Both father and son end up doctoring during the Civil War, the carnage of which is graphically described. Sarah gives birth to a boy, and Makwa tags him ``Little Shaman.'' At age five, Shaman develops scarlatina and loses his hearing, a disability that makes his road to a medical practice difficult. After he removes the stones, she blooms, and they marry.
He removes kidney stones from a recluse named Sarah, who has holed up because she thinks she's dying from cancer. He travels the countryside, snipping off fingers and enlisting household help to pinch off spurting arteries. He treats and feeds them, becoming their ``white shaman,'' and eventually Makwa- Ikwa, their healer, goes to work with him. Rob finds his Indians in the Sauks, who have fled the reservation and are now starving nearby. Disillusioned with the politics of the charity and intrigued with Indians, he heads west, stopping in Illinois at Holden's Crossing. A doctor, he lands in Boston and can find work only in the Irish ghetto, making hovel calls for a charity. Cole, political agitator in Scotland facing banishment to Australia, decides to migrate to the US.
Gordon (The Physician, The Jerusalem Diamond, etc.) offers two fictionalized generations of doctoring on the Illinois frontier from 1839 to 1865, covering such medical history as the advent of hygiene and anesthesia.
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