He pushed his duster over his hip real gently, showing a pearl-handled pistol in a greased black leather holster. I inched my stool away and shielded my face. Then, at the last second, the preacher burst through the door shaking his fists in the air all willy-nilly, hollering with the energy of a much younger man.
“I’ve had a premonition from the Lord!” he bellowed. “The end is nigh upon us!”
“The end done happened already, Preach,” Fat Wally snapped back. “That’s why you’re here.”
“A man of great girth will come from the dust, then fire will rain from above!” the preacher roared even louder. “The streets will muddy, and the seed of Satan will be born unto a woman beyond the grave. For that’s how the devil canst reach where the Lord hath delivered us. The hounds will seek to destroy the demon spawn, but the portly pistoleer will protect it!”
“Good one, Preach,” Wally laughed. “A dead gal wearing the bustle wrong—and with the devil’s baby to boot! Now I’ve heard it all.”
“I have seen it!” he hollered fearsomely. “The flying minions will multiply, and Damnation will grow in head and breadth! The light of the Lord will shine upon us all once more. Then weeds will sprout from the barren dust, but by then it will be too late! Once this domain is fattened like a calf, the evil one will slaughter us all!”
Jack, for one, had heard enough. He doffed his oversized hat and leveled his gun with his winking boyish face. The shot ripped through the side of the preacher’s throat. The old coot gripped the wound and doubled over, then flopped back into a chair, sucking short, quick breaths from the hole as blood gurgled between his fingers. Jack reholstered his weapon, happy to have put a bullet in somebody, and he slowly wandered out of the barroom for a breath of dusty air. The newbie had no idea how close he’d come to getting a lead necktie.
“That preacher fella gonna go to hell?” he asked.
“When he bleeds out,” I answered. “Reckon so.”
“Ain’t there some way of gettin’ outta here, aside from goin’ to hell?” the kid fretted. “Can I get to heaven, mister?”
“Some think so,” I told him. “They reckon if you last a whole year in Damnation without shootin’ no one, the Lord’ll forgive whatever you done. After twelve months without sin, the gates of heaven open up.”
“Anybody done it?”
“Record’s six months. That fella wasn’t right in the head though. Didn’t leave his room for four of ’em. Came out to tell us all he was Christ. Then the preacher shot ’em in the gut just to prove he wasn’t.”
“You’re tellin’ me there might be a chance a gettin’ to heaven if you don’t shoot nobody for a year, and the only one to try it was some loon who thought he was Christ.”
“Well, truth is I’m fixin’ to give it a go myself,” I told him. “I already got more’n two months under my belt.”
“Is that all?” the kid sneered. Just then, a gust of wind pushed the swinging doors open, bringing in a cloud of dust. A figure in all black followed the dirty breeze into the barroom. The load of hay on his skull fell to his shoulders. It was combed back real neat like a girl’s, with a gob of pomade. He wasn’t real tall or thick, but looked powerful just the same, like a diamondback whose every muscle is made for striking. Otherwise, you might’ve took him for a tenderfoot with soft hands and fancy clothes.
The men at the bar all hot-footed out of his way. Sal placed a bottle of gin in front of him, then retreated to the far side of the bar. Most folks drank bathtub whiskey or flat beer, but he had himself an educated thirst for the juice of juniper berries. Some of the newer fellas let their eyes linger a little too long, so he hissed like an angry cat.
“What’s that? Some kinda vampire?” the kid asked with a nervous giggle.
“Yup.”
“You shittin’ me? They’re real! Thought they couldn’t come out during the day―least that’s what the storybooks say.”
“Can come out at dusk, and it’s always dusk in Damnation.”
“Always?”
“Long as I been here, and that’s nearly fifteen years.”
“That vampire drink folks’ blood?”
“Nah, everybody here’s already dead. Blood’s as cold as a crocodile’s. That’s why he’s so ornery.”
“Can he fly?”
“Leaps real far, almost like flying. Fast as a bugger, too.”
“Any more like him around?”
“Nope, just the one. Musta done something halfway decent to end up here instead of hell. Don’t think he appreciates it much though.”
“Next, you gonna tell me there’s werewolves, too,” he laughed.
“They drink down the road at their own saloon.”
“Does everyone who don’t go to heaven or hell wind up here?”
“Ain’t seen my dead Uncle Joe,” I said. “And he didn’t seem ripe for neither place. Can’t speak for the rest. It’s a small town, though.”
The kid eased back and took a gulp of the coffin varnish that passed for whiskey. Some folks were so relieved they ended up short of hell that they got a little cocky. Reckoned there wasn’t much else to be afraid of. “Don’t seem like such a bad place,” he said.
“You just gotta watch what you say ’round here,” I warned him. “Folks draw real fast. They get sick of being here. Puts ’em in bad spirits, and they’ll draw if you so much as brush against a fella’s sleeve.”
“Like Dodge City.”
“Worse than that. You risk getting sent to hell every time you leave the rooming house. But it gets more boring than church if you don’t stretch your legs once in a while.”
“Let me get this straight. If you get shot, you go to hell forever. But if you don’t, you can hang out here long as you like, play cards, and maybe have a go at them old churchgoing ladies.”
“That’s about the size of it,” I told him.
“Sounds like you need a sheriff,” he said.
“Keep your voice down!” Sal hollered. “Somebody set this boy straight before Jack hears him and shoots up the whole bar!”
“What’d I say?” the newbie blathered.
“Pipe down!” Sal ordered. “No more of your lollygagging—that is if you’re hoping to last the night.” He stormed off, leaving the kid moping over an empty glass.
“Jack don’t like to hear no talk of… ahem, law enforcement,” I explained
“Who’s Jack?”
“Member that short fella in the Stetson who kilt the preacher?”
* * * *
When he had first come to town some ten years earlier, Jack Finney was the measliest pipsqueak who’d ever darkened the doorstep of the Foggy Dew saloon. He needed a boost to get on a barstool. Hadn’t made it all but two steps into the room before the betting began on how long he’d last—and nobody wagered a dime past suppertime.
Back then, the quickest gun in town was a sheriff from Lexington, Kentucky, named Jeremiah. He was a good old boy with a righteous