I went out there to talk to them, and to thank them for all they'd done in town, but the Indian saw right through me. He knew I was there primarily because I was curious, and maybe because I was hoping to latch onto some of his healing secrets. And I'll admit that I was.

But the way that Indian looked at me and smiled made me feel lower than a plump snake's belly, and foolish. And the woman—well, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this with Abby in the room, but I was attracted to her. Not only was she pretty, but she was unique too. Tallish, with sleek skin like creamed coffee, and her hair was plaited in Indian-like braids. And she had the bluest eyes I've ever seen. They drew you to her. She had a fine figure—pardon me, Abby— and even at my age I felt a stirring I didn't think I was capable of anymore.

It disturbed me. Guess I felt guilty about your mother, Abby. I went away from there and didn't go back. I didn't want that Indian looking down his nose at me, knowing what I was really up to. And I didn't want to have to look at that sleek Negress and know she wasn't ever going to be mine.

I had dreams about her at night, and the kind of dreams you would expect. I loved her so hard—please excuse this talk, Abby, but I have to get the entire story out—I'd finally keel over with a heart attack in her embrace. Then I'd wake up sweating, feeling guilty toward my dead wife—God bless her soul.

I say all this to give you some idea of how impressive the two of them were.

So they'd been here a week, or a little better, and it started to rain. One of those late season drenchers that just wouldn't go away. At first it was welcomed. Crops needed it, and it cooled things off some at night. But pretty soon it was nothing but misery. The streets turned to mud, and the rain just kept coming, and people began to pick up on summer sicknesses, and of course they went to the Indian for help—which he sold them—and then the Webb girl got ill.

I remember when I first heard of it. I wasn't in the office much then. Abby sort of hung around here in case anyone wanted a splinter out, or some such thing, but I had started going over to the saloon to toss a few drinks. Got so I spent a lot of my time there. More than I ever had before. I tell you, I had gone from feeling like a little god with a black satchel to feeling like an incompetent old man who couldn't even match heathen medicine. It may seem crazy to you, but more than once I took that shotgun off the wall over there and put it under my chin and thought about finding the trigger with my toe.

When a man gets so he's useless, especially at my age when there doesn't seem to be no turning around or finding another avenue, he begins to think he might just be better off without the worry.

But I guess common sense prevailed, and of course thinking about Abby. And maybe most of all, I figured that there would come a time when they'd just take up and move on, and people would have to come back to me, and gradually I could regain my exalted status as a little demigod.

I was drinking at the bar when David Webb came in, and he looked terrible. He was splashed with mud from all the rain, and his face was haggard. He looked ready to drop.

Being a family doctor dies hard, and I slid up beside him and said he didn't look so good.

He said it was because he'd been up nights with Glenda and that she was bad sick and getting sicker.

Course I asked him why he hadn't brought her by, and his face went kind of odd, and he reminded me of a dog that has been kicked and was slinking under a porch.

"Well, Doc," he said. "I just figured the Indian could do better by her," then he spotted someone at a table he wanted to talk to bad and that left me alone, and I got good and drunk.

That night—I reckon it was on past midnight—I heard a banging at the door, and I got up and went to answer, and there stood David and his wife, and he's holding the little Glenda in his arms, and she's as limp as a dish towel. I've seen enough dead people to know at a glance that that little girl was fresh died, but I brought them in, and I did what I could for her—which was nothing. Thing I remember most about that night was hearing Webb cry.

Seems he had taken the little girl to the Indian with a lung problem— pneumonia, I figure—and the Indian sold them some stuff, and they gave it to her and took her home, and she promptly died. That's when they brought her to me. I reckon she'd been dead a couple of hours. About the length of time it took the Webbs to get to town from where they lived.

But to make it all shorter, Webb went crazy. He went over to the saloon, and there were enough drunks and near-drunks there that he got them roused. Caleb got behind it in an instant, and pretty soon he was talking it up big, saying about the treachery of the colored races and such, and a mob started forming. Everything they'd done that was good was forgot in an instant. It didn't matter that they'd darn near worked miracles, this dead white girl was what the crowd needed to turn evil.

To make matters worse, the Indian chose that night to move on, so that didn't look good for them. Looked as if they'd deliberately poisoned the little girl then hightailed it. Least it looked that way to a maddened crowd.

They caught up with the pair, pulled them out of the wagon—after the Indian broke Cane Lavel's neck and smashed Buck Wilson's jaw. I heard it took a dozen men to bring him down, and then they had clubs, pistol butts, and the like to do it with. They beat the woman and burned the wagon.

That's where Matt came in. He got word of the crowd and what was going on, and he rode out after them, fired off his gun, and got their attention. Talked sense to them for the moment and took the couple back to the jail and safety.

But Caleb wasn't a quitter, and Webb didn't care about the law—he wanted an eye for an eye—and so the crowd got worked up again, and they went to the jail and asked for the Indian and the Negress.

Matt tried to stand up to them, but he weakened. Caleb seems to hold sway over him for some reason or another, and the bottom line is—he gave in—and they took the Indian and his woman away. Put them in a wagon and drove them out to the edge of town.

Keep in mind what I'm telling you is what I've gleaned from the stories of others, and it especially gets dim on this area because I think most folks are ashamed of themselves and would just as soon forget it, even though they can't. I like to think too: had I known exactly what was going on, I'd have gotten that old shotgun off the wall and gone out there and tried to stop what was happening. Least I like to think that.

Caleb and some others, they took the woman off in the bushes and raped her, cut her breasts and ears off, mutilated her body, making her scream so the Indian— who was bound hand and foot in the wagon—could hear it. It wasn't all the townsfolk was for that, mind you, but all that were there put up with it, and no one raised a finger to stop Caleb and the others. They were caught up in the storm of the mob.

The woman finally died, and then it was the Indian's turn. They tossed what was left of the Negress in the back of the wagon with him, and Hirern Wayland—who was my main source on this story—said the Indian never even batted an eye. Just looked down at her body then out at the crowd, cold as ice.

They took him out of the wagon, out to a big oak, put him on a horse and put a rope around his neck. He just stared at them.

"We did nothing to you," the Indian told them.

Webb ranted and raved about his daughter and how she was poisoned, and the Indian said, "She's not dead. My woman is dead, but your daughter is not dead."

Webb—knowing his daughter was dead—went crazy, cussed the Indian up one side and down the other, and that's when the Indian put a curse on Mud Creek and all those who lived in it. When he started talking, Hirem said everybody and everything went quiet, except the crickets, and they were building in intensity, like some kind of chorus behind his words. And the Indian said he had the powers, and that he was through with the pale side of them and invited the dark side to his aid. Said the town would suffer.