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for the doctor’s office. Considering the time of day, I thought better of it and mounted the steps to the saloon. We entered through the swinging doors.
    It was dark inside, and a little cooler. Behind me, Brenda had to duck to get through the doorway. A player piano tinkled in the background, just like an old western movie. I spotted the doctor sitting at the far end of the bar.
    “Say, young lady,” the bartender shouted. “You can’t come in here dressed like that.” I looked around, saw her looking down at herself in complete confusion.
    “What’s the matter with you people?” she shouted. “The lady outside made me leave all my clothes with her.”
    “Amanda,” the bartender said, “you have anything she could wear?” He turned to Brenda again. “I don’t care what you wear out in the bush. You come into my establishment, you’ll be decently dressed. What they told you outside is no concern of mine.”
    One of the bar girls approached Brenda, holding a pink robe. I turned away. Let them sort it out.
    Ever since moving to Texas, I’d played their games of authenticity. I didn’t have an accent, but I’d picked up a smattering of words. Now I groped for one, a particularly colorful one, and came up with it.
    “I hear tell you’re the sawbones around these parts,” I said.
    The doctor chuckled and extended his hand.
    “Ned Pepper,” he said, “at your service, sir.”
    When I didn’t shake his hand he frowned, and noticed the dirty bandage wrapped around it.
    “Looks like you threw a shoe, son. Let me take a look at that.”
    He carefully unwrapped the bandage, and winced when he saw the splinters. I could smell the sourness of his breath, and his clothes. Doc was one of the permanent residents, like the bartender and the rest of the hotel staff. He was an alcoholic who had found a perfect niche for himself. In Texas he had status and could spend most of the day swilling whiskey at the Alamo. The drunken physician was a cliché from a thousand horse operas of the twentieth century, but so what? All we have in reconstructing these past environments is books and movies. The movies are much more helpful, one picture being equal to a kilo-word.
    “Can you do anything with it?” I asked.
    He looked up in surprise, and swallowed queasily.
    “I guess I could dig ’em out. Couple quarts of rye—maybe one for you, too—though I freely admit the idea makes me want to puke.” He squinted at my hand again, and shook his head. “You really want me to do it?”
    “I don’t see why not. You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
    “Sure, by 1845 standards. The Board trained me. Took about a week. I got a bag full of steel tools and a cabinet full of patent elixirs. What I don’t have is an anaesthetic. I suppose those splinters hurt going in.”
    “They still hurt.”
    “It’s nothing to how it’d hurt if I took the case. Let me…  Hildy? Is that your name? That’s right, I remember now. Newspaperman. Last time I talked to you you seemed to know a few things about Texas. More than most weekenders.”
    “I’m not a weekender,” I protested. “I’ve been building a cabin.”
    “No offense meant, son, but it started out as an investment, didn’t it?”
    I admitted it. The most valuable real estate in Luna is in the less-developed disneylands. I’d quadrupled my money so far and there were no signs the boom was slowing.
    “It’s funny how much people will pay for hardship,” he said. “They warn you up front but they don’t spend a lot of time talking about medical care. People come here to live, and they tell themselves they’ll live authentic. Then they get a taste of my medicine and run to the real world. Pain ain’t funny, Hildy. Mostly I deliver babies, and any reasonably competent woman could do that herself.”
    “Then what are you good for?” I regretted it as soon as I said it, but he didn’t seem to take offense.
    “I’m mostly window dressing,” he admitted. “I don’t