stopped me, saying you had given orders that nothing was to be done without instructions from you.”
“Is he really in bad shape?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll go down and talk to him,” I said, reluctantly starting to dress again. “I gave him a shot now and then on the way up from the rancho—enough to keep him from falling down on us. But I want to get some information out of him now, and he gets no more until he’ll talk. Maybe he’s ripe now.”
We could hear Rainey’s howling before we reached the jail.
Milk River was squatting on his heels outside the door, talking to one of the guards.
“He’s going to throw a joe on you, chief, if you don’t give him a pill,” Milk River told me. “I got him tied up now, so’s he can’t pull the splints off his arm. He’s plumb crazy!”
The doctor and I went inside, the guard holding a lantern high at the door so we could see.
In one corner of the room, Gyp Rainey sat in the chair to which Milk River had tied him. Froth was in the corners of his mouth. He was writhing with cramps. The other prisoners were trying to get some sleep, their blankets spread on the floor as far from Rainey as they could get.
“For Christ’s sake give me a shot!” Rainey whined at me.
“Give me a hand, Doctor, and we’ll carry him out.”
We lifted him, chair and all, and carried him outside.