Skin Medicine

“Elijah Clay,” was all Cabe could say, shaking his head. His breakfast of cakes and fried taters suddenly forgotten. “Jesus H. Christ, that sumbitch is really hunting me down. I’ll be goddamned.”

Janice looked more than a little concerned. “Who is he, Mr. Cabe?”

So he told her, told her everything about shooting down Virgil Clay and Charles Graybrow telling him about the animal old Virgil’s father was…half-grizzly bear and half-ogre and one-hundred percent ass-kicking, life-taking, intolerant hellbilly. Those dark, wonderful eyes of hers were on him the whole time and there was real concern in them, real fear.

And Cabe thought: I’ll be damned, this lady actually cares about me.

“I don’t like one bit of this. Mr. Cabe,” she said and her voice was deep and sensual and it made the bounty hunter’s insides bubble like sweet molasses. “I fully realize this is none of my affair, but I think it would be wise for you to hide out for a time. Let my husband deal with this human pig. He’ll know what to do.”

Cabe found himself smiling like a little boy.

Smiling, mind you.

Here he had just about the meanest bastard imaginable wanting to make a tobacco pouch out of his privates and he was grinning like a little boy with a peppermint stick all his own. And it was because of Janice Dirker. Though he wasn’t much prettier than your average wild boar (and would be the first to admit the same), Cabe had had his fill of women over the years. He had been desired and lusted after. But no one had ever really cared if he lived or died…and now someone did. He felt a lot of things right then: confusion, bewilderment, and, yes, even fear.

But he liked it all, God yes.

“Ma’am, y’all very kind to me. Very caring to some worn-out saddletramp like me and I can’t tell you how I appreciate it,” he told her, feeling his voice squeak with emotion. “But, really, I can take care of my own affairs. Always have, always will. And Jackson…the Sheriff, that is…well, I think he’s got enough problems without worryin’ over me.”

Janice was breathing hard and Cabe was, too.

What was it all about? Lust? Passion? Yes, surely those things were evident, but something more too. Something that went deeper. Something that he could feel burning deep inside of him like hot coals and blue ice. There was a word for it, but he didn’t dare think it.

“Please, Mr. Cabe. You are, without a doubt, a man who can handle his own affairs, but…”

“But what?”

She averted her eyes. Cabe reached out and pressed his hand over hers. It was like an electric shock passed through him. She started as well. She made to pull her hand away as color touched her cheeks, but didn’t. And under his rough, callused paw, her hand was petal-soft and fine-boned. It felt so very good.

She licked her lips. “I don’t…oh what in God’s name am I doing?”

“Say it,” he told her.

She sighed. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“If that’s what you want, then I’ll make sure nothing will.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a time and then Janice pulled away, rushing from the dining room as fast as she could. And Cabe just sat there a time, feeling like a man flattened by some tremendous wave.

It was some time before he could so much as stand.

15

“Well, I see you’re still alive,” Charles Graybrow greeted Cabe later that morning. “I was planning on buying a nice whiteman’s sort of suit for your funeral. Maybe I was rushing things.”

Cabe dragged off his cigarette. “Maybe just a bit.”

After his talk with Janice Dirker, he finally found his guts again, tucked ‘em back in, and took to the streets. Started walking. Checking Whisper Lake out saloon by saloon. And not for drinks, but for Elijah Clay. At the far end, near the Union Pacific railroad depot, he spotted Charles Graybrow having a taste at a lumber yard, chatting it up with another Indian who was cutting barrel staves.

Graybrow stood there, studying the sky which was leaden and turbulent. A chill breeze ruffled his long iron-gray hair which was tucked under a campaign hat. One eye was squinting, the other open in that solemn brown face.

“Hey, Tyler Cabe,” he suddenly said. “You figure I wear a fancy whiteman’s suit and hang around the depot, folks might think I’m some rich banker from back east?”

“Doubt it.”

“Because I’m an injun?”

Cabe shrugged. “That might tip ‘em off.”

“Damn, it’s hell to be an injun some days. Maybe I’ll get the suit, though. Way I hear it, Elijah Clay’s in town. They say he’s looking for you.” Graybrow just shook his head. “So I might get some use out of the suit after all.”

Cabe just chuckled. He crushed his cigarette in the dirt and pulled off his hat. Not looking up, he fumbled with the rattlesnake band above the brim. “Already got me dead and buried, have you?”

Graybrow nodded. “Me and a bunch of my red brothers are taking bets. I’m saying your dead before tomorrow morning. But maybe I’m just a pessimist. Folks say that about me. Go figure.”

Cabe put his hat back on. “You’re gonna lose some money, I think.”