Skin Medicine

Other than that, the only sounds were the wind moaning and their own boots stepping over groaning timbers. But that did not satisfy Cabe that he was imagining any of it. Because, someone or something was there. Behind them, in front of them, maybe on the rooftops or down in the cellars. More than once he had caught movement out of the corner of his eye. And there was no mistaking one thing: they were being watched. Eyes were peering at them from shadowy tangles, leering from behind shuttered windows and staring from dark, damp places.

At the edge of town, they found a few log houses that showed signs of recent occupancy. Beds were made and tables set, firewood stocked and barns hayed. There was dust over everything, but it made Cabe think that whoever had lived in those places had left in one hell of a hurry. In that part of the country times were always harsh and you didn’t abandon your belongings and wares without a real damn good reason.

In one of the houses they found a single yellowed bone.

It was sitting in the center of the floor, a human femur. Both he and Graybrow examined it and came to the same conclusion: the marks punched into it were from teeth.

“What do you make of all this?” Cabe finally asked.

But Graybrow just shook his head, saying, “I think it’s much worse than what folks are saying. Whatever happened here…maybe I don’t want to know.”

Cabe just looked him dead in the eye. “You scared?”

“Damn yes, I am.”

And Cabe was, too. He had never experienced such a total sense of terror before. And what made it all the worse, all that much harder to handle was that he did not even know what he was afraid of. Only that if it found him, if it reached out and touched him, he feared he’d lose his sanity.

They found a livery in which a dozen horses were stabled. They were very much alive and had plenty of feed and water. There were saddles and rigs, bits and reigns. Even shoes and nails stacked on a bench.

“Somebody’s here, all right,” Cabe said.

They checked out the old jail and then the only church in town. Its spire was high and leaning, the cross missing. If there was one place the Mormons would have set to right, it would have been the church. It stood at the end of a weedy road, surrounded by a rusty wrought-iron fence with spiked corner posts that rose up five, six feet. It was frightful and uninviting, looked like it might fall right over at any moment. The windows had been planked-over and a weird, gassy smell emanated from it.

Cabe climbed the rickety steps and tried the iron door-puller.

“Locked,” he said, sounding relieved.

Graybrow stood just outside the fence with the horses. “You see what’s carved into that door?”

Cabe did.

He was not an educated man, but he could read. And had read widely in his lonely occupation to pass the time. What he saw carved in the face of the door were signs and symbols generally associated with witchcraft and black magic-pentagrams and pentacles, stylized inverted crosses.

Regardless, he had seen enough.

They both mounted and rode through those streets one last time, each with their weapons in hand. The shadows were elongating and they heard sounds, murmuring voices, distant movement…as if whatever lived in Deliverance was real anxious for the sun to go down.

When they got outside town, Cabe and Graybrow rode like hell was opening behind them and that wasn’t too far from the truth.

17

It was well after dark when Cabe finally tracked Dirker down to a sordid rooming house called Ma Heller’s Place just this side of Horizontal Hill, the red-light district. He had been all over town looking for the sheriff ever since returning from Deliverance and this is where he found him, staring up at the house astride his gray mare.

Cabe brought him into a tent-roofed saloon called the Mother Lode and laid it out for him over warm beer.

“Empty?” Dirker said.

Cabe just shrugged. “It is and it isn’t. There’s something there, but I’m not just sure what.”

Dirker just gave him those ice-blue eyes full blast. “Maybe you better explain yourself.”

So Cabe did. He took his time, telling the sheriff everything he had learned about Deliverance and James Lee Cobb and how he figured the degeneration of the place was definitely connected with the man. At least, it seemed likely. Because something was wrong there, the place had gone from a God-fearing Mormon enclave to a vile pest-hole and there had to be a reason.

Dirker didn’t laugh at him or dismiss it outright. He gave it all pause while he sipped his beer. “I’ll grant you that something strange has happened there…but witchcraft? Satanism? Christ, Cabe, I just can’t swallow that sort of business.”

“Don’t blame you, Dirker. Not in the least. I wouldn’t have swallowed it myself unless it was rammed down my throat,” Cabe said. “I think…I think what ought to be done here is a posse organized and taken in there. Hell, maybe the army. But something ought to be done.”

“Then why don’t you do it? I told Forbes that you were the man for the job.”