Dawn in Damnation

by Clark Casey

  “At this rate, we’re gonna run out of bullets before we kill any of ’em,” Red said.

  “Might be their plan,” Sal said.

  The sound of breaking glass came from the backroom, and two cowboys ran back to check on it. A gunshot sounded, and one of them didn’t return. “Gotta seal up the door to the backroom,” the other one said. “They’ve overrun it. I stuck a board under the knob, but it won’t hold for long.”

  “Dang it all! Get Ms. Parker up to the second floor,” Sal said. “And get some boards to secure that backroom.”

  While Mabel was helping her up the stairs, two wolves broke into the barroom. There wasn’t any time to take aim on them. One raced after Ms. Parker, nipping at her heels. Red jumped out from behind the bar, leaving himself exposed. It was the first selfless thing I’d ever seen him do. He squeezed off a shot, striking the wolf in the mid-section. It tumbled down the steps with a whimper. The other wolf leapt for him and bit into his shoulder before he could get back to cover. He cried out as the long teeth sunk into his flesh and struck bone. Sal pressed a pistol against the wolf’s face and shot its jaw off. Red managed to crawl back behind the bar and wrap his wound.

  “Board up that back door now!” Sal yelled.

  “Where’s that skinny freckle-faced kid?” Red asked.

  “Right here,” Lucky said, crouching behind a barrel.

  “Shit, boy!” Red smiled. “Looks like today’s your day. You may just see hell after all!”

  Chapter 25

  The Horse Thief

  The charges came in bursts throughout the day. The wolves smashed against the door and tried to squirm between the boards that covered the windows. When their noses slipped through the cracks, they nipped at the men, taking chunks out of their arms. The ancient beams in the walls began to buckle from the constant ramming. Luckily, the wolves got tuckered out before they gave way. They needed rest just like any other dogs that’d been chasing their tails too long in the sun.

  “It’s your turn to take lookout, Tom.” Red handed me a Winchester and a sack of bullets.

  “Don’t put him up there,” Lucky said. “He’s still trying to get into heaven by not shooting anyone.”

  “Ah, who cares about that now?” Red said. “Probably all be torn to pieces by tomorrow. Why would God take you just ’cause you managed to not shoot no one for a few hundred days? Hell, there ain’t even no sunup or sundown to count the days by. It could all be one long day for all we know! And why would God give a piss what you did with it?”

  “Now hold on a second there,” Sal interrupted. “How long’s it been you ain’t shot no one, Tom?”

  “Well, I had about three months on me when Ms. Parker arrived. That was nine months ago, so it’s nearly a year,” I said. “Maybe a few weeks shy.”

  “You better hide out behind the bar,” Sal said. “If them wolves overrun us, it’d be worth it to know if there’s a way out of Damnation. Could be a while before anyone lasts that long.”

  Everyone was watching, and I didn’t want to shirk my duty for some pipedream. Morale was low enough. “Ah hell, there’s always next year.” I grabbed the gun and bullets.

  The perch in the rafters was a tight space, and I had to squeeze in with my back against the joist and the rifle in my lap. Between the boards over the window, there was a clear view straight down the road to the dust cloud that surrounded the town. Across the road, the fellas in the rooming house were held up without a lick to eat. It had been a full day since they had any grub. One man tried to sneak to the general store for rations, but the wolves caught him and tore his throat out mid-scream. Then they lay back down behind some barrels and planks of broken-up boardwalk so we couldn’t pick them off.

  The town was completely still. Ms. Parker’s panting had slowed. Even the wind had died down. My back began to cramp up. Then there was some ruckus behind the wolves’ barricades. The shouting of orders and the banging of tools could be heard. After about an hour, six large wolves appeared on the road, marching two by two at a slow, labored pace. They kicked up a big cloud of dust, so thick I couldn’t make out what was keeping them from moving faster, let alone get a clear shot. Without breaking rank, they trotted straight toward the saloon, picking up some speed as they approached. When they got within a hundred yards, I could make out a long, thick beam between them that was lashed to their haunches. Looked like a rafter that’d been taken from one of the buildings.

  “They got a battering ram!” I yelled, and fired a shot into the dust. The farm boy in the other window fired as well. They passed below the pitch of the roof where we couldn’t hit them. I climbed down from the perch just as they mounted the porch with a creak of the floorboards. A loud crash shook the whole building and sent a century’s worth of dust raining down from the ceiling. I hobbled down the steps to see the piano was nearly dislodged, and there was a crack in the door.

  “It won’t hold,” Sal yelled.

  “What can we do?” I hollered back.

  “Pray.” he shrugged.

  The wolves had to back up down the road a ways to get another running start. They needed at least fifty yards to pick up speed. One more hit would surely split the door in two. Then they’d be able to slide the pieces aside and climb over the piano, easy as pie.

  “Get back up there and try to pick off the lead wolf,” Sal ordered.

  I hustled back up the steps, but it was a lot quicker coming down than going up—the bum leg being easier to slide down than lift up. Finally, I hopped back on the joist and raised the rifle. Only now, I had trouble seeing. Everything looked dim. I reckoned all the running around had made me light-headed. Then I realized that the sky had actually grown darker. The streaks of violet and yellow had faded to a plain dreary gray. My eyes were slow to adjust to the vanishing light. The wolves were looking up in confusion as well. It wasn’t quite pitch black. A faint glow still shone beyond the brooding clouds, but its shape couldn’t be made out. Looked like a candle behind some dirty curtains.

  Before anyone could gather their wits, giant drops of rain—as big as fists—began falling from the sky. They struck the ground with a loud patter. After half a minute, the rain was coming down in sheets so thick you could hardly see the other side of the road. The dry cracked earth muddied and every footprint filled with a puddle.

  “That’s a real gully washer!” called out the farm boy at the other window.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” I ordered. “They might use it as cover.”

  Sure enough, a long howl bellowed from beyond the veil of water, and a moment later the wolves came charging down the road toward the door. Their pace was slowed by the freshly drenched ground, and there was no more dust being kicked up to hide them.

  “Shoot the lead wolves and the rest’ll trip over ’em,” I said. “I’ll get the one on the left. You get the one on the right.”

  We each fired in turn, but both shots struck the mud. We fired again, but the rain made the bullets descend too quickly, and every shot was off by five feet or more.

  Fortunately, the mud didn’t give them much traction, and the soggy beam swung from side to side, throwing the wolves off balance. As they mounted the porch, I climbed down to look through the window above the door. There was a hell of a clatter, but the door didn’t budge. The beam had slipped from the harness and crushed one of the wolves. The rest scrambled to their feet and ran for cover as the boys opened fire.

  “I thought it didn’t rain here,” Lucky said.

  “So did I.” Sal shrugged.

  “I ain’t never seen a drop myself,” Old Moe added. “And I been here longer than anyone.”

  “Must be a sign from God,” Red decided. “First, a lightning bolt fries a wolf. Then this. Can’t be no coincidence.”

  “Why the hell’s God need to use signs?” Sal asked. “Don’t he speak American?”

  Twenty minu
tes passed before the rain suddenly let up all at once. The sky brightened with its normal violet and yellow streaks, and the town was silent except for the gusts of wind cutting between the buildings. The wolves must’ve been tuckered out from their attack, because there wasn’t a peep from behind their barricade.

  “What we gonna do when they get that battering ram going again?” a lumberjack asked. “That measly timber door ain’t gonna hold.”

  “I don’t know, you damn tree humper,” Sal said angrily. “Give me a minute to think on it.”

  I climbed back up on the perch beside the joist with the rifle in my lap. It wasn’t five minutes before my back began to cramp up again. There was nothing to do but sit and wait. For the living, pain was a warning of damage done to the body that might eventually lead to death, but dead men couldn’t get any deader so it was just pain for pain’s sake. Eventually, I just accepted it and began to drift into a light slumber.

  I hadn’t dreamt much since I died. They were more like fantasies, and if I thought on them real hard, I’d get to believing they were real for a minute or two. I was back in the Dakota Territory, and my wife was beside me. We had just picked out a patch of land in a field where we were going to build our home. I made love to her something fierce. It faded to the newspaper office, and Mr. Hearst was laying down the law, saying how I should write up the massacres in the Black Hills. Only this time I didn’t have no fear. I could see how it would all go down, with me getting gut-shot and ending up in Damnation.

  This time I was angry. I was angry for my whole life, for every second I let some misbegotten fool lead me astray. I could see that they didn’t know no better than me. They were just more forceful with their will. I was standing there getting angrier and angrier at Mr. Hearst, and this time I didn’t back down to him. His man trained a gun on me, and I gripped the barrel. As the blast went off, it burned my hand. Then I began to float upward toward the sun, because there was nothing holding me to the earth anymore. Before I reached the clouds though, the dream started to break apart. I tried real hard to believe it was true, just so that I could keep rising up to heaven or whatever was above.

  A neighing in the distance woke me. When I opened my eyes and saw that I was still in gloomy old Damnation, the awful emptiness returned. A piebald stallion with a black face and a white stripe down his nose came bolting out of the dust. His coat was shiny with blood and sweat. Looked to be an Appaloosa. A bridle wrapped his jaw and there was a bit in his mouth, but no rider atop and the reins fell slack.

  “Lookie there!” I shouted down to the others. “A horse just came out of the dust!”

  “Now that’s gotta be a sign,” Red said.

  The horse trotted up the center of town and stopped in front of the saloon beside the hitching post. He lapped up some dusty water from the trough, then stood still as a statue. His eyes were dead black, and his hindquarters riddled with bullets. Looked like a military horse, shod as he was and wearing a fancy saddle. The werewolves didn’t show much interest in the cold horse meat, still having a hankering for a warm-blooded meal. A few minutes later, a man hobbled out of the dust and limped down the road. Some of the wolves lifted their heads to peer over the barricade, then quietly rested their jaws back on the ground. An urgent knock sounded on the door.

  “Who the hell you suppose he is?” I asked.

  “Maybe he’s here to help,” Lucky said.

  “Could be Jesus,” one of the Christians suggested.

  “Maybe it’s the Antichrist,” Red said.

  “Ah, shit! Open the door up before them wolves tear ’im up,” Sal said. “Maybe he can shoot straighter’n you cross-eyed halfwits.”

  A few of the miners pushed the piano aside and unbolted the storm door while the boys upstairs provided cover from the windows. The man squeezed past the broken boards and collapsed on a stool in exhaustion.

  “There a doc in town?” he asked, fanning his face with his Stetson. A blood-soaked rag was tied around his leg. “The law’s on my tail!”

  Everyone in the room broke into laughter at once.

  “What’s so dang funny?” he said. “Soldiers shot up my backside for stealin’ a horse in Abilene. Didn’t know it belonged to a general. Woulda been shot to pieces if that storm hadn’t come on. I fell off my horse a ways back. Lucky I made it to this thirst parlor before they could catch up. Where we at anyway? This Buffalo Gap? I know I ain’t made it as far as Sweet Water, though I was hauling tail. I tell ya that!”

  Sal placed a bottle of whiskey and a glass in front of him. “The law ain’t gonna catch you here. And that wound ain’t worth worrying over no more.”

  “What’s with all them big-ass dogs on the road? Some kind of kennel?” The horse thief poured a glass and had a long gulp. Then he took off his bandage, surprised to find blood wasn’t flowing from the wound. It had thickened up like day-old gravy. He stood and took a few cautious steps, finding no need to favor it.

  “Golly! Seems good as new.” He looked at his back in the mirror. “Think I got some buckshot in me, but I don’t feel no pain from it. It’s the damnedest thing! Why is that?”

  “’Cause you’re dead, friend,” a farmer said.

  “What ya mean dead?”

  “I mean you done died from them soldiers shooting you in the back. And your horse is dead, too. How many horses you seen walking around with bullet holes in their legs?”

  “You’re just joshing, right? The army put you up to this? Staged it to stall outlaws or somethin’?”

  “Ever seen a thirst parlor filled with shot-up men like this before?”

  The horse thief looked long and hard around the room. He grew a shade paler and started to sweat. Then he took another drink of whiskey.

  “Maybe this is some kind of infirmary,” he said, trying to convince himself.

  “Does this look like something you heal from, boy?” The farmer pointed at a gouge in his skull made by a hay thresher. “You can see my dang brains!”

  The horse thief nervously poured more whiskey in his glass.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Nigel called down from the top of the stairs.

  “Who’s that?”

  “He’s a vampire,” I said. “Kinda looks out for us sometimes.”

  “A what?”

  “Those werewolves will be rested enough for another attack soon,” Nigel warned. “I strongly advise you all to be on your guard.”

  Sal grabbed the bottle off the bar and hammered the cork into the rim with a whack of his palm. “Your credit’s done, newbie.”

  “Can you shoot?” Red asked him.

  “Sure can,” he replied.

  Red tossed him a repeating rifle. “Get in that corner.”

  “What’s he mean about werewolves attacking?”

  “Means you picked a bad day to steal a horse,” Red said.

  Chapter 26

  Argus

  The door wouldn’t hold for long. That much was clear. Another line of defense was necessary, so we piled the chairs up on the bar as a barricade, and ducked behind them with our gun barrels sticking out. The sodbusters turned tables on their sides in the corners and pointed their rifles outward. Everyone had their sights trained on the front door, ready to cut down the first wolf that entered. Then two wolves suddenly burst through the back door. The horse thief picked one off, then cocked the lever ejecting the spent shell, and reloaded a fresh one into the chamber. He caught the second wolf in the side before anyone else had time to take aim.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked afterward.

  “I tol’ ya, werewolves!” Red said. “And there’s gonna be a lot more of ’em.”

  “Good shot, newbie!” Sal said. “Now go secure that back door.”

  Without any hesitation, the horse thief grabbed some boards and a hammer, and went to the back room where the whacking of nails was s
oon heard.

  “Now that’s a fella with some gumption!” Sal remarked.

  A moment later, the hammering was interrupted by loud screams. His hollering was drowned out by the cracking of bones. Sal stuck his scattergun through the doorway and blasted away till the wolves fled. A couple of loggers helped him board up the door to the back room.

  “Imagine that! He done died twice in the same hour,” Red declared. “It’s a shame. Seemed like a nice fella.”

  “Well, if Ms. Parker’s baby don’t come soon, you might see him again,” Sal said.

  “Ah, he wasn’t that nice.”

  Howling came through the walls from all sides of the saloon. The whole pack was up and getting frisky. They’d already made us plenty scared and worked up an appetite in the process. They probably had more casualties on their side than they counted on. All that was left was to finish the hunt.

  “You really think we’ll go to hell if they eat us?” Lucky asked.

  “Could be,” I said.

  “Think they have cards in hell?” he asked.

  “I suppose not.”

  “Good, ’cause I’m sick of beating folks anyways. I’d rather be just like everybody else for a change. Even if I gotta burn in lakes of fire, like the Bible says. Least we’ll all burn the same.”

  We had neglected to shove the piano back after the horse thief came in, and a lean brown wolf squeezed through the crack. Sal caught it in the belly with a pistol shot. We provided cover as two men tried to push the piano flush against the door. The rotted-out timber walls began to buckle from the weight of the wolves’ charges. A few mutts slipped through the holes.

  “You think there’ll be big ol’ cowboys ridin’ me down there, too?” Lucky asked.

  “Nah, in hell them cowboys’ll be getting scalped by Indians, I suppose.”

  “Good ’cause I ain’t taking no more shit from cowboys or anyone else!” Lucky climbed on top of the bar and fired a pistol in each hand. Two wolves fell. Then two more. Lucky was on a roll. There wasn’t no more fear left in the boy.