Skin Medicine

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 happened 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.

Clay stood there, visibly shaking.

Somebody told them to take it outside.

Miners and drifters fell out of the way.

Freeman looked smug; Sir Tom grinned.

Cabe felt a tenseness at his groin, felt his guts tighten into coils tight as bedsprings. He was tight and hard and ready to pounce.