LITMIR.BIZ

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like you coming in here and making stuff up. What I wanna know now is why you done it?”

      Looked like his face was going to shatter from holding it all in. Finally, he broke down. “I had the sadness, sir. I always had it—long as I can remember. My pa had it before me and, from what I heard, his pa before him. Couldn’t be helped. It made me do lots a bad things, and it weren’t never gonna go away. So I done myself in.”

      “All right then.” I scribbled down a note. “Sal, get this fella a drink on me.”

      “Thanks, mister. I appreciate it,” he smiled. “And just ’cause I done myself in don’t mean I’m wrong in what I’m sayin’. Matter of fact, killin’ myself made me realize things.”

      “Oh?”

      “Like how special stuff is. Even breathin’ this dusty air and sittin’ here in this dark saloon talkin’ with you. It’s all special! If y’all only knew what was good for ya, you’d stop shootin’ each other this very day. Just think,” his voice lifted, “if what you were sayin’ earlier’s true, then a year from today the whole darn town could march straight up to heaven together!”

      Some sodbusters at a nearby table burst into laughter.

      “Shit, boy, when’s the last time you seen a fella do what’s best for him?” I asked. “You think if you pluck a man from his life and stick him in a one-horse town with a hundred other rotten bastards he’s gonna act better?”

      “That’s why you need somebody to keep ’em in line, like a sheriff!”

      “Keep it down!” Sal scolded. “You say that word again, and I’ll send ya to hell myself.”

      “Just out of curiosity,” I asked the kid, “who you reckon might be capable of stopping these bored and hateful men from shootin’ each another?”

      It was a subject I’d given a fair amount of thought to. The last time I had preached pacifism, some old-timer tried to gut me, and I had to shoot him—much to everyone’s amusement. That’s when I took to practicing it instead of preaching it. Everyone could go on blasting one another over nothing. Hopefully, I’d slip between the cracks right into heaven. Sure, every so often a newbie’d come at me for asking the wrong questions, but I’d gotten a knack for avoiding them. Hadn’t even heeled myself in a month.

      The kid was still giving the question serious consideration. He peered down the bar to where the vampire was drinking by himself. “How ’bout that fella?” he suggested. “Looks like he could uphold rules well enough. He’s gotta be quicker than Jack or any other man.”

      “I expect he is,” I agreed. “And he probably could whip this town into shape real quick, if he was inclined to. And if anyone was compelled to ask him.”

      “Well, dang! That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.” The kid sprang to his feet and walked straight over before I could stop him. Wanted to show he was more than a cowardly suicide. Strutted up with the gumption of a mayor on Election Day. Didn’t even seem to notice the yellow glow in the vampire’s eyes growing brighter as he approached. He stuck out his hand real friendly-like and said, “Howdy, pardner. My name’s Fre…!”

      Didn’t even get out his full name. The vampire snatched the outstretched hand like an apple from a tree and pressed the boy’s wrist to his lips. Yellow fangs sprang from his gums and pierced the soft sunburnt flesh. He clamped down on the bone without swallowing the blood that was pouring out. With one yank of his neck, the hand tore clean off. The kid screamed like one of them lady opera singers, so high and loud I thought the chandelier’d shatter. The vampire tossed the hand to the ground with the fingers still twitching like a daddy longlegs. Then he spat out some blood in disgust. The kid gripped his stump in shock. Then for some reason, he started scooping up the veins and muck dangling out. Tried to put them back inside like he was stuffing a sausage. Suppose he thought it could be mended somehow. All the while he kept screaming.

      “Aw, come on, Sal,” Fat Wally complained from the poker table. “Hobble that measly cowpoke’s lip. Some of us are trying to play cards here. Can’t concentrate with all his yellin’. Shit, I think Red’s finally got himself something better than a pair of bullshit,” he said, and the others laughed.

      Sal moseyed to the end of the bar in no particular hurry. Wasn’t the type to break a sweat if he didn’t have to. He wiped his hands off on his apron, then grabbed the scattergun from the umbrella stand. He came around the other side of the bar and pressed the barrel against the kid’s chest to avoid any buckshot spray. He pulled the trigger, and the boy was thrown five paces backward onto the floor with a wet thud.

      “Goddamnit!” Red hollered. “You stood too close again, Sal. Done shot the guts clear out his back. Got it all over my dang cards. I call re-deal!” The other players grumbled and mucked their cards, arguing that Red probably didn’t have shit anyways.

      “He could’ve at least got sent to hell like a man, instead of a little girl that seen a bug,” Fat Wally remarked. “When your time comes, boys, whatever you do, don’t go out like a ‘Fre…!’” Wally clutched his wrist, imitating the boy’s shock at seeing his hand torn off. The fellas laughed good and hard at that one, and from then on anyone who left Damnation in a cowardly manner was referred to as a “Fre…!”

      The Chinaman who tended to the pigs came and dragged Fre’s body to the pigpen. The preacher had bled out by then, so he took him, too. The pigs chewed the cold corpses to bits. There wouldn’t have been any trace that they were ever in town if I didn’t remember to write down a few words about them. On account of all the gunfights, the swine were always plump and juicy. Most folks agreed that the best thing about Damnation was you could eat all the bacon you’d ever wanted.

      The vampire finished his drink, then left without a word. A little while later, Jack came back in and scanned the room to see if anyone else needed shooting. Those were the last of the simple days when everyone knew their place, and there was still peace between us and the wolves. Then, just like the preacher had preached, a new gunfighter came to town and stirred up a real shit storm.

      Chapter 2

      Jack

      I slept in the day he first arrived. Sal’s giant halfwit barback came round to fetch me at the rooming house. We called him Stumpy because his hand had gotten mangled in a threshing machine. The stump proved useful for washing out narrow glasses that Sal’s swollen knuckles couldn’t reach inside. He still had the other good hand to pull a trigger and back up Sal, but the stump was the main reason why he’d gotten the job. Stumpy could sooner explain the mysteries of the universe than tell you why he’d ended up in Damnation. Might’ve pulled the arms off a man thinking he was just a bug. For his part, he was just happy to no longer have a nickname relating to his unusual height after all those years of being called Stretch and whatnot. He was so tall he couldn’t tell when his feet were cold. As I opened my eyes, his long skinny frame was lurching over my cot. Though he measured over six and a half feet tall, he didn’t weigh any more than me at two heads shorter. Admittedly, I could’ve stood to lose a pound or ten.

      “Please get up now, Mr. Thomas,” he pleaded weakly, his pointy stump nudging me like a dull cattle prod. “There’s someone real important at the Foggy Dew. Sal says you should interview him for the newspaper right away.”

      It was hardly a newspaper really, just a one-page leaflet I printed in the back of the general store on an old woodblock press. Rearranging the letters was tiresome work, so I kept the news short. Strictly kept track of who came and left with a few words about what they’d done when they were alive. Called it The Crapper on account of that was where folks read it.

      “Hurry up!” Stumpy hollered as I slowly roused.

      “Why?” I barked back. “Ain’t like he’s gonna get any deader.”

      “That ain’t it. I don’t think. Sal says the man ain’t gonna last long the way he’s boasting. You know how Mr. Finney feels about blowhards.”

      “Is Jack there?”

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