Skin Medicine

by Curran, Tim

  “Tonight then,” he said. “Tonight we sack that heathen nest and burn it to the ground.”

  No one disagreed with that.

  4

  Sitting atop packing crates in the alley behind the Red Top Saloon, Jack Goode was saying, “I’ll tell you something, Charlie Graybrow. Just between you and me and that heap of dogshit over there, this town has the curse all it over it. Yes sir, right from its bones to the roofs above, cursed, that’s what. Lookit me for instance. Just take a look at me and tell me what you see.” Goode paused, pulling from a bottle of whiskey, wiping a few drops from his white beard with the back of his hand. “No comment? That’s fair. Sure enough. Well, I’ll answer it for you. You’re looking at a man what won’t see sixty again. Hell, won’t see sixty-five, I reckon. A man that’s been here and there and everywhere. I fought in the army, I trapped in the mountains. I whipped a mail coach down the Overland trail and I was even a Pony Express rider until some Cheyenne bucks in Wyoming Territory filled me so full of arrows they could’ve used my ass to water flowerbeds. What I’m saying, my red brother, is that I ain’t afraid of shit. Never have been.”

  Charles Graybrow took the bottle, had a taste. “But now?”

  “Now things is surely different, ain’t they?”

  Charles Graybrow agreed with that silently. He knew bad things were happening and would continue to happen. All those disappearances and killings out in the hills. And now this latest massacre. Bad medicine. That’s what it was. Then the vigilantes out tormenting the Mormon squatters and now that prostitute getting slit from kitty to chin.

  Not good, not good at all.

  Even a fool (or a white man) had to sense the bad aura in and around Whisper Lake these days. It was so thick you could hold it in your hand. Almost as if that particular corner of Beaver County was a gathering point for noxious forces. Made a fellow think. Even made an injun think.

  “Things keep up,” Graybrow said, “well have the army in here.”

  Goode pulled from the bottle. “Yes sir, you probably got a point there, my friend. Damned and dandy if you don’t. Because I’ll admit before God and the Democrats and gladly so that I’m shit-scared over this place and what’s happening here. You ask me, there’s a poison here and old Whisper Lake is just rotten to the roots. And it’s getting worse by the day. This town, my friend, is as surely fucked as a three-dollar whore.” He sighed, looked skyward as if he expected the hand of the Lord to smite him from above. “And you know the worse thing of all, Charlie?”

  Graybrow shook his head.

  “I think I’m to blame,” Goode admitted. “Somehow, some way…I brought hell down upon this here burg.”

  Graybrow took the bottle from him. “How do you figure that?”

  Goode sighed. “It’s a long story, but I’ll make it quick for you, I reckon.”

  “Yeah, I’m an injun and all, so don’t go confusing me. I’m real simple.”

  “Now, don’t be like that, Charlie. That’s not what I meant. You know I got nothing but respect for your people.”

  Graybrow nodded. “Surely. Amongst my tribe we consider you to be something of a holy figure. Many is the day we pray for your guidance.”

  “No shit? Goddammit…you’re tugging my cord again.”

  “I’m funny like that,” Graybrow said. “Maybe it’s because I’m an injun.”

  Goode told him that might be the reason, yes sir. “Anyway, about seven months ago I landed me this job. I was hired by this injun, a Goshute, from the Skull Valley Band. He wanted me to transport this body from up there down here to Whisper Lake. A hundred U.S. Treasury greenbacks he promised me. I jumped on it. Figured I’d come down here, maybe do a little panning up in the hills. Now, this body we were talking about belonged to a fellow name of James Lee Cobb. You hear of him?”

  Graybrow washed whiskey around in his mouth. “Some sort of killer, I think. Outlaw. Pistol fighter. Something like that.”

  Goode clapped him on the shoulder. “And then some. A cold-blooded killer is what we’re talking, Charlie. Cobb came out of Missouri and his trail was red and hurting. Fought in the Mex war. Robbed. Killed. Raped. Got trapped up in the high Sierras with a few saddle tramps, ate the sumbitches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Well, you get the idea. Old Cobb…why he was just as low as the belly of a squashed rattlesnake in a wagon wheel rut.”

  “Why’d that Goshute have you bring him here?”

  Goode shrugged, shook his head. “Hell if I know really. Said something about it being Cobb’s last wish. Had some sort of half-brother living in these parts. About all I could figure is that Cobb was wanted for just everything just about everywhere, so he was on the dodge in injun country.”

  “So you brought the body here?”

  “Yes, damn if I didn’t. Me and this little squirt of piss name of Hyden brought the box clear from Skull Valley and right across the San Fran mountains…”

  Goode went on to tell him what that had been like. And as he told it, his eyes got wide and staring, his face rubbery and discolored. A tic jumped at the corner of his lips as he told his story, gazing fearfully into the distance as if he saw the Devil riding in on horseback. When he finished…he was shaking and breathing hard.

  “Sounds like what?” he finally said. “About thirty pounds of prime manure? Maybe. But I swear it’s true. That body in that box…it weren’t dead. Least not in the way we understand dead, you and me. It was crawling and scratching and nails were popping free…and Jesus, Charlie, I coulda pissed myself. Whatever was in that box, well, it weren’t right at all. Like its spirit had just gone sour like bad milk.”

  Graybrow listened and kept his sarcasm to himself, because he knew Goode. And Goode was about as superstitious as most atheists. He wasn’t above telling a few tall ones, but Graybrow knew this was not one of them.

  Goode pulled hard off the bottle. “I never told a living soul about this, Charlie. And I’m telling you only because I trust you and we killed a few bottles together and you’re an injun. You people know about shit like this. White folk? Hell, we’re black and white from toe to skull. Something don’t fit in our worldview, we pave it over with bullshit so’s we can sleep at night. But Indians…yeah, you people ain’t afraid to look the dark things in the face, ain’t afraid of admitting that there’s black, evil things that can drive a man mad to look upon.”

  Graybrow appreciated that, even though he didn’t say so. “You think that Cobb wasn’t human as such any longer?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he said, “but what was in that box…well, I’m not above admitting that if it had gotten out, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “And you think that Cobb brought hell to this place?”

  Goode licked his lips, thought it over real carefully. “Well, I keep my ear to the ground and I hear things. We brought the body to Callister’s Mortuary. And that night, they say, Callister was found dead. And it weren’t suicide. Rumor has it Cobb’s body was nowhere to be found, but the other Callister—Caleb—he shushed it up. Now, I don’t think I have to tell you what’s happened over in Deliverance since then. Even the Mormons themselves won’t go within a mile of that place.”

  “And you think Cobb went there? That he’s the…focus of this?”

  But Goode would only shrug. “Those are the facts way I know ‘em. First chance I get, Charlie, I’m gonna fill my poke and ride out of this graveyard Hell-for-Leather. The idea that old James Lee Cobb might come knocking at my door one night keeps me awake until the wee hours.”

  Graybrow thought it over for a long time as they finished the bottle. Either Goode was crazy or maybe he had something. But even if he was right, there wasn’t a man in Whisper Lake that would ride out to Deliverance to check it out.

  “Well, dammit, enough confessing, Charlie. I ever tell you about the time I sold my wife for a dollar? Truth. She was a mean outfit from back east used to gargle with scrap iron and piss tacks. One time we was in this saloon at a mining camp up in th
e Big Horn range, Wyome Territory. This big dirt-mean sumbitch named Johnny Houle says to me, ‘How much fer ye wife, son?’ And, hoo! Me and Thedora, we had been going at it for hours. So I say, a dollar. He pays me, drags her off. She shows later, dress torn and face bruised, just a-ready to skin and scalp me. Next day, old Johnny finds me. He’s walking funny like there’s a boot and spur up his ass sideways. You know what? He wanted his dollar back…”

  But Graybrow was not listening.

  He was thinking of Deliverance and James Lee Cobb. Wondering just what it was he could do about it. And right then, he thought of Orville DuChien. His second sight. Orv would probably know if Cobb was up there. And if he did?

  Graybrow started thinking about Tyler Cabe then.

  5

  Tyler Cabe thought about it real hard and decided there was only one way to hunt the Sin City Strangler: He had to make friends with the whores in town. These women would be the Strangler’s targets and if he haunted their establishments, well, just maybe, he might catch sight of the bastard. If nothing else, Cabe could put the word out about who he was and what he was doing and that might make the Strangler nervous. And that would either make him bolt…or do something careless.

  And if it was the latter, Cabe planned on being there to capitalize on his mistake.

  Although Whisper Lake was like any other wild mining town and had its fair share of sin and vice, its red light district was restricted to a seedy run down near the refineries ubiquitously known as Horizontal Hill. Caught between mill and lake, but hidden from the rest of Whisper Lake by a high, juniper-covered bluffPiney Hillthis run of brothels, sporting houses, tents, and cribs was no less busy than the rest of the town.

  And at night, a sight busier.

  It was allowed to operate by Jackson Dirker for two reasons. The first being that if he tried to close it down, the miners and railroad men would no doubt jump him and stretch his neck within an hour. And the second…because each and every establishment had to be licensed by the county. And that meant that the senior county official did the licensing—the county sheriff.

  Dirker licensed not only whorehouses, but gambling halls and saloons as well. And pocketed an easy 10% of not only the licensing fees, but the taxes themselves.

  Anyway, the whores plied their trade and kept it (for the most part) in and around Horizontal Hill and the genteel folk of Whisper Lake didn’t have to look upon it, so it kept right on rolling and swelling week after week.

  Tyler Cabe strolled right into that den of vipers and fit like a hand in a glove. Just another prospector or gunman or hunter with iron in his pants and cash in hand. He worked the circuit and talked with dozens and dozens of madams, their prostitutes, and assorted freelancers. He made it known to everyone within earshot who and what he was.

  His spiel generally went something like this: “Afternoon, ma’am, name’s Tyler Cabe and I’m here on business.”

  The average response was: “Well, I’m in business, Mr. Tyler Cabe, so you surely came to the right place.”

  At which point, Cabe would have to be a little more specific about what his “business” was. The whores listened to his tales of the Strangler with great interest and considered Cabe to be something of a saint for wanting to protect them. They fed him and gave him drinks, offered him free lodging. Shanghai Marny Loo, the Chinese madam of the Orient Bathhouse, tried to hire him strictly to protect her girls. She was something of a legend in her own right in that she carried no less than six short-bladed knives on her person at any one time and could throw them with frightening accuracy. Cabe told her he’d keep the offer in mind.

  It was, all in all, an interesting and enjoyable way to spend the afternoon and evening.

  But there were hazards, of course.

  More than one whore wished to show her appreciation in a more intimate way, and Cabe found himself in bed twice that day with grateful ladies—one a handsome high yellow girl and the other a flame-haired vixen from Alabama. But every job, of course, had its waters that had to be waded through.

  He visited cribs that were no more than wooden shacks to sporting houses where expensive French girls ran the gaming tables and would take you straight to heaven for several hundred greenbacks. There were high dollar joyhouses like the Red August Social Club that featured deep-pile carpeting, cut chandeliers, gold leaf mirrors and tables, and imported European tapestries and Greek sculpture. A man could drop thousands in such a place, enjoying exotic delights beneath stained glass ceilings…but was assured of satisfaction and refined sin. Then there were mid-range bordellos like the San Francisco Common House where the girls were no less attractive, but they were all trained thieves who specialized in picking pockets and rolling drunken men. And if your poke wasn’t full enough for those places, there were cheap brothels like the Russian Café where you could get drunk and fucked for the price of a grubsteak…long as you weren’t too picky about the cleanliness of your lady.

  Cabe hit them all and heard all the stories.

  He found that while most of the girls were just your average poke-and-tickle painted ladies, many went the extra mile. One particular high-priced Asian girl named Songbird could do amazing things with oils and hot candle wax. Abilene Sue, a buxom free-living Texan, generally employed a double-cinch saddle and riding crop into her act. And Fannie the Fortune Teller liked to start her sessions by diving your future. A future which always ended the same way—with her riding on top of you, trying to break you like an ornery bronc.

  Somewhere along the way, Cabe met Mama Adelade, the proprietor of Mother French’s Old Time Theater. What it was, was basically a steakhouse with vaudeville acts and imported French girls—or just girls who could affect a convincing French accent—and a booming business upstairs. Place smelled of fine French perfume and offered Parisian wine and cuisine.

  Mama Adeladea slight black woman who could not have weighed much more than ninety poundsdressed in a yellow silk dress with embroidered purple roses sprouting at the bosom.

  “Honey,” she told Cabe after he introduced himself, “I surely appreciate what it is you’re doing. My girls are getting more than a little skittish. And I can’t have that, no sir. For here we offer only one real thing and we offer it three different ways. And that would be love—the fine, the mighty fine, and the very fine. Now, I’m thinking what you need is the mighty fine. The very fine…no, boy, you ain’t up to it.”

  “What’s the ‘very fine’?”

  “Hee, hee,” Mama Adelade tittered. “The very fine is just about dying and going straight on to heaven. It involves two girls and sometimes three, hot oil and busy hands.”

  Cabe admitted he surely wasn’t up to it.

  Mama Adelade told him that she had been a slave on a Baton Rouge plantation. When she got her freedom and, Lord, how she’d wanted that, it wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it would be. “Boy, the massah, you know, he might of owned us, but least he fed us and put a roof over our heads. I think maybe some of us forgot about that. For when we was freed…hell, we had to fend for ourselves. No easy bit, that.”

  Mama told him that it wasn’t long before she realized that there was only one way a black woman was going to make any money in a white man’s world. So she started small and built up her stable year by year.

  “Had me a son, too, Mr. Cabe. But as he grew to manhood, he found religion and didn’t care much for how his mama made her living. Last I heard of him, he went out to Indian Territory to preach. Hee! You imagine that? A black man slinging the white man’s gospel to a bunch of red heathens! Something funny about that, you think?”

  It was a long day, but by the time Cabe retired from Horizontal Hill, he was no closer to the Sin City Strangler than he had been before. But something had to give. Sooner or later, it was going to.

  While he was at a teahouse, he bumped into Henry Freeman, the Texas Ranger, who claimed he was out “inspecting the stock.” And that made Cabe remember he had to wire the Rangers in Texas, see if old Henr
y was who and what he claimed to be.

  Because, honestly, Cabe had his doubts.

  6

  The riders thundered into Redemption like demons loosed from the lower regions of Hell.

  The vigilantes had arrived.

  They came pounding up the dirt street on black mounts, seven men wearing long blue army overcoats and white hoods set with eye slits pulled over their heads. They carried repeating rifles and shotguns and Colt pistols. They charged down the streets and down alleyways with an almost military precision.

  What they brought to the little Mormon enclave of Redemption was death.

  And with it they brought every intolerance and prejudice that had been boiling in the black kettles of their hearts for weeks and months and even years.

  Without haste then, they started shooting.

  The Mormons knew they would show, but had hoped it would not be for some time for they were ill-prepared to fend off such a bold attack. Men carrying muskets and bolt-action rifles ran out to oppose the riders and were cut down in lethal rains of well-directed gunfire. Women screamed and children cried and shotguns boomed and pistols barked. Lead was flying like hail, peppering doors and shattering windows and killing livestock that had not been carefully stabled.

  One of the town elders stomped out onto the porch of his house, his three sons at his heels. A rider passed by, giving the elder both barrels at close range. The buckshot blew a hole the size of a dinner plate in his chest and splattered gore over his sons. And the sons had little more time than to shriek as gunfire from Winchester and Sharps rifles raked them, killing them on the spot. An old woman ran out amongst the vigilantes, waving a prayerbook at them and they rode her down, crushing her beneath the hooves of their horses. The same fate met three young children who’d seen their mother and father put down by pistol fire.

  The wise townsfolk stayed behind locked doors or returned fire from gunports cut into shutters. But they were not seasoned fighters, and very few of their rounds came within spitting distance of the vigilantes. Though a single bullet—whether directed or ricochetedripped through the throat of a vigilante and he collapsed in his saddle.