a hemostat, and her patient moaned loudly. “You make as much noise as you want…but just don’t move. Just about have it, hang in there….” The moans became louder and the blood flow thicker. “Touching it, touching it, ahh….” And despite his loud growl of pain, she pulled forth a slightly squashed bullet. With one hand she put pressure on the wound, while with the other she turned the clamp to and fro, looking at the bullet. “Good deal. It’s in one piece.”

Behind her there was a loud
thump.
She and her patient turned as one to witness the huge, gun-toting bearded man lying on the floor. He had fallen right off the stool in a dead faint and his big ugly gun had slid across the floor out of his reach.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she muttered. She gently pushed on her patient’s chest. “You’re going to have to lie down now, pal. I have a lot of sewing to do here and it looks like I’m also going to have to make sure that big dope who brought you in didn’t crack his head open.” She sighed deeply. “You know, you didn’t have to put on such a show about it. All you had to do was ask me to get a bullet out for you,” she said peevishly. “This isn’t Oakland. People accidentally shoot themselves all the time around here. Why, just last fall Rob Gilmore shot himself in the butt, or so he says. If you ask me, he was probably being his usual asshole self
and Jennie shot him. Which she should have years ago. But for now, just relax a little…” All the while she talked, she gently eased the big man back. Uncomfortable and weakened, he offered no further resistance. “Here,” she said. “Press down on this gauze.” She positioned his fingers on top of his own wound.

June dropped the bullet and clamp on the sterile tray, snapped off her gloves, washed her hands in the sink and grabbed an ammonia capsule from the drawer.

She stepped over the gun, stooped to the man who moaned and struggled for consciousness. She lifted his head slightly, deftly pulled the fake beard off his face and tossed it aside. His eyes were pinched closed and twitchie. She watched him; his eyes opened, saw her, closed. She held his head and waited. He opened his eyes and winked at her, slamming them shut again.

What game was
this?
She cracked the capsule and waved it under his nose. His
handsome
nose. He coughed and sputtered and choked and opened his eyes. “Big tough guy,” she said, but she smiled in spite of herself.

He very gingerly came to a sitting position. “Whoa,” he said.

“How’s your stomach?” she asked. “I want to be ready.”

“My stomach’s okay…but my head is floating off into space.”

She was gazing into completely lucid, deeply blue eyes. The big faker. He obviously couldn’t put down his gun without his wounded partner becoming suspicious, so he had faked a faint. “We have beds in the room by the back door….”

“Naw, I’ll just sit right here. I’ll be okay. That’s never happened to me before.”

“You’ve seen a lot of bullets get pulled out of shoulders?”

“I’ve seen one or two shooting accidents.”

“You’re a Vietnam vet?”

“Me? Hell no. I’m too young to have been in that war.”

“I guess you are.” She tilted her head and studied his face. He had a rich tan for someone who lived in the woods. High cheekbones, a square jaw and nice ears. His nose had a crook in it, probably from a fight. He had one of those heads of too much thick, unruly hair. His eyebrows were bushy and became knitted as he began to regard her fiercely, but she ignored his purposely scary look. Who was he trying to kid? “What’s your name?”

“Just call me Jim,” he said.

“Okay, Jim. Let me tell you something. If you’re ever hurt or sick and need my help, you just ask. Okay? If you ever come into my clinic pointing a gun at me again, I’ll take my revenge. And you’ll never see it coming.”

“Hey,” the man on the table called. “Anybody going to sew up my shoulder?”

June rose to her feet. “Oh, you
do
speak. Fancy that.”

She got out a clean pair of gloves and opened the surgical kit that sat on the tray. With a sterile hemostat, she poked around the open wound. “How are you doing? Should I numb this again?”

“I’m okay,” he said, looking away from the wound.

“I’m going to have to pack this. It’s going to give you some trouble. Pain. Possible infection. Actually, much as I hate the thought, you should come back and see me in a week or so. But by appointment.”

“That ain’t gonna happen,” he said. “Gimme some pills. I’ll see someone about it if I can…but not around here.”

“Fine by me,” she said.

Jim came slowly to his feet, reminding her how large a man he was. Monstrous, really. This was a place full of very large men—loggers, farmers, fishermen…drug growers.

“You’ve been a good sport about this, Doc,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what all the guys say. I’m a good sport.”

“I really didn’t mean to scare you,” he apologized.

“Yes you did, you big jerk. That’s exactly what you meant to do and I resent it. I’ve lived in this town my whole life and I know what’s going on. I have a pretty good idea where you’re from. But I also knew that you were really afraid of me, afraid that I’d call the police or something. I was actually going to call my dad or my nurse—either one could have been here in five minutes and it would have made this whole procedure quicker and cleaner, not to mention easier on me. Easier on all of us. Of course, I would have had to insist there be no weapons.” She pursed her lips and looked him over. “Costumes optional.”

“You would have called the police,” he said, though his voice was not accusing.

“Eventually. But it’s not in my job description,” she said as she pushed sterile, medicated gauze into the
hole where the bullet had been. “Tom Toopeek has been my best friend since childhood. We work together in every possible way, but we’re real careful to keep our roles clear and our lines drawn. I don’t compromise his upholding of the law and he doesn’t compromise my work as a doctor.” She looked up and made eye contact with Jim. “I consider myself a healer first. It’s more important to me that this man get treatment than that he get punishment. I don’t care if you believe that.”

“I see,” he said, the temptation of a smile tugging at his lips. “And would that line ever blur?”

“Sure,” she said, looking back to her work. “You just about blurred it. You pushed a gun in my face and became a threat. If you just ask for help, you’ll get it.”

She finished dressing the wound, then used an Ace bandage to bind the man’s arm to his chest. She covered the tray with a towel and pushed it aside, dropping her gloves on top, then she went to the cupboard and pulled out some pill bottles. “One of these every four hours till they’re gone. These are for pain, take as needed, but not with anything else, like any other pain killers or alcohol. And—” she extracted a very large syringe from the drawer, a vial from the drug cupboard “—bottoms up.”

“Aww,” he complained.

“I could find a bigger needle….”

Jim laughed and the other man struggled off the examining table, presented his backside and opened his jeans.

“Just drop them to about—”

“I know, I know, I’ve had shots before.”

She finished her job, handed him his pills and
helped him shrug one arm into his shirt. “That’s about all I can do for you.”

Jim pulled a wad of bills out of his pants pocket and peeled off a couple of hundreds. “This should—”

“Get that out of here,” she snapped. “I don’t want that money!”

He looked confused. “I’m sure you could use it, Doc.”

“It stinks of green marijuana, for God’s sake! There are a lot of people who think it’s just a little plant, maybe ought to be legalized, but I’m not one of them. I consider the consequences far-reaching and tragic! I couldn’t disapprove more completely if it were straight-out murder!”

“But you’ve—?”

“I choose my battles, that’s all. I thought I was clear.”

He put his money back. “Well, I guess we’re real lucky you chose the battle you did. Thanks.”

“It’s what I do. Now get out of here.” She followed them to the door, fully intending to call Tom once they were gone.

The injured man went out the door, but Jim lingered. “Maybe you should have been a little more afraid of us, Doc,” he said, frowning.

She smiled at him. “You don’t know anything about being a doctor, do you?” There were lots of times she was afraid, yet had learned how to perform in spite of that. And with confidence. Besides, once these men were in her treatment room, they hadn’t scared her. Not at all. After she realized Jim had pretended to faint so he could remove his weapon from the scenario, she
had begun to feel almost safe. A little pissed off, but almost safe.

“You have a gun in the office?” he asked.

“Not as of yet, but I’ve been thinking about getting a dog.”

He grinned. “Lock the door.”

“Believe me, I intend to.”

She opened the clinic’s back door fifteen minutes later and let Tom in. “Sorry to bring you out, but there’s no way I can leave here alone tonight without someone knowing what’s been going on here.”

“Of course,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t know how much I can help. I do have it on good authority that there’s a camp back in the Alps known as Triple Cross. A compound. A small town, maybe. It’s all hybrid cannabis, and the DEA has had it staked out for months. Very few people know about it and you’ll have to keep this strictly to yourself. I assume they’re planning a raid—maybe tonight was the night.”

“If they did raid it, my patient could have been a casualty. Can you find out?”

“I can ask the question, but the DEA is not obligated to answer. I would have expected anyone who got away to head toward Redding. Or the Oregon border. And based on what I was led to believe—that it’s a large camp—I would have expected much more than one gunshot wound.”

June thought about this. “Then these two who came in tonight could have been involved in some infighting, perhaps.”

“Maybe. It’s a very territorial business. I’ll call
the DEA from here,” he said. “Then follow you home…unless you’d like to come out to my place for the night?”

“No, I’ll be happier at home. They’re not going to give me any trouble. I think I made peace with them. I told them I’m a healer, not a cop.”

“That was kind of you….”

“Kind? That jerk had a big gun! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a revolver that size.”

“Maybe the DEA will ask you to look through some mug shots tonight, while it’s fresh in your mind.”

“Oh God, I hope not. I’m so tired.”

“Fear can take its toll….”

“Is it possible at least one of them was working undercover? The one with the gun—Jim—he didn’t seem very…I don’t know…criminal.”

“Don’t be naive. They’ve busted little old lady Sunday school teachers who have whole rooms full of indoor gardens! You’d be wise never to trust anyone with a pocketful of money that smells of freshly cut cannabis. Anyone who’s been that tight with the stuff is bound to at least have questionable relationships.”

“Well…” She paused and chewed her lip. She wasn’t going to mention the pretend fainting just yet. “I hate to sound self-righteous, but I’d never be—” She stopped herself. She was about to say she’d never be
attracted
to a criminal. “I’d, ah, never be as comfortable as I was with a dangerous person. Especially one with a big gun like that.” She shrugged. “I have excellent instincts.”

One corner of Tom’s thin mouth lifted, along with one finely arched eyebrow.

“Stop trying to read my mind,” she demanded.

Tom called the DEA, read them June’s description and reported the gunshot wound. He also informed them that the men tried to pay June with money that carried the distinct skunklike smell of green marijuana.

“They don’t have to see you tonight, June.”

“Good. So, did they have a raid?”

He shrugged. “I asked if there had been any arrests tonight and was told no. We have to assume we still have a major DEA drug raid in the mountains to look forward to.”

“Well, I hope no one gets killed,” she said. And meant it more deeply than she could admit.