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.The five thousand he'd held out of the poker game take was in his pocket—money he felt he was entitled to because his expenses ran high sometimes, and they had to eat, they had to live.He put the roll into her sewing cabinet, where he always put whatever money he made as Bob Prince.She'd spend it when she had to, parcel it out, but she'd never mention it to him or anyone else.She'd told Sheila once that he had a sales job, he got paid in cash a lot, that was why he was away from home for such long periods of time.When he walked back into the kitchen she was at the sink, peeling potatoes.He went over and touched her shoulder, kissed the top of her head.She didn't look at him; stood there stiffly until he moved away from her.But she'd be all right in a day or two.She'd be fine until the next time Bob Prince made the right kind of connection.He wished it didn't have to be this way.He wished he could roll back the clock three years, do things differently, take the gray out of her hair and the pain out of her eyes.But he couldn't.It was just too late.You had to play the cards you were dealt, no matter how lousy they were.The only thing that made it tolerable was that sometimes, on certain hands, you could find ways to stack the damned deck.The central pharmacological ingredient in this story is completely factual, as is the once-upon-a-time use to which it is put here.When I first came across the information in a book on old-time druggists and their wares, I knew it would be perfect for a piece of fiction, but I couldn't seem to come up with the right format.I carried the notion around in the back of my mind for years, until I was asked to contribute to an anthology of medical horror stories, Diagnosis: Terminal, edited by F.Paul Wilson.Then the creative juices finally began to bubble.Of all the tales in these pages, the dark parable of the "Angel of Mercy" ranks at or very near the top of my personal favorites.Angel of MercyHer name was Mercy.Born with a second name, yes, like everyone else, but it had been so long since she'd used it she could scarce remember what it was.Scarce remember so many things about her youth, long faded now—except for Father, of course.It seemed, sometimes, that she had never had a youth at all.That she'd spent her whole life on the road, first with Caleb and then with Elias, jouncing from place to place in the big black traveling wagon, always moving, drifting, never settling anywhere.Birth to death, with her small deft hands working tirelessly and her eyes asquint in smoky lamplight and her head aswirl with medicines, mixtures, measurements, what was best for this ailment, what was the proper dosage for that one.Miss Mercy.Father had been the first to call her that, in his little apothecary shop in.what was the name of the town where she'd been born? Lester? No, Dexter.Dexter, Pennsylvania."A druggist is an angel of mercy," he said to her when she was ten or eleven."Your name comes from my belief in that, child.Mercy.Miss Mercy.And wouldn't you like to be an angel of mercy one day, too?""Oh yes, Father, yes! Will you show me how?"And he had shown her, with great patience, because he had no sons and because he bore no prejudice against his daughter or the daughter of any man.He had shown her carefully and well for five or six or seven years, until Mr.President Lincoln declared war against the Confederate States of America and Father went away to bring his mercy to sick and wounded Union soldiers on far-off battlefields.But there was no mercy for him.On one of those battlefields, a place called Antietam, he was himself mortally wounded by cannon fire.As soon as she received word of his death, she knew what she must do.She had no siblings, and Mother had died years before; Father's legacy was all that was left.And it seemed as though the next thing she knew, she was sitting on the high seat of the big black traveling wagon, alone in the beginning, then with Caleb and then Elias to drive the team of horses, bringing her mercy to those in need.Death to birth, birth to death—it was her true calling.Father would have been proud.He would have understood and he would have been so proud.Miss Mercy.If it had been necessary to paint a name on the side of the wagon, that was the name she would have chosen.Just that and nothing more.It was what Caleb had called her, too, from their very first meeting in.Saint Louis, hadn't it been? Young and strong and restless—there driving the wagon one day, gone the next and never seen again
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