Skin Medicine

Epilogue

Cabe didn’t wake until the next morning.

He woke in Dr. West’s surgery. Woke on a couch that was at once comfortable and comfortless. His back was sore and he was stiff and seemed to hurt just about everywhere.

Elijah Clay was sitting in a chair near a cabinet of chemicals. His head was bandaged and his arm was in some sort of sling. He stroked his long gray beard, smiled with all those bad teeth. “Looks like ye’ll live,” he said. “I suspected as much.”

“It… it really happened?” Cabe found himself saying.

“It did. Now, we’d best forget it.” He stood and pulled on his smelly old buffalo coat very carefully. “Ye done good, boy. I was proud to be at yer side. Now I gotta go. I got kin in them hills, don’t like leavin’ ’em alone. Ye’ll see me come spring, then we’ll burn that hell-town flat.”

He left and Dr. West came in, giving him a cursory examination, but asking no questions. From the look on his face, Cabe could tell he already knew. Clay must’ve told him about it all. And that was fine.

He left and Janice Dirker came in.

She sat by Cabe and held his hand. She was dressed in a black velvet dress, very somber and understated. A dress of mourning. Her lovely brown eyes were puffy from crying.

“I’m glad you lived,” was all she could say.

Cabe squeezed her hand, not able to take his eyes off her. He wondered if he could love her and figured he already did. Knew that though he had joined Dirker out of duty and new found friendship, there had been something else that had driven him. And Janice Dirker was that something.

But looking on her, he was seized by a sudden melancholia.

He thought of the people he had met in Whisper Lake, the friends he had made. Jackson Dirker. There was a warmth and a sadness acquainted with his memory now. They had come full circle since the war. Cabe was no longer bitter and angry, always looking for a fight. He felt calm now, easy, accepting. He didn’t think he’d be able to hunt men anymore. And Charles Graybrow? Oh, that crazy smart-mouthed Indian. Damn, he was going to miss him.

Janice said, “My husband… was his death… unpleasant?”

“He died in some pain,” Cabe admitted. “But it did not last. I was with him… with him at the end.”

Janice nodded. “He spoke highly of you. He said… he said you had known each other in the war. He would not tell me anymore. Can you?”

“Yes,” Cabe said. “I think so. I think I can do just that. I’m gonna tell you all about Jackson Dirker, ma’am, the finest and bravest man it has ever been my pleasure to know…”