The traveler responsible for much of the eastern seaboard, one Wilmerding, while tracking down an unlikely rumor in Georgia, came upon a phenomenon that he reported immediately to Chicago: On several recent trips through the Carolinas and Georgia I've heard reports about a physical therapist and his wife who are performing miracles in the rehabilitation field. He seems to be able to get paraplegics, stroke victims and people with damaged limbs back to full or gratifying recontrol of their muscular systems. And he is also exceptional in his ability to affect his patients psychologically. He's a long, lanky Georgia cracker who lives in a small town with his wife, a short dumpy woman, who is already a registered nurse. When seen standing close together they look like the figure 10.

His name is 100% bourbon, Bedford Yancey, hers is Ella, and he reminds me of a man my father told me about who played a major role in baseball back in the 1920s and '30s. That wizard at healing cranky joints, stiff throwing arms and faulty knees was called Bonesetter Reese, and all the big-league teams sent their damaged ball players out to this little town in Ohio for the Bonesetter to work on them. He effected miraculous cures, extended the working lives of pitchers and was especially skilled when a bone and its attached muscle were both involved.

Bedford Yancey could be a lineal descendant of Bonesetter Reese, and regional athletic teams are already using his services. But he is equally proficient with ordinary hospital cases, his rough-and-ready country style of treating his patients being highly acceptable to the practical-minded Georgians.

I've suggested before, Mr. Taggart, that our establishment in Tampa, the Palms, could profit from installing and featuring a first-class rehabilitation room, a kind of super-sized gymnasium with state-of-the-art physical therapy machines. They do not come cheap, and I'm enclosing estimates from three companies for a complete system. I recommend strongly that you send either Ken Krenek or our new man, Andy Zorn, up to Vidalia, Georgia-that's halfway between Macon and Augusta-to investigate Yancey and his wife and to hire them now, if we can get them at a reasonable salary, and encourage them to make the Palms a rehabilitation center for the west coast of Florida at a cost we can monitor.

When this communication reached Taggart's desk, he immediately telephoned Wilmerding and talked with him for twenty productive minutes, after which he endorsed in his own handwriting the man's report: 'Zorn to proceed to Georgia A.S.A.P. and if the two Yanceys are as good as herein reported, hire immediately. If they join us, Foxworth and Krenek authorized to set up rehabilitation-area ground-floor Health, state-of-the-art but lowest bidder. John Taggart.'

When Andy received these instructions he went immediately to his sedan and scooted up the good Florida highways to the Georgia border, from where he had a clean run into Vidalia. After asking a few questions he learned that the well-known muscle expert Bedford Yancey lived not in Vidalia itself but in a little rural town to the north on Route 297.

There he located the Yancey farm, with a somewhat run-down house standing in front of a barn that had obviously been mended and refurbished. In the kitchen of the house he found Ella Yancey, a short roundish woman who took him directly to the barn, where her husband was working on a patient. The bonesetter was about six feet two inches tall, thin as a willow wand and marked with a tousled head of red hair. He was busy at the task of rotating and kneading the left arm of a young man who looked to be a farm lad but who was a pitching hopeful of the St. Louis Cardinals, whose team trained in the area.

Hesitant to interrupt Yancey's work, Zorn approached him only when Yancey beckoned him over. Introducing himself. Zorn asked: 'Do you remember a Mr. Wilmerding from Chicago who talked with you a couple of times this year?'

'Couldn't forget him,' Yancey said, not missing a stroke as his big hands massaged the ball player's muscle. 'Quite a talker.'

'He sent me to see you.'

'About what he mentioned last time?'

'Yes. You ready to talk?'

'Are you for real? This ain't smoke rings?'

'I brought many photographs to show you. The most attractive offer you'll ever get.'

Still keeping his powerful thumbs pressing on the pitcher's muscles, Yancey nodded his head in the direction of the farmhouse and said: 'Talk to Ella first. On some things she's brighter than me,' and Zorn was dispatched back to the kitchen.

There he said directly: 'Mrs. Yancey, my name's Dr. Andy Zorn. I'm up from Florida to talk about offering you and your husband important jobs in the health field.'

'Doin' what?'

'The things he's already doing, but on a more permanent basis. They tell me you're one of the best nurses in Georgia-in rehabilitation, that is-and you'd have a first-class facility to work in and wonderful people to work on.'

'What kind of people?' she asked cautiously, and he showed her a photograph that caught the entire Palms complex. 'You'd be in this fine building.'

Studying the imposing structure, she asked suspiciously: 'You own this?'

'My company does.'

'Are you in bankruptcy? Looking for help from us?'

He laughed: 'Mrs. Yancey-'

'Call me Ella.'

'My company owns eighty-seven of these health centers. This is one of our best.'

'From what I hear on television it's the big companies that slide into bankruptcy. We got our own troubles here in Vidalia, don't need to go lookin' for others.' But she did study the additional photographs of what she and her husband would find at the Palms, and gave special attention to the brochure that listed the Taggart holdings across the country.

'Why would you concentrate on me and Bedford for this one in Florida?'

'Because that's where I work. I'm the manager and I need a couple just like you to build our rehab center.'

'Considerin' husband and wife,' she said, 'I'd have to agree that we're one of the best, at least in this part of Georgia,' but she turned back to that first photograph of the Palms and studied it from various angles.

'You promise that this is already built? It's not what they call "an artist's rendition"?'

'It's there. Look at the autos lined up.'

'He can draw them, too, better than real.'

Now Bedford came in from the barn, bringing with him the baseball pitcher whom he had been treating, and as the athlete worked his left arm back and forth, the four shared cups of strong country coffee, slabs of greasy bacon and excellent thin pancakes with jet-black sorghum molasses. Andy was astonished at how quickly the other three made the breakfast disappear, and the ball player, noticing his reaction, said: 'When you work out most of the morning, or massage the way Bedford does, you need somethin' solid to help you along, and the good thing about black strap molasses is that you can almost feel the vitamins goin' to work through your veins.' He said his arm felt wonderful, but he did eat with his right hand to avoid putting even slight stress on the damaged left.

After Ella had cleared the table, she spread the photographs before her husband and the ball player: 'I was teasing Dr. Zorn that these were just artist's renderings, but he assures me they're for real,' and they discussed with frankness the pros and cons of moving away from the lovely freedom of Bedford's barn and her poorly paid job in the local hospital. The ball player said: 'It's human nature to test yourself in the big leagues. And you two are the best there is. You owe it to yourselves to give it a try.'

Finally Bedford spoke in a reserved, cautious voice that echoed rural simplicity: 'Seems like if they mean this, Ella, we better pile into our pickup and drive down to see the folks involved-and the setup of the buildings.' But before this could be discussed further, another patient appeared-a girl of fourteen who had broken her right arm by falling off a pyramid during cheerleading practice. Her arm had to be brought back to full use or she would miss her entire freshman year on the squad, a tragedy she could not face.

Rather ungainly but just on the verge of being beautiful, she seemed to have the potential for becoming a first-class cheerleader insofar as spirit, liveliness and charm were concerned. If cheerleading was now and in the foreseeable future the biggest thing in her life, she deserved the best that the talented bonesetter could provide.

Andy was astonished and pleased to see how Bedford, this tall, gawky man with the magic hands, was able to convert himself into an eighteen-year-old to bring himself down to near her level. He spoke differently, he hunched himself up to become more nearly her size and he adopted her word patterns and concerns. 'He adapts exactly the way I did with my patients,' Andy said to himself. 'Good sign. He'd be wonderful with our old people,' and he smiled as Bedford led the girl to his gymnasium in the barn.

When her treatment ended, with her recovering some flexibility in her right arm, Bedford returned to the kitchen, studied his schedule for the days ahead, asked Ella to telephone the people scheduled to meet with him the next three days, and advised her to rearrange her meetings, too. When she asked why, he said: 'We're headin' down to explore this Palms affair. If it's as good as he says, maybe we'll catch ourselves a better life.'

The Yanceys had planned to drive south in their own pickup, but Andy proposed that they ride down with him and fly back to one of the airports convenient to Vidalia, from where they would find their way back home. 'I'll pay the airfare and your cost home from the airport,' he promised, and this plan was adopted.

It was a rewarding choice, because they calculated the distance to Tampa to be about three hundred miles, and since each of them was an experienced driver, they could make the trip without stopping, except for sandwiches. During the trip Zorn had an opportunity to talk intimately with the Yanceys, and the more they said, the more convinced he became that they were a rare couple, lacking in polish perhaps, but trained at excellent schools and full of rural wisdom. They were devoted to the health field, had a unique understanding of what could be achieved, and a lively interest in making their own unique contribution.

By the time they reached the northern outskirts of Tampa, Zorn had decided that if the two Georgians found that they could operate constructively at the Palms, and if he judged that they would fit in with elderly patients, he would offer them a job, tell Miss Foxworth and Krenek to convert a big room in Health into a gymnasium, and launch a vigorous program to let west Florida know that a world-class rehabilitation program was soon to be available.

They reached Tampa by midafternoon, and Andy turned right off the major highway and drove them slowly down the splendid avenue of palms and Brazilian peppers to the spot at which the medieval gate, the protective walls and part of the big building were visible. 'That's a home to be proud of, Mrs. Yancey. The health-services wing, where you'd work, Bedford, is over to the left.'

Allowing the Georgians time to absorb first impressions, he then drove slowly around the oval till he reached the entrance to Health. There he parked his sedan in the director's zone and took the Yanceys inside, leading them directly to the big room where modest efforts at rehabilitation were under way with an enthusiastic but inadequately trained nurse.

She was working with an eighty-one-year-old woman from Assisted Living who'd had a total hip replacement but was making little progress in recovering strength or control in her left leg. For some minutes Bedford watched the out-of-date exercises the nurse was encouraging her patient to perform, and they were so inappropriate that Yancey asked both Andy and the nurse politely: 'Could I show her a trick we've used with some success in Georgia?' He stepped before the elderly woman and underwent an almost miraculous transformation. He bent down so that he was about her size. The big hands that had thumped and banged the baseball pitcher became soft, gentle agencies of healing, and his words were those of consolation, one mature person to another. 'Ma'am,' he almost whispered, 'I've seen you before, nigh a hundred times, and usually not in as good condition as you are today. They all recovered use of their leg and so will you. What you must do ...' and in the gentlest manner-of touch, smile, voice, hands-he exercised her damaged leg, twisting it into contortions she would not have believed possible. When it was fully relaxed, he suddenly grasped her by both hands, gently raised her to a walking position and pulled her along in a kind of awkward dance, with him backing up and smiling, she coming slowly forward on a leg she had been afraid she might never again use. At the conclusion of their little dance, her pale face flushed with excitement, he caught her in his powerful arms and replaced her in her chair.

Zorn stood silent. He had now seen Bedford Yancey, this big red-headed Georgian, in three different roles: a brawny adult knocking a professional athlete about, an empathic friend of a teenager cherishing a dream, and the inspiring companion to an old woman fearful of being permanently crippled. In Yancey he saw the kind of healer he would himself like to be. A few minutes later as the trio surveyed the future rehab gymnasium, Andy Zorn hired Bedford Yancey and his wife, giving them only one commission: 'I want you to make this place first-class.'

At that moment Andy could not have foreseen that the fruitful consequences of his act would turn out to be considerable, for when the Yanceys moved down from Vidalia and took control of the rehab center, they kept in contact with some of the professional athletes Bedford had served in his barn. When the men appeared in Florida, and occasionally one of the women tennis players, everyone in both the Palms and the surrounding retirement areas as far north as Tarpon Springs and south to Sarasota heard about it, and elderly men who were sports fanatics began making pilgrimages to see in the flesh great quarterbacks, outfielders and basketball centers.

Incredible as it seemed to Zorn, a few ultra-dedicated sportsmen would try to rent a room in Assisted Living so as to be on hand when some great star was in attendance. Zorn did not allow this but he did encourage a more sensible reaction. Men who had enjoyed watching Yancey work with the athletes reported to their social circles along the West Coast: 'That Palms in Tampa is a top-class operation with a genius in control of the rehab. If I ever have to leave home for something serious, try to get me into the Palms.' This enthusiastic endorsement did not fill all the vacancies in Assisted, but enough sports enthusiasts took beds to reduce the deficit to almost acceptable levels. In a tantalizing way it seemed that solvency would be achieved in one more month, but it didn't happen. However, Miss Foxworth did detect one reassuring omen: 'When they come in to pay their rental in Assisted, three say they enjoyed their contacts with Bedford Yancey, but nine say: "That nurse in charge of the gymnasium, the Georgia woman Ella, she has curing hands." ' When that vote of confidence circulated it brought in even more outside patients who required specialized rehabilitation for their broken hips, mastectomies and sports injuries. The Palms of Tampa was becoming an important and widely known health center.

Once Zorn found a partial solution to the vacancies in Assisted, his mind had time to wander freely to other problems, and one day he realized that slowly, subtly and almost subversively he was being drawn back toward the medical profession. He had been meticulous in informing the residents that he was not licensed to practice in Florida, but he could not prevent them from asking him about their health problems. If an illness was serious, he immediately referred the resident to Dr. Farquhar, who was authorized to give advice and write prescriptions.

So, when Laura Oliphant, the onetime headmistress of an elite school for girls, came to Zorn with one of the most terrifying problems a woman could face, he had to listen, especially when she said, her hands trembling and her eyes looking frantic: 'I have no one to turn to.'

'Regarding what?'

'I've been diagnosed, all the tests are pretty conclusive-I have a cancer in my left breast. And they tell me so many different things I'm at my wit's end, totally confused,' and her hands trembled.

Zorn was saddened to see this woman who had seemed so strong and self-reliant when they had first met now reduced to a pitiful, childlike state. Determined not to meddle in medical matters, he said as he comforted her: 'Now, Ms. Oliphant, you must seek professional advice. You know I'm not licensed to practice medicine. I can't-'

'I'm seeking your advice as a trusted friend. You understand these things, I don't.' She lowered her head and began weeping, which he wisely did not try to restrain-he knew she needed the release. After some moments of tearfulness she cleared her throat resolutely, sat upright and said matter-of-factly: 'Thirteen years ago I had a radical mastectomy on my right breast. Complete removal, and after that, radiation to track down any stray cancerous cells-six months' treatment.'

'And you fully recovered?' She nodded. Then to protect himself he called for Nurse Varney to join the conversation so that she could testify later that he had not practiced medicine: 'Ms. Oliphant tells me that thirteen years ago she had a radical mastectomy of her right breast. Now they tell her, and tests confirm it, she has a cancerous lump in her left breast. And she's asking us what she should do.'

'Are you satisfied the tests are accurate?' Nora asked and Ms. Oliphant said: 'Yes, I'm satisfied there's something in there.'

'What do your doctors recommend?'

'That's the problem. I get a different answer from each doctor I see. I've had six of them, and they refuse to give me any clear answers. Each one has his own theory, but there's no consensus.'

'Six doctors?' Nora asked.

'Yes, six. Dr. Farquhar told me: "If you had a major cancer thirteen years ago, and now you have a lump in your other breast, it has to be taken seriously. Go immediately to Dr. Swain, he'll tell you how to proceed." '

'And did you go?'

'Yes. And he told me: "We have two options. Another radical like before, or there's this new theory-it's a lot more than just a theory, it works. A lumpectomy. We avoid massive surgery. Go in with a very small probe, excise the cancerous lump, and move on from there. But first we must be sure of what the situation is." So he sent me to a radiologist who provided an X ray of the lump. It looked malignant, but to be sure they all wanted me to go to surgery and have a tiny biopsy, a probe, and it proved positive. I had the cancer, just like before but smaller. The doctors agreed that although I had a cancer, we'd detected it in time. A lumpectomy was practical, but a mastectomy might be safer-more certain to get all of the cancer. To make that decision I had to consult another doctor, a surgeon who specialized in these matters, and he said: "Fifty-fifty," and he outlined everything I already knew, but when I asked him what I could do, he refused to say. Told me only I could choose among the alternatives.'

'Where does it stand now?' Zorn asked gently, and she said: 'They all agree that there are several options among which to choose. Total job as before or a much simpler lumpectomy. Then follow-up radiation or chemotherapy. I'll lose my hair with chemo, but that's one of the options. After that, a concentrated treatment with the new wonder drug Tamoxifen, which they say performs wonders in neutralizing breast-cancer remnants. It sounds promising but they tell me there are also negative aspects. I'm confused.'

When both Zorn and Nora said that it sounded as if she'd done her homework, she grimaced and said: 'Too well. Because no one would advise me what was best, I doubled back to the two men who had saved my life thirteen years ago. I called each on the phone and what do you think? My surgeon who did the great job on my right breast said: "Recent advances have convinced me that we cut too much. Nowadays I'm doing lumpectomies followed by lots of radiation to kill off the stragglers." And my radiologist said: "Laura, I no longer do that heavy radiation bit. What do I recommend? Full mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy." '

She spread her hands beseechingly to the two medical professionals and asked: 'So what does a woman do?' and Zorn said: 'To help women just like you, hundreds of them left adrift in American medicine with no radar or old-fashioned ship's pilot, a new specialty has appeared on the scene. The oncologist.'

'What in the world does an oncologist do?'

'He's the referee. Studies all the reports on your case, listens to the conflicting opinions, weighs the evidence and gives you his judgment as to what's best.'

'Where do I find one?'

'I'll ask Dr. Farquhar to make a referral. There must be several in the area,' and when, as the manager of the Palms and not as a doctor, Andy consulted with his house medical adviser, Farquhar was able to recommend three trustworthy and knowledgeable oncologists.

When Andy asked: 'Which one would you use if it were your wife?' the answer came loud and clear: 'Dr. Sam Bailey. Practices here in Tampa, none better.'

When the time came for Laura Oliphant, seventy-six years old, to consult with the new man, she insisted that Dr. Zorn accompany her. Dr. Bailey, a man in his mid-forties, was not pleased with the prospect of counseling a patient when another doctor was present, but Zorn explained that he was there simply as director of the Palms and thus a kind of custodian of the woman.

'No husband?' Bailey asked, and when Laura said: 'No,' he asked: 'No trusted lawyer? No grandchildren? Well, you really are alone. Stay with us, Zorn.'

And then began one of the travesties of American medicine, a forgivable one that does little harm and some good. For a fee of four hundred and fifty dollars, Dr. Bailey simply told Ms. Oliphant what she already knew, but he did it in such a thorough, skillfully organized manner that she could understand each step in this intricate and frustrating battle with breast cancer. Even Zorn was amazed at the complexity and the routine guesswork facing any woman with the affliction, no matter how intelligent she might be.

Dr. Bailey sat in a straight-backed chair with no desk in front of him, in an office that resembled the living room of a genteel, middle-class suburban family. Ms. Oliphant was given a comfortable chair with armrests and Zorn was allowed to bring in a chair from the waiting room. The room was subtly lighted, hardly enough for reading, and decorated with three Winslow Homer prints of marinescapes. His consultation consisted of a thorough lecture on breast cancer in American females.

'It is one of the disgraces of American medicine,' he began, 'that research in this field has been left primarily to men, and they've treated the subject almost with nonchalance. Very little real work has been done, in the opinion of many, with the result that how you are treated, Ms. Oliphant, or women like you, depends largely on where you live when you consult your surgeon. In the conservative Mississippi River Valley and to the west it's radical mastectomy and cutting out every lymph node-what you had some years ago. In the more sophisticated Northeast it's now mostly lumpectomies. In the South, except for Florida and its geriatric specialists, it can be heavy surgery on the principle that if the patient isn't well cut up she's not getting her money's worth. Same way with radiation, very heavy in the West, not so heavy down here. Some favor chemotherapy as the follow-up, especially in cases of recurrence. And with Tamoxifen, it depends on which doctor you go to among the six on the same street.'

He apologized for this confusion, pointing out that much of medicine was influenced by the region in which the doctor had been reared and educated, and said: 'But the variety of recommended treatments for breast cancer excels all other diseases.' He coughed, took a drink of water and asked: 'So which of these seemingly endless variables is best? Let me explain the immutable fact, the one that overrides all else. If a young woman is diagnosed as having breast cancer and refuses to do anything about it, rejects her doctor's advice, regardless of which part of the nation he practices in, she dies at a young age. She dies. In her stubbornness she dies. I will admit no debate on that salient point because I help to bury them, year after year.

'The same rule governs your case. If you refuse to take any steps, you will die six, eight, ten years prematurely. You have the option to do nothing, but you must be aware of how you're endangering yourself.'

Allowing this mournful truth to sink in, he changed his tone of voice to a much brighter one: 'So what are the avenues of escape?' and in a brilliant summary of current knowledge he reviewed the pluses and minuses of each of the acceptable procedures, making the evidence so forthright and unequivocal that any attentive listener could have understood: 'It seems to have been proved a hundred times over that tracking down cancer cells that may have escaped into the lymph nodes and destroying them there, either by surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, saves lives. The terrible word in cancer therapy is metastasizing. If the cells break loose and are left free to attack other organs in the body, and they have time to take root there and multiply, all hope is lost. That's when you hear the awful words: "They cut him open, looked around and sewed him right up again. Three months to live." '

He smiled at Ms. Oliphant and said reassuringly: 'I used the pronoun he because that sentence is used most often about men. They allow a cancer of the prostate to spread its cells to the liver and the spleen and the lower stomach, and by the time we get to the mess, nothing can be done. "Sew him back up." '

He told her that metastasizing in women's breast cases was less virulent or immediately deadly because the fugitive cells did not find so easily and rapidly an organ like the liver or the lower bowel in which to multiply at some horrendous rate: 'With you, it's slower but in the long run just as deadly. So what can we do to track down and destroy those vagrant cells that become such killers? Well, in the old days, like thirteen years ago, we cut out not only the breast cancer but also the places to which the wandering cell might have fled. Tough on the patient, as you know, but also very tough on those merciless cells.'

And he proceeded with case histories in the newer treatments. He said that lumpectomies, if followed by rigorous radiation or chemotherapy, were producing good results, but also had some drawbacks. He was not overly enthusiastic about Tamoxifen: 'Because there haven't been enough studies of possible side effects. That it slows down the migration and even the growth of cancer cells there can be no doubt, but at what cost we really don't know.'

When it was apparent that he was concluding his lecture, Ms. Oliphant said: 'You make it so clear that even I can understand it. Don't you agree, Dr. Zorn?' When he nodded, she said to the two doctors: 'So what course am I to take? I want to live as long as possible, because there is so much left to be done.'

Dr. Bailey then gave her the most dismaying news: 'It is not in my capacity or knowledge to tell you specifically what to do.'

'Damn it, who can?' she almost screamed.

'No one. We're in a dark alley of human experience where the rules of procedure are not yet known, so I cannot prescribe.'

'Who can?'

'Only you, relying on such counsel as your dearest friends and your doctors can give.'

'That's why I came to you, Dr. Bailey.'

'And I can give you these guidelines to help you decide. If you do nothing, as I said at the beginning, you are doomed. If you take any one of the defensive steps I've outlined, your chances are markedly improved. And if you elect all three, I can tell you without hesitation that you will enjoy a ninety-seven percent chance of survival till something else finishes you off. If you're sensible, your chances are extremely good.'

'You mentioned "defensive steps" but you didn't specify them.'

'Mastectomy or lumpectomy. Radiation or chemotherapy. Tamoxifen.'

'And doing only two?'

'The odds in your favor diminish.' When he saw her blanch he quickly added: 'But not catastrophically. Look at your case. Years ago you had only two choices, yet you lived a good life for many years.'

'Are you married, Dr. Bailey?'

'I am.'

'If this were your wife consulting you, what would you advise?'

He reflected, then said: 'I'm constantly asked that question, Ms. Oliphant. It's sensible and inevitable. And I know exactly what I'd do, I'd listen carefully to everything I've said, and then I'd consult the three best doctors I knew, and maybe my lawyer and accountant, and one night at four in the morning I'd sit bolt upright in bed and shout: "Rachel, this is what we're going to do, if you're brave enough to go the route." And I would pray that she'd say she was ready.'

'And what would that route be?' she asked and he had to confess: 'At this stage in my life, and with the imperfect knowledge we have, I honestly don't know.'

When he led her from his office, he said: 'Now you know everything I know. You also have a friend in Dr. Zorn, who seems eminently sensible. And you trust Dr. Farquhar. Make up your mind, say in about six days, and I shall pray that you have the courage and the good sense to adhere to whatever plan you decide upon.'

When Zorn trailed behind, Bailey told him: 'We all need counsel. Don't hesitate to help her because of some legality.'

But when he caught up with Laura, she looked at him with dumb despair, tried to speak and ended in a shriek: 'Damn it, damn it! I consult the wisest men in Tampa and they can tell me nothing. Dear God! Why do you all desert us, leaving us to figure everything out for ourselves?'