Slap Leather

Everett McAllister’s gravedigger’s eyes bore into the new buck as his squaw spoke to him.

“Would you look at that, Iggy? You can even see his whiskers!”

“Pipe down, Stacy---you’re ruining the mood!” Iggy’s hair hang down in lank, greasy strands. Sweat dripped into his left eye, ruining his squint. It had to be 80 degrees here. 

Everett waited quietly, humming a bit. 

“McCallister!” called Iggy. “You’re gonna pay for what you’ve done to the people of Muskrat Ridge, do you hear me?” He did his best, but soft men can never look hard.

Everette stared, emotionless, jaw set. His glare remained fix even as he spat a chaw into the dust of the street, punctuating his contempt.

Iggy wanted to wipe his eye but didn’t dare.

“Go on, Iggy,” Stacy said, “Cut him down.”

Iggy cast her a sidelong glance. She had to be boiling herself in that homespun getup. There were pronounced dark rings at the armpits. Her forehead glistened in the merciless sun.

A crowd had begun to gather. Good. He always liked an audience. Shopkeepers. Cattlemen. Saloon girls.  They slowly filled in the sides of the road, gingham and leather. They’d seen it all before. It always ended the same way.

Iggy bided his time, relishing the moment. Nothing would happen till he made his move. There were rules to these encounters. He should know---he’d written them himself, in every dust-choaked trailhead from here to Pike’s Peak. 

But Stacy didn’t follow rules.

“You told me, but I had no idea!” she said. “It’s so exciting!”

He scowled, but didn’t dare take his eyes of McCallister. 

“Would you please shut up?” he hissed. 

Stacy didn’t follow rules.

“Just get it over with already!  I don’t want to stand here soaking in my own sweat all day.”

Neither did Iggy, but the story’s the thing, you know? You have to find that dramatic peak. You have to release that tension. Hell, Sophocles knew that. Kath-arr-seees.

You had to hand it to the Greeks, really. Twenty-five hundred years and the formula was virtually unchanged. Sure, no one wore those heavy wooden masks anymore and the chorus had long since been dispensed with, but “Medea” could have been about any of the murderous political dynasties of the current day. Family still killed family and The Furies were still being unleashed from that day to this. Hubris was still the fingerprint of the human touch.

He didn’t much like Everett. He didn’t like his vest, which should rightly have been black but which had almost equal parts black and white splotches. He didn’t like the way he cocked his hat, nor the way his gun belts hung so low, making him squat like a chimpanzee.  He didn’t like his dusty boots, nor his dusty hair, nor the dusty crevices in his scowling face. He didn’t like the red bandana knotted around his neck nor the slightly jutting ears that lent a bit of comedy to his ugly mug. He’d love to bring his story to an end, no doubt to the chairs of the crowd.

As for Everett, he didn’t care for Iggy at all. He was just another greenhorn with a dream, a dream that would soon be over because he’d crossed the wrong person’s path. He believed in destiny. After all, he was its instrument. And he was perfectly tuned.

Well, almost perfectly. There was the matter of his fingers,

It had started a few weeks back. He’d noticed the tingling first, the electric shocks that sometimes kept him awake by the fire.  That had been followed by a growing numbness, an unfeeling zone that now encompassed his first knuckles on both hands. If he’d ever heard of leprosy he’d no doubt start wondering if he’d pet an armadillo. The numb patches bothered him, but didn’t worry him. He was who he’d always been and he’d perform as he’d always done, numbness be damned. He was a professional.

Iggy was a professional in his own way. Oh, not with the Colt hanging heavy on his hip, surely, but rather with his pen. Real intellectuals were a rare breed out here in this day and age, but he was the genuine article. He knew Euripides from Aeschylus and he’d even translated a bit of Virgil as a boy. He’d regaled the gentlefolk with retold myths, he’d developed a fine ear for the drama of history, he’d written a verse or three, and like King Midas, he’d found a way to make his flare for the dramatic pay. Sure, it wasn’t the sort of endeavor routinely praised or even much respected in these parts, but it was necessary, it was noble, and he was damned good at it to boot, so good that he’d managed to land Stacy.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Stacy was selective. She had a conception of the man for her and insisted that Iggy fit it, no matter how poor a fit It might have been at first. The world was a tough place and her man needed to be tougher, with a spine made of steel. She needed a man who could protect her, who could excite her, who could run his callused fingertips over her shoulders and make her forget the rich girl she’d been before she’d broken the wrong rules and been exiled. 

That was what had brought them all to this tumbleweed patch under the blazing sun: one man’s need to feel manly, another’s need to feel loved, and a woman’s need to feel desired. The Greek tragedy about to unfold practically writes itself.

Stacy looked at Everett, back to Iggy, and back to Everett. It was time. She caught Everett’s steely gaze and uttered one unmistakable word: “Armadillo.”

Everett nodded.

Iggy started. “Wha---?” Panicked, his head twisted toward Stacy, uncomprehending.  He reached instinctively for his revolver, fumbiling a bit to clear the holster.

Everett’s arms shot down then out. Iggy felt the impacts before he heard the crack of gunfire: a slug through his left shoulder, another through the center of his throat. He collapsed in the dust, eyes bulging.

The town whooped and hollered.

Stacy looked down at him, smirking. “You shouldn’t have written down your password, Iggy. Rules are there for a reason.” He heard her clear her throat and felt the warm sputum strike his forehead.

Then, in the narrowing tunnel of his vision, he saw Everett McAllister by her side. She turned to embrace him, his numb fingers squeezing her shoulders and feeling true catharsis as he reveled in her human touch.