by Tim Marquitz
Those Poor, Poor Bastards
Dead West, Book One
By Tim Marquitz, J.M. Martin, and Kenny Soward
Text copyright © 2014 Tim Marquitz, Joseph Martin, and Kenny Soward
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book Design: J.M. Martin
Photography: Allen Freeman
Model: Meagan Shea Dameron
Worldwide Rights
Created in the United States of America
Published by Ragnarok Publications | www.ragnarokpub.com
Editor-In-Chief: Tim Marquitz | Creative Director: J.M. Martin
Those Poor, Poor Bastards
Dead West
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
About the Authors
Chapter One
Nina Weaver tucked an errant strand of hair beneath her hat as the wagon trundled toward Coburn Station. It had been a long, quiet winter of deep snow and hibernating, which suited her pa just fine but sent Nina just about out of her dang skull. As much as she mistrusted so-called civilization, she’d been looking forward to doing something other than scavenging abandoned sites and dickering for fixins with brown-toothed backwoodsmen.
The wagon thumped through waterlogged ruts, jarring Nina’s teeth. Pa growled and tugged the reins. All the traffic in and out of the little road ranch-turned-trade town, along with the thaw, had churned the rail-side road to damn sposh.
Speaking of the rail, Nina had kept one eye on it, hoping to catch sight of one of them iron horseys of the Central Pacific line up close. She marveled at the thing, and felt a little pride in her white blood; the occasional cosmopolitan flash of wasichu inventiveness and her pa’s poetic heart but hard-as-iron exterior was pretty much the extent of her pride.
Nina’s gaze swept over the town. Past the buildings, on the hillside above and to her right, the labor camp seemed in a ruckus. A few dozen coolies were rushing about—she knew they were Celestials ‘cause of their blue-dyed pajama clothes and bamboo hats.
“What you reckon the hellabaloo is over yonder?” Nina said. They both sat up front, side by side.
“What’s that?” Pa was busy chirking and tugging at Apple’s and Oatmeal’s reins. He looked over.
“Thataway.” Nina jerked her chin toward the tents on the hill and all the Chinamen scurrying about.
Pa squinted and shook his head, returned his attention to the road as they passed by the first timber frame building, a pair of colored laborers and one white fella were banging away at it and paused to look them over.
Nina turned her head down, avoiding their stares.
“Maybe there’s a work order or an assembly or something,” Pa said. “Hard tellin’.”
They rode on into town and Pa pulled the wagon between a couple clapboard buildings, told her to keep an eye on things and out of trouble. He grabbed two canvas bags and tossed them over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in less than an hour. Just you lay low, all right?”
Nina nodded.
“Got the piece I gave you?”
“Yup.”
He nodded and squeezed her shoulder. “Business as usual, Nina girl.”
“Hurry back,” she said, a little disappointed he didn’t take her with him.
After ten minutes of leaning against the wagon, Nina decided stepping out onto the street to catch a glimpse of things wouldn’t hurt. She’d been shut in all winter, after all, and it sounded like Pa didn’t intend to stick around overlong.
Her boots squelched in the mud and the stench of horse shit burned her nostrils. This part of Main Street was even worse than the outskirts; a god-awful mess of manure and mud, a damned bonafide wagon trap, like some thick river of organic slop only a pig could love.
A pair of stinky traders passed by on the wooden-planked walkway, each with a string of carcasses slung over their shoulders. They nodded at Nina. She nodded back, keeping her brim low. On a bench next door, a couple old-timers cackled and spat baccy far as they could into the street. Across the filth-ridden lane, two girls of the line hawked themselves in front of the Pussy Palace, flirting with their lips and stockinged legs, lifting their dingy dresses sky high. Another whore tossed a bucket of piss from the second story window while one of her sisters priced cunt to a man on the boardwalk just below. He hopped back and cursed the piss-thrower.
More laborers banged wooden frames together at the far end of Main Street, real structures to replace the tent city that had originally accommodated the growing town. Dogs barked, pots and pans rattled against the sides of wagons, and men shouted at one another as if they were in a competition to see who could wake the fucking dead.
She remembered now why she hated towns. Civilization was too goddamned noisy. Nina shook her head and leaned against the corner of the building. She pulled a quirley from the top pocket of her overalls, lit it, took a puff, stifled a cough. Too much damn smoke. She covered her mouth to hide her discomfort.
Not only did she hate towns, she hated cigarettes, too.
Business as usual, Nina girl. Her job was to watch the goods while Pa, always the crafty salesman, worked his magic on the proprietor of Smith & Towne’s Antiquities. If things worked out, they’d take their earnings to the general store and get a fair shake on some supplies. They needed salted pork, bread and cheese, a fruit or two, and a new ax; if they had enough left, maybe they’d procure a few sketchy items, as well, from the back alleys and shacks around town. Those would take a special kind of dickering, meetings under the cover of darkness, and a shit-ton of balls.
Another part of Nina’s job was to not look like Nina. That is, a half-Injun with long legs and a full pair of tits. Bad blood was everywhere; war between this tribe and that, and the danged Army was posting pony at fifty dineros a head, no matter the tribe. Natives were striking back hard these days too, raiding U.S. patrols along the Snake River for a couple seasons now. She and Pa wanted no part of that. They’d not seen her mother’s people in years, not since Ma’s spirit had passed on from this world; so, long story short, if anyone recognized Nina as anything other than imported help, she was ought to be raped or scalped or both.
She took comfort in the Colt 1861 Navy beneath her coat, the piece Pa had mentioned. It was his iron, from back in his scouting days, but he usually let her carry it, and she’d not hesitate if anyone started up trouble. Speaking of which, she spied a man eyeballing her from across the street as folks hustled past. His feet crossed in front of him, he leaned against a pole in front of the Nugget Saloon, as casual as could be, holding a quirley by his waist between draws, and making no attempt to hide his curiosity. He wore his hat tilted forward, shading his eyes, but Nina could make out the shadow of stubble framing his jaw and a thick, dark mustache over his upper lip.
“Where you from, stranger?” Another man surprised her, having walked up and stopped two paces away. A big-eared, screw-mouthed fella. He flicked ashes into the mud and put his cigar between his teeth. “I’ve been in Truckee forty-some days. Ain’t
never seen you around.”
Nina knew the accent. South. Deep South. She’d been to Alabama once. It was the kind of drawl that made her think of cotton fields and black, sweaty faces. So, it didn’t surprise her that this man, after noticing her copper complexion, had come to see what he could fuck with. Or maybe he was just being neighborly. Never could tell.
Nina spoke in her rehearsed tone, the deepest baritone she could muster without sounding like a put-on. “Truckee? I thought they called this place Coburn Station.”
“Used to. Not no more. So you’re new here?”
“Just rolled in. Gettin’ supplies.”
“Ah. What kind of...supplies you lookin’ for? Might have some things can’t be found at the general. And especially not at this fuckin’ Jew cunt’s place.” He motioned at the antiquities shop behind them.
Nina’s stomach flipped. A trap. If she pursued his offer, he could turn her in to the law. Maybe he was the law, although he didn’t look the part, with his threadbare jacket and cotton trousers. She couldn’t see evidence of a gun on him, but that didn’t mean he was unarmed. If she told him to skedaddle, he’d have even more reason to be curious about her.
“Been coming here for years. Off and on.” She chanced a glance at him, just as he glanced at her. His eyes were that dangerous combination of ignorance and predatory hate. He was the sort of mean man Nina and her pa had experienced many times in their travels.
She might be in a bit of trouble with this one.
Nina hoped he couldn’t see past her dirt-rubbed cheeks and tar-blackened teeth, the disguise she wore whenever entering wasichu’s world, but her confidence was shot to pieces when the man pulled his cigar, gave a greasy smile, and rolled his tongue out over his lips.
Definitely trouble.
She took a draw from her cigarette and glanced across the street at Mustache. He hadn’t moved. Maybe this wasn’t a two-man operation. Maybe Mustache just wanted to watch the show.
Meany’s eyes narrowed. He edged closer. “So you, uh...it’s just you and your pa?”
Nina took a step back toward the wagon, blowing out a slow cloud of smoke as if she could hide behind it. “Yup.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’?” He glanced around furtively, backing her up. It was only a matter of time before he made his move. “See, I’m what you might call a perceptive fella. Up here in the mountains, you got to know about rocks, see? Whether you’re mining or blastin’ a hole in them, or just havin’ a look at what’s underneath. Most rocks, they always got somethin’ underneath, see?”
“Why don’t you do your prospecting somewhere else?”
He stuck his cigar between his teeth, took another step forward, got uncomfortably close. Nina’s palms itched for the handle of the pistol in her coat. “You just got to lift them rocks up and have a look,” Meany said. “That’s why I come over here. I lifted…” He reached out and tipped the brim of her hat up. “And look what I found, a pretty little Injun girl...”
A commotion at the far end of town interrupted him; a chorus of dogs barking, howling, and yipping all at once. An unnatural shiver ran down Nina’s spine, and the danger Meany posed felt lessened in comparison, which was mighty peculiar.
She walked around him to have a look, checking him with her shoulder as she went by. He was skin and bones beneath his coat, but he did indeed have a pistol ferreted away in a shoulder holster. He grunted and stepped back—only one thing a violent fellow like this understood, and that was greater violence. Nina would have to dish him some if need be, but that wasn’t her primary concern right now.
What was happening at the far end of Main?
She rounded the corner of the building and jerked back as a pack of dogs ran by, mongrels with matted coats and patches of mange, yelping like they were being beaten to within an inch of their lives. She chanced a second look as two more packs scurried past.
The wagon shimmied and shook as her horses, Apple and Oatmeal, pulled nervously in their tugs. Nina turned and ran smack into Meany. She didn’t know if this was his move, or if he was just curious about the noise, too, but she wasn’t waiting to find out. She hooked a foot behind his legs, grabbed the front of his shirt, and shoved him into the mud.
Without waiting to see his reaction, Nina hopped the boardwalk and went to the front of the wagon. She took hold of Apple’s reins to calm the old boy, even as he continued to nicker and paw the ground.
“C’mon,” she urged, guiding the horses halfway out from between the buildings. She wanted to be ready to skedaddle as soon as Pa returned. This ruckus, along with her encounter with Meany, had made her mind up; she’d had enough of Coburn Station.
More commotion was happening at the far end of Main Street. An old covered wagon resting across the lane took a battering from some unseen force. It vibrated and bumped around, suddenly flying up, flipping on its side, and falling to pieces.
Horses and cows poured over and around the crushed parts and stampeded down the street, flying with reckless abandon, churning up mud as they came, crazed eyes spinning around in their tossing heads. Nina’s first thought was that they were infected with something. What did they call it? Rabies?
One man ran to the middle of the lane and held up his hands as if to stop the oncoming horde.
Don’t do that, mister.
A young bull lowered his head and barreled over the man, sending him careening down the lane where he landed hard on his back. Blood covered his face and lips, but he was still alive. He looked up just as the herd ran him over, crushing him to pieces beneath tons of panicked flesh.
Nina glanced across the way, catching Mustache’s eye just as the herd raced by. She probably mirrored his expression, neither of them ever having seen so many spooked animals. She blinked, and Mustache was gone.
Time to haul ass. They could come back some other time when things were less out of hand. She turned and found her path blocked again by Meany. “Now look here, yo—,” he started, but Nina punched him in the nose. He staggered back two paces and clutched his face, eyes watering.
“Hey!” he cried, a muffled sound. She saw his hand move toward his coat.
She pulled her Colt and squared at his chest, cocked the weapon and gave him a final warning, no longer concerned with disguising her voice. “I’ll put a bullet in the same spot if you don’t back the fuck off, mister. You think I’m joking just...”
Nina stopped, her threat falling short. The man’s eyes were opened wide, his mouth an O behind his hand. He wasn’t looking at Nina or her gun. He wore an expression of dumb terror; something was scaring the hell out of the sumbitch. Something behind her. Going against one of her golden rules—once you pull you never take your gun off the enemy till they’re either dead or gone from sight—she turned and gave pause.
Rambling down the street after the panicked herd was another pack of animals. Injured horses bled from horrendous cuts, gashes, and tears. Horseflesh hung in swaths, muzzles chewed to the bone as if crows had been at them for a week. One beast was half-skinned, the fibrous muscles of its shoulder and hind quarters painfully visible, glistening with congealed blood. A second animal had a rip down its side, eviscerated, dragging its bowels through the mud. Another disturbing thing—just a small bit of non-horse fucking behavior that stuck in Nina’s craw—they had no breath; no billowing, nostril-flaring puffs of steam an equine with heaving sides might display in the cold, spring air.
The herd cantered along on unsteady legs, bumping against one another as pieces of loose skin and gristle sloughed off into the mud. A lumbering, silent mass of dead meat.
Nina backed away from the unholy sight, suddenly wishing she’d listened to her mother’s religious convictions, for surely she must have died and taken an express train straight to Hell.
Chapter T wo
Nina struggled to make sense of what she saw when Oatmeal kicked and whinnied, rearing up, twisting and busting the tug from his collar with a snap. The wooden trace struck Nina in the shoulde
r, knocking her on her ass.
“Nina!” Pa came rushing up. “What in the blazes—”
A tremendous, half-ton draft horse made a direct line for the wagon. Its tongue lolled from the rotting hole in its cheek. One pus-filled eye bulged from its socket. Stained yellow teeth gnashed together with an unsettling clacking sound, and the sweet stench of decay ran before it like a foul wind.
Nina felt strong hands slip under her arms and lift her up. Not fast enough.
The putrefied horse smashed into Oatmeal with the heavy thud of meat against meat. Oatmeal’s legs slid to the side, tangling him in his leather harness and pinning him beneath the draft horse’s weight. The raging beast made a disturbing nickering sound and clamped its teeth to the nape of Oatmeal’s neck, tore out a chunk of flesh, stretching skin and gristle in a spray of blood. Oatmeal screamed, legs flailing and kicking, showering Nina and Pa with rancid muck. Nina wiped her hand across her face, succeeding only in spreading the stink of dirt and manure across her cheeks.
“Shoot it before it kills Oatmeal!” Pa shouted as the beast tore another bite out of their horse.
Nina raised her gun and put a bullet in the beast’s neck. The round had no effect, leaving only a blood-leaking pinhole. It was like shooting a damn tree. Nina sighted for another shot, but Apple reared and flailed with his hooves, slicing the beast’s rotted muzzle to the bone; one of its ears tore free and spun away.
Apple hit the ground and bucked sideways against his trace. Nina put the next round in the wicked thing’s head, exploding bone fragments and brains everywhere. It staggered and went down, landing with a thwump in the mud.
Nina took stock of the situation. Screams and gunshots rang out. People scattered as crazed animals rampaged through town. Across the lane, a woman in petticoats ran down the boardwalk, pursued by a clumsy, three-legged stallion nipping at her skirts. At the end of the track she slipped and tumbled, hitting the mud face-first. The beast landed atop her, stomping, peeling off strips of skin with its sharp incisors as the woman screamed.