Skin Game

by Tonia Brown

  The dog answered this by leaping into his arms and licking his face. Even though I never cared much for dogs, I had to admit, it was a heartwarming sight. You didn’t see too many pets in the Badlands. Trying to keep yourself alive was hard enough. Few folks wanted the extra worry of another mouth to feed.

  “This is Dixie,” Stretch said. “Shake girl. Shake.”

  The dog eyed me carefully, then poked a paw in my direction.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Dixie,” I said, shaking the proffered paw.

  Stretch patted the dog’s head in praise. “She’s the smartest little girl in the west, ain’t cha? Ain’t cha? She sure is. She sure is.”

  The dog wriggled in Stretch’s arms, rubbing her face all over his hand as he spoke.

  I giggled at the adorable sight.

  Stretch looked to me with a frown. “What you laughing at?”

  “I’m not laughing,” I said between giggles. “I swear.”

  Mab snorted. “Are we done with introductions?”

  Stretch rolled his eyes and I bit my lip to quiet my giggles.

  “Come on then,” Mab said, obviously annoyed. “Bring your girlfriend so we can get this over with.” She took off for the house again.

  “Don’t mind her,” Stretch said to the dog. “She’s just jealous because you’re sweet on me.” With Dixie tucked in the crook of his arm, Stretch followed Mab.

  I trailed the pair, trying hard not to laugh out loud at the ridiculous drama of the love triangle playing out before me.

  The closer we came, the more I realized I had misjudged the house. It appeared a shoddy construct at first glance, yet I caught hints of something stronger underneath. A solid foundation covered in bits and pieces, like someone was trying to hide the strength of the place. Halfway down the path, Dixie leapt from Stretch’s arms and raced ahead of us. She slipped through the swinging door cut into the main entrance, disappearing into the house.

  When we reached the porch, Mab paused in her approach. She pulled on her shirt, ran her hands through her hair and, much to my amazement, pushed her breasts together. She gave her bosom a good shake or two before releasing it again. I’d seen that kind of preparation in the bordello. Many of the girls there liked to make sure everything was in place before meeting with a client. She might’ve claimed otherwise, but Mab wasn’t blind to the effect she had on those around her.

  “You got everything settled?” Stretch said. He had returned to his mocking pout again.

  “Only one way to find out,” Mab said, then knocked on the door.

  We waited a heartbeat or two. Nothing happened. Mab knocked again.

  A muffled creak rose from somewhere beyond the door, followed by a steady shuffle. A grumbling drifted through the door.

  “What!” someone shouted from inside.

  “We’re here to see a man about a dog,” Mab said.

  A slot in the door opened, framing a pair of rheumy eyes. The owner stared at us, hard, from face to face, until his gaze landed on Mab. The watery eyes went wide and the owner gave a small gasp.

  “Mab?” he said.

  “Heya, Dermot,” Mab said in an unusually sultry tone.

  The slot slammed closed, followed by a series of clicks and clacks. The door opened in a slow creak until it stood wide. Thanks to the lack of windows, the inside of the house was far darker than the quickly fading daylight around us. I peered into the darkness beyond the threshold, unsure of what to expect.

  Onto the porch stepped a small man, a good inch or two shorter than me and much older than I expected, even perhaps as old as my mentor. Unlike my mentor, Dermot looked every heavy year. His face held a complex map of grooves and pits and bumps, liver spots covered his gnarled hands, and his head was as bald as a baby’s rump. Though to be fair to him, and probably from years of plying his trade, he was in fine shape for a man so wrinkled and gnarled. He dressed in a well worn bathrobe over a pair of threadbare long underwear. Under this casual attired, I caught ripples and knots of muscles along those seemingly thin arms and legs. He glared at us with disgust, yet a thin smile played over his wrinkled face.

  “Miss Deacon,” he said. He leaned against the doorframe, giving Mab the once over from head to toe to head again. “What brings you out here to Satan’s asshole?”

  “The usual,” Mab said.

  “There ain’t nothing usual about you, gal,” the man said.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking by leaving the Badlands. I almost missed your wit and charm.”

  “And I almost missed that smart mouth of yours.”

  “Hello, Dermot,” Stretch said, spitting the name out like a mouthful of sour milk.

  Dermot’s grin shifted to a sneer. “What you doing hauling this sorry sack of bones to my shed?”

  “He’s with me,” Mab said.

  “Yeah,” Stretch said. “I’m with her.”

  Dermot looked to me, as if noticing me for the first time. “This one with you too?”

  “Yes,” Mab said.

  “You traveling with folks now?”

  “Only when it benefits me.”

  “Must be after someone important.”

  “I’m always after someone important.” Mab crossed her arms, subtly pushing her breasts higher. “We gonna stand out here and flap our gums all day or are we gonna do business?”

  The older man sucked on his teeth for a moment, considering her question. Or maybe her figure. He then peered past us, down the path. “That your nag?”

  Mab huffed. “No, it’s a pussy cat.”

  “Big cat.”

  “Sure is.”

  They stared at each other in silence, like they were mooing at each other over coffee instead of arguing on a porch of a shack in the middle of the Badlands.

  To my surprise, Mab stuck out her hand. Dermot eyed it for a moment, then grabbed it and pulled her to him. They hugged briefly before Dermot let her go. When they parted, they were both chuckling, softly.

  “Never thought I’d see you again,” he said.

  “Never expected to be out here again,” she said.

  Dermot nodded to the depths of his shack. “Go on in and make yourself at home. I’ll get Lilly.”

  “Get her across that death trap and I’ll brush her down.”

  “Don’t you worry about us. It might have been a while since I had my hands on your nag, but I remember what to do.” Dermot left us on the porch without arguing further.

  “Been a while since I had my hands on your nag,” Stretch echoed. “Stupid Dermot.” He ducked into the house, grumbling to himself.

  Dermot ignored the narrow pathway, instead making his way straight across the yard. The explosive laden yard.

  “Is he mad?” I said with a whisper.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Mab said.

  The man was seemingly careless of his steps, though I increasingly understood he knew just where to place his foot before it landed. With his knowledge of the layout of the explosives, he was at Lilly in moments. There, he stroked her muzzle before he unwound her reins from the branch. Dermot carefully led the animal across the yard, heading toward the back of the house.

  “That was incredible,” I said.

  “It’s his way of flirting with me,” Mab said, unimpressed. “He likes to show off.”

  A snort of disapproval came from the shack.

  “Sam,” Mab said in a sudden serious tone. “Do me a favor and keep your trap shut around Dermot. He’s…peculiar about certain things. Say one wrong word and you could set him off and then we’d be out on our ear.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I will mind myself.”

  “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about him. He’s really not all that bad. Just…”

  “Peculiar?”

  “Right.” Mab patted me on t
he shoulder. “Well let’s get this over with.”

  * * *

  Dermot’s shack held an unexpected surprise.

  Not in its furnishings. Those were plain and simple and quite expected. The room hosted a potbellied stove with a large pot of what smelled like beans simmering atop it. A few cabinets stood near the stove, topped by a counter and small metal sink. A wooden table with a single stool rested in one corner, while a neatly made bed sat in the opposite corner. Beside the bed lay a comfortable looking padded chair. My aching back thanked me for just looking at the thing.

  While the furniture was sparse and functional, the walls were alive with beauty.

  A giant metal relief lined the western and southern walls from ceiling to floor. Flowers and trees, people and animals, anything and everything you could imagine lay spread out across the walls in a single continuous mural.

  “Wow,” I said as I stared at the walls.

  “Beautiful isn’t it?” Mab said.

  “It’s amazing.”

  Stretch snorted from the bed, where he sat petting Dixie and clearly sulking.

  “Dermot made this?” I said.

  “Yup,” Mab said. “He says he likes to keep busy between orders.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “And you probably won’t again.” Mab left me alone to wonder at the walls and busied herself at the stove, filling a percolator with water from the barrel near the sink. “Want some coffee?”

  “Sure,” I said. I pulled myself from the beauty of the walls and made myself comfortable in the padded chair. It was the softest seat I had placed my rump in since my days at the bordello. I closed my eyes and nearly groaned in delight. Or did I groan? No, that wasn’t me. I opened my eyes to find Dixie snarling at me from Stretch’s arms.

  “Um,” Stretch said. “I wouldn’t sit there.”

  “Get up,” Mab said. She didn’t bother to look up at me from her task at the stove. “If Dermot catches you in his chair you’ll spend the night outside. Alone.”

  I leapt to my feet at the threat. Mab had warned me that the man was peculiar after all. Comfy seat or not, I had no intention in spending the night by myself outside again if I could help it. I nervously moved to the other side of the room, lowering myself into the stool by the table. Mab shuffled about the small kitchen, working on her pot of coffee. Stretch relaxed back on the bed while the dog curled up on his chest. I returned my attention to the relief across the wall as we waited on Dermot. It didn’t take me long to realize it wasn’t just a random series of images.

  It was a timeline of the Great Uprising.

  In a few minutes I was able to pinpoint the start of the work to the middle of the eastern wall. There lay the beginning of the Great Uprising. Natives portrayed as sick and dying, then returning to life and attacking everyone else. The mural moved through the combat to regain the western front, and our subsequent failure. After this came humanity’s retreat to the eastern coast, followed by the building of the wall, and the instillation of checkpoints. The ensuing banishments were also portrayed, as the mural showed men and women alike tossed across the line into the Badlands. That wasn’t all of it either. One more important part of Badlands history turned up in the relief. I ran my fingers across a tiny image beaten into the metal.

  The small likeness of a man skinning a rev.

  I stared at the mural for some time, lost in the complex images dancing across the walls.

  “How long did this take?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Mab said. “You want me to ask him for you?”

  I nodded, remembering that I was supposed to remain silent around the man.

  “Oh dear God in Heaven,” Stretch said. “For Pete’s sake, please don’t do that.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because if you show any interest in it, he won’t shut up about the damnable thing.”

  “What damnable thing?” Dermot said as he joined us. He closed the backdoor behind him to another snort from Stretch.

  “Your masterpiece,” Stretch said, pointing to the mural.

  “You got a problem with my work?” Dermot said.

  “You get Lilly settled?” Mab said over the men.

  “She’s good,” Dermot said. “Already asleep in the shed. I brushed her down and stored your gear.”

  “Thanks, hon.” She stooped to give him a peck on the cheek. “You’re a doll.”

  “I could’ve stored a horse,” Stretch grumbled.

  “Get off my bed,” Dermot said. “If anyone is gonna share my bed, it won’t be you.”

  Stretch grunted as he climbed off the bed and settled on the floor. Dixie followed, curling up in Stretch’s lap.

  “Dixie,” Dermot said. “Get away from that filthy tramp.”

  The dog whined and snuggled down tighter into the folds of Stretch’s long legs.

  “Dog never had much taste,” Dermot said.

  “Comes from being around such a bastard all of the time,” Stretch said.

  Dermot made a fist at Stretch and sneered. “If I were you I’d watch that big mouth.”

  Stretch set the dog to one side and got to his feet. He towered over Dermot. “And what if I don’t?”

  “Now, now,” Mab said, stepping up between the pair. “We are all friends here.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Stretch said.

  Mab glared at him. “I have a pot of coffee on the perk. You know you love my coffee, Dermot. Come on. Let’s have a cup so we can talk business and we’ll get out of your hair.”

  Dermot sneered at Stretch one more time, then turned a smile to Mab. “It’s getting late. I reckon you’re gonna want to stay the night.”

  “Oh we can’t impose on you like that.”

  “You’re not imposing.” Dermot thumbed toward Stretch. “Him maybe, but never you. In fact, he can sleep with Lilly out in the shed and you can help me keep my bed warm.”

  Mab giggled, yet when Dermot turned away she rubbed at her temples and rolled her eyes. This kind of flirtatious performance was obviously taxing her. I wondered how much longer she could keep it up before she snapped at the little troll.

  “What about me, sir?” I said. I didn’t mean to speak. In fact, the words were out of my mouth before I knew I had said them. It was too late. They were hanging in the air between us.

  Dermot’s ears perked up at my words. He glanced to me. “What about you?”

  “Where should I sleep?”

  The little man gave me the same once over that he had give Mab on the porch. I felt like he was appraising me. Weighing my worth. Or that he saw something in me I wasn’t sure I wanted seen. He opened his mouth yet before he could speak, Mab cut in.

  “Business,” Mab said. “Let’s get to business.”

  “I got a better idea,” Dermot said. “Why don’t we share that pot of beans and you can tell me all about what happened in New York.”

  Stretch’s eyes lit up and his sour attitude changed at once. “Now that is a fantastic idea if I ever heard one. Shall I get the plates?” He rubbed his hands together in excitement.

  I wasn’t sure if he was more excited about the food or the potential conversation.

  Mab flared her nostrils at Stretch. “You’re too kind.”

  “Anything I can do to help,” Stretch said, and gathered what cutlery and bowls he could find in the cabinets.

  Dermot not only shared his beans, he also threw in a good sized piece of salt pork and some cornbread. The food was good, warm and filling. The conversation was even better.

  We settled in at our various points around the room, with Dermot in his chair, Mab on the stool, and both Stretch and I in the floor. We ate in silence at first, a tenseness filling the room between the four of us.

  “What happened then?” Dermot said.

&nbs
p; “Nothing happened,” Mab said. “It’s complicated.”

  “I told you it wouldn’t make you happy.”

  Mab pursed her lips.

  “What didn’t make you happy?” I said.

  She shot me a silencing glance.

  “Her big job,” Stretch said.

  Mab turned her sour look on Stretch, silencing him too. “I was offered work in Washington.”

  “Washing DC,” Stretch said around a mouthful of cornbread. He swallowed the mouthful and pointed his spoon in Mab’s direction. “Someone high up heard what a bulldog she was when it came to catching criminals, and they snatched her away from us. Gave her proper work in a proper government outfit and everything.”

  “Question is, what happened?” Dermot said.

  “It proved…unsatisfying,” Mab said. “They saw me in one position and I wanted a different one.”

  “Gave you a desk, did they?” Dermot said.

  “Something like that.”

  “Told you they didn’t appreciate you like we do.”

  “So you did.”

  “And what of your man?”

  Mab stopped cold at the question, a spoonful of beans hovering at her mouth. She flicked her gaze to Stretch, who coughed and sputtered.

  “Man?” Stretch said, nearly choking on his meal. “What man?”

  Dermot ignored Stretch, keeping his attention on Mab. “Well?”

  “What man?” Stretch demanded.

  Mab tossed her spoon into her bowl. “How did you know about that?”

  “I have my ways,” Dermot said. “You know that as well as anyone. What happened to your happy ending? I heard there was a big wedding and everything.”

  “You got married?” Stretch said. His mouth hung open, a bit of half chewed beans and cornbread tumbling to the floor.

  Dixie shuffled forward and began to scarf up the stray bits of food from the floor.

  Mab didn’t speak as her easy joy melted away, leaving a sorrowful woman behind.

  “Marriage turn out to be unsatisfying as well?” Dermot grinned.

  The conversation hit a lull, as Dermot grinned at Mab and Stretch sat slack jawed in surprise. I felt like I was watching a play unfold, on my own private stage. I wanted to prompt the actors for more, yet feared I would ruin the mood of the piece.