by Clark Casey
The front door broke apart, and more wolves poured through than we had hope of fighting off. They pulled down the riflemen perched on the catwalk. A wolf sunk its teeth into Lucky’s leg, then another caught him in the shoulder. He went down with a fight. When his guns clicked empty, he jabbed the barrels in their eyes.
“Guess he wasn’t no Fre after all,” Red said as he ducked to reload.
One of the wolves that got Lucky scrambled toward me. I leveled my rifle. Heaven would have to wait. The blast caught the beast in the mouth, shattering its jawbone. As soon as it fell, I regretted it. The saloon was already overrun. If I was going to get eaten anyway, it would’ve been nice to go with no blood on my hands just to see what’d happen—even if I was a few weeks shy of a year.
There was no time to reload our weapons. When they realized we were out of bullets, a dozen wolves surrounded us and stood snarling. A large white wolf marched to the center. Its withers were three hands higher than the others. He let out a triumphant howl.
“That’s Argus, the pack leader,” Sal whispered.
“We’re goners for sure,” Red said.
I dropped to my knees and clasped my hands together. I wasn’t the religious sort, but it seemed like a good time to start. The last time I prayed was when I got gut-shot by that kid for writing lies in the newspaper. Time before that was when my wife got consumption. It didn’t do any good in either case.
A racket of gunfire erupted outside the saloon. Bullets rained in through the doorway, and four wolves dropped to the ground. The rest scrambled for cover, but they didn’t know where the shots were coming from. Two more wolves were shot. I looked over to see a large round figure crowding the doorway.
“Take that, you mangy dogs!” Buddy was wielding two pistols and a jolly grin. He unloaded them into the pack like he was picking off tin cans. Then he reached for the scattergun hanging by a rope on his shoulder. Before he could raise the barrel, Argus jumped on him and pinned him to the ground. Some sodbusters tried to help but got ripped to bits for their trouble.
The door to the upstairs room blew open, sending splinters of wood through the air. Nigel jumped down to the center of the room, hissing with his fangs out. He kicked Argus off Buddy, then impaled another wolf with the barrel of a rifle. He grabbed a third wolf by the neck and twisted its head till its spine broke.
Argus stood on his hindquarters, and the fur fell away as he took the shape of a man. He was tall, with a long white beard, but he wasn’t frail. Stood half a head above the tallest man and just as wide as Red, but with muscle instead of beer fat. Looked like he could take on five men in a fistfight.
“Surrender, vampire,” he ordered. “You’ve put on a good show, but you no longer possess the strength to defeat all of us.”
“I do after I’ve consumed warm blood.” Nigel pulled out a gooey mess from his coat pocket and held it in the air. “The afterbirth of a human child born in this underworld.” He bit into it and his eyes glowed like hot coals. His chin reddened as blood drizzled over his mouth. He grabbed the nearest wolf, lifted it over his head, then threw it across the room with ease.
“So it’s true,” Argus said.
“The remainder of your pack is no match for a well-fed vampire,” Nigel said. “Leave now or I will slaughter you all.”
Argus dropped to all fours, assuming the shape of a wolf again, and howled to the others. He snarled at Nigel as if to say it wasn’t over, then fled out the door. The rest of the wolves followed. After the last one was gone, Nigel collapsed to one knee and you could see the effort it had taken for him to stand, let alone toss that last wolf.
“I knew it weren’t no afterbirth,” Sal said. “It’s yesterday’s sloppy joe with ketchup, ain’t it?”
“So you was just bluffin’?” Red said.
Just then, a small wolf shuffled beneath a pile of wood. As soon as he got to his feet, he took a bite out of Nigel’s neck, then dashed for the back door.
“Get him before he alerts the others!” Nigel moaned.
Nobody had any bullets left, so two men tried to dive on top of the little beast as he darted by. Their heads crashed together as they missed. He was almost clear of the room when a pistol shot rang out behind me. The wolf rolled over, and the fur around the bullet hole was still smoking. At the doorway stood Whiny Pete.
“You didn’t skin out on us after all,” Sal said.
“Well, I tried to,” Pete said shamefully. “I saw Buddy creeping out the latrine window this mornin’ so I followed. Figured if he wasn’t gonna stick around, we didn’t stand no chance. Then I watched him come back when all hell broke loose. Musta been his plan all along. When the wolves left, I reckoned y’all whooped ’em, so I came back. Sorry I skinned out. I just ain’t ready to go to hell yet.”
“Ah, I don’t care if you did skin out on us,” Sal said. “Long as you came back to kill that wolf. He was the most important one. If he’d told the others Nigel tricked ’em, it woulda been the end of us.”
The gash on Nigel’s neck wasn’t too deep, but it leaked a fair amount. We helped him to a stool. Luckily, it had only been a pup that bit him and his teeth weren’t very long.
“I guess Ms. Parker didn’t deliver in time,” Buddy said.
Nigel tied a rag around his neck while Sal placed a bottle of gin in front of him. He poured a tall glass and emptied half of it in a gulp.
Ms. Parker soon started up again with her panting and yelling. It went on for nearly hour with Mabel tending to her. Finally, the cries of a baby came from the storage room, and everyone except Nigel rushed upstairs to see it. Ms. Parker had the child wrapped in a sheet and was smiling sweetly. It didn’t have devil’s horns or angel’s wings. It was just a regular boy. Seemed to have a bit of a glow around him though, perhaps on account of being the only living thing in Damnation.
“What ya gonna call him?” I asked.
“Martin,” she said, “after his father.”
Chapter 27
Mabel’s Bargain
I wasn’t much of a baby person, my wife having died before we could have any of our own. I soon grew bored of making goo-go onoises at the tot and went back down to join Nigel at the bar. Mabel followed me, and I poured us tall glasses of whiskey, while Nigel opened another bottle of gin.
“Ain’t you gonna go up and see the kid?” Mabel asked him.
“I think it would be best if I kept my distance for now,” he replied. “I haven’t been in the same room with a warm-blooded creature in a century. I might not be able to control my appetite.”
Nearly every inch of the floor was covered with wolf carcasses or chewed-up men. Hell-sent corpses didn’t keep long, and the scent of decay weighed heavily in the air. If you didn’t haul them to the pigpen quick enough, even the pigs wouldn’t touch them. I kept my glass of whiskey below my nose to filter out the smell.
“I know it wasn’t Buddy who killed Hardin,” Mabel announced out of the blue.
“Why you say that?” I asked.
“When they drew, there was a clicking noise immediately after the gunshot. Only Hardin hadn’t misfired. They checked his gun. All the bullets were in it, and there were no hammer marks. That means Buddy’s gun must’ve clicked empty.”
“I always did wonder about that,” I said, “but how do you know Buddy didn’t shoot Hardin?”
“Buddy always reloaded his gun right after he used it. It was the one thing he was careful about, so his gun must have been fully loaded. Nigel had grabbed his gun when he tried to talk them out of fighting. He knew Hardin wouldn’t be put off. Nigel must’ve slipped a bullet out of the first chamber before he gave it back. That way Buddy’d click empty and still think he shot Hardin.”
“Then who shot Hardin?” I asked.
“Nigel did,” she said. “He fired over Buddy’s shoulder. I was standing right beside him. He moved real fast. Could hardl
y tell he shot at all, except that a smoke trail came from behind Buddy. Then I saw Nigel slip a gun back in his pocket.”
Nigel didn’t say anything.
“I was wondering why you did it,” she pressed him. “With Hardin’s speed, he’d a been more help against the wolves than Buddy.”
Nigel packed a tobacco pipe in no particular hurry as blood seeped from the gash in his neck. Finally, he answered, “Hardin wasn’t exactly the fatherly type. Buddy was a better choice to raise the child and keep it safe in my absence.”
Mabel couldn’t argue with that. Even if she had shared her bed with the man, she knew Hardin was too cold for fathering anything but fear.
“But why’d you make Buddy think he done it?” I asked. “You coulda just killed Hardin outright and let it be known it was you.”
“Buddy needed the confidence,” Nigel said. “If he knew I fought his battle for him, how would he fare against the wolves, or me? Someday I might not be able to control my hunger, and someone has to be able to protect the child.”
A long, drawn-out moan came from under a pile of bodies. It sounded like a bleating goat. Nigel staggered behind the bar and filled a saucer with water. Then he put it below a mangled cowpuncher’s face so that he could lap it up.
“Why do you have such an interest in Ms. Parker anyway?” Mabel asked.
“She reminds me of someone,” he said.
“Your wife?” I asked.
Nigel nodded. “I guess we do look for redemption in this little town of ours. If I couldn’t keep my wife safe, perhaps I can protect a lady who reminds me of her.”
Nigel topped off all of our glasses. The saloon walls were sprinkled with bullet holes and the windows were shattered. There were hardly enough men left to help the Chinaman drag all the bodies to the pigpen.
“Buddy doesn’t have to know you shot Hardin,” Mabel said. “But I need something from you. The way it is now, a woman doesn’t stand a chance around here unless she attaches herself to a man, and I don’t aim to be hitched to the likes of any of you. But if I open my own place, I can make the rules. Lucky was going to be my investor, and he already gave me his share before the wolves got him. Together, we have half the coins in town. I’ll need protection if I’m gonna go out on my own. Sal’s sure to kick up a fuss, and there’s bound to be others. I reckon a vampire’d be a pretty good bouncer.”
Nigel didn’t seem keen on taking sides. He preferred to remain impartial to human quarrels.
Ms. Parker called down for Nigel to see the baby. He ignored her, but she just called louder.
“So, we got a deal?” Mabel asked.
Nigel didn’t shake on it or nothing. All he said was, “I think I know a way in which I can protect your interests.”
Since Ms. Parker wouldn’t stop hollering, Nigel reluctantly crept up the stairs, but he remained at the doorway, as far from the child as possible.
“Oh, come in here,” she demanded. “If his blood does make you hungry, I wanna know about it now.”
“She’s right,” Buddy said. “Best to test the waters while we’re on alert. Don’t worry.” Buddy plucked his pistol from his holster. “I’ll shoot you if you start salvatin’.”
Mabel placed the child in Nigel’s arms. Sal trained the scattergun on his head and cocked the hammer.
“So, you got the hunger?” Buddy asked.
“Oddly, no.”
“You ain’t trying to trick us so you can eat ’em later, are you?”
“No, I have no hunger for him at all.” Nigel was puzzled. “He’s cute and all, but I don’t have the same reaction that I used to have toward living humans.”
“Maybe your hunger for us died when you did,” Ms. Parker suggested.
“No, the hunger is always there,” he said. “I just don’t have any hunger for this creature.”
The Crapper
Goings: In all, thirty-eight men left Damnation, including six cowboys named Jonny and some horse thief who rode up in the middle of the action and took a couple of wolves with him. Twenty-five wolves were counted among the casualties. I think Old Moe phrased it best when he said, “We done good for not having no fangs or claws or leaping abilities—just a few old rifles and some rusty bullets. We live to drink another day, for whatever that’s worth.”
Comings: Martin Parker: 6 lbs., 8 oz.
Chapter 28
Jarvis
For a spell, the Foggy Dew wasn’t so crowded. No need to shout or wait for a drink—unless Sal was sore at you. One thing that livened things up was a piano player came to town, and he was good enough not to get shot right away, so in the evenings a waltz or one of them newer ditties filled the air of the saloon. Otherwise, it was hard going to round up enough hands for a game of cards. No one complained though since at least there was plenty of elbow room at the bar. But the stools slowly filled with new dead men, mostly soldiers that had gone up against the Indians, and they had their stories to tell.
One day, a kid named Jarvis showed up with buckshot wounds dotting one side of his face, which wasn’t easy to look at. He wasn’t a soldier, just the son of a preacher from Cincinnati. His pa had been real strict and beat the daylights out of him for every little thing, so one day he ran off and fell in with a gang of train robbers.
“What the hell’s a train?” Sal asked.
“Just how long you been here!?” Buddy asked. “Don’t you know they done laid down metal rails for transport? Got carriages powered by steam that cross the whole country. You can go clear out to California in a couple of weeks.”
“Why the hell’d anyone wanna go out there? Injuns’ll get you.”
“Injuns ain’t gonna be a problem much longer,” said a soldier with a couple of broken-off arrows in his chest. “We got them on the run!”
Jarvis had caught the spray of buckshot while trying to rob a Wells Fargo payload. He didn’t know a Pinkerton was hiding behind the compartment door guarding the safe. When we explained to Jarvis where he was, he took it pretty well. Ever since he could remember, his pa told him he was going to burn in hell. Seeing as how he didn’t wind up there, he was a bit skeptical and took everything we told him with a grain of salt.
“So how you know you go to hell if you get shot?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” I told him honestly. “Guess it was Sal who told me. Hey, Sal, how you know we all go to hell when we get shot?”
“Ah, I don’t know,” Sal shrugged with some irritation. He poured a beer from the tap and blew the suds over the rim. “Where else would you go?”
“Could go to some other town like this one,” Jarvis suggested. “Maybe every time you get kilt, you end up in a new town. Could go on like that forever. Maybe you only remember that last place you been, even if you been to hundreds before that.”
“Ah, what’d be the use of that?” Sal sneered.
“Shit, you mean to tell me you made all that up about us being in hell’s sifter?” I said bitterly to Sal. “I been telling it like it was God’s honest truth!”
“I didn’t make nothing up!” Sal defended. “Some gold panner told it to me when I first came to town. Said he was here because he fiddled with his little girl. Said he done good stuff too though, so God was probably givin’ him a second chance. He reckoned God was sifting through the dead souls like a panner would, checking to see if any of ’em’s got a heart a gold worth keeping.”
“And what happened to that panner?” I asked.
“I shot the bastard,” Sal said proudly. “A man shouldn’t go fiddlin’ his daughter. And if he does, there’s gotta be a hell to send him to. So that’s where I sent him!”
The room grew quiet as everyone considered the origin of Sal’s hell. It was unsettling to think everything we believed might just be the tall tales of a bartender.
“Guess it doesn’t really change things much when you think a
bout it,” Old Moe said. “We still wanna avoid gettin’ shot, and if we do we still hope to wind up someplace better.”
The fellas shrugged and drank.
“So what did you do to end up here?” a soldier asked Sal.
“Ah, I don’t remember.”
Some of the men nodded, as if this gave credence to Jarvis’s theory about past lives we couldn’t remember.
“Seems we can’t be any more sure of things here than when we was alive,” a sheep puncher declared.
Jarvis sat quietly as the men bickered over the possibilities. One of the miners called the sheep puncher a pagan. Then the sheep puncher reached for his knife. He didn’t know what the word meant, but he didn’t like the sound of it.
“Hey, fellas!” Jarvis called out. “Lemme ask you another question. How you know it’s always dusk here?” The sheep puncher and the miner stopped their fighting and stared blankly at Jarvis.
“Huh? Look outside!” Sal laughed. “It’s dusk. Always has been. Ain’t no disputing that!”
The kid turned his head to the window.
“Dunno…” He shrugged. “Could be dawn for all I know.”
“Shit!” Sal said. “I’ll be doggone! The kid may be right. Everybody reset your pocket watches.”
Laughter broke out around the room. The miners showed their blackened teeth as they cackled and pounded on the bar. After a minute, it quieted down as the fellas gave it some serious consideration. Finally, Red gave voice to everyone’s deepest concern: “Not sure whether I should have breakfast next or supper.”
“I don’t care if it’s suppertime or breakfast time,” one of the loggers added. “I’m having bacon either way. Them wolves sure fatten up a pig mighty tastily.”
Everyone agreed, and Sal sliced up some sowbelly. The smell of it sizzling in a frying pan filled the air. To pass the time as it cooked, we told the same tired old jokes we’d told a hundred times before. Finally, Sal placed a heap of charred pork strips in front of each man. Food was still free, but Sal didn’t mind because bacon was salty, which made you thirsty.