"Yes sir, it was hard times, 1845," he said. "You know what caused people the most trouble? Teeth. If a tooth goes bad here, what you do is you go to the barber down the street, or the one over in Lonesome Dove, who's said to be quicker. Barbers used to handle it all; teeth, surgery, and hair cutting. But the thing about teeth, usually you could do something. Yank it right out. Most things that happened to people, you couldn't do anything. A little cut like this, it could get infected and kill you. There was a million ways to die and mostly the doctors just tried to keep you warm."

Brenda was listening with such fascination she almost forgot to protest when he put the bandage over the wound. Then she frowned and touched his hand as he was about to knot it around her ankle.

"Wait a minute," she said. "You're not finished."

"I sure as hell am."

"You mean that's it?"

"What else do you suggest?"

"I still have a hole in me, you idiot. It's not fixed."

"It'll heal in about a week. All by itself."

It was clear from her look that she thought this was a very dangerous man. She started to say something, changed her mind, and glared at the bartender.

"Give me some of that brown stuff," she said, pointing. He filled a shot glass with whiskey and set it in front of her. She sipped it, made a face, and sipped again.

"That's the idea, little lady," the doctor said. "Take two of those every morning if symptoms persist."

"What do we owe you, doc?" I asked

"Oh, I don't think I could rightly charge you . . . " His eyes strayed to the bottles behind the bar.

"A drink for the doctor, landlord," I said. I looked around, and smiled at myself. What the hell. "A drink for the house. On me." People started drifting toward the bar.

"What'll it be, doc?" the bartender asked. "Grain alcohol?"

"Some of that clear stuff," the doctor agreed.

#

We were a quarter mile out of town before Brenda spoke to me again.

"This business about covering up," she ventured. "That's a cultural thing, right? Something they did in this place?"

"Not the place so much as the time. Out here in the country no one cares whether you cover up or not. But in town, they try to stick to the old rules. They stretched a point for you, actually. You really should have been wearing a dress that reached your ankles, your wrists, and covered most of your neck, too. Hell, a young lady really shouldn't have been allowed in a saloon at all."

"Those other girls weren't wearing all that much."

"Different rule. They're 'Fallen flowers.'" She was giving me a blank look again. "Whores."

"Oh, sure," she said. "I read an article that said it used to be illegal. How could they make that illegal?"

"Brenda, they can make anything illegal. Prostitution has been illegal more often than not. Don't ask me to explain it; I don't understand, either."