It was a typical weekday morning and the good citizens of Four Corners went about their daily tasks. Mrs. Potter swept the boardwalk in front of her store while the hotel manager greeted passengers fresh from the overnight stage. Mary Travis stacked freshly printed newspapers on a table in her office and, as she watched the relative calm of the town out her window, she spotted Vin Tanner's horse fly by, the tracker and an Indian atop the lathered beast. Wiping her ink stained hands on her apron Mary stepped out onto the boardwalk and watched as the pair stopped directly in front of the jail, the Indian sliding down off the horses back while Vin remained astride.
"Filthy Squaw." Even in his fevered state Vin Tanner heard the offhanded remark and his head snapped up and he glared at a group of men gathering on the boardwalk to gawk.
The woman pressed her hand to his trembling leg and slowly, determinedly walked up the steps and to the jail. As she walked through the doorway J.D.'s pocketknife came to rest, stuck solidly in the planked floor, quivering just inches from her leather wrapped foot. The young lawman hurriedly jumped up out of his chair, grabbed the knife and stuck it in his pocket. He then hiked himself up in importance, hands on gun butts, and stammered, "Can I help you, Miss, er Ma'am?"
"Help," Molly replied in her stilted English and pointed to the door, "Vin…help."
Pushing roughly past her, J.D. hurried out the door and almost ran headlong into Josiah who stepped off of the boardwalk to catch the ailing tracker just moments before he fell from his horse. "J.D." the preacher shouted turning toward the young man, "Help me get him up to Nathan's."
The two of them, Sanchez with his hands under the tracker's armpits and J.D., his arms wrapped tightly around the tracker's legs, struggled to get him down the street and up the stairs to Nathan Jackson's clinic leaving the woman behind where a small crowd began to gather around her.
Words were hurled at her and she found that she still couldn't understand most them, per se, but could understand very well the tone with which they were thrown. Memories, bright glimpses of people and events from her past swirled and collided with one another just out of her reach and, as more people stopped to stare, the cacophony of sights and sounds overwhelmed her until she closed her eyes, covered her ears and pitched forward onto the sidewalk.
Later, she lay in the only bed in Nathan's clinic, Vin sitting next to her occasionally stroking her hand.
"I don't know who she is, "he said to Nathan as the healer finished tending to the tracker's bite wound, "Can't hardly speak English and only fair to middlin' Apache."
"And she's a white woman?" Nathan said daubing the infected skin with carbolic acid.
"Yeah, Nate," Vin said and downed the pain relieving and fever reducing draught Nathan held out to him. "She's got beautiful blue eyes and pure white skin under all that hide," he added and, realizing what he had said, what he'd revealed, a rosy hue suffused the Texan's face and he cleared his throat nervously.
Nathan chose to ignore the Texan's obvious discomfort and just listened when he asked, "What made her drop like that on the sidewalk? Is she sick?"
"I don't think so," Nathan surmised, "Just hunger and exhaustion most likely, maybe a little scared, too. How long you think she's been with them Indians?"
"Don't rightly know. She couldn't tell me anything about her past. I think her mind's fixed it so she can't remember," Vin said his eyes coming to rest again on her sleeping face. He hoped that one day she would forget all the rest because, as they had made love, he had felt the hardened skin of the myriad of scars on her back. Scars best forgotten.
Nathan dropped into his chair next to the bed where Molly lay. As he watched her breath easily, the door scraped open and J.D. pushed his way inside balancing a tray precariously on one outstretched arm. The young Bostonian set it down on the table and backed away, directly into Chris Larabee who had followed him into the clinic. The gunfighter merely steered J. D. out of the way and nodded to Vin.
"Molly," Vin said softly and patted the woman's hand. When she failed to awaken he gently touched her shoulder, "Molly girl, my friends brought us some food."
Her eyes fluttered open at Vin's gentle urging and, ignoring the others in the room, she let him help her into a setting position and placed the tray upon her lap. The beautifully appointed silver tray held a coffee cup, a bone china plate laden with steak, mashed potatoes and greens. Her stomach growled with hunger but before Vin could hand her the cutlery she began to shovel food into her mouth with her fingers.
J.D.'s eyes flew open in surprise an he snorted. With fingers halfway to her mouth, Molly froze as they all watched her, judged her and by their expressions she knew instinctively that she was doing something wrong. Tears started to slip down her cheeks and she bowed her head while J.D. cleared his throat in nervous embarrassment.
"Hear now," Nathan said as he rose up out of his chair. "Y'all best get on outta here. Leave my patients to eat in peace." Grabbing J.D. by the arm the healer pushed him toward the door corralling Chris Larabee on his way.
"I'm sorry, Nathan," J.D. stammered before being forcefully removed from the room followed quickly by Chris.
"Thanks J.D. …and thank Ms. Travis for me," Vin called out suspecting correctly that the Clarion editor had sent the food. He unwrapped the silverware and laid it out on the tray then pulled the bowie knife from its sheath at his waist. Slicing a chunk from the slab of meat he speared it with the tip of his knife and stuck it in his mouth, sighing aloud. He cut another piece and, lifting her chin gently with his bandaged hand, offered it to her but she shook her head.
Vin knew Molly was famished and would eat one way or another so he just helped himself to another piece of steak and waited patiently as she looked down at the tray and ran a finger over the fork's delicate pattern. Picking it up gingerly and, after only a brief hesitation, she stabbed it into the mound of potatoes and scooped a forkful into her mouth. Turning to him she smiled in delight as she recalled something as basic as the proper use of silverware.