"She's not going to turn mannish, now is she? Being as how the degenerate hoople fed her the stuff he himself was supposed to take to get a hard-on?" Doc had learned by now that any concern Al might feel was always heavily buried beneath a harshly sarcastic pragmatism, but he could no more change his ways than he could Al's, so he began the usual argument:
"It doesn't work like that. It doesn't even work. I would've though in your career you'd have achieved a certain familiarity with cantharides."
"Won't sell'em, if that's what you mean, but it's hard to stop the ignorant from using 'em."
"Well one of the ignorant, setting aside for the moment the possibility of deliberate malice, almost killed Dolly tonight."
* * * *
The room was chilly from an opened window which nonetheless had not yet let in enough fresh air to clear the taint of vomit. Dolly slept fitfully under a blanket. Her mouth was still swollen and blistered, but she was breathing. Jewel was curled up on a nearby divan, passed out from the effort of running back and forth all evening, bringing milk and emptying the stomach pump. Doc was huddled in a chair between his patient and his assistant, his eyes hollow but awake, when Trixie entered.
"Don't you ever fuckin' sleep?"
"No, and no." He sighed before it could dawn on her that he'd actually made a joke. "Not here, anyway. I…tend to nightmares, and I don't want to disturb the house."
"Go back to your cabin, then. I'll watch her."
"Trixie, you know I trust you, but I can't yet say for certain Dolly's out of danger, and it would be an act of hubris on my part to leave her side now. Besides," he added somberly, "Reason, knowledge and experience all tell me I'm in need of sleep; but my heart fears it like a child fears the taste of medicine – no matter how much good it may do him." He looked over at Jewel's flushed, sleeping face. "Whatever burdens she may bear, her mind is the healthiest I've ever met." He turned his eyes wistfully towards Trixie. "If I could sleep so peaceful, 'twould be a pleasure to be weary."
"Expect she wishes you could, too." Doc nodded, and stroked Jewel's hair.
"Not that I object to the company, but why're you up and about at this hour?"
"Too damn angry to sleep."
"You likely saved her life by sending for help as soon as her mouth went numb."
"I want hell's vengeance on the cocksucker as fed her the stuff. Now don't look at me like that. I heard out your argument already, and you're right, you're fuckin' right - we should wait until Dolly's conscious and able to tell us who, before we start chopping off heads; but I just don't feel like being patient right now."
"Guess I'd better hold my tongue, then."