Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5
Babylonian Talmud

Albuquerque, New Mexico, late September, 1868

Heath sat quietly on the back porch of the Levi's small house, watching the crescent moon follow the sun down in the west and repairing a section of harness. He listened in as the rabbi gave the twins their lessons from the Talmud. He couldn't do much more than sit quietly, still, recovering as he was from a back full of buckshot and other debris he had received a little over a week ago. He'd signed up to help out a friend in the Lincoln County War. After the army, he had promised himself that he wouldn't ever sell his gun for a killing job, but he'd gotten word that Hannah had taken ill, and the need for some money at home was urgent.

He took his twenty-five dollars for signing on, and few days later, Heath was dry-gulched by a rat of a man who made extra money shooting his supposed fellows in the back, and selling their saddles - the accepted proof of death - to the paymaster. The paymaster, apparently, didn't care to know which side of the battle the saddle came from. That fact alone taught Heath an important lesson about the nature of the "war" he had signed up for.

Too late, though. Heath had escaped death by clubbing the shooter with his rifle butt and crawling away, but then spent a terrible night or two hiding up in a ravine, trying to decide whether to live or die. Actually, he realized, he had decided pretty promptly to live, but getting himself back to the land of the living took a little doing.

He managed to get to a crossroads. His horse was gone along with his saddle. He begged rides via wagon, stage coach, anything moving in the right direction, trying to get to Albuquerque while still salvaging the little money he had to send back to Strawberry. He literally crawled onto the Levi's back porch in the middle of the night, where Hadassah found him in the morning.

He wasn't yet up to the heavy sort of work that he would usually do to repay the family for the open door they kept for him, but he did anything and everything Hadassah would allow him to put his hand to. Rivka came outside when she had finished her schoolwork and sat companionably by him on the step, leaning lightly against his shoulder as she read a book about nautical navigation.

Rabbi Levi was reading a passage from his text to the boys. "This is something you will hear often quoted and discussed. Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world. Understand, there are many ways to destroy a soul - we do not speak here just of killing. To shame or belittle, to betray a trust, to frighten or bully - all of these. Similarly, the ways to save a life, to lift up another, are many. Maimonides wrote this: Every man should view himself as equally balanced: half good and half evil. Likewise, he should see the entire world as half good half evil... So that with a single good deed he will tip the scales for himself, and for the entire world, to the side of good. Avram, can you give me an example -"

Heath caught his breath, staring down at the harness in his hands, which had suddenly become blurry in the tears that filled his eyes. How many worlds were lost? Jimmy, Bradley, almost everyone I served with? And how many souls have I destroyed? How can I tip the balance for good? Is it even possible to redeem what I've done?

"Heath? Why are you so sad?" Rivka had closed her book and was looking at him, worried for the distress she saw there.

She looked so young to him, almost a child, and he suddenly realized she was the age that he had been when he was captured and sent to Carterson. He was so profoundly grateful that she was free of that place, that she could grow up safe and read books about maps and stars. "I was listening to your father, what he was reading. I'm sad - I'm ashamed because I signed up for that pointless blood feud. I took money to go kill men for no good reason. I deserved to be shot in the back. I promised myself I wouldn't make money that way, and - I killed so many men in the war - I can never balance that, can I?"

"You're right about one thing, Heath, signing up was a bad idea. Maybe you should feel grateful to the dry-gulcher that shot you." Heath looked at her, puzzled. "Look, if he hadn't taken you out of the fight so promptly, you likely would have gone on to collect saddles yourself. Aren't you glad he stopped you?"

He laughed. "You are right about that, darlin'. There's always something to feel grateful for, I guess."

"Heath, if you truly feel you aren't a good man - that you don't tip the balance for good - just look at me, my brothers, my family. Look to your people in Strawberry, or the Baums - who, by the way, want you to come to Shabbat dinner this week. Go find Mikey, wherever he is. You are a good man, Heath, and you should have a little compassion for yourself."

"Maybe there's something to feel grateful for even from Carterson," he said. "If I hadn't been locked up there, I wouldn't have you in my life. I'd call that a bargain. I'd pay that price a thousand times over."

He looked into her dark eyes for a long moment, feeling the truth of what he'd just said. Then he cleared his throat, suddenly self-conscious, and turned his attention back to the harness in his hands.

Hadassah called from inside the house. "Rivkeleh! I'm going out to see a patient. Come with me."

Heath felt Rivka lean towards him and warmly kiss his cheek. He looked up, surprised. "A bargain. Yes, you are, definitely," she whispered with a smile, and then she went inside, leaving him breathless.

Carson City Hospital, September 30, 1874

The thinnest rim of a crescent moon could be seen hanging over the Sierras, lingering in the warm orange glow of the sun already set behind the mountains. Heath leaned beside the window of his hospital room, gazing west, aching to go home.

Waxing crescent moon. It's been two weeks since I crash-landed at Buckner's place. Two weeks since my family and the feds came guns blazin' out of the woods and saved my sorry hide. He shook his head, bemused as always by the turns his itinerant life had taken, and the people who had become his family.

He looked down at his right hand. In it he held a balled up chamois cloth, which he squeezed repeatedly, as he had been instructed, to build up strength in his forearm.

He continued to marvel at the fact that his arm was once again his, flesh and blood, uninhabited by monsters, and responding to his commands. It seemed miraculous. During those nightmarish few days - when his arm was first dying in agony, and then coming back to life with just as much agony - he had felt as though the limb had become the nesting place of some ravening outside malignant force. Rather than being a small part of him, the arm had expanded into a vast raging war zone that existed only to torture him, a battlefield from which he could not escape.

Rivka had pulled him from that battlefield with her skill and knowledge, and her courage. It took all of that to do what needed to be done for the injury. Even more, it took courage to stay by his side through what seemed to be the fires of hell and bring him safe to the other side. He knew well that seeing a loved one suffer can be as terrible as any torment.

They had talked about it, that night as they prepared to leave for the hospital. She had warned him. She had told him he was going to want to die, that there would come a moment when he would beg her to let him die, and that she would say no. The one thing they promised each other was not to let go, no matter how hopeless or horrible the moment was.

And he had begged her, he didn't know how many times, to end his life. Begging for death, he nonetheless held on to her, trusting she could see the other shore and would guide him safely. Refusing to end his life, she nonetheless held on to him, and stayed by him all through the crossing.

The nerve injury to his arm, fortunately, seemed on course for a full recovery. By two days after the surgery, he had weakness and unpleasant burning and pins and needles from his bicep down to his thumb, but improvement was continuing, and now he mainly noticed some slight numbness in his right forearm and hand that Rivka expected to resolve completely. His main challenge at this point - aside from recouping from massive blood loss and battered lungs - was getting his strength and range of motion back around all the fractures and dislocations that were still healing.

That should be right quick, if my task master has anything to say about it, he thought with a grin.

Artemis had appointed herself in charge of Heath's rehabilitation, and for the past ten days she had ridden to the hospital as soon as she was done with chores and schoolwork, to supervise him like a drill sergeant. Depending on the day's goals - and Heath's condition - the earnest and energetic redhead would encourage, harangue, challenge, and even compete with her namesake to keep him moving forward.

Just today - with Rivka's approval - Artemis had brought him a new task. She came flying into his room bearing a longbow that stood a hand taller than she, and presented it to him.

"What's this? It's too big for you yet," Heath said, examining it closely.

"I made it over the summer. I know it's too big. It was just such a perfect piece of wood I just had to, even if I couldn't use it right away. I had to have Tommy help me bend it to get the bowstring on." It was nicely made, and he could see her pride in it.

"Then yesterday I realized it's not too big for you. It actually is probably an easy draw for you - or would be, once your arm is better, you know? So I thought you could use it to practice, get your muscles strong again."

"Oh boy," he chuckled, raising an eyebrow at her, "now the pressure's on. If I can't pull this bow I'm really gonna feel like an invalid."

"You are an invalid," she said, matter-of-fact, then backtracked a little when he made a show of being hurt and insulted. "Well, I mean, you're not an invalid, but your arm is, I mean, it's been messed up and so, you have to get it back to normal."

"I know what you mean, huntress. I'm just kidding, I'm not offended. Seriously, it should be easy for me to pull this thing. But one thing I'm sure of, Artemis, is that it is not going to be easy at all, and will probably hurt like blazes besides, and I'm just gonna have to deal with that and keep going. Right?"

She grinned at him, with a bit of a mischievous sparkle in her eye. "Right. And maybe - maybe I'll keep practicing on it as well, and we'll see who can pull it first."

"Oh, you're on, little goddess. I might not have a chance against you in a foot race right now, but there's no way you're pulling that bow before me."

And so that was his task for the day, and it was a challenge, requiring as it did the hand and forearm strength to hold the bowstring; the full range of motion of the collar bone and shoulder joint; and all the muscles overlying the shoulder blade, which he had broken into several pieces diving off a horse.

It was outrageously painful and difficult, precisely because it required everything his right arm was lacking. He was sweating with the effort, his left arm shaking with fatigue almost as much as his right was shaking with pain and weakness. Heath wondered briefly whether Artemis had resorted to some kind of witchery to come up with such a diabolical exercise for him. But by the end of the day, Hallelujah, he could pull the bow and hold it steady for over ten seconds.

Artemis whooped in celebration, and gave him a big hug, which he happily returned.

"You're brutal, you know that? I never had an officer in the army was as tough on me as you are."

"Love you, Uncle Heath. See you tomorrow."

Looking out at the sunset, he smiled, remembering. Miracles all around him, it seemed.

Off and on, these past two weeks, he was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Mostly clear-headed, he was awash with gratitude and awe as he took in the love around him and the prospect of freedom. In these same moments, though, he could suddenly be filled with terror thinking of what could have been lost all along the way, if Mike hadn't survived, or the Levis, or his brothers...and then in the next breath his awareness of the trail of death he'd left behind him could knock him to the ground with grief and the insupportable weight of what was gone. He could never forget that the men he killed were living souls, human beings, someone's son or brother.

Nightmares were still a regular occurrence, though they seemed gradually to be easing in their intensity and macabre detail. Heath had decently long stretches of time during the day during which he felt normal and relaxed. Panic was becoming more the exception than the rule, though he had a particularly bad episode just a day ago, when two dogs started fighting outside his window nearby. Nick had been there, and his combination of brotherly love, greater size, and brute strength helped to contain and settle Heath down in fairly short order.

Rivka had set strict conditions for Heath's activity. She had him on bed rest for a week, and then gradually let him get up and move around, but he'd remained confined to this hospital room. Usually at least one of his family was around him through the day and evening - sometimes all of them at once. But not tonight, for some reason, and he wondered why. He heard the door to his room open and close - then lock, and he found himself suddenly anticipating an intruder rather than a visitor. He turned, on alert, his heart racing.

"Stand down, soldier, it's me," Rivka said, smiling as she walked towards him.

He took a deep breath, consciously trying to relax, though now his heart was racing for other reasons. She had stopped a few paces away and was surveying him from head to toe, thoughtfully, and he began to feel a little fidgety and restless under her intent gaze.

"Artemis tells me you did well today."

He laughed. "Don't think she'd allow me to do otherwise."

"Well," Rivka said, coming closer to him now, "it's been two weeks, and I think we can start lifting the restrictions on your activity. You haven't shown signs of any more bleeding, and you have a good bit more color than you did."

He cleared his throat, trying to keep his attention on what she was saying, though all he was really aware of was how good she smelled. "I think my family has fed me an entire steer just in the past week alone -" His breath caught slightly as she started to unbutton his shirt.

She moved the shirt aside to uncover his right shoulder and evaluate the healing. "Let's see," she said, her tone businesslike. Her proximity, the sensation of her warm hand moving over the bare skin of his chest - it was making him feel anything but businesslike, and he bit his lip, one hand surreptitiously gripping the window sill beside him.

"Any pain here?" she asked, sliding her hand down over his stomach, the other hand moving over his ribs, as she moved a little closer.

He shook his head, swallowed, then managed a "No -" when she looked questioning up at him.

He kept still, his eyes on her face, watching, waiting, wanting, wanting. She held his gaze for a long moment, her expression serious. "My love," she confessed, "I have not only given your family the night off, I have shamelessly abused my authority as a physician and sent home your nurses as well. I want you all to myself."

Then she smiled, slowly, and put her arms around him, and Heath suddenly felt he could breathe again. He buried his hands in her hair, kissing her as if she were the only thing that could save him from starvation.

She yielded to his kiss, opening her lips to him, enjoying the strength she could feel in his arms. His hands came up to caress her shoulders, gently removing one article of clothing after another. Heath moaned, kissing her neck, his roaming hands now at her hips, eager to explore all of her. She laughed softly, still kissing him, as he moved her back toward the bed.

"Get those boots off," she whispered, as she lay back and looked up at him. Then she pulled him down to her, wanting more than anything to feel his weight on her, his warmth, his desire.

He wanted to bury himself in her and never again come up for air. But he knew he had to hold back, and he lifted himself up so he could look at her. Then, reverently, carefully, he unbuttoned the camisole and bent his head to taste her nipples, his hands caressing her breasts, her shoulders, her waist.

He continued to undress her, unlacing her slip and sliding it with her undergarments down her long legs. He was mesmerized by her beauty. His hands and mouth moved over her thighs, her belly, back up to her breasts, her soft neck. She was on fire with his touch. "Oh, Heath, kiss me..."

He kissed her, loving her taste, her shape, her smell. One hand gently stroked and squeezed her breast as they kissed, then moved down to explore the gathering wet heat between her thighs. She caught her breath at the contact. He was tentative, unfamiliar still. She guided him, sighing with pleasure, her hips moving to the rhythm she set with his hand. He learned quickly, and she let go so she could hold him to her and feel the heat of his skin. She was so wet, and the exquisite sensation of his rough, calloused fingers sliding over and into her was too much for her to hold back.

"Don't stop, love, that feels so good - so good - oh, oh, oh my love -" Her head fell back, eyes closing as she gasped with pleasure, and he captured her mouth with his as she came, shuddering and clinging to him, lost in the force of it. She felt she was spinning. "Oh - Heath - oh my -" She shivered again, and she raked her hands through his hair, deepening the kiss, pushing him over into his back, wanting to feel him on every inch of her skin.

She then proceeded to kiss her way down to his jeans, mercifully freeing his erection from its denim prison. It was her turn to get his clothes off, and the feeling of her hair and hands and mouth all over his body was miraculous and completely overwhelming.

She took his shaft in her hands, squeezing, stroking. Taking the head into her mouth, she began sucking and laving it with her tongue. "Dear God -" he squeaked. He closed his eyes tightly, panting, fighting to control himself, then looked down at what she was doing, which was even more arousing, if that were possible. She grinned up at him, then slowly, luxuriously, took all of him into her mouth, thoroughly enjoying his rapidly disintegrating self-control. His hips seemed to be moving of their own accord. She picked up her pace, and he fell back on the bed, overcome, hands fisted in the bedsheets. Moaning, begging her not to stop what she was doing, he cried out her name, seeing stars as the orgasm seemed to explode from his very bones.

Staring up at the ceiling, breathing like he had just run a foot race, Heath slowly came back to himself. "Oh, my Lord, Dr. Levi. What are you doing to me...?" he whispered.

He lay flat on his back, his skin glazed with sweat. Rivka made her way up to entwine herself beside him. The couple lay naked upon the narrow hospital bed, feeling the cool night breeze on their skin as it wandered in through the open windows. Heath was having difficulty describing to himself the sensations Rivka had drawn from his body. Words like "volcanic" came to mind, except there was nothing unpleasant in what he had just experienced.

"I am enjoying you every way I possibly can without becoming unintentionally pregnant," she said matter-of-factly.

He lifted his head to look at her, then dropped it back down with a laugh. "That wasn't exactly what I meant, but now that you mention it, you'd better educate me on what we can and can't do, darlin'."

"I will do that. What did you mean?"

He rolled toward her, stroking his hand from her shoulder down to her hip, then back up to the curve of her breast. "I meant I think you're doing some kind of old country witchcraft on me, girl. You make me feel things like I've never...I felt just then like - like I'd been struck by lightning - except the lightning was coming out of me."

He continued to caress her breast, thoughtfully, and her breathing quickened. He looked seriously into her dark, smiling eyes.

"Witchcraft. You're working some kinda mojo on me, Dr. Levi. Don't know what it is yet. I'm going to have to think this through."

He pushed her down on her back and moved himself down between her legs. She watched him, her dark eyes hooded, a smile on her lips. He stroked her with his tongue, gently exploring the hidden contours, following the path to which she had guided his hand earlier. He proceeded slowly, learning his way and listening to her soft gasps and moans to give him direction.

Her fingers stroked his hair, petting him, urging him on, loving him. As he found the most sensitive spot, her breathing became ragged, irregular, and she began to move her hips to his rhythm, her hands becoming more urgent. "Yes, right there, love, oh, oohhhh...oh, don't stop -" He slid his fingers into her as she came, arching up to him. She gasped out his name as his mouth drew wave after wave of pleasure from her until she collapsed back onto the bed, breathless, flushed and laughing.

She pulled him up to lie beside her, wrapping her arms around his warm body. She loved how they fit together. Rivka could feel him growing hard again as she snuggled up against him. "Now, love, shall I go over the rules, or are you going to fall asleep?"

Heath thought for a moment. "I've had some pretty good doctoring these past two weeks. Don't think I'm done for the night quite yet."

He drew her close, lost in the rhythm they created, a wordless hallelujah ringing within him.