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suspect. Anything else?”
    “I think,” said Andrew, “I’m going to need some help out of here.”
    “That so? Can’t imagine why. You feel all your fingers and toes, Doc?”
    “Yes, I feel them just fine. But I think my back is hurt and I can’t get up right now. I think you’d better bring over that stretcher you used to carry off the body.”
    “Body?”
    “Yes,” said Andrew. “The hanged man. That other murder. I’ve got respect for the dead—but I’m going to need that stretcher more than him right now.”
    Now Sam was grinning. He knelt down and patted Andrew on his shoulder. “Nobody died here tonight,” he said, “but some cowardly bastards. Old Mister Juke is fine as ever he was.”
    “Mister—Juke?”
    So the hanged man had a name.
    “You, now . . .” Sam sat down on the ground, propping his gun on his knee and looking off over Andrew’s head. “You do look like you could use some help. But we got to get Mister Juke back to our own wagon. They’ll come back with the stretcher when that’s done.”
    “Sam,” said Andrew, “don’t go changing the subject. He was hanged. He can’t be fine. He—”
    “Hush,” Sam said. “You are a smart Negro, Dr. Waggoner. I don’t believe I have said so before, but I have a great respect for you in that regard. You managed to get yourself into doctoring school in Paris, France, and back out again with a medical degree. And now, you can set a bone and you can cut out a swelled-up appendix with your eyes closed I expect. But even you can’t expect to know everything on Heaven and earth.”
    Andrew frowned and thought about that.
    “Tell me something,” he finally said. “Did you come up here looking for me, or were you here to get that Mister Juke back?”
    “Oh, we’re bringing you back,” said Sam. “But like I said, boy: ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ See now?” he said, winking again. “You ain’t the only one read a book.”
    “How long,” said Andrew, “has Mister Juke been in the quarantine? Why did nobody tell me? And just precisely what—who—is he?”
    “No, no,” said Sam. “You won’t get that from me, old friend. Not more from me. You can ask Dr. Bergstrom when you get back. Not,” he added, “that I am recommending it.”
    Sam Green leaned back. To show the conversation was done for now, he started to whistle.

2 - A Damn Germ
     
    FEBRUARY, 1911
     
    Jason Thistledown’s mama was tall and beautiful and strong; stronger of arm than many a man and more powerful of spirit than any two. Yet in the end it was not a man nor two nor even a gang of them, but a damn germ that killed her.
    The night it happened it was just the two of them alone in the cabin as a terrible howl of a blizzard ran outside. The blizzard was bad for the pigs, and as it turned out one of them died because Jason would not go outside and see to them. He knew the risk in leaving the pigs out like that, but sometimes a man’s got to decide, and if there’s no man about, the decision falls to a boy. To Jason’s way of thinking, when the choice is between standing by your mama and a seeing to a sty of swine, there’s no choice at all.
    He sat there and gave her water until she stopped taking it. He tried singing to her like she used to sing to him, but that felt foolish, so he said he was sorry but he was going to have to stop. He thought she might like to hear a story so he told her the one about Odysseus and Polyphemus, until he realized it became too terrifying in the middle part where Odysseus’ men were one by one devoured by the terrible Cyclops. His mama (lying on her bed, unable to move or speak, with blood welling at the base of her fingernails; brown, putrid fever-sweat accumulating in her bedclothes) didn’t need more terrifying. So he said he was sorry and tried to think of a less frightening tale. At length, Jason had to admit he didn’t know many stories that weren’t