“For God’s sake!” the guard said, pointing. “Get downstairs! Try to help them, Doctor! I’ve got to go for Sheriff Dunning!”

“But what’s-” the Doctor started to ask; the guard, though, was already shooting away.

“Help them, Doctor, please!” he cried as he left.

Marcus watched him go, wondering, “Why the hell didn’t he use the telephone?”

“He’s terrified past reason,” the Doctor answered quickly, catching his breath. “And I can only think of one reason why-come!”

Leading the way again, the Doctor entered the court house, shooting over to the doorway behind the guard station. It opened onto a set of stone stairs what the Doctor had no trouble negotiating, given the many times he’d been down them during his interviews with Libby Hatch. As his feet danced quickly along, leading us into the bowels of the building, he kept muttering to himself, over and over again, “Stupidity-stupidity!”

Bursting into a central room in the basement what was the receiving area for the various jail cells beyond, the Doctor suddenly stopped-as did the rest of us, when we followed him to take in the scene in that dimly lit stone chamber:

Propped up against one wall was the guard Henry. His eyes were open wide, and his jaw was hanging away from his head at an awkward sort of angle. His throat had been cut from ear to ear, and there were a few other stab wounds in his chest. He wasn’t bleeding, though-at least, not anymore. Every drop of blood in his body, it seemed, had oozed out to drench his clothes and create a huge, dark pool on the floor under and around his body.

Across from him, also propped up against a wall, was Mr. Picton. He, too, had a few ugly wounds in his chest, and a nasty cut on one side of his neck; but unlike Henry’s, his open eyes held a faint glimmer of life, while his mouth seemed to be taking air in, even if it was only in fitful little gasps.

The pool of blood what surrounded him, though, was near as big as the one what the dead guard lay in.

While the rest of us were studying this scene in shock, the Doctor got straight over to Mr. Picton and made a quick examination of his wounds. “Cyrus!” he called. “I’ll need my medical bag from the house!” Without a word, Cyrus vanished back into and up the staircase. “Detective Sergeant!” the Doctor went on, looking to Lucius. “You, too, Sara-help me! John, Marcus, we’ll need bandages-shred your shirts, both of you!”

As everybody else moved to do what they were told, El Niño and I wandered slowly over to stand behind them. It was an awful sight, so awful as to be past immediate comprehending, at least for me. El Niño, on the other hand-who’d seen a lot of brutal bloodshed in his life-seemed to grasp it all right away: he fell helplessly to his knees, hung his head for a moment, then raised it to stare at the ceiling with wide, despairing eyes. All of a sudden he let out a long, terrible wail, one what cut through the night like a wolf’s howl and made me realize, for the first time, the true meaning of what I was looking at.

“Jefe!”the aborigine wailed, beginning to weep. “Señor Picton, no! No!”

The sound of El Niño’s grief caused Mr. Picton to turn his head ever so slightly, a movement what appeared to cause him great pain. As he glanced up to see the Doctor, Lucius, and Miss Howard working on his wounds, he tried to get enough spit into his mouth to speak.

“My God…” he gasped, “that’s a hell of a noise, for such a little man to make…”

“You’ve got to keep quiet, Rupert,” Mr. Moore said, as he and Marcus frantically tore their shirts into bandage strips. The sight of his old friend lying there so badly wounded seemed to move our journalist friend to the point of tears; but he ground the reaction away with his teeth and just kept ripping. “You’re going to be all right, but for once in your life, please keep quiet!”

Mr. Picton choked out a small chuckle, at that, then winced once hard. “I’m sorry, John,” he breathed. “I’m sorry I always talked too much… I know it embarrassed you sometimes…”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Mr. Moore said, having a harder time, now, keeping the tears back.

“And the Doctor…” Mr. Picton went on, glancing at the man who was feverishly trying to bind his wounds and stop his bleeding. “You always wanted to… to know, Doctor… why I was that way… my context …” A sudden cough brought a splatter of blood up and onto the Doctor’s chest, but he kept working on his patient. “I was going to tell you…” Mr. Picton went on. “I meant to tell you…”

“Mr. Picton, you must listen to John,” the Doctor answered. “It’s imperative that you remain quiet.”

“Heard that before…” Mr. Picton breathed. Then he took in one or two desperate gulps of air, his chest going into some kind of a spasm; it seemed to subside, though, and as it did, he let his eyes drift over to the guard Henry’s body. “I’ve… been lying here… watching him…” Another small laugh got out. “The idiot… how many stories… true and fictitious, Doctor… would you imagine involve jailers being… seduced by their captives…?”

“Please, Rupert,” Miss Howard said, herself seeming close to tears. She reached up to put two bloody fingers to his lips, then smiled weakly. “Do try to lie still. I know it’s difficult for you-”

Mr. Picton pulled his head away from her fingers, then smiled back at her. “Sara… I would prefer… as little interference… with my death scene… as possible…” Looking at Henry again and taking another difficult, wheezing breath, Mr. Picton went on, “I… would calculate that there are hundreds… of such stories… It’s a measure… of the man’s illiteracy, you see… That’s what’s so interesting…” He began to cough up blood again, and this time the action caused him much more agony: he grabbed at the lapel of the Doctor’s jacket, eyes bulging wide, and pulled hard. “It wasn’t… her…” he gasped, blood now pouring from his mouth and drenching his ginger beard. “She told him … to kill me… But the pinheaded fool… couldn’t even manage that properly…” Sitting back as his face went terribly pale, Mr. Picton added, “Then she killed him…. over an hour ago… She’s got the jump on you, Doctor… You’ve got to go… go …”

“Rupert, in the name of heaven, shut up!”Mr. Moore said, the tears now out of his eyes and streaming down his cheeks.

Mr. Picton smiled over at him once more, then tried to look around to the rest of us. “You’ve all… I want to thank you…” Taking hold of the Doctor’s lapel again, he whispered, “When they bury me, Doctor… look at the graves… my family… a clue…”

Then his head fell to one side, and all the silvery spark of recognition slipped out of his eyes.

The Doctor put his fingers to Mr. Picton’s throat, then pulled out his watch and, opening it, held the shiny cover under the man’s bloody nostrils. “He’s still breathing,” the Doctor announced, going back to work. “But just.”

The sound of footsteps came echoing down the stone stairs, and then Cyrus reappeared, carrying the Doctor’s black medical bag. Mrs. Hastings followed along behind him in a few seconds, and when she saw the bloody scene on the floor her hands flew up to cover her mouth.

“Oh, Your Honor!” she cried quietly, rushing over to stand by the Doctor. “Oh, Your Honor, no!”

“Mrs. Hastings,” the Doctor said, trying hard to keep everybody on track. “Mrs. Hastings!” he repeated, grabbing the woman’s arm and getting her attention. “Do you know if Dr. Lawrence has any sort of surgical equipment in his office? Mr. Picton cannot be moved as far as Saratoga, but we can’t give him the help he needs here.”

Trying to stifle her own weeping, Mrs. Hastings nodded. “Yes-I think so-that is, we took my husband there when he-oh, Your Honor, I can’t bear it!”

“Listen to me!” the Doctor said. “Take the detective sergeant with you.” With a nod of his head he indicated Marcus, who had put his jacket back on over his undershirt. “Telephone Dr. Lawrence, and tell him to prepare. Then get over to Mr. Wooley, at the stables. Have him ready his gentlest wagon, and fit it out with whatever padding he can. Mrs. Hastings!” The Doctor grasped the grief-stricken woman’s arm harder. “Can you do this?”