by Clark Casey
“Well, we’ll just have to send their asses to hell like them other two,” Buddy boasted.
“You talk bold, but you have not faced the fury of an entire werewolf pack,” Nigel said. “There are at least fifty wolves in town. I faced ten once while at full strength and barely escaped with my life. In my weakened state, I couldn’t take on more than three or four. Remember, I’ve not had warm blood for nearly a century.”
“It’s a good thing you got me here then,” Buddy said.
Nigel shook his head and sipped his gin.
“We can’t trouble Ms. Parker over it,” I said. “She could lose the child worrying over them wolves.”
“If she did, would her baby go to heaven or hell?” Whiny Pete asked.
“Heaven,” Sal answered. “The baby ain’t had no chance to do nothin’ wrong.”
“So what if it grows up here and shoots somebody, then gets shot itself?” I argued. “Does it go to hell? Seems only fair for it to get another chance like the rest of us had.”
Nigel’s scratchy voice called out with contempt, “This God you dream up, what makes you think he is fair? Humans live eighty years if they are lucky. I was alive for over three hundred years. My child didn’t even make it out of the womb. Any god who would orchestrate such disparity
amongst his creations certainly is not concerned with the infant offspring of a suicidal woman.”
The vampire could get kind of philosophical at times.
Chapter 18
The Inventor
An old man lay on the floor in the corner of the Foggy Dew, moaning for days. He begged for scraps, but nobody gave him any so he ate the crumbs off the floor. Somehow he’d made it to a ripe old age, but he would’ve been better off dying sooner, with a stronger body more capable of defending himself. Wild-eyed newbies delivered kicks to his ribs on their way to the commode.
No one wanted to waste a bullet on him, figuring they’d need all they had if more wolves showed up. From all his jawing, we learned that the drunkard had died, due to a lack of forethought, by freezing on the open plains. He was born in Boston but had a terrible fear of water that drove him inland, trying to get as far from the ocean as possible.
When he first came in the door, Sal reluctantly gave him ten chips, reckoning they’d be gone in an hour. Sure enough, he drank up five in half an hour, then bet the rest on a single hand of poker. Worst part was he’d didn’t even have a pair. Then he laid down in the corner with his back as a mattress and his belly as a blanket and started groaning.
“Should be some sorta rules ’round here,” Buddy said. “Can’t just let a man starve to death.”
“But he’s already dead,” Sal said.
“Still, shouldn’t let him suffer like that. He’s a man, ain’t he?”
“You kiddin’ me? You could send that halfwit to a hundred towns like this one,” Sal said. “Give him as many chances as you like. He’d never learn. He’d spend half his money on whiskey, then piss the rest away on the first crappy hand he was dealt. Some people ain’t got no sense. There ain’t no fixing ’em! Why should the rest of us have to shoulder their load?”
“Should be some sort a help for his kind,” Buddy argued. “Not everybody can play cards or shoot a gun or pour drinks like you. They still deserve to eat. Maybe that fella’s got a knack for drawing pretty pictures or making music on some instrument we ain’t got here. Just ’cause we ain’t found a use for him don’t mean he should starve on the floor. Musta been some reason why he was sent here instead of hell. Hey, old man, what good you done in your life?” Buddy asked.
He opened his cracked lips and muttered softly, “Had a sister.”
“Hear that, boys?” Buddy said. “Probably had a baby sister that he took care of ’cause his parents done run out on ’em. You gonna let a man like that starve on the floor?”
Sal looked cross at Buddy. “What are we supposed to do, find a use for every lost soul that walks through the door?”
“I suppose not,” Buddy said. “But I ain’t gotta watch ’em starve while you got plenty back there. Just ’cause you cut up some dead pigs that wandered down the road and threw ’em in a frying pan, don’t mean you’re in charge of who eats.” Buddy pulled out his pistol and put it on the bar. “Now I’m telling you to feed that old man or your ass is gonna meet them two wolves we kilt.”
“You robbin’ me?” Sal asked.
“Nah.” Buddy put his gun back in his holster. “Put it on my tab. In fact, put it all on my tab. Feed every hungry sumabitch in here. I’m… What ya call it? Redis’buted stuff!”
A mess of stinky bog-trotters all rose from the back of the room and headed to the bar at once. Even those who just ate were lining up for free grub.
“That’d be a mighty large tab,” Sal said.
“When you come to collect on it,” Buddy warned, “you better learn yourself a knack better’n pourin’ drinks and complainin’ about poor folk.”
Sal tossed a rag angrily on the ground and kicked a barrel. Buddy’d gone too far this time. Sure, Hardin drank and ate for free, but even he wouldn’t propose giving food away to everyone. Of course, Sal wasn’t dumb enough to go against Buddy. Not after he already shot six men who had the jump on him, not to mention Jack Finney while he was stone cold drunk. Even if Sal got off a shot, he might still get mowed down like Malachi did.
“Ain’t fair, Buddy. I’m just trying to do right by the system. Wasn’t even me that set it up. I used to warsh glasses for the fella who ran the saloon before me. Someone stuck a knife in his gut. Know what his last words were? Never give nothing away for free. I start givin’ away grub, and the coins’ll be worthless. You’ll see! Then poker won’t mean so much. You damn sure don’t wanna see this place when a hundred outlaws ain’t got no card games to distract ’em. How you gonna protect Ms. Parker then, huh?”
“Dunno.” Buddy gave it some thought. “Could stop making bullets.”
“Um, we tried that,” I said. “Pardon me for interrupting, Buddy. After the last blacksmith got shot, there wasn’t anybody who knew how to make bullets. Men started beating each other with chairs. There were wrasslin’ matches all day long. Hard to maintain order if brute strength rules. At least guns level the playing field a bit. Gives the smaller fellas a chance. When you make two men go out in the road and count to ten before they shoot, it makes an event of it. And when folks line up to watch a gunfight once in a while, they wonder if a thing’s worth quarrelling over. Eventually, a new blacksmith showed up. Luckily, he ain’t no good at cards so the money he collects gets spread around.”
“Hell, if we didn’t have no bullets,” Red chimed in, “the wolves wouldn’t let us have no pigs.”
“I guess that’s true,” Buddy admitted. “Sounds like we need a sheriff.”
“Last fella with that idea didn’t fare so well,” I said. “You want the job, Buddy?”
“Seems like a pain in the ass. Lemme think on it a spell.”
Sal went to the kitchen and fetched a plate of cold leftover bacon. Then he marched over to the moaning man and dropped it on the ground in front of him. The old fella grabbed a piece and gnawed at it with his sparse teeth.
“Hey, old man, if you was such a dang saint taking care of your baby sister, why the hell’d you end here instead of heaven?” Sal asked.
Bits of gristle collected on his whiskers as he tore into the bacon. “Married her,” he mumbled between bites. “And she was a good poke after I broke her in.”
In a flash of anger, Buddy turned around and pulled out his gun in one swift movement. Then he stood over the man for a moment, his hand trembling in debate. In the end, he couldn’t stop himself. The bullet sent a splash of cold blood back on his gun. He wiped the barrel off on his pant leg, then reloaded the empty chamber with a regretful scowl.
Sal, for one, seemed happy to have one less mouth to feed. H
e picked up the plate of bacon and brought it back into the kitchen to wash the blood off for tomorrow’s breakfast.
The Crapper
Comings: Lucky’s already relieved most folks of some money at the poker table. He hails from Oklahoma and they reckon he got his luck in cards by selling his soul to the devil. The only reason no one’s shot him yet is cause they don’t want to reunite him with it in hell.
Goings: I have been remiss in my duties as a mess of new men have come and gone before I was able to get their stories to paper. Most were sent to hell by each other or Buddy. Hardin shot a few, too. The vampire ripped another fella’s arm off, and he bled out. I will list those who had a chance to be put in Sal’s ledger and what’s believed to have been the cause of their earthly demise.
—Jack Dougherty, South Dakota, scalped by Indians
—Francis Nugent, Missouri, bad blood
—Tim Clancy, Connecticut, throat cut over money
—Cross-eyed man who couldn’t write his name, gut shot
—John Jones, California, got drowned in a river after his panhandle showed some color
—Davey Son-of-a-Bitch Jones, cut with a broken bottle for insulting a man’s woman
—Louis Scottsdale, San Antonio, hung for stealing a horse
—Jim Schmidt, Missoula, choked for poaching a man’s fishing hole
—Pat O’Malley, New York, drank too much and woke up here, unsure how he died
After speaking to a few folks, I also found out that the sorry sister-screwing geezer who Buddy put out of his misery was a bona fide inventor. He made a pump doohickey that lets people breathe underwater at great depths. Thanks to him, it is now possible to explore regions of the ocean where even the sun’s rays can’t hardly reach and swim with sea creatures unknown to man. Apparently, he once had a peek at those great depths. Not sure if it was something he saw down there, or just knowing how deep it really was, but it sent him running straight to the plains in fear. Nevertheless, makes you wonder what sort of contraptions he might’ve rigged up for us here in Damnation. Maybe even a way to get though that wall of dust. Guess we’ll never know. Ha!
Chapter 19
New Rules
“You still owe me five bucks!” Red said angrily.
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Spiffy insisted.
“Don’t give me that hogwash. You know damn well what I’m on about. When you was playin’ stud with that buck-toothed kid, you didn’t have the coin to cover his bet. You showed me a couple kings like they was the best hand in the world and asked for five bucks. I loaned it to ya, and Lucky beat you with triple eights.”
“Aw, that didn’t count! That was before we knew he was some kinda mind reader. Shit, I wouldn’t bet against him now even if I had four aces.”
“It don’t matter what you know now. That’s why they call it gamblin’! You still owe me five bucks, and I’m gonna get it even if I have to take it out of your pocket after I put a few more holes in that fancy suit of yours.”
Spiffy didn’t bother responding. Ever since Buddy sent Red’s gang to hell, everyone knew he was yellow. Every day he drank himself cockeyed just to put off going up against Buddy. His empty threat was swallowed up by the clatter of the saloon.
Four new cowboys had come in that morning, and they were all roistered up and shouting over one another. They’d ate a batch of tainted beef while on a roundup. It turned putrid in their saddlebags, but they were too stingy to slaughter a steer and cut into their profits. They suffered some weeks with blood coming out of both ends as they tried to bring in the herd. When they couldn’t mount their horses anymore, the cattle strayed off. Nearest town was over a hundred miles. As they weakened, the coyotes grew bolder, and it was clear they wouldn’t be able to fend them off much longer. Decided it was better to go quick and end their misery, so they pointed their guns at one another and pulled the triggers on the count of three. Now that they were dead, they were pleased as punch just to be able to hold anything down. Sal kept their glasses full all day long.
“Ain’t them boys drank up their credit by now?” I asked.
“Oh, they’re all right,” he replied, which was suspicious because Sal didn’t think anybody was all right.
“I noticed they all got new Remingtons, too.”
“Everyone in the room’s heeled,” Sal defended. “Why should them boys be any different?”
“They wasn’t heeled when they come in this morning, and they ain’t played any poker yet, so somebody must’ve given them those pistols. What are you scheming at, Sal?”
“Me?”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Buddy telling you to feed that geezer for free, would it?”
He just brushed me off. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”
Buddy had been knocking back the bug juice at a hardy pace. He stood in front of the bar, peacefully swaying in his boots. Looked to be feeling about as good as a dead man can feel. He wasn’t the truculent sort, unless he was bawling out a logger for disrespecting Ms. Parker or battling a rack of ribs for bites between its narrow bones. One of the rotten beef eaters came by him in a hurry. The fella still had some heft to him, despite the sickness that had done him in. He bumped hard against Buddy’s shoulder with the kind of force that should be immediately followed by either an apology or a fistfight. Then he gave Buddy the stink eye, as if he’d been in the wrong.
Buddy wasn’t eating drag dust over it though. He just dipped his hat and bowed as if he’d collided with the queen of England, then said, “Pardon me, ma’am.”
Some men within earshot laughed, which caused the cowboy to redden.
“Don’t sass me!” he scolded, and shoved Buddy, who was so drunk he had to squint to see. He stumbled backward but kept on smiling as he caught himself on a stool.
“That how you greet folks where you come from?” Buddy asked cheekily as he regained his footing. “Keep your muck forks off of me.”
The man threw a punch. Buddy stepped back to dodge the blow, but wasn’t quick enough. It glanced off his cheek, and he winced from the sting. A shove was one thing, but a punch was a whole different matter. Buddy palmed the cowboy’s face like a bowling ball and shoved him straight to the floor. The cowboy wasn’t quick to rise, but once he got up he started pounding Buddy’s stomach, where his wound never fully mended. Buddy drew his gun in a hurry but didn’t shoot. Instead, he jammed the barrel down the man’s throat, breaking his two front teeth, and tried to reason with him.
“Now see here, mister,” Buddy yelled. “I ain’t accustomed to shootin’ men that ain’t pulled on me, but I ain’t gonna spend all night trading blows with you. You got two choices. Either go out to the road and draw or walk away, ’cause I had enough. What’ll it be?”
Buddy extracted the barrel from between the cowboy’s bloodied lips. He spat out some broken teeth and answered, “The road.”
Everyone lined the rotted-out boardwalk to watch, except Sneaky Jim, but losing a sip of your drink was a fair price to see a decent gunfight. As Buddy stood in the center of the road waiting, the cowboy conferred with his buddies. Buddy didn’t need any advice on aiming and shooting, so he chewed on a piece of straw and gazed drunkenly at the cloud cover.
“I hearda you,” the cowboy said as he worked the stiffness out of his holster. “You robbed a stagecoach, then shot up some lawmen. They say you got sent here instead a hell ’cause you was careful ’bout not killin’ anyone who didn’t draw on you first.”
“I hearda you, too,” Buddy said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yer name’s shit-for-brains, and you came to Damnation so I can send your ass to hell today.”
They took their places back to back in the center of the road. Sal began counting to ten, but the cowboy was not an honorable man. At the count of six, he turned and steadied his barrel across his wrist. The three o
ther cowboys who had eaten tainted beef were in the crowd at Buddy’s back. Sure enough, they stepped forward and pulled their guns, too.
I wasn’t heeled, but the logger beside me had a sidearm within reach. I probably could’ve grabbed it and gunned down one or two to even the odds. I’d already gone ten months without shooting anyone though. The possibility of heaven was harder to give up now. Just two more months and I might be saved, or at least know it wasn’t possible. After all the turning the other cheek I’d done, I was starting to dream about shooting every loudmouthed bastard that got in my face. Still, odds weren’t in my favor. Even if I picked off two of the cowboys, there wasn’t much chance of Buddy dodging the other two guns already trained on his back with their triggers half squeezed.
Buddy must’ve heard the metal barrels leaving leather, because he started counting aloud, drowning out Sal’s voice. And when he got to nine, he just kept on saying it over and over, and taking extra-long steps as he did. Must’ve walked ten paces, just saying, “Nine, nine, nine...” Then he finally turned and drew.
Buddy might’ve been stink-eyed drunk when he came outside, but it sobered him up real quick to have steel in hand and his survival at stake. As he swiveled forward, he crouched at the same time, like a nimble little ballerina with a cannonball beer gut. The first bullet had real meaning to it. He sent it straight through the chest of the man in the center of the road, like he wanted to make sure he got his point across.
As he fell, the three other men all fired at once. Nobody else in the crowd pulled. Like myself, they must’ve wrote Buddy off and didn’t want to get on the bad side of the winner. Hardin was the only one with enough grit and speed to take them all out anyway. Seeing Buddy facing four men brightened his day. He smiled as the cowboys fired. Likely on account of the extra paces Buddy had taken, all three missed their mark. Hardin frowned. Buddy fired twice more before they had a chance to re-aim.
I’d read a few dime novels about gunslingers and found them all to be wrong about the same thing. It is not the thought of hitting a live target that throws amateurs off. During a gunfight, most first timers do not anticipate how distracted they will be by the sound of their own gun and the echo of their opponent’s. They imagine that their hands will be steady, and they will strike their target like the tin cans they have practiced on. They do not anticipate how difficult it will be to concentrate on firing a second shot in the thick of it. And the ones who ain’t never shot a gun before are certain to be startled by the loudest noise they ever heard just two feet away from their ears.