“The Catalyst” Series
		“Touring Under Pressure”
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20:  When You Can’t Heal the Sick, Try Healing the Healthy

           

Climbing out of a car clogged with dust once again, Alex took in the quaint little village laid out before him. It was a small community, with small structures built much like they were long ago, with red stones and the old style adobe, as well as a few scattered newer structures which stood out in sharp contrast. There were several people sitting out, including a few young children. One looked up and called out to a friend, watching Alex and his cohorts.

“Look, it’s him.”

Soon both boys came running to where Alex waited for the others to join him. Gail and Gini were transferring crates from the trunk to a dolly. Alex had offered to help but they told him to forget it. While he may feel it his duty to protect the women around him, they were in better shape than he was and he’d just get in the way. Gini, like Alex’s car and her bike, was covered in sand and dirt, leaving a little cloud whenever she moved. She’d parked her motorcycle off to the side so it wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. Cate was still stretching out the kinks in her legs by the car. It had been a long rough drive from Cedar City through the surrounding country over rough primitive roads into the high desert where they now found themselves.

“Are you him?” the little boy’s friend asked Alex.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who you’re looking for, but I doubt it. I’m nobody special. I’m just here to see the doctor.”

“See, it is him,” the first boy crowed. “She said he always say he ain’t special.” At that he started calling to the other kids in the village, and Alex saw a few additional heads popping up.

Alex immediately had a bad feeling. He knew the boy was referring to Jennifer, and it looked like she’d been busy talking him up, probably promising everyone that he’d be able to help them all, which worried Alex. He knew the people here were very sick, and so far his ability to heal was iffy, sometimes accomplishing amazing things but other times either having no effect or actually making things worse. Jennifer herself was an example of that, though apparently she’d forgotten that fact.

“Is it really him?” a little girl asked. Despite being cute, with the typical dark skin and black hair of a Native American girl, she was fairly heavy set, with puffy cheeks and her own little pot belly. Alex assumed it was because of the cheaper starchy foods they had to eat, seeing it was so expensive getting anything fresh out there.

“Yeah, it is,” the first two boys assured her.

An older man using a cane stood up.

“The Doctor is over here, I’ll take you to him,” he said, effectively rescuing Alex from the kid’s questions. Alex glanced back and saw everyone was ready, so he set off after the man, the others following him, including the several kids.

They entered a slightly larger building, one of the newer, more run down ones. Although it used modern materials, they were cheap, and the building was suffering as a result, and it looked like it was barely standing on its own.

There Alex saw two beds laid out with people lying in them, and another two women sitting in chairs waiting to be seen while the doctor worked on a single patient. However, it was Jennifer who saw him first.

“ALEX!” she yelled, running over to throw her arms around him. He noticed she no longer had a cast on her arm. The arm she’d broken as a result of Alex’s ‘miracle cure’. He’d tried to heal her cancer, or at least minimize it. Instead, he’d weakened the bones in her arms so a simple collision with a food cart in the hospital had fractured it, releasing the cancer embedded in the marrow of her bones into her bloodstream.

“Hey, Jennifer, it’s good to see you, too. It’s been a long time. I see the arm is better.”

“Oh, it’s much better,” she said as she backed up, trying to look at him but once again being unable to. “Simon took the cast off early, and he told me that not only did the bones heal in record time, but they healed stronger than he’d ever seen bones knit before.”

“It’s true,” the man who’d been examining the women on the beds said as he got up, “I swear, it looks like they might be stronger than they were before.”

Alex examined the man and realized he was much older than he’d assumed. He had thinning close cropped receding gray hair, leaving a lot of forehead. His eyebrows were still dark, but that was it. The wrinkles along his forehead and around his eyes were deep set, probably etched much deeper because of his prolonged exposure to the sun here, and his jowls and neck had the characteristic sagging of advancing age.

“Dr. Simon Reinhart, I presume,” Alex said.

“And you must be the infamous Alex,” he said in kind, giving Alex the once over as well. “Dr. Moore in Carbondale couldn’t say enough good things about you, and you’re practically all I’ve heard about since Jennifer got here. Frankly, I hope what they say about you is true, because we can use whatever you’ve got to offer.”

“I find that hard to believe, about Jennifer that is,” Alex said. “She fractured her humerus into a bunch of little pieces, and they were worried they’d never fully mend.”

“Ah, but that’s just the thing, they did. You can see where they joined, but they seemed to have done so in a unique way, as if the new tissue somehow fused with the older tissue, making a solid joint where you normally wouldn’t find one.”

Alex arched his eyebrow, trying to determine whether Simon was pulling his leg or not, but he continued on. After all, he still had to disabuse him of a couple of notions.

“Maybe it healed well, but there’s no restoring an arm that badly fractured into one piece again. If she ever injures it again….” Alex said, letting everyone draw their own conclusions.

“Still, it was an amazing result, given the state it was in. I don’t know anyone else who could have done what you did, with only a few simple treatments. From my own medical experience, I’d qualify it as a bonafide medical miracle.”

“Well, if you say so, though I find it hard to believe, but if she talked about me so much, she must have told you why she shattered her arm, and why my approach to helping diminish cancer is so dangerous. Not only did I screw up her arm, but I also took a contained bone cancer and managed to spread it throughout her whole body.”

“Again, I beg to differ,” the older man contradicted him. “You apparently gave her several treatments after that, telling her you’d have to examine her after some time to try to treat whatever cancer spread. Well, so far I haven’t been able to detect any. It seems what you did while it was still in her arm worked well enough to control it. It hasn’t spread.”

“Cate, introductions please,” Alex instructed. “Gail, I need you to examine Jennifer for me.” So as Cate introduced Gini, Gail came up beside Alex and looked her over. Finally, she knelt down, examining her nether regions from close up, simply ignoring the intervening clothing.

“Do you need a light?” Simon asked. “The light isn’t very good in here.” Alex noticed he’d been using a goose necked spot light to examine his patients.

“No, I’m examining the light the body gives off, so I don’t need anything that would wash it out,” Gail informed him. “By the way, if you could step aside, Alex, it would make this much easier.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I should have remembered that,” Simon responded, reaching over to shake Gini’s hand while Gail continued with her examination. Finally Gail turned around and addressed Alex.

“There really isn’t much. There’s some dark spots, which may be her body trying to fight off the start of something, so you’ll probably want to reinforce it so her body can do what it needs to, but beside that….” she said, not needing to finish the thought.

“But won’t feeding a potential cancer cause it to grow?” Alex asked.

“A cancer, yes. But this doesn’t seem to be a cancer. I’m just guessing when I suggest her body is fighting some new growths, but nothing had developed yet, so it should be safe,” she assured him.

Shrugging, Alex took Gail’s place as she stood. However, as he did he noticed the kids scurrying around, trying to get a closer look at him staring at Jennifer’s crotch. Alex simply turned and glanced up at Dr. Simon.

“Kids, could you give him a little room. He seems to be worried about you. After all, you never know what may happen.”

As soon as he said that, the kids rapidly dispersed, but still watched him in apparent fascination.

Gail pointed out the spots she wanted him to work on, but they were too small for him to focus on using his head, so he used his finger instead, even if it wasn’t as efficient. It only took a moment and he got back to his feet.

“Amazing,” Simon said.

“Hardly, I didn’t really do anything, as Gail tells me there isn’t anything there. Even so, I’m nervous doing it, since we aren’t sure what it may do.”

“Well, given your record, I’d be willing to bet it’ll work,” he replied. “But what was amazing was how simple the treatment was. Anything western medicine would try would be cumbersome, complicated and expensive, but you did your thing in less than a couple seconds.”

“That’s just ‘cause I don’t have an expensive office to maintain, like you do,” Alex replied.

“Come along, I’ve got a couple of patients I’d like you to take a look at.”

“You’ll have to let Gail look at them. I can’t see what the Seers can,” Alex said, waving Simon off. “They’ll tell me if there’s anything to be done.”

With that, Gail walked up and silently studied the two prone sickly women. Gini walked up behind her, glancing over her shoulder while Jennifer walked up on the other side, apparently speaking to them telepathically, though not a word was uttered aloud. Finally Gail turned to him.

“They’ve got a few bad areas,” she said, getting ready to explain what he needed to do.

“I’ll tell you what, rather than risk making something bad worse, I think I’ve got a better approach,” Alex said as he stepped up, bypassing Gail. Glancing at Jennifer he positioned his hands against the first woman’s neck. “I’m looking for the thyroid glands, so tell me when I’m near them.” When she nodded, he gave them both a quick burst, using his forehead this time, since he wanted to make sure they got a good dosage.

“That should boost their immune system, so hopefully it’ll stabilize them before I try anything further. I’ll let them rest for now and put off any specific treatments until tomorrow,” he said as he walked around to the other woman and did the same thing to her.

“Amazing,” Simon said, watching Alex finish with both women in only a few seconds. “How do you feel, Poongatse?”

“I… I…” she said as she seemed to take a moment to consider. “Actually, I seem to feel better.”

“It’s only the placebo effect, they wouldn’t feel any effects this soon,” Alex assured them, waving her observations off. “We’ll check to see if she’s any better in the morning.” There were a couple of audible gasps from the back of the room, although none of the adults said anything.

“Are they going to be following me all over?” Alex asked, motioning towards the kids.

“I don’t think you could chase them away with a stick, at this point,” Jennifer told him with a smile.

“Yeah, she’s also mentioned your way with the ladies,” Simon said, grinning at him.

“It’s not me, it’s just that the people who respond the strongest to my energy are all women,” Alex assured him, even though he didn’t completely believe it himself.

“I’ll tell you what, you stay here with Gini, and I’ll send several people in to see you. I’m sure she can show you how to find their thyroid,” Simon suggested. “In the meantime, I’d like to have Gail examine the women in a separate room, with Jennifer discussing what she’s noticed about them. That way we should be able to get through quite a few people before we break for dinner.”

Alex agreed it made sense, so the two women got up, not saying anything but moving very gingerly and slowly, while Cate got her cooler of food set so she’d have it ready if and when Alex needed it. Soon there was a steady stream of people filing into the small cabin. Simon just stood back, reassuring the various people as Alex did his magic. He’d gone through several when a younger man came up and whispered something to Simon. Alex stopped what he was doing and watched them for a second. He noticed the man would occasionally touch his side.

‘Gini, check out that man’s side and tell me what you see.’

‘Frankly, I don’t see much, but then again, I’m not very experienced at this kind of thing,’ she admitted.

“GAIL, could you come in here for a second,” Alex called out. As soon as he did the two men stopped talking and watched him, wondering what he was interested in. It took her a few moments to reach them, but when she did, Alex asked her the same thing. She simply pulled the young man away from Simon and examined his hip briefly.

‘I don’t really see anything,’ she said. ‘It’s not as healthy as it should be, but it looks fine. He does have a couple of small tumors in his chest, hip and thigh, though, but they’re small and don’t look too serious yet.’

“Why do you keep holding your hip like that?” Alex asked, as Gail moved back.

“I’m not really sure,” he said. “It keeps itching. Just a small niggle, nothing else. I haven’t been able to figure out what it is, though. Dr. Reinhart told me it’s nothing.”

Alex, though, walked up to him and got to his knees in front of him. When the man started to back up Alex grabbed him by his hips and held him steady. He communicated briefly with Gail to ensure he located the right organ, then leaned into the man, resting his head against his side. However, this time he kept it there.

“What’s going on?” the man asked.

“Yeah, I’m curious as well,” Simon admitted. However no one answered them. Finally Cate spoke up.

“Alex, it’s clear you’re doing more than you’ve done with anyone else. If you’re doing something major, we need to know. We’ll need to have more food ready for you.”

“I’ll be done in a second,” he assured her, “and then I’ll eat something, but I want to finish first.”

So everyone stood around and watched him resting his head against the man’s hip. The kids, though, kept bringing more and more people in to watch, even though there was nothing for them to see. Finally Jennifer came in and began shooing them out.

“There, I’m not sure what that’ll do, but I’m sure that’s enough for whatever it was,” Alex announced, as he backed up and hesitantly rose to his feet.

“What did you do?” Simon asked.

“Frankly, I have no idea, and I can’t even tell you why I did it. But what I did is to give his liver a heavy dose of energy. Again, I can’t tell you why I thought it was necessary, but I just felt it was. I really had no reason for deciding to, though. However, he should be processing the toxins out of his blood like mad, now.”

‘Honestly, Alex, I can’t see it made any difference,’ Gail advised him. ‘When you spent that much time doing virtually the same thing with Jennifer in New Orleans, she regrew much of her damaged kidney. I mean, his liver is glowing brightly now, but I can’t see it having had any impact on it.’

“Alex, you’d better eat,” Cate insisted, guiding him to the nearby bed and getting him to sit while she began feeding him.

“Wait, you just inundated a single organ with a bunch of ‘energy’ for no reason?” Simon asked.

“Yeah, I know it makes no sense, but like he said, I had this little niggling sensation it would be beneficial, but I have no idea why, or even what it’s supposed to accomplish,” Alex tried unsuccessfully to explain.

“Sometimes Alex does fairly odd things with little apparent reason,” Gail explained. “He doesn’t always have a good reason for doing it, other than his supposed intuition or his picking up subtle clues, but they tend to bear out over time. We like to talk about his being guided by either God or some random spirits, but he seems to choose the right things to do. Although, this is probably the strangest one he’s pulled.”

“What’s your name?” Alex asked around a mouthful of cookie.

“It’s Stubborn Bear,” the man answered, “but you can just call me Stu.” The man actually looked to Alex to be more Hispanic than Native American, but then again, Alex certainly wasn’t very good at spotting ethnic differences between people. He had a broad nose, clear eyes, somewhat puffy cheeks and a very thin mustache over his upper lip. He also wore a headband over his forehead.

“Well, Stu, I have no idea whether what I did will have any effect, but I’ll be curious to see if anything develops over time.”

“Was there anything wrong with him?” Simon asked, still confused.

“Nothing,” Alex answered.

“Well, not quite,” Gail corrected him. “He’s got a couple of minor growths you should be aware of, but nothing which would require surgery for many years.”

“Well, we’ll keep an eye on him for you,” Simon told Alex. “I’m interested in what this might be about as well. While Stu has lived here for most of his life, he’s only here to take care of his family, since he works construction in the city.”

“I think we’d better take a break and let Alex recover,” Cate cautioned them. “How about we see if we can take that dinner a little early?”

---

Simon grinned at Alex, opening his arms wide in a welcoming gesture. “So, Alex, as anxious as I am to hear about what miraculous things you’ve done since leaving home, I’m sure you’ve more than a few questions for me.” They sat at a crowded table eating a variety of dishes which Alex didn’t recognize. The supposedly native dishes looked a lot like basic Mexican food with a few soggy weeds thrown in. However, they were interesting, if not quite on the same scale of the food he’d eaten in New Orleans. Yet, he didn’t feel compelled about identifying each item. After all, he’d eaten cooked cactus and eggs with Gini in the desert, so this couldn’t be much worse.

Alex waved his fork after spearing what appeared to be a small cactus heart. “Yeah, I’m curious about a number of things, but let’s start with what brings you here? What is it about you that drives you to spend your waning years—when most people would be at home with their grandkids—looking for a nonexistent cheap cure for cancer?”

Simon laughed. “You certainly get right to the point, don’t you? But just so we’re clear, I’m not really looking for cures, since I really don’t think such a thing exists. I’m just looking for treatments. There are millions of people across the world with cancers, most of whom can’t afford expensive treatments like chemotherapy, and whom drug makers and scientists just don’t care about because they can’t afford to commission studies. I’m just one man who’s decided to try to even out the playing field a little. I guess time will tell how successful I am at it.

“But as for myself, I was an idealist when I was young and fresh from medical school. Rather than taking a job at a major medical practice, or doing research work, I decided I’d rather serve overseas in the International Medical Corps. I’d been fascinated with cancer early on, since my father had died from pancreatic cancer, and I’d had several friends suffer from several other cancers. However, I found that while the IMC does good work in poor countries, they basically just throw in the towel when it comes to cancers. Sure, they treat the people, hoping to make them feel better, but there really wasn’t much they could do, since so many people in remote areas simply couldn’t afford expensive treatments.

“That was when I started researching harder to find, more extreme treatments. I flew all over the world looking for alternative treatments, but sadly, most of them did no better than what was already being done. Everyone claimed their own amazing successes, but those happen all the time in cancer treatments. It’s called ‘spontaneous recovery’ and most doctors just accept it as something which happens. However patients always attribute it to their own faith in God, as if everyone who doesn’t get better simply didn’t believe hard enough, and the alternate medicine people used the same thing as evidence that their treatments, which usually had little medical science to back them up, were successful.

“I continued chasing wild treatment options, but I just got more disillusioned over the years. The medical companies dream of finding some mysterious plant in the middle of the rain forest that some obscure tribe knows about which can heal everyone. They then want to lay claim to it, patenting it, displacing the native tribes and charging a fortune for them, but I didn’t believe in that style of research. However, they provided me an opportunity. Since they had these grand dreams of hitting the golden payload, and no one was interested in really doing the legwork to find it, I found those same companies would pay for research into ‘native treatments’ concerning a variety of illnesses. Thus I started applying to a variety of places to do the low level grunt work research in what may or not work.

“I worked in the Amazon for years, as that’s where the drug companies wanted to pump the money into since that’s where their fantasy solutions came from. But after several years I found myself suffering from a variety of medical conditions, each worsened by the high humidity and native diseases of the Amazon. That’s an area where it’s difficult to get treatments even for simple conditions. Thus, as a basic method of self-preservation, I started looking closer to home for alternative treatments.

“That’s how I ended up here. It’s a nice dry environment which doesn’t bother my lungs, it’s in America so I don’t have to keep learning new languages and miss some vital piece of information, and I’m only a couple of hours away from both vital resources and treatments for myself if I ever take sick.”

“I can see how that would compel you,” Alex conceded, once it was clear Simon was finished with his explanation. “But how did you find this place? What is it about this one location which triggers so many cancers?”

“Ah, the always important first question. At first it was a great mystery and we tried to chase down a lot of explanations. Most of them we didn’t have either the time or money to investigate fully. But our best guess is that several oil and gas companies like to test drill here occasionally, and they like to do so however they can. What began with blasting the earth with dynamite at the start of the 20^th century has now progressed to fracking. Our best theory is someone, somewhere around these hills, did something similar and created a fracture in the stone separating the underground water table and the old abandoned uranium mines here. We think when that happened the waters flooded the old uranium mine and thus contaminated the water the locals rely on to survive. In fact, for all we know, it may not have been negligence that did it. A simply earthquake could have broken a seal between an underground reservoir and an old mine, or even to a naturally occurring uranium vein, but in either case, the water is highly toxic.”

“Ah, so that’s why you asked us to bring out so much water with us?” Gail responded.

“Yes, although the people here refuse to relocate and keep using the same contaminated water, we can at least insist they only drink potable water.”

“Have you had it tested?” Cate asked.

“Yeah, we have, although it isn’t as easy to test as you’d think. The radiation levels are very low, having been watered down. What I suspect has happened is whatever is in the water isn’t so much making it actively radioactive, as it’s simply changed the chemical and biological compounds in the water. But we’ve done several tests, and so far they’ve been inconclusive. We’ve actually had some very incriminating test results, but when we try to duplicate them, we’ll get another result which either comes up clean or points to another explanation. So we still haven’t been able to document exactly what’s happening.”

“But it’s definitely pervasive?” Alex pressed.

“Yeah, the vast majority of the residents suffer from a variety of cancers. The longer someone has been here, the worse their cancers are. The younger people haven’t been as affected, but I fear it’s only a matter of time. Like Stu here. He knows better than to come here, but he keeps returning, and each time he does he eats the local foods, drinks the local drinks, and doesn’t consider the risks he’s exposing himself to.”

“It’s true,” Stu admitted. “Every time I come, I bring bottled water with me. But my relatives refuse to drink what they call ‘white man’s water’, claiming their ancestors have been drinking these waters for thousands of years. In the end I simply end up eating the same meals, rather than chasing my relatives out of their own kitchens and taking over cooking for them while I’m here.”

“But wait, why don’t the people just leave if the cancer risk is so high?” Gail asked, intrigued by the enigma.

Simon simply sighed at this, having suffered through years of dealing with it on a personal basis. “It’s several things. First of all, they don’t trust the white man, or even if they trust me for what I do for them, they don’t trust the science of the white man, assuming they’re lying to me to move them out of their ancestral homes. Given their history, it’s not an unreasonable argument. But there’s more to it than just that. Apparently there’s a local legend here, one fostered by a family of famed medicine men. They claimed, years ago, that this area would undergo a test, one which would try their faith and challenge their beliefs. But that the only way through this challenge would be to remain true to their beliefs and their faith, and they’d be borne out in the end when everyone would come out of it whole. That’s a very hard thing to fight against.”

“It more than that,” someone said from behind them, so they all twisted around to see who it was.

“This is Kuubba, or ‘guardian prairie dog’, if my understanding of the name is correct,” Simon explained, introducing an older woman with white hair and a face full of deeply ingrained wrinkles. Alex noted she also had a couple of moles on her face that he’d like to investigate as they looked suspiciously malignant to him, just from this far away. She wore a bright blue and white spotted dress, but her expression was dour. Despite her age, she held herself with a regal pose and an authoritative certainty that comes from a lifetime of making uncomfortable decisions for those around one.

“I have seen it, I have spoken to my ancestor spirits,” the woman said with conviction. “They say same thing. Others see it too. Ancestors insist we stay. They say though many die, we become stronger for having stayed. What’s more, they tell those they visit we’ll all die if we leave. Thus we face leaving home for certain death, or stay and suffer horribly, hoping we ultimately survive in the end.”

“As you can see, it’s hard to argue against,” Simon said. “They see it as their sacrificing themselves for their children and their children’s children.”

“But if the water is poisoned, then surely it’ll also kill whoever comes after them, won’t it?” Gini asked.

“We no see it that way,” Kuubba answered. “The water not poison, but affected by evil spirits. They change water. That way it show up differently in tests. There be no one poison. Instead, there be malevolent spirit who seek to harm us any way it can. It wants us to flee where it can strike each of us down. We would be sick without the support of our faith, family and culture. Yet more poor tribal people in uncaring city.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be hard to argue against,” Alex conceded.

“That why we see you, a powerful spirit brought here from the land of our and other spirits, as our answer,” she continued, which caused Alex to stare at her again, wondering what they’d been told about him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she insisted. “You think silly Jennifer our only source of information. Your coming was foretold, long ago. My ancestors told me last night you were finally on your way and would be here today.”

“Did your ancestors explain how I’d accomplish it?” Alex asked, really at a loss as to what he could accomplish.

“No,” she responded sadly before continuing. “They say you work with the people here, and that we, not you, solve the problem and stand up to the evil spirits. You act as a… a…”

“Let me guess,” Alex said, rolling his eyes, “a catalyst?”

“I not sure what that is, but yes, you be what trigger change, although you don’t make change yourself.”

Cate leaned in close to Alex, whispering in his ear. “Alex, this sounds too familiar to be completely off base. I think you need to hear her out since what she’s saying ties directly into what it is you’re doing.”

“No, I’m sure it’s not,” he replied, turning and casting angry glares at Jennifer and Simon. “You both should know I operate best without building up anyone’s expectations. What I do is very uncontrolled and it’s uncertain when it will work or for whom. By setting me up as this mythical being who will save everyone you’re setting everyone up for disappointment.”

Jennifer looked down, unable to face his disappointment, but Simon merely smiled at his response. Kuubba, however, spoke up, walking up behind him until she was only a short distance away. “You no cure people,” she told him, even as she reached out to touch him as one does a holy relic. “You start change, but we change ourselves after you gone. You like ember, blown in on wind. You begin fire that burns away evil spirit, but it we who fight him once he is weakened. You no save us, we do that ourselves.”

“You know, I’m curious, could you tell me something of what this ‘vision’ of your entails?” Alex, ever the skeptic asked. While he felt that the woman’s perceptions had probably been influenced by what Jennifer and Simon had been saying about him, he’d been impressed with Robin’s being guided by her spirit guide. That little creature had led her right to Alex.

The woman looked a little ill at ease, knowing how outsiders tended to think of tribal visions, but she steeled herself, standing a little straighter and started describing what she’d seen.

“I saw nest of many kits, lying exposed to sun with no parents to protect them,” Kuubba explained. “They look weary and sick and cry out for their mother who no came. Then crow flew down. Normally crow is bad bird, stealing things without the honor of a hunter like hawk. However, this crow, which be you, examine kits, then pick them with it beak, pecking and pecking at them. Each of the kits bravely allowed it to continue, even though painful. Soon crow take off and fly away, leave sick kits mewing for help. But one opened its mouth and out fly beautiful white butterfly. This butterfly circle nest, study its kin, then turn and fly into sky, seeking others to bestow its wisdom on.”

Alex, mindful of not insulting one’s hosts, resisted rolling his eyes, but he remained skeptical. As opposed to Robin’s very specific message by an actual physical creature which led her to a specific location, this ‘vision’ seemed to be anything but clear. How she’d picked him to represent the crow he had no idea, as she could have attributed the crow to any outsider; Jennifer, Dr. Reinhard or even someone they hadn’t met yet. Even then, the meaning was hardly clear. A baby fox gives birth to a butterfly and that’s supposed to suggest someone in the village is going to save everyone? Alex couldn’t see much reason to assume the vision was true, that it represented what she believed it to or that it would ever come to pass.

“Well, excuse me for being rude,” he said, “but I still think you only cast me into this role because of Jennifer and Simon’s expectations. Tell me, did you have this vision before or after they told you about me?”

Kubba looked nervous and shuffled a bit. “It after,” she admitted, looking doubtful for a moment, before she got her resolve back and stood straight again. “But vision is clear and I know ancestors tell me something important.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Alex quickly replied, “I’m just questioning how you choose to interpret it. The role of the crow could be played by anyone, even someone from within the tribe. For all you know, the pecking of the crow could represent someone within the tribe picking apart your belief in remaining in the current village. I don’t mean to belittle your beliefs, but I’m afraid it’s open to too much interpretation, and any single choice would create a completely different meaning. I’m already dubious about what I can accomplish. While I’m sure I can help somewhat, I’m afraid all I can offer is a stopgap measure. I may be able to hold off your sicknesses a little, but I’m unlikely to halt them. And when I leave, as I’ll have to, it will continue unabated. What’s more, I’m likely to inflict as much damage as I prevent. Thus your image as me flying in, picking at the problem and then flying off is probably fairly realistic, my causing the birth of any butterflies is more questionable.

“Given that, I’m afraid your belief is rooted in what Jennifer and Simon have already told you about me. But rather than sit here and argue it with you, I think we’d do better to try what we can. It seems to me we still have a lot of people to see.” Alex turned to Simon, ignoring the old woman. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see as many people from the village as we can, going from the sickest to the healthiest. I’ll try to boost their immune systems to help strengthen them tonight, then try to help with the specific cancers tomorrow and possibly the next day. While I can constrain the cancers, I can’t cure them. What I do is to simply weaken them. But that just means it’ll take longer for them to return, and when they do I won’t be here to help.”

“We ask for no more. You do what you can,” Kuubba told him. “You no problem getting everyone here. We already send word. As I say, we know you come, so everyone ready. As soon as you want, they be here.”

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Just as Kuubba had promised, they had a steady line of willing participants when they returned to the ‘clinic’. Each person would walk in, often hobbling or leaning on someone, and Alex would strengthen their glands so they’d be in better overall health when he tried to work on their specific cancers the next day. At the same time, Jennifer and Gail compared notes, contrasting what they saw with what Simon had been able to observe.

“She’s amazing,” Simon said, speaking of what Jennifer had added to his work. “It took a little while before I completely trusted her, especially when she’d tell me someone had something I couldn’t see, or when she’d tell me that something I’d labeled as a tumor was actually benign, but after I confirmed the first couple of observations I learned to trust her. She definitely makes the whole medical diagnosis progress much faster. Luckily I don’t have to worry about Medicare approvals or excessive government documentation here. As long as I can document that these people actually have cancer at some point, we’re OK.”

Jennifer managed to keep detailed notes, separated into ‘documented’ and ‘undocumented’ observations, which Alex would be able to refer to when he tried to work on them the next day.

“You understand the problem is that, while I can drain the energy that the cancers live on and which feeds their growth, doing so strains the health of the body and the organs connected to the cancers, so it can lead to complications like Jennifer’s humerus fracturing. I essentially made the bone unstable by drawing too much energy from it.”

“Relax, Alex, you’re making too big of a deal out of it,” Simon assured him. “Every medical procedure involves risk. Hell, every pill a doctor hands you has a whole list of complications, only some of which are documented at the time they’re approved. Thus each treatment the average doctor applies sickens the patient as much as it helps them. It’s all a question of balance. If the person ends up better as a result of the treatment, it’s considered a win. In Jennifer’s case, she’s now cancer free and her arm has healed quite well, so I’d consider that a success.”

“Yeah, but I’m just trying to point out that it’s not as clear cut as she likes to paint it. I’m not comfortable applying a treatment I can’t see and that I really can’t determine the success of. I’m just guessing here, and I’ve got nothing to guide me concerning how to apply it, so if I screw up….”

“Alex, that’s the way medicine has always operated. It’s only in the last fifty or sixty years that doctors have become pill pushers, with everything they do thoroughly researched and documented, and even then, the treatment varies with each person. There is never a clear cut treatment, and anyone who insists there is should really not be prescribing medicine. Don’t worry. These people understand they’re sick. They know there’s only a small chance you’ll be able to help them, and they aren’t likely to sue if you screw up; not just because they can’t afford a lawyer, but because any court in the country would toss them out on the street if they told them they let an untrained teenager treat their cancer.”

“Yeah, still…,” Alex complained, still not happy being stuck in the position of being the savior of the entire village.

Still, the people he treated were both quiet and respectful, so he didn’t have to worry about them making a fuss about what he was doing. They seemed to trust him, whatever he suggested, so he didn’t have to worry about embarrassing scenes or any outright fights over what he tried. They really impressed him. They knew they were sick, and they weren’t really resigned to it, they just refused to back down to it. If they thought there was something they could do, without having to move away, they’d do it with no real expectations it would save them.

They’d made a mad run to get up here in time to do whatever they needed to. Treating Gini had taken about two full days, and her treatments weren’t done yet. They’d bypassed Vegas, although the other girls had seemed interested in stopping there. They’d dropped Patricia and her van there. They’d take the time they were separated to schmooze, make contacts and tour the city and nearby tourist spots. Alex would meet them again in time for their Friday/Saturday concerts.

Gini’s treatments had been going well. She didn’t have many flashbacks, but when she did, Alex was usually there and could intervene quickly. She’d also alert him whenever she had either sad or positive emotions, so he could reinforce or correct them, part of his treatment procedure. While it hadn’t really made as much of an impact as the first couple days of his treatment, it was a necessary component. As it was, she was feeling glad to be alive again. She enjoyed being around people once more, she was amongst people she trusted and could depend on and she wasn’t afraid of hurting them by her erratic responses. Though she also appreciated the community they currently found themselves in. She appreciated their stoic reliance on themselves, especially since they didn’t make a big deal of how she related to them. She still wasn’t ready to become a social butterfly yet, so this was a nice transition for her. She could be around people without having to be social.

As expected, they didn’t encounter any new Seekers or Seers, due to the small number of people in the community. Still, Alex had to admit these would have to be considered ‘followers’, even if their aloof nature was a nice contrast to the behavior of his other followers. But he also had the distinct impression they’d do most anything for him, even if he was only a white outsider and likely couldn’t help them.

Sunset defined their bedtime since there wasn’t much electricity except for battery operated devices. Sleeping arrangements were made with select families in the community. Alex ended up sleeping with Jennifer. She was eager to spend time with him, since it had been so long since she’d last been with him. Gini and Gail slept nearby for obvious reasons, although Cate chose not to, not wanting to risk offending anyone by cuddling up to her brother at night.

Tomorrow was another day, and it would determine whether he could help these people, or like Jennifer, he’d end up making their conditions worse. Alex felt himself becoming queasy at the thought of what might happen.

           

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