Dawn in Damnation

by Clark Casey

  Goings: Six Irish boys from Red’s gang were sent to hell by the hand of Buddy Baker. Two were the Kelley brothers from Westmeath. They fled their homeland to escape the potato blight only to die of influenza in New York City after brief careers in pick-pocketing and burglary.

  Also felled was Jimmy McReadon, a prospector in Comstock Lode. He had been kicked in the head by a pack mule in a Utah mining camp. Folks teased that he was giving the beast a poke at the time. Jimmy believed he ended up in Damnation for failing to send for his baby sister, as he had promised to do when he departed from Cork.

  Sean O’Malley was also among those who took aim on Buddy. Just before arriving in town, he had been shot by Pinkertons in Duluth for stealing a horse. He didn’t show much surprise at ending up in Damnation, though he never gave any specifics of his other earthly transgressions.

  Frank O’Reilly was a crack shot with the Winchester from his days as a hunter in the northern territories. A bear had mauled him in Yukon, earning him the nickname No-Face Frank. He was always shy about his wounds and preferred to do his drinking alone, stationing himself up on the catwalk where he could pick off anyone who messed with one of his countrymen. His aim didn’t do him no good this time when he couldn’t clear Red’s shoulder quick enough.

  The sixth man shot by Buddy spoke no English and was only fluent in the Irish language. I’m told that he hailed from County Sligo on the West Coast of Ireland. His name was Jams O’Donnell, and I struggle to recall a tale as sad as his, so I will relate it here at length as it was told to me. Just after his birth, his father was jailed for pinching a loaf of bread to keep his family alive. His mother was a gypsy traveler who died of bad blood when O’Donnell was ten. Shortly after, he was evicted from the family home by Protestants who had no rightful claim to the land.

  Since O’Donnell was part gypsy, the townspeople wouldn’t take him in. The travelers wouldn’t claim him neither, since he knew no trade and was just another mouth to feed. The boy wandered the frigid coastline, digging up potato spuds where he could find them and sleeping in caves so damp that the clothes rotted from his body.

  Shy of his twentieth birthday, he met a lass in similar straits, the unwanted daughter of an Irish maid who’d been raped by an English soldier. The two briefly took comfort in each other’s company and had a child that filled their poor hearts with joy. Unfortunately, the potato blight worsened and both wife and daughter died within a year from sickness caused by malnourishment. O’Donnell’s only chance for survival was to feed on the flesh of his departed family, which was likely his only sin and the reason why he ended up in Damnation instead of heaven.

  Next, the miserable O’Donnell wandered south to the Port of Galway, where he was offered passage to America in exchange for shoveling coal in the engine room. The smoke was hard on his already weakened lungs, but he took an extra shift to have some pocket money when he arrived in the New World. He suffered from breathing problems aboard the vessel and lost consciousness before landing in Boston, where he is presumed to have died. O’Donnell came up the road to Damnation just three weeks ago, relieved to find himself in a dusty town so unlike his damp and dreary homeland.

  Red enlisted him in his vendetta by claiming that Buddy was a Protestant land grabber, like those who stole his family home. Since O’Donnell had been too small to fight against the British invaders as a child, he felt obliged to defend this arid patch of afterlife. If anyone had explained to him what he was really fighting for, he probably wouldn’t have taken up arms since he had never fired a gun in his life. One can only hope that when Jams O’Donnell arrives at his next destination, he finds himself in a place less deceitful than Damnation and more hospitable than Ireland.

  Also shot during the crossfire was a cowboy from West Texas named Steve and the faro dealer with the handlebar mustache who everybody called Hoss.

  Oh, and I would be remiss in my duties if I did not record for posterity that the Chicken Choker got knifed by Ms. Parker. She came to my defense when the crazy bastard drew on me, while I was unarmed, after we all saw those mysterious flashes in the sky. I believe he was from Arkansas.

  Chapter 6

  The Gunfight of a Century

  “Who knows?” Spiffy speculated. “Maybe we’re still on earth after all.” The wiry cowboy was trying to remove a piece of pork gristle from between his teeth as Sal collected the lunch plates. We called him Spiffy on account of him getting killed in his Sunday best. He’d been caught fiddling with another man’s wife after church and received a bullet in the heart for it. His clothes were still pretty dapper except for the blood stain on the lapel. “Maybe we’re just shrunken down real small,” he continued. “So small that the whole town could fit on the head of needle.”

  “You reckon that’s possible?” I egged him on. It passed the time to hear folks chew the fat about where we were.

  “Sure, that lightning coulda just been some fella striking a match to light his pipe after supper.”

  “He musta ate beans,” Red played along. “And that thunder was a big ol’ fart.”

  “Hell, if we’re still on earth, we should figure out a way out of here,” Fat Wally suggested. “Then I can go see my sweetheart.”

  “Ah, what’d be the use?” Sal shook his head. “If the whole town’s the size of a needle, you wouldn’t be able to climb one of her cunt hairs, let alone give her a poke.”

  “Well, I could crawl up inside her,” Wally said with a laugh. “Wiggle around in her and show her a good time.”

  “Shit, she probably wouldn’t feel nothin’ even if you was full sized,” Red teased.

  “I can’t believe I have to listen to this shit,” Sal griped. “What ya make of that thunder’n lightning, Tom?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “But there’s definitely something above us. Judging by the echo of it, might be somethin’ beside us, too. For now, I’m sticking to my plan of trying not to get shot or shoot nobody, and see what happens.”

  “If there was a heaven, you wouldn’t get there by not killin’ nobody for a year,” Fat Wally argued. “They just tell ya that ’cause it’s impossible to do.”

  “If he wants to believe it, let ’em,” Sal defended. “It’s better’n waiting around to get shot with nothing else to look forward to.”

  The doors swung open, and a skinny farm boy crept in with his head down, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Both cheeks were red and swollen like a chipmunk’s. As he came to the bar, the candlelight showed welts on his arms and neck. Hardly an inch of him was without some sort of bruise. He looked up and asked shyly where he was. A pair of purple shiners rounded his mopey eyes.

  After Sal broke the news to him, he began crying. He missed his damn mommy and his farm and the stars overhead in the Wyoming sky, and some fat hussy he was hoping to marry. He went on and on for so long, not only did you no longer feel sorry for the beating he’d taken, you nearly condoned it.

  “Hey, churn-twister, what’s your name?” Fat Wally asked.

  “Petey.”

  “Well, dally your tongue or we’ll have to call you Whiny Pete,” he told him.

  The boy had been shooting at tin cans that morning, practicing to be a gunslinger. Didn’t know there was a herd of steer nearby. The gunshots set off a stampede that trampled a bunch of schoolchildren. His pa found out and beat him to within an inch of his life. Then the father of one of the dead kids beat him the rest of the way. He sat at the bar screaming, “The children! All the dead children! Their bodies were crushed!”

  Sal begrudgingly gave him some whiskey on credit. “Not sure why I bother,” he said. “Ain’t like he’s gonna be around long enough to pay it off.”

  The drink settled Petey down some and he stared out at the never-ending dusk, watching the wind toss handfuls of dust against the window pane like a farmhand spreading chicken feed. An hour or so passed, then he suddenly started screaming,
“I wanna go back! Just one more chance! Please Lord! Send me back!” Even the Christian folks snickered some.

  Fat Wally had heard as much as he could bear. He marched over and struck the boy across the face, sending him to the floor for a mouthful of sawdust. “Man up now, boy!” he told him. “You’re in Damnation. Not your damn pappy’s farm. Them kids prolly went to heaven anyway. Least they don’t have to listen to you whine all day. And if they do show up here and start crying, I’ll send their damn asses to hell myself.”

  Petey’s big bruised cheeks grew redder with rage. “You bastard!” he hollered and lunged for Fat Wally. For a large man, he was surprisingly nimble and managed to step aside in time, letting the angry boy fall to the floor. Not seeing any point in mustering a second attack, Petey lay there weeping, but much quieter now.

  Wally’s luck improved with the silence, and he began winning in poker. To celebrate, he had a few drinks. Then he started losing, so he had a few more drinks in sorrow. By early evening, he was so sozzled that he had to squint in order to make out the cards in his hands.

  “Ah, shit!” he swore after mistaking an eight for an ace, and staggered to the latrine, leaving a near-full beer on the bar. Sure enough, Sneaky Jim spotted the unattended mug and raced over to empty it. Wally returned just as the suds were vanishing down his throat.

  “You measly sip stealer!” he yelled, and fired his pistol. The shot missed by several feet, striking the wall as Jim fled the saloon. While Wally was reholstering his weapon, Whiny Pete crept up behind him and cracked a broomstick over his head. All three hundred pounds of him sank like an anchor. Wally wasn’t knocked cold though, and he rose a little starry eyed. As soon as he realized what had happened, he grabbed the boy by the neck and began smashing his head into the side of the bar till pieces of wood splintered off. Finally, Sal fired his scattergun into the ceiling and yelled, “I ain’t cleaning up your mess. Go outside and draw!”

  “I ain’t got no gun,” Pete said.

  Sal placed an old rusty Colt on the bar. It was the same one Jeremiah Watson had given Jack Finney way back when he first arrived. The handle was still stained with the Comanchero’s blood, only this time it was fully loaded.

  Pete picked it up and peered down the ancient rusty barrel. “But the sight’s crooked!”

  “If you wanted a better gun, you shouldn’t a caused a stampede that killed them children.”

  No one was willing to loan the kid a better gun since Wally might claim it. Not that Wally was much of a shot, even when he was sober. In truth, the odds didn’t favor either man. There wasn’t anything else to do, so twenty or so of us gathered out on the boardwalk to watch. Nobody wanted to wager on the kid since they were hoping to be rid of him and his whining. And nobody bet on Wally since he was shitfaced.

  They stood back to back in the middle of the road, and at Sal’s signal started walking in opposite directions. Wally wasn’t so good with his numbers. He must’ve forgotten that ten came after nine because the kid turned around and shot while he was scratching his head. The bullet struck the ground, which cleared up Wally’s counting problems. He quickly turned and fired five shots in succession. Meanwhile, Pete emptied his gun in a panic. Both of them must’ve had their eyes shut because even though they stood only twenty paces apart, neither had a scratch on them.

  “This could take a while,” Sal remarked.

  “Ah, let’s just call it off,” Wally offered. “I’m too damn drunk to shoot straight.”

  Whiny Pete was not of the same inclination though, and he made haste in reloading. “I’m gonna send your ass to hell, you fat bastard. If them children do show up here, I don’t want you hurting ’em.” With trembling hands and tears in his eyes, he fired and caught Wally in the leg. He shouted out in pain then raised his gun, reckoning he still had a bullet left, but it clicked empty.

  “Damn! I wasted a bullet on that measly sip stealer,” he recalled and got busy reloading. Pete’s next shot caught him in the arm, but Wally had already managed to drop a couple bullets in the cylinder.

  “Goddamn that hurts! Will you just send me to hell already?” Wally limped forward, swinging his pistol closed with a click. His arm was shaking from the wound and he missed twice more. Fed up, he hurled the gun at Pete’s head, which knocked him out. Then Wally fell on top of the skinny kid and began squeezing his neck like a stubborn jar full of jelly.

  “Probably the only way Wally could win a gunfight in his condition,” Sal remarked matter-of-factly.

  Pete woke with a gasp just as his windpipe was about to be crushed. He tried to throw Wally off him, but it might as well have been two anvils pinning his shoulders down. Fortunately for him, he had landed right on top of his gun when he fell. He must’ve felt it beneath his leg because he quickly recovered it and pointed the barrel at Wally’s side. The bullet ripped through his beer-and-pork gut but didn’t strike nothing important. He went on choking the blue-faced boy as if the shot wasn’t nothing but a pinprick. Pete re-aimed the barrel at Wally’s chest this time and struck him right in the ticker. Wally slumped over on top of him.

  “That oughta do it,” Red said. “I got dibs on Wally’s stack.”

  “Help!” Pete bellowed from beneath the corpse. “I’m suffocating under here.”

  “Been here nearly a hundred years,” Sal said, shaking his head in disgust, “and that’s the worst damn gunfight I ever seen.”

  Chapter 7

  The Vampire

  In the evening, the Foggy Dew could get hotter than a whorehouse on a nickel night. After supper, I often fancied a stroll about town to stretch my legs and cool down. A steady breeze blew from the flatlands beyond the buildings, where small whirlwinds of dust formed. Looked like tiny tornadoes, but they could barely blow your hat off. It was all we had as far as sights to see. Not exactly the Grand Canyon, but watching the spirals of dancing dust could take your mind off things if you were losing in cards or missing your sweetheart.

  The dust could get in your eyes, but if you kept your head down while you walked, it wasn’t unpleasant. The sky was the same old gray mop with yellow and violet swirls. No flashes of lightning showed, nor could any rumblings of thunder be heard. The dusk always made me miss the warmth of sunlight on my cheeks. The dimness played tricks on my eyes, and I nearly ran into Ms. Parker and Buddy before I recognized them out in front of the wolves’ saloon.

  “They sure are loud in there,” Ms. Parker remarked. “How many werewolves are there anyway?”

  “Not as many as us,” I told her. “Maybe one for every five men. They’re a rambunctious lot, so it sounds like more. Quick buggers, too—not as quick as the vampire, but you’d be lucky to shoot one before it got you, if it was so inclined.”

  “Do you need silver bullets to kill ’em?” Buddy asked. “Like in them storybooks.”

  “Nah, regular ones’ll do. They die like dogs. And they stick together in a pack, so if you send one to hell, the rest’ll chew you to bits.” Ms. Parker shuddered and took a worried step back. “Ah, they don’t have much use for us, ma’am. They prefer a warm-blooded meal, same as the vampire. If they can’t get one, they’d much rather have a cow than a cold, bony human.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Buddy patted his belly playfully.

  “I’ve never seen a werewolf before,” Ms. Parker said. “What are they like?”

  “They change in and out of human form as they please, ma’am. When they turn into wolves, some are bigger than lions.”

  “What’s with the sign?” Buddy pointed to the bones hanging from a post at the end of the road.

  “It’s the remains of a couple a newbies,” I explained. “Their first night in town, they lost all their money and got kicked out of the rooming house for causing a ruckus, so they cold-crouched it in the flatlands outside of town. They hadn’t been around long enough to know hunger wouldn’t kill them. It kept gnawing at them. Didn’
t know who had claim on the cattle neither, so when a steer wandered down the road, they figured they’d cut it up for rib eyes. They knocked it down and splayed it open with a sharpened stone, then hacked out hunks of meat and cooked them over a fire.

  “Argus, the wolf pack leader, smelt the meat burning. Like I said, wolves don’t care much for the taste of men. We’re too salty and skinny, worse than eating crow, I suppose. But Argus raced out and chewed them two newbies to bits anyway. He ate them real slow, like a kid swallowing brussels sprouts with a sourpuss. Could hear them crying for hours. Eventually, they bled out. Argus licked the bones clean and made that sign saying cows with the arrow pointing toward the wolves’ saloon. Pretty good incentive for folks to order pork, I’d say. Since then, relations with the wolves been somewhat shaky, but they ain’t bothered us none.”

  Just then, a large brown wolf wandered out the front door of the saloon. He searched the sky for the moon. Not finding it, he sniffed the well-traveled planks of the boardwalk. His haunches were nipple-high on a short woman and he was thick as a boar. He turned to us as he caught our scent and his eyes glowed red like hot coals. Suddenly, he began running straight toward us. Before we knew what was happening, he sprung into the air and landed on top of Ms. Parker. Buddy drew as quick as he could, but a smaller gray wolf came from behind and clamped down on his wrist, shaking the pistol from his grip. The big wolf sniffed at Ms. Parker’s belly, snarling like it was hungry for whatever she’d eaten last. The weight of his paws pressed her to the ground, so she couldn’t squirm away.