Measure started in whistling again. It was a strange tune, one that Alvin didn’t recollect he ever heard before. In fact it didn’t sound like any kind of tune at all. It never did repeat itself, just went on with new patterns all the time, ,like as if Measure was making it up on the way. As Alvin lay there and listened, the melody seemed like it was a map, winding through a wilderness, and he started to follow it. Not that he saw anything, the way he would following a real map. It just seemed always to show him the center of things, and everything he thought about, he thought about as if he was standing in that place. Almost like he could see all the thinking he had done before, trying to figure out a way to fix the bad place on his bone, only now he was looking from a ways off, maybe higher up a mountain or in a clearing, somewhere that he could see more.

Now he thought of something he never thought of before. When his leg was first broke, with the skin all tore up, everybody could see how bad off he was, but nobody could help him, only himself. He had to fix it all from inside. Now, though, nobody else could see the wound that was killing him. And even though he could see it, he couldn’t do a blame thing to make it better.

So maybe this time, somebody else could fix him up. Not using any kind of hidden power at all. Just plain old bloody-handed surgery.

“Measure,” he whispered.

“I’m here,” said Measure.

“I know a way to fix my leg,” he said.

Measure leaned in close. Alvin didn’t open his eyes, but he could feel his brother’s breath on his cheek.

“The bad place on my bone, it’s growing, but it ain’t spread all over yet,” Alvin said. “I can’t make it better, but I reckon if somebody cut off that part of my bone and took it right out of my leg, I could heal it up the rest of the way.”

“Cut it out?”

“Pa’s bone saw that he uses when he’s cutting up meat, that’d do the trick I think.”

“But there ain’t a surgeon in three hundred mile.”

“Then I reckon somebody better learn how real quick, or I’m dead.”

Measure was breathing quicker now. “You think cutting your bone would save your life?”

“It’s the best I can think of.”

“It might mess up your leg real bad,” said Measure.

“If I’m dead, I won’t care. And if I live, it’ll be worth a messed-up leg.”

“I’m going to fetch Pa.” Measure scuffed back his chair and thumped out of the room.