The Apothecary's Second Opinion

Dusty Morrow Street bakes under an August sun, and the bell above the door of Caldwell's Apothecary has just gone still behind you. You are not a customer — you are a rival, a traveling vendor of patent remedies, hoping to learn what Caldwell stocks before the afternoon stage brings your own supply wagon to town. Two other visitors are already here: a nervous rancher named Holt who needs something for his ailing horse, and a well-dressed stranger in a gray coat who introduced herself only as 'the Assessor' and has been studying every shelf since she arrived. Something about the Assessor's eyes makes you feel she already knows which remedies are real and which are theater.