While she waited for the water in the pot to boil, she telephoned Doc Miller. The doctor’s sleepy wife answered and said that he was attending to a birth about ten miles from the 8T8. She promised to ask him to hurry over as soon as the baby was born. Juanita darted upstairs to get Dr. Hodgson’s medical bag and two clean, white sheets. There was morphine in the bag, but she was afraid that morphine would slow Eli’s heart rate even more. As long as he was unconscious, he didn’t need anything for the pain. She took alcohol and sterile cloths from the bag and cleaned the wound around the fracture and the wound on his forehead, which had begun to bleed again.

Once the water in the kettle was boiling, Juanita had Two Spuds help her drag the heavy table closer to the stove. Then she draped an old sheet over the pot and stretched it across the chairs on either side of the table, so that he was inside a makeshift tent where the air felt hot and humid as the tropics. He would breathe the warm, moist air deep into his lungs, taking heat to where it was most needed. Again, she pressed her fingers to his neck. His pulse was still weak but steady. She got a thermometer out of the medical bag and managed to peel away enough of Eli’s clothing to slip it under his armpit, waited two or three minutes, and peeked at the thermometer. His body temperature was eighty-three degrees, almost as low as it could go before he died of hypothermia. She left the steam to do its work and sat on a kitchen chair, exhausted. Two Spuds squatted on his heels, watching, not saying a word. She put a pot of coffee on to perk and slipped some day-old biscuits into the oven to warm.

Half an hour later, Eli’s temperature was up to eighty-six degrees. She filled the pot on the stove again and asked Two Spuds to cut away the boot on Eli’s broken leg. He produced a knife with an eight-inch blade from somewhere under his clothing and sliced the boot away with two strokes.

Two Spuds tossed what was left of the boot aside. “Shame to waste a good boot.”

“He’s already burned up a Cadillac. I don’t think he’ll care much about a boot.”

Juanita removed Eli’s heavy wool socks and examined his toes. He had only mild frostbite. She got the needle and sutures out of Dr. Hodgson’s bag, cleaned the wound on Eli’s forehead, sutured it tight with eleven stitches. He moaned and moved his head once or twice, but she got through it without waking him, then made a little breakfast on the stove in the parlor.