Chapter 2

Anna trudged through the snow. Wind picked up the white flakes and flung them into her eyes, the only part of her that was uncovered.

Doc Wilson had set aside time this morning to speak with her, and the worst storm she’d ever seen wasn’t about to stop her. She tucked the small package deeper under her heavy long coat and approached the fence to his house.

She was in love. What of it? There was nothing she or Philip could do about the fact a blizzard kept them from seeing each other. It wouldn’t change the longing in her heart to be with him. Even if he were by her side, there was only one thing that could assuage the passion that burned in her belly—a lifetime with him.

Many women had fallen in love—perhaps all of them—at one time. Her heart had simply chosen a wonderful man. Wonderful and filled with violence. So her love came with adventures of a life-threatening kind. Her favorite authors would be proud.

She pushed on the fence, shoving aside a fresh drift.

The overcast day was dark enough to allow the warm glow from the front window to cast light on the snow, giving the blanket a brighter hue. The window’s curtain was swept to the side, and a small man peered through the glass. He let the cloth fall, and his shadow moved away.

Lifting her feet high to pass over the deep, suffocating snow, she approached the front of the house.

The door swung open. “My dear! Come in out of this cold! Quickly now.”

She lost her footing on a step and caught herself on the door’s frame. That was close.

“You really shouldn’t be out in this.”

“I know, but I had an appointment.”

He grabbed her arm and led her inside. “I expected you to stay home.”

In the entrance, she gently pulled her arm from his grasp and removed her hat. Snow fell to the thick rug. When he closed the door, the wind stopped as if a phonograph was shut off.

Silence rung in her ears.

Without speaking, she removed her scarf and coat. She breathed in a thick smell that seemed to shoot through her thoughts. She sniffed again.

“Ah, you smell alcohol. I use it to stop infection after a surgery.” Doc Wilson pushed his thin, wire glasses farther up his nose and ran a hand over both sides of his hair. Anna tried not to look at the creamy bald patch in the center.

“It smells clean.”

He rubbed his hands together and motioned to a door to the left. “Through there, where we can talk in private.” He reached out, took her coat, and hung it on a wooden stand with three long prongs.

Down the hall was a room devoted to operations. To the right, Rachel had a bed after Jeb had stabbed her. Upstairs, Doc Wilson lived with his wife.

Someday Mitchell would need a proper hospital. Doc Wilson was getting older, and while he took care of the patients like he would the children he didn’t have, his aging body wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rising demand of illness and injuries.

With the small package in her hand, she started toward his office door to the left but peeked into the opposite room.

Her stomach clenched as she saw a sleeping man lying in the bed wearing a robe. One leg was stretched out without a covering. The other was simply a stub capped with a red-stained bandaged.

Doc Wilson again grabbed her arm and led her into his office.

“Frostbite,” he whispered as he motioned to a seat. “I was forced to remove his leg.” As he turned around the mahogany desk and sat, a look of pain filled his eyes. “Above the knee.”

She rubbed her cold cheeks to keep her thoughts from her fluttering stomach.

A clock pealed to her right, and she glanced at the pendulum that rocked back and forth to the rhythm of her breath. The chimes, the hands declared, would ring eleven times.

Medical books filled two bookshelves behind him, and by the window on a low wooden bed designed for examinations lay three open tomes he’d been studying.

Before the last bell rang, he folded his hands in front of him. “So, my dear. What can I do for you?”

Anna set the package in front of her. Her hands shook from the cold, but she carefully tore off the brown paper.

She spun the novel around so Doc Wilson could see the cover.

He leaned forward and peered through his lenses. “Anderson’s War. Interesting.” He reached out. “May I?”

“Please.”

He touched the vague imprint of a black horse, a shadow of a man with a gun, and a cabin with flames roaring from its collapsing roof. Drawing the book closer, he thumbed through the pages. “Does he know?”

“I haven’t seen him for a month. He was called to Fort Randall to discuss horses with Captain Smith for two weeks, and now the storm.” She leaned back into the cushions behind her. “So I doubt it, no.”

He read several lines.

Would there be a moment she would forget the clock ticked? The tick-tock pounded in her mind.

“No,” Doc Wilson said finally. “He’s not going to like this. He didn’t like the articles, did he?”

“If he knew I saved them in my diary, I’m sure he’d be angry.”

Doc Wilson sighed and looked at the book as if it held a trapped mouse. “And now he’s a dime novel hero. How much of the story does it cover?”

“Nothing of his trouble with Jacob. Just his fight against the Maxwell Gang.”

His brow lifted. “You’ve read it? This looks new.”

“I . . .” She looked at the snow-encrusted window, then at the table where the morning’s sallow light fell. “I have another copy.” She felt the red touch her cheeks.

He broke the book open with both thumbs. “Nothing to be ashamed of, my dear. He’s a hero, whether he likes it or not.” He looked into her eyes. “He’s your hero.”

Her cheeks burned now.

“You didn’t come to me just to discuss a book.” He took off his glasses. “What can I do for you?”

Where to begin? “This book, along with some other things . . . well, when Philip finds out about them, he’s going to be upset.”

“I agree. I don’t know him well, but yes. I know him well enough to say he doesn’t like to be noticed.”

She swallowed and drew from a small reserve of courage. “A war rages inside him.” She rubbed her temples, as if rubbing away pain. “Memories bombard him, triggered by . . . by little things. Memories so powerful it seems as if he’s been transported back in time. He’s there for minutes, sometimes longer. He’ll move as if in that moment—actions that sometimes make no sense to the here and now. Every so often he breaks down after the memory—”

“Breaks down how?”

“In tears. He’ll curl up on his side while holding his head, utterly without control.” If telling Philip’s secrets to the doctor was wrong, at the very least the release she felt at this moment was worth the cost. “He told me that before a gunfight, when he feels like he’ll need to pull his gun, he sees the night his parents were murdered. In the vision, he is able to draw a gun faster than the outlaws and stop his parents from dying.”

She rested against the arm of the chair, her energy spent.

Doc Wilson’s contemplative gaze seemed to push past her into some realm of his own mind. He stood and approached the bookshelf to his right. “You’re wondering if there’s a tonic that might help.”

“His mind must be clear in case Jacob returns.”

He paused. “Jacob Wilkes.” The venom in his voice was an echo to her own feelings. “Perhaps he’s gone, never to return.”

“You can believe that if you like,” Anna said. “I’ll prepare as best I can, just in case.”

He ran a finger along the top shelf, then the one below it. He put a finger on the first book, a thick blue volume. Then the next, a faded red. The third was green. His finger pulled and the book slid easily into his hand. He turned and set the thin book on the table and pushed it toward her. “Orson Squire Fowler’s new study on the human mind.”

She read aloud the title. “Human Science of Phrenology.”

“Parts of your brain have different functions.” He returned to his seat. “The stronger part of your brain, the larger the protrusion, and there will be a bump on your head.” He touched the center of his bald forehead. “If I’m shy, then the shy part of my brain will be larger.”

“How will this help?”

“I must diagnose a patient who undoubtedly won’t be coming in to see me. If you can tell me where the protrusions in his cranium are, I will know his temperament, his disposition. What is out of balance will be clearer, and then I’ll be able to give him the tonic he needs.”

“You believe those bumps on his head will tell you all you need to know?”

His shoulders squared, and he sat higher. “My dear, this is science. Not guesswork. Yes, I’ll be able to help him once you map his head for me.”

Something was unsettled in her stomach. But like he said, this was science. Did the answer lie in chemicals the powders could divine? Or was there other help for Philip?

She didn’t want to lose him, especially if there was something she could do.