Unbury Carol(27)

“Barrels are in there. Check it out for yourself. Might not be the oil you’re looking for.”

“You need the money now?” Smoke asked.

“Nope. Bring out whatever you need and I’ll count it from there. Too many folk come in saying they need a thimble and come out with a mug. Fuddles up my paperwork, it does.”

Then the man left him.

Smoke slipped behind the wood door and saw six big barrels in the dim light. From where he stood it looked like standard fare, maybe something a bit better, and he knew it would do. He grabbed a handful of rags from a shelf, limped across the dark room to a stool, and sat down, quickly rolling up his pant legs then unfastening the belts holding the tin-shins to his legs. It always felt good to do this. Big relief. Like removing a hat on a hot summer day. He removed both shins, sensing the trigger-strings as they tickled his thighs on the way down his pants.

Yes, it always felt good to take the legs off.

He turned them over, letting the old stuff spill out on Kirk’s dirty floor. His naked thighs were pocked with sores, spots where the flesh was discolored, unhealthy, and maybe would never get good again.

He brought one of the shins to his lap and quietly removed the boot. The toe was packed with cloth, and Smoke pulled it out then jammed a fresh one from his satchel back in. Things were already feeling cleaner. He did the same with the other boot and then set to funneling the oil into the tin-cylinders, holding the heels closed with his thumbs, blocking any spillage. Out of the barrels, the oil looked smoother than he’d guessed it would.

When both shins were full Smoke set one down, picked up a boot, and replugged it with the tin stump at its end. He held the string now with his thumb to make sure he didn’t have to fish it out of the boot later. He centered the shin, then set it all on the floor to make double sure. Then he removed the dirty cloth lining the top of the tin and replaced it with a rag from the shelf. He tore it in half, not wanting the whole thing; it was difficult walking with too much padding under the stub. Once the shin was ready, he set to doing the same for the other.

The old man never came back and Smoke guessed he was lost in his ledger. Maybe he was having a good day. Smoke sure was.

James Moxie, he thought.

It was just another job. Always. But he couldn’t deny the luster, the way the outlaw’s name was lit up on fire in his mind. James Moxie was a legend of the Trail. In fact, he’d become so just about the time Smoke lost his legs. Felt damn close to an eclipse, the way Moxie suddenly rose up and blocked Smoke’s own legend on the way.

    Moxie Moxie Moxie my,

A drop of oil in your eye…



After wrapping his job here in Mackatoon, Smoke found a paper jutting out from under his saddle. Sometimes the Trail-watchers operated this way: hidden notes, secret papers. It was just a job, of course, but James Moxie could be trickier than most.

He was certainly tricky at Abberstown.

Smoke was no stranger to magic. He’d watched many shows, clamoring with the crowds as the traveling magicians came through with their caravans. He’d watched enough sleight of hand to consider his own trick, false shins, to be something of an illusion, too. The Reappearing Legs. And yet there was an edge to what Moxie did in Abberstown. Smoke knew that some men were levitating women these days. Some made elephants disappear. But what exactly had Moxie done to win that duel? Without so much as removing his gun?

Moxie Moxie Moxie myth,

Fibs and fiction, pomp and piss.



The two shins were set upright on the ground and he slid his knees directly above them. He threaded the strings up his pant legs, as far as they would reach, barely poking out the holes he’d cut long ago in his pockets. Then, using his arms, he lowered himself from the stool. He shifted the stubs of his knees against the rags covering the tin until he had it right. Then, finally, he began the laborious task of strapping the belts to the existing sore spots on his thighs.

Finished, he rolled his pant legs back down.

He looked at his legs in the dim light.

Presto.

Jamming his hands in his pockets, he thumbed the string loops and tugged, allowing the heels of his boots to open, spreading a small amount of Kirk’s own fresh oil on the floor.

He let go of the strings.

He could sing all he wanted about James Moxie, but Smoke knew there was something to that Abberstown story. Maybe it was the fact he hadn’t heard a theory that explained it. Or maybe Smoke’s interest rose in relief from the ashes of his own fallen name.

Sweating, Smoke leaned side-to-side, testing his balance. It’d be a bad thing to walk back into the store, take a fall, and spill all this fresh oil in front of the proprietor himself.

It had happened before.

He held his arms out. Leaned forward. Leaned back. Things felt good. Things felt great.

He brought one of the dirty rags to his nose and huffed the remaining fumes.

James Moxie, he thought again, and this time a wave of infallible confidence washed over him. I’m a man of magic, too.

Reloaded, Smoke limped through the wood door and back into the shop.

“How much you get?” the old man asked as Smoke appeared.

Smoke shook his head.

“It wasn’t the good stuff.”

The man eyeballed him, looked him over from head to boot tip.

“Eh? Sure were back there long enough.”

“That’s how I do it,” Smoke said, stopping before the counter. “I take my oil very seriously. Your stuff is good. Just not the good stuff.”