Thirty-two hooves pounded rhythmically into the trail, such as it was, kicking up dust and grit that rose in a choking, stinging cloud made larger by the cut of the four heavy, iron-rimmed wheels into the uneven, rocky terrain. Most of the billowing fog of loose sand roiled up behind the stagecoach, but some of it, inevitably, blew in the open windows on the hot, dry wind, thickening the air, making it hard to breathe inside the stifling interior without coughing. The creak of wood and the jangle of harness, the rumble of the wheels and the thundering hooves created an unholy racket, so that it was impossible to talk within the coach without shouting to be heard. Not that anyone was talking. The perpetual lurch and jerk of the stagecoach as it lumbered over rocks and ruts, and the unforgiving discomfort of the hard leather benches, had long past numbed everyone into a weary stupor of resignation. They stared into space or out the windows across the rolling prairie, toward the line of cottonwoods that followed the nearby river that wound lazily from the northwest across the endless rolling Kansas plains dotted with herds of cattle.

The river allowed some measure of escape for at least one passenger as he fantasized about how it would feel to walk naked into its cool depths and wash off the salt of sweat that dried instantly in the stifling heat, and the grit that got into every joint and wrinkle, matting hair and irritating eyes…he imagined the water's silky, luxurious rush over aching bones, soothing away the stiffness and fatigue…breathing the sweet, clear air that rustled through leaves above while floating in the dappled shadows of those arching trees, out of the harsh glare of the sun. Floating gently, cushioned by the river's strength to wherever it was flowing… hearing the lazy plop of a fish or the soft, gurgling rush of the water over stones by the sloping bank… peaceful and restorative…

He was jerked back to hot, dusty reality by the jolt of the stagecoach coming to a sudden stop. Blinking, he looked around, wondering what had broken the journey and realizing they must be close to the noon stop at Bitterwood Creek, a small oasis in a sea of grass burned brown by the relentless sun of still early summer. But, when he leaned forward to look out of the window cut into the top half of the narrow door, he could see they were yet a good ways from town, its wooden structures rising brown and gray against the pale blue, cloudless sky. Above and forward, he could hear the driver muttering to himself as he climbed down from the wooden bench, "Poor, luckless bastards…"

Frowning, he pulled on the small, metal latch of the door and pushed it open to step down to the ground.

"What's going on, driver?" he asked, curious. "Why have we stopped?"

"Well, I was just a'comin' to tell ya'll," the sun-weathered, lean man sighed as he took off his broad-brimmed hat to wave toward the town, or perhaps more particularly toward the yellow bandana hanging limply on a post pounded into the side of the trail. "Looks like they got some sickness yonder. Must be bad, for 'em to warn off travelers," he continued with a grimace of rough compassion as he mopped the runnels of sweat and dust from his brow with a faded and wrinkled handkerchief. "We'll have to water the horses at the river, and keep goin' 'til we hit the next stop."

The traveler could hear the other passengers mutter and groan, unhappy to know there'd be nothing to eat until suppertime, but he ignored them. Frowning thoughtfully as he gazed at the town, he asked, "They got a doctor in this town?"

"No, old Doc Wilcox died last winter," the driver replied sonorously, looking regretful. "He was a good man. Too bad, a tragedy really."

"What happened?" he asked, a hint of concern mingling with curiousity in his voice and eyes.

"Got caught in a sudden blizzard on his way back from attendin' a birthin'. Froze t'death," the driver sighed but then shrugged in resignation. Life could be hard on the prairie.

He winced and shivered, despite the heat of the mid-June, noonday sun. Gazing again at the yellow rag, his generous lips compressed in thought, and then he nodded to himself. It wasn't as if he was heading anywhere in particular. He'd thought he'd only be passing through Bitterwood Creek on his way to somewhere else, but this town was as good as any, and it seemed they needed him. "Better pull my bags down from the top," he said, sturdily determined in his posture and tone. "I'll be staying here."

"Are you loco?" the dust-covered driver demanded in astonishment, as he pointed again at the tattered flag of warning. "Son, people are dyin' in Bitterwood Creek!"

"I know, and that's why I'm staying," he said evenly, his clear blue gaze lifting to meet the startled gray eyes of the driver. "I'm a doctor."

"Ah, well, if'n you're sure," the rugged, middle-aged man replied uneasily as he regarded the young man standing quietly before him. He seemed hardly more than a kid, with his worn, but carefully mended, blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to bare lightly bronzed, lean forearms and hands, faded jeans, and scuffed boots. His hair was a wild mane of dark chestnut curls that the hot, dusty wind blew around his face, while wide, very vivid, blue eyes returned the driver's uncertain gaze with steady calm.

"I'm sure," he said with quiet determination as he turned and pointed up at his three, travel-worn bags.

Minutes later, he had a canvas pack over his shoulder, his leather medical bag in one hand and his battered suitcase in the other. He nodded courteously to the driver and the other passengers as he took his leave of them, and turned to stride resolutely toward the town.

"Good luck to ya, son!" the driver called out before climbing back up to his wooden bench. "Hiya!" he called to his horses and whipped the reins to urge them into motion, and moments later the stage was rattling toward the river, and then onward across the Kansas plains.

********************

Dust devils whirled and danced on the wide street that ran through the center of the town. It wasn't much, more of a village, really, with its clapboard church and one-room schoolhouse, a good-sized general store, blacksmith, livery stable, land registry office, post office and saloon. There was one two-story hotel that claimed clean rooms and good food, with a public bath next door; on the other side of the hotel was a barbershop, that boldly asserted that teeth could be pulled there. A bank, solidly built of stone with a broad glass window, stood across the street; and next to it was a bakery that advertised home-cooked meals could be had inside. The sheriff's office and jail; a newspaper office and print shop on one side, the deserted doctor's office with grimy windows and living quarters above, on the other; a boarding house; and a telegraph office pretty much rounded out the businesses. There were houses scattered on the far end of the town center, most of them arranged around the church, closer to the creek that supported the growth of shade trees - mostly willow and elder, with the odd sycamore and oak, and stands of birch and aspen. The houses, like the business establishments, were mostly built of weathered wood, though some looked more prosperous and were painted, with broad verandahs and tended paths.

Returning his attention to the street he was walking along, the young doctor noted the dusty boardwalks that lined the thoroughfare, about two feet above the ground - unnecessary at this time of year, but no doubt appreciated when the street was a river of mud in the spring and slushy, icy muck in the dead of winter. Some of the wood-planked walks, in front of the deserted doctor's office, newspaper office, hotel and barbershop, were covered and sported wooden chairs or benches for people to sit awhile to gossip, and watch the activity on the roadway. Hitching rails and water troughs stood sturdily in front of every establishment. In the back, out of sight - 'But not scent,' he thought wryly as he sniffed - he knew he'd find the outhouses: privies, washhouses, sheds, chicken coops and wagons as well as small private stables for horses and maybe the odd milch cow. Since he didn't see many wells in plain sight, he figured he'd also find them back of most establishments and homes, and he wondered if that's what had caused the sickness - wells dug in ground where waste soaked in too close by, polluting the soil and hence the water that filtered through it.

The place looked deserted, as if everybody had upped and moved away, abandoning the town to the eerie low moan of the wind and the dusty, shifting sand. But he knew the appearance was deceptive. The people would be inside their homes, fearfully avoiding contact with their neighbours, and safeguarding their children - either frightened of catching ill themselves or struggling desperately to care for those already stricken. And the sick, if there were so many that it had warranted that yellow rag of warning outside town, where would they be? Many were probably in their own homes, but surely if the situation warranted quarantining the town, some few must be caring for the others who were unable to care for themselves? In the church, maybe? Most likely, as it would both provide the floor-space required and give the comforting illusion of being closer to God that He might better hear their desperate prayers.

He was headed that way when a door banged from the street behind him and he turned at the sound. A slender, sandy-haired woman had just come out of the telegraph office and, seeing him, was looking at him curiously.

"Didn't you see the warning outside town?" she called out, one hand lifting to shade her eyes from the sun's glare.

"Yes, I did," he replied with a tentative smile, as he walked back toward her. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, her hair not yet gray. And she looked very tired, her plain but pleasant face pale and worn by worry, her clothes wrinkled, as if she might have been sleeping in them, likely in a chair by someone's bedside. "I was passing through on the stage and thought I might be of some use. My name is Blair Sandburg, and I'm a doctor."

She sighed and her shoulders slumped as if a great burden had just been lifted from them. Smiling wearily in return, she nodded as she said with devastating sincerity, "Dr. Sandburg, you're the answer to our prayers. Welcome, sir, to Bitterwood Creek. I'm the school teacher, and my name is Nellie Bascome."

********************

Captain James Ellison, US Cavalry, led his scout patrol warily around Chief Running Deer's village in Poplar Flats. The patrol had left their horses farther back in a copse of trees - the better to remain undetected - and approached stealthily under the cover of the thickly growing brush and willows by the stream. His men were nervous, uneasy, and they undoubtedly had every right to be - tensions between the whites and the Indians had broken out into sporadic raids and massacres wherever settlers were putting their roots down across the west. But so far as Ellison could determine, as he strained to hear the activity in the camp without getting too close that their presence would become known, Running Deer seemed to have brought his people into line and was living up to the terms of the most recent treaty…

"Sir! Captain Ellison, sir! Is something wrong?" Corporal Shamus McAdam hissed urgently, keeping his voice low as he shook his unresponsive officer's arm.

"Huh?" Jim jerked back to conscious awareness of the world around him. Mortified, he rubbed a hand over his face and nodded as he murmured back, "Yeah, I'm fine - I was just, uh, listening to what's going on in the village."

McAdam looked confused as his gaze shifted from his Captain to the village some good distance away and back again. "You can hear them, sir?"

"Well, enough," Ellison replied brusquely, as he swiveled on one knee to head back the way they'd come. "Round up the others and let's get back to our mounts. Everything's quiet here, and it looks like Running Deer has settled down. At least for now."

As they rode back to the fort, Ellison chewed his lip in silence, once again preoccupied with his well-hidden anxiety about why, since the War, he seemed to slip into these waking fainting spells. He didn't understand them, or why they happened, because he didn't feel ill, except for the headaches that plagued him when the light was too bright or he was surrounded by too much noise and confusion. Oh, sometimes foods bothered him, seeming suddenly too sweet or spicy, and his woolen clothing caused a rash from time to time, but he was hale and strong. The mysterious malady frankly scared him, as did the times when sounds seemed to crash into him like a physical blow, or his eyes played tricks on him, making him think he could see for miles - because the spells were unpredictable and, therefore, dangerous. What if he lost track of all awareness, freezing into an unresponsive stupor in the midst of a battle? By ignoring the spells, he knew he was unquestionably putting himself at risk, but what troubled him far more was that he could also be putting his men in danger - and that, for someone who bore his leadership responsibilities as a kind of sacred commitment, was utterly unacceptable.

********************

Nellie took Blair around Bitterwood Creek to see all the people who had succumbed to the disease…at least, those who were still alive. As they walked, she did her best to tell him what had happened. In the past week, not a family had been spared, with at least one child and frequently more, as well as some adults - mostly ones who were elderly and not strong - suffering from the grave illness. The stricken were delirious with fever, complaining bitterly of throats that felt like they were on fire, and in considerable breathing distress. While most people were still trying to manage in their homes, about fifteen had been taken to the church to make caring for them easier. As they passed the small, well-tended cemetery beside the church, she mournfully told him that six children under the age of two, and one old grandmother had already succumbed to the disease. In a population consisting of fewer than two hundred souls, each individual death brought grief, and increasing fear, to all the rest.

Blair paused for a moment, looking at the hand-carved, engraved stones or lovingly crafted wooden markers. Sadly, he shook his head as his gaze wandered further, the grave markers telling their own grim story of the harshness of life on the prairie. Children were disproportionately represented, the coincidence of dates on various markers hinting that this wasn't the first time the town had suffered a wave of deaths over a short period of time, through some contagion or another. But there were also a heartrending number of markers that indicated too many children hadn't lived more than a day or two after being born; some not even lasting a day, or perhaps stillborn, who hadn't lived long enough to be given a name of their own. On too many markers there was only the family name followed by Baby Girl, February 16, 1861, or Baby Boy, August 23, 1857, to say those poor little babes hadn't had any chance at all. Plots were clustered in family groupings, and he could read the sorrows and tragedies that many families had endured as they struggled to raise children on the prairie. It gave him a deeper sense of the history of these people he was about to meet - and a profound empathy for how very frightened so many must be that they would lose their precious children to this most recent sickness.

Gently, as he went from house to house, he examined each patient, listening to them breathe as he took their pulses, testing their reflexes, checking their ears, throats, necks and underarms, palpitating their abdomens, and gauging the heat of their fevers against the skin of his inner wrist. Though his manner remained reassuring and steady, inwardly he was both troubled by the seriousness of their disease, and deeply relieved to not have found any buboes that would have signaled plague. Nevertheless, his patients were very ill, suffering considerable discomfort and malaise, and this disease had already proven it was both very contagious and could kill. Behind his easy smile and kind eyes, he grimly catalogued their symptoms in his mind: breathing difficulty, husky voices, enlarged lymph glands, increased heart rate, the stridor or shrill breathing sound he could hear as they dragged in air, copious greenish-yellow nasal drainage, swelling of the palate on the roof of their mouths, obviously very sore throats, and low-grade fevers. In many cases, he noticed the telltale membrane that was forming over the throat and tonsils. It was this membrane, he knew, that did the killing, cutting off the victim's ability to breathe, and asphyxiating them. It was a terrible, frightening, way to die. When he found that symptom, he acted quickly, using a mixture of baking soda and water as a mouthwash, and urging his patients to cough to clear away and spit out its residue.

In three urgent cases, he immediately saw that such prophylactic measures would clearly be inadequate, as the young children were in dire danger of imminent death. To the horror of the parents looking on, he had to perform an urgent, unavoidable tracheotomy upon each of those three suffocating little ones. Blair had the panicking parents look at the membrane to know it was real, and he explained to them why his radical treatment was necessary if they wanted their son or daughter to survive. When, sorely frightened, desperate in their hope, they gave uncertain permission, he pulled a sharp scalpel from his bag, washed it and his hands with soap and water, and then held the blade in a candle's flame to cleanse it. Though not all his professors or colleagues thought such routine cleansing was necessary, he'd recently read an article in a medical journal from Britain postulating that disease was passed by tiny, invisible entities called germs - and that it appeared frequent cleansing of the hands with soap and water, as well as the sterilization of equipment and materials through immersing them in extreme heat for several minutes - either boiling water or fire - could reduce the incidence of infection and disease. Since he'd long ago learned firsthand that it was post-surgical infection that killed more patients than the original malady or injury, he'd taken the stark, if still disputed, lessons of that treatise to heart.

In each instance where he had to intervene immediately to save the child's life, the mothers whimpered with fear, while the fathers took their wives into their arms while gritting their jaws and glaring at him helplessly as he slit the small children's throats and windpipes just below their Adam's apples, and then eased in thin, hollow, glass curettes. But, when their child's breathing immediately eased, the parents gazed at him with awe and tearful gratitude. He told them how to keep the airway open, and that he'd be back to check on the child later. Then, as he had at every other stop, he told them how to fight the fevers with tepid baths as well as how to help their children breathe by leaning them over bowls of steaming water. Some, who believed too much bathing could be hazardous to the health looked at him askance, but nodded when he insisted. When the patients were in acute breathing distress, he also instructed them on the use of improvised tents of steam, employing basins of steaming water and towels; he gave them small amounts of oil of eucalyptus, that he pulled in a brown bottle from his bag and poured sparingly into small cups or bowls, to be added to the steaming water.

And then he moved on to the next house, and the next, completing his diagnosis of the disease and the extent of its spread in the town. When he was told of the old grandmother who had died the day before, he asked how she'd gone, and heard of chest pains, laboured breathing and swollen extremities. Nodding with compassionate understanding, he reflected silently that heart failure was one of the causes of death - particularly of the weak, whether very young or elderly - from the disease he was certain he was up against.

Finally, as he and Nellie walked up the church steps to enter into the lofty chapel, she told them the names of the three women who were helping to care for those whose own parents were ill, and for some of the elderly from homes where the sick children required time that could not be given to their care. As they stepped into the interior from the small porch outside, Sandburg couldn't help but notice the care and subtle artistry that had gone into its design. It was modest, yet peaceful; the plain wood of the chancel, the altar and the stark, simple cross, as well as of the pews (which were currently pressed against the walls), gleamed with natural beauty. Windows were cut into the walls along the sides creating a light, airy ambiance.

There were fifteen people lying on pallets on the floor, covered by homespun blankets, and three of the town's matrons were doing their best to provide comfort and care. Eleven children and four elderly people, all of them women, were in various stages of lethargy and compromised respiration.

Before he made his way around all of the sick, Nellie introduced him to the women who were nursing the others. Lucinda Gurney, whose husband worked in the saloon, was a blowsy brunette with the ripe complexion of a peach. Though her manner was unsophisticated, even a bit unconsciously forward, and she was the only woman in town he'd met so far who used rouge on her cheeks and lips, he was impressed with the warmth of the genuine kindness in her eyes. LeeAnn Raymond was married to the man who published the local weekly paper and sold stationary as well as other paper products. A tall woman with gold-spun hair caught in a chignon on her nape, shy in her manner, she had an air of natural refinement and delicacy as she moved with unconscious grace. She, too, exhibited kindness and a tender touch as she held a young child in her arms to help the little mite breathe.

And then there was Urseline Tucker, wife of the bank clerk in town. Bossy in her manner, mincing in an attempt to present herself as a woman of quality and substance, she was overly loud with the sick, her voice grating and far from restful. Still, observing her quietly from across the wide room as he entered, Blair assumed she must also be well motivated. Not everyone was blessed with Lucinda's natural, if rough, charm or LeeAnn's ethereal dignity. Curious about the handsome stranger, eager to take charge, Urseline Tucker bustled across the room to accost them before they were scarcely in the door. Nellie hastened to introduce him and she blustered out an exuberant welcome. Smiling, he turned away to begin assessing the condition of his patients, but she followed along on his heels, determined to learn all she could about this startling new doctor.

"Dr. Sandburg, ah, that's an unusual name," she fluttered, thinking herself subtle. "Where are you from, exactly?"

"Back east," he replied pleasantly as he knelt to examine a boy of nine or ten years who looked dull with lethargy and his weary effort to breathe. "I was just passing through on the stage and thought I might be able to lend a hand."

"Well, I'm sure we're very grateful and, may I be so bold as to say, I hope you'll be staying awhile," she carried on, fluttering her eyelashes at the handsome young man. "We've gone too long without a doctor in Bitterwood Creek. Dr. Wilcox was a fine man, to be sure, but not very sensible going out in that blizzard…"

"Mmm," Blair murmured as he ruffled the boy's hair and then moved on to the little girl on the next pallet.

"You know, I don't think I've ever met anyone by the name of Sandburg before," she dithered. "Really, most unusual. I must say, it's really too bad that your first visit to our church has to be under these deplorable circumstances, but I'm sure you'll see it as it should be on Sunday."

Blair blinked as he straightened, finished with the little girl, who'd said with a lisp that her name was Annie, and turned to Urseline. "I'm afraid, as I'm sure your Pastor understands, we'll be needing the church as a temporary hospital for at least a week, and if others fall ill, probably longer."

"Oh," she fluttered caught between being appalled and alarmed, her hand patting the base of her throat. "Pastor Stevens doesn't know about the sickness. He was called out of town, oh, almost a month ago now, because his dear mother had fallen ill." She looked away, wringing her hands in distress, though her tone indicated his mother had been quite inconsiderate, falling ill the way she had. "He wasn't sure when he'd be back, and every flock needs a shepherd, don't you think? Still, I'm sure he won't mind and he'll be glad to meet you the first Sunday he's back for services."

Blair lifted his chin slightly, and his gaze was direct though his tone was mild, as he replied, "I'll look forward to meeting him as well, but it won't be at Sunday prayer services. I'm Jewish, Mrs. Tucker."

"Jew…oh, dear," she gasped, very flustered and, if the way she lurched backward was any indication, more than a little horrified. Looking wildly around the sanctuary, she faltered, "But, then, you must find it very awkward being in here."

"Not at all," Sandburg answered smoothly. "It's a fine building, very beautiful. And I'm quite comfortable in a House of God. But as my faith and traditions are different, I'm sure you understand why I won't be attending on Sundays."

With that, he turned to move to his next patient, leaving her more than slightly breathless with astonishment and somewhat in fear for her soul to have welcomed him and urged him to stay before knowing he was quite unsuitable. Putting distance between herself and the young doctor with unsightly haste, she darted over to whisper loudly to LeeAnn Raymond, "He's a Jew!"

LeeAnn merely nodded, unconcerned. Not getting the response she felt was warranted in the circumstances, Urseline peered at him over her shoulder as she observed, "But, don't you think it's odd for a Jew to be caring for good Christian folk in God's House?"

Lifting one brow, LeeAnn shook her head. "No, why should I? He's a doctor and these poor souls need his care."

"Well, that's very forgiving of you, my dear, I'm sure!" Urseline snipped righteously, "considering, his people crucified our dear Lord Jesus and it's blasphemy, that's what, him even being inside this holy place!" Her lips pursed and, flushed with indignation, she cast one last withering look at Blair and then flounced out of the church, clearly unwilling to countenance such 'blasphemy' herself.

Nellie was ready to die of embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she murmured to Blair, a bright blush staining her cheeks. "Mrs. Tucker is, well…"

But Sandburg just shook his head. "Don't worry about it," he smiled in return. "Meeting new people unsettles some folk."

Bowing her head, Nellie admitted uncomfortably, "Mrs. Tucker isn't the only person in Bitterwood Creek who is 'easily unsettled', I'm afraid," she told him softly, wanting to be honest, but mortified by the confession. Looking up at him, she went on with touching candour, "But, please, pay them no mind. You…you were so good to come to help us and we need you…"

"Really, it's alright, Nellie," Blair assured her with a wry grin of complicity, amused by the euphemism; so much more pleasant than 'bigoted' or 'discriminatory', which was why he'd come to employ the term; it caused less defensiveness but still allowed acknowledgement of the reality. "I've met lots of 'easily unsettled' people before. Don't worry - I came to help, and I will."

When he'd seen the last of the afflicted in the church, Sandburg waved Nellie outside where they could talk quietly. "It's not scarlet fever or measles," he told her, as she'd expressed her fears earlier that it might be one of those relatively common diseases that appeared without warning to carry off the lives of innocent children. "There are no spots or distinctive flushing of the skin. It's diphtheria."

"Oh, no," she sighed, shaking her head. Diphtheria was a voracious killer, and one for which there was no known cure.

"As you heard me explain to the parents as we went along, we need to bring the fevers down, by bathing the victims frequently with tepid water. And they all need to be encouraged to drink nourishing broths to keep their strength up," he told her. "I've noticed chicken soup seems to work wonders with some infections, though I don't know why." Chewing his lip, he added quietly, "Most of the kids seem like they were basically healthy and well-nourished before becoming ill, so they've got a good chance of beating this thing. We need to help them breathe, though. Breathing-in steam will help, and I've got a little more eucalyptus with me to keep us going. Can you get some of the healthier folk organized to haul extra buckets of water to every house and here to the church? We'll be using it up fast with the baths and the steam treatments. Wood will need to be chopped to keep the fires going, and maybe ten or so chickens could be slaughtered and boiled, the broth shared communally."

Blair paused as he gathered his thoughts. There was something else he needed but he hadn't brought sufficient supplies with him. As he looked toward the trees, he grinned with sudden wry awareness, belatedly realizing that the plethora of willows along the creek was probably why the town had been called Bitterwood Creek - either by the first settlers, who'd have known about old home remedies as they had to fend for themselves without a physician nearby, or maybe it was a translation from the original Indian name for the area. "And I need someone to peel off about a bucket's worth of bark from the willow trees down by the creek," he added, turning back to Nellie. "Try to ensure the bark is dry, as I'll have to pound it into a powder and steep it to make tea - it'll relieve their aches and help bring down the fevers. Tastes pretty bitter, so we'll need some honey to sweeten it, if it's available."

Glad of having something concrete and useful to do to fight the disease and save the children she'd come to love as her own, Nellie readily agreed to see his directions were immediately carried out. Then, thinking about what he'd said about running short of the meager supplies he carried with him, she ventured, "There might be more medicine in Dr. Wilcox's office…"

"Good idea," Sandburg agreed enthusiastically, rewarding her with a bright smile. "Who do I see about getting a key to the place?"

"The sheriff, Jeb Strong, will have it," she replied, pointing to the second house away from the church on the left.

Blair nodded - he'd met Jebediah Strong just a few minutes before. Three of his four children were ill and one of them had required an emergency tracheotomy. Sandburg had been impressed with the quiet strength and dignity of the man, his resolute determination to do, and accept, whatever was needed to ensure his kids got well. His wife, too, had been sensible, if still desperately afraid for her children - as he recalled, she'd taken in two neighbours' kids who were ill, sending her one still healthy child next door to what she hoped was a safer environment, still free of the ravaging disease.

When he strode back to the indicated house and asked for the key, Jeb gave it to him willingly and told Sandburg to make himself at home in the place, explaining that Old Doc Wilcox had lived alone and there'd been no one to claim his professional or personal belongings. Not only was there an office, according to the Sheriff, but also an adjoining storeroom in which the former physician had mixed and stocked his medicines, equipment and supplies. Further, in the back, also connected with the storeroom as well as the main hall, was a large infirmary, containing four cots for patients recovering from surgery that the doctor had performed on a specially crafted, high, narrow table in the center of the chamber. As well as the medical facilities, the spacious, clapboard building also held a private kitchen across the wide hallway from the office, where patients awaited their turn, and two good-sized bed-sitting rooms upstairs, one in front and the other in back. As far as Jeb was concerned, Sandburg was more than earning the 'inheritance' of the fully furnished home, office and infirmary.

Twenty minutes later, as Blair finished inspecting the office, small apothecary cum storeroom, airy combined surgery and recovery infirmary, and bright eat-in kitchen in the downstairs, and the two, good-sized bed-sitting rooms upstairs that provided comfortable personal living quarters, not to mention the well, privy and small stable with a cobwebbed-enshrouded buggy in the back, Blair couldn't help but shake his head in wonder and grateful delight.

Returning to the apothecary to inventory the stock of medicines, pitching that which was clearly too old to be useful and smiling as he found a good stock of eucalyptus, he murmured to himself, "Well, looks like you've finally found a place to put down some roots, Dr. Sandburg. Welcome to Bitterwood Creek."

********************

"But, sir, I don't understand…" Captain Ellison protested to his Major; shocked, he was certain he couldn't have heard correctly, or had misunderstood the new orders.

"What's to understand, Captain?" Major Rutherford asked him superciliously. "Your orders are clear. We will attack Running Deer's camp and kill all the murderous vermin before they have a chance to massacre any more decent people."

Honestly appalled, Ellison blinked and swallowed back his fundamental loathing of his superior. Rutherford might be a prime example of the worst officers in the military - rich, spoiled, undisciplined, arrogant and stupid - but that wasn't the issue or of any real import. The issue at hand was the incredible, and even criminal, abominable new orders. "With all respect, sir," Ellison argued forcefully even as he strove to maintain at least a thin approximation of deference for the role, if not the person, of his superior officer, "These orders are currently unjustified. I've just returned from Poplar Flats, and I can assure you that Running Deer is holding to the terms of the treaty…"

"As if the word of a savage means anything," the Major sneered disparagingly.

"Regardless, our word should mean something, sir; we promised him peace if he kept his people out there in the encampment and didn't cause any more trouble," Jim pressed, straining to keep his voice tone even and non-judgmental. "The vast majority of the people in that village are women and children…"

"Who will grow up to murder our wives and children in their beds," Rutherford cut in ruthlessly. "Enough, Captain. Your orders are clear. We will attack at dawn."

Ellison blinked and swallowed hard. He'd always followed orders, ever since he'd joined the Army at the age of thirteen, running away on his birthday from a rich but loveless home in Philadelphia. He'd fought for the North through the whole of the Civil War, and he'd found the experience so horrific as to be beyond his means to describe or express in mere words, even to himself. Though the War had ended the year before, he still had nightmares about the cold that ate through inadequate clothing, numbing hands and feet until they felt like blocks of ice, the filth of blood-soaked mud, the screams of wounded and dying men - too many of whom had been scarcely more than boys who should have been safe at home. The noise of cannon and musketry exploding, the endless marches with too little sleep or food. And the disease that killed twice as many men as the enemy did…

…but, in all of that time, for all of his twenty-two years in service to his country, he'd followed orders. Some he'd questioned, and some had left him feeling uncomfortable, but never before had he felt this - revulsion. This was wrong. The acts planned for the morrow were a pure, absolute, dishonorable - and, yes criminal - betrayal of a trust. And, most wretchedly loathsome of all, it was an abomination to willfully and deliberately ride with the express intent to kill helpless women and innocent children.

The very idea thoroughly sickened him to his soul.

The Indians were the enemy, fine. He would never hesitate to engage them in battle or to chase them down if they violated the terms of an existing treaty and left the land assigned to them, however poor it was. But in his heart, he knew much of the land given over to them could not sustain them without the provision of food from the Indian Agents. He wondered how such proud warriors could humble themselves forever without feeling the need to fight back to retake what they'd had - all the land that the settlers, or the ever-expanding railroad, now claimed.

Suddenly, Ellison felt unutterably weary, and filthy, as if the wanton cruelty embodied in the orders, and in the subjugation of a whole people, stained him personally somehow. Was this why he'd fought a war that had, in part, been to free people of colour from the abomination of slavery? To be sent out here to a western outpost so that he could turn around and kill people of another colour, just because they fought for what had been theirs? Massacre them, just because of who and what they were born to be?

No.

He just couldn't do it.

No.

Shifting his cold, furious, gaze from his superior's face to stare at the wooden wall of Rutherford's office, he made his decision. It was June fourteenth, his thirty-fifth birthday - his twenty-second anniversary in uniform but the time had come to take it off.

With grim formality, Ellison said brusquely, "I hereby submit my resignation. I'll be out of the Fort before sunset, sir."

"You're not serious!" Rutherford jeered, appearing to be frankly astonished. "You'd give up your career because of a few, filthy savages?"

Jim's gaze then shifted to meet the Major's eyes, and what Rutherford saw in those cold blue orbs made him take a step back. "The orders are wrong, and you know it," Jim said with quiet menace. "But I know very well I would have no choice to follow them, or face court martial, if I hadn't become fully eligible for retirement more than a year ago when the War ended, and able to take my leave at any time thereafter in accordance with regulation. However, I am eligible and I expect you to accept my resignation, effective immediately. Sir."

When Rutherford shook his head, looking as if he was about to refuse Ellison's resignation regardless of the regulations, Jim grated, "If more than twenty years of honourable service to our country, including throughout the whole of the worst war this nation has ever fought, doesn't compel you to adhere to my request, I hereby report to you that I am afflicted with a medical condition that makes me currently unfit for duty. I had fully intended to see the medic, following my report of the scouting mission to you, and have myself taken off the duty roster until my…condition could be diagnosed and treated. But that won't be necessary now - at least not here. Therefore, Major, as it turns out, I'm unfit for duty, anyway, so you have no choice in releasing me from the requirement to carry out these orders."

"What's wrong with you?" Rutherford demanded angrily, not believing a word of it. Ellison was, quite evidently, exceptionally healthy, his musculature well developed beyond performance requirements, his posture, bearing and demeanor conveying great strength and resolution. The Major had never seen anyone look less 'medically unfit' than the tall and vigorous officer standing before him.

"That, sir, is none of your business," Ellison snapped back scathingly. "If you'll excuse me, I'll put my resignation in writing and pack my gear."

Without waiting to be dismissed, Jim wheeled and left the Major's office, slamming the door on the way out.

Jim immediately wrote and submitted his formal resignation, but he'd underestimated Major Rutherford's reaction. He'd barely had time to change out of the wool uniform that badly irritated his skin, into a loose blue flannel shirt and jeans, when Rutherford arrived at his quarters with two armed, enlisted men. Before Ellison quite knew what was happening, he found himself marched under guard to the stockade under threat of being physically compelled if he didn't submit willingly. The barred door of the cell clanged as it was slammed shut and locked behind him, and then Rutherford abruptly dismissed the men who had escorted him to the fort's jail, leaving them alone.

"I don't trust you to uphold your vows of service to this country, the trust of your commission, or your loyalty to men you've led. I believe, if I let you ride out of this establishment now, you would warn the savages, destroying the element of surprise and forcing us to retreat before completing our mission. I will not allow that to happen. A stalemate would not be to this nation's benefit," Rutherford lectured coldly. "The orders are clear and will be followed - no matter how 'wrong' you think the action may be. These are savage murderers who cannot be trusted not to kill again. An example must be made, so that others of their kind understand that their continued atrocities and resistance will not be tolerated, but met with maximum force. The Indians will learn from this and submit to our domination. I'm convinced that, in the long run, more lives will be saved than lost. Regardless, the bottom line is that the job of this military is to safeguard and protect American lives. Whatever the cost."

So angry he was bereft of words, Ellison glared at Rutherford, and then deliberately turned his back on him.

Exasperated, Rutherford's eyes glinted with hate. "Be grateful I haven't charged you with insubordination and refusal to follow orders. But, frankly, I'd much rather be rid of you - you're a stiff-necked, self-righteous bastard, Ellison. And, you're right, you are unfit for duty. I've accepted your resignation and, once it's too late for you to interfere in matters which no longer concern you, you'll be free to go to the Devil for all I care." With that, the Major turned and stomped away.

For all the hours of the very long night that followed, Ellison paced his cell, utterly sickened by what was about to occur and almost mad with his frustrated helplessness to stop it. For all of Rutherford's pompously sanctimonious rationalizations, there was a line an ethical man didn't cross, not in honour or decency. But, as the hours trickled by, he was honest enough to admit that, in the long run, Rutherford and their superiors could well be right - maybe more lives would be saved than lost in the overall equation; maybe it was the military's job to serve and support, to follow their orders, at whatever cost. But - he couldn't accept that. Couldn't pay that price to the Devil. He wasn't God, so how could he know that killing a village of innocents would save other lives somewhere else when the Indians finally gave up their battle for their homeland? How could anyone, but God and the Devil themselves, know the ledger would balance in the end? Bitterly, he shook his head. Somewhere back in the War, he'd lost his belief that any compassionate God could possibly exist; he'd seen far too much wretched ugliness, cruelty and sorrow to give the idea of an Almighty Father much credence anymore. But the Devil? Oh, yeah, of that he was damned sure. Ellison had long, cynically, believed that the Devil existed - if only in the evil that lurked within the souls of men.

In the darkness of the cell, he felt trapped by more than cement walls and iron bars. His memories of the pain and despair and misery he'd seen for too many years rose to torment him, leaving him disgusted with the inability of men to find solutions, or compel agreement, other than by the force of their weapons. Yes, there had to be some order, the innocent protected, the guilty brought to justice - a time when all else failed and force remained the only option. But, God, he was tired of the bloodshed even when it was required; he couldn't stomach wanton destruction and death.

Finally, three hours after he'd heard the troop ride out just before dawn, and a full two hours after he'd heard the first distant thundering of continuous shooting and the screams that he knew would haunt him all his days, the guard unlocked his cell and waved him out. Sick to his soul at the atrocity, knowing there was nothing that he could do for the now dead victims of the massacre, he stalked stiffly back to his quarters. In a haze of fury and despair, he finished packing his personal gear in his saddle bags, buckled his double belt of matching six-guns around his hips, and pulled on his sturdy black, oiled-canvas, weatherproof duster. Jamming his black Stetson onto his head, he grabbed his saddlebags and bedroll, and strode out to the barn where he saddled the magnificent ebony stallion, Lobo, that was his own, and not the property of the US Cavalry. Mounting up, he turned Lobo toward the open wooden gates of the Fort and headed out without a word to anyone. As soon as he was clear of the high walls, he urged his mount into a fast gallop out across the open prairie. He knew it was crazy, that there was nothing he could do, but he couldn't ride away as if the atrocity hadn't happened. He felt compelled to go, if only to be the one white man who bore witness to the betrayal and see it for the abomination that it was.

By the time Ellison drew close to the remains of the camp at Poplar Flats, the Cavalry had long finished their grisly work and moved on, chasing after those few who had managed to escape with their lives. Smoke rose on the wind, acrid and harsh, sickening with its strong odour of roasting flesh. His lips compressed, fighting the nausea that threatened, Jim rode forward without pause - maybe there were some victims who still clung to life, some he might yet help. As he drew closer still, and could begin to clearly see revolting details of the utter destruction, he couldn't help cursing in futile fury as his hope of being of help to anyone died.

The camp that, the day before, had been a thriving tent city of more than two hundred people, was now a blackened wasteland. It was eerily silent, as if even the birds in the nearby copse of trees and the wind in the brush had been struck dumb by the horror of what had happened there. Slowly, Jim rode through the remains of the village, past still smoldering scraps that had been homes only a few short hours before. His throat tightened as he saw the pitiful, often scorched, bodies of the women and children, shot as they'd run in mad panic to find some place of safety, left to die of their wounds or by fire; the men, old, young, all warriors in their last moments, their corpses either between those of their families and the Cavalry as it had rampaged into the camp, or lying over other bodies, a last, pitiful attempt to protect when there could be no protection. Some few of the dead looked peaceful in their final repose, but the vast majority had died with terror on their faces, caught in mid-scream. The place stank of blood and fire - of death.

Though he had no real hope of finding any that still lived, Jim quartered the remains of the entire camp, to be absolutely certain there were none still clinging to life, hopelessly suffering. He counted 114 children, 42 women and 37 men…194 dead. As he stood at the edge of the smoky massacre and stared down at a girl that couldn't have been more than four years old, a cornhusk doll still clutched in her tiny hand and a great, gaping crimson hole in her chest, he fell to his knees and bowed his head, no longer able to stave off the tears of grief and pity, disgust and guilt.

If he'd ridden out immediately, without alerting Rutherford to his complete antipathy for their orders, he might have warned them, might have been able to stave off this attack. But he hadn't expected to be locked up. Stupid. So stupid. How could he have been so naïve as to think Rutherford would just let him ride away? He'd've been labeled a traitor, and his own men would have looked upon him with contempt and loathing for having perhaps placed their lives in danger by alerting Running Deer, but surely his useless life was worth less than all of these lives. He would have been shot by a firing squad, but at least he would have died for a reason. But he hadn't just ridden out in violation of his commission and the trust placed in him while he wore the uniform, however repugnant the orders had been; he'd still been acting from a basis of honour, where there was no honour - of trust, where trust had no place. He'd been a fool, and now these people, these innocents who'd believed the word of the US Cavalry and the terms of their treaty, were dead.

Brushing the tears from his face with the back of his hand, Ellison stumbled to his feet, once again looking back over the killing ground. It felt indecent to ride away without burying the dead, but it also felt wrong to cover up what had been done. It was overwhelming and should stand as mute evidence of the perfidy of men. Looking to the north, he wondered if any had really escaped. He hadn't found Running Deer's corpse, or those of some of the other warriors he'd come to recognize. No doubt it was treason, but he hoped to hell they got away, to spread word of what happened here, so that it could never be hushed up, never be forgotten.

"I'm sorry," he choked into the silence. "This was wrong. I'm sorry…"

And then, he swung up onto Lobo's back. Riding southwest, he was not so much heading anywhere in particular as he was trying to leave the atrocity at Poplar Flats behind him. Relentlessly, he drove Lobo to get as far away from the horror as fast as the mighty stallion could pound out the miles.

But…no horse, however fast or unfailing, can outrun the thoughts, the emotions, or the memories a man carries in his head, his heart and his soul.

The wholesale, wanton massacre had destroyed something, some innocence he'd always managed to hold onto, no matter what had ever happened to him. He'd believed in the honour of the community he'd lived within for more than twenty years, the decency and fairness of the institution within which he'd grown into manhood. He'd once worn that uniform so proudly - the same uniform that had just massacred more than a hundred innocent children. The savagery of it, the callous cruelty tore at him, so that he was certain his soul would never be whole again. And he knew, without doubt, that this day would haunt him for the rest of his life as he remembered the voices of those women and children screaming in helpless terror, and their faces in death, not understanding why they were being ridden down and ruthlessly murdered.

Rutherford and others could self-righteously claim that it had all been for the greater good - but nothing could ever make it right!

Finally, miles away, he understood he couldn't outrun the horror and he pulled up, dropping from the saddle to his knees, vomiting over the hot prairie grass. He retched over and over, until there was nothing but dry heaves and he could scarcely breathe. Exhausted, feeling dead inside, he sank back on his haunches and lifted his tear-stained face to the empty sky. In those moments, he honestly believed that he'd never be able to feel anything but fury and a sick conviction that he had failed in the most hideous of ways. Any shred of innocence that might have still lingered in his soul had been seared by the flames of betrayal and wholly annihilated. Never again would his wounded heart be able to love, for all love, all trust that he'd ever felt, had been charred into ashes back at Poplar Flats.

Something fragile, yet essential, had broken within him over the past twenty-four hours, leaving him angry and hurt, ashamed for ever having been such a fool as to trust the institution he'd served - with all that he was - to use its power wisely, to not be corrupted by it. He'd never shirked any task, never refused a posting, even to the most remote or miserable of outposts, had fought in the most heart-breaking of wars. He had even chosen never to marry, never to have a family of his own, believing it wasn't right to offer a woman his life and strength, and then leave her alone in some godforsaken, dreary fort in the middle of nowhere while he went off to do his duty to his nation. But this institution, that he'd believed was worth any sacrifice to serve with honour and devotion, after all was said and done, was only as good and as brave and as compassionate as the men who led it - and it seemed to him that, ultimately, it was true that men are corrupted by unlimited power. He'd believed his whole life in nothing but a lie…worse, in something that had become evil and corrupted, a means to destroy innocence rather than safeguard and uphold its sacred trust.

Bitterly, he asked himself how he could be surprised. After all, it was with a lie that he'd begun his career, to find a measure of personal peace and purpose that had never existed in his home, when he'd claimed to be sixteen years old when he'd signed up on his thirteenth birthday. And now, after fully twenty-two years during which the military had been his life, his home and his reason for being, his career had ended with the lie of peace that he'd helped feed to Running Deer and his people.

Ellison swore then that he'd never again subordinate himself to another, nor would he ever trust anything or anyone to act only with selfless honour and decency.

Finally, weary to his soul, he yet straightened his shoulders and climbed to his feet, mounted Lobo and continued his aimless journey to the southwest. He couldn't do anything more for those pitiful souls behind him but, he vowed in that dark hour, he would spend the rest of his life atoning for that horror by dedicating his life to the protection of others. He was only one man, and one man couldn't make all the wrongs right. But for so long as he lived, he would do his best to honour the innocent women and children who had died by defending those who still lived. It wouldn't be enough, would never be enough, but it was the best that he could do. Perhaps if he could live a life, and maybe die, safeguarding the defenceless, perhaps then his life might yet have some worth.

Profoundly angry and thoroughly disillusioned, it was a hard, embittered man who rode hell-bent across the prairie that day…one who felt lost and had no idea anymore where he belonged or what his life was for.

All he knew was that he had to make it count for something.

********************

Simon Banks, a tall, vigorous man in his middle years, had just come out of the barn with his partner, Joel Taggart, when they looked up to see one of the hands, Rafe - sometimes known as 'Dude', for his flashy way of dressing and almost eerily immaculate appearance even when riding the range - turning the wagon in through the main arched gate of the Gold Ribbon Ranch. Having expected to see the wagon loaded with their biweekly supplies from town, Banks frowned to see the buckboard was empty.

"Dude, you run into a problem?" he called out, he and Taggart reaching the wagon just as Rafe climbed down.

"Yeah, Simon," the younger man replied with a look of deep concern in his eyes and a modest air of uncertain deference. He'd signed on only recently and was still uncomfortable referring to his employers by their given names; neither held with much formality, and both were dead set against being called 'boss'. "There're yellow rags posted all 'round the perimeter outside'a town. Didn't figure I should go in - but I'm worried about how sick folks must be."

"Yellow rags?" Banks repeated, his eyes widening in anxious surprise as he shook his head and looked at Joel.

"Must be somethin' pretty bad," the older man murmured, also looking shocked and very worried. They had a lot of friends in Bitterwood Creek.

"Uh-huh," Banks grunted as he rubbed his chin. "Rafe, saddle up Chance for me, would you? I think I'll mosey on into town and see if they can use some help."

"Simon, I'm not sure that's wise," Joel cautioned, concern for his old friend evident in his voice and eyes. "We have no idea what the sickness is - you could catch it yourself!"

"Could, I suppose," Simon shrugged philosophically as he tipped his Stetson back and looked out over the horizon toward town. "But they ain't got no doctor and it's likely they need some help. They been good to us over the years, made us welcome. Maybe it's time for a little payback."

"Fine. Then I'll go with you," Taggart said staunchly, turning toward the corral.

Banks smiled warmly but caught the older man's arm, stopping him. "Uh-uh," he refused, though his appreciation of Joel's willingness to back him up on this, as in all else, glowed from his eyes and warmed his voice, "One of us needs to stay here, to look after things. Don't fuss - I'll be all right. You know I'm too mean and contrary to die so easily!"

Taggart chuckled and shook his head. "All right, if you say so - but if I ain't heard from you in two days, I'm comin' in."

"Fair enough," Banks nodded. "If it looks like they need more help than one strong back can give 'em, I'll send Chance on home with a note in his saddlebag, letting you know what we need."

A few minutes later, the big man mounted the glossy palomino he'd named in whimsical tribute to the luck that had brought them great good fortune, and headed into Bitterwood Creek.

********************

Doc Sandburg hadn't gotten much sleep the past two nights, just a few winks caught here and there when exhaustion slowed him down enough to remain in one place for five or ten minutes at a time. With so many patients, it seemed he'd just finish his rounds of the town when it was time to start over again. Five more kids had needed urgent tracheotomies to keep from suffocating to death. But, he was thankful that the prophylactic treatment he'd prescribed for the rest was beginning to have positive effects - and so far, there'd only been two new patients added to the list of the ill. As the children grew a little stronger, less dehydrated and exhausted from the simple fight to breathe, they were able to eat, and that made them stronger still. Blair suggested thickening their broth with moldy bread to make a thin gruel, as he'd learned inadvertently over the years that moldy bread, or cheese, had some properties that somehow seemed to help folks fight off an infection.

Blair had honestly been surprised at how quickly the populace of Bitterwood Creek had accepted him and his directions for their care, but he understood that their need of him - well, of his skills - had overridden their disquiet at his evident youth…and his heritage. Nevertheless, he knew it was hard for them to trust a Jewish kid the way they had Old Doc Wilkins, but they didn't have a whole lot of choice. Accordingly, he took care to be personable as well as competent, quietly confident as he showed them that he knew what he was doing - no more had died since he'd arrived in town - and the good Lord knew, he'd certainly arrived when he'd been most needed. If some of the townspeople thought it odd to see a Jew treating sick people in their church, they kept their thoughts and opinions to themselves - or at least, most of the 'easily unsettled' didn't air their views where he could hear them, and Sandburg appreciated the courtesy.

Maybe, he thought whimsically, they were reminding themselves that their Saviour had also been a Jew.

He was good with the kids, teasing them into soft laughter, and gentle with the old folk, kindness soft in his eyes. He could talk up a storm, always asking questions, about the history of the community and where folks had come from, getting them to relax as they talked about themselves. But he didn't say a whole lot about himself; the thing was, he kept the conversations going so well, nobody really noticed, not at first, anyway. What mattered most to the folks in Bitterwood Creek, at least in these days of crisis, was that he was the doctor they sorely needed.

One thing about an epidemic, he thought ironically as he yawned in the early light of dawn on his third day in town, not yet having made it to his new bed, you sure get to know people in a hurry.

He trudged down the quiet street and let himself into the office, heading on through and up to his bed. The spread of the illness had finally stabilized enough, his patients regaining sufficient strength, that he could get some much-needed rest. Exhausted, he did no more than kick off his boots before he sank down on the deliciously comfortable bed, already asleep before his head hit the feather pillow.

He woke with a jerk, alarmed and wondering why, when he heard the sharp scream again.

"What the…" he muttered blearily, scrambling to the window and pulling on his boots as he looked down on the street below.

Instead of the typically empty street he'd become accustomed to, there were half a dozen horses hitched at the rail outside the bank. Maisie Dunning, the feisty but very kind, middle-aged widow who ran the bakery and eatery beside the financial institution, was struggling to get away from a man who had a solid arm around her neck - but her struggles stopped cold when he put the barrel of his gun to her head.

Appalled, Blair turned and clattered quickly down the steep wooden steps and out the door of his office. Then, walking calmly, slowly, he began to cross the street, but stopped in the middle when the six-gun was leveled at him.

"What's going on, here?" Sandburg asked soberly as he lifted his hands in the air to signal he was no threat, if not in surrender. "What do you want?"

********************

Ellison had ridden all the previous day, stopping only to water Lobo at the edge of a river, until dusk had begun to fall. Pulling up by the banks of a tree-sheltered creek, Jim unsaddled his stallion and rubbed him down, then let him loose to chomp on the long grass. Pulling his fishing line and hooks out of his saddlebag, he found a slim branch that suited his need and made himself a fishing pole. Less than twenty minutes later, he was grilling perch over a small fire. It was full dark when he finally rolled up in his blanket to stare through the leafy branches at the stars.

When he woke at dawn, he caught another fish for breakfast, and then kicked out his fire. Saddling and mounting up, he kept riding, south and west.

Wanting some decent food - as in cooked by somebody else - when the sun climbed high and hot, Ellison pulled up on a low rise to get his bearings. Spotting a small town in the distance, he headed toward it, slowing when he got closer and saw the tattered yellow flag. But when he heard a woman screaming and then shots, he urged Lobo back into a fast gallop, not even noticing when they raced past the yellow warning to stay away.

It occurred to him that the poor folks in the town up ahead had no end of trouble - first the sickness and now some bastard was terrorizing a woman and shooting up the town. Well, Ellison thought as he rode hell-bent toward danger, he might not be good for much, and he didn't know why he was alive, but he did know that he could fight - in fact, he was itching for a fight. He hadn't been able to help the women and children in Poplar Flats, but he sure as hell could try to help the woman who sounded so terrified in the town up ahead…

********************

During the easy, half-hour ride, Banks gazed out over the land he'd come to love. It was different, very different, from the rich green and well-treed country he'd been born in. South Carolina was a pretty place, with rolling hills, rich farmland and temperate weather. A very pretty place, that he had no interest -whatsoever - in ever seeing again. For Banks had been born a field slave on a cotton plantation, his daddy sold off before he'd even been born. And, when he was only seven years old, his mama had died from a beating she'd received from their master when she'd fought back in despairing disgust, having had enough of his foul lust one night. Bravely, Simon had tried to stop the brute, but had been flung back against the wall of their shack, and soundly whipped, for his efforts.

It had been a hard, mean life, one without hope of anything better. He'd learned, as they'd all learned, to bow and scrape, to say, 'Yes, Massa', 'No, Massa', 'Yes, Boss' or 'No, Boss', and to act too dumb to think. It was the only kind of resistance realistically open to them, to move slowly, make mistakes, screw things up, be a nuisance. It was a fine balance, sometimes, walking the narrow edge of passive resistance - go too far one way, and you got a beating for not working hard enough. Go too far the other way, and you got a beating for being uppity and angry. It hadn't been easy for him to learn to keep the fire of hate from his eyes, no, not easy at all - not easy to learn to act stupid, either, for that matter.

As the years passed and he grew so big, so fast, he figured he must have scared the overseer, probably because he looked, and most assuredly was, a mite too much to handle. So…he was sold off at the age of fourteen, marched in chains to another plantation in West Virginia. Also, Banks reflected mildly as his thoughts drifted over the years long past, a very pretty country of rolling hills thick with forest that turned crimson and gold in the fall, and was bedazzled by snow in the depths of relatively mild winters. It was on the tobacco plantation in West Virginia that he'd met Joel Taggart, a youth older than him, poised on the edge of manhood. Though they were almost of a size at that time, Joel had taken to looking out for him, just as if Simon was his kid brother. Smiling fondly, Banks reflected that Joel had always been too kind for his own good. There just wasn't any meanness in the man, never had been, and he'd always seemed wise, somehow. He never did let the anger eat at him, didn't even seem to get angry - unless it was on someone else's behalf, when no man of conscience could stand back and watch excesses of wretched abuse go on.

It was that innate decency that had gotten Joel into trouble two years later, standing up for the younger Banks when he'd mouthed off once too often one morning in the back corner of the field, and was about to have his brains clubbed out of his head by the irate overseer. Joel had probably saved his life that day, but then had been forced to tie himself to a post in the field, and whipped where he stood for his courage or, as the overseer had screamed in rage, for his insolence in interfering with his betters.

Simon, consumed by a red haze of guilt, fury and despair, couldn't take any more. He wasn't going to just stand there and watch Joel be whipped to death, not on his account - not for anything in the world.

Without thinking, he'd picked up a rock from the earth at his feet and bashed the overseer on the back of the head, laying him out cold. Untying Joel, who was only semiconscious at best, he'd slung the older youth over his shoulder and lit out into the forest - and had kept running for a long, long time, much of it up to his knees in the woods-shrouded river that led away from the estate and up into the hills, to keep the dogs from getting their scent. As he'd raced to freedom, he didn't know if he'd killed the man with that rock but was only bothered by the fact that he didn't much care.

He cared for Joel and physically supported him on their desperate journey, until the nineteen-year-old could run on his own. And then they'd run side by side, scrambling through the brambles of the forests and over the long hills, for weeks and weeks, to put that pretty country behind them. They'd chosen to run west rather than north, because it was always assumed that runaways headed north to the free states or even further to the lands held by the British and the French. Most of the runaways got caught and hauled back, especially if they didn't have the good fortune to find the brave people who ran the Underground Railroad.

It was a risk to head west, but Simon and Joel were lucky - they were never caught. One night, though neither of them was proud of it, they broke into an old schoolhouse and stole a few of the books, the ones used to teach little kids how to read. They knew they had to learn, that ignorance was dangerous. So, mostly attributable to Joel's patience and good humour, they figured out the books, and taught themselves how to read and write. As for figuring, well, they'd learned how to do that for themselves long past - adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing how many sacks of tobacco or cotton they had to pick to pass muster, or how many slaves it would take to get a job done in the time allowed, given the size of the job. It was all about survival - and not being as stupid as they were believed to be. Not stupid, at all, Simon chuckled in retrospect. Now that, thank God, they were all free, he was able to remember those hateful days with a certain pride that he and his people had been able to survive by using their wits to fool the so-called superior white folk. A hell of a lot smarter than the dumb-ass overseers and masters who never caught on to our act!

Once they got into 'free' territory where slavery was outlawed, they were able to stop grubbing for food and look for paying work. Big as they were, and young, they were strong and they both sure knew how to give an honest day's labour. With a yen to see the world, as well as to keep moving far away from the South, they took jobs stringing telegraph wire across the West, all the way to San Francisco. Then, with their wages in their jeans, they thought about what they'd do next. Gold was all the rage then and, though it was risky, they decided to take a chance and used every dime they had to grubstake themselves.

Not having a clue, really, about what they were doing, they'd headed into the gold country high in the mountains of California, with a mule and the mining tools they'd bought, and staked a claim. It was hard, backbreaking work, but they didn't care. Joel discovered a hidden talent for explosives, able to discern how much dynamite to use and where it needed to be placed to blow out a tunnel without bringing the whole damned mountain down on their heads.

Within a year, their gamble paid off. They struck it rich. Very rich - a broad ribbon of pure gold so wide and so long that, for the longest time, they'd just stood and stared at it, shaking their heads and wondering if they were dreaming.

Laughing like fools after they realized what they had, they'd left the mine at the end of the day, sat back by their fire under the stars and talked and talked. About the country they'd seen, as they'd come west - about the kind of hopes they had, now that they didn't have to bury their dreams as so much childish drivel. They'd seen the vast, mighty Pacific, and had stood in awe of its power, but they didn't want to go to sea as captains, or even owners, of merchant trading ships. The mountains were majestic, but the massive piles of granite left the young men feeling crowded, overshadowed, trapped somehow - and then they remembered the rolling Kansas plains with the wide-open, clear blue sky. A man could see for miles in every direction, and never feel locked in. Not interested in ever digging another row to hoe, they'd decided to run a herd of cattle.

Anxious to get on with their dreams, after they'd hauled their first heavy load of gold to the assayers in Sacramento, they'd sold their claim for a fortune and, feeling like kings, they rode in style in a succession of stagecoaches headed back east, until they reached Wichita. There, at the land registry office, they selected and paid for 250,000 acres of prime grazing land in the middle of nowhere, and then went on to the stockyards to buy their first herd of cattle, and horses for a remuda. When they started driving their small herd across the prairie, they didn't know any more about cattle ranching than they'd known about gold mining, but they were smart, and they learned fast. Banks chuckled in memory as he recalled some of the misadventures of their youth - hell, it had been a challenge just to learn how to stay on top of an ornery horse, let alone master the intricacies of ranching. But, smiling with quiet satisfaction, he reflected that they had learned.

And now, here they were, owners of the largest spread between the Mississippi and Wichita with no fears of ever feeling crowded or boxed in again.

Contemplating the town up ahead, and the folks who were now fighting some kind of raging sickness, Simon thought about the early days, oh, more than fifteen years ago now. The white folk had been distinctly standoffish at first, wary of them because of their colour. But Joel never paid it no mind. He was always one of the first ones there when a barn had to go up, or new settlers were felling wood to build their house, and he had always dragged Simon along.

"They'll get used to us, in time," he'd say. "Give 'em a chance." If anybody put them down for their colour, and Simon would angrily ask how his partner could stand the insults that drove him into a fury, Joel would just shrug and ask, "What do I care what they think? I know what kind of man I am." And then he'd put his hand on his friend's shoulder, saying with all seriousness, "Simon, you gotta learn to let it go. There're fools and bigots all over this world, and that's their bad luck. You can't let their opinions matter to you. T'ain't worth the time it'd take to deal with 'em, and be about as useful as spittin' into the wind. I got better things t' do. An' so do you."

It was Joel who had won the townspeople over with his steady good nature and patience, his humour and his enduring sense of himself as a man of integrity. It shone through in everything about him - his kindness and good sense, his pure and simple decency - it was all there in his eyes, slow smile and thoughtful manner for everyone to see. Over the years, wariness had grown to acceptance, acceptance to liking, and then to respect. Simon had watched it happen and counted himself lucky to have a friend to teach and guide him, and who took him along for the ride as Joel built rock solid relationships with their neighbours. And, in time, Simon had learned to let his anger go, and found a kind of peace in this land, with these people. Now, when some smart-mouthed stranger carried on in a superior way just because they were white, the townspeople didn't take it or let it ride. The strangers were set down and told what was what and they could either stay or go, but if they stayed, well, then, they were expected to learn some better manners.

Those people were suffering now and needed help. Joel had done the hard work in the beginning for both of them, gaining their neighbours' trust and friendship. Simon figured this was his chance to give a little back. Besides, he was younger, bigger and stronger than Joel. If one of them had to risk getting sick, better it be him than the man he couldn't love more than if Joel had been his brother by blood.

He'd just passed one of the dusty and ragged yellow bandanas hanging from posts planted around the town, when he heard shots ring out, shattering the quiet of the day…

********************

Sheriff Jeb Strong had heard Maisie's first scream and had come running from home. But by the time he arrived and took cover behind a wagon in front of the General Store, the new doctor was already standing in the middle of the street, trying to distract the stranger's attention from the clearly terrorized woman. Studying the horses outside of the bank, not recognizing any of them, Jeb cursed under his breath. Some gang of outlaws, who figured to take advantage of a town already under siege by an invisible enemy, had evidently decided to rob the bank when nobody was looking. Poor Maisie must have either been passing by or, curious about the strangers, had wandered out for a look, and realized belatedly what was going down. The ruffian who held her had to be the lookout, left outside with the horses. He appeared to be about twenty, scruffy and scared. Not a good combination. Jeb sure wished he knew how many innocent people were being held hostage inside the bank, their lives now hanging in the balance, too.

Licking his lips, his heavy Colt .45 steady in his hand, Jeb tried to figure the odds of everyone getting out of this mess safe, with the notable exception of the six bank robbers themselves, and didn't like the probabilities.

"Jeb?" Marcus Candling hissed from just inside the barbershop behind him. "What'cha gonna to do?"

Sheriff Strong snorted softly. Marcus was a good-natured old coot, but this wasn't exactly the time to start up a conversation. His attention focused sharply back on the business at hand when he saw the gang's lookout level his gun with the obvious intention of shooting Sandburg, and Jeb knew he had to act. Stepping away from the wagon, he leveled his gun at the villain. "Drop it, mister, or you're dead," he said, his voice as steady as his hand.

As the gun barrel began to swing toward him, Maisie, bless her, must have felt the kid trembling and maybe felt his grip on her loosen. Probably terrified to her toes but as feisty as ever, she elbowed him in the brisket, hard and sharp, and then stomped on his boot. Startled, distracted, the grip of his arm around her throat fell away and she darted aside, stumbling to her knees.

But the gun barrel started to level toward him again, and Jeb had no choice but to shoot first - and one more young outlaw would never grow old. Yelling at Sandburg to get out of the street, he dropped back down behind the wagon immediately, knowing action from the bank would be next - and there were five of them and only one of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he was glad to see Sandburg hustle swiftly across the street as the new young doctor scrambled to practically carry the plump Maisie into the safety of her bakeshop.

"Back off or we'll kill the clerk!" a gruff voice shouted from inside the bank, giving the Sheriff more information than perhaps he'd intended. Clerks weren't usually the first victims threatened in a holdup unless there wasn't much other choice.

Jeb blew out a long breath, fighting for calm. It was almost noon, so he figured Sam Sloane, the manager, had already gone home for lunch. Nobody in town was doing much business with so many down sick, so there'd be nothing to have kept him at the bank. One of his boys and his daughter were two of the sick children Jeb's Susannah was nursing, while Sam's wife, Sarah, had taken in their son who had not fallen ill. So, Sam would want to get home early, to check on his kids and make sure Sarah wasn't wearing herself ragged trying to watch over kids who were restless with healthy energy. That meant the clerk, feckless Clive Tucker, was likely alone inside.

"You kill anyone and you'll hang!" Jeb called back. "Toss out your weapons and come out with your hands up!"

Harsh laughter and the whine of a bullet whizzing by his head was the only response he got.

Suddenly, another voice intruded from behind him, low but firm, "I spotted a window in back of the bank that I can lever open to sneak inside - give me a minute to get back over there and then distract them."

Jeb turned and saw a tall stranger with cool blue eyes crouched by the wall in the shadows of the narrow alley between the store and the barbershop. He was dressed in worn jeans and a long, black duster that didn't quite conceal the Colt on his left hip - a match for the one in his right hand - and a black Stetson was pulled low over his eyes.

"Who're you?" Jeb hissed back.

He got a slight, ironic smile in response. "Does it matter?" And then the stranger slipped quickly back into the shadows, as silent as a ghost.

Jeb blinked, and then looked down the street to see Simon Banks leaping off his golden stallion, his fist already gripping his Winchester as he crouched low and nodded to the Sheriff. Strong grinned as he sketched Simon a quick salute and then held up one palm to signal the older man to wait, thinking things were definitely looking up and the odds of winning this fight had just gotten a whole lot better.

Checking his pocket watch, he gave the tall stranger his minute and then, not wanting to risk hitting Clive or the mysterious Good Samaritan, he leveled a shot over the roof of the bank rather than through the fancy plate-glass window. Immediately, shots rang out in response…and there went Sam's expensive window in a shower of glass. He'd not be pleased with having to replace it, Jeb thought wryly.

Shouting and a single sharp shot rang out from inside the bank, followed by a flurry of others, and then the door was flung wide as four outlaws made a break for it. Bullets whined and ricocheted around the street as they blasted their way out, rushing toward their horses. The animals, panicking, terrified by the gunplay, were bucking wildly in desperate attempts to pull free of the reins tying them to the hitching rail; one succeeded and bolted down the dusty street, while the others neighed and heaved in a frenzy, effectively blocking both Jeb and Simon's aim. One outlaw leapt onto the back of his mount, and whirled to race away - Jeb stood to shoot him down before he could escape - and the bandit's arms flew out as he stiffened, toppling from the saddle to lie still in the dust. Meanwhile, the tall stranger had chased out of the bank on the heels of the bandits, tackling one and rolling with him onto the boardwalk. Simon had gotten a bead on another robber and blew him back against the wall. But still another was at the same moment taking advantage of Jeb's distraction on the runaway and shot the Sheriff, even as another muffled explosion sounded from the men wrestling on the planks. The outlaw's own weapon had discharged into his gut just as Jeb felt a blistering burn slam into his gun arm and he spun around, hitting the dust hard. Simon's rifle cracked again but, in the confusing mêlée of shifting, bucking horses, he missed the last outlaw still standing. Conscious, struggling to rise, Jeb saw the Good Samaritan twisting to bring his Colt into line, just as the last outlaw shot him in the back - with a startled, strangled shout of pain, the stranger dropped like a stone; a split second later, Simon's rifle exploded again, bringing the last bandit down.

The horses still bucked and neighed shrilly but the guns had silenced as gunsmoke lifted on the light wind, acrid against the smell of blood and hot sand. Doc Sandburg, pale with the shock of the sudden violence, slipped out of Maisie's place just as Clive poked his head around the open bank doorway, looking like he was in still in one piece, if a bit green around the gills. His people safe, Jeb slumped back and curled to protect his shattered arm, the fingers of his left hand stained red as he tried to stem the tide of blood pouring from the wound just above his wrist. Damn, but it hurt. Simon ran up to check out the bodies while Doc came toward him, but he called back, his voice strained with the pain. "See to the stranger. He saved Clive's life!"

Jeb heard Clive gabbling to Simon, with all the excitement of one who was sure he was going to die only to surprise himself by still being alive, "There's another dead one in here!"

And then Jeb's world went gray…

********************

At the direction of a kid he didn't know, but who had suddenly taken charge of the wounded, Simon carried Jeb into the Doctor's Office and on back to the surgery to lay him on a cot. Clive, Marcus and the kid carried in the stranger who'd been shot in the shoulder, the bullet gone clear through, so he was bleeding heavily both from the front and the back. The battle had been fast, and Simon wouldn't have known the guy was on their side if first Jeb, and then Clive, hadn't been so quick to say he'd saved the bank clerk's life. The stranger was laid, straightaway, on the raised operating table in the middle of the whitewashed infirmary that had big windows to let in the light and a black woodstove in the corner. Wryly, Simon reflected that Bitterwood Creek seemed to be having a run on strangers coming to town - the kid, the Good Samaritan, and six dead outlaws nobody would miss. It was odd, he thought in passing, that none of them had been dissuaded by the yellow bandanas blowing their, apparently, very much unheeded warning to stay away.

Much to his surprise, the kid turned out to be a doctor who had, according to Marcus, turned up out of the blue, two days ago. The new doctor quickly checked out the stranger, and then Jeb, while simultaneously asking Simon about the condition of the wounded outside.

"They're dead and in no hurry to be seen to," Simon drawled in reply. "How's Jeb?"

The kid shook his head, his lips set in a grim line. "He'll live, but I don't know how much use he'll have of his right hand," he replied quietly just before Jeb's wife, Suzannah, came flying in, her eyes wide with fear. Sandburg reassured her calmly and put her to work, cleaning the blood off her husband's arm.

"And the stranger?" Simon continued, looking at the unconscious man on the table in the center of the room.

"He'll live, too - he was lucky. The bullet caught him in high in the shoulder, and went right through without shattering anything," the kid replied as he quickly stoked the fire in the stove, put a kettle on to boil and sorted out his instruments on a worktable by the stove, dropping the ones he chose into the already steaming pot. Next he pulled a high stack of towels and bandages from a cupboard, leaving some on the table by Jeb's cot, and the rest on the small workbench next to the stranger.

"I'm Simon Banks," he introduced himself to the young man who appeared to be a virtual whirlwind of perpetual motion.

The kid spared him a quick smile as he nodded and paused long enough to hold out his hand. "Well, you sure arrived in the nick of time! Glad to meet you. I'm Blair Sandburg, your new doctor."

"You need any help here, Doc?" Banks asked as he shook the kid's hand, impressed with the firm, dry grip.

"I'd appreciate it, Mr. Banks," Sandburg replied, and put him to work undressing the stranger and washing the blood from his matching wounds, while the kid first tied back his long curls with a leather thong, and then rolled up his sleeves before washing his own hands and forearms.

"Just call me, Simon," he offered, and the kid grinned again as he nodded.

Two hours later, both injured men had been tended to, their wounds cleaned, dusted with herbs and sulfa powder, sutured and securely bandaged. As he helped the doctor by holding retractors, Simon marveled at the skill and quiet efficiency of the young man. The bones in Jeb's arm had been badly shattered, and Simon swallowed hard with pity when he saw the extent of the damage, thinking an amputation was the only possible option. But, patiently and painstakingly, the kid swiftly worked the slivered bits back into line as best he could; reconstructing what was left before thoroughly dousing the wound with sulfa powder. Closing the wound, he wrapped it tightly, and then splinted the arm securely and wrapped it with more bandages. Simon looked up to meet the young physician's eyes when he finished, the question plain in his own.

"Worth a try," the kid murmured, flicking a sideways look at Suzannah who was sitting stiff as a statue across the room. "We'll see if it heals. Depends on whether any infection sets in."

When Sandburg had to go out to see to his other patients in town, Simon offered to stay and keep Suzannah company, while they watched over the unconscious men. Blair, as he'd asked Simon to call him, nodded gratefully as he picked up his black medical bag and headed out, saying he'd be back in an hour or so.

Shortly after he'd gone, Strong started to stir, clearly coming back to painful consciousness.

"Easy, Jeb," Simon Banks soothed as the Sheriff grimaced and moaned softly.

Suzannah Stone breathed out a shivery sigh to see her man waking up as she brushed an errant tear from her face with her fingertips before leaning forward to plant a kiss on her husband's cheek. "Honey, you need anything?" she whispered as she clutched his left arm and hand.

Jeb groaned softly against the pain in his right arm, biting his lip as he blinked and cut a quick look down to see if everything was still there. He smiled, if weakly, as he then gazed up at his wife, to reassure her before he turned to Simon. "The stranger?" he murmured hoarsely, his voice weak and strained.

"He'll do just fine, Jeb, don't you worry," Simon assured him. "The robbers all died tryin' to escape, so there's nothin' for you to do but rest and get well. Y'hear?"

When Jeb nodded, his gaze going back to Suzannah's, Simon stood to move away, giving them some privacy as he turned to the stranger and pulled a straight-backed chair up beside his cot. The man's wounds - front and back - had been stitched up, and the kid thought he'd heal clean. His left arm had been bound over his chest to keep his wounded shoulder still.

Damn, I've got to stop thinkin' of the new Doc as a 'kid', Simon thought, shaking his head. Even if he does look like he should still be in boardin' school somewhere. Studying the fair-haired stranger, he wondered then, And who might you be?

Having undressed the man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, Banks had his theories. The stranger didn't have the roughly calloused hands of a labourer; so he wasn't a hard labourer; no ingrained dirt under his nails, so not a farmer. His clothing was well worn but in good condition, his boots well crafted. He'd also worn a pretty pair of Colts - with bone handles to improve the grip - on hand-tooled belts and, from what Clive had said of the sharpshooting in the bank, he knew how to use them. The man had three other old bullet wounds scattered over his body and, given the look of him, he'd undoubtedly served in the War. No way to tell whether for the North or the South, though. Lean, in good shape, clean-shaven, with a magnificent horse they assumed was his tied down the back alley by the bank, and good quality saddlebags, not fancy, just well made. Gunslinger, maybe, but one who had actively chosen to fight on the right side, rather than ride the other way to save his own skin. Curiously, Banks eyed the saddlebags now lying in the corner on the other side of the narrow bed.

But he didn't want to invade the man's privacy.

So he bided his time and waited for the stranger to wake up.

********************

By the time Sandburg got back, Jeb was making noises about wanting to go home. Suzannah looked up hopefully, immediately assuring Blair that she could take care of her husband, and pointing out that Doc had more than enough to do, what with the man in the other bed and all the sick ones in town. Reluctantly, Blair nodded.

"Okay, but I want to know immediately if a fever starts," he ordered them both firmly, and then handed Suzannah a small, cork-stoppered vial of laudanum. "Just two drops, mind, no more than every four to six hours for the pain - and three at bedtime, to help you sleep. I'll be over in the morning to redress your arm." Looking across the room at Banks, he asked, "Would you mind giving Jeb a hand home? I want to check on our mysterious good guy. And, thanks, Simon, for all your help today."

"I'll drop back later," Simon replied as he steadied Jeb onto his feet and took most of the man's weight as they slowly moved from the room. Suzannah had run ahead to get things ready at home.

Once they'd gone, his eyes narrowed in thought as Blair wandered over to stare down at the still unconscious man, and he wondered why the stranger hadn't yet awakened. Sitting down, he noted the deep lines of pain around the mouth and eyes - unusual in a man still so deeply unconscious - but Sandburg didn't really want to give him anything until he was awake and Blair could find out if he'd ever had reactions to medications - it was possible that he was still out cold because of an exaggerated reaction to the ether he'd inhaled - as well as how often he'd been on painkillers in the past. Laudanum was a blessing, but could also be a problem. People grew used to it, needing and then wanting more and more to do any good, until they couldn't function without it, so Blair was very cautious with its use. Still, the degree of pain his patient was experiencing bothered Sandburg, and he wondered if there was something else going on, besides the wound, that was tormenting the man. He'd also noticed the faint rash of irritated skin all over the man's body, which could be another clue that he was reacting to something, his clothes maybe. Some people couldn't wear wool, but then he hadn't been wearing wool. Concerned that the rash might signal illness, Blair reached to touch the man's forehead, but so far there was no fever. He took his patient's pulse, fingers light on the lax wrist, and found it strong and steady. Laying his hand on the stranger's right arm, gripping lightly, he asked softly, "Why aren't you awake?"

And then, as there was little else he could do, he just kept talking to the guy, idle chatter mostly about the aborted robbery, his tone low and melodious, hoping the sound of his voice would draw the man back to consciousness.

********************

The late evening sun was streaming in from the window an hour or so before sundown, bathing Sandburg - and the patient he watched over - in soft golden light. Blair had done another quick round of his other patients, Simon sitting in to watch over the stranger, and had just gotten back awhile ago, so Simon had gone to find his dinner with friends in town. Really starting to worry about why his patient had not yet awakened, Sandburg occupied himself by smoothing calamine lotion over the man's irritated skin, again talking incessantly, this time about the people he'd been meeting in Bitterwood Creek, and his relief that most of his patients seemed to have turned the corner toward health.

With a groan, the man finally stirred, blinking and then wincing painfully against the light hitting his face. Flinching away from it, his right hand coming up to cover his eyes, he moaned, "Too bright."

Hastily, Sandburg stood to close the shades, muting the light in the room. As he did, he said, "Hey, I'm glad you're finally waking up - you had me worried."

The man grimaced, hoarsely muttering, "I can hear you - no need to shout."

Sandburg frowned as he returned to the bed and looked down at the stranger and then back at the window, thinking that the sun hadn't seemed all that bright to him. Nor had he been shouting, just speaking in a normal voice. Sinking down onto the chair by the bed, he poured some water into a clay mug from the pitcher he'd put on the little side table and supported his patient's head while he helped the man drink. Murmuring softly, he told his patient, "I'm Dr. Blair Sandburg and this is my infirmary. You were shot in the hold-up, but you're going to be fine. I'm sorry, but I don't know your name."

"Ellison, Jim Ellison," his patient grunted as he gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder, and then swallowed hard, as if he felt nauseated. "What stinks so bad in here?" he suddenly choked out, nearly gagging, as he grimaced in evident disgust.

"Medicines, probably," Sandburg replied softly, sniffing the air himself and finding it slightly astringent but not anything too offensive; but then, he was used to the smells of his profession. In deference to his patient's sensitivities to the odours, wanting to make the man comfortable, he got up and moved an armful of bottles of ether, disinfectants, laudanum and herbs back into the small storeroom between the surgery and the office, closing the door when he returned to Ellison. Sitting back down, he studied Jim Ellison, a thoughtful look of speculation on his face. "Do you sometimes find your sense of taste is too strong?" he asked after a moment.

"Yeah, sometimes," Ellison grated, in too much pain to worry about the oddness of the question.

"I want to give you something for your pain, but first, I need to know if you've ever had any bad reactions to any medicines," Blair murmured.

Ellison swallowed and then ground out, "No drugs. Knock me out too long. I'll manage."

Sandburg rubbed his hand over his mouth and then stood to pace while he thought about his patient's odd reactions to the stimuli of light, sound, smell, taste and, from the look of his skin, touch. Gazing at Ellison, he could see the man was rigid with pain, and Sandburg couldn't stand to see him suffering so badly. There had to be something he could do for him. Biting his lip as he squinted in thought, he absently pushed his wild hair behind his ears. He recalled reading a book from a library, oh, years ago now, when he'd been first become curious about the world and the people who lived in it. It had been by an explorer, a man named Burton, who had written of his travels in Central and South America. That book had been about men Burton had called sentinels, warriors with enhanced sensory awareness who spent their lives protecting their tribes. Finding the concept fascinating, Blair had searched out other similar phenomena, and had found a good number of stories in many ancient cultural reference books including those of his own heritage, which had told about the watchers who were the sons of fallen angels, and had been born to literally 'watch over' humankind. He'd thought it might all be myth and legend, exaggerated for effect. Still, over the years, he'd met people who had one or two enhanced senses - but he'd never met anyone, until now, with all five.

Returning to the bedside, again sitting, he offered quietly, "I think your senses of perception might be out of control, heightened to levels of discomfort. I want to try something, but you'll have to listen carefully and really try to do what I ask you. I'm hoping it will help cut down the pain you're feeling. Okay?"

"Sure," Ellison gritted. At that point, he was willing to try anything that might help diminish the agony he was suffering. His head was pounding and it felt like his skin was on fire. Nausea curled and clenched in his gut and the wound itself was a torment, pure and simple.

"Okay, first I want you to take some slow, deep breaths…slow! That's it," Blair whispered as he unconsciously laid a light hand on Ellison's right shoulder to reassure him. "You're doing good. Now, as you take the slow breaths, I want you to feel the muscles in your feet and lower legs. They're tight with tension; as you blow out, I want you to feel the tension ease out of the muscles, like it was water flowing out of the soles of your feet." Gradually, Sandburg got his patient to relax, at least somewhat, the clenched muscles all over his body. Taking a breath, shaking his head and wondering if he was nuts, Blair then said, "I want you to picture five oil lanterns with different coloured bases. The flames in each lantern are turned up high, burning so brightly the light fills the glass chimney. Can you see them?" When Jim nodded with a wince of pain, Blair asked softly, "What colours are the lanterns?"

"Uh, tin, bronze, white, red, and blue," Ellison grated hoarsely, thinking the guy was crazy, but what the hell, if it helped alleviate his pain, he'd try.

"Okay, good," Sandburg murmured. "Now, when the flames are turned high like that, they represent your senses when they are wide open; but you can control the flames. I want you to turn the flames down, one at a time, not all the way, but about halfway, so you really have to concentrate as we do this. Now, let's take touch first, that's the pain…the red lantern represents both touch and pain. Imagine the flame flickering back so that it's burning steadily but not so high, reducing the pain you feel as the flame diminishes…not all the way, just halfway so that you feel more comfortable…"

Sandburg could see from Ellison's expression that the man thought he was insane, but his patient blew out a breath and concentrated. It was amazing, but Blair could actually see the lines of strain on Ellison's face gradually ease. "Good," Blair murmured. "Very good. Okay, now we're going to do smell. That's the blue lantern…"

One at a time, Sandburg walked his patient through each of his senses, as Jim imagined turning down the flames in the oil lanterns. When they'd finished, Blair asked quietly, "How's that? Do we need to lower one of the flames still more?"

Jim opened his eyes to stare up at Sandburg, for the first time really looking at him. The guy looked like he was scarcely twenty years old - and he was a doctor? "I…uh…I feel better. How did you do that?"

Blair smiled as he shook his head. "I didn't do it, you did. But, really, how's the pain?"

Swallowing, Ellison replied with reluctant honesty, "Still pretty bad."

"Okay, let's turn down the red lantern some more, so that the flame is just barely flickering - don't ever extinguish it completely, but turn it back," Blair encouraged. Ellison nodded stiffly, closed his eyes and focused on the flame in the red lantern.

"Yeah, that's better," Jim sighed in relief, amazed at how well the trick worked.

"I'm going to heat up some chicken broth one of my patients gave me," Blair told him then. "You need to eat some, to keep up your strength."

By the time Simon wandered back in to check up on how the stranger was doing, Jim had managed a half bowl of broth and then had drifted off to sleep, and Blair was catching up on his treatment records in the office.

"How's he doing? Did he ever wake up?" Banks asked as he jerked his head toward the backroom.

Sandburg leaned back in his chair as he waved Simon to another, at the end of the roll-top desk. "He woke up just after you left earlier, in a lot of pain. But, it's eased a bit and I got him to eat some soup before he slipped back to sleep."

"Who is he and what was he doing in town today?" Simon asked, curiousity shining in his eyes.

"His name's Jim Ellison and he was helping to stop a bank robbery," Sandburg replied with a straight face but his eyes twinkled as he teased the older man.

Simon snorted. "Oh, you're really helpful, you are," he chuckled in return. "Seriously, who is this guy?"

Blair shrugged. "I really don't know, to tell you the truth. He was in too much pain for me to play twenty questions with him earlier."

"Yeah, I can see your point," Banks sighed.

For the first time that day, Sandburg had a chance to ask a question that he'd been wondering about. "Uh, Simon, maybe you could tell me who you are and what you were doing in town today. I'm mean, neither one of you paid any attention to the quarantine flag. And without you, we could've been in real trouble."

Banks laughed, not having thought about the kid being as curious about him as he was about that fellow, Ellison. "My partner, Joel Taggart, and I have a ranch about a half hour from town. When we heard about the sickness here, I came on in to see if I could help," he replied, then gave Sandburg a teasing look as he continued, "I didn't know a doctor had also wandered into town, right past them yellow bandanas."

Blair shrugged. "Well, I was passing through on the stage a few days ago, and the driver told me the doctor here had died last winter," he replied evenly.

"That was real good of you, Doc," Simon acknowledged quietly. "Some might have gone right past, nobody the wiser."

"Not a doctor," Blair replied quietly. "We take an oath - any would have stopped to help."

Simon wasn't as sure about that, but he let it go. "Well, maybe you're right. So, where're you from?"

"Back east," Sandburg replied easily, and then changed the subject. "So, have you got a place to sleep tonight? I've got a spare room upstairs if you're interested."

"Well, if it's no trouble," Simon accepted, surprised and pleased by the unexpected hospitality.

"No trouble at all," Blair said as he stood. "The privy's out back, along with the well, and it's the room at the back of the house. I made up the bed earlier in case it was needed. You know, the ladies around here have been really great. They came in and cleaned up the place as soon as they knew I'd be staying here. Washed the linens - and they're always giving me eggs, bacon, casseroles and stews, or soup, as well as fresh bread, apples and baked goods. So, there's plenty in the kitchen, if you get hungry. I'm just going to check on Ellison again, and I'll likely nap down here in case he needs anything during the night."

As Simon stood with a grin of amusement, he reflected that with those big blue eyes and bright smile, it was no wonder the ladies had all been so helpful. Not to mention how grateful they were that this new doctor was saving the lives of their sick kids. "All right, then, thank you. I'll see you in the morning."

But as Simon clumped up the wooden steps, he was thinking that 'back east' covered a lot of territory - and puzzling over how quickly and smoothly the kid had changed the subject when the conversation had focused on him.

********************

When Jim next woke, it was dark but for the soft flicker of a kerosene lantern on a small table across the room. He could hear someone breathing softly on the cot by the lamp, and the muffled sound of an odd, rhythmic thumping. Trying to get his bearings, Jim shifted in the bed as he craned his head to look around, and then suddenly froze as pain seared through his shoulder, but he couldn't quite bite back a low moan. Instantly, Sandburg rose from one of the three other beds in the small surgery and moved to his side.

"Hey, how're you doing?" Blair asked softly as he laid his palm over Ellison's forehead, checking for fever.

"Could be better," Jim sighed wearily.

"Your shoulder's acting up," Sandburg surmised. "How high is the flame in the red lantern? How hot is it burning?"

"What? Oh, right," Ellison muttered and then closed his eyes as he focused on the vision. "Damn thing is flaring up out of control," he grated, sounding disgusted.

"Okay, easy to fix," Blair encouraged, his hand coming to rest on Ellison's arm to reassure him. His voice low and melodious, he directed, "Picture adjusting the flow of oil, turning the flame back until it's just flickering…"

Jim sighed with relief and then opened his eyes, grateful when Sandburg helped him drink some water. As he settled back against the pillow, he asked, "What'd you say your name was, Chief?"

"Sandburg. Blair Sandburg," the ridiculously young doctor replied as he sat down by the bed, then cocked a curious brow. "Chief?" he echoed.

"Yeah, well, you're the guy in charge around here, right?" Jim replied ironically, but then more seriously, "Thanks for fixing me up, Doc."

"It's what I do," Blair replied with a grin. "So, you want to go back to sleep or do you feel up to a little conversation?"

"About what?" Ellison challenged warily.

"How you happened to be in the neighbourhood to save Clive's life," Blair replied, his voice soft but grateful. "Sneaking into that bank was a brave thing to do. I'm sorry you ended up getting shot."

"I was just riding by when I heard the screaming and the shots," Jim replied offhandedly, as if wasn't a big deal. "Anyone else get hurt?

"The Sheriff, Jeb Stone," Blair told him with a look of concern in his eyes, then added, his expression suggesting that he regretted the rest of the news, "and the robbers were all killed."

Jim's eyes scanned the empty beds. "Where's Stone? Is he dead, too?" he asked, frowning.

"No, his wife's caring for him," Blair explained. "He'll live, but…"

"But?"

Sandburg sighed as he poured himself some water. "The bones in his arm were badly smashed by the bullet. I think we can save his hand, but…" Taking a sip, he shrugged sadly. "I shouldn't really be discussing his condition with you. So - are you from around here?"

Jim frowned as he countered, "Wouldn't you know if I was?"

"Nope, just got into town three days ago, myself," Blair replied good-naturedly. "Where're you from?"

"No place in particular," Ellison replied, looking away.

"Were you headed anywhere in particular?" Sandburg asked lightly, his tone teasing but curious.

"You always ask these many questions?" Jim growled, no more interested in talking about his lack of any plans whatsoever than he was in revealing he'd just resigned his commission.

"Sorry, no offense, Mr. Ellison," Sandburg replied as he held up his hands in self-defence. "You hungry? I got lots more of that broth and there's bread if you want to try something more solid."

"Nah, I'm fine," Jim sighed, sorry to have snapped the kid's head off. "Look, maybe I should just try to sleep some more."

"Whatever you need, man," Blair replied as he adjusted the cotton blanket over his patient and turned to lie down on the bed by the kerosene lamp.

Jim sighed and stared into the muted shadows for a while, wondering what was making the soft but distinct thumping sound he could still hear. It was monotonous, but oddly soothing, and it relaxed him back into sleep.

********************

Simon woke early, rising with the sun. Making his way quietly downstairs, and poking his head into the infirmary to check on Ellison before he headed out to the back, he noted the man was awake. Before he could say anything, Ellison brought a finger to his lips and then pointed across the room. Leaning forward, Simon looked over and spotted Sandburg asleep on one of the other beds. The town doctor was curled on his side, one hand tucked under his chin, his wild curly hair spread over the pillow like a halo, with the crumpled blanket falling half off him. If it weren't for the dark stubble, he'd look about five years old.

Simon couldn't help but smile and shake his head. With a tread that was amazingly light for so big a man, he went to pull the blanket up around the doctor and then slipped back to Ellison's side. "You need anything?" he whispered.

"Could use a hand to get out to the privy," Ellison admitted, still feeling a little light-headed from blood loss.

Simon helped him maneuver outside to do his business and then back into the house, where Ellison suggested they go sit in the kitchen. Banks got some coffee perking, then went back outside to clean up, bringing a basin of water back for Ellison.

"I'm Simon Banks, by the way," he said as he poured two mugs of strong coffee, setting one down in front of Ellison at the table. Continuing to make himself at home, he puttered around the kitchen, finding the utensils and plates in a cupboard, slicing up bread, and stoking up the stove to heat up the frying pan. "You hungry, Ellison?" he asked.

Jim's eyes flickered at the use of his name, but he figured the kid must've told folks his name. "Yeah, I could eat. You work for the Doc?"

"No, my partner and I have a ranch southwest of here," Banks replied easily as he sorted out eggs and bacon. "I came into town yesterday just as the bank was bein' robbed."

Jim nodded as he sipped at the hot coffee. He'd known somebody besides the Sheriff and the outlaws had been doing some shooting.

"What brings you to Bitterwood Creek?" Banks asked then, still very curious about the stranger.

"Just passing through," Jim replied. "I heard some screams, and then the first shots - we must've come in from opposite sides of town."

"Uh-huh," Banks grunted, as he pulled the cooked bacon from the pan, and then cracked half a dozen eggs into the sizzling grease. "You a gunfighter?"

"No, I'm not," Jim answered steadily, but offered nothing more.

Simon watched the eggs as he continued mildly, "I was just curious. When I helped the doc yesterday, I noticed you didn't seem to be a man who works with your hands, or a farmer. And you're handy with your guns, from what Clive had to say. Pretty fancy shootin', gettin' that guy between the eyes when he was holdin' Clive in front of him." Pausing a moment to see if Ellison would offer anything more, Simon flipped the eggs and set the bread on the stove to brown. Finally turning to look at the silent man, Banks said, "Look, if you want to be a mystery man, fine. Everybody has secrets. But, Mr. Ellison, I'd like to thank you for what you did yesterday. Not many men would ride into a quarantined town to help a screamin' woman when guns are bein' fired. We were lucky you were passin' by."

Feeling unaccountably churlish, Jim turned his face away and swallowed. No one here had done anything but try to help him or be pleasant to him - it wasn't their fault that he was still so angry about what happened at Poplar Flats that he could scarcely think. Grimacing with regret, he shook his head as he looked back up at Simon. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "I, uh, was a Captain in the US Cavalry until I resigned a few days ago. Truth is, I left angry and I guess I still am."

Banks nodded as he turned away to dish up the eggs, toast and bacon, setting the plates on the table. Well, he thought, thinking about the War that had only been over for about a year, that pretty much tells me he was fightin' for the North. Sitting down across from Ellison, he asked quietly, "Were you headin' anywhere in particular?"

"No, just riding…wherever," Jim replied as he began to eat. "Why?"

Simon shrugged, then offered tentatively, "That kid, uh, the doctor, Blair? He's pretty good at what he does; actually, he's damned good, better'n I've ever seen. He saved Jed Stone's hand yesterday, piecin' little bits of bone t'gether like it was some kind of puzzle that made sense to him. But, well, I don't think even Blair expects that Jed's ever goin' to be able to draw a gun again with that hand. I can help out as temporary sheriff, for a while, I suppose - but I've got to get back to my ranch eventually. Other folks in this town and the country hereabouts are shopkeepers and farmers, clerks, cowhands. They don't know nothin' 'bout the law, or…well, nobody else rushed to help Jed out yesterday, now did they?"

"You're asking me if I want to be Sheriff?" Jim asked, disconcerted.

"If you don't have anywhere else to be, why not stay here?" Simon replied evenly as he sipped his coffee, watching the younger man over the rim of his cup. "They're good people, it's a nice part of the country - job pays pretty well, Mr. Ellison."

"Call me, Jim," Ellison replied absently, frowning down at his plate. Finally, lifting his eyes, he said, "I'll think about it. Thanks."

"Hmm, I smell coffee," Blair's voice came from the other room, and he appeared shortly after. "Morning," he grinned to both of them and then, pouring himself a cup, he said to Jim, "You look like you're feeling a little better."

Ellison looked down at his left shoulder and arm, which was bound tightly across his chest to keep the shoulder immobile, and nodded. "Not one hundred percent, yet, but yeah, better'n last night."

"I'll check the dressing after breakfast," Sandburg told him as he chose an apple from the basket on the table. "Pain's not too bad?"

Jim stiffened, wondering if Sandburg would say anything about his weird senses in front of Simon. Maybe it was crazy, but they made him feel like some kind of freak, and he didn't really want anyone knowing about them. He relaxed when the kid just sat down and looked at him expectantly, waiting for his answer. "Not too bad," he replied and then turned his attention back to his eggs.

********************

After Sandburg had changed the bandages on Jim's shoulder, pleased that he saw no signs of infection, he helped his patient pull on his jeans and gave Ellison his saddlebags to pull out a clean shirt. But Jim just waved him to go ahead and grab whatever he could find. Blair smiled to himself, glad that the man seemed to have relaxed a bit around him. He and Simon got Ellison settled outside the office in an old but comfortably made wooden chair, and then Blair set out on his rounds. Simon perched on the hitching rail, and the two big men simply soaked up the warmth of the morning sun for easy, silent minutes.

Jim stirred when he noticed Sandburg coming out of one of the houses at the far end of the street and then head directly into the one next door. "How many people are sick - and what are they sick with?" he asked, remembering the yellow rag on the post outside of town.

"Doc thinks it's diphtheria," Simon replied. "And, seems he's right. From what I heard yesterday as I was visiting around, chopping wood for some folks and drawing water for all the stuff he wants them to do, steam-tents, bathing the ones who still have fever, making buckets of willow-bark tea and chicken soup thickened with moldy bread - which is an idea I'd never heard before - anyway, most of 'em are gettin' better. There're about thirty kids sick, I guess, and a half-dozen of the older folk. Why, he even had to cut holes in the throats of more'n a half dozen victims, to help them breathe when their throats closed up."

"I've seen that done, but not often," Jim reflected. More than thirty patients with disease and two gunshot wounds - the kid was busy. "He said he only came to town a few days ago. Where's he from?"

"Back east," Simon replied, and when Jim cocked a brow, the older man shrugged. "That's all he said when I asked him."

"Huh," Ellison grunted as he wondered why an apparently bright young doctor would leave the thriving cities of the eastern United States to travel out to the western territories - and then get off a stage in the middle of nowhere, just because a town full of people were sick and needed him. Wasn't there someplace he was supposed to be where people were expecting him?

During the hour or so they spent in the sun, several of the townsfolk approached to introduce themselves and to thank both Jim and Simon for having helped stop the robbery. They were all very impressed with Clive's story of how the big stranger had snuck in as quiet as a mouse from the back, and then had faced down all five of the outlaws alone, saving Clive and driving the others out of the bank. Jim found all the attention disconcerting, and was relieved when Sandburg ambled back from his rounds, and suggested he should probably go inside to rest awhile.

Simon followed them indoors, and when they got Jim settled, Banks asked as they headed through to the office, "How's Jeb doing today?"

Sandburg sighed as he bit his lip. "Not as well as I'd like. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there's some infection in his wound," he replied. As he turned back toward his office, he added, as if to himself, "If it gets any worse, I'll have to find some maggots to clean it out."

"Maggots?" Simon repeated, grimacing with disgust.

"Yeah, they've been used for centuries to clean out infected wounds," Blair replied. "I know it sounds disgusting, but it works. They consume the dead tissue before it putrefies and poisons the body, and leave the healthy tissue alone. Better than leaching blood out of already weak people, as if that's going to do them any good." Shaking his head at what he considered a ludicrous, if still widely used practice, he continued down the hall to his office to update his patients' records, while Simon headed out to do his own rounds of the town.

On his way past the livery stable, Banks slipped the note he'd written to bring Joel up to date into a saddlebag, and set Chance free to wander back home. Looked like he'd be staying in Bitterwood Creek, for a while, anyway. With the victims of diphtheria getting better, and no new folks going down sick, the quarantine would be lifted and the transients would begin streaming through again - and then the little town would need a Sheriff to keep the peace.

A couple of hours later, Sandburg heated up a donated beef casserole for the noon meal, figuring Ellison needed some hearty food to get his strength back.

"So, Simon tells me you're from back east," Jim mentioned casually, as they sat down to eat.

"Uh-huh," Blair agreed. "How 'bout you, where're you from?"

"Back east, originally," Jim replied, noting the redirection. "I moved around a lot with the army, and then the Cavalry."

"Oh, so you're a Cavalry officer," Blair guessed, not able to picture Ellison as anything but an officer. The guy had an air of command, and was too quietly intimidating in his manner to be an enlisted man.

"Was - retired recently," Jim allowed. "Where were you headed?"

Sandburg shrugged. "Nowhere in particular. Kind of a case of 'have medical bag, will travel', I guess. A doctor can usually find work in most places. How about you? Where were you headed?"

"No place special," Ellison returned. Then they looked at one another and chuckled, each well aware of the other's bid to get information, and knowing full well that the other guy wasn't saying much in response.

Finding himself oddly at ease with the younger man, and curious about how the kid had known what to do to settle down his senses, Jim asked, "So - how'd you know how to help me last night? I mean, that lantern thing is a pretty good trick."

"I'm glad it worked - I was sorta making it up as I went along," Blair admitted, and then continued, "I read a book a long time ago, about an explorer in Paraguay, who wrote about people he called 'sentinels'. They were tribal watchmen and they all had five enhanced senses. Since then, I've found references to similar legends in other cultures. Over the years, I've met some people with one or two enhanced senses, but you're the first person with all five. It's a real gift, man."

"You think so? Try living with them," Jim grunted. "They drive me crazy."

"Have you always had them?" Blair asked, surprised that a man of Ellison's apparent age hadn't learned to live with something as natural as his own senses a long time ago.

"No, maybe that's the problem," Ellison replied. "They showed up during the War - I was separated from my men behind enemy lines at one point - took me a couple of weeks to get back to my own side without getting caught."

"Isolation," Blair reflected, his expression thoughtful. "Must have been the isolation, and the extreme danger that triggered them. I'd guess that you've always had them, but maybe just, I don't know, shut them down when you were a kid, and forgot about them. I hear it's the same thing with auras. When we're very young we can see them, but when we realize the grown-ups don't, well, we think it might be wrong or bad, so we repress the ability. It's not conscious, more defensive."

"Where do you get all this stuff?" Ellison asked, disconcerted. Auras? Repress? Was he serious?

"I read a lot," Blair grinned.

"Uh-huh," Jim grunted as he shook his head. "You going to hang around this town once all the sick folks are better?"

"Yeah, I think I will," Blair answered as he leaned back in his chair. "They're nice people, most of them, anyway - and they need a doctor."

"Most of them?" Ellison probed, catching the tightness in Sandburg's voice.

Sighing, the younger man pushed his hair behind his ears as he said, "Well, there're some people who can bring themselves to accept help when they need it, without necessarily accepting the man giving it. Some take time to accept people they see as different from them, and some never do."

Ellison nodded, wondering about the tensions in the town. Some folks would have a lot of trouble, he expected, accepting that the richest man around was black and their new doctor was a Jew. Some folks remained fools for their entire lives, and worse, taug