A Man's Best Friend
Webmaster Note: This fic was formerly archived on another website and was moved to blackraptor in October 2008
- 1 -Buck was woken by the warm touch of the sun on his face. He preferred to be woken by the warm touch of a woman on his body but even he could not achieve that every day of his life. He was a morning lover, in more ways than one, and his indulgent enjoyment of the start of each new day accounted for the late hour at which he usually emerged from his room. He stretched sinuously, feeling each muscle extend and then relax, familiarizing himself with his body anew.
Curving his right hand around his cock, he stroked its silky skin. Whoever said a man's best friend was his dog must have been mad. Buck liked dogs as much as anybody but surely every man's best friend was his cock, and his was far more than a mere friend.
It was more like his twin, a constant companion whose happiness was his highest priority in life. By the time it asserted its independent will, he'd probably seen more than a hundred other cocks. By the time it attained its maturity, he'd known he was blessed. No foot-long freak of nature, its perfection was far more subtle. No more than generous in length and girth, it was straight, shapely and totally reliable. Christened the General, it was both his pride and his joy.
He sighed, savoring his own touch, devoting to the General the skills that he'd honed on a thousand women. It had been his life's work to become the talented lover that he was, and he was as capable of delighting himself as he was of delighting a woman. It was his accomplishment that filled his bed, tempting an endless succession of lovers who had no illusions that anything more than fun was on offer. Along with his honesty, the satisfaction that he delivered ensured that his life rarely became complicated. He attracted women who wanted what he wanted to offer - what could be more perfect?
His balls tightened, preparing themselves to yield their latest harvest. He worked them hard, sometimes expecting them to deliver three, four or even five times a day. When life became quieter for a spell, they were apt to find it hard to adjust, demanding that he relieve them of their load in any secluded spot he could find. It was, in his opinion, a small price to pay for their sterling service.
Swirling his moist fingertip around the rim of his glans, he froze. There, unmistakable on the contour that he knew far better than the back of his hand, was an unfamiliar roughness. He threw back the sheet in alarm.
Hardly daring to look, he squinted through narrowed eyes but then, frustrated with the poor view, sat up anxiously for a closer view. The rough patch was slightly red. He touched it apprehensively. Was he imagining soreness? Pressing harder produced a strange tingle.
He caressed the General, offering his silent consolation that all would be well and trawling his memory for details of their most recent adventures. He'd made love twice the day before, to a bored wife who was passing through town with her indifferent, card-playing husband. Her preference was for long, slow, attentive love-making - the kind that she probably never got from her husband - and he'd been happy to oblige. Their couplings were tantalizing and, ultimately, intensely satisfying.
The tender touch of her hands and lips could not possibly have harmed the General, who now lay limp in his palm. His stomach churned with the same kind of fear that he'd feel for a gut-shot friend, knowing that death was not imminent but might yet be on its way. He knew that was an over-reaction but he'd seen where a sore could lead. Still, it was far too early to book a funeral, for himself or his love life, and so he forced himself to get up and dress.
- 2 -
'Buck.'
'Chris.'
Chris looked up sharply. One-word greetings from him were normal but one-word replies from Buck were less so. They rarely came in the tone he'd just used. Something had to have happened and, if Buck was trying to act as if it hadn't, he'd need to do better than that.
'You all right?'
'Yeah.' One word again, joined after a few seconds by two more. 'Just tired.'
Chris studied him. There was usually only one kind of reason for Buck lacking sleep - the pretty kind - but he thought the latest one had left with her husband on the morning stage.
'You found another one already?'
'You keeping tabs on me?'
'As if I've got the time.'
Time was one thing that they were rarely short of but, if Buck didn't want to discuss whatever was troubling him, Chris would be the last to push the point. He tipped his chair back against the side of the saloon, acting relaxed and hoping that his ease might spread to Buck.
It didn't.
The tip of Buck's boot tapped the table leg in a staccato rhythm that eloquently expressed his mood. No more than two minutes could have passed before he got up and headed back to the boarding house. Chris pondered the retreat, knowing that Buck could be erratic when one woman left before he had another lined up but also that something was off that day.
- 3 -
It was hopeless, Buck realized as soon as he joined Chris. He was far too anxious to sit and shoot the breeze. He hurried back to his room, needing to check that he hadn't imagined the problem and, more importantly, that it hadn't worsened since he'd dressed.
Unsurprisingly, there was no change. He peered down at the afflicted area, trying to remember everything he'd ever heard about problems down there. He knew that there was often no pain in the early stages, so the absence of it was no comfort. Itching often came with blood diseases, as it did with many lesser conditions, but the absence of it didn't prove anything. Still, the thought of innocent explanations for his disfigurement was reassuring. It could be a bite, or something of that sort.
He went over to a small chest beside his bed and rummaged in the second drawer. Among the bottles and jars inside, he found the tube of ointment he was looking for. Camomile lotion - that took him back. His mother swore by it for her delicate skin and it always made him feel better when she rubbed it into his childhood cuts and bruises.
He squeezed some into his hand and began to massage the General. The scent, redolent of past comfort without any suggestion of impropriety at the peculiarly private nature of his present distress, brought the memories tumbling back. Unlike most men, he could be confident that there would be nothing but sympathy from his mother, if she were watching from some other plane of existence.
- 4 -
Vin strode out of the saloon, wishing he'd folded three hands earlier. Not only would he be richer but he would not have the painfully swollen bladder that was taking him to the outhouse.
'Shit,' he muttered when he saw the closed door.
Strange, when he came to think of it, but he hadn't noticed any competition for the facilities in their modest little burg before. He waited without hearing any evidence of an occupant inside, but then...
'Aah.'
Vin instantly recognized the groan, which might have seemed a little odd if he'd had time to think about it, but his only concern at that moment was for his bladder.
'Darn it, Buck. Can't you find someplace else t'do that. Some fellas out here need t'piss.'
Having unbuttoned his pants in anticipation, he was just about to repeat himself in more direct language when the door swung open. Buck emerged, looking nothing like a man who'd just achieved satisfaction. Vin might have expected smug, or even sheepish, but not glum.
He stepped into the space that Buck had vacated and breathed a sigh of relief when his discomfort began to ease. Observant as always, he noted that the smells in the outhouse were old smells. There was no fresh shit, and no fresh piss before his own, and yet he did not believe his first assumption had been right. Keeping the door open, he called over his shoulder to where Buck was still loitering, something else that was odd.
'You all right there?'
'Sure. Why?'
'Hell, where do I start? Beatin' the meat in the outhouse ain't your usual style, is it?'
'I wasn't beating the meat.'
Vin shook his cock dry and restored his decency before stepping out to face Buck.
'What was you doin' then? Checkin' it ain't dropped off since y'got up this mornin'?'
'No! What the blazes makes you say a thing like that?'
Without giving Vin time to reply, he strode off. Vin watched, bemused, wondering what he'd done to provoke such an outburst from the least likely of his friends to indulge in one.
- 5 -
By the next day, there was no doubt that the problem was spreading. The chancre that could have been covered by a dime had inflated to the size of a silver dollar. The skin had begun to lift and gentle pressure confirmed that a pus-filled blister was forming.
Buck rose dejectedly from his bed, feeling no trace of the pleasure with which he normally greeted a new day. Taking a bottle from the chest of drawers, he shook a few grains into the basin on the washstand and then emptied the jug onto it. The swirling water slowly turned pink.
Leaning over the basin, he let the General take a dip. It was something he'd done many times before, as much a part of the General's routine as a shave was part of his own. Only now, desperate for a cure, did the ritual seem suddenly futile. What had been a perfectly sensible precaution became terrifyingly inadequate in the face of a real and present danger.
- 6 -
'Here we go again,' JD muttered.
It wasn't that he cared about the animal magnetism thing any more. He was happy with Casey as his girl and hadn't enjoyed his one brief infidelity. He only found out later that her response to his indiscretion had been to throw herself at first Vin and then Ezra - something she confessed while he was recuperating from Mattie putting a bullet in his gut - and that they'd turned her down.
After debating for a while whether they did so from friendship for him or indifference to her, he decided that it wouldn't have mattered if she were the loveliest woman in the world. More surprising was the fact that he'd have believed the same of Buck.
Ezra glanced up and then smiled. 'Perhaps the lady will restore Buck's spirits. She certainly is...' He appraised the fashionably dressed figure approaching their friend at the bar. 'Glamorous.'
As always, Ezra chose his words well. Having watched the woman get off the stage, JD knew that she was attractive and thought she looked like she'd be good company too. Nonetheless, Ezra had hit on the feature that would distinguish her from a dozen other bright and beautiful women. She oozed glamour, from the tawny twists of her hair to the jet buttons of her shoes. He sighed.
'If only you weren't already promised to another,' Ezra teased.
JD grinned. 'If a woman like her came up to me...'
'A man might be forgiven for forgetting his obligations.'
There'd been a time when none of JD's friends would have included him as a man in such a remark and he liked it that Ezra had. Even so, he knew that the truth was, if she came up to him, he'd be more likely to forget his name than his obligations. He hoped that would improve with time but, in all honesty, thought he was still just as useless with women as he had been when he first came under Buck's tutelage. The kind of woman who would sweep into a saloon and introduce herself to a stranger was far beyond his reach.
He couldn't hear what the visitor was saying to Buck but then he didn't need to. He'd watched Buck at work so many times that he knew the script, even if he was a poor actor in the play. Only this time it seemed different. He looked at Ezra, who had also been watching and now met his eye.
'Something appears to be awry, does it not?'
Buck's sudden departure, leaving the visitor staring haughtily at his retreating back, confirmed Ezra's point without a doubt.
'Did you see that?' JD asked, agape.
'I did, although I can scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes.'
'Buck turned her down.'
Saying it was even scarier than seeing it. One of the constants of JD's universe had just changed.
- 7 -
'I confess that I am confused.'
'About what? Which part of me having the pox don't you understand, Ezra?'
'Your surprise.'
Spoken in the softest voice, the words still brought Buck up sharp. 'What?'
'Well, I would have thought that Venus's curse was something of an occupational hazard for a man like yourself. Just as losing is a risk in my chosen profession.'
Buck felt his temper slipping. He so rarely got angry, and only then when severely provoked, that he wasn't used to the uncomfortable prospect of losing control. Somewhere, in a far-off corner of his mind, he wondered what it was like to live with the unpleasant sensation all the time, as it often seemed that Chris did. Even now, although part of him wanted to vent his frustration on Ezra, another part was already distracted by the question of just how stupid his friends thought he was.
He strode over to the bed and yanked out the top drawer of the chest beside it. Tossing it onto the quilt, he waved at the row of leather-covered cases inside it.
Ezra frowned and moved closer. 'The crown jewels?'
'More valuable, for a man like myself.'
Ezra picked up the nearest of the cases. Buck thought about warning him not to open it but then decided to let him go ahead.
'Ugh!'
Ezra dropped the case, and its contents, onto the bed as if they were hot coals. He crossed the room in two strides and tipped the contents of the jug over the hand that had touched the case.
'That is disgusting!'
'That is responsible,' Buck corrected him. 'Do you honestly think, knowing what you know about where I came from, that I'd do what I do without using a preventative?'
Ezra dried the tainted hand on a towel, the possible former uses of which he seemed not yet to have contemplated. He said nothing.
'How the hell do you think I was so sure that I wasn't the cause of Lucy's problem?'
Ezra looked uneasy.
'You thought I was just shirking my responsibilities? Well, that's good to know.'
He restored the rubber sheath to its home and clicked the case shut. He did not share Ezra's distaste, not only because it was his device but because he knew that it had been washed with scrupulous care after its last use. Of course, a man didn't want such chores to interrupt a night of passion, which was why the device was lined up with half a dozen of its brothers. There'd been times, in livelier towns than Four Corners, when even they had proved unequal to the task.
Ezra was looking at the row of cases again. 'Those represent a significant investment, do they not? I feel certain that Mrs. Potter's stock does not extend to such specialist supplies as Dr. Power's French Preventatives, as I seem to recall them being advertised some years ago.'
Buck shrugged. 'Mail-order's a wonderful thing.'
'I thought that the illustrious Mr. Comstock had succeeded in outlawing the use and transportation of such devices.'
'Only when sold as preventatives. Feminine hygiene is just peachy.'
'Or masculine hygiene, it seems.' Ezra smiled, but then sobered. 'I feel I may have misjudged you.'
'Yeah, Ezra. You sure did. Sounds like you all did.'
'I apologize.'
Buck thought about making him sweat a while but he just didn't have the temperament for it.
'Forget it.'
'Thank you. So, your surprise stems from the fact that you believed yourself protected from contamination?'
'That's about the size of it.'
'I regret that I am not an expert in this field. Perhaps you would be better discussing it with Nathan.'
'Yeah. Right.'
'But he has proved his skills countless times during our acquaintance.'
'It's not his skills I'm worried about.'
'Ah, I see. You are not ready to face the Day of Judgment.'
'He'd love to see me get my comeuppance.'
'I think you may do him an injustice but... perhaps we men of the world should stick together.'
'So, what can you tell me?'
'Nothing is infallible. I assume that is why you began to attach some credence to Miss Lucy's claim.'
'Yeah, but...'
'But what?'
Buck pulled out the second drawer of the chest, slower this time, and put it beside the first one. He was far more embarrassed by the contents of this one. Ezra inspected the bottles one by one.
'Mixer's Cancer and Scrofule Syrup... Vegetable Compound... Indian Compound... Rattle-Snake Oil... Blood Purifier... Dr. D. Jayne's Alternative... effective against all blood diseases, indeed. My, my, Buck, you seem fully equipped to enter the patent medicine business.'
'Can't be too careful.'
He picked up the permanganate of potash. 'So you have been purifying your private parts?'
Buck shrugged. 'Like I say, can't be too careful.'
'You know the contents of most of these bottles are almost certainly useless? Alcohol...? opium...?'
'Yeah. I know.' He gave a deep sigh.
'It may not be as bad as you fear. Most such infections are not fatal, in the medium term at least.'
'That's true. But they're not curable either. I could never... do that... to a woman.'
A life without women...
That was even more scary than the prospect of the later stages of syphilis: blindness, madness and who knew what else, depending which part of his body it attacked. If he'd been a woman, he'd probably have cried. As it was, he sat on the edge of the bed, tired and empty and... lost.
- 8 -
'Good Morning, Chris.'
'Ezra.'
Ezra considered for a moment whether to proceed with breaking the most precious confidence that anyone had ever placed in him but he had to do something. Seeking outside help was complicated by the time required for a letter and the lack of privacy associated with a telegram. And, if Buck did not want Nathan to know, he would certainly not want Josiah or JD to find out. That left few options and Chris seemed the best of them.
'I take it that you have noticed Buck is not his usual self.'
Chris inclined his head to admit the fact.
'He has a problem, of a personal nature, with which I hope you might be able to assist.'
The penetrating stare that settled on him was unnerving. He couldn't be sure whether Chris was just paying close attention or whether he was reacting to Buck taking his business to someone other than himself.
'When he spoke to me, I think he hoped that I might know more than I do of such matters.'
'What matters?'
Ezra cast around for a way to raise the delicate subject.
'I believe you and Buck served together in the Army, did you not?'
Chris gave the slightest nod. 'Way back.'
'I suspect little has changed in this regard. You recall the cursory medical examinations favored by the military?'
The stare remained steady, still awaiting an intelligible explanation.
'And that medics were often troubled with complaints that had nothing to do with bullets or shells.'
Only then did the stare waver, just a little.
'He hasn't.'
'He fears that he has.'
'You've looked?'
'No. I thought perhaps...'
Ezra hadn't quite faced up to how he was intending to ask Chris to inspect Buck's problem.
'Then you thought wrong.' The glare that Chris leveled at him was one of his best. 'What makes you think I'd know what I was looking for anyhow?'
Ezra didn't intend to attempt an answer to that one. 'It was more a matter of not knowing whom to ask,' he admitted, 'Given that he won't go to Nathan about it.'
'I can see why.' Chris smiled. 'He won't get a lot of sympathy there.'
His expression became troubled. Ezra recognized the reacton because it mirrored his own. Unsurprised by the news, Chris was concerned that Buck's condition might prove to be of a type that had to be endured because it could not be cured. After some thought, he offered an idea.
'Why don't you ask Vin?'
'Why would...? I mean, well, he didn't spring to mind.'
'But I did?'
Realizing there was nothing to be gained by extending the conversation, Ezra decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
'I'll try Mr. Tanner, then.'
- 9 -
Buck woke late from a sleep tormented by nightmares. One small patch of irritated skin, hardly deserving to be called a chancre, had spread to engulf his whole cock and balls. He sat up slowly.
A single bead of sweat rolled down over his sternum.
He lifted the sheet with a trembling hand. Perhaps he had felt the touch of the rash in his sleep, for the dream had been prophetic. No longer confined to his cock, the redness had crept northwards beneath his pubic hair and southwards over his scrotum. The tingle had become an itch but, although the urge to scratch was tough to resist, he knew that it would only make matters worse.
Facing the fact that there was nothing he could do to halt the progress of his disease, he lay back and surrendered to self-pity. Although most of the townsfolk would probably see it as poetic justice, he'd done everything he possibly could - short of abstaining - to protect himself and his lovers. It seemed so unfair that he, of all men, should be visited with such pestilence.
- 10 -
'Good Afternoon, Vin.'
Vin looked up from his inspection of his gelding's nearside front hoof.
'Hey, Ezra. What's up?'
'Nothing. Why should anything be amiss?'
Vin straightened. 'I'm only Vin when y'want somethin'.'
It wasn't the first time that Vin's perceptiveness had caught Ezra out.
'Not for myself.'
'Oh. Who for then?'
For whom Ezra thought automatically. 'Buck.'
Vin leaned against a post, narrowed eyes admitting his interest.
'I knew something was off there. He sick?'
'What makes you think so?'
'Seems like he's been livin' in the outhouse last day or two.'
Ezra felt his lip try to curl at the thought but contained his revulsion.
'He fears that he may have contracted a condition.'
He watched as Vin considered the alternatives.
'The clap?'
'Succinctly put. I wondered if you might... have any experience... indirect, of course.'
'He tell you t'ask around?'
'No. And I was not asking around, as you put it, but I thought Chris might be able to assist. He suggested that I speak with you.'
The suggestion seemed to surprise Vin as much as it had Ezra, but he didn't comment on it.
'Hell, Ezra, you're a braver man than I am, if y'asked Chris what he knew about the clap.'
Remembering Chris's glare, Ezra shivered. He might not have been that brave, if he'd realized how narrowly these men would interpret a question about their experience.
'I only thought, given that he'd served in the Army...'
Vin nodded. 'Good point. Plenty of it there. But I ain't never been in the Army. Why ask me?'
Ezra shrugged weakly. 'Perhaps he thought... your life with various tribes...'
'What you sayin', Ezra?' Vin frowned. 'We back t'savages again?'
As it happened, that wasn't what Ezra was saying and, if Chris had been thinking of the tribes, almost certainly not what he'd been saying either.
'No, not at all. I was thinking more in terms of the natives of this land sometimes having remedies that prove more efficacious than our own medical science has yet discovered.'
Vin held his eye for a moment, clearly gauging the truth of the explanation. Ezra could probably have passed the examination easily even if he was lying but, in fact, he wasn't. Vin seemed to accept his sincerity.
'Ain't so sure they do this time. Far as I know, it ain't a particular problem in the tribes - I mostly heard of it around trading posts and mines - but I did know a Comanche who had trouble of that sort once and it was all the same stuff white fellas do.'
'Such as?'
'Aw, poultices and potions - you know the sorta thing. Hope the sores clear up afore it drops-'
He stopped abruptly.
'What is it?'
'Just recalled somethin' I said t'Buck. I asked if he was checkin' it hadn't dropped off. How the hell was I t'know?' He shook his head. 'You best get him straightened out, Ezra. He'll shoot himself sooner than go without.'
-11 -
'You did what?' Buck couldn't believe his ears. 'If I'da wanted the whole town to know, I could have made myself up some placards.'
Ezra met the challenge with thinly veiled impatience.
'Since when did Messrs. Larabee and Tanner tell anyone anything? They are hardly known for their garrulous natures.'
'But-'
Buck hadn't wanted anyone to know, but now half of his friends were in on the secret.
'I was at a loss how to obtain more information, quickly and confidentially.' Ezra's tone had become calm and comforting. 'I trusted them. Was I wrong to do so?'
Put like that, Buck couldn't really blame Ezra. After all, the reason he'd asked him in the first place was that he'd exhausted all the avenues he could think of. He shook his head.
'Could they help?'
'Regrettably, no. While clearly concerned for your well-being, Chris was unable to provide any information. It was he who suggested that Vin might be able to assist. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Vin knew only that the natives of this region have no effective remedy either.'
'Nothing? I'll try anything.'
'Only the same placebos that you have already tried to no avail.'
Buck sighed and sat miserably on his bed.
'Vin, too, was sympathetic to your predicament, and its implications. He regretted his remark about parts of your anatomy being at risk of falling off.'
It took Buck a moment to recall the outhouse exchange. Nothing anyone said could worry him half as much as the General's symptoms. Still, it was good of Vin to care. He nodded his appreciation of the concern that all three of his friends had shown.
- 12 -
JD was feeling on top of the world, his tentative declaration of his esteem for Casey having just that afternoon been met with an almost ladylike blushing smile of reciprocation. He strode gaily into the livery stable, intending to work off his exuberance by giving his horse a good rub-down, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by the sight of Buck's bare buttocks. Assuming there was a woman somewhere beyond, he unwittingly echoed Vin's words of a few days earlier.
'Heck. Can't you find someplace else to do that, Buck?'
Buck came very close to giving literal meaning to the expression 'jump out of his skin'. Unfortunately, in so doing, he lost his grip on his pants. Promptly tripping over them, he ended up in an untidy pile of limbs in the straw.
'What's got into you, Buck? You're-'
The words dried on JD's lips when he caught sight of what Buck was hurriedly trying to cover up.
'Wha-?' The appalled gasp was all he could manage.
Meanwhile, Buck was already back on his feet and inside his pants.
'It's nothing, JD. Nothing. You hear me?'
'That wasn't nothing.' JD wasn't so green that he didn't know what weeping sores all over a man's private parts were likely to mean. 'Have you been to see Nathan?'
Buck made a tactical error when he began to protest because the only answer that might, just possibly, have thrown JD off the scent was an affirmative. He might have believed that Buck had already seen Nathan, but he certainly wasn't going to accept his refusal to do so.
'Come on. We'll go find him now.'
'No.'
'I'll shoot you if I have to,' JD warned. 'One way or another, you're going to see Nathan.'
He would have done too, if that was the only way to help a friend, but Buck gave up just about the time he was starting to consider making good on the threat. Perhaps it was a sign of how much the sickness had ground him down that he gave in so soon. JD wasn't taking any chances though, walking him to the clinic and then waiting until Nathan answered the door.
- 13 -
'Why the hell didn't you come 'n' see me t'start with, you darned fool? I've probably seen more soldiers with the clap than you've had women in your bed.'
'I...' Buck cast around for an answer. 'Tarnation, Nathan, it's embarrassing.'
'Bit late for that. You wasn't embarrassed about doin' what caused it, was you?'
'See, that's why I didn't ask you - because I knew what to expect.'
Nathan waved away the protest. 'You deserve worse than that. Drop your pants.'
'Some bedside manner you got yourself there, Dr. Jackson,' Buck muttered, as he obeyed.
Nathan sank onto one knee and inspected the General closely, pushing him from side to side with a splint of wood. It was, Buck quickly realized, even more embarrassing than he'd feared. He'd had a few medical examinations in his life, usually cursory and always carried out by strangers. He'd never had a friend study his personal parts from a few inches away.
'You use preventatives, don't you?'
Buck was surprised by the positive phrasing of the question.
'Has Ezra been talking to you an' all?'
'No.' Nathan looked up, clearly puzzled. 'What would he know about it?'
Buck didn't want to go there. 'Never mind. Yeah, I do. How did you know?'
'I've tended half the ladies in town for one thing or another over the years. If we're talkin' about women's problems, your name's apt to come up now and then. Are you always that careful?'
'Mostly. Except maybe once or twice with a woman past bearing young'uns for one reason or another. I'm usually pretty careful even then. Like I told JD, a man's gotta look after his cock - if he wants it to last a lifetime.'
'See the consequences when you were young?'
Buck nodded. 'I didn't know you had me figured so good.'
'I'da had more to say that day with Lucy, if I hadn't knowed why you was so surprised.'
Thinking back, Buck realized that Nathan had treated the revelation more lightly than he'd have expected. Reassured, he spoke sadly.
'My Ma, amongst others.'
'She had...?'
'Yeah. A lot of working girls do. They don't get no choice about being careful, most of the time.' Even after all the years, the misery of his mother's final years brought him to the edge of tears. He sniffed. 'Syphilis. She didn't quite make thirty.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Thanks. I used to worry that maybe I'd been born with it, but then when nothing...'
Nathan shook his head. 'I seen plenty of that but it never took all this time t'show. Most often only takes months, or a few years at most, before it comes out with young'uns... and even then it's different... blindness, twisted limbs, wrong in the head...'
'That's pretty much what I thought.'
Nathan sighed pensively. 'Roll it back.'
Feeling less abashed, Buck did as he was told. He rolled back his foreskin and then tenderly turned the General from side to side so that Nathan could see the full extent of the problem. The weeping pustules started on the left side of his belly, ran down the left side of his cock, over the left side of his scrotum and onto the top of his left thigh. He tapped the other thigh.
'Syphilis comes up in lumps around here, don't it? Maybe I got that to come.'
Nathan put his hand on the spot that Buck had tapped and kneaded the flesh.
'Any pain?'
'No.'
'Probably would if it was syphilitic. And it'd come up both sides. Burn when you piss?'
Buck shook his head.
'Goin' more than usual?'
He thought about that. 'Yeah, but more t'check on it than because I need to.'
'Any discharge?'
'Only from the sores.'
After a minute or two, Nathan rose to his feet.
'Show me your hands.'
Buck obeyed.
'Bottoms of your feet.'
'What the-?'
'Feet.'
Buck pulled off his boots and three-day-old socks.
'Sit down and open your mouth.'
He looked all around Buck's mouth, particularly at the inside and outside of his lips.
'You could be lucky. I don't reckon it's nothin' to worry about.'
Those words seemed impossible, out of place in the story that had played out so many times in Buck's mind. If it was a joke, Buck couldn't see what the punch line was going to be.
'How d'you mean?'
'If you're mostly careful like you say, I reckon you'd more likely pick something up by mouth. And, if that was the way of it, you'd like as not get it up top from kissin', as well as from what she was doin' down below. Leastwise, that's what I mostly saw with soldiers. Your mouth's clean as a whistle.'
Buck hadn't realized that you could get the clap in your mouth, and began to wonder whether his background had provided as complete an education as he'd thought. An army of prophylactics would have given him no protection against that.
'How did this start?'
'There was a red patch that kinda tingled, about a week ago-'
'All this in a week?' Nathan picked up sharply. 'And that was the first sign you'd seen? You sure?'
Buck nodded. 'Does that make a difference?'
'Well, syphilis ain't usually that quick after the first chancre, so we're makin' progress. An' it's apt t'show on the hands 'n' feet - kinda unusual that way, for a rash. Where did this one start?'
Buck identified the spot and Nathan peered at it through a magnifying glass, shaking his head slowly as if in disbelief.
'You said last week that you'd been feelin' a touch poorly again and, the fact is, I only know of one thing that stays on one side of the body like this.'
'What's that?' Buck whispered, almost too afraid to ask.
'Shingles.'
The name was vaguely familiar but it took Buck a moment to place it.
'But that's an old people's trouble, ain't it?'
'Mostly, but not always. Sometimes comes after measles, or anything else that runs you down. You had that bout of influenza a month or so back, woulda left you weak.' He shook his head again. 'I never heard of a man gettin' it down below like this... but it can come any place and, well, seein' as it's you...'
Buck got his drift. There did seem a certain inevitability that it would be the most well-used part of his anatomy that would succumb to disease.
'Can you do anything?'
'There ain't no cure, but it'll likely clear up of its own accord in a month or so.'
At any other time, the idea of a month without a woman would have horrified Buck but, at that moment, the news that he would ever be able to lie with one again swamped him with such relief that he could almost have hugged Nathan... if he hadn't still been half-naked.
'I can give you something to soothe the rash. If it gets t'bein' painful - and, I gotta warn you, it can be real bad - we'll try laudanum, but better t'manage without if you can. An', while we're on it, stay away from the ladies until the rash clears up, just t'be on the safe side. I don't think it's catchin' but no sense takin' no chances.'
As if any woman would let him near her while he sported a swathe of weeping pustules anyway, Buck reflected. Only then, once he began to believe he still had a future to worry about, did he think about the chain of events that had eventually led to Nathan.
'Hell, I told Ezra about this, and he told Chris... and Vin. And then JD saw it...'
Nathan grinned. 'That'll teach you t'come to somebody who knows what they're talkin' about.'
'Now I'm gonna have to tell 'em I got shingles on my...'
Nathan laughed. 'Tell 'em you got herpes zoster. That's what proper doctors call it, so I read. I doubt the fellas'll be any the wiser and it ain't nothin' t'be ashamed of if they figure it out anyhow. You should be grateful for small mercies - it coulda been a lot worse.'
'Yeah, yeah, it could. Thanks, Nathan, I owe you. Ezra told me I should see you right off, that you'd proved yourself time and again, but I was too pig-headed to listen.'
'He did?' Nathan's face lit up with pride at the recognition of his skills. 'So, is this gonna put you off?'
Buck considered the question but, in truth, the only thing he'd learned from his experience was how bleak a life without loving looked.
'No, I don't reckon it will.'
'Didn't think so. But you take care now.'
'Always have,' Buck said happily. 'Always will.'