Jonah Man Read Online Free Page A

bottle, figuring she had nothing to lose. Well,
when I came back around just one month later, she was waiting for me, eager to purchase the next month’s supply. Another woman, a widow, told me she could not sleep, could not so much as shut her eyes without seeing her husband as he appeared in the final, agonizing moments of his life. Well, one tablespoon and not only was she able to sleep, but she could see her beloved again as he was on the day they met: young and strong, with color in his cheeks, the hero of her youth. If you doubt me, I have their written testimonies, along with many others, in my possession. Long term, this fortifying brew has been known to cure microcephalis, quinsy, rachitis, cleptomania, and diptheria, to name a few. It’s been known to shrink benign and malignant tumors alike. It purges the system of parasites, thickens thinning blood, and clears skin of boils and other blemishes. It has repeatedly healed where all other remedies have failed. I have seen it cure husbands of their lust and wives of their frigidity. It provides the weary with stamina, the fearful with courage. A mere teaspoon has produced a sustained bout of studying in the most undisciplined of children. At a dollar a bottle you have everything to gain, and what’s more, I will discount the price by a percentage of ten for the first five patrons. A ninety-cent investment in your health and well-being.
    Is there anything it can’t do?
    It cannot bring the dead back to life, make the old young, the poor rich, or the talentless talented. Apart from that, I have yet to discover its limitations.
    A man stepped forward, held up a knurled hand, the tips of the fingers forking backward at the joint.
    Arthritis, the man said. Got so my hand’s no better than a paper weight.
    An awful predicament, Connor said. I suffered from a similar affliction, only in my toes. It was this very recipe that cured me. Tell me, sir, have you any hobbies?
    I write poems.

    Professionally?
    Wouldn’t be a hobby if I did it professionally.
    I mean have you published.
    No sir. I handpick the people I share them with.
    A wise practice. Tell me, can you make a fist?
    What you see is what you get.
    And is that the hand you write with?
    It was. I do my writing in my head now.
    Like Homer.
    OK.
    Well, let’s see if we can’t get your verse from head to paper.
    Connor crouched down, took up a bottle, wrote directions on the label while he spoke.
    A teaspoon at breakfast, another at dinner, he instructed. If you want to accelerate the healing process, I’d recommend you rub a cotton swab’s worth on each knuckle before bed. Allow the medicine to soak directly into the bone and you’ll see a difference when you wake.
    The odor won’t keep me up nights?
    Quite the contrary. It’s dulcet scent will work on you much like a lullaby.
    And that’s ninety cents?
    Ninety cents for the first five purchasers. Now, for a man whose condition is in such advanced stages, I’d recommend two, possibly three bottles.
    Like you said, I got nothing to lose.
    People began to queue up. There was a pregnant woman who’d miscarried twice before, a man who’d had the same case of hives for more than a year, another man who’d just turned thirty though his skin was wrinkled and his hair gray. When the people on line outnumbered the people in the crowd Connor gestured toward me, said:

    Ladies and gentlemen, now for a bit of native entertainment.
    I broke my pose, lunged forward, hollering war cries and hurling tomahawks. Children darted behind their parents, began inching back out.
    Don’t be afraid, Connor said. He’s quite tame. I liberated him from his depraved existence on an Apache reservation outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father rode with Geronimo. A proud people living in squalor. This one calls himself Wet River. His name is all the language he knows.
    Connor stood watching as I edged off to the side, bringing the children and some parents with me, then returned to his