"What'll you have, mister?"

"I'm looking for the lumberjack who got hurt in the accident. Don Albert."

"I heard he's in a coma."

"I heard he wakes up now and then," said Bell. "Where can I find him?"

"Are you a cinder dick?"

"Do I look like a cinder dick?"

"I don't know, mister. They've been swarming around here like flies on a carcass." He sized Bell up again and came to a decision. "There's an old lady in a shack tending him down by the creek. Follow the ruts down to the water, you can't miss it."

Leaving his horse where he had tied it, Bell descended to the creek, which by the smell wafting up the slope served as the town's sewer. He passed an ancient Central Pacific boxcar that had once been painted yellow. From one of the holes cut in the side that served as windows, a young woman with a runny nose called, "You found it, handsome. This is the spot you're looking for."

"Thank you, no," Bell answered politely.

"Honey, you'll find nothing down there better than this."

"I'm looking for the lady taking care of the lumberjack who got hurt?"

"Mister, she's retired."

Bell kept walking until he came to a row of rickety shacks hammered out of wood from packing crates. Here and there were stenciled their original contents. SPIKES. COTTON WOOL. PICK HANDLES. OVERALLS.

Outside of one marked PIANO ROLLS, he saw an old woman sitting on an overturned bucket, holding her head in her hands. Her hair was white. Her clothing, a cotton dress with a shawl around her shoulders, was too thin for the cold damp rising from the fetid creek. She saw him coming and jumped up with an expression of terror.

"He's not here!" she cried.

"Who? Take it easy, ma'am. I won't hurt you."

"Donny!" she yelled. "The law's come."

Bell said, "I'm not the law. I--"

"Donny! Run!"

Out of the shack stormed a six-foot-five lumberjack. He had an enormous walrus mustache that drooped below his grizzled chin, long greasy hair, and a bowie knife in his fist.

"Are you Don Albert?" asked Bell.

"Donny's my cousin," said the lumberjack. "You better run while you can, mister. This is family."

Concerned that Don Albert was belting out the back door, Bell reached for his hat and brought his hand down filled with his .44 derringer. "I enjoy a knife fight as much as the next man, but right now I haven't the time. Drop it!"

The lumberjack did not blink. Instead, he backed up four fast steps and pulled a second, shorter knife that had no handle. "Want to bet I can throw this more accurate than you can shoot that snub nose?" he asked.

"I'm not a gambler," said Bell, whipped his new Browning from his coat, and shot the bowie knife out of the lumberjack's hand. The lumberjack gave a howl of pain and stared in disbelief at his shiny knife spinning through the sunlight. Bell said, "I can always hit a bowie, but that short one you're holding I'm not sure. So, just to be on the safe side, I'm going plug your hand instead."