Bad Medicine (6 page)

“You sure it was One Dog?” Will asked.

“Oh, yeah,” the bartender said. “ 'Cause a couple days later a sodbuster was burned out an' him an' his family killed. There ain't 'nuff rogue Injuns 'round these parts to take down a wooly, much less pull shit like that. The sodbuster, he come in here every so often. Had him a wife an' seven kids.”

“One Dog was headin' toward the Rio Grande?”

“I s'pose so.”

“Nobody track them? No posse or nothin'?”

“We got no law here an' the army don't bother with us,” the bartender said. “An' you can bet any bunch trackin' One Dog is ridin' into a ambush—an' after a lot of pain, is gonna be real dead. No two ways about it.”

“Maybe,” Will said. “Buy these boys drinks until one of them eagles is worn out. You keep the other one.” He turned from the bar and then turned back. “Say—anywhere in town a man can get a shave?”

“Jus' down the street—big buildin', used to be a cathouse. It's boarded up, but the door opens. Fella there is a doc—kinda—an' a barber.”

“Likes his ganja, the doc does. But it's early 'nuff—he should be OK,” one of the drunks said.

Will walked down to the old cathouse and pushed the door open. A barber's chair sat in the middle of a small room. The room itself was filled with grayish smoke that smelled a bit like cedar. “Shit,” Will grumbled, and began to go out the door.

“Now hold on there,” a raspy voice called from an adjoining room. “I heard you mumble a profanity when you saw my barber chair—which is manufactured by the finest firm in Chicago, Illinois, and cost a pretty penny—and I think I deserve an explanation.” The speaker stepped into the room with the barber chair. He was of medium height, grossly fat, and quite neatly dressed. He held a meerschaum pipe in his left hand.

“It ain't your chair I object to,” Will said. “It's the weed you're burnin'. Hell, I'm lookin' for a shave an' you're liable to cut my throat.”

“I resent that,” the fat man said. “It's true that on occasion I may take a few puffs of a plant the good Lord put on earth for my use and the use of those fine and noble people, the Mexicans. But my skills are in no way impaired. Perhaps later in the day wouldn't be the best time for a shave, but, sir, I've barely left my bed.”

“Yeah. Well, I don't—”

“And, since you're a new customer to my emporium, I'll add a hot bath at no price, and provide you with a fine Cuban cigar and a taste of brandy while you wash and soak.” He paused and then added, “If I may say so, sir, you're looking a mite soiled.”

Will's beard was driving him nuts with its itching, and the bath sounded awfully good. The cigar and brandy sweetened the offer. “OK,” he said, “you got a deal. But you cut me an' I'll shoot you full of holes. Fair 'nuff?”

“Indeed. Take a seat in the chair an' I'll get the water boiling. Perhaps a brandy now while you wait?”

Will nodded. “Sure. It can't be no worse than the swill I downed at the saloon.”

The barber waddled into the other room and returned in a few moments with a tumbler of amber liquid. He handed the glass to Will and said, “Now I'll see to heating the water.”

Will sniffed at the glass. It had the scent of fresh-cut hickory wood and brown sugar. He took a cautious sip. It was the best booze he'd ever tasted. While the big man wrestled wood into his stove and placed buckets of water on the cooking surface, Will settled back in the chair, sipping and putting together what he'd learned at the saloon. It wasn't long until he heard water churning and boiling. The barber returned with a white sheet—and another tumbler of brandy, which Will accepted without argument. “I'll shave you first, and then you can luxuriate in your bath in the next room.” He spread the sheet over Will's lap and around his neck, and stirred a mug of soap into a creamy, clean-smelling froth, which he spread with a hog's-hair brush over Will's neck and face. His straight razor moved easily,
slowly, not tugging at whiskers. In a matter of a few minutes, Will's face was as pink and smooth as a young virgin's ass.

“Bath's ready,” the barber said, handing Will the promised cigar, already lit and burning evenly and aromatically, and his glass of brandy. Will stood next to the tub, stripped, and sank his body into the still-steaming water. The barber handed him a long-handled scrub brush and a chunk of lye soap and then stepped out to the other room. Will soaked, drank brandy, smoked his cigar, and watched the water he was in change color from a sparkling clear to a brownish hue as sweat and dirt lifted away from his body.

The cathouse was totally silent, as was the town of Lord's Rest. Will's mind drifted like the smoke from the cigar clenched lightly between his teeth.
Coulda been different—a lot different,
he thought.
Maybe me an' Hiram would be cattle barons, or could be I'd have a wife an' a passel of kids an' so much prime land somewhere it'd take a good man on a strong horse a week to ride around it. I'd set on the front porch at dusk with a glass of bourbon an' watch my horses out on pasture an' listen to my kids rippin' 'round after each other. I'd have a little gut from eatin' so good an' so often, an' my neighbors would wave—Ahhh, bullshit.

That wasn't me. The first Colt .45 I bought—with its taped-up grips an' rusted finish an' a trigger that had to be yanked rather than eased—changed my whole life. That gun gave me the power I needed to do anything I wanted, get anything I wanted. Hell, the first mercantile I robbed, I wasn't but thirteen years old an' nervous as a whore in church, an' my voice squeaked when I demanded the money.
He chuckled out loud.
Made off with four
dollars an' fifteen cents, but it was a start, an' it felt better than anything had ever felt before.

First man I drew against was a drunken cowpuncher who'd been slappin' me 'round in a gin mill for no reason. I took it for a bit an' then faced him. I had two rounds in his chest 'fore he was able to fumble his pistol outta his holster.

I never cared for killin', but I've done 'nuff of it. Thing is, I never killed a man who didn't need killin'. Now, this One Dog . . .

That thought raised him from his languor. He put the brush and soap to good use and then stepped out of the foul water and dried off with a rough towel. He dressed quickly, tugged his boots on, and went out front. The barber was sucking at his pipe, smiling. “What do I owe you?” Will asked.

“A dollar'll do her.”

Will gave him two. “Anyplace in town I can get a room for a couple nights an' a decent meal?”

“Hell, boy,” the barber grinned, “this place was a cathouse. I got more damn rooms'n a ol' whore has crabs. Cost you a dollar a night. Only real grub in town is the saloon on the other side of the street, but it isn't a half-bad feed. That ‘Eat Drink' sign on the other gin mill don't mean a thing 'cept the sign was there when the owner bought the joint.”

Will handed over another pair of dollars. “I'll be back later,” he said.

The meal at the saloon wasn't half bad: the steak was large and thick and cooked so that thin blood ran from its middle. Will sat at his table, drank a pot of coffee, and then started on beer. It was good beer—not cold, but not warm, either. He rolled smokes until his fingers no longer obeyed and he scattered perfectly good Bull Durham all over his table, put a
bunch of money next to his empty plate, and weaved back to the cathouse. He slept the rest of the day away as well as the full night.

In the morning he ate a half dozen fried eggs and most of a pound of bacon, along with a helping of thin-cut fried potatoes and several cups of coffee. He walked down the street and checked on Slick, who snorted at him and then dropped his muzzle back into a nice serving of crimped oats and molasses.

Will spent the rest of the day sitting in the shade of the saloon's overhang, went inside at late dusk, drank too much, and crossed the street to his room. He flopped onto the bed fully dressed except for his hat, which he tossed toward the door, and slept deeply and dreamlessly for the night.

The screams he heard at first light tried to work themselves into a dream, but failed. Will sat up as the howls of pain from the street brought him to full wakefulness. The window of his room no doubt hadn't been cleaned for years, but it was possible to see through parts of it.

There were two men on horseback—Indians, obviously—and a white man with a rifle.

The two drunks from the day before were yelling with pain, screaming for help. The Indians fired arrows at the drunks, starting low—just above their heels, and then moving upward. The Indians were good: their shafts went where they wanted them to. Their speed and skill with their weapons was nothing short of amazing. A man barely had time to scream before the next arrow was unerringly on its way.

Some grunted words were exchanged between the two Indians. They laughed and nodded to one another.
The next two arrows severed the spines of the two harmless drunks at about midback. They fell clumsily, with no control of their limbs, like a child's rag doll hurled against a wall.

Will scrambled from his room and down the stairs, his right hand checking the position of his Colt. He burst out of the cathouse a few seconds too late. The two men were facedown in the dirt of the street with arrows buried several inches into the backs of their heads—the final punishment for speaking of One Dog.

An arrow slashed a shallow furrow across Will's cheek and blood cascaded down the side of his face. He was on the ground, rolling in the dirt, before the next arrow from the second Indian missed his face by a couple of inches. It was hard to keep moving and fire accurately at the Indians, and even if he dropped them, there was the white man with the rifle.

Will fired twice at the Indian who'd cut his face and he got lucky: a slug tore through the archer's shoulder and the second entered his right eye socket. The second Indian was drawing his bow as Will got his balance on the ground. He put two bullets in the man's chest.

The rifleman was the problem now and Will rolled again, just as a gritty volcano of dirt spurted an inch from his face. He blinked away the grit, and as the rifleman worked the lever of his weapon, Will blew the top of the man's head off, blood, bone, and brain tissue scattering in a pinkish red mist.

The rifleman collapsed from his horse. Will recognized him—the rag-dressed boozer in the saloon who was slumped over the table with the empty bottle in front of him.

Will walked to the pair of dead Indians. Both wore war paint on their faces, but their clothing was strange—one wore a rebel outfit with bullet holes in the shirt that were there long before he met Will Lewis; the other, butternut drawers and a Union shirt. The rifleman looked like a down-on-his-luck cowhand who hadn't seen a new shirt or pair of drawers for a good long time. The serape he wore was too large for his body and there were bullet rents through it—mainly in the back.

Will slid the cylinder of his pistol to the side, let the empties drop to the ground, and replaced them with fresh cartridges. He holstered the Colt and raised the fingers of his right hand to his cheek. Blood was gushing, cascading, onto his neck and shirt.

A quick flash of a thought flicked into his mind and he forgot his wound and his flowing blood. He set out at a clumsy run to the saloon where he'd asked questions about One Dog. He pushed through the batwings and breathed a sigh of relief. The 'tender was peeking over the bar, unmoving.

“I'm glad you're OK,” Will began as his vision cleared in the dreary light. “Those two boys . . .”

He looked more closely. The bartender's head was planted on the handle he used to draw beer from a barrel. Will looked closer, wiping blood from his face. A long tube of bloody, glistening intestine snaked out of a lengthy gash in the man's stomach. His pants were at his knees; his groin was a bloody, sexless mess.

Will turned away, gagging, choking, bile burning in his throat, dizzy from what he'd just seen and from his loss of blood.

He stumbled out of the saloon and down the street
to the barber's place. The usual thick scent of ganja filled the room. The barber was in his corner chair, almost invisible behind a shroud of smoke.

“How screwed up are you?” Will asked. “I need some stitches bad.”

The barber smiled. “I'm jus' havin' my mornin' smoke, is all. I can sew you up right fine.” He laughed then, totally inappropriately. “I seen what happened. Them Injuns was for sure handy with the arrows. An' you—”

Will stepped closer and backhanded the barber—hard. “You drink a pot of coffee an' then git to work on my face 'fore I bleed to death. Hear? You don't, I'll gun you as dead as them bodies out in the street.”

“I don't need coffee. I can stitch you up just fine. Thing is, it'll hurt like a bitch. How about you take a few sucks on my pipe—relax a bit, kill the pain?”

“No. Jus' do your sewin'.”

“Maybe some booze? Like I said, this is gonna hurt bad.”

“Goddammit . . .”

“OK, OK—no need to get feisty an' outta sorts.” He fetched a leather kit box such as surgeons used during the War of Northern Aggression and selected a hooked needle and a long length of suture material. “Too bad I don't have some chloroform, but I don't. See, chloroform will put a man to sleep an' he'll—”

“Do your work an' shut the hell up,” Will interrupted.

“Yessir.”

The suturing was an ordeal that had Will digging his fingernails into his palms until they bled. After an eternity the barber placed the last of thirty-seven
stitches and tied off his handiwork. “Gonna leave a scar, but what the hell,” he commented. “You wasn't all that pretty to begin with. Now—here's what you gotta do. Go over to the mercantile an' pick up a quart of redeye an' a clean bandanna. Every mornin' you soak the bandanna in booze and wash down the wound.