Skin Medicine

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.”