"Tuscon's only about a week's worth of driving away if this map can be depended on," Ruth said. "It'll be the perfect place to start up the revivals again. Guess that doctor knew what he was talking about. I haven't heard you cough in a couple days."
"Yeah, I guess he did."
She gave him the map and hopped down. She looked in the direction of the river. "I'll pack Grace down with all the buckets and canteens and take her down to refresh all the water. You can never have too much of it in this kind of country."
"Why do you have to do it? I can carry water," he said crabbily. She didn't even know how serious his condition was and she was babying him. He'd hate to see her reaction if she did know.
"Nobody said you couldn't, but there's no reason for you to go. It's a one-man job, or in this case one-woman."
What was the use in arguing with the woman? "You at least got your gravel flipper in case you run into a snake or something?"
"No, but I'll take it. I don't want no run-in with a snake. "
He watched her until she got safely down to the river. Then he better took in where they'd stopped.
He saw a lot of smoke rising up from behind the rocky red hill up ahead. Well, if Ruth wasn't going to let him help out around here, he might as well go check it out, make sure a band of thieves wasn't waiting to ambush them.
He discovered a small, clapboard house, but it wasn't where the smoke poured from. There was a small structure behind the house that looked like a soup bowl turned upside down. It looked to be a smokehouse of sorts , but it was so low down. He stepped closer and the person inside must have heard him because a lean, small elderly man with tough, leather-brown skin came out, clad only in his long johns.
"What are you doing in there?" Kid wanted to know. It was plain he wasn't smoking meat.
"Sweating the sickness out of me. You heat the body up and ain't no sickness that can stand it. I visit the sweat lodge at least once a week. Whatever ails you, will be gone."
"And it works? You've seen it work?"
"My mother was Lakota. She swore by it and she lived to be 97. And I've always enjoyed good health."
That was what the miner had said about the beard. He reached up and felt it, now quite thick and filled in. It didn't itch as much as it had when he started out, but neither did it seem to be beneficial. He was going to shave it off the first chance he got.
"Course, Mother also swore spirits visited her in the lodge, but I think that's cause she spent a little too much time in there myself."
There was no guarantee that it would work, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He wanted absolute surety that the consumption wouldn't come back on him. Too much was at stake not to give it his all. "Care if I try it out?"
"Not at all, stranger. My sweat lodge is your sweat lodge."
The man went in first and Kid crawled through the low opening after him.
He was prone to sweating a lot anyway, but the sweat really started to roll off of him in there.
The man poured water on the red-hot stones.
Kid coughed a little, probably from all the steam and smoke in there.
"You traveling alone?"
"With my wife. She's getting some water down at the river."
"You keep a close eye on her. The land's lousy with Apache and they ain't too fond of settlers."
"Well, we ain't settlers really. She's a revivalist."
"They won't care. They see white people; they see enemies. They've killed so many in just the few last years, thousands, and caused thousands more to flee, that the government's just put a bounty on any male Apache 14 and up. 100 pesos per scalp. That's not bad money. If I was a little younger and a little more ambitious, I'd consider getting me a few."
He saw Kid's gun. "If you're any good with that thing. It might be worth considering your own self."
"It might," he said noncommittally.
The conversation died down as the heat began to get really intense. After a time, he started to see colored lights or spots dancing in front of his eyes. It was no wonder the man's mother had thought she saw spirits.
When he could stand it no longer, he told him, "Thanks. I better get back before the mrs. wonders where I am."
The man nodded to indicate he'd heard.
Kid staggered out of the lodge, feeling somewhat disoriented. His heart was pounding and he felt a little nauseous. It took him a few seconds to remember the direction of the wagon.
His mouth felt cottony from being so dry. The lodge had really dehydrated him and he longed for a drink, but Ruth had taken all the containers to freshen their supplies.
His clothes were drenched in sweat. He wanted to take them off, but he was too fatigued. He just sat down against the stationary wagon wheel and waited for water, shutting his eyes against the sun, the light still painful to his vision after spending time in the cramped, dark space.
He must have been in the sweat lodge longer than it felt because he didn't have to wait long for her return.
She took in his appearance. "Can I not leave you alone for a minute? What have you gone and done to yourself this time?"
"Just met a man behind that hill with a sweat lodge. It sounded like an interesting idea to try out at the time."
Ruth's knuckles went white from gripping Grace's reins so hard. "Kid Cole, look me in the eyes and tell me that the doctor didn't give you a diagnosis worse than what you told me."
He looked her in the eyes. "He didn't tell me I was going to die if that's what you mean."
She breathed a visible sigh of relief and she loosened her grip.
"He said this change in climate was going to solve things and it has. You said yourself you don't hear me coughing anymore."
"Praise God. Well, I guess it's a good thing I went and got some more water," she commented, handing him one of the newly filled canteens.
He gulped it down.
"Slow down or you're going to make yourself sick," she warned before she went to get his spare clothes.
"I know how to drink water," he retorted.
He'd never admit it to her, but he actually enjoyed it when she fussed over him like that.