Skin Medicine

by Curran, Tim

  An animal. Something.

  Maybe a wolf, he thought.

  Damn things. Probably hungry, probably forced down out of the high country for food. But it wouldn’t get any tonight. Turner could hear it panting and sniffing and scratching like a dog at a rabbit hole.

  Turner threw his bedroll aside and took up his .36 Patterson.

  Carefully, silently, he pulled the bolt and kicked open the door.

  It wasn’t a wolf that he saw…not really. The moon was out, riding a lattice of clouds, and it was bright enough that Turner could see it was a man he was looking at.

  A man with the face of a beast.

  Whoever or whatever it was, wore a hide poncho that flapped in the wind like a campaign flag. A boiling, hot, nauseous odor blew off him. Turner felt his insides run like wax.

  That face.

  That godawful devil’s face.

  To the right it was the monstrous face of a wolf, furry and green-eyed and yellow-toothed…but to the left, just the skinless skull of a beast covered in ligament and muscle, a scarified black cavity where the eye should have been. The skin was perfectly bisected as if some invisible line were drawn down the center of that awful face…half flesh, half bone.

  A discolored tongue licked over the spiked teeth.

  A horrible, wizened voice seem to come from some great distance, leagues away, echoing through the mountains and riding that black November wind like coveted sin. “Welcome to hell,” it said.

  And Turner expected those claws, those teeth.

  But the beast brought up a sawed-off shotgun and gave him both barrels at point-blank range. The impact blew his chest to fragments and threw him back inside the shack.

  Then whatever it was, stalked off.

  It made an odd, droning sound that could only have been humming. Amused, satisfied humming.

  13

  While Hell paid a little visit to Sunrise and Sheriff Dirker got his first look at the remains of Katherine Modine…Tyler Cabe, unable to sleep, was over at the Cider House Saloon pulling back beers and slugging shots of Kentucky bourbon. He told himself he wasn’t going to make a habit of it. He was here to work, to hunt down the Sin City Strangler (if he was indeed squatting hereabouts)…but, sometimes, a man needed a taste. And particularly when that man was Tyler Cabe and the war was all over him, engulfing him in a bleak and horrible smell of death and burnt powder. When it got so the memories were so vivid, so very real that you could taste the blood and steel and despair on your tongue, only alcohol would chase them away.

  The Cider House was essentially a log house with timber walls and a rough-hewn floor of green wood that had split and cracked in wide gashes. The roof was thrown together out of planks and scraps and leaked like a sprinkling can. A set of dusty windows overlooked the muddy street, ore samples lining the sill. There was a carved mahogany bar against one wall, a real fancy outfit, and it looked as out of place at the Cider House as lace ribbon on slopped hog. It was similar to a dozen other taverns in Whisper Lake…a place tossed-up while there was still money to be had, but surely not built to last.

  Men of every stripe were gathered over steel mugs and shot glasses—drifters, tramps, miners, company men, trappers down from the high elevations for a few days of drinking and fucking—and the atmosphere was thick and close and cramped. It stunk of unwashed bodies and wet saddle leather, dirty wool and soiled buckskin, booze, smoke, and dirty dreams.

  Cabe was listening to a tall, lean fellow named Henry Freeman who claimed to be a Texas Ranger and had the tin star to prove it. He wore a duck-canvas duster and a stiff-brimmed Stetson. Both spotless and gleaming. His face was gaunt, his eyes just as dead and flat as shoe buttons. Despite being a Texas Ranger, as he claimed, he did not have a Texas accent. Though, of course, the Rangers probably had folks from everywhere in their ranks by that point. But the way he talked…wasn’t like a Southerner or a Yankee. An odd, even tone without inflection.

  Cabe drank him in along with the whiskey and warm beer, didn’t particularly care for his flavor, but what he had to say…that was something else.

  “Way I got it figured, Cabe, is this,” Freeman said, studying his own dour reflection in the cracked bar mirror. “Our friend…this Sin City Strangler, as they like to call him…he’s smart. He’s not your average criminal. I’m of a mind that he’s of superior intelligence. That this is all some sort of game with him, you know, sort of catch-me-if-you-can. There’s a lot of money riding on his head and he gets a kick out of that.”

  Cabe took a swallow of beer. “What makes you think he’s so damn smart?”

  Freeman, who made a habit of never looking at who he was talking to, said, “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Well, maybe you ought to spell it out for a dumb Arkansas farm boy like me.”

  Freeman smiled thinly. “He jumps from mining town to mining town, a fish…no, a shark…that swims in the sea of the population. Mysterious, unknown, unstoppable, just another face in an ocean of them. And mining towns, I don’t need to remind you, are not like the small towns you and I sewed our oats in—people come and people go. By the hundreds. Now how can you hope to track a fellow like that?”

  Cabe thought it over, arched an eyebrow. “Same way you bring a mountain cat down what’s been eating your stock…you lay low, you wait, you take your time. Sooner or later, this sumbitch will show his hand. His ego’s too big and his head’s too full of shit not to. And when he shows, then you bag the cocksucker.”

  Freeman looked offended somehow. “You simplify things, friend. Simplify and over-simplify, I think.”

  “I’m a simple sort,” Cabe told him. “I’m hungry, I eat. I’m tired, I sleep. I’m thirsty, I drink. I see some sadistic ass-knocker out killing women, I piss lead into him and collect my money.”

  Freeman claimed to be on the Strangler’s trail, too. But unlike Cabe who’d picked up the scent in Nevada, Freeman said he’d been scouting the killer since West Texas. Said the Strangler started his killings down in Mexico, continued through Texas and then made his next stop in California, then onto Nevada…and, just possibly, Whisper Lake.

  It all bothered Cabe somewhat.

  When he hunted a man—and he’d hunted dozens and dozens, everything from cattle rustlers to bank robbers—he made it a religion to find out everything and anything he could about his target. He listened to facts, rumors, suppositions. Read anything that was printed. Corresponded with lawmen and jailers and common folk alike. He followed every thread. He believed in being prepared. Yet…Freeman claimed the Strangler had been busy down Mexico way and carved-up a few in Texas before California. Cabe, in all his researches, had never heard a spot about the killer before San Francisco.

  Now how could that be?

  Cabe pulled out his Bull Durham and rolled himself a cigarette, thought it over. Kept thinking it over as he stared at the huge rattlesnake skin draped above the bar mirror. In the morning, he was going to wire a few lawmen he knew in Texas, see what fruit it bore.

  The air in the saloon was smoky, dirty and oily as the bodies that breathed it. The walls were decorated with the pelts of black bear, fox, and mule deer, stretched and tacked. Jutting in-between were the mounted heads of elk, bighorn sheep, and wolf. A stuffed Gila Monster, mouth open, was squeezed amongst bottles of liquor.

  Two burly men were arm-wrestling at a table ringed by men. Money exchanged hands and bets were called and oaths sworn and it got so loud over there, you couldn’t even hear the two wrestlers straining and grunting and puffing.

  Ten feet away, a group of trappers and hunters were passing a whore back and forth, spinning her around and kissing her. She was drunk and each time she whirled, they tore another article of clothing off of her. Her breasts were free and bouncing and a little trapper in a marten cap kept trying to nip them. As Cabe watched—not really surprised, but certainly amused—she finally fell onto a stack of smelly, salted antelope hides. Then the men took their turns with her.

  No one seemed
to notice the fornicating.

  You spent enough time in places like this, Cabe knew, you stopped paying attention to such things.

  “You know what, Texas?” he said to Freeman. “I almost get the impression that you respect the Strangler, that you think he’s some slick, upstanding sumbitch playing his gentlemen’s game and not some sick, twisted-up crazy.”

  Freeman had thrown open the flap of his duster now, so that his guns—two fine ivory-handled Remington .44s—were plainly visible, butts forward. Cabe wasn’t sure if it was for his benefit or not.

  Freeman sipped from his whiskey. “Didn’t mean to give you that impression at all, Cabe. I’m just saying our man is like no one else.”

  “Shit, he’s crazy.”

  “There’s no evidence of that.”

  “No evidence…” Cabe felt the bourbon starting to light a fire in him, sparking dry tinder. “For the love of Jesus and Mary and the Sioux Nation, Texas, he strangles women, rapes ‘em, and slits ‘em open like prize Arkansas hogs…you don’t think that’s the work of a crazy man?”

  “First off, Cabe, quit calling me Texas,” Freeman said calmly, but more than a little irritated. “And secondly, these women he’s killed, they’re whores. I’m not saying that makes it right, all I’m saying is that you don’t have to rape that kind. They’re only too happy to give it for free. To any man, any time, for a price. They have no respect for their womanhood. They are merchandise, are they not?”

  Cabe’s eyes were narrowed now. “They’re turning coin on what God gave ‘em, is all. And why the hell not? I don’t see a goddamned thing wrong with it, long as it’s of their own free will. Hell, why sit on a goldmine when you can work it?”

  Freeman looked offended by that and Cabe supposed it came out the wrong way. Maybe the Texas Ranger was some sort of revivalist, had Jesus on the brain. Maybe that was it.

  Freeman cleared his throat. “We’re not talking a useful, productive segment of society here, Cabe. We’re talking prostitutes, we’re talking whores, we’re talking trash here, are we not?”

  “Don’t know about you, Texas, but I find those ladies very productive. And not just for the obvious…some of ‘em are damn fine people.”

  “Like hell they are.”

  “You got some kind of grudge against ‘em, Texas?”

  Freeman set his glass down and finally looked Cabe square in the eye with a dark, penetrating stare. “I told you to quit calling me that.”

  Cabe, feeling the alcohol now and liking it, gave him an exaggerated courtly bow. “Excuse me…Texas.”

  Freeman was about to address that—you could see it in his eyes, something bubbling away in there like hot tar—but a pair of men down the bar caught his attention. One of them was clean-shaven, oddly regal with an arrogant lilt to his mouth, wore a gray linen suit and an English flat-top cap. The other was unshaven, dressed in a fringed buckskin jacket and Southwestern sombrero.

  The fellow in the sombrero was eyeing up Cabe and Freeman. He pulled out a hunting knife, cut himself a chew from a plug of tobacco and worked it carefully in his jaw. Then he spit a stream of brown juice on the floor. Had a look about him that said he dared anyone to mention the fact.

  No one did.

  Cabe was watching him, too. He didn’t know who he was, but he figured his partner was Sir Tom Ian, a legendary pistolman. Ian had come across the pond back in the ‘70’s with some British duke, part of a group that came west to do some hunting. The duke and his people had left, but Ian stayed. Had made himself a name as a shootist and, depending on who you listened to, had put down anywhere between ten to twenty men. Had backed down none other than hotheaded John Wesley Hardin when Hardin made to kill a black soldier in Tulsa. And was something of a hired gun.

  As far as Cabe knew, he wasn’t wanted for anything. Just another fast gun that danced on the periphery of the law and, probably, on the wrong side of it from time to time.

  Freeman turned to him. “You know who that is, Cabe?”

  “Sir Tom Ian, I’m thinking.”

  “Then you’re thinking is right,” Freeman said. “That gruffy-looking saddletramp with him is Virgil Clay. He’s a maniac.”

  Cabe had heard of him, too.

  He was no Sir Tom, but what he lacked in skill and professionalism, he more than made up for in pure rage. He was a blooded killer and not exactly picky about whether he gave it to you in the belly or the back.

  Sir Tom raised his shot of rye, nodded to Cabe and Freeman. “To your health, gentlemen.”

  They reciprocated.

  Clay swallowed down two shots of whiskey in rapid succession, burped, and wiped his mouth. That mean stray-cat look in his eyes, he sauntered over, a Navy .36 in a cross-draw scabbard at his left hip. He spat tobacco juice about an inch from the tip of Cabe’s boot.

  “What’s all this talk about whores I’m hearing?” he said. His words were slightly slurred, but sharp as tacks.

  Before Cabe could open his mouth, Freeman said, “Name’s Freeman, from Texas. My friend here is Tyler Cabe out of Arkansas. He’s a bounty hunter. He’s hunting the Sin City Strangler.”

  Brown juice ran down Clay’s chin. “What the fuck is a Sin City Stranger?”

  “Strangler,” Cabe corrected him, wondering maybe if that was such a good idea.

  “I know what I said. Don’t you think I know what I said?”

  Freeman stepped in-between them. “The Sin City Strangler is the fellow who’s been murdering those prostitutes, carving ‘em up.”

  Clay nodded. “I heard about that.” He laughed. “Fucking whores anyhow…who gives a fuck?”

  Freeman grinned at that. A compatriot. “Well, Mr. Cabe is inclined to disagree with you. Thinks this fellow out to be run to ground, strung up.”

  Clay pushed past Freeman now. “That so? Well, Mr. Fucking-Bounty-Hunter-From-Arkansas…what if I was that fellow? What you gonna do about it? Take me in? You’d die trying. Maybe I like carving me whores and you ain’t got nothing to say about it. Maybe I wish you’d try.”

  Cabe made a show of looking him up and down. “Son,” he said. “I shit bigger than you.”

  “Never did see a man so anxious to die,” Clay told him.

  Freeman said, “Our Mr. Cabe…he don’t back down from no one.”

  Cabe just leaned there against the bar. He could hear all the men in the bar shouting and arguing and telling off-color stories and wild tales—it was a steady, monotonous hum in his ears. A constant like the stink in his nose. But all that faded into the background and he saw only Virgil Clay looking for a fight and Henry Freeman egging it on. Because that’s what it was really about here. Freeman didn’t like him much, didn’t like how he dressed or talked or that he called him “Texas” even when he was told not to…so, he was going to make trouble for him.

  That’s the sort of bastard he was.

  Clay’s eyes were like ball bearings. They did not blink, they did not emote…they glared. “Oh, you don’t fucking back down from no one, eh? Is that the fact of the matter, you goddamn motherfucking shit-worthless scab? Is that the truth?”

  Cabe stood up now. “Yeah, you heard right, you fucking moron. Wipe the drool off your lips and clean the dogshit out of your ears.”

  Clay was breathing real hard. “You got some kind of sand, Cabe. I’ll give you that.” He nodded, seemed to relax…but not much. Intimidation wasn’t working on this Arkansas boy and reputation didn’t seem to count for a squirt of pig shit. This was indeed a quandary. Question was…how to work Cabe into a situation where Clay himself was sure to be victorious? Because, truth be told, most of his victims had been killed with the odds very much on Clay’s side. A shot in the back. A bullet from a hidden location. Pistols pulled and fired before his adversary had a chance to even think of such a thing.

  Surprise was always Clay’s element. He liked it that way. An even fight like this…man to man…he didn’t care for it so much. Time to try a little verbal humiliation.

  “What happ
ened to yer face, boy?” he said. “Supposed to ride that horse, not get drug behind it on yer nose.”

  There were a few laughs over that.

  Cabe smiled. “It was your mama…she done scratched me up while I was putting the meat to her.”

  Clay looked like hot iron had been shoved up his ass. He came forward, stopped, turned around, danced a crazy little jig. Sir Tom smiled at him and more than one man stepped away from the bar.

  Clay looked Cabe up and down, licked his lips, knew there was a fight brewing here, but couldn’t make up his mind how to start it. How to start it and be sure he’d win it, that was. His hand drifted towards his gun.

  “You pull down on me,” Cabe told him, “and they’ll be burying your ass come morning. Think about it, peckerwood.”

  “Oh, I done thought about it, shithole,” Clay said, bits of foamy spit collected up in the corners of his lips like a mad dog. “Done thought about it and decided I’m gonna have to kill your ass dead.” He stood there, ready to pull iron, knowing there was no other way to save his reputation. He didn’t kill this sonofabitch, every wanna-be in the Territory would ride his ass hard on a daily basis. “Slap leather, Cabe. I’m ready anytime you are.”

  Cabe chuckled. “C’mon, now. What your really saying is could I kindly turn my back so you can drill me from behind like you did all those others. Ain’t that so? Well, Clay, I’m afraid I can’t oblige.”

  It was all driving Clay nuts. He was shaking and trembling and sputtering. “Maybe you don’t know who the fuck I am. Maybe that’s it, Cabe. Maybe I’ll give you one chance to get down on your knees and beg for fucking life. And if you don’t…boy, time I’m done with you, you’ll be sucking my willy and calling me daddy.”

  “Won’t happen, Clay. Just won’t happen. I don’t back down from no man what squats to piss…”

  That sort of insult couldn’t go unanswered and Cabe knew it. Something in him was telling him he was falling into his old habits here, getting into drunken fights. Was telling him that this was probably a big mistake, but—what with the whiskey filling his veins—he didn’t honestly give a shit.