“Step right up! Step right up! Gather around Doc Allen, now. I’ve salves for rickety bones. Ointments for baldness. Tonics that will keep ye working in the fields for days. Medicines for those nasty rashes you caught at the bordello and vaccines for smallpox. Doc Allen has it all!”
Doc Allen paused for effect. An uninterested cough broke from the small-town crowed.
“And yet, if it’s portent ye seek,” Doc Allen pressed from the heights of his medicine cart. “I have one thing...one fine piece of arcana: The Ghast’s Bullet. That’s right folks, you heard me. You know the story. Six bullets in the Ghast’s revolver. One of which I, Doc Allen, possess. These are bullets you would not wish on your worst enemy. But whoever wanted what was good for them, eh? A bullet the devil himself poured all his hatred into is my most precious ware. ‘Twas foretold long ago that a man would become the new Ghast. A man worthy of such feats of violence as to command the Ghast’s will in the Three Deserts. Now, I would never pitch this ware to just anyone…but for a man worthy of this boon, well, he’s welcome to just walk away with it so long as he’s willing to front the price. Just step right up and speak the word!”
The people blinked at him, unimpressed. Some stared on emptily, shaking their heads in dubious appraisal of his sanity. Others walked away in second-hand embarrassment.
This was the third tough crowd that week. In the end, the pitch only sold him some tablets for constipation. He also treated a boy’s snake bite which the mother could not afford to pay, so he ended up making a loss on the stop from the antidote and bandages. Having taken the Hippocratic Oath, he simply could not refuse a soul in need of saving.
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