Skin Medicine

You could expect nothing less of Jackson Dirker.

Cabe waited there, lighting a cigarette and studying the wanted dodgers on the walls, town ordinances, a rack of repeating rifles chained into a hardwood case.

The door to the back-the holding cells, Cabe figured-opened and Dirker stepped out and Cabe felt butterflies take wing in his belly. Dirker wore a striped suit with a gold watch chain and a string tie. The sort of duds a banker might wear. But Dirker had impressive bearing and he would’ve looked like the man in charge had he worn a corset and dress.

He sat down across from Cabe. “You have business here, Cabe?”

Cabe felt his voice catch in his throat, snag there like denim on a nail head. For a moment he wondered if maybe he had the wrong man here…but no, there was only one Jackson Dirker. Cabe had known it was him the moment he’d come into the Oasis. The face was older, lined impeccably by experience. There was a touch of gray at the temples. But those eyes, you couldn’t forget them. Twenty years had not tempered their ferocity. They could still burn holes in cinderblock.

“ You remember me, Dirker?”

The sheriff nodded. “I do.”

“ Didn’t seem like you did back at the saloon…”

“ It took a moment.”

“ The scars refreshed your memory?”

Dirker arched an eyebrow. “Scars are hardly a novelty in this country, Cabe. Now what is it you want?” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

“ I came to see the ocean, feel the spray.”

“ The ocean is hundreds of miles from here.”

Cabe slapped his hat against his knee. “Damn…I must’ve taken a wrong turn.”

Dirker was not amused. “Is this business or personal?”

Now there was a question. Good old Crazy Jack Dirker. You just couldn’t rattle the man. He could talk about dismembering a baby same way he talked about trimming his toenails. That chiseled face was incapable of emotion. It knew not hate or anger, love nor happiness. Only the eyes were alive in that mask. Course, last time Cabe had seen him, he was wearing the dark blue sack coat and Jeff Davis hat of a Union Army lieutenant.

Cabe drew off his cigarette. “I tell you, Crazy Jack…folks still call you that?”

“ They do not. During the war, only Johnny Rebs referred to me as that, I understand.” He said this indifferently. Names meant nothing to him. You could call his mother a whore and if he didn’t want to kill you, you couldn’t make him do it. But if he was in the mood, look out.

“ I can’t tell you how long I’ve thought about you, what I’d do to you when I finally caught up with you.”

“ The war’s over,” Dirker said. “Act like a man and move on. That’s what has to be done. The South underestimated the will and strength of the North. Such assumptions lose wars. Everyone did what they felt they had to do. Now it’s over. We’re united and have been for many years. We have to look to the future and learn from the past.”

Cabe’s teeth were clenched. “Sure enough, sure enough. I’d like to forget the whole sorry mess…but every time I look in damn mirror, Dirker, I remember. These scars don’t let me forget.” Cabe let himself simmer down. Dirker was in control, like always. He would not let the man win this discussion, make him into some hot-headed fool Southerner. Not this time. “We lost, Dirker. When you lose, it ain’t so easy to forgive and forget. You think of how it could have been different. It’s tough on a man.”

Dirker arched that eyebrow again. “Sometimes it’s tough on the victor as well. You think of what was done and how you could have treated your foes more civil, excused them for their transgressions.”

Goddammit. The sonofabitch was acting like a poet and preacher and statesman now. Trying to make Cabe think he actually had some sort of heart beating in that empty chest of his. But Cabe did not believe it. “Pea Ridge. You remember it? I do. We got our asses cut to threads there. You bluebellies scattered us to the four winds. Me and my boys…we weren’t even sure where we were. No shoes. No food. No ammunition. You rounded us up, Dirker. That bastard sergeant of yours shot down Little Willy Gibson! Then you took that whip of yours to the rest of us. When I begged you…begged you to stop, you did this to my face. I was down and you were still whipping me…”

Dirker’s lips had formed into a tight line now like a saber slash. “You boys…yes, I remember you boys. I remember what you did to those soldiers we found. Their corpses were mutilated, Cabe. It was disgusting. I should’ve killed you and the rest of that gutless Southern trash then and there. But I didn’t.”

Cabe was on his feet now. “You bastard! You goddamn fucking Yankee bastard! I told you then and I tell you know, we didn’t touch them bluebellies! When we came upon them, they were already like that…guts hanging out and faces hacked-off…we just wanted their guns, their food! We were starving for the love of Christ!”