Tim Curran: Skin Medicine

The miner winced as he saw the bearded man begin to stagger over. Maybe it was that he knew trouble when he saw it or maybe it was the man’s smell…he stunk like a heap of rancid steer hides.

Cabe eyed him up, didn’t like what he saw. That long stringy hair, that heavy beard all knotted-up and filthy like he used it to wipe out spittoons. His rheumy eyes were red-rimmed, but beneath that haze of alcohol…just as dusky as open graves. Some drunken, ignorant hellbilly, that’s what.

Carny stopped wiping the bar. “Sit your ass down, Orv. Just sit it right down. The house’ll buy you another whiskey. Otherwise, you can get the hell out.”

“ Fuck you,” the hellbilly said, scratching at that rug of beard. He came on with a stink of urine. The stains at his crotch said he’d pissed himself and it wasn’t the first time. “Goddamn war, yes sir. I was in that war. Yessum. Lost two brothers in that goddamn war.” He stared at Cabe, not liking what he saw. “Yankee, ain’t you?”

Cabe sighed. “No, Confederate. Second Arkansas. Popped my cherry at Wilson’s Creek and lost my soul at Pea Ridge.”

The hellbilly didn’t seem to hear or want to. “You was on our side? Hell you were. Probably some goddamn guerilla out killing babies and robbing farmers. Probably rode with Bloody Bill and his murdering, raping cowards, didn’t you? Not like me. No sir, not like me. Not a real soldier.”

The miner tapped a finger to his skull, indicating that the hellbilly was crazier than dancing cats. But Cabe had already deduced as much. Didn’t take a tree full of owls to figure that.

“ Now, Orv,” Carny said and said very calmly like he was talking to his pet beagle that had just shit on the carpet. “This fellow’s just having himself a drink. He don’t want no trouble. He ain’t a Yankee like me or Bob here. He’s a Southern boy like you and he was a real soldier. So just let him be, hear?”

The hellbilly hawked up a gob of phlegm and spit it at his feet. “Fuck you know, you sumbitch.”

Cabe figured old Orv was making a mistake. By the looks of Carny, he could hammer cold steel into tent pegs with those fists of his. And you just didn’t want to think about how many faces he’d disfigured or skulls he’d fractured. You didn’t get on the bad side of a man like that. It was damn dangerous. That’s what Cabe was thinking…until the hellbilly’s sheepskin coat drifted open and he saw that big, mean-looking 1851 Colt Navy. 44 hanging at his side.

Cabe stopped worrying about old Orv’s face and started wondering how quick the blood would run from a. 44 hole in his own belly. He figured it would run pretty damn fast.

Licking his lips with a tongue drier than desert canvas, he let the fingers of his right hand casually drift down towards the butt of his Starr double-action. 44 conversion. It was a smaller weapon than Orv’s Colt. He had no doubt he could pull it faster…but, hell, last thing he wanted was any killing. That’s not why he was here.

The hellbilly was still advancing, but coming on slow like a mad dog deciding where to sink its foamy teeth.

Cabe said, “Let me buy you a drink, friend. We’ll drink to the old CSA and all the good boys we lost. What say?”

Orv’s hand slid down to his belt, brushed the butt of the mankiller waiting in the holster…and proceeded to his crotch where it began to do some scratching.

Cabe relaxed slightly.

A couple of miners sitting at tables quietly excused themselves, slipping out the door in a blast of wet, black night. Those that remained kept their distance, staying well away. Cabe didn’t like any of that. Way he was figuring things, if people were getting out, then this wasn’t just some crazy drunk. He was a crazy drunk that liked to kill.

Carny made a move for something behind the bar and the hellbilly, maybe not quite as drunk as he looked, pivoted and brought out his Colt smooth and easy.

But Cabe was already on his feet, Starr in hand.

There was a moment of pained, tormented silence, the tension so thick you could’ve speared it with a stick.

The hellbilly was laughing, but there were tears in his eyes. “Got yerself a Starr, boy? I seen ‘em in the war. Cap and ball pistol, ain’t it?”

“ Converted,” Cabe heard himself say, struck by the absurdity of two men about to kill each other discussing weapons. “Had it converted to metal cartridge. Easier that way.”

The hellbilly laughed, giggled really. Saliva ran from the corners of his trembling lips. “I like my 1851, yes sir. Cap and ball, roll yer own, eh? I killed me a score of Yankees with it at Fort Donelson, didn’t I? Bluebellies begged fer their lives and I scattered their brains, didn’t I?” He cackled madly now, that gun just shaking in his fist, hungry for flesh. “Tenth Tennessee, yes sir. Bloody Tenth, they called us. Know why? Because we killed so many and took so many casualties. Blood…hee, hee…all that blood. Just a-running everywhere. You couldn’t get away from all that blood, could you? Still can’t get it off m’hands. Yankees captured us, that it? M’brothers were all dead, all dead, you say? Yes sir, I believe they was. They sent me to Camp Douglas, the POW camp up near Chee-cago. Oh m’Lord, but them Yankees had fun with us! At night they’d shoot through the barracks walls, make bets on how many Johnny Rebs they could kill with a single ball? Hee, you remember that?”

Cabe cleared his throat of dust. “I was captured, too, Orv. After Pea Ridge. I was at Douglas. Later they exchanged us…we mustered back in, went to the fighting again-“

“ Liar! Liar! Liar! Goddamn bluebelly liar!” the hellbilly stammered, drool flying from his mouth, his brown and yellow teeth snapping open and shut like a beartrap. “Yer a Yankee! I can smell yer stink! Dirty murdering bastards killing Roy and Jesse! Fucking bluebellies! I kill ‘em on sight, I kill ‘em on sight!”

He brought the gun up.

Cabe began to apply pressure to the trigger of the Starr.

“ If you kill ‘em on sight,” Carny said. “Then you better ready yourself, because here comes one now.”

The door had swung open and a tall man had stepped in.

He wore a knee-length overcoat, the cuffs and collar trimmed in fur. Atop his head was a round buffalo fur cap. His face was narrow, angular, the mustache riding beneath the sharp nose trimmed immaculately. He was a handsome man and his pale blue eyes simmered with authority and bearing. There was a badge pinned to his breast. It read: SHERIFF BEAVER COUNTY UTAH.

The hellbilly was staring at him, but so was Cabe.

Cabe was speechless. Something hot and wet had spilled inside of him and it made him shake, made him angry, made him boil inside. But he said nothing, not yet.

“ Orv,” the sheriff said in a flat tone. “Give me your gun. You don’t and I swear to God I’ll kill you where you stand.”

The sheriff hadn’t even opened his coat to show his guns…if he even had any. But those eyes…Cabe remembered those eyes…they were merciless. And when they looked at you and into you, your insides melted like butter on a stove lid.

The hellbilly looked to Cabe almost desperately. His head shook slightly from side to side.

The sheriff walked over. “The gun,” he said. “Right now.”

Old Orv looked fit to shit himself, except by the stink, he probably already had. His fingers tightened on that big life-eating 1851 Colt. His knuckles were strained white as pearl buttons. He looked from Cabe to Carny, cast a glance at the miners. He looked oddly helpless.

The sheriff unbuttoned his coat, made damn sure the hellbilly saw how slowly and calmly he did it. And made sure he got a good look at the butt of the short-barreled. 45 Peacemaker waiting in the hip scabbard.