Doc

by Mary Doria Russell

At the risk of descent into unscientific generalization, I must report to you that ninety percent of Texans give the other ten percent a bad name,

For the rest of his long and eventful life, Alexander von Angensperg might have topped just about any war story told in a Jesuit residence. He could have listened, and nodded, and acknowledged each man’s most colorful adventure, and then achieved an awed, respectful silence with just six words: “I heard confessions in Dodge City.” The seal of confession imposed silence, so he never told a soul. Had others tried to imagine the litany of violence, greed, deceit, and debauchery, they could not have come close. The average priest would rarely hear in all his days what Alexander did in a single memorable afternoon. Everything but sloth, he realized afterward. Dodge was diligent in sin.

you’d be so glad you came to Kansas, you’d think, Damn, how’m I gonna know when I’m in heaven after living someplace this good?

he suspected that she had learned all her manners by reading Miss Austen’s books,

“Watchin’ Yankees march down Front Street, wavin’ their damn flags, bangin’ their damn drums, and playin’ ‘The Battle Hymn of the God-dam Republic’ is more than I can stomach

“The law can relieve a man of guilt,” Doc told him quietly, “but not of his remorse.”

Eat a toad first thing in the morning; the rest of the day will seem pleasurable by comparison.

It takes a fair amount to unnerve a child raised in Kansas,

a conductor comes along the aisle and asks a drunk where he’s going. “To hell, I reckon,” the drunk says, and the conductor answers, “Ticket’s a dollar. Get off at Dodge.”

They strolled toward town, stopping now and then to let him catch his breath and to gaze upward, for the west Kansas sky is black velvet on clear, cool December nights, and the Milky Way is strung across it like the diamond necklace of a crooked banker’s mistress.