"Chester...Chester...c'mon, now, boy…"

"Doc?" Chester groaned. His tongue felt like a dry sponge, and his head was pounding. Doc was slapping him about the face in a way that probably looked gentle, anyway. He could see, mercifully, that it was night, and that the harsh, limited, lamp-lit windows were the only thing keeping back cool dark. He wanted to close his eyes again. He knocked Doc's hands away.

"Yep. Stay awake this time, if you can—but lie still, that's it."

"What happened, Doc?"

"How should I know, you come in on the stage this way. Not a word of warning. Not a word of explanation, neither."

"That's not true, you heard him–it was the other Chester's fault." He could hear the position of Mr. Dillon's eyebrows.

"That's a good point, Matt, yes. My, that is a beauty…"

"Ow, Doc–!"

"Just looking, just looking. Yes, yes, that'll stitch up pretty as can be. Now, you relax, and let me see those eyes of yours…" Doc lifted the light up high. He held Chester's eyes open when he tried to squint. "Fine, fine, just fine. Now, are you sick to your stomach?"

"No. Well. Maybe a little."

"Your vision alright?"

"...Well..."

"What day is it today?"

"It's...it's night, ain't it?"

"What's your favorite kind of liver?"

"Well...antelope."

"Fine, fine. You care to sit up?"

"I guess so." Chester didn't move. "Oh, that hurts something awful."

"Maybe you oughta carry him, Matt. Looks like a pretty bad concussion to me."

"C'mon, Chester," said Mr. Dillon. It was only then Chester understood he was lying on the floor of the stagecoach–when Mr. Dillon grabbed him under the arms hauled him briskly out. Chester's knees locked when he found himself on his feet. The world spun so it made his head clammy.

"You think you can walk?" asked Mr. Dillon. He loosened his grip experimentally. Chester made a non-committal sound through his nose and found them touching again. "Yeah," said Mr. Dillon, in the same way he might have said 'no', and lifted Chester bridal-style without further comment.

"Come on, then, come on," said Doc, already off towards the office. Doc never ran, but he always walked at speed. Mr. Dillon trudged after. His spurs rang.

"Thank you," said Chester. His own voice sounded far away.

"Yeah. Don't mention it." Mr. Dillon said nothing for a moment. "What happened, anyway? Jim Buck says he found you out behind the waystation in Wagonbed Springs with your head split open. You came to a couple times, but you weren't making a lot of sense."

"Well, some fella tried to hold up the stage, but he was awful feeble...leastaways he sure seemed it, Jim Buck laid him out with one kick. Only other passenger was a young man, real nervous sorta fella with a bad leg...from the war…"

"Well?"

"Well, sir, the boy was just hankering to take charge of the prisoner, I couldn't make it out wherefore. He hadn't got a gun or nothing, not even a knife. Anyhow, I took this sorry little fella at least...at least so far as Wagonbed Springs…"

"I don't know if I ought to tell you before you say any more, but you reek of whiskey."

"Oh, well…" said Chester. He was abruptly dizzier and deeply ashamed. "I'm awful sorry, Mr. Dillon."

"For what, exactly?"

"For not bringing him in...I've not brung him in, have I?"

"You hardly brought yourself in, from the looks of things. Jim Buck said you were the only passenger."

"Well, Jim Buck musta got headfirst into that wagonbed whiskey, then."

"Jim never touches a drop on the job and you know it."

"I...that ain't…"

Chester sighed and squinted at the sky. It was sort of nice being carried. It made him feel close to someone. Probably because you generally have to be flush against a person, if they're carrying you. Close enough to smell them, and feel them breathe. Of course, Mr. Dillon was the only person who ever carried him anywhere, and only if he was bad hurt.

"I ain't bad hurt," he said.

"Doc says you'll be alright. You just got cracked pretty hard over the head. You kind of gave us a turn when you rolled into town all bloodied up, though."

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright, Chester. Stop putting your head back like that, you're putting me off balance."

"Yessir." Chester put his chin to his chest. "Mr. Dillon?"

"Yeah?"

"You smell fine."

"Thanks."

"Like leather, maybe...an' tobacco."

"Uh-huh."

"Yessir." Chester listened to the spurs for a few steps. Then he stiffened and opened his eyes. Mr. Dillon tensed up. "Where's the other one?"

"What?"

"The other Chester." Mr. Dillon have the barest pause, and said more deliberately,

"What?"

"No, the...the boy, the boy on the stage, his name was Chester, and, and...and it was his fault!"

"Was it."

"That's the truth! I...I remember it now. Sure I do."

"What, he hit you?" Mr. Dillon sounded impatient.

"Why no. No, he just...he gone out...Stubbs was tryna stick 'im with a piece a' bottle-glass and the boy kept telling me to get outta the way...before, I mean…anyhow, I shot past 'em to scare the ol' tomcat and this...Chester...he was mad at me!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Take it easy, Chester."

"I am." Mr. Dillon hiked him up, and Chester hissed. They'd reached the office. "I can climb the stairs, maybe," he offered half-heartedly. The air lay like a blanket in the hall. Mr. Dillon kicked the door shut. "Grass."

"What's that?"

"You smell like grass, too."

"You know what you smell like?"

"No." Chester got very hot all of a sudden. It was awfully dark in here.

"A whiskey drummer."

The next thing Chester knew he was lying on Doc's table. The light was softer in here. It was as quiet as it had been downstairs, and a little stuffier. He took a few deep breaths and felt gingerly around his head. It still ached, inside, but it didn't sting so. It was all bandaged up and resting on a stack of books.

"Mr. Dillon?"

"He went out on his rounds," said Doc. Chester turned his head and there he was, reading from what he called a journal but was really, as far as Chester could tell, more like an almanac for doctors. He lay it across the arm of his chair and rose. "Hung around until I finished sewing you, though. Awfully neat work. Didn't even need to cut your hair. You'll be good as new soon as the brain fever settles." Doc was moving–Doc never really stopped moving; even when he was sitting still it was such a distinct change it had the character of a movement–and grinning at Chester while he mixed something in a glass, cheerful and sly. You would have thought medicine was something awfully mischievous. But Doc was wonderful, really, whatever he seemed like. He was the only doctor Chester had ever trusted as far as he could throw him, and that was before they even got to be friends, just on the grounds Doc never seemed to bleed anybody. The doctor in Waco Chester had never seen except through a haze of fever and panic, so perhaps it was no wonder he'd become a night terror. He bled Chester's Momma until her eyes rolled back.

"S'it late?"

"Oh, hardly. Getting on to midnight, I should think. Good evening, by the way."

"Evening...Doc?"

"Mm?"

"You meet the other fella? Chester? From the stage?"

"Why, no. You came in alone," said Doc. He was speaking so plainly he must have thought Chester was addled. "And Matt tells me there never was another passenger."

"That don't make no sense."

"Things'll probably seem a lot clearer in the morning."

"He was there, Doc. Big as life."

"If you're right, he's bound to turn up, Chester, and if you're wrong, well, your head got scrambled one way or another, it's nothing to dwell on. You get hit with a whiskey bottle, by any chance?"

"Mighta done."

"You have it all in your hair."

"Musta been, then. Only then they weren't no bottle, neither, they got earthen jugs out there heavy as sin. And all on account he was standing there looking down his nose with them big sad eyes a' his…oh, no. Oh–Doc, if he ain't come in on the stage the young fool's likely out on the prairie somewheres."

"Drink this down," said Doc, who had suddenly appeared at his head, and yanked him up to sit. "Very good. Now, come along to the bed before it knocks you out, you don't want a crick in your neck, too."

"You'll tell Mr. Dillon what I said about the boy?"

"Yes."

"You're lying."

"Yes."

"Either I'm plumb crazy," said Chester petulantly, "Or there was another body there, and durn peculiar, too." Doc took his arm and led him to the back room. The dizziness returned with a vengeance, but it was only a few steps.

"Tell me about him."

"Huh?"

"Lie down and tell me about him."

"What do you care?"

"Let's say it's a matter of professional intrigue." Chester glared. "What? We're just saying it. Oh. I'm just curious, Chester."

"Well. Alright." Chester settled back. "He was kindly tall."

"No," said Doc. Chester rolled his eyes.

"Yes. Not so tall as Mr. Dillon, maybe. Dark, stretched-out sorta man."

"Anything else?"

"His name was Chester Goode, he says. Says he lives here in Dodge, though I sure never seen him before today. Right skittery young fella. Tetchy. I was most worried, only he seemed like a real gentle sort. Kindly sweet and lost, like."

"How nice."

"Put me to mind of a blind collie-dog. Only kindly superior. Kept sassing me, an' he had no cause a t'all. He was talking about girls, so I started to talking about 'em too, and that got him all het-up."

"You say he was blind?"

"No, he weren't blind. Just seemed like if he really was a sheep dog he'd be a blind one."

"Mm-hm."

"Yeah." Doc took a scalpel from his vest and started cleaning his nails with it. He began to hum, but Chester could tell he had more to say.

"That's pretty elaborate for something you just thought you saw," he said, without stopping all the way.

"That's cause I ain't thought, Doc, I sure enough saw. You'll know him if you see him right off, an' I hope you all do an' choke on it."

"Don't pout, Chester. How will I know 'im?"

"He's got a stiff knee, that's how. Said it got blown out in the war somehow and ain't healed right–don't hinge hardly any. Looks right funny picking stuff off the ground, I tell ye that."

"Hm."

"Got around pretty good, though."

"Must be mighty fit, then."

"Oh, sure. And mighty good-looking, too. Ain't carried no gun, though, I thought that was kindly odd."

"His leg might make it hard for him to draw," said Doc.

"It's his leg, not his arm."

"Some of that's in the hips, you know."

"I guess...I don't know what you'd know about it." Chester tried to set himself on his feet in his head and try it out. "I thought you thought he weren't real."

"Well. Maybe it was some kind of visitation."

"No, Doc, he lives here."

"That is, maybe he really did appear...and disappear again...like magic."

"Oh."

"I'm serious, Chester."

"No you ain't."

"He coulda been a ghost."

"What would he be haunting me for, I don't know 'im."

"An angel."

"Don't be vulgar."

"Maybe he's you...in another life."

"I'm still alive, Doc, or hadn't you noticed."

"You're too contrary to live, Chester!" said Doc, like it was wonderful news.

"I could be contrary to dying, ever thought a' that?"

"Contrary to–contrary to dying, well. Yes. Yes, you could be, boy, you could be. Chester!"

"What?"

"I've got it, I've figured it out. Are you through with A Thousand and One Nights yet?"

"Oh...I given it o'er to Kitty, Doc, I was too slow with it. But what's that got to do–"

"You just want her to read it out to you. A lazy man will never see the world, Chester. Anyhow. If you had read it, you'd know there's actually a hundred thousand worlds just like this one, that you can't get to except by magic. And in each one, there's just a few slight differences."

"Yeah, but that ain't real, Doc."

"Well, I don't know. Stories are always based on something. This one, for instance–all the time choices are being made, actions are being taken, that change the course of history. And every time there's at least a couple of possible outcomes. Understand?"

"...Sure."

"And the idea is that every time a choice is made, our world continues forward with the choice that is made, and another world goes on with the choice that isn't."

"Okay."

"Just bear with me. If all this is true, you and me exist in...well, in most of these other worlds. But we're a little different in each of them, since the worlds we live in are a little different. And in one of these worlds, Chester Proudfoot has a pretty face and a bum leg."

"Alright...t'weren't the only difference, Doc."

"You don't say."

"I don't talk like no Texan no more."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. And you shoulda heared this fella, he was worse than Magnus. Besides, I'm old."

"You aren't a day over sixty, I've checked your teeth." Chester rolled his eyes, then paused.

"Can you really tell a body's age by looking at their teeth, Doc?"

"Of course you can't."

"Well, I don't know. You can tell a horse's."

"Tell me, Chester, have your teeth grown? Ever?"

"Well, they...they grew in."

"That's true, that's true. So more likely than not you're at least nine."

"How old do you really think I am, Doc?"

"Oh, you know how old you are."

"Not exactly."

"Not exactly, not exactly–nobody needs to know exactly, what's the use in that."

"Oh, I was only...I just wanna know, everybody else knows."

"That isn't true."

"Most everybody," Chester mumbled. He didn't feel so much like arguing anymore. He was feeling too sleepy and too generous; Doc had given him a little more laudanum than strictly necessary. Chester always fought it in the hopes that he would, and if Doc really, truly wanted him quiet he would preempt it. Chester didn't like to take advantage, in theory, but in practice it was worth it.

"What're they gonna put on my headstone, huh, Doc?" That made him laugh, somehow, and Doc shook his head.

"Here lies an opium fiend, that's what."

"Oh, I ain't no fiend."

"You would be if you could figure out how." Chester shrugged. Every time he thought he was through laughing he tried to take a breath and it made him laugh again. Doc went to the front room, and came back with a blanket. "You're thirty-two, by the way."

Chester face began to itch. He made sure Doc wasn't looking and chanced to scratch it.

"Don't do that," said Doc. Chester put his hands under the blanket Doc had given him and sighed. That made him laugh, reflexively, but not as hard.

"I gotta be older'n that," he said, when it had finally passed.

"Officially you're thirty-two. Remember? You wrote the army about it. You said you were eighteen when you enlisted, which seems to me to mean if anything you're or thirty or thirty-one–I don't see why you'd make yourself out to be younger than you were."

"I ain't...I didn't know then, neither. Twas the army said I was…"

"Eighteen."

"Yessir."

"Suit yourself, then, you're thirty-three."

"See? I told you, Doc, I told you I was older." Chester was warm all over. He hoped the other Chester was, too, even if it was only because he was freezing to death on the prairie. "He were a whole own person, weren't he."

"Go to sleep."

"I will."

"Good."

"Goodnight, Doc."

"Goodnight, Chester. Stop that, I said."