Judas Payne: A Weird Western

by Michael Hemmingson

  Weekends were the busiest, and the most rowdy and dangerous, during the weekends in the bustling town of Jerome, Arizona. The saloons and whorehouses didn’t close; men could be found passed out, near dead from too much whiskey and near broke from an overindulgence in sex and gambling. On Sundays, few went to church to seek forgiveness; there was a small, make-shift tabernacle, yes, and a preacher, but few men around cared about the judgments of God.

  Monday morning, the men were back in the mines in pursuit of wages and riches.

  Judas was among them, and this is where he befriended an odd sort of man, a fellow named Arthur Brooke. Right off, Judas knew that Brooke didn’t belong here—not just in this mine but this world, it seemed. He’d also seen Brooke praying in the tent with the preacher and felt sorry for the man, that he’d turn to such a thing.

  Trust no preacher , he wanted to tell people, my father was one, and I can tell you some horrible tales...

  Judas knew that if he ever said such a thing, there would be men who would want to hurt, or even kill, him.

  It was a dumb man, he thought, who mocked the rigorous religious beliefs of other men.

  When asked, “Do you believe in God, sir?” Judas Payne always lied: “But of course.”

  “Do you believe in Jesus, mister?”

  The answer: “In the very baby Jesus, my brother.”

  “Praise be! This one-eyed man is saved!”

  It made life easier to lie.

  So, one drunken night, when Arthur Brooke asked, “Do you believe in God?” Judas smirked, and then he laughed, because it was the last thing he thought Brooke would inquire.

  Brooke smiled and drank from his bottle of whiskey. “That’s how I feel,” he said, “because I don’t believe there’s no fucking God and I should know better.”

  “Why should you know better?”

  “Because I have seen many wonders, my friend, there are things I know that you would never believe.”

  “You talk strange at times,” Judas said.

  “This I know,” Brooke said.

  So the two drank and in the morning they worked in the mines. This was their life in Bell, Arizona, and while it wasn’t the best life a man could have, it was preferable to Judas’ days gone by.

  * * *

  When Evangeline had sex with Maldita’s customers, she would keep her eyes shut and (like Sheriff Lish) think about all the possible lives she could have had. She would leave her body, would not feel what was being done to it, travel to other cities, states, countries and worlds. Sometimes, her dear brother was there with her, but most of the time he was as lost as she.

  One night, she had a certain special visitor. She didn’t know how certain or special this fellow was, because he was THE DEVIL himself—and she didn’t know he was THE DEVIL because he appeared like a man. Not like most men—all those ruffians and grimy cowboys who never knew how to handle a woman, whore or not—because he wore a suit and a stove-top hat, walked with a cane; he was handsome and his eyes seemed to glow. “I paid the Madame of the house all night for you,” he said as he walked into her room.

  “Why me?” she asked timidly. “I don’t believe we have met.” “We have not,” said the man. “But I know you’re the prettiest girl in the entire house. That’s the word on the street.”

  She said, “What is your name, mister? If I may ask.”

  “What’s in a name? Names do not matter. Why don’t you get naked?”

  She did this.

  “Nice,” said THE DEVIL, touching her pale flesh. He caressed her and kissed her. Evangeline liked this, because it was so different—this man didn’t demand she take his penis in her mouth right away like most of them did. He didn’t want immediate sex. He touched her all over her body and this sent tingles up and down her spine. He smelled her hair. “You smell like your mother,” said THE DEVIL.

  She didn’t know what he meant. Before she could say anything, his gentility stopped and he began to slap her across the face.

  “Take that, whore!”

  He hit her over and over.

  She tasted a lot of blood, she knew her jaw was broken. she had lost some teeth. One of her eyes was swollen shut. The man flipped her over on her belly, twisted her arm back and broke it. The snap of her bones echoed in the room. Her face was shoved into the pillow so her screams were muffled. She felt the man enter her rear end. Her world was pain. The man leaned down and whispered into her ear: “I raped your mother too but you’re so much better, you’re so much dirty, you ain’t nothin’ but a worthless piece of cow dung, you filthy whore.”

  Then he was gone.

  She was left there, in her own blood and feces.

  It took a while to get up. She didn’t know what part of her body was in more pain—probably her broken arm. Her face was mostly numb.

  She looked in the mirror with the one good eye and tried to scream. She could not scream because of her broken jaw—

  * * *

  —she did scream, a yelp really, and she sat up in bed. There was no pain. Her arm was all right. She touched her face—her face was fine. She went to the mirror. She was not injured. What a strange dream, she thought.

  In the mirror, she saw him standing behind her.

  The well-dressed, handsome man.

  She turned around.

  “You,” she said.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said.

  Evangeline shook her head.

  “I paid good money for you,” the man said, his eyes looking red, “so get undressed and let’s make love...again.”

  Evangeline woke up in the morning and she was fine, all that violence had been in her imagination. The man who’d hurt her all night and told her how he was once her mother’s lover did not exist. She knew she must’ve been going mad....

  And THE DEVIL, he laughed deep inside her heart, a place he could now call home.

  * * *

  Often, Judas Payne thought about the mysterious gunslinger that had saved him from Jodzio’s enslavement. Where was the man, where did he come from? Judas would like to find him and learn from the man, perhaps do the same kind of work, rather than busting his back in a copper mine.

  He also thought about his half-sister a lot. He knew she was in distress, for their hearts were connected. One night he had a disturbing dream that their father, the pious Reverend Payne, made his way into her bedroom and had carnal knowledge with her. He got on top of her and held her down and...raped her. Judas woke from this dream crying and sweating.

  “Evangeline,” he whispered....

  * * *

  ...and at the same time, Evangeline, in her room at the brothel, late at night, woke up sweating from a dream she had that Judas was in a jail cell and being tortured by demons with pitch forks.

  “Judas,” she whispered, “oh Judas, where are you? If I could only help you, and you could help me.”

  * * *

  She needed help more than ever before. The mysterious stranger who had beat her had left his mark on her, both on her body and in her soul. Word got around that she was the type of whore who liked to be man-handled and enjoyed the rough, so she started to get customers who would slap and punch her and when she cried, they’d say, “I was told you enjoy this sort of thing,” and they’d add: “Because I sure do, and it’s hard to find a whore who will take a beatin’ and ask for more.”

  It was Maldita herself who had been spreading the word that the whore Evangeline could be bruised and sullied. Maldita decided this was the best way to make money from the girl who was now a deformity when it came to whores. Evangeline now walked with a pronounced limp; and her arm had not been set in a cast correctly (by a drunken doctor who happened to be at the brothel the night Evangeline was attacked), so the arm had an odd bent to it. Evangeline’s nose had been broken in two places, plus her jaw, and she had several scars across her once-beautiful place. To make matters worse, the girl wasn’t eating much properly, and she lost weight, so she was scrawny now, her rib cage stic
king out, and her skin had lost its glow because she was drinking too much alcohol as well. The whiskey, rye and bourbon helped Evangeline go to sleep each night, or helped her endure a beating or sodomy; booze also helped her forgot many things that were painful to ponder on, as many who have turned to the drink come to find out. 100 proof was perfect for numbing memory and soul.

  When Evangeline protested the type of men she was sent to bed with, to entertain their vile need to hurt a woman, Maldita simply told the girl: “I paid good money for you and no one will pay good money for a whore that looks like you no do, except for those gentlemen with specific needs and requests.”

  “They’re all pigs!” said Evangeline. Maldita laughed at that. “Chica, all men are swine, haven’t you figured that out yet? Even your own father, a man of the cloth, is a rotten animal.”

  Not my brother, he’s not a beast, she thought. Judas is an angel, and that’s what he’ll always be in my heart and mind...

  * * *

  With his hard-earned money, Judas Payne purchased two pistols: a Remington for his right hand, and a Smith and Wesson for his left. He wasn’t aware of it, but his father THE DEVIL was whispering in his ear about which choice to make. “Each gun fits a purpose for what hand you choose to use,” muttered

  THE DEVIL. For months he practiced shooting, alone in the desert, firing at bottles, cacti, and the occasional tree. With his one eye, he became a pretty good shot. It was only until he thought he was ready that Judas decided to go “home” to Kentucky.

  Running and hiding was not the answer, not for him and not for any man. Like the gunslinger he had come to admire, a man confronted issues, sometimes with six-bullets leading the way.

  He would go home and rescue his dear sister, and then he would deal with the good Reverend in whatever manner seemed appropriate at the time. Judas Payne knew that just about anything could happen....

  * * *

  His first test, whether he could be a man with a gun in his life or not, came three days after setting out for Tyburn, Kentucky. Alone on a trail in New Mexico, near sunset, he was approached by three grubby-looking Comancheros who pointed rifles at him and told him he was being robbed.

  “I don’t have much to steal,” Judas said.

  “You have a fine horse and those two pistols on your belt,” one of them said in strained English. “And I know you must have a few dollars tucked away. Your boots look new. I need some new boots myself, amigo.”

  “That would leave me nothing,” Judas said, “barefoot out here under the hot sun.”

  Off to the side, THE DEVIL watched this.

  “Take it easy, boy,” said THE DEVIL, “take your time, take a deep breath, and then kill these fools!”

  And that is what Judas Payne did.

  Before the Comancheros could react or say another word, Judas quickly pulled his pistols out, one in each hand, and fired several times.

  Two of the robbers got a bullet straight between the eyes, killing them instantly; the third got a bullet in the neck, opening up an artery, blood sprouting out in a fountain of red...a second bullet got him in the nose, and bore its way into the robber’s gray matter.

  Judas took one of the rifles. It might come in handy. He also took all their bullets, and the money they had on their body, which amounted to twenty-two dollars. That would come in handy too.

  He had to qualms about stealing from the dead, because they would have done the same.

  “Good, good,” said THE DEVIL in the wind, “I am proud of you, boy!”

  Nothing was going to stop Judas from what he had to, needed to do.

  He rode on....

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Revered Jedediah Payne did not expect the creature that walked through his door. He was in the kitchen having breakfast and then it came in: that one-eyed hell-spawn.

  “You,” said the Reverend, “what are you doing here in my home?”

  “I came for my sister,” Judas said to the man he once called his father.

  The Reverend laughed.

  Judas pulled out one of his pistols.

  “How dare you point a weapon at me!”

  “Evangeline. Where is she?”

  “She’s none of your concern.”

  Judas fired. The bullet nicked the Reverend’s left ear, taking a small piece of flesh with it, and lodged into the kitchen wall.

  The Reverend placed a hand at his ear, feeling pain, feeling blood oozing down his neck.

  “You missed.”

  “I’m a good shot,” Judas said. “I won’t miss the spot between your eyes next time, unless you tell me where my sister is.”

  Again, the Reverend laughed.

  Judas aimed.

  “I’ll tell you,” said the Reverend, and he did. He relished the look of horror expressed in the hell-spawn’s one good eye. “She’s where she belongs, where all whores belong...”

  It was a three day ride to the Texas town where the brothel was located. Judas didn’t sleep much. He would not sleep until she was safe in his arms.

  In the town, he wasted no time, heading straight for the brothel.

  He walked in, ready.

  A woman greeted him. She was half-clothed. When she asked what his pleasure was, Judas Payne said, “I know no pleasure. All I want is my sister.”

  “You’re funny, mister,” the woman said. She stopped giggling when Judas pulled out his two pistols.

  * * *

  Doña Maldita was sitting in her room, reading the Bible, when she heard the sounds of gunshots in the parlor. She jumped up, put on a robe, and ran out. The whores throughout the brothel were screaming. She saw that both her bodyguards were dead and bleeding, lying on the floor, and a man with dark skin and one eye, holding two guns, stood above their bodies.

  “You, lady,” the man said to her, “are you the madam of this... establishment?”

  “Who are you?” she cried. “What have you done?!”

  He pointed a pistol at her. “I won’t ask again. Are you the madam?”

  “Sí,” Maldita said, shaking, “yes.”

  “Evangeline Payne,” he said coldly, “where is she?”

  * * *

  Evangeline Payne was asleep when she heard the gunshots downstairs. She had been sleeping hard, exhausted from having serviced nearly fifteen men the night before. She heard the screams, the sounds of bullets, and then silence.

  She knew something bad and evil had arrived at the brothel. She always knew a day like this would come. She would ready for anything; she was prepared to die.

  She heard loud footsteps coming up the stairs...the jangling of spurs...the sound of a pistol cocked...

  The Devil is coming for me, she thought.

  She did not know THE DEVIL himself was already in her room, waiting in the shadows, watching to see what would transpire.

  THE DEVIL grinned and said, “Come to her, my bastard son.”

  The bedroom door opened...

  There stood a dark figure.

  “Evangeline,” a man’s voice said.

  She knew that voice! A voice from her dreams, a voice from her past, another life...

  “Evangeline,” the figure said again, and stepped forward.

  “Judas?” she said. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, and it was him. He rushed to her and held her in his arms. “I’ve found you.”

  “Am I dreaming?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “How can this be?”

  “I looked everywhere for you,” he told her, “I thought of this day every day in my head...”

  “Judas!” she cried, and held him tight.

  “We must go now.”

  She realized he was looking at her, and she was horrified by what she knew he saw: a damaged whore, used and tortured by men of all ages, all persuasions...

  “Don’t look at me,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter, Evangeline.”

  “What you must think of me,” she said.

>   “It doesn’t matter...quickly, we have to leave....”

  She held onto his arm as they walked down the stairs, since she could not walk properly after the healing of her many injuries.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Maldita was loading a shotgun, intent on killing them both.

  Judas killed her first.

  A bullet between the eyes.

  Evangeline smiled...she had fantasized of Maldita’s death, in many horrible ways, and it seemed fitting that she meet her doom at the hands of her angel, her brother.

  * * *

  THE DEVIL followed them. He followed them out of the brothel. He followed them as they ride out of town on a horse.

  He followed them out into the desert of the West...

  ...all the while whispering terrible things into Evangeline’s ear:

  “You are a worthless filthy whore and he knows it.”

  “You are disgusting and have no reason to live.”

  “He will leave you because you are dirty.”

  * * *

  They set up camp under the stars. Judas started a fire. They held each other and kissed each other and no matter what Judas said, what promises of love he told her, Evangeline was ashamed for all she had done, for the way she looked and smelled, all those men...hundreds of men over the years...men who broke her body, men who stole her soul....

  Judas slept but she could not. The Devil was at her side, telling her to do it, do it, it was for the best, just do it....

  So she did it.

  She got up and went to her brother.

  She took one of his guns....

  * * *

  Judas woke up but he was too late to stop her.