"What's up, Doc?" (Short Story No. 17)

These short stories will be part of the sequel to my novel The Lady Who Loved Bones. Any suggestions for improvement or for future stories are welcome.

Marshal Neil Howie happened to be in the Red Horse restaurant eating lunch with his deputies when T. H. Kleinschmidt the bank head cashier was bludgeoned and Angus the Scottish Sasquatch was shot right before his eyes. He immediately took control of the situation and determined that both wounded individuals were alive, although perhaps barely he initially surmised.

“Get the doctor!” the marshal shouted to Jethroe, his most trusted deputy.

“Which one?” Jethroe asked.

“Whichever one you can find first and is sober,” Howie snapped.

Jethroe had a half dozen so-called doctors to choose from. Howie hoped he would choose the one with the medical school degree as opposed to those who had learned as an apprentice under the town drunk or those who had merely acquired a certification from a diploma mill.

The undertaker soon entered the restaurant and announced,” Jethroe said you need me!”

“No!” Howie shouted. “These two are still alive. But make yourself useful. Take this towel and apply pressure on Kleinschmidt’s head to slow the bleeding. It’s not like we can apply a tourniquet to his head.” The undertaker jumped to it. Helen, the Pinkerton agent, knowing a bit about first aid herself, covered Angus’ chest wound with a moist bandage. Howie ordered some bystanders to carry the two wounded men over to the Last Chance Saloon and clear some tables to lay them on. Just then Jethroe came back with the doctor and they followed the crowd over to the saloon.

# # #

“What’s up, Doc?” Marshal Howie asked as soon as Doc Eberlin had a brief opportunity to examine the patients.

“Well,” the doctor replied, “they both are conscious and the bleeding mostly stopped.” The doctor immediately administered bloodletting with the leeches.

Shorty, closely observing the proceedings, commented, “Don’t ya think he lost enough blood?”

Marshal Howie ordered Shorty to back off and he went over to the bar. Kleinschmidt unfortunately accidentally swallowed one of the leeches and the doctor ordered that the patient be given a glass of wine every fifteen minutes to destroy the leech. Shorty was assigned that task.

“What’s up with Doc?” Helen whispered to Shorty at the bar. “Did he go to medical school?”

“I think not,” Shorty whispered back. “He trained under old Doc Goodson.”

“Where is this Doc Goodson now?” Helen asked.

“He’s takin’ a dirt nap over on Boot Hill,” Shorty answered. “He was shot dead by Blackie Barton. Blackie claimed Doc Goodson killed his brother with those damn leeches.”

The doctor turned his attention to Angus the circus giant and newest member of the Captain Taz outlaw gang. Shorty called out from over at the bar, “Doc, ain’t you gonna take the bullet out?”

“Probably not,” the doctor replied. “Digging around for the bullet near his heart would do more harm than good. We do have to hope that infection doesn’t set it. It likely will due to the bullet carrying particles of clothing, dust, germs, lint, and the like into the wound.”

The marshal went to the bar and had a drink. Helen began to talk to him. “I would like to question those two while they are still alive.”

“I doubt that is going to happen,” Howie replied. “Not for a few days, anyway.”

“They could be dead in a couple days,” Helen noted. “Those two know something about the bank robbery and the murders. Don’t you want to solve the case of your prisoner being burned alive in the jailhouse?”

“You get Doc Eberlin’s permission and you can talk to them,” the marshal conceded.

Doc Eberlin got the patients comfortable and took a break at the bar. Helen approached him and expressed a desire to speak with him privately. They soon left for her hotel room. The doctor put Shorty in charge of administering the opium and mercury. Benjamin Burrows, the snake oil salesman, gave Shorty a few bottles of his best stuff, including some snake oil liniment. “Rub this on his head,” Burrows suggested. “It will make him a whole lot smarter, if nothing else.”

“Why did he pick you as his nurse?” Anne Hope, the bearded lady, questioned belligerently.

“You can help,” Shorty offered. “Dump the big guy’s bed pan. He took quite the dump, relatively speaking.”

Meanwhile Reverend Nelson carried on a whispered conversation with both patients.

# # #

It didn’t take but a few minutes after they got to Helen’s hotel room for her to drop the doctor’s pants and to perform fellatio. He quickly ejaculated and offered to reciprocate in some manner. The doctor looked shocked initially when he got a look at what Helen had hidden under her dress.

“I had no idea,” the doctor admitted. “You seem so much a woman.”

“I am a woman!” Helen insisted adamantly. She slapped his face with her manhood. “I want to exchange this for a vagina. Is that medically possible?”

“I would exchange yours for mine, if that were possible,” the doctor responded. “Yours is a lot bigger. One day organ transplants will happen. I don’t know that what you want, to replace your penis with a vagina, has ever been done, but I have a good idea how it could be accomplished.”

“How is that, exactly,” Helen questioned.

The doctor explained. “No doubt it would require numerous surgeries. Remove the testicles, invert the foreskin and penis as a flap preserving blood and nerve supplies to form a vagina. Form a clitoris with nerve endings from part of the glans of the penis.

Helen began to get another erection as all this talk of her fondest dream stimulated her. “What’s up, Doc?” she asked, and he began to minister to her.

Afterwards, the doctor asked, “Are you sure you want to lose that thing? It seems to work pretty good. Also quite a protein producer.”

“Oh yes!” Helen replied. “Can you perform the surgeries?”

“Oh no,” he responded, “but I have a friend who might give it a go. He’s been looking for volunteers to experiment on. He got his medical degree from the Medical College of South Carolina and then travelled to Europe to study medicine and surgery in Paris, London, and Berlin. Europe is where most of the experimental surgery is taking place.”

“What is your friend’s name?” Helen inquired.

“Dr. Stein,” he answered. “Dr. Frank N. Stein.”

Click on link for source to go to The Lady Who Loved Bones at Amazon.com.