Richards, M.D.
He waited until they were in his stateroom with the lamp lit and door wide open before he casually asked, while pouring a tumbler to be shared, whether that wasn't a government nursing uniform she had on. She nodded, took a manly belt from the tumbler, and handed it to him. "It is. I put on my summer whites as soon as I saw how slow we were steaming. I put myself through medical school after the war. I knew I'd done almost nothing for those dying boys. Once I had my own M.D. degree I felt even less respect for some of the army surgeons I'd served under. I'm a good doctor. I don't usually drink this much and I'm interested in medicine. But since we both work for the same government, do I really have to go into why they'd only have me a lab technician with a nurse's rating?"
Longarm sipped some rye and gently replied, "We don't have many female deputies riding out of the Denver District Court, now that you mention it, Miss Norma. About the best a lady can do with our Justice Department is stenographer or prison matron. But I'll bet you're a good lab technician. I saw how slick you tidied up that poor Miss Lenore."
She shrugged and said, "Thank you, I think. I'm damned good. My specialty is bacteriology. It's a whole new science. We didn't know anything about disease germs during the war, and when I think of those poor boys shot full of holes in filthy uniforms and our primitive attempts to irrigate their wounds with pond water I... Could I have another drink? I don't know why that girl's death tonight got me so upset. I never knew her and I've seen so much worse in my time."
Longarm poured her a stiffer one as he said soothingly, "You'd have liked her had you known her, and like you said, it's been a while and you've a better notion what's been busted up inside. I've read about germs. I take it you don't treat gunshot wounds any more?"
She sipped some rye, shook her head, and explained. "Despite my womanly rank they have me supervising the setting up of new bacterial departments at army, navy, and Indian agency clinics down this way. I just finished teaching some hairy-chested male physicians down in Brownsville how to use a microscope properly. Ninety-nine percent of what you see wriggling in dirty ditch water seems to do nothing much at all. Some few one-celled microbes are now known to be helpful in baking bread and turning malted rye to gold, like we're drinking. A few others are really bad bugs. The ones causing the cholera look a bit like tadpoles. The ones that may cause the ague, or malaria, seem to look like either wriggle worms or doughnuts. They both show up in the blood of ague victims, and laugh if you like, I have my own theory they're two stages of the same organism. But when I sent in a paper to the Medical Journal they sent it back. They were too polite to call me a hysterical woman."
Longarm moved over to the doorway as he soberly replied, "I reckon if a catty-pillar could turn into a butterfly, a wriggle worm ought to manage turning into a doughnut, ma'am. But to tell the truth, I doubt anyone aboard this vessel died of the ague this evening."
There didn't seem to be anyone about outside, but you never knew for certain. So he shut the door before he moved back her way, saying, "I'm sure you're a swell doctor, Miss Norma, but right now I've other favors to ask of you, seeing we both work for the same government and all."
She put the empty tumbler aside on a corner washstand, regarding him with some alarm. "I haven't had that much to drink and I told you I didn't want to get on top, cowboy!"
Longarm chuckled. "Well, it's too blamed hot for me to consider doing all the work. But I wish you'd listen to my proposition before you cloud up and rain all over such a harmless cuss!"
So she listened, and he told her how he thought the two of them, working together, might turn the tables on a killer who had Longarm in a double bind.
As she hesitated, he insisted, "If he made it ashore my only
He waited until they were in his stateroom with the lamp lit and door wide open before he casually asked, while pouring a tumbler to be shared, whether that wasn't a government nursing uniform she had on. She nodded, took a manly belt from the tumbler, and handed it to him. "It is. I put on my summer whites as soon as I saw how slow we were steaming. I put myself through medical school after the war. I knew I'd done almost nothing for those dying boys. Once I had my own M.D. degree I felt even less respect for some of the army surgeons I'd served under. I'm a good doctor. I don't usually drink this much and I'm interested in medicine. But since we both work for the same government, do I really have to go into why they'd only have me a lab technician with a nurse's rating?"
Longarm sipped some rye and gently replied, "We don't have many female deputies riding out of the Denver District Court, now that you mention it, Miss Norma. About the best a lady can do with our Justice Department is stenographer or prison matron. But I'll bet you're a good lab technician. I saw how slick you tidied up that poor Miss Lenore."
She shrugged and said, "Thank you, I think. I'm damned good. My specialty is bacteriology. It's a whole new science. We didn't know anything about disease germs during the war, and when I think of those poor boys shot full of holes in filthy uniforms and our primitive attempts to irrigate their wounds with pond water I... Could I have another drink? I don't know why that girl's death tonight got me so upset. I never knew her and I've seen so much worse in my time."
Longarm poured her a stiffer one as he said soothingly, "You'd have liked her had you known her, and like you said, it's been a while and you've a better notion what's been busted up inside. I've read about germs. I take it you don't treat gunshot wounds any more?"
She sipped some rye, shook her head, and explained. "Despite my womanly rank they have me supervising the setting up of new bacterial departments at army, navy, and Indian agency clinics down this way. I just finished teaching some hairy-chested male physicians down in Brownsville how to use a microscope properly. Ninety-nine percent of what you see wriggling in dirty ditch water seems to do nothing much at all. Some few one-celled microbes are now known to be helpful in baking bread and turning malted rye to gold, like we're drinking. A few others are really bad bugs. The ones causing the cholera look a bit like tadpoles. The ones that may cause the ague, or malaria, seem to look like either wriggle worms or doughnuts. They both show up in the blood of ague victims, and laugh if you like, I have my own theory they're two stages of the same organism. But when I sent in a paper to the Medical Journal they sent it back. They were too polite to call me a hysterical woman."
Longarm moved over to the doorway as he soberly replied, "I reckon if a catty-pillar could turn into a butterfly, a wriggle worm ought to manage turning into a doughnut, ma'am. But to tell the truth, I doubt anyone aboard this vessel died of the ague this evening."
There didn't seem to be anyone about outside, but you never knew for certain. So he shut the door before he moved back her way, saying, "I'm sure you're a swell doctor, Miss Norma, but right now I've other favors to ask of you, seeing we both work for the same government and all."
She put the empty tumbler aside on a corner washstand, regarding him with some alarm. "I haven't had that much to drink and I told you I didn't want to get on top, cowboy!"
Longarm chuckled. "Well, it's too blamed hot for me to consider doing all the work. But I wish you'd listen to my proposition before you cloud up and rain all over such a harmless cuss!"
So she listened, and he told her how he thought the two of them, working together, might turn the tables on a killer who had Longarm in a double bind.
As she hesitated, he insisted, "If he made it ashore my only
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