Chapter 11

Mabel Starr

Just a few days after Hardin arrived, a new lady came out of the dust. She was a little flashier than Ms. Parker, though not quite as polished. She arrived in the evening while things were in mid-swing. Wasn’t too bothered about being dead. Just ordered a whiskey, took her ten chips, and doubled them at faro.

“Two in less than six months,” Spiffy remarked. “That’s a lot of women for Damnation!”

“She a whore?” Whiny Pete asked.

“Relieved plenty a men of their banknotes, I reckon. Just didn’t satisfy ’em.”

“Too bad,” Whiny Pete said. “’Cause I’d a paid my last chip for a poke.”

“Ah, you prolly died with no hair on your balls,” Red teased. “A woman like that needs a real man.”

Calling Mabel Starr a colorful character was like calling a porcupine pointy. She was hard to miss, with her shock of red curly hair and low-slung tits like a bull. Her voice let you know from across the room where the fun was being had. She moved from table to table with an easy smile and a wink. Made everyone feel like they might have a chance with her. The greasy outlaws combed their hair with dampened sleeves and sucked in their guts—all on their very best behavior.

“Well, she managed to make it through the night without getting shot or raped,” Sal said as he was closing up. “That’s more’n you could say for a lot of women.”

Sal put her up in a room in the hotel beside Ms. Parker, and the next morning I interviewed her for The Crapper.

“Look out, boys. Got me a hot date with a reporter,” she said as she came in. “I guess I might as well spill the beans to you before people go makin’ stuff up about me.”

Mabel was a plain-spoken gal, despite her blue-blood upbringing. Her family came from old money in Philadelphia but had lost it all in the stock market, so she struck out on her own when she was fourteen and fell into the racket of hustling speculators. She conned prosperous folks into investing in a silver mine by showing them a hunk of ore worth a thousand dollars and saying it was just the teensiest bit of what was below the surface. Then she’d milk them for equipment and wages. Eventually, she came across a ranch boss who figured out the scheme and shot her. Dying hadn’t hurt her figure though. She was still a fine-looking woman—even with the bullet hole in her bosom.

“A hundred cowboys in this town and only a couple of gals!” She laughed mischievously. “Don’t sound so bad to me.”

She ordered the house special: whiskey and eggs with a side of bacon. Mabel wasn’t dainty with all her curves, and she had the appetite of a half-starved tree humper. Sal got some exercise walking back and forth to the kitchen refilling her plate.

“You’re tellin’ me I ain’t gotta worry about getting fat or looking old?” she asked on her second helping. “And I can drink as much as I like?”

“You’ll still ache some the next day,” I warned. “But nobody’s gone to hell from drinking too much, yet.”

“Can I get pregnant like that other gal?”

“Ms. Parker was with child before she arrived. The pigs don’t even get pregnant here.”

Mabel’s sunny disposition briefly darkened. “I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have kids anyhow. Had me an operation in New York City. Ain’t been the same since,” she said bluntly. “Sad to think there ain’t no more chance of me having a youngin’ though. Always wanted to raise one of my own someday.” She took a mournful gulp of whiskey, then regained her usual gusto. Some folks kept moping over what they’d lost or what could’ve been, but the ones who lasted were more keen on how it could be worse. Mabel was about the most optimistic dead gal I ever met.

Buddy soon shuffled in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and hankering for some breakfast. A few of the boys made room for him at the bar, which made him look like a person to be reckoned with.

“Who’s the big fella?” Mabel asked.

“You mean Buddy?”

“Is that Buddy Baker? Didn’t he shoot up a whole posse outside of Fort Worth a few months back? Will you excuse me, darling?” Mabel strutted to the other end of the bar, sweeping her hair back to showcase her ample bosom. Buddy perked up some as she introduced herself. It was the happiest I’d seen him since Malachi started courting Ms. Parker.

“How long you think before she gets shot?” Sal asked.

“I ain’t betting on this one,” I told him. “Mabel could last awhile. Seems like she can handle herself.”

“I ain’t seen a figure like that last more’n a week in thirty years,” Sal said. “I give it till suppertime before somebody gets shot over it.”

“Somebody might get shot,” I said, “but it ain’t gonna be Mabel.”

“Why you say that?”

“There ain’t been gunfighters good enough to protect a figure like that before. Jack Finney wasn’t hardly interested in women, and Jeremiah hated them. Now there are two.”

As Sal was clearing away our breakfast plates, Hardin came in looking fresh as a daisy. Two nickel-plated pistols hung from his border-cross rigging. They called it that because they were popular in Mexico where you needed to shoot fast and often. The men at the middle section of the bar cleared out, giving Hardin a much wider berth than they’d given Buddy. Sal made haste in fetching a plate of eggs and a pint of beer for him.

“Say, is that John Wesley Hardin?” Mabel said. She left Buddy blowing in the wind while she strutted to the other end of the bar. The sway of her hips told Hardin all he needed to know before she opened her mouth.

“You may not remember, Mr. Hardin, but we crossed paths in San Antonio,” she said. “I’ll say, you were a dashing figure then, and the grave certainly hasn’t done you no harm.” Any man would’ve been flattered by her attention, even if she hadn’t been one of only two young ladies in town. Hardin just nodded smugly. After a lifetime of taking whatever he wanted, he reckoned it fitting that a well-built redhead was waiting for him beyond the grave. Men that’d been dead for twenty years without so much as a speck of womanly affection were eating their hearts out.

“It didn’t take her long to figure out who’s the fastest gun,” Sal remarked.

“A woman like that knows she ain’t gonna last long without a man,” Red said. “She might as well take the fastest gun before he takes her.”

“Ms. Mabel’s a real pretty lady,” Stumpy added innocently.

Buddy sat by his lonesome, brooding over his eggs and whiskey. As if losing the lady’s attention to Hardin wasn’t enough, not long after, Ms. Parker came in accompanied by Malachi in his bright white suit. They sat at a table in the corner, needling a plate of scrambled eggs like a couple of lovebirds too distracted to eat. Buddy looked on them with the sourpuss of a broken-hearted kid.

“Must be hell for him,” I said. “Being trapped here watching them together. There ain’t even another saloon for him to go to!”

“I suspect he’d rather be in hell.” Sal waved five dollars in the air.

“I’ll get in on that action,” Red said. “Two bits says Buddy’ll get sent to hell by his own hand or Hardin’s by the end of the month.” The boys piled their money on the bar. Sal tallied up a list, but I was the only one betting Buddy’d last. I covered what I could. Then Sal started a pool on how long Mabel would last. Again I was the only one who gave her more than a month. I covered a few more bets but didn’t have the cash to back them up.

“Shit, Tom,” Red said, “if Buddy and Mabel both get shot this month, it won’t be long before you follow ’em.”

It was true. There’d have to be a huge increase in the circulation of The Crapper in order for me to cover my end. Unless some war sent a lot of folks to Damnation in a hurry, my only chance was if at least one of them survived. Otherwise somebody’d shoot me for welching. Much as I longed to escape the sad confines of Damnation for someplace better, I preferred it to the prospect of hell.

“Why you suppose all whores go to heaven anyway?” Whiny Pete asked out of the blue.

“I reckon it’s just nature’s way of correcting things,” I said. “Not every man’s handsome enough that a woman’d offer him a poke. But with sporting ladies, a man’s just gotta work hard enough to earn the money for ’em.”

“But they get paid! So why should they get to go to heaven, too?”

“If you had to give a poke to a fat bastard like Red, you’d expect to get paid and go to heaven, wouldn’t you?”

“Guess so.”

While Ms. Parker went to the latrine, Malachi headed to the bar for a refill. Mabel happened to be walking by, and their paths crossed. He stopped and dipped his hat real gentlemanly like, with a flash of his toothy smile. Mabel’s eyes traveled over his smooth cheeks, and she didn’t look disappointed in what she saw. Her freckled skin flushed red as cherries and she half-curtsied. As she dipped, the fellas behind Malachi were given a bird’s eye view of her cleavage, which inspired some whooping and hollering.

Hardin was watching the encounter from down the bar, and he didn’t look pleased. In his younger days, he might’ve been able to compete with the good looks of the white-suited sharpie, but age had caught up with him. The flesh below his chin now drooped like a rooster’s wattle, and his hair had thinned to a widow’s peak. He suffered the same curse many of us had: not dying in our prime.

“This oughta be interesting,” Sal said. “That crazy dandy and the gunslinger are after the same gash.”

Several moments passed while the two were locked in admiring smiles. Hardin’s brow furrowed in anger. If he shot Malachi without cause, it might make him look unfavorable in Mabel’s eyes, but he wanted to show his strength. Stumpy came by collecting glasses just then, and Hardin stepped in front of him. The tall lanky barback tried to dodge the gunslinger, but lost his balance. All six and a half feet of him tumbled to the floor, along with a full tray of glasses.

“Watch where you’re goin’ boy!” Hardin shouted.

Sal came out from behind the bar to try to calm the situation. “Oh, he didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Mr. Hardin,” he blathered meekly. “The boy’s just a halfwit.”

Stumpy had some trouble getting to his feet. His handless wrist kept sliding uselessly off a chair, and nobody wanted to help him up—for his own good. The safest place for him was the floor. Eventually, his good hand gripped a hat hook below the bar, which he used to pull himself up. He was confused and couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong. Kept jabbering on about how there must be some mistake. First, he checked how many glasses had shattered, knowing they’d be deducted from his pay. Then he reckoned he must’ve spilled some beer on Hardin, so he balled up a rag to wipe the man down. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hardin,” he muttered.

Seeing the large figure rise and extend his arm unsettled Hardin.

“You comin’ at me, boy?” he said.

“I’ll just clean you up good as new, sir.” The gentle giant stepped forward waving an oily rag, still stunned from the fall.

Sal tried to grab Stumpy’s sleeve and pull him out of harm’s way, but there was no putting him off when he was keen on cleaning a mess. Sal looked back to the one man in the room who stood a chance of stopping things from getting out of hand. Buddy was slumped over the bar. He might have had the speed to go against Hardin, but he either lacked the nerve or inclination today. In Stumpy’s face, you couldn’t see nothing but an earnest desire to clean the man’s shirt. Hardin lifted his gun with a crooked smile.

“It’ll be right as rain, Mr. Hardin. I promise,” Stumpy said cheerfully. Hardin sent three bullets into his gut without so much as a blink. His long bony body staggered forward and collapsed on Hardin’s shoulder like a folded quilt. Hardin looked into Malachi’s eyes as he pulled the trigger a fourth time. Oddly, Malachi was smiling right back at him, like he appreciated the handiwork. Stumpy fell to the floor. Then Hardin headed for the door. As he crossed the threshold, he let out a snicker.

Sal wailed and collapsed on top Stumpy. His cranky old bartender eyes filled with tears. He tried to stop the bleeding by plugging the wounds with bar rags, but there were too many. The poor halfwit’s eyes stilled, and he was no more.

“Fetch my scattergun!” Sal ordered. As mean as he could be, he loved Stumpy like the son he never had. Came to feel like he raised him after all those years of looking out for the boy.

“It ain’t worth it,” I told Sal.

“Like hell it ain’t! Get me that damn gun. I’m gonna shoot that bastard!” Sal swore. “I don’t care how fast he is. A spray of buckshot’ll slow ’em down.” I held Sal in a bear hug to keep him from going off half-cocked. He broke my grasp though, and Red had to throw his weight in the way till the rage passed.

“That sumabitch!” Sal hollered.

“He’ll get his in due time,” I assured. But the truth was that if Buddy wasn’t up to the job, there wasn’t anyone who stood a chance against Hardin. The saloon doors were still swinging back and forth from Hardin’s exit, and between them a flash of light flickered in the sky.

“You see that?” I asked. Another flash flickered across the saloon walls, and everyone ran out to the road. Bluish bursts were still rippling above, and thunder rumbled just beyond the town.

“That was even louder than the last time,” Red said.

“What ya suppose it is?” Whiny Pete asked worriedly.

“Dunno,” I said, “but it sounds like it’s getting closer.

The Crapper

Comings: Mabel Starr, John Hardin, and Malachi all arrived recently. Ain’t much I can tell you about any of them that ain’t already been widely discussed. Mabel’s a proud swindler from Pennsylvania, Hardin’s a famous outlaw from Texas, and Malachi might be some kind of nun-killing bible salesmen from the Chicago area, but he ain’t too forthcoming with the details.

Goings: We’ve all been guilty of dressing down Stumpy at one time or another, for stepping on our feet or spilling our drinks, but an apology and an effort to make amends always followed. In my forty-odd years of life and my fifteen-odd years of death, I’ve met every sort of fella a couple of times each, but I ain’t never met a man of such stature who could disarm a brute with just his own meekness. Few could argue that Stumpy’s gentle soul was worth gunning down for his klutziness, though Mr. Hardin saw otherwise.

Stumpy was not much of a storyteller—I don’t think I ever heard him speak more than a few sentences at a time, but there was a simple wisdom to his sparse words. Through the years, he mentioned various parts of his life to different folks, which I’ve only just begun to piece together. He was born in Minnesota and had little memory of his childhood. Some suggest he had been dropped on his head as a child, but if his kind nature was the result, then we’d all be lucky to take such a tumble. His father was a farmer. When asked of the possible sins that might have caused him to be sent to Damnation, Stumpy once said, “The cows! All the cows we butchered!” Then when questioned about the chickens that were also slaughtered on his farm, he just laughed and said, “Ah, chickens ain’t got big enough eyes for sadness.”

To be honest, I can’t rightly say for sure whether the size of creature’s eyes in any way relates to their capacity for pain, any more than I can say the height of man relates to the size or nobility of his heart. One thing that could be said of Stumpy, though, is that when he was around there was always one man in the room head and shoulders above everyone else, who didn’t think he was any better than anyone.