Snippet #2607657

Doc Cottle looked over irritably at Anna. He glared at her, proclaiming, "He's not going to die. The man is just exhausted, and I don't blame him. He's beat up bad, and God knows how long he walked to get to Red Road. All he needs right now is rest...and I'm going to give him that. And before you ask, no, I don't give a fuck that you're a goddamn Dog. Brother Samuel is my patient, and my top priority right now. I'm not doing anything that would harm him."

The doctor gave Anna a challenging stare, more than prepared to fight her over this matter, if need be. Sheriff Thompson quickly stepped in between the two of them, however, seeking to defuse any tension.

"If Doc Cottle says he's going to be all right, then we should let him rest." Thompson turned to Anna, giving the female Dog a sympathetic look. "I want to find those children much as you do, Ma'am, believe me. But we can't really fight Doc Cottle on this...no offense to the Doc, but he's...very stubborn, and doesn't give any ground when he's made his mind about something."

"The nigger's right about that. I'm not gonna budge on this issue." Doc Cottle proclaimed gruffly, giving Anna another glare.

Thompson, meanwhile, stiffened at the slur, tensing for a moment, before letting out a soft sigh. Clarence closed his eyes for a brief moment, not looking back at the doctor, before he spoke again. "We're gonna need time to gather a posse to get the children back, anyway. Either way we can't act on Brother Samuel's information right away. We may as well get a posse together first, and let Samuel recover enough so that he's not addled by drugs or anything, when he tells us where to go."

"The Sheriff's got a point." Horatio begrudgingly admitted, grimacing. Now that they had a good lead on finding out where the taken children were, he wanted nothing more to follow it. He'd move heaven and earth to find those poor kids. But they'd still need time to gather a posse together. He, Anna, and the Sheriff weren't enough to tackle whoever was holding those kids. They'd need seven or eight more men to go with them, at least.

Not to mention there was the risk that, if they did force Cottle to prematurely revive Samuel, he might be addled or confused by whatever drugs were used to revive him. They couldn't take the chance that this crucially needed information would be distorted.

"We can let Samuel recover for now. We can use the time to wrap some things up in town, before we go." Horatio added, looking over at Father Joshua, who was still in the office, and had watched the proceedings with keen interest. "Still some town authority figures we need to speak to...Father Joshua here, maybe the Mayor, too. Unless you've interviewed Nate Blake, it wouldn't hurt to talk to him. And there's always the chance the Daniels kid could offer something up."

And it'd be a good time to track down a rat or something, to test and see if the whiskey was actually poisoned, as well. He didn't want to say that aloud though. Someone in this town was behind this whole mess...or at least, was a complying partner in it. Maybe it was even someone in this room. For now, the investigation needed to be kept as close as possible between Anna and himself, until they knew who they could and couldn't trust.