“My brother’s son, Amarjeet Singh.” Jivan indicated the younger man, wearing a white shirt and dungarees, dark eyes and fair skin set against a cream dastar. Karak had written about him too. Amarjeet’s father had sent him to live with Jivan Singh when he was fourteen. Karak had known him as a small boy, had taught him how to wrestle. Although he had completed high school in Fredonia, he seemed a boy still, barely meeting Ram’s gaze, broad shoulders awkwardly hunched. He reached for Ram’s bag and blanket and Ram allowed him to take them. That was when the ground shifted again, and Ram felt his legs give way as the earth loomed up to meet him.

HE WOKE ON A COT inside a darkened shack, gazing at a roof of split cedar shakes, sunlight glimmering through cracks. For a moment, in his weakness, he thought Padma lay beside him, and he felt whole. Then the canvas shades swayed and yielded to the wind and he realized where he was. In a corner stood a table with a few bottles, beakers, trays, and a microscope. Near it, Amarjeet sat in a wooden chair, reading a newspaper. Their eyes met. Amarjeet slapped the paper on his lap and called, “Doc Paulson! Doc Paulson!” his voice exploding inside Ram’s head. The boy spoke like an American. “He’s awake! He’s awaaaake!”

“Stop!” Ram said in Punjabi, more crossly than he meant. Amarjeet stared at him. Ram tried to smile. His cheeks felt stiff. So did his arm where Pala Singh had wrapped it in Hambelton. When he looked, he saw that it had been freshly bandaged. The wound on his shin was bandaged too, with dark blood seeping through. He was shirtless. They had examined him, he was sure of it, unclothed him and noted all his injuries while he was unconscious. They would know everything. They would sense that he was a coward.

A curtain drew back and Karak entered the room, followed by Jivan Singh and an Anglo, whose presence filled the space, although he was shorter than Jivan. In the darkness, Ram could barely see them. Amarjeet raised a shade and sunlight flooded the room. “Ah, our patient is awake,” the Anglo said, too full of cheer. He wore spectacles; their fragility set against his coarse features.

“This is Doc Paulson,” Karak said.

“Why am I here?” Ram whispered in Punjabi.

Karak told him that they’d carried him down the street to the doctor’s clinic, that the doctor had cleaned his wounds and stitched the cuts in his arm and chest. They saw the gash on his shin, but could do nothing about that. He had been resting for hours in Amarjeet’s company while Karak and Jivan finished some business in town.

Ram saw the doctor glance back and forth as they spoke, tolerant of their Punjabi, seemingly unaffected.