Chapter 3
The clinic was a modest, single-story building on the edge of Silver Cross. Its weathered wooden walls were stained by years of sun and smoke. A faded sign above the door read Dr. Abigail Monroe, Physician it was faint, like the kind that rises from a stove fired up indoors.
Curious and drawn by a flicker of hope, he guided Spirit toward the building.
He tethered Spirit outside, his gaze fixed on the door. He hesitated, the weight of the confrontation in town still pressing on him, but the need for answers drew him forward.
The clinic smelled of boiled water, carbolic acid, and faintly of blood. It was a sharp and almost metallic scent that Anthony remembered from battlefield tents during the Mexican War—a war his father had died fighting in. Anthony himself had not fought in that war.
Still, he knew that it was a smell that meant life and death were standing shoulder to shoulder, daring each other to blink.
The building was small, with just two rooms. Its whitewashed walls were already stained in places by smoke from the iron stove in the corner. The front room held a desk littered with papers and instruments, a few rough chairs for patients, and a long bench pushed against the wall.
The back room was where the work happened. Anthony stepped into it.
And there she was.
Dr. Abigail Monroe.
Not that he knew her name for sure, but she did look like she ran this place.
She stood over a crude wooden table with her sleeves rolled high. Her hands were slick to the wrist with red. A child that couldn’t have been older than seven lay on the table, his bare chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths.
The boy’s skin was darker than Anthony’s—the copper-brown of the Shoshone. A sheen of fever-sweat covered him from brow to belly.
The woman didn’t look up when the door swung shut behind Anthony. She had the kind of focus that made the rest of the world irrelevant.
“You’re dripping mud on my floor,” she said, her voice low.
Anthony glanced down. She was right. His boots were caked from the street outside.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I thought you—”
“I can’t talk now,” she interrupted, still not meeting his gaze. “Unless you want to stand there watching a boy die, pick up that basin and hold it steady.”
Anthony hesitated only a heartbeat. She wasn’t asking to be polite; she was ordering, the way a sergeant might in the thick of a fight. He crossed to the table, took the enamel basin from the edge, and steadied it as she rinsed her hands.
“What happened to him?” Anthony asked.
“Rancher’s men found him out near the creek,” she said, picking up a pair of long, thin forceps. “Arrow wound to the side. But that’s not what’s killing him.”
Her hands moved with practiced precision, probing gently around the boy’s ribs. The child whimpered faintly but didn’t wake.
“Something’s inside,” she said. “Metal, I think. If I don’t get it out now, the fever will take him before morning.”
“You’ve done this before?” Anthony asked, leaning forward slightly.
That earned him the first flicker of eye contact. Her eyes were green—not the bright emerald of cheap jewelry, but deep forest green, flecked with gold too. They were eyes that had seen too much and weren’t impressed by what they saw now.
“Plenty,” she said. “But never without help.”
She handed him a folded square of cloth.
“Keep pressure here,” she instructed, guiding his hand to the wound in the boy’s side. “Not too hard. You’ll block my way in.”
The heat of the boy’s fever radiated through the cloth. Anthony’s jaw tightened. He’d seen wounded men like this after a fight, their bodies burning up from within while their strength drained away.
The boy whimpered when Abigail pressed a poultice to his side. Anthony steadied the child’s shoulders without thinking, his big hands gentle against the fragile frame.
“Keep him still,” she said, not looking up.
Her voice was calm, but Anthony could hear the strain beneath it. She reached for a bone-handled scalpel resting in a pan of boiling water on the small stove.
“What’re you about to do, ma’am?” he asked.
“Drain the infection,” she said simply, wiping her hands on a linen cloth. “If I don’t, he’ll be gone by nightfall.”
Anthony tightened his grip on the boy. “Do it.”
Abigail worked with a precision born from long hours and little sleep. She opened the abscess with one sure movement, and a foul-smelling mix of pus and blood welled up. The boy’s eyes fluttered, and he groaned through clenched teeth.
Anthony kept his gaze steady on the boy’s face. “Easy, son,” he said. “Just hold on a minute longer.”
Abigail flushed the wound with boiled water and a tincture that stung the air with sharp alcohol. She packed it with crushed leaves and wrapped it in fresh cloth, binding it tight.
When she finally sat back, her hands were trembling, though her voice remained firm. “It’s done.”
Anthony eased the boy onto a cot near the stove, where the heat would keep the chill off him. “You’ve clearly done this before,” he said, straightening up.
Her eyes flicked to his. “Too many times.”
For the first time, Anthony took in the state of the clinic: cramped shelves of jars, threadbare curtains, a floor swept but worn with use.
“And all this for the Shoshone kids?” he asked.
Abigail rinsed her hands, scrubbing until her skin turned pink. “Not just them,” she said. “Anyone who needs me.”
There was something in her tone that made Anthony study her a moment longer. A steeliness. A kind of quiet defiance.
She noticed his look and lifted her chin. “The town doctor won’t treat the tribe,” she said with a sigh. “Says it’s ‘not worth the trouble.’ So, I do it. And I don’t ask for permission.”
Anthony gave a slow nod. “I reckon that takes grit.”
She almost smiled, but it faded quickly as she glanced back at the boy. “Grit doesn’t keep them alive,” she replied.
Anthony crossed his arms. “You’re saying something else is killing ’em?”
“Yes,” she said, her gaze sharpening. “And I can prove it.” She reached for a jar on the shelf, half-filled with cloudy water. “But not here . . . not now,” she said. “You want answers? Come back tomorrow.”
Anthony studied her for a long moment, then gave a single nod. “Tomorrow, then.”
He turned to go but paused at the door, glancing back at the boy asleep under the thin blanket. “He’ll make it?”
“If the fever breaks,” she said quietly. “We’ll see by morning.”
Anthony wondered why she hesitated to tell him everything now.
Was it fear? Protection? Or something darker lurking in the town’s shadows? He didn’t want to return to the main street. Not yet. The sheriff’s presence still lingered in his mind, a reminder that trust was scarce in Silver Cross.
Instead, he decided to visit the place where he had buried his family—a somber sanctuary away from prying eyes.