The Larson outfit headed out at first light pushing a long line of lowing cattle ahead of them. Randall watched them go, sitting beside a little campfire until the whole magnificent operation was just a cloud of dust receding into the distance. When he felt he’d wasted enough time, he gulped down the rest of his coffee and kicked out the fire then headed down into Lincolntown.

  The town had little to commend it to a sensible traveler. About twenty matchstick buildings dotted around a muddy maze of walking paths and wagon streets caked in human and animal filth alike. While hardly a place for civilized tourism, Lincolntown, and other cow towns like it, were havens of recreation for trail-weary cowpunchers. Some of the boys had even seen Billy’s sickness as a cause for celebration, a chance to spend an extra day or two drinking or flirting in the local taverns, before his condition had worsened and the fun had evaporated along with Billy’s health.

  Randall had few stops on his agenda that morning and he was confident he could make them all and be back at Billy’s shack before the sick man woke up, if, indeed, the fevered delirium that beset people of his affliction could be called a waking state at all.

  First, Randall wanted to see to Billy’s requests for paper and a Bible, and for these things he headed to the general store. To say Randall expected a warm welcome would be overgenerous but he certainly did not expect the frigid reception awaiting him as he stepped in Bunsall’s Mercantile and the titular proprietor Bunsall at the work of opening for the day’s sales.

  “I’m looking for letter paper,” Randall announced, approaching the counter, “And pencils.”

  “Ah,” said Bunsall, taking in Randall’s posture and trail clothes at a glance, “And you would be?”

  “Randall Geets.”

  “With the Larson outfit,” said Bunsall, not so much asking as telling. His thick brow furrowed over the round little lenses of his book-keepers glasses.

  “What of it?” asked Randall, taking a step toward the counter that seemed to cause Mr. Bunsall considerable distress.

  “Keep your distance, if you please,” said Bunsall, retreating a step and raising his hands like he was warding off a bad spirit. Randall paused, awkwardly, in about the middle of the room, unsure of what to do.

  “You’re not sick are you?” said Bunsall, skewering Randall with a suspicious glare from beady little eyes, “Word is going around your outfit had a man come down with the pox. Bad business, the pox. You haven’t got it, have you?”

  “Not that I know of.”

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  “Then why you here? The Larson outfit left this morning, everybody knows. They leave you behind because you’re feeling poorly, hmm?”

  “Not that I know of,” Randall repeated, this time with more decisiveness in his voice and more than a hint of irritation.

  “That’s the trouble with the pox, isn’t it? You don’t always know when you’ve got it it until it’s too late and all the while you’re prancing about, feeling fine, and exuding bad vapors all over - don’t touch that!”

  Bunsall’s last exclamation came as Randall reached out hand to feel some blankets that happened to be in a folded stack near where he stood. He jerked his hand back in surprise at the vehemence in Bunsall’s voice.

  “Those are wool blankets,” Bunsall said, “Wool is very porous. I’ll never get your secretions out of those and I won’t risk sending this town to hell because some pox-ridden cowboy got handsy with my merchandise. I’m an ethical businessman.”

  “Clearly.”

  I don’t care for your lip any more than your vapors, sir, so if you will kindly leave my merchandise alone, take your diseased aura, and get out of my store?”

  “I ain't got the pox,” said Randall, raising his hands to demonstrate his good intentions, “I just came to buy some paper and Bible for a fella that does.”

  “Ain’t got no Bibles.”

  “Just the paper then,” Randall said and dug some of the bills given to him by Larson out of his pocket to show the storeman, “I got money.”

  “I can’t take your tainted money,” wailed Bunsall, “It has as much chance as carrying the disease as you do. Take your money and get out.”

  “For God’s sake,” said Randall, losing what little remained of his patience, “Take the money or don’t but just give me the damn paper.”

  “And just why should I give you good stationary when your money is no good, sir?”

  Randall scowled at the man behind the counter.

  “Because an ethical businessman like yourself knows what a comfort it would be to a dyin' man in his final hours.”

  Bunsall did not seem convinced but, seeming to weigh the alternatives of giving away a few pages of paper and having this, potentially contagious, cowboy continue to linger and infect his store the former seemed the lesser sacrifice in the end.

  “Wait there,” said Bunsall, “Do not move. And for God’s sake don’t touch anything.”

  Bunsall disappeared for a moment behind the counter and reappeared with a few sheets of white paper in hand. He tossed them onto the floor at Randall’s feet.

  “There,” said Bunsall, “Paper enough to rewrite the blessed Constitution now get out, won’t you? Just please get out.”

  “I need some pencils, too.”

  Bunsall groaned and snatched an unsharpened pencil from a tin can beside the cash drawer. He flipped it through the air and it landed on the floor beside the paper.

  “Much obliged,” said Randall, bending to collect the writing materials, “Another satisfied customer, Mr. Bunsall.”

  “Get out.”

  Randall turned back toward the door to the street but paused for a moment when the stack of wool blankets caught the corner of his eye.

  “Is wool really as porous as all that?” he asked Bunsall.

  “Extremely,” said Bunsall.

  “Even the slightest touch could contaminate a whole blanket, that a fact?”

  “That’s a fact,” asserted Mr. Bunsall.

  “Fancy that,” said Randall and then, turning so that Bunsall could see clearly and unobstructed, Randall raised his hand and licked his own palm in a slow, deliberate display and, before Mr. Bunsall could protest, wiped his damp palm across the topmost blanket.

  Mr. Bunsall’s mouth dropped open and Randall grinned at him.