SHE HAD TOLD herself not to get carried away, not to build it up too much. She had failed miserably.

“You look very distracted,” said old Joe Cahill the previous Thursday.

Seeing as she was checking his foot operation post-wound care, and seeing as, distractingly, he had a set of the most gnarled and twisted hobbit-feet toenails she’d ever encountered, it wasn’t, Lissa thought, as she came back to herself, the worst place to lose her concentration. She straightened up.

“Your wound is fine, Mr. Cahill,” she said. “But did they not tell you to cut those nails?”

“Aye, they did, aye,” he said mournfully. Then he looked down at his expansive stomach. “Och, it’s not that easy, no,” he added with a sigh.

“Could they not get someone to do it there?”

“Aye, they tried, but they couldnae work it with the scissors, eh.”

It was true, they looked like sheep’s horns.

“Let me have a shot,” said Lissa. “You’ll never get walking with those on.”

But Joe had been quite right; there was absolutely no shifting them. Outside, a brief shower had made everything sparkle and bounce in the light. She could see the sheep nudging their way around the luminous green field. Suddenly she had an idea.

“I’m just going to see if Joan’s about,” she said.

Joan did, in fact, happen to be in the general area (which she gauged as being within fifteen miles) and came over immediately.

“I wondered,” said Lissa, “if you knew if there was a technique that they used on, like, boy sheep and stuff.”

“Boy sheep,” said Joan, her lip curling.

“Um, yes,” said Lissa.

“I’m not sure we’re going to make a country girl out of you. But your thinking isn’t bad. Joe!”

“Whit?”

“Stop eating pies, this is ridiculous.” She prodded at his round stomach.

“Actually I was taught not to fat-shame patients,” said Lissa quietly, feeling Joan had been unkind.

“More’s the pity!” boomed Joan. “Come on, Joe.”

“I do like a pie,” said Joe.

“You can have a pie! Just don’t have all the pies!”

“Um,” said Lissa.

“Okay,” said Joan. “Where’s your hacksaw?”

“His what?”

“It’s a small saw people use for cutting things,” said Joan.

“No, but I thought you would have some animal thing . . . some technique they use on animals’ horns.”

“I do! It’s called a hacksaw.”

“There’s one in the lean-to,” said Joe.

The lean-to was a ramshackle space utterly filled with junk and tomato plants.

“If he can get around he can tidy up,” muttered Joan. “You did the right thing to call me in.”

She peered at Lissa over her spectacles.

“Just as you’re getting the hang of it, you’ll be heading back, eh?”

Lissa shrugged. “The court case is soon.”

“Yes, I saw on the roster.”