The jangle of the cowbell at the door of his Cedar Street cottage awakened Sandor Gollancz from a desolate dream. He had arranged the cowbell because he was a heavy sleeper. Sometimes people needed a doctor fast. He sighed, stabbed his toes into slippers, scratched a lucifer and lit his bedside lamp, and lighted his way to the front door.

There he beheld a man he knew, Billy Behind the Ace, a swaggering tinhorn from the sporting district. Austin, Nevada, didn't lack for tinhorns or sports to mine the miners. This one, a swarthy skeletal fellow with a left facial tic and black hair parted down the middle, operated a faro layout in the back of the Mammoth Saloon. His abrasiveness had become legendary, and he could out-brag the entire Sazarac Liars Club.

"Get your duds on and help Rosa," he said, peremptorily.

Gollancz yawned. "I was just dreaming of a woman like her," he said. "What time is it?"

"Three. Hurry."

"What seems to be the trouble?"

"The ague."

"Tell me exactly."

"Chills so bad her body shook all morning. Then a hot, dry fever. Then she started to sweat. She's delirious."

"Why didn't you send for me earlier?"

"I was attending to my business."

"Vivax malaria, I think," Gollancz said. "All right. Give me a minute."

"You'll damn well hurry. If she dies, so will you."

Gollancz ignored the ruffian and retreated with the lamp to his bedroom. He pulled up black trousers over his nightshirt, stuffed his stockingless toes into hightop shoes, laced up, and hurried to his office where he kept his Gladstone at the ready. There would be sulphate of quinine in it. Rosa would require at least ten grains every eight hours.

They plunged into a hushed, starry night. The soft desert air felt pleasant on the doctor's unshaven face. He could not say why he had come to Austin, Nevada, except for the sheer exuberant adventure of it. Budapest seemed another life altogether, settled, green, mannered, ironic, and brimming with quiet laughter and flirtation. Not a proper place for a restless man, such as himself. Now he was on another continent, fluently speaking a second tongue, camped in a vast and arid wasteland, with only the stark Toiyabe Mountains for solace. He scarcely knew what grass looked like any more. Not that it mattered. He had never loved life more madly.

Billy Behind the Ace what a peculiar nom de guerre that was trotted toward Virginia Street, and into a whitewashed dwelling house behind the saloon. Blackness engulfed them as they made their way blindly up a wooden stair that echoed hollowly. When the sport opened the door Gollancz blinked away the lamplight from within the parlor, and followed the tinhorn into a bedroom that exuded the subtle scents of fever and desperation.

The tinhorn lit the light on the bedtable.

He had seen Rosa in the Mammoth, dealing faro. Every male in Austin had made that pilgrimage time and time again. Half the male population swore Rosa was the most beautiful woman on earth. She had thrown off the coverlets. The sheen of sweat lay upon her neck and her upper chest above the scoop of her cotton nightgown. Her exquisite fine-boned face lay in a nest of tangled black hair. He had never seen a woman so galvanizing. Something Hispanic or Creole radiated from her golden flesh, and maybe Indian and black too along with desperate fever. She did not open her eyes.

"Quit staring and fix her up."

The tinhorn had it right: Sandor Gollancz had been paralyzed by the sight. He swiftly settled beside her on the creaking bed, and put a hand on her wet forehead. Fever leapt up at him. He found a racing, light pulse. The hot, dry stage had passed; she was deep into the sweating stage. The thermometer rose to 104 degrees.

"Rosa," he said sharply.

She moaned incoherently.

"How long has she been sweating like this?" he asked the tinhorn.

"This evening. She had a hot fever all afternoon. Chills this morning. A headache last night."

"When was the last attack?"

"Seven or eight weeks ago."

"How many has she had?"

"I don't know. That's how she was when I won her."

"She'll have more fevers in about two days. Get me a tumbler of water," the doctor said.

While he waited, he extracted a pasteboard box containing ten-grain tablets of the chinchona extract, and pulled out two. He doubted he could get her to swallow the tablets.

"Help me," he said to the tinhorn. "I want her sitting up when I give her the medicine." He would have lifted the woman himself, and probably ended up staring into the bore of the tinhorn's derringer.

It took several attempts to get the tablet down Rosa. She gagged, She spit out the pill. He poked the second one back on her tongue, feeling fever radiate from her, and washed it down her throat. Then the tinhorn lowered Rosa to the tumbled bed.

"You're lucky. There aren't many fevers I can help," Gollancz said. "If it were the other kind of ague, the African, she probably would die or end up in blackwater fever."

"Don't you leave now."

"I don't intend to. If you'd like to do something useful, dampen a cloth and wipe her down. Cool down her fever."

"You do it."

"I'd prefer that you do it." Rosa fevered him too much. His profession warred with his instincts.

The tinhorn grunted, and handed Gollancz a cool wet towel, which he applied to her forehead, neck, arms, and ankles, sometimes handing it back to the tinhorn for another soaking.

Rosa moaned now and then but didn't come around as Gollancz applied the compresses.

"You told me you won her," the doctor said, surrendering to his curiosity.

"With the cut of a card."

"What was the wager?"

"Everything I owned. My faro layout. My ten grand faro bank. I had to have her. I cut the deck first and pulled a three of spades. I knew I'd lost. But the sport she was with cut a deuce of clubs. So I won. She was worth it."

"And what if you'd lost?"

The tinhorn shrugged. "Work for someone else. I can deal faro, keep cases, be a lookout. Some day I'd make a new stake."

"How?"

The tinhorn smiled. "This is the West. The chances come all the time."

"Who was she with?" Gollancz phrased the question delicately.

"A riverboat gambler who dressed like a deacon. Emile Roque. But now she's mine."

"Ah, what does Rosa have to say about this?"

"She has no say."

"Was she glad when you won her?"

"She cried."

"Is she happy now?"

"Who cares? It's not your business."

"It may be," said Gollancz. An idea was shaping his diagnosis. Rosa had not come out of her delirium. Far from it. Instead of escaping this febrile episode, she lay locked within it. He fed her a half-tablet of quinine, doing it himself this time as Billy Behind the Ace glowered jealously. She felt limp and hot when he lifted her. He forced her to sip water, but she gagged and he stopped. She was becoming seriously dehydrated.

"Let me be," she murmured, never opening her eyes.

Gollancz sat quietly through the small hours, observing no change. This sort of febrile crisis was uncommon. She had sunk into delirium, and yet delirium was extremely rare in this strain of the disease. She didn't have the African variety, so dangerous and usually fatal. But she had succumbed to this milder, repetitive variety as if it were the falciparum kind. At last he concluded that something larger than the ague affected Rosa. She suffered a profound malady of soul or spirit. Rosa's soul was weighted with despair. The woman was trying to die.

Yes, that was it. She had been reduced to slavery. One heartless gambler had wagered her. Another gambler had bet on her. Neither had cared an iota about her feelings. She had become chattel, a plaything, a fabulous beauty to show off, even a source of income. He knew something about this woman. She often dealt faro, and usually attracted a throng of hungry, admiring miners. So this Billy Behind the Ace was exploiting her, and her heart had broken, and now in her degradation she hoped to escape the cage of life, so her soul might fly free like a canary suddenly loosed.

Ah, these Americans! A new race formed out of many. Admirable, adventuresome and barbarous! What unthinkable conduct! Gambling for a woman without the slightest attention to her wishes. Ah, how those tinhorns had circled around her. The first one had seduced her and took her away from a respectable life; now this one was oppressing her, and she was trying to die.

The tinhorn had retired to the horsehair sofa in the parlor, and once in a while Gollancz could hear him snore or toss. Just as well. If the man were hovering around, Gollancz would probably vent his fury on the bounder. Instead, he had the bedroom to himself, and he sat quietly in a Morris chair, gazing into the night. He was growing weary. He had been robbed of sleep many times; that was part of his calling. But this night he felt depressed. He turned the wick down and waited in the close, choking dark, listening to her labored breathing and pondering the strangeness of life.

In the gray light of first dawn he sensed a change. He slid to her bedside and discovered a dry, cool forehead under his hand and a serene, steady breath.

"Who are you?" she said.

Startled, he drew back. She was gazing at him. No delirium or confusion in her face this time. "A surgeon. Sandor Gollancz."

"Where are you from?"

"A place near Budapest."

"Is that in Africa?"

"No, my dear, it is part of the Austro-Hungarian empire."

"Wherever that is. Yoah heah to fix my ague?"

He could sort out these strains of Yankee English well enough to know she was from the Confederacy. "We can help it; we can't cure it. I've given you quinine. Chinchona. You'll have another episode in about two days. Much milder if you stay on these tablets." He eyed her shrewdly. "But I'm not sure you'll take them as directed."

"Why wouldn't I?"

He wondered whether to talk about his diagnosis, and decided to approach it by indirection. "Are you happy?"

"Oh, famously. Ah can hardly wait to be up and rarin'."

"I can hardly imagine a woman in your position being very happy. You're far from home, I take it."

"Ah sure am. War's upsetting everyone in the whole parish."

"Well, you escaped the war, only to fall into your own type of slavery."

"Whatevah are you saying?"

"Well, Mr. Ace he told me you'd taken up with a riverboat gambler and come west with him, and then he wagered a great deal of money ah, over ten thousand dollars for you."

"Oh, my, Ah could hardly stand it."

"Yes, that's the point. Just so. You had no say in the matter. Here were two uncaring gamblers wagering for the possession of a beautiful woman."

"Yoah a dear, callin' me that, especially how I look now. But that's why Ah could hardly stand it! Ah never dreamed Ah was worth ten thousand dollars."

That took the doctor aback. Could this gentle southern belle be just as barbarous as her consorts? He leaned forward a bit. "I believe your gentleman is asleep in the parlor. We can talk freely. I think you're in desperate circumstances, far from home, alone, with no future, desolate. I think you opened your arms and embraced the ague hoping it would deliver you from your mortal coil. I think you weep inside, even while you smile to the world."

"Ah sure was sick," she said, a smile building on that gorgeous, ravaged face.

"Yes. And sometimes sickness is caused by despair. The spirit within us says to the body, let go of life, and the body lets go." He paused pregnantly. "That's the case, isn't it, Rosa?"

"Whatevah are you saying?"

"Everything's been taken from you. Your natural liberty, your woman's dignity. Men wager for you. There's nothing left. Not sweet motherhood, not respectability, not life in the bosom of your family raising sweet children. It's all gone."

"Yoah crackbrained. Where'd you say you come from?"

"I'm Hungarian. I learnt English studying surgery a year in Edinburgh under Lister after my schooling in Hungary."

"Well, you listen to me, Doctor Gallups. Ah never did have such a thrill in my life. Getting bet on for ten thousand Yankee dollars! Woo-ee!"

It was dawning on Sandor Gollancz that he had misdiagnosed the case. "Tell me," he said quietly, "what you want in life."

"Why, Ah just will, honey. When Billy's bank fattens up a bit, we're going to Virginia City, and Ah'll deal and we'll see who bets on me. Ah'd just love to be worth fifty thousand dollars. Billy thinks I'm worth it. Why, Ah've had ambition since I was a girl."

Gollancz stared at her, incredulous. "But what if you didn't like the gentleman who won you?"

"Why, Ah'd ask him to bet me for a hundred thousand. Ah'd just love to be won by one of those Silver Kings, like Mackey or Fair, or some San Francisco gold king."

"But what of your personal life?"

"That is my personal life! If I got wagered at a hundred thousand dollars there'd be nobody on earth nobody who'd ever snub me again!"

"But..." The doctor's protestation faded in his throat. He wanted to know whether her liberty meant a thing to her. It didn't seem to. These crass Americans talked a lot about it, but chased money and kept slaves. "What if you refused to live with the man who'd won you on a wager?"

"Ah just might," she said. "Then they'd call me the woman who cost some old fool a hundred thousand dollars. That'd be just as nice."

"But what of love?" Gollancz asked weakly.

"Why, you old goose, what's a better pledge of love than a hundred thousand dollars? Ah'd be so flattered Ah'd just wrap my arms around that little old man and kiss him to death."

Gollancz had an awful urge to try an eleven thousand bet for her, but he didn't have a thousand to his name. He eyed the voluptuous Rosa, all too aware of the way the damp cotton clung to her perfect curves.

"I've seen you through," he said abruptly. "I'm a bit weary myself." He counted out thirty tablets from the pasteboard box. "I want you to take one of these every eight hours," he said. "Have you taken quinine before?"

"Oh, a few times."

"Then you know there'll be several attacks, each one weaker. This is enough for ten days. Drink a lot of water. If the fever comes back, send for me. If your urine is black or discolored, send for me."

"Yoah a dear."

"No, I'm a man without a country," he said. "Shall I leave a statement with you?"

"Oh, stick Billy with it."

Doctor Gollancz pulled his nib and ink bottle and statement pad from the Gladstone, and charged Billy seven dollars for the long consultation and vigil, and two-fifty for the quinine. He doubted he would ever be paid. He placed the bill on a table in the parlor and peered around, wondering what the place would tell him. Not the slightest effort had gone into beautifying the little flat. Cheap furniture filled it. Not a lithograph or painting graced a wall. No carpet softened the plank floor. This wasn't a home; it was a nesting place. No one in the American West had a home.

The doctor padded past the gambler, who snored on the sofa, and softly let himself out. When he reached the street, he found it gilded by the horizonal sun. He stood there and stretched, enjoying the velvety dry air, and the hush that would soon vanish under the frenetic labor of the Americans. He meant to nap a few hours.

These Americans! Barbarous! A woman whose self-esteem was based on the amount someone might gamble to have her! A man who'd wagered his last cent to win her! He laughed. He didn't mind it at all. Truth to tell, he wished he had the brass to live like that. He thought he would if he stayed here. He himself was changing. This fierce, rocky, harsh land was somehow transforming him into a man who matched the desert. He had intended to sow a few wild oats for a few years and then sail for Le Havre, having had his fill of American wildness. But this morning he knew he wouldn't. He would never have his fill of this reckless people and this new land.

*~*~*~*~*
Copyright © 2000 Richard S. Wheeler. All rights reserved.