Bad Medicine

“Hey, fellas,” Will called to the other drinkers, “come on up here so we can talk a bit. Drinks’re on me.” He answered the bartender’s question. “I’m lookin’ for some men—a bunch ridin’ together,” he said.

The pair of boozers moved amazingly fast down the bar to stand next to Will, empty schooners and shot glasses in their hands. Will pointed to the glasses and the bartender complied.

“You?” he asked.

“Beer. No more of that panther piss you call whiskey.”

“ ’Bout these men you’re lookin’ for—you wantin’ to hire them on for a drive or somethin’?” the fellow closest to Will asked.

“No—just lookin’ for ’em, is all.” He sipped his beer. “You boys ever hear of One Dog?”

The bartender’s well-tanned face went ghostly pale. The silence in the saloon was like that of a crypt at midnight. The pair of boozers started toward the batwings, leaving their drinks on the bar.

“Git back here, you two,” Will growled. “I bought drinks an’ I’ll keep on buyin’. All I want is some information.”

“One Dog is somethin’ we don’t talk about,” the ’tender said. “We want to keep our hair.”

The boozers nodded, standing at the bar, not touching their abandoned drinks.

“Here’s the thing,” Will said. “You either talk to me or you don’t. You talk, that’s the end of it. I never saw or heard of you boys or this crummy li’l town. You don’t talk an’ when I find One Dog I let him an’ his gang know I got info from you ’bout where he was.”

The boozers looked at one another for a long moment. Finally, one spoke. “Couple weeks ago One Dog an’ his riders come upon a saddle bum ’bout three, four miles outta town. A kid out rabbit huntin’ found the drifter’s head stuck on a tall shaft pushed into the ground. Other parts of his body was around, too. Poor fella’s nuts was jammed in his mouth.” He downed the whiskey and motioned for another.

“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.”