Webb's Weird Wild West

by Don Webb

The Judge invited Henshawe to his poker game.

  “You’re looking right prosperous these days, Henshawe, seems only right we get a chance to fleece a little of that prosperity.”

  “I’m a hard man to fleece, Judge.” Inside, his heart was pounding with pride. He had bathed twice today—as he had every day since his return from Frisco—to completely wash away the smell of dead men.

  There were four men at the table (not counting Henshawe): Judge Sullivan Vian, whose presence upped sales of hemp rope considerably; Ralph Whelan, whose legal practice specialized in claim-jumping and will-breaking; Clem Larapallieur, who supplied laudanum and cannabis extract for all the town’s aches and pains; and Clovis Durham, whose bank absorbed the miners’ gold dust as surely as a black hole sucks in cosmic debris. Only the Judge was important. The Judge had started them all in their orbits and kept them there.

  John Henshawe saw that the cards were greasy and spotted. Their patterns would be easy enough to learn—if you wanted to win the cash on the table. As a matter of fact, John expected to be taken in his first game. The red headed barmaid in the green satin teddy put a double bourbon by him. The Judge passed the cards to Whelan and Whelan cut.

  The Judge said, “Understand your fillies are doing a tiny bit of the grand tour. I ain’t seen no rush of corpses at your mortuary.”

  It was a mediocre hand. John took two cards. Full house.

  John said, “It’s always seemed this way to me, Judge. If there ain’t enough business you got to make some.”

  “Now son, I won’t have you killing folks ‘ceptin’ greasers and niggers what don’t count.”

  “No I just make use of what I got.”

  The Judge’s full house beat John’s.

  “A couple of months ago, Chu Chi died from smokin’ too much hop. You may all remember.”

  They all remembered, especially Clem, who had run the Chinese hop concession out of town to pick up their customers. Clem had sold the fatal cake to Chu.

  “Daisy washed him up and I collected eighty dollars from the county for burying him. Then I dug him up and cut off his queue and twisted some feathers in his heathen hair. I took off his clothes and pressed a tommyhawk in his hand—then I dropped the corpse out by Frijoles Creek.”

  Ralph interrupts. “I remember. Somebody brought the corpse to town and there was an inquest. They had to determine what tribe it was and how he died and where he should be buried.”

  “That’s right. I got three hundred dollars for that one. The court ordered me to send the corpse to the Digger settlement to the North, but since I knew it weren’t no Indian I just kept him. The sun had bleached him out considerable by then. I went down to Mrs. Murphy’s boarding house. She always keeps the bags of tenants that skip out. I bought the bag of that Italian fellow that came through a year ago. Then I dressed the corpse up Italian style. I rode him out to the Phelan mine and I let him down on the well chain. Somebody pulled him up the next day looking for a drink of water and naturally there was an inquest. We decided that he was a European visitor who had met his death by misadventure viz falling into the Phelan well. I got ninety dollars from the county for the coroner’s court and then I passed the hat around to take up for a decent burial, on account of he was a white man, and I got another thirty. Well I put up a stone and kept him in my back room. He was tolerable ripe by then so I decided to skelatize him. I put him in a barrel of quicklime. About that time a Mormon party passed through—European Mormons on their way to Utah via San Francisco. I went by the hotel and pulled off one of their packing labels. I put the label on my barrel and toted the barrel to the stage depot. Well none of the Mormons loaded up the barrel since it weren’t theirs. In a week the stage manager pried open the barrel and I was sent for. Well there was a big inquest on account of it looking like murder.”

  The Judge said, “I even had to extradite one of those Mormons and hang him for it.”

  “So I got two hundred dollars for the skeleton and fifty dollars for burying the Mormon and another fifty from his family for shipping him back to Salt Lake.”

  “You certainly got a lot of mileage from one body,” said Ralph.

  “I ain’t finished my story. When I buried Joe MacKenzie his family paid me off with the rights to Split Pine Mine. Now the Split Pine weren’t much ‘count ‘cause it had collapsed. So I took the skeleton apart and tossed some of the bones down what was left of the shaft. I got a pick and tapped the skull right here and then I put the skull on the lip of the shaft. Next day I ordered the county work force to excavate the mine on account of the skeleton, which was clear evidence of murder. They dug and dug and never found all the bones. So I held an inquest on what they did find—some poor miner—no doubt a slain partner of the late Joe MacKenzie. Eighty dollars for the inquest and I had a working mine. I sent my family to Paris on that one corpse and I ain’t finished with it yet.”

  Clem dealt the tenth hand of the evening and John drew three aces.

  * * * * * * *

  Chu Chi woke. The last of the poppies had been blown away. It was his longest and best trip. Truly Clem Larapallieur sold good opium. He must work hard to buy some more. He had dreamt the most fantastic things. Chu Chi stood and his head fell off. This was most distressing even to a calm-tempered man like Chu Chi. He knelt in the darkness to feel for his head. His skeletal fingers passed through the empty eye sockets.

  So, some of the things he had dreamt were true.

  He fit his skull back in place. Someone had knocked a hole in it. Henshawe, he remembered Henshawe and his nagging wife and beautiful daughter. He could sense the objects of Henshawe’s small back room: bathtub, winches, slab, saws. But he could not see them. He decided that if his current state continued he would research the phenomenology of perception. Also: philosophy, theology, and medical theory of death.

  Chu Chi walked into the funeral parlor. Two miners, dead from tuberculosis, lay in their respective caskets. Chu Chi felt no communion with them. Only then did it occur to him that his might be a solitary state. That he could not play fan-tan or mah-jongg with the dead. There were no dead to share a pipe with.

  Henshawe’s greatcoat fit him—he might be able to pass for a scarecrow at a great distance. He lifted the latch and strolled into the California night.

  * * * * * * *

  The four men who ran Jamestown were buying John Henshawe’s story. They thought it was all his doing—the scheming of his fine mind. They didn’t know that Gloria had thought up the schemes, nagged him into doing them. They didn’t even know that he was afraid of the dead men—haunted by superstitions that most morticians bury with their first body. He didn’t need Gloria. He’d come to this poker game without Gloria. He took a swig of bourbon. He would show them.

  “I’ve got the skeleton back in my shop right now. Tomorrow I’ll hang some green goggles on his eyes and some leather straps on his chest. Then I’ll take him down to Dead Man’s Gulch and throw the parts in a Balm-of-Gilead tree. I’ll hang some silk from Daisy’s old bloomers on the thorns.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to be?”

  “An aerialist. A balloon rider fell to earth.”

  They marveled at his invention. They drank. He lost more. He doesn’t need Gloria. Just Daisy to wash to corpses.

  The gold pieces were piling up in front of Clem Larapallieur. The five men had killed a fifth.

  “Well, Clem, looks like you cleaned us out tonight.”

  “Aw, Judge, you’ll get a chance to get it back. I’ll see all of you in the morning when you come by for a hangover cure. Cures are on the house.” Clem swept his gold into a small cotton bag, which he placed inside his pants. The reassuring coldness of the gold steadied his drunken walk across the dark street.

  LARAPALLIEUR

  DRUGS & SUNDRIES

  He went behind the counter. He was mixing up his hangover cure tonight. He dropped simple salts in a large glass, added water, and watched the foam. He was about to drink the concoction when he heard
a scratching at his door. Perhaps one of his Chinese clients had crawled here in the throes of hop sickness. Perhaps it was Mrs. Murphy’s cat. In either case it shouldn’t be at the front door. He pulled his revolver. He threw open the door. No cat. Something white. A skeletal left arm. Maybe this was that drunken coroner’s idea of a joke. He kicked the thing into the street.

  The hangover remedy seemed a trifle bitter. He was halfway up the stairs when the spasms hit. First his gut then in hot painful waves through his body. He lost his grip and fell backwards. Just before the strychnine finished him he saw the one-armed skeleton of Chu Chi.

  * * * * * * *

  Chu Chi ventured into the deserted street to retrieve his lost arm. He knew he needed better covering if he was to pass in the world of men.

  Even for a trapper like Chu Chi removing the skin of the druggist was not easy. It wasn’t as tough as animal hide nor did the drugstore stock any adequate fleshing knives. So the skin broke and tore and broke. Getting into the thing was even more difficult. Chu removed his head to watch. He stuffed his body with cotton and charcoal. Then he stitched up the rents with fishing line. The druggist’s clothes covered most of the stitching, and with the druggist’s gold he could buy perfect clothes. The face hung slack on the skull. The new eyes barely functioned. Chu Chi found a pair of smoked glasses. With his eyes shielded he could get by with object-sense.

  * * * * * * *

  It was the first time Gloria Henshawe had been alone with her daughter. Truly alone away from John’s interference. Daisy, my dear, there is something I must tell you. The reason we always keep you at home is that you are, well, plain. In fact Daisy you are ugly. You’re a great disappointment to your father and me.

  It was an eight-week voyage from San Francisco to France. They enjoyed excellent weather rounding South America. By the time of their arrival, Daisy couldn’t look any man in the face. Even a priest.

  * * * * * * *

  Loud knocking broke John Henshawe’s sleep. Nobody needs a coroner quickly. His trade is one of the few where the clients just lie there. He put his smoking jacket on. There was a Mexican at the door, his face hid by a large sombrero.

  “I found a corpse on the road, senor. I have never seen anything like it.”

  “I’ll get a lantern.”

  A skinless, eyeless body lay on the blood-soaked wagon bed.

  “I do not think you will make much money from this corpse, senor.” The figure had removed his sombrero. John saw himself reflected in the dark glasses. John made to throw the lantern, but Chu Chi caught his arm. The lantern fell into the wagon and shattered—scaring the horse and providing a bright, mobile funeral pyre for Clem Larapallieur. Chu Chi pulled the small knife he had used to skin the druggist. In the scuffle the knife found John’s chest twice.

  * * * * * * *

  The aesthetic debate over the Eiffel Tower still raged. The introduction of glass-cage Otis elevators provided an excuse to visit the tower. After all the top of the tower was the one place you could see Paris without having your view spoiled by Monsieur Eiffel. The Henshawes came every day. Gloria wanted to absorb this view. If she could release a little bit of the view into her system every day, she might be able to survive Jamestown. Daisy watched the heights. If she could get her courage up, she would jump.

  “Monsieur, are you blind?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why do you want to ride to the top of the tower?”

  “So I can smell Paris from a great height.”

  Everyone laughed. After all Americans are known for their eccentricities. The blind man walked toward two of his fellow countrymen—or perhaps countrywomen.

  Moments later a screaming woman fell from the tower. Daisy and Chu Chi were already in the down elevator, arm-in-arm.

  HALF-DIME ADVENTURE

  I’d found me a pan with no holes in it. I’d already plucked the chicken. I washed the pan in the creek scouring it out with sand. I made a little fire and hotted up the pan. I put pieces of the chicken in. Sizzle, sizzle. Pour in a little water. I would make a mulligan that the yeggs—a yegg is a professional criminal—and the bindle stiffs would remember till their dying days. They’d cough out pieces of their lungs in cold hobo jungles and say, “That was fine. That was sure some mulligan Tim Wilson cooked us the night before we stole the circus train. That was the best mulligan I had in my life.”

  “You can smell that chicken for a mile.” It was Half Face Joe. A railroad cop pushed him off a speeding train deep in the Yukon. He fell into the rocks doing forty. He left half of his face there. He even has a hole on the ugly ruin of his head which you can stick your finger in and feel his brains. He charges a quarter for this entertainment. I only had the stomach to do it once and it was cold in there. Cold like the Yukon snows. I told Half Face he’d better hope for Heaven because his brains would melt in the other place. He carried a sack of vegetables.

  “You buy those things, Half Face?”

  “I jes’ stuck my head in the store and they gimme those things.”

  We sorted out the rotted from the clean and I cut up the clean. Carrots. Turnips. Celery. Tomatoes. This will be a superior mulligan. Half Face carried the rotten things off. I suspect he ate ’em. He’s none too cleanly. It was boiling a little too hard and I tossed a little dirt on the fire.

  Moses Donelly walked up. He kept body and soul together by DDing. Being a Deaf and Dumb man. He’d go to a pharmacy and buy some lavender cologne, then he’d soak several envelopes with it. Then he’d go door to door with a card, “I am Deaf and Dumb from birth. I need money to go to my cousin’s funeral in Laramie. Would you buy a packet of lavender from me?” Sometimes he’d run into a real dummy who made with the hands. Moses would sign back. ‘Course Moses’ signs were pure bunkem. The dummy would know it but everybody would think, “There’s two dummies talkin’ to one another. Ain’t it a miracle? God’s in His Heaven and everybody’s happy.”

  Moses parted the grass in front of him and soon was standing by my mulligan.

  “It’ll be dark soon and this jungle will be full. I want to be sure you get this.” He pulled out a Dr. White’s four-bit mickey. I put it in my shirt pocket.

  “Moses Donelly, you are a gentleman.”

  “I remember when you sprung me from the railroad jail in ’Frisco. If I can ever help you. Let me know. I’m your man.”

  “You can help me now by filling this coffee can with water and then by setting beside me for a spell.”

  Moses was back in a shake of a cow’s tail. I poured the water into my mulligan. Poured and stirred. Poured and stirred.

  Moses undid his bindle and handed me a can of pepper. I peppered my mulligan just so. There were other fires being lit in the jungle.

  “Tim Wilson, you reckon we’ll steal that circus?”

  “I reckon we’ll try. Some of us may get killed but that’s the same as any day. Any day you wake up you may get killed. These jungles are full of ghosts.”

  Just as I said that a cool breeze began to blow through the jungle as though the dead hoboes and yeggs were raising to my call, which is just as well. I’d rather have ten hobo ghosts with me than one live citizen. Maybe some of those ghosts would take the bullets for us tonight. They don’t stand nothing to lose, if you think about it.

  Parsimonious Pete was brewing coffee. It would be weak coffee brewed from grounds that had already had three chances to swim. Nobody needed money as bad as Parsimonious. If he couldn’t talk you out of it, it would just sort of gravitate to him. I once saw him pick up a dime by just touching it with his elbow. He was magnetic for silver. He’d probably talk some greenhorn into buying his coffee tonight. If anybody ever found out where he hid his money they’d crack his ugly mug. It’d be easier to find out what grows on the dark side of the moon.

  Someone got a pot to boil clothes and all the bindle stiffs were gathering around. Moses took my spare outfit down. A fight started about then. One of the brass peddlers, a seller of “gold” jewelry, turned ou
t to be lousy. Dead lice roiled in the laundry pot. I could hear some of the boys cursing Brass Bill. The curses would lead to shoves, shoves to a fight, and a fight to somebody getting killed. That would queer the whole business. All the hoboes would leave the jungle as soon as somebody got killed (even if they just got drunk and fell in the fire). I hoped Preachin’ Ivy would show up. This whole caper was his idea and he could settle a crowd the way an egg can settle coffee grounds.

  Moses came back with my clothes. “They’re raisin’ a fight. I didn’t want to put these in the pot because someone’s sure to turn the pot over.”

  Sure enough just as he said those words there was a great whoosh of steam. Somebody pushed Brass Bill down in the mud and embers. He screamed as he was getting scalded so somebody tapped his head with a brick. I reckoned he was done for because I heard them dividing up his loot—even his 99¢ a dozen brass rings that he dropped for a dollar or more. He shouldn’t have come into the jungle lousy.

  “You know, Tim Wilson, it’s a mean world.”

  “Compared to what, Moses? Compared to what?”

  Night came and about half the camp left on account of Brass Bill. Ivy still hadn’t showed. He was supposed to be in town getting rods. If he didn’t come in an hour or so we’d head out figuring the town bulls had jailed him. I poured my mulligan into cups and cans and everybody agreed that it was the best mulligan anybody had had for quite some time. Some of the boys were pulling out their mickeys, but I didn’t drink none because I knew Ivy wouldn’t hand out any rods to drunk men.

  A stool pigeon moon came up. Half Face suggested we bury Brass Bill or at least drag him away from the jungle. We got up a burial party and they drug him off to cover him with leaves.

  “Where the hell is everybody?” Preachin’ Ivy carried a crate under his right arm. He walked up to the fire and helped himself to my mulligan. “Ain’t nobody here.”

  “Brass Bill got himself killed and everybody lit out.”

  “How many are left?”

  “Ten, counting you and me.”