"HEY, boy! C'mere!" Old Doc was gesturing from a side doorway.

The lad, about nine or ten, was pounding a butterfly to shreds. He stopped, and wondered if he ought to run.

The second call was gentler. "C'mere." Obediently, the youngster turned from the field and strode across the dusty stretch to where Doc made office— the edge cabin of town, built on last year's cabin, now almost swallowed by the soft spring soil, and next to the funeral parlor with its sign: 'The Family That's Buried Together Stays Together.'

He waited at the low steps, peering into the dark office where Doc was hollering: "Well, yuh gonna pour that stuff in my pockets whilst it's hot er aintcha?"

Silence. Then Doc re-appeared. On tiptoe, wearing his helium pants. Four special pockets, inside out and full of gas, now created enough lift for old Doc to go on emergency calls without getting stuck in the mud so much. When he sat, he had to hold the lip of the stair to keep from easing slowly away.

He invited his guest to join him, but wary of the physics involved, the boy propped instead on his stick.

"Sonny, I seen yer performance an' took it on muhself to instruct yuh." He frowned, as though making a face through a blanket.

"Way I see it, feller's got two choices in life. Kin either be a horse, er he kin be a man." He let go and made a fist for emphasis, which tipped him so a penny rolled out from somewhere. The lad snatched it and made a wish. He wished his stick was sharp enough to pop one of the old geezer's pockets. "So be a horse, if yuh want," Doc resumed. "Thing is, means yuh gotta wear a cowboy alla time. Like that?"

The boy's gloomy look made Doc chuckle. He reached to rough the lad's hair but instead, had to grab firm hold as he lifted off. It was a few moments before the boy was calm again. Old Doc, having won possession of the flailing stick, was now wedging himself against the rail post with it.

"Now. What's yer name, boy?"

"Lucifer. Lucy, for short."

"Mm. Quaint. Lessee, Quaint. Ever hear tell of the Magnificent Seven?"

"Ain't everbody?"

"Most folks is got shoddy goods, son. Original Magnificent Seven wuz an only feller, friend of mine I knew back when. Yuh wanna be like him? Mebbe have a statue, er trinket, in yer honor?"

"Oh, boy!"

"Yessir, I kin just see him now. Ol' Magnificent Seven!" And old Doc starts to recollect. His mind drifts back to a time when, single-handedly, he led a concertina march on Washington. Despite his one arm in a cast, he had held his own against the terrific onslaught of a military brass band. Then he remembers his mother. "Come back soon, son," she would say, every time he left to go play miniature craps. "I don't breathe when you're away." Once, he had a long winning streak and she nearly died.

"Do I gotta be asleep, too?" the boy broke in.

"I ain't fergot yuh," the old coot snapped. "Just editin' out what ain't fit fer a whippersnapper's ears. 'Bout got it. We'd be settin' back, see, dwellin' on the charms of rye whiskey. Flies is gettin' particularly pesky. So the Magnificent Seven, he'd slosh couple drops on the table, 'n jest lay back, a-playin' the shadows till them flies wuz all half-crocked. Then he'd pick him one, an' start workin' it intuh a corner, like he wuz cuttin' a steer outta the herd. The next we hear is wham! bam! bang! Somewheres inside that duststorm is the Magnificent Seven, a-kickin' and stompin' high blazes, 'n poundin' pasty daylights outta that fly with these here special poison boots. Then he'd be after the next, an' the next!"

"Wow!"

"Yessir. Now. I ain't a-tellin' yuh to wear poison boots er nuthin'. But yuh got the same special small feet he had. See, he wore a size seven, 'at's how he got his name, Magnificent Seven." Old Doc snapped his fingers and a pair of small boots sailed out.

"Now, yuh don't have to tell yer ma these here is poison er nuthin'. That's our secret. But I could let yuh have Seven's original pair, mind yuh, fer— mebbe two dollars. Got that much?"

"Naw."

"How's 'bout yuh go ask yer ma fer four dollars an' I'll split the extry two bucks with yuh. Deal?"

Lucy worked his fingers. Finally, "That's okay. Thanks." Then, brightening, "Hey! I hear you can swallow your nose. Let's see."

Old Doc obliges. "Wow, neat! Wiggle your ears." Again, Doc obliges. "Wow, just like a bat!'

"Last offer. One-fifty. Fer bonus, throw in a small tin uv deadly salve."

"Naw, forget it. Hey, can you make a square head?"

"Things to do." Doc struggles to get up.

"Gimme my stick." The boy snatches it, and the old geezer floats to his feet. "Wow, do that again!"

"Come in closer. Lessee how much poison is on these suckers."

"Hey, I know. Set fire to your vomit!"

The old man turns and talks through the torn screen door in not too private a conversation. "Name's Quaint. Mighty fresh squirt. Git the shotgun." The boy just stares, so Doc calls inside: "An' the horse needle."

Lucy retreats some to the shade of an oak. He sees the old man in the goofy pants lightly spring up the three steps and the screen door opening. He knows it's time to light out, so he turns and misses the collision which sends Doc sailing, clawing like an upended turtle.

Quickly, he is waist-deep, trampling a path through the sunlit prairie, insects humming, the wind playing hues across the wheat-colored grass. Suddenly he stops, alert, and begins a chase, his stick striking this way and that.

Moments later, screams. Through the screen, a now upright Doc and his housekeeper witness in horror. The terrified boy is crying for help, stumbling, scrambling, weaving in a serpentine path. Down once, he is up again, then down, disappearing amid a fury of thrashing in the depths of the grass. Then, stillness, only butterflies here and there, in little whirligigs of color, above the gently swaying gold.

Mrs. Clodmire finally gasped. "Land sakes, I'll have to go straighten all the pictures, my poor heart's poundin' so! And him, rollickin' down in the grass! I've a mind to tan his hide, funnin' us that way!'

"Tain't funnin'. He's a goner."

"Now just mind yourself, Doc. Ain't nice joshin' when my heart's still havin' palpitations. Say you're joshin'."

"Ain't. Boy went and got hisself et by a prairie 'gator. Probably molestin' a baby critter an' the momma 'gator come at him."

"'Gators? Why, that out there's prairie grass. You are talking nonsense, and mainstream nonsense at that."

"Way I read the signs, we're livin' in a cockeyed western where ain't nuthin' impossible."

"Why didn't we scoot that boy to safety then?"

"Done better. We just stood helpless and watched."

"To our everlastin' shame!"

"Nope. Ain't a better service man kin do fer his feller-man when said feller brung it on hisself. Man's gotta learn walk spite of shoelaces. Can't have him trippin' over yer apron string besides. Now! Let's get me outta these here dingadang energy-savin' pants."

"Land sakes, let me." And she briskly begins to undo his fly. "Stand still, you ain't payin' me enough for extras." But the old codger keeps shimmying, and his gray tongue lolls. "Just be still. You got a patient, don't forget."

His eyes re-focus. "Mm. That be Mary. Says this angel tol' her she's gonna have her a saviour. But I dunno. Been a-tappin' an' a-tappin'. Eighth month now, an' still sounds mighty hollow."