The medicine men was coming today, but right now, Waldrip had other business.
He sat at the bar in the last saloon, and golfed, warm whiskey down his throat before
“yesterday's drink could become today's hangover.”
A piano man played a slow tune across the keys of the old stand-up in the corner. While the staccato snap of worn cards against the far-out tables stitched, sharp texture into the music, he signaled the barkeep for another drink, while the heat from the last still clung to his throat, and he lowered his hand to the cult on his thigh. He ran his thumb along the pearl and laid grip.
He wasn't looking for a tussle, but this was Brimstone, and Brimstone wasn't a town where pistols stayed cold for long. The medicine man had a bounty job for Waldrip, and once he collected it, he'd be a thousand
dollars richer, but first, he had business with the undertaker.
He pulled a pouch from his belt, turned a few coins onto the table, and took his leave, tipping his hat to the barman as he stood. He flicked the saloon doors open, and stepped onto the main street of Brimstone. The piano man's tune melted into the heat of the day, as it dripped out of the doors behind him.
The air smelled like horse shit and dust. He slung a ragged cigar into his mouth, and flipped a match to life with a thumbnail.
“The heavy tobacco drove the shit's mellow way, and Waldrip stepped off toward the undertaker's”
place. Brimstone looked like any other frontier town, places where the sheriff was an outlaw in the butcher double-edged the local saw bones, but something year-all was made Waldrip's hair prickle and his skin growl. Something about the air was heavy, as if the eyes that peaked from behind curtains
added weight to the place. He's fit, and a puff of dust sprung up where the stream at the ground. His fucking place. He passed the usual assortment of storefronts, brothel, general store, bank, and stopped in front of a row of empty coffins, all proudly standing up for display and sale.
He opened the door, and was not surprised when the hinges wind. Garcin. He yelled into the empty front room. Hey, Garcin! Shuffling footsteps were heard, and then a man came to the doorway in the back.
He was wiping bloody hands on a white apron.
“He said, a smile pushed against his hollow cheeks.”
Waldrip was always amazed that Garcin looked exactly like he should, straight out of a dime
novel. Tall, skinny, pale, with hair as black as dyed leather. He was a hell of a guy though, the pair embraced, and slapped backs like old friends do. How the hell are your bones?
Waldrip said, Garcin led out a small laugh when he heard his old nickname. "I'm good." He held up his red hands. "No shortage of work." "About that.
I hear you got something back there to show me." Waldrip nodded his head toward the back room, the smile dropped from Garcin's face. "You got to understand Waldrip, it's ain't normal. You know he's coming today, right?" "The medicine man."
"Yeah. And he's got something for you too." "I know, bones. Let's just have a look back there." "I'll right, man, but don't say I didn't warn you."
Garcin's voice was hard, and what was usually a formality now felt serious, like hearing the first crack in a dam. The back room was as Waldrip remembered, shelves full of chemicals and tools that lined the walls, but that was all background once you got into that place. It was the three tables in the center that caught your eye.
Heavy, oak tables with blood stained white cloths spread to cover two freshish corpses. Garcin pulled the sheet from the table in the center. When Waldrip had seen a lot in his time, he would say he'd seen pretty much every way a human body could be ripped, torn, hacked, and slashed. He was wrong.
His lips curled for a moment, but his face settled fast. "I don't know, fuck, I told you, it ain't normal." Both bodies were inside out. Some parts were missing, and others were places they didn't belong. "Look!"
Garcin said as he lifted a hand that stuck out from the side of a wet, skinless skull. This wrist was fused to the bone of the jaw, like it had grown there, Waldrip swallowed bile. "Where'd they come from?" The Collinsworth brothers found them outside a cave just up the mountains.
They damn near, broke their horses legs, spurned them back into town. We got a few of us together and went to see for ourselves, and a soul spoke about it since. Like everyone's hoping it will just go away, like some weird dream." Garcin spread his arms wide. "Quil brother, I have these fucked up things to remind me it weren't no dream."
His voice raised its pitch as it raised its volume. "Hey, hey, take it easy." Garcin ran the hand through his black hair, a streak of red appeared on his forehead. "And want to solve this, have to do with him," Waldrip asked. "We're got to him, I don't know how, but it did.
It always gets to him somehow."
"And he wants to know what did it?
"Shit man, I think he knows what did it."
“Waldrip didn't need to be told with that meant.”
If the medicine man knew what could do something like this, you could be damned sure he
meant to claim that power for himself.
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