CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' Episode 9

The next morning, Steph's face was even paler. I even checked his breath to see if he was dead.
"He's barely hanging on," I replied to McGibbon's question.
"Then we'll have to take him to a doctor."
McGibbon said this obvious thing as if it were a great act of kindness. But in the mountains, the obvious is not always so. You have to subtract that from the equation, but even so, the self-righteousness couldn't be wiped away.
"If you want a doctor, there's one in the mining town," Shabal interjected.
"A mining town?"
"They seem to find a lot of coal around here. This hole is a remnant of a coal mine."
"Is it close from here?"
"In the mountains, you can't gallop a horse, so it's about half a day's ride down. You going? If so, I'll guide you, so take the rope off my hands."
"You don't need hands to guide us. Just your mouth will do," McGibbon said without even looking at Shabal. It was utterly merciless.
"How am I supposed to ride a horse with my hands tied? We're in the mountains."
"Don't worry about that. You're walking."
"Give me a break."
But that was exactly the procedure taken. The four of us were on horseback. Shabal walked while McGibbon pulled the rope attached to his belt. Since Steph couldn't ride properly, I handled his horse along with my own and we headed down the mountain.
"I mean, is there even a decent doctor in a mining town?" I asked Shabal, who was leading the way.
"Yeah. Mining towns are full of injuries and illnesses. They have better doctors than some railroad station towns. The mine owners spend the money."
"That's surprisingly good treatment. You could call it humane."
"Idiot. It's because production drops otherwise."
Who are you calling an idiot, you failed bear.
"But Shabal, why are you so eager to guide us to the mining town? If we go there, you'll be handed over to the sheriff, and at best, you'll end up in jail."
"First of all, I'm not eager. And for your information, there is no sheriff in the mining town."
"No sheriff?" McGibbon asked.
"Yeah. It's what they call a mining autonomy. In other words, the mine owner's rules apply, not the laws of the United States. Well, there are guys like a vigilante group, though I don't know where they came from."
"A vigilante group? That sounds fishy. Are they your friends?"
"If they were, I wouldn't be talking about it here. I'd save that for my ace in the hole."
True enough. No fool would reveal their hand and then go along with it. Even someone from the Pinkerton Detective Agency with a screw loose wouldn't.
However, as McGibbon says, a vigilante group sounds fishy. Not that we're one to talk, but it's not a job for decent people. I hope there isn't any trouble.

To cut to the chase: there was trouble.
As soon as we arrived in the mining town, we were confronted by a stubborn-looking old man with the title of 'Vigilante Captain' named Smith, who demanded we hand over Shabal.
According to him, the transport horses carrying wages for the miners had been attacked several times. He added that there had been non-monetary damages as well.
However, we couldn't just say "yes, sir" and hand him over. He's worth four thousand dollars. If we handed him over for free, we'd be the ones suffering the financial loss.
McGibbon tried to sell him with a price tag of four thousand five hundred, but Smith wouldn't budge, insisting on a free handover or nothing.
It's a waste of time to expect flexibility from an old man. Everyone knew that, so we quickly called the negotiation a failure.
As for the mining town, it was such a major city that I was amazed to find something like this in the middle of the mountains.
The town spread out across the valley floor and had every function of a town except for the sheriff's office and the permanent brothel that McGibbon mentioned. Because the town's functions were concentrated in a narrow space, all the buildings were tall. There were several three-story buildings. I heard that there were many mine shafts crisscrossing the surrounding mountains. Traffic during the day wasn't that heavy, but at night, men would pour in from the mining shacks near each shaft. As for women, there were few that day and no vacancies, but apparently, reinforcements arrive by carriage from the foothills every few days.
No one in the mines cares about a criminal record. The mine owners just want to ensure a stable mining output. It doesn't matter who is doing the digging.
And the vigilante group governs that.
They go by the mild-sounding name of 'vigilante group,' but they are essentially a private army hired by the mine owners. Both that Smith and the twenty or so other vigilantes must be quite skilled.
They are not people you want to mess with.
We took Steph to the hospital as soon as we arrived in town. It was a magnificent hospital with three resident doctors, just as Shabal had said, and an emergency surgery was performed by a surgeon who must have been skilled to dig out the lead bullet. According to the doctor's assessment, he would be asleep for several days.
"What do we do?"
"About what?" McGibbon asked back, even though he knew exactly what the subject was.
"Steph. They say it'll take a few days."
"We have no choice but to leave him behind. There's no point in dragging someone who can't walk."
"Here?" Even though I said that, I knew deep down that there was nothing else we could do.
"We're not abandoning him in the wilderness. We're leaving him in a hospital bed. We've fulfilled our duties as gentlemen," McGibbon explained his theory.
"I guess so," I said.
What we needed to prioritize wasn't nursing. It was the search for Reverend Landon. Even if it was like fumbling in the dark.
It was a town at the bottom of a valley. Once the sun dipped, it got dark quickly. That meant we would be spending the night in this town. There were plenty of inns. No women. As expected, the room assignments were Bronson and McGibbon, and me and Shabal.
I understood that to mean I should handle anything that came up. And there would probably be something.