Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (61 page)

III:121, V:189, V:447, V:619, VI:233
(Bango Skank awaits the King),
VI:256
(Bango Skank awaits the King),
VII:89

SKIN-MAN (OLLIE ANG)

In
The Wind Through the Keyhole
we meet one of the most terrifying monsters of the Dark Tower novels. The creature is called a skin-man. According to the reports received by STEVEN DESCHAIN, this legendary monster was massacring the people of DEBARIA. The elder Deschain was not certain whether this demon was real or whether it was a human maniac dressed up in animal skins, but he did know for certain that many people had been killed. As a result, he sent Roland and Roland’s
ka
-mate, JAMIE DeCURRY, to investigate.

Before setting off from Gilead, Roland visited his old tutor VANNAY, who had been collecting reports about the attacks. According to the missives that Vannay had received from HIGH SHERIFF HUGH PEAVY, twenty-three people had been torn to pieces by the monster. (That number was soon to mount much higher.) In two cases, whole clans had been massacred. Worryingly, the descriptions of the beast were inconsistent. Some witnesses stated that the creature looked like a wolf but ran upright like a man. Others described it as a lion; still others as a tyger. Based upon what he’d read, Vannay believed the creature was both a shape-
shifter
and a shape-
changer.
The old tutor had come across other such beasts in Gilead’s old records, and assumed that it was a type of mutant that had worked its way out of the true thread. The truth turned out to be much more terrible.

Roland and Jamie’s first sight of one of the skin-man’s victims came when they visited the Women’s Retreat of SERENITY, on their way to Debaria. There they met SISTER FORTUNA, who had lost half her face to the hungry beast. According to Sister Fortie, the creature had been taller than a man, with scales instead of skin, and a long tail that dragged behind it like a snake. Its yellow eyes had slitted dark pupils that glowed in its flat head. Its mouth had been a trap filled with teeth, each as long as a man’s head. PRIORESS EVERLYNNE (who managed to shoot some of the knobs and scales off the beast’s head with the pellets of her shotgun) added an even more disturbing piece of information: while attacking Fortuna, the beast had an erection. Everlynne was certain that, if she hadn’t chased it off with her shotgun, the creature would have raped Sister Fortie as it ate her.

Upon reaching Debaria, Roland and Jamie met with Sheriff Peavy to discuss who the skin-man might be when in human form. Based upon the pattern of attacks, the three decided the perpetrator was probably one of the SALTIES, or salt miners, based near LITTLE DEBARIA. They also came to realize that though the monster only struck at night, the phase of the moon seemed to have little effect upon its powers. (It attacked Sister Fortuna at Full Peddlar, but at TIMBERSMITH farm it struck at the dark of the moon.) Roland and Jamie had been in Debaria less than twenty-four hours when the skin-man struck again. This time the massacre was at the JEFFERSON RANCH, where he killed sixteen proddies, the COOK (BILL STREETER),
sai
JEFFERSON, Jefferson’s WIFE, and his two DAUGHTERS. While following the monster’s backtrail (and tracking its
morphs from eight-hundred-pound bear, to giant bull, to monstrous cat), Roland and Jamie realized that the skin-man’s killing spree had been premeditated. (It rode to the ranch in human form, and only morphed into a monster when it was ready to kill.)

During their search of the ranch, the two young gunslingers discovered YOUNG BILL STREETER hiding in a pile of old tack in a disused hostelry. The boy had been sleeping under the stars when the skin-man attacked, but had been woken by screams. He’d run down to the ranch and had witnessed the slaughter in the bunkhouse. Later, while hiding under the pile of tack, Young Bill had seen the skin-man transform back into a human being. Unfortunately, he only saw the man’s lower legs and feet. However, he did give Roland one important piece of information: the skin man had a broken blue ring tattooed around his ankle.

The evidence that Roland and Jamie discovered at the ranch allowed them to deduce the following: the skin-man was a saltie who could ride a horse, and who had done time in the BEELIE STOCKADE. (The blue ankle ring was tattooed on anyone who did time in the stockade.) Roland sent Jamie, Sheriff Peavy, the deputy KELLIN FRYE, and Kellin’s son VIKKA to round up all the salties who fit that description. He also gave young Vikka a more sinister job. He wanted the boy to spread the word that Young Bill had seen the skin-man in human form, and would be able to identify him. Roland hoped that this exaggeration might help to flush out the murderer.

While Jamie and the others went to LITTLE DEBARIA to round up all the suspects, Roland locked Young Bill in Debaria’s JAIL to keep him safe. Before returning to the cell to keep Bill company, Roland had the local blacksmith cast a very special bullet, the only kind which, according to legend, could kill a skin-man. That bullet was cast from pure silver.

Thanks to the knowledge of WILL WEGG, Little Debaria’s constable, Jamie and the others returned with twenty-one suspects who could ride horses. In the BUSTED LUCK saloon, Roland has the miners roll up their trouser legs to show whether or not they’d been marked at the stockade. Ten had been. One of these men, an old graybeard called STEG LUKA, confided an important piece of information. He told Roland that deep in the SALT PLUG there was a CRACK with a green light shining through, bright then dim, like a heartbeat. According to Luka, the light had a bitter voice which called the miners to come to it. Most wanted the crack plugged up, but Luka believed that one of the men had listened to the call, entered the crack between midnight and 6
A.M
. when all was quiet, and had been transformed into a shapeshifting monster. Luka was certain that both light and voice belonged to one of the OLD PEOPLE’s artifacts. In the end, he proved to be right.

As Young Bill waited in his protective cell, the salt miners lined up according to age and paraded past. Steg Luka passed by, as did BOBBY FRANE, JAKE MARSH, and OLLIE ANG, a thin, balding, bookish-looking fellow whose arms were nevertheless slabbed with muscle, and who wore a strange wrist-clock with a rusty string-mended band. At Young Bill’s request, all the men walked by a second time, but this time with their pants legs hiked up so that the boy could see their ankles. Bill recognized OLLIE ANG’s blue ankle ring, which was broken by a thick line of white scar tissue which ran all the way up to Ang’s knee.

What next transpired happened so quickly that neither Roland nor any of the others were able to prevent it. Steg Luka grabbed Ang by the shoulders and
bore him back against the bars across from the drunk-and-disorderly cell. Spitting in Ang’s face, Steg called the man a murdering, skin-changing bastard. But even as Steg Luka attacked, Ang transformed into a giant snake and rammed his body into Steg’s mouth and then tore his way out through the nape of Steg’s neck. Next, the snake battened down on Constable Wegg’s arm, injecting him with poison. As it lunged at Roland, our gunslinger shot his silver bullet into the creature’s yawning mouth. In death, the skin-man transformed once again into his human form. After midnight, Roland, Jamie, and Sheriff Peavy doused Ang’s body with coal oil and burned it.

W:40, W:42, W:44–47
(attacks described: 45 wolf that runs upright; lion; 46 tyger),
48
(monster from deep cracks),
W:48–53
(attack on Fortuna and Delores);
W:54, W:55, W:56, W:57
(looked like a wolf)
; W:61, W:62, W:63–83
(62
–6
3: victim list and map; 66 moon phases; 69
–8
3 Jefferson attack reported and investigated; 72 bear; 75 eight hundred pounds running on hind legs; 76 ull-shape, cat shape; 78 knows what he is and rides a horse),
W:85
(as saltie),
W:86, W:91–97
(Bill Streeter’s memory),
W:99, W:100, W:248
(legend),
W:268, W:271–93
(he is among the salties who can ride; mentioned directly on 274, 276, 289, 283; on 289 we learn his name),
W:294, W:297–98
(possibly as Walter’s work? He cursed Serenity)

SKIN-MAN’S VICTIMS:
All of the skin-man’s victims were torn to pieces. Many of them were also partially eaten. W:45

ALORA FARM VICTIMS:
The skin-man killed seven people at the Alora Farm. W:63

COWPUNCHERS (WITNESSES):
Two cowpunchers camped on DEBARIA STREAM heard the screams of a young MANNI COUPLE on marriage retreat and rode toward the sound. They saw the killer loping off with the woman’s lower leg in its jaws. They swore the beast ran upright like a man. W:45–46
(witnesses),
W:46
(as rope-swingers),
W:46–47
(drunk or not)

DOLORES OF SERENITY:
See
SERENITY, SISTERS OF

FORTUNA OF SERENITY:
See
SERENITY, SISTERS OF

GAMBLER AND WOMAN:
This man had been caught cheating at Watch Me in one of the local pits. He and his moll had been given a Bill of Circulation and were told to leave town by nightfall or be whipped. They were headed for either the rail tracks or LITTLE DEBARIA when they were beset by the beast. The man fought, which gave the woman just enough time to get clear. She hid in some rocks until the skin-man was gone. According to her testimony, the monster looked like a lion. W:45, W:64

JEFFERSON RANCH CHARACTERS:
See also
STREETER, BILL
,
listed separately
; DEBARIA CHARACTERS: JEFFERSON RANCH CHARACTERS: CANFIELD, BILL; DEBARIA CHARACTERS: JEFFERSON RANCH CHARACTERS: CANFIELD, BILL: ARN; DEBARIA CHARACTERS: JEFFERSON RANCH CHARACTERS: CANFIELD, BILL: SNIP; DEBARIA CHARACTERS: JEFFERSON RANCH CHARACTERS: ROSIE & MOZIE

COOKIE (BILL STREETER, YOUNG BILL STREETER’S FATHER):
Bill Streeter—cook at the JEFFERSON RANCH—was YOUNG BILL STREETER’s beloved father. According to VIKKA FRYE, Cookie was very proud of his son. When Billy won the Goose Dash at Reap Fairday,
the elder Streeter cheered loud enough to bust his throat. Cookie died beside his stove, his rent and bloodstained apron thrown over his face like a shroud. W:69
(dead),
W:75, W:80, W:81, W:82, W:83, W:84, W:86, W:87, W:88, W:90, W:91, W:95, W:96, W:97, W:100, W:101, W:106, W:268
(da),
W:285
(indirect),
W:286
(indirect)

JEFFERSON FAMILY:
sai
Jefferson, his lady wife, and his two daughters were slaughtered by the skin-man. His two sons survived, since they were in GILEAD when the attack took place. W:69
(dead),
W:93
(womenfolk),
W:97
(womenfolk)

JEFFERSON (RANCHER):
sai
Jefferson faced the skin-man (in the shape of a bear) ten feet in front of the bunkhouse. The rancher got off a few rounds before the monster tore the gun from his hands and bent the barrel. Then the skin-man picked
sai
Jefferson up and threw him into the bunkhouse. Inside the bunkhouse, Roland and JAMIE DeCURRY found Jefferson’s body, which had been torn limb from limb. His severed head stared up at the rafters with a fearful grin that showed only his top teeth. The skin-man had ripped the rancher’s lower jaw right out of his mouth. KELLIN FRYE found it under a bunk. W:69
(dead),
W:70–72, W:74
(rancher),
W:75
(torn limbless),
W:81, W:83, W:92, W:93, W:101

DAUGHTERS
: The bodies of
sai
Jefferson’s two daughters were found in the dirt between the house and the barn. One had gotten three or four dozen running steps ahead of her sissa, but they were both equally dead, with their nightdresses torn off and their backs carved open right down to their spines.W:70, W:72
(killing described),
W:73
(indirect),
W:74, W:75, W:93
(womenfolk),
W:97
(womenfolk)

SONS:
sai
Jefferson’s two sons were attending auctions in Gilead when the attacks took place. Hence, they survived. W:74

WIFE:
Jefferson’s lady-
sai
’s body was found under the kitchen table. Her half-eaten head had rolled up against the pantry door. W:70, W:72, W:73
(indirect),
W:74, W:93
(womenfolk),
W:97
(womenfolk)

NUTTER, ELROD (FOREMAN):
Elrod Nutter was the foreman of the Jefferson Ranch. He was an excellent rider and roper, but when he was in drink he got mean. According to YOUNG BILL STREETER, Elrod once twirled the bunkhouse cat by her tail and she never came back. When he was drunk, Elrod liked to drag Young Bill around by his boots. (According to SHERIFF PEAVY, Elrod had been in lockup numerous times because of his wicked drunken temper.) Elrod kept a knife in his boot, but as Young Bill pointed out, neither Elrod’s temper nor his knife saved him from the skin-man. (When Elrod was cornered by the bunkhouse’s back door he’d turned to fight off the skin-man with his knife. But as he’d stabbed at the monstrous bear-shape, the creature grabbed his arm and tore it off his shoulder. It then hit Elrod with his own arm and bit into his neck.) W:81
(nasty in drink),
W:91, W:92
(death),
W:94, W:97

PRODDIES:
A number of the proddies—or permanent hands—at the Jefferson Ranch were friends with YOUNG BILL STREETER. W:69, W:75
(16 killed),
W:80, W:93, W:100, W:101

FREDDY TWO-STEP:
Freddy Two-Step had promised to teach YOUNG BILL STREETER how to brand in the fall. Sadly, he didn’t live long enough to fulfill his promise. W:81

ROSCOE:
Before he died, Roscoe was teaching YOUNG BILL STREETER the bow. W:81

TINY BRADDOCK:
Before he was killed by the skin-man, Tiny Braddock taught YOUNG BILL STREETER how to make a lasso. W:81