They took chairs near Doc's desk, and he spoke. "I'm not sure I want to tell this, but I've thought on it all day, consulted books, and I intend to consult others. And, Reverend, as a man of God, a man who deals with immortal souls, I think you're definitely the one to hear this. I guess I could have Calhoun over too, but he's an idiot. So, I'll just keep it between the three of us. My daughter already thinks I'm crazy, but she has to live with me. And you, Reverend—there is something about you. You're a man of God, but you're also a realist." Doc nodded at the gun. "What I need right now is someone who is not only knowledgeable of man's soul, but of everyday realities. Reverend, do you believe the dead can walk?"

"What?" Abby said.

Doc didn't answer. He just looked at the Reverend. The Reverend was taken totally by surprise, but finally, "On an everyday basis, no."

"I'm serious," Doc said.

"I thought you might be.... All right. I suppose the dead can walk. Under certain circumstances. Lazarus walked and he had been dead for some time. Dead and entombed."

"I'm talking about the living dead, not returning from the dead."

"Dad?" Abby said, "Are you off your rocker?"

"Maybe."

"'You mean nosferatu?" the Reverend said. "Ghouls? Zombies?"

"Then you know what I'm talking about?"

"Not exactly, but I've read a book or two on folklore."

"Okay. I'll cut through the horseshit. The man who fell apart in the street. He was dead before he fell."

Silence hung in the air like an anvil.

"Dad " Abby said, "that isn't possible "

"I've been telling myself that all afternoon. But I examined the body—pieces of it—under a microscope, performed various tests on it. That was dead, decaying flesh. The sun was speeding up the decay, but I tell you, that man was dead. An examination of the internal organs proved it."

"Dead. And the sunlight was speeding up the decay. Doc, I have to admit, I find that hard to buy."

"Reverend, I am not a quack and I am not crazy. The man was dead, and before he fell.

The sun was working on his body, dissolving it like ice cream. There is no such disease known to man,"

"Maybe there is now," Abby said.

"If you want to call being one of the living dead a disease, and I suppose you could. Both of you, hear me out. Reverend, you know I'm on to something. I can see it in your eyes.

There is something going on in this town and it runs through it like a cold winter wind.

Deny it."

"I can't," the Reverend said. "There is something about this place, and I know, somehow, I'm part of it. I was driven here by the Lord, for what I do not know. But, the living dead—ghouls? Vampires?"

"Let me tell you something about Mud Creek, Reverend. It's got a curse on it, and I fear everything and everyone in this town is going to die like a bug-stung tomato.

"Reverend, the moment I saw you, I knew you were part of this thing—I don't know how I knew, but I just knew. It was like you were the last ingredient in a stew, the chili pepper.

This town is turning rotten, and it has to do with an Indian and his woman."

"Dad," Abby said, "forget it"

"No. I can't forget it. Just listen. Let me tell you what I think, and then, when I'm finished, if the two of you want to call me crazy, walk out of here and hide from me, I’ll understand. And Reverend, if you believe me and want to get on your horse and ride out of here and never look back, I'll understand that too. So before you pass judgment on my sanity, hear my story. In fact, I hope you'll tell me I'm full of manure and make me believe it—maybe that's what I'm hoping for most of all."

Doc opened a desk drawer, took out a bottle of whisky and three small glasses. Abby and the Reverend declined.

Doc nodded, poured himself one.

"This will help me tell it," he said, and Doc told his story.

THE DOCTOR'S STORY

About a month ago this wagon rolled into town. It was brightly painted. Red and yellow with blue and green snakes twisting together on the side. At the top of the wagon painted in black were the words MEDICINE WAGON. An Indian was driving the wagon. He might have been mixed with negro. It was hard to tell. I'd never seen the likes of him before. He had shoulders broader than any man I've ever known, and he was darn near seven feet tall.

He had a woman with him. A colored. A high yeller, to be exact. And she was a comely thing. Still, they were an Indian and a colored, and that got a lot of folks in these parts off on a bad foot with them immediately. If they had not been such a curiosity, and things hadn't been so dead around town, they might have got run out the first day they showed up.

The Negress read palms and that sort of thing. The Indian made potions. Not like a snake oil man, but like a medicine man. You know, someone that wanted your money but was trying to give you something for it too. They also sold some harmless things. Love potions and charms. The usual rubbish. But mostly they sold medicine, and it went fast, and I'll tell you why. It wasn't for the reason you'd think. It wasn't alcohol-laced with a bit of sugar and vinegar. It was medicine that worked.

It sort of got my goat, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm a trained doctor. Just a country sawbones, mind you, but no slouch either. But there were things this Indian could do, I couldn't even come near doing.

Old Mrs. Jameson had the misery for years. Her hands would knot up like old plowlines.

The knuckles would swell, inflame. It would get so bad sometimes the skin would crack.

I'd tried all the conventional treatments, and the best I could manage was a bit of relief from her pain. Something to get her through a bout until another came. And it got so the bouts were closer and closer together. The poor woman could hardly open her hands.

They looked like broken bird talons.

But when the Indian came to town, and word got around that his medicine worked—

everything from taking warts off the face to the curing of the croup—she went over there and bought some salve from him. Up until that point I'd been surprised at some of his cures, but I hadn't seen anything that struck me as miraculous. Then old Mrs. Jameson rubbed that salve on her poor old hands and the pain went away. And she came by to show me how she was doing. As much to gloat and show me up for a quack as anything else, I guess. But there was no denying. Not only were her hands better, they were starting to cure themselves of the damage already done. In a week's time of rubbing on that stuff the Indian gave her, she had hands like a twenty-year-old. Not only cured of their misery, but soft and pliant and attractive. If you'd had Abby put her hands down beside Mrs.

Jameson's, the old lady's would have looked better.

Well, to shorten the story some, that Indian and his Negress came to be looked upon as saints, and the town's attitudes toward coloreds softened considerable. Except maybe for Caleb who hates anything non-white with a passion. But then again, he wasn't sick and didn't suffer any ailment. The man has the constitution of a jackass and the brain to match.

So, that couple was looking lighter skinned every day to folks hereabouts, and they parked their wagon out on the edge of town.

Since there was always someone with something wrong with them, they were doing a land-office business, and things had dried up here considerable. I took a few splinters out of fingers and things of that nature, but anything of importance was taken to the Indian. It got my goat. You live in a town this size, deliver babies, see the old go out, and take care of people's ills all your life, you sometimes develop a self-importance about yourself that you don't deserve.