He came up the road at noon and the heat stood off the stones and there were people along the wall in what shade the wall threw. A woman with a child. Two men with their hats in their hands. An old man asleep sitting up. Behind him down the road a third man lay on a plank door under a mesquite where they had set him down to wait his turn.

He asked what the line was for and they told him. Not a doctor. La señora.

He got in the line because there was shade in it.