It sort of got my goat, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm a trained doctor. Just a country sawbones, mind you, but no slouch either. But there were things this Indian could do, I couldn't even come near doing.
Old Mrs. Jameson had the misery for years. Her hands would knot up like old plowlines.
The knuckles would swell, inflame. It would get so bad sometimes the skin would crack.
I'd tried all the conventional treatments, and the best I could manage was a bit of relief from her pain. Something to get her through a bout until another came. And it got so the bouts were closer and closer together. The poor woman could hardly open her hands.
They looked like broken bird talons.
But when the Indian came to town, and word got around that his medicine worked
everything from taking warts off the face to the curing of the croupshe went over there and bought some salve from him. Up until that point I'd been surprised at some of his cures, but I hadn't seen anything that struck me as miraculous. Then old Mrs. Jameson rubbed that salve on her poor old hands and the pain went away. And she came by to show me how she was doing. As much to gloat and show me up for a quack as anything else, I guess. But there was no denying. Not only were her hands better, they were starting to cure themselves of the damage already done. In a week's time of rubbing on that stuff the Indian gave her, she had hands like a twenty-year-old. Not only cured of their misery, but soft and pliant and attractive. If you'd had Abby put her hands down beside Mrs.
Jameson's, the old lady's would have looked better.
Well, to shorten the story some, that Indian and his Negress came to be looked upon as saints, and the town's attitudes toward coloreds softened considerable. Except maybe for Caleb who hates anything non-white with a passion. But then again, he wasn't sick and didn't suffer any ailment. The man has the constitution of a jackass and the brain to match.
So, that couple was looking lighter skinned every day to folks hereabouts, and they parked their wagon out on the edge of town.
Since there was always someone with something wrong with them, they were doing a land-office business, and things had dried up here considerable. I took a few splinters out of fingers and things of that nature, but anything of importance was taken to the Indian. It got my goat. You live in a town this size, deliver babies, see the old go out, and take care of people's ills all your life, you sometimes develop a self-importance about yourself that you don't deserve.
I went out there to talk to them, and to thank them for all they'd done in town, but the Indian saw right through me. He knew I was there primarily because I was curious, and maybe because I was hoping to latch onto some of his healing secrets. And I'll admit that I was.
But the way that Indian looked at me and smiled made me feel lower than a plump snake's belly, and foolish. And the womanwell, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this with Abby in the room, but I was attracted to her. Not only was she pretty, but she was unique too. Tallish, with sleek skin like creamed coffee, and her hair was plaited in Indian-like braids. And she had the bluest eyes I've ever seen. They drew you to her. She had a fine figurepardon me, Abby and even at my age I felt a stirring I didn't think I was capable of anymore.
It disturbed me. Guess I felt guilty about your mother, Abby. I went away from there and didn't go back. I didn't want that Indian looking down his nose at me, knowing what I was really up to. And I didn't want to have to look at that sleek Negress and know she wasn't ever going to be mine.
I had dreams about her at night, and the kind of dreams you would expect. I loved her so hardplease excuse this talk, Abby, but I have to get the entire story outI'd finally keel over with a heart attack in her embrace. Then I'd wake up sweating, feeling guilty toward my dead wifeGod bless her soul.
I say all this to give you some idea of how impressive the two of them were.
So they'd been here a week, or a little better, and it started to rain. One of those late season drenchers that just wouldn't go away. At first it was welcomed. Crops needed it, and it cooled things off some at night. But pretty soon it was nothing but misery. The streets turned to mud, and the rain just kept coming, and people began to pick up on summer sicknesses, and of course they went to the Indian for helpwhich he sold themand then the Webb girl got ill.
I remember when I first heard of it. I wasn't in the office much then. Abby sort of hung around here in case anyone wanted a splinter out, or some such thing, but I had started going over to the saloon to toss a few drinks. Got so I spent a lot of my time there. More than I ever had before. I tell you, I had gone from feeling like a little god with a black satchel to feeling like an incompetent old man who couldn't even match heathen medicine. It may seem crazy to you, but more than once I took that shotgun off the wall over there and put it under my chin and thought about finding the trigger with my toe.