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of there.”
    â€œAre you always so cold-bloodedly logical?” the Russian wanted to know.
    â€œAre you always so damn dramatic?”
    â€œ Lez hoc hevo ne b’yut ,” Zakov said with a grunt.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDon’t beat the one who falls. It is widely known in these parts that Citizen Bapcat is a difficult man, a near hermit. In my country, hermits are revered and tend toward holiness. I detect none of that in this instance.”
    â€œI don’t much care what’s widely known or what you detect.”
    â€œI rest the case. Na chuzhoy karavay rot ne razevay. ”
    â€œYou spout nonsense. I speak no Russian.”
    â€œIt is convenient, then, that you have Zakov to translate.”
    â€œAs I said, nonsense.”
    â€œYou see, you do understand some Russian after all, my friend.”
    Bapcat cut aspen saplings and used vines to fashion a hammocky mesh and climbed down to the Russian. A leg bone was bulging against the flesh, and one of the man’s arms was useless. Bapcat asked, “How long have you been down here?”
    â€œHours.”
    â€œI can splint the leg, but a doctor needs to see it. A break of this kind can go bad fast.”
    â€œThere are no doctors near here,” Zakov said.
    â€œNot here—Red Jacket.”
    â€œForty miles on your crude contraption?”
    â€œNo, nine or ten to Mandan, and from there we’ll go south by rail.” By going direct they could avoid going back down the hill to Copper Harbor, and Bapcat could thereby avoid the Widow Frei.
    â€œI am going to immobilize your leg, but the pain will increase until I’m done.”
    â€œVodka would be most welcome.”
    That would be an even greater luxury than a physician. “What you get is a stick, Zakov. You want me to do this, or not? It’s your choice. Either way I get my ammo back.”
    â€œDo what you must; my point is made,” the Russian said.
    Bapcat nodded, put a stick in the man’s mouth, and began to immobilize his limbs, cleaning the open wound with water from a freezing seep in the rock.
    The man winces, but doesn’t squirm. Doesn’t cry out. This Russian is tough. “Why did you want the cartridges?”
    â€œMy supply is low.”
    â€œYou could buy more.”
    â€œThat, alas, requires rubles.”
    â€œThere is credit for men such as us. Or you could employ poison in your wolf killing, as more sensible wolfers do.”
    â€œCredit is an entrepreneurial trap, and poison is without honor. This train will cost, da? ”
    â€œI’ll make arrangements for us when we get there, and you will pay me back.”
    â€œI have no money, and few prospects for earning any.”
    Bapcat said, “It will work out. We’ll see how philosophical you feel when the pain settles in.”
    â€œSome trapped wolves will chew off a leg rather than submit. Pain is a state of mind, nothing more.”
    â€œWe shall see,” Bapcat said.
    â€œYour skepticism shows you know nothing of a Russian’s heart.”
    â€œThe same heart that teaches thievery?”
    The Russian sulked.
    In Mandan, Bapcat made his patient comfortable in the train station, but decided the breaks were too serious to haul him another forty miles down the line. Better he get him back to Copper Harbor and take him to Frei Dry Goods until he could get a doctor over there to tend to the man’s injuries.
    Once Bapcat had gotten the Russian settled upstairs, the widow began eyeing him with lust.
    â€œI want you to keep Zakov here until a doctor can come and take a look at him. Only after that can he be moved. I will pay.”
    She leered. “I mean this from the deepest and kindest reaches of my heart,” she said, “but it is customary to make some payment on account before running up such impulse expenses—said payment expected today, before you run off to only the dear Lord knows where.”
    â€œBut the