The Cowboy’s Revenge

You had to look hard for Doc Ridley’s office in Stopgap Oklahoma. Attached to the rear-end of the town’s post office, it had no windows and the door knob had got shot off by a cowboy who couldn’t hold his liquor. Doc Ridley spent little time there; delivering babies and treating kids with colic, catarrh, and whooping-cough kept him, and his horse and buggy, out for hours on end. Still considered dangerous territory in 1886, Stopgap men considered a good six-shooter a necessary item. Consequently, gunshot wounds gave the doctor a source of more income.

When the doctor spent any time in his office, he mostly treated saloon customers who’d either been shot; stabbed, bit, hit over the head or citizens whose head had come in contact with one a shoe that was attached to a hind leg of a horse. Ridley imbibed, socially, but had difficulty understanding why a man would let booze take hold of his senses and completely ruin his life.

Late one Saturday morning, doc Ridley sat at his office desk toting up his past week’s income and expenses, when the office door crashed open. A man stood in the doorway holding his head in both hands. “Help me doc, ya gotta help me” he yelled — and fell to the floor. Concussion, the doc suspected.

He got the man up and sat him in a straight-back chair. He asked the stranger what was wrong. “My head hurts so bad I lost control of my water” the patient cried. The doc was not oblivious to the stench of the cowboy and gently felt the man’s temples. The odor of alcohol was so sharp, the doc asked how much he had drunk. “I started drinking jugged whiskey three days ago — at Saddle Blister’s.” The only saloon in town that dispensed cheap rot gut was that old joint. “My head’s killin’ me doc! Gimme somethin’ fer the pain – ohhhhh!”

The office door banged open again and a tall, dirty man yelled “There’s the stinkin’ critter who took my mule, sold ‘im, and drank off all the money!” “Ohhhh my head, I need sumpthin’ to take away the pain,” moaned the man on the chair. “Three days of heavy drinkin’ qualifies any fool for a good head ache” said the doc. “There ain’t much I can do to make your pain disappear” The stranger in the door-way said “Maybe you can’t help his head much doc, but you can do sumpthin’ about his foot!”

A pistol appeared in the strangers hand and he fired. The bullet pierced the center of the patient’s left boot. The little office bucked with the report and gray gun smoke was everywhere. “That’ll take your mind off your damnable head ache!” He turned, holstered his pistol, and stepped out through the open door.


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