"What did my colleague in Creede say?"
"I won't tell you. I want you to examine me and tell me. Then I'll tell you."
"You don't trust me."
"You saved my life."
"Then you don't trust my profession."
"Doc, if I went around trusting, I'd be dead many times over."
Hostetler smiled. "All right. I'll examine you. But if I'm to know what to look for, you'll have to tell me what bothers you."
"Fair enough. I hurt. I hurt like sin. Here, in the crotch." Books pointed at the pillow under him. "I've been hurting for two months, and it gets worse. At first I thought it might be an old dose of clap, raring up on me again, but I was cured of that. Also I have trouble with my waterworks. It hurts to piddle, and I am slow as Job's goat at it."
The doctor listened. "Pain in the lumbar spine?"
"Lumbar?"
"Lower."
"Yes."
"Noticed any loss of weight?"
"I might be a bit puny."
Hostetler nodded, thinking. "All right. Take off your clothes."
Books began to do so, and while he did, the doctor removed his coat, rolled up his right shirt sleeve, washed his hands at the bowl, dried them, opened his bag, took out a jar of petroleum jelly, and lubricated his right index finger.
Books faced him, in longjohns.
"Kneel on the bed, hind end to me," Hostetler ordered. "Trapdoor down."
"You may dress now," said Hostetler.
Books dressed, and the doctor washed his hands, dried them, closed his bag, rolled down his sleeve, buttoned the cuff, donned his coat again, and seated himself. Books stood, an elbow on the chiffonier.
"Well?"
The doctor cleared his throat. "Books, every few days I have to tell a man or a woman something I don't want to. I'm not very good at it. I have practiced medicine for twenty-nine years, and I still don't know how to do it well."
"Call a spade a spade."
"How old are you?"
"Fifty-one."
"All right." Hostetler crossed his legs. "You have a carcinoma of the prostate."
"Carcinoma?"
"Cancer. That's the general term. In your case there has been considerable metastasis—spreading. When I examine you rectally I find a hard, rocklike mass spreading laterally from the prostate gland to the base of the bladder to the rectum. Is this what the man in Creede told you?"
"Yes."
"You didn't believe him?"
"No."
"Do you believe me?"
"Can't you cut it out?"
"It's too far advanced. I'd have to gut you like a fish."
"What can you do?"
"Very little. Palliation. Keep you warm and comfortable as possible. See that you eat as well as you can as long as you can. Give you drugs for the pain."
Books looked at him intently. "What you're saying is, I am a dying man."
"I am."
Books strode to the leather chair, threw the crimson pillow at a wall, and sat down, making a strange, twisted face. "I will be God damned."
"I'm sorry," said Hostetler.
"No, you're not. I said, you don't approve of me."
"That's neither here nor there. You're a human being and my patient. Therefore I'm sorry."
Books stared out a window. "I never expected to go this way."
"I'm sure you didn't."
"If I'd known this was coming."
"If it's any consolation, no one does."
"How long have I got?"
"There's no way to tell. You must be in a lot of pain already. For the life of me, I don't know how you rode down from Colorado in your condition. That, by the way, may have done you damage. Hurried matters along, I mean. Excitation of the cells."
"You said I am strong as an ox."
"Even an ox dies."
"Put it this way. If you were a betting man, how long would you say?"
"Two months. Three months. Six weeks."
"You betting wind or money?"
"Money."
"Will it be a hard death?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Can I go out? Can I have a drink? Can I play cards? Can I make love to a woman?"
"For a while. Later on you won't want to. Or be able to."
"How much later?"
The doctor shrugged. "You'll know when."
"God damn it."
"Books, I am sorry."
"So am I."
Charles Hostetler looked at the watch in his vest. "I must go. Another call to make, a pregnancy, any day now. That's the way it goes. I'll stop by tomorrow with something for you to take. For the pain. Oh, and I'll bring a book along, so you can read up on carcinoma. If you care to."
"I care to."
The doctor rose, picked up his bag.
"You can do me a favor," Books said. "Keep it to yourself I am in town."
"I surely will."
"I guess you won't mention I am a goner."
"I won't. That's your privilege." The doctor went to the door. "See you tomorrow."
There was no answer.
He sat for some time after Hostetler had gone, a man of stone. He was exhausted. The wind which had trailed him to El Paso continued to blow outside, begging round the corners of the house to be let in, and though the windows were closed, over the wind he heard, once, a high ringing sound, iron on iron, like that of clapper on bell.
He thought: Well. I am not going to the Orndorff, or the Big Gold Bar, or the Red Light, or a parlor house. So long, bare-assed blonde. Good-by, redhead. Farewell, octoroon. I am going to hole up in this room and die like some animal. In two months, three months, six weeks. And a hard death to boot. That will pleasure hell out of a lot of people. But I will not think about it now. I will have a drink and read the paper.
He stood up, took the whiskey bottle from the closet shelf and had a long pull, replaced his pillow in the armchair seat, picked up his paper, and sat down again.
He thought: This is the last newspaper I will ever read. I won't buy another. I have skimmed newspapers all my life and never got the whole good out of one. Well, I will read every word in this one and when done I will know for a fact what was going on in the world on the twenty-second day of January in the year 1901. It is a damned important day to me. For a sizable part of it, I did not know I was about to die, so in a way it was my last one alive. From now on, however many days I am allowed, they will all be downhill.
The first item which caught his attention was on the front page:
Cowes, Isle of Wight, Jan. 22—The death mask of the queen will be made by Mr. Theed, the famous sculptor. He was summoned to Osborne House on Sunday to be in readiness for the work. Artists and sculptors the world over are interested in Mr. Theed's important mission.
He thought: I will not break. I won't tell anybody what a tight I am in. I will keep my pride. And my guns loaded to the last.
Gillom Rogers slept late, then yawned downstairs to the dining room. The regulars, the two railroaders and the teacher, had long ago breakfasted and gone, and the house was quiet. His mother sat opposite while he ate, sipping coffee and appraising her son as though to sustain a conviction that he could not yet be a man. Shave or not, tall or not, handsome or not, profane or not, intractable or not, seventeen, she believed, was still a boy.
Gillom nodded toward the rear room. "He in there?"
"Yes."
"What'd you feed him? Horseshoe nails and a cup of coal oil?"
"Sshh. He'll hear you."
"Who gives a damn."
She recalled washing out his mouth with soap when he was ten. "School this afternoon?"
"Hah."
"What, then?"
He tilted his chair to reflect. "Let's see. The Connie first, I guess."