Summary: A missing scene from Emily. Joe finds an ambushed money transport with a dead and injured man lying next to it. He fires three shots to call for help, but he gets shot in the back. Hoss and Candy arrive at the scene shortly after Deputy Wade.

Rating: PG   Word Count: 1600

The Shot

I was surprised to hear another bang behind me since I had only fired three times. A heavy blow jolted me forward like someone had smashed a fist between my shoulders.

I found my cheek pressed to the sandy ground, and wilted leaves rustled and whispered before my eyes. Concentrating on the faint brown, I tried to understand what had happened and why the sun was setting so fast. First, the edges of my vision turned light gray, then to a menacing dark gray the color of heavy, rain-soaked storm clouds in the fall. My sight narrowed to a tiny dot—and then nothing. Deep, calm, peaceful blackness, soft as velvet, enveloped me, and with a sigh, I let go.

My pleasant absence was torn from me by a gunshot. I heard people yelling and arguing. Footsteps stomped toward me and stopped. Boot leather creaked, sand gnashed, and dry foliage crunched. The people seemed rushed, their voices sounding worried and urgent. I could make out the words “alive,” “doctor,” and “hurry.” Why was everybody in such a hurry?

Someone lifted my head, and I felt a hand on my back. “Don’t!” I wanted to say, but only a tiny, soft noise, like that of a feeble puppy, escaped me. Leave me alone, I thought as I was rolled onto my side while someone grabbed hold of my arms and legs. Why couldn’t I just lie here and go back to sleep?

“Watch his shoulder, Candy!”

I recognized the voice. It was my brother Hoss, and he sounded concerned, which was odd because nothing scared him that fast.

“We’d better be quick. He’s bleedin’ a lot!”

The world swayed dizzyingly as they lifted and carried me. And oh, the pain! Underneath my back now was a hard wooden surface. I wanted to open my eyes and look around, but I couldn’t move my eyelids or even a finger. Had I been paralyzed? I’d heard of people being trapped in their motionless bodies, only able to communicate through blinking, but I couldn’t even do that.

When we started moving—it must have been a buckboard because I heard the snapping of leather reins, shouts of encouragement, and the clatter of hooves—my head rolled from side to side without me being able to do anything about it. The pain, once just a flickering spark, roared to life. It felt as if someone had heated a blade and drilled into my right shoulder. The agony intensified with every bump, shake, and jolt of the wagon, adding to an unbearable fiery blaze.

“You’re gonna kill him, Candy, if you keep driving like the devil,” Hoss yelled close beside me, and I felt his soft hands on my cheeks, steadying my bouncing head.

Thanks, Hoss!

“I’m more likely to kill him if we go slowly. His jacket’s soaked with blood!”

Bad time to argue.

Another pothole, or was it a rock, and I gratefully allowed the darkness to grab me, pulling me into sweet oblivion.

The next time I awoke, things had changed. The smells and the sounds were familiar and comforting. My head was no longer rolling back and forth, and my cheek wasn’t pressed to crackling leaves and dry sand but to a soft, down-filled pillow. My senses—hearing, tasting, feeling—worked, but my muscles still refused to do what I told them. I wanted to spit the grit out of my mouth, to ask what was going on, and to beg for something to drink because I was dying of thirst. My tongue, thick and heavy, stuck to the roof of my mouth.

A barely noticeable breeze brushed over my skin, giving me goosebumps. Over my bare skin? Where was my shirt? And the pain—it was still there, nagging and piercing and sharp.

A hand ran through my hair. There was a click, followed by the metallic clang of instruments and water splashing. Someone stepped on the creaky floorboard before my desk, which I always avoided when sneaking out.

My sluggish mind tried to piece together the sounds into a sensible picture. Was I in my bed with some kind of injury? If so, Pa and probably a doctor would be with me. What had happened?

“I will give the boy just a whiff of ether, Ben. He’s so out of it that I’m afraid he’ll stop breathing if I go too deep with the anesthetic. That bullet has to come out, but he’ll hardly feel anything.”

The tension in the room was palpable. I could hear a couple of heavy breaths and a sigh. “All right, Doc. You do what you think is best.”

“I’d hate for you to see this, Ben. Maybe you’d better send Hop Sing—”

“I’ll stay here with my boy. You tell me what you want me to do.”

I knew that tone too well. If Pa spoke in that voice, he wouldn’t back down.

“Whatever you say. You can wipe off the blood and hand me instruments.”

Blood? Instruments? “I’m awake,” I tried to say. The doctor wouldn’t—?

Something soft, maybe absorbent cotton or a piece of cloth soaked in a pungent liquid was held before my nose. The smell was disgusting, sweet, and intense, and I tried to turn my face into the pillow—did my head move a little? A big warm hand touched my cool skin. I could sense the rough calluses from countless hours of hard ranch work, and Pa’s breath tickled my ear.

“Don’t fight against it. Inhale deeply, Joseph. Everything will be fine. Just relax.”

I was used to following my father’s orders. “Yes, sir,” I wanted to say and nod in obedience, but my limbs were growing heavy, and great tiredness began to spread from the middle of my body to my fingers and toes. I sank deeper and deeper into the blackness.

A sharp sting in my shoulder made me gasp in agony. There was that glowing blade again, digging into my flesh, scraping at my bones, cutting my muscles.

“Doc, he’s waking up!”

Thank God. Pa is here. He would take care of things. He always did.

“Give him three or four more drops of ether. Then pull his arm up like I told you. That ball came from diagonally below. I can’t reach it. It’s stuck right under the bone.”

Pa’s hands wrapped around my arm, one around the upper arm, one around the wrist. When he started pulling, I tried to tense my muscles and resist because it hurt. I noticed my shoulder blade moving up, reluctant and somehow crunching, and I concentrated on the ether burning in my nose, not on what the doctor was doing to my back. He palpated and probed, and I felt cold metal penetrating my flesh. The pain was so intense that I held my breath. My heartbeat quickened, and a fine film of sweat formed on my skin. Moisture began to seep from under my eyelids. One drop was sucked from the pillowcase, and the other ran down the bridge of my nose.

“Lewis, he’s still conscious!” Pa’s voice was frantic and upset, but the doctor sounded calm and collected.

“Just another moment. Keep him in this position. I’ll have the bullet in a second!”

My arm began to tremble, or was it Pa’s hands whose shaking was transferred to my limb?

“Got it!”

A clang rang out, and I had the image in my mind’s eye of a bloodied, deformed bullet being tossed into an oval metal bowl.

“Thank God!” Pa said with a sigh of relief.

“Put this on the wound, Ben. Firmly! The bleeding must subside before I do the stitches.”

“Doc, he’s not breathing anymore! Joe! Joseph? Come on, breathe, boy!”

Someone shook me, but the unpleasant pull on my arm was gone. Fingers felt my wrist, then my neck.

“His pulse is weak but steady. It’s a bit fast, but that’s to be expected. Look, Ben, his chest is rising. You can barely see it, but he’s breathing. I’ll sew the wound, then we’ll bandage.”

As a body sat beside me, the mattress dipped, and the bed creaked. My eyelids fluttered, and I almost managed to open them, reassuring Pa with a glance that I was all right. The hot stinging in my back had subsided to a dull, undulating throb radiating down my right side and into my arm, but that was okay. I was going to be fine.

My father’s hand stroking over my left shoulder and through my hair and dabbing the moisture from my eyes with a cloth distracted me from the pricking and pulling of needle and thread. “You are almost there, Joseph.”

I was freezing by now, and the damp rag wiping my back intensified the shiver that flitted over my bare skin like the legs of a nimble spider. I felt covers, but they only reached my waist, and I wished I could snuggle into them and doze for a while.

Gentle hands rolled me back and forth. A tight bandage was wrapped around my chest and aching shoulder. With my face and arms buried deep in my soft pillow, I finally came to rest.

The doctor said something about shock and a sandwich, blood loss, and coffee, but they were rambling words that made no sense to me. The bedspread was pulled to my neck, and a pleasant, heavy warmth and tiredness lulled my battered body into a healing sleep.

The End

February 2024

Episodes referenced: Emily, written by Preston Wood, Elliot Gilbert