Dead Indian Wars

Book 2: Paranormal Western

by Clark Casey

Genres: Horror; Thrillers

Synopsis

THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN, AND HE’S ARMED TO THE FANGS. After fending off an attack by the werewolf pack, the saloon is in shambles and half of the dead outlaws have been sent to Hell. Nigel, the lone vampire, takes up the job of sheriff in order to protect the only living boy in Damnation. A second vampire, with whom Nigel has some history and still bears a grudge, comes to town. To make matters worse, an army of angry Indian warriors arrive, and they’re not too keen on sharing their spirit world with the soldiers who killed them. A sudden scarcity of food and booze spurs the election of a hawkish mayor, who controls the vampires with an unlikely source of warm blood. Buddy and some ragtag gunslingers are left to defend their territory against an entire nation of dead Indians led by an invincible brave. “A cast of delightfully distinctive, authentically funny outlaws, butting heads in a lazy afterlife saloon somewhere between heaven and hell define the setting of Casey’s weird western debut.” —Publishers Weekly on Dawn in Damnation “Bitingly Funny.” — Vampires.com on Dawn in Damnation “Fueled by an out-of-this-world imagination, Clark Casey combines vampires, werewolves, the meanest of the mean, and the dumbest of the dumb into a very readable paranormal western.” —John Neely Davis, author of The Chapman Legacy on Dawn in Damnation

Release date: May 29, 2018

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 208

Sample

Chapter 1

Luther

“Hey, blondie!” one of the soldier boys called out. His sleeve was decorated with the silver eagle insignia of a colonel and, judging by the pain-in-the-ass tone of his voice, he reckoned it still meant something. He’d been teasing the other newbies all afternoon. Now, he figured the big fella in the duster was due for some good-natured ribbing. Even a large newbie was easy pickings. Usually. The colonel strolled up with his shit-eating grin and said, “What’s with the—”

Before he could finish his question, the sandy-haired giant reached out and grabbed his face. His long fingers stretched from ear to ear and nose to scalp. In a single motion, he drew the colonel in and cradled his neck. Yellow fangs, much longer than Nigel’s, dropped below his lip. His gumline was high, like a mare that’d seen more winters than nature intended. He pierced the soldier’s flabby sunburnt neck and sucked hard. His blue eyes immediately widened in horror. He spit out the cold blood, then collapsed to one knee in a coughing fit. Some of it must have slipped down his throat and was cutting up his insides like shards of glass.

“Scheisse!” he yelled, then tore open his shirt, revealing a stack of muscles like a gorilla. He began beating desperately on his chest. Men dove under tables, fearing he might explode and send vampire guts all over the room.

“I see you have endeavored to sample the local fare, old chap,” a voice teased from the doorway.

“Nigel!” he said, still gasping for air. “So that would mean I’m… Is the dark one here?” he asked nervously.

“No, I believe we are just short of his domain—though you may still reach it.”

Nigel suddenly dashed forward, closing twenty paces as if they were one, then hammered a clenched fist into Luther’s chest. It sent the big fella to the floor with a thud. He wasn’t down for long. His eyes glowed yellow with anger, and he popped straight to his feet. The whole building shook as Luther charged Nigel, lifting him onto his shoulder like a bull between the horns. The two of them struck the bullet-ridden wall, then broke clear through to the other side. They tumbled across the road, knocking over a passing sodbuster. As soon as they stood, they began trading blows.

Luther had the advantage with his reach, but Nigel wasn’t weakened from drinking cold blood. He crouched low and worked away at Luther’s midsection. Finally, the big lug got fed up and smashed his knee against Nigel’s face, then gripped him by the slack in his shirt and heaved him through the air. His body landed ten feet away on the boardwalk. Luther quickly grabbed Nigel’s legs and dragged him back to the center of the road to finish him off. The crafty Brit managed to take a piece of wooden plank with him, and when Luther flipped him over, he met with a two-by-eight to the face. A twisted nail at the end of the board pierced his forehead, and blood poured over his face.

They both lunged for each other’s throats at once. Nigel’s short powerful forearms were locked inside of Luther’s, both squeezing with all their might as they hissed breathlessly. Neither would let go to try to save his own windpipe from being crushed. It was clear that whoever could hold on the longest would be the winner.

“Not even sure who I should be rooting for,” Sal said. “Can’t tell if the new vampire’ll be better or worse than the old one.”

There’d been bastards like Jeremiah Watson running things, then worse bastards like Jack Finney. Buddy was about the nicest top gunslinger we’d ever had. Nigel was cranky, but he usually let folks be. This new vampire might be more of the meddling sort. On the other hand, it looked possible that they might just suffocate one another at once.

Just then, the clouds shifted, and the blanket of gray slipped back to reveal a sliver of the brightest light I had ever seen. We all shielded our eyes. The years of dusk had made us too sensitive for anything brighter than candlelight. I squinted up, but it hurt too much to look at it directly. A single beam shone down on the two vampires in the center of the road, and their clenched hands immediately began to smolder. A flicker of blue flames shot across the length of their interlocked arms. They had to release their grips to pat it out, but it kept spreading over their bodies.

The skin on Luther’s cheek melted like lard in a frying pan. He threw his duster over his head for shade. Nigel had already put his arms over his face with his back to the sky. Their closest escape from the light was the saloon. They both bolted for the hole in the wall and dove through it at the same time, breaking off bits of wood to make it even larger. A moment later, the clouds shifted again and the sky darkened.

The blisters on Nigel’s face looked like they’d heal, but Luther hadn’t been as lucky. Smoke was still rising from his blackened skin. It made his blond hair look even lighter. Where the skin had melted away, much of his jawbone and teeth could be seen.

“That was for killing me,” Nigel said after dusting himself off, then extended a hand. Luther stared at him silently for a moment.

“I suppose I had it coming,” he admitted, and took Nigel’s hand.

“Two gins,” Nigel called out. Sal hustled out and put a bottle and two glasses on the bar.

“Odd, isn’t it?” Nigel remarked. “To feel such pain. Those blows would have been like mosquito bites when I was alive and well fed.”

“Ja.” Luther rubbed his battered ribs. “Also, you put up a better fight than last time. Prost!” He lifted his drink, and they knocked glasses.

The two vampires sat chatting in the room they had just destroyed. Everyone gave them a wide berth, but I situated myself just within earshot and scribbled some notes with my head down so as not to attract their attention. Luther had a funny way of talking, but not in the same way as Nigel. His speech wasn’t as proper-like.

“Hear that?” Luther asked.

“What?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

Nigel smiled knowingly.

“These humans have no thoughts for me to hear,” Luther said in surprise.

“Yes, I find it a welcome silence.”

“It is rather nice,” Luther agreed, “especially for an old vampire like me.”

“If not for the hunger and boredom,” Nigel said, “it might make this place bearable.”

“So none of them have warm blood?” Luther grew worried.

“Tell me.” Nigel changed the subject. “Who finally defeated the Scourge of Saxony?”

“The council turned against me,” he replied bitterly, pushing his yellow hair out of his charred face. “We disagreed on ideology. They wanted to permit mixing with the humans.”

“Still a hardliner, old boy?” Nigel grinned.

“Speaking of that, is your woman here? The one you killed your brother for.”

“No, I suppose she went someplace else.”

“So you’re not going to hold it against me, what I did to you?” Luther asked.

“Ah, you were just doing your job,” Nigel replied a little too breezily. Luther studied his face. He probably didn’t have much practice in reading a bluff since he was accustomed to hearing thoughts. “Besides,” Nigel added, “it can get rather boring here when there aren’t any gunfights to watch. The Americans are no great conversationalists. They lack our European sensibilities.”

“Ja,” Luther agreed.

“So why did the council finally decide to allow relations with humans?” Nigel prodded delicately, like he was hunting for something.

“They believe it is inevitable, the next stage in evolution.”

“And you don’t agree?” Nigel was surprised. “I suppose you wish to keep our bloodline pure, not muddied by those human traits you abhor.”

“I don’t hate humans. In fact, I’m looking out for their best interest. I want to spare them from our offspring.”

“You fear the mixed-breeds’ appetites would cause our kind to be discovered.”

“Nein,” Luther scoffed. “I fear the hunger of the mixed-breeds could bring about our starvation. They consume too much! If one of them can dispose of an entire town in a matter of hours, what would a dozen do, or a hundred? Let alone thousands! The only way to keep up with their demand would be to farm the humans, keep them caged and continually reproducing. They’d be nothing more than sacks of blood. I wish only for them to remain free as nature intended, and happily ignorant of us!”

“But only one in a thousand mixed-breeds become vampires.”

“It is still too risky. Ah, but now we are both beyond the world where such things matter. So you say the dark one is not here?”

“Not openly, but I’ve sensed his presence,” Nigel said hesitantly. “I was never a believer when I was alive, and the last hundred years have given me little reason to think otherwise, but there have been signs recently.” Nigel became very serious. “Like that blast of light that separated us.”

“The dark one using light!” Luther scoffed.

“I never would’ve thought it possible either, but things are different here. Even the human priests kill in Damnation.”

“Is that the name of this place?” Luther bowed his head solemnly.

“Oh, don’t get so high and unholy!” Nigel teased. “The name was given by me in jest. Just after I arrived, some cowboy asked me where he was and I told him Damnation. He got shot not long after, but the name stuck. They have no idea it is the name of our Eden.”

Just then, Whiny Pete barged into the saloon. He nervously eyed the hole in the wall, wondering if he should scatter. Nigel looked at him expectantly, and Pete nodded eagerly, perhaps a little less subtly than Nigel would have liked. Luther took it all in wordlessly.

“What’s that all about?” Sal whispered to Pete.

“The vampire asked me to move Ms. Parker and Martin to the general store.”

“You think that other vampire can smell the warm blood in Martin?” Sal asked.

“If Nigel can smell it, he probably can, too,” I said.

“Think he’ll wanna drink Martin’s blood?” Pete asked.

“Why else would Nigel have you move ’em?” Sal barked. “Better get the word out that nobody should mention the kid in blondie’s presence.”

“Ain’t gonna be easy with all the loudmouths around here,” I said.

“Then we gotta put the fear of hell in ’em.”

After it was scrubbed down real good, Luther moved into Ms. Parker’s old room, and Buddy was left in the room between the two vampires. Everyone reckoned the new vampire was going to cause a big hoopla, but nothing much happened right away. Since he wasn’t accustomed to going without warm blood, he was real tired. For the first few weeks, he slept pretty much around the clock. But there were other things to worry about aside from the new vampire.

Chapter 2

The Unknown Soldier and the Apache Woman

“Am I dead?” a new soldier asked as he sat down at the bar. Wedged between his shoulder blades was a tomahawk with greased goose feathers dangling from the grip. It had a pipe bowl opposite the blade and a hollow handle. Presumably, the owner didn’t find occasion to bury the hatchet in the earth and smoke in peace. The edge of the blade was peeking out from the front of the soldier’s sternum, where chunks of heart muscle had been pushed out. They clung to his shirt like dinner scraps, and his arms were red from trying his damnedest to push the blade back out the way it came. He literally wore his heart on his sleeve.

“Yup,” I told him. “You’re as dead as a doornail, but twice as useless.”

“Figured I was done for when they ambushed us.” Judging by the silver strands in his beard and the medals on his tits, he’d been soldiering awhile. “This hell?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“Nah.”

“Then why’s there so many dang Injuns outside?”

On account of the wars going on back in the states, more and more of them were coming to Damnation every day. Swarms marched out of the dust with their headdress feathers swaying in the wind. Some came hooting and hollering atop dead-eyed ponies, still rallying the bucks with war cries. Others were shot in the back, likely on the run from much larger forces.

They built teepees on the outskirts with scrap wood from old covered wagons. The barren flatlands between the buildings and the dust cloud quickly filled with their camps, and eventually the town was surrounded. The tribes might not have gotten along so well when they were alive, but in Damnation the Apache, Navajo, and Sioux all banded together. Their ideas about the spirit world were somewhat vague, so when they wound up in a place with tumbleweeds, horses, and a few white men, they reckoned it was close enough.

“I suppose them Injuns weren’t good enough for heaven,” I told the soldier. “Nor bad enough for hell—like yourself—so they were sent here. Some miner called it hell’s sifter. He reckoned the Lord was giving us all another look-see to check if any of us might be worth saving from the fire. Another man thought that if you could manage to keep from shooting anyone for a whole year, the gates of heaven’d open up for you. Nobody’s managed it so far. Truth is, I can’t say for sure where we are. Alls we really know is that you can stay here and play poker as long as you like. But if you get shot, you don’t get to see your cards.”

An Indian brave on horseback came riding by, shrieking and howling angrily at the window. Then he threw a rock that shattered the pane of glass. It wasn’t meant to be an attack or anything. He just wanted to let us know he was out there and didn’t care much for our kind. The soldier took it as an omen, though.

“Shoulda known what we done would come back to haunt us,” he said uneasily. “Government gave ’em land, but it weren’t near enough and the soil no good for growing nothing. Meat rations were slim and often spoilt. We lost ten men in my battalion when they finally revolted. Guess I was the eleventh.”

A strong breeze blew the doors open, bringing with it a mess of dust and rattling the rusty fixtures. Nigel burst in like a twister and stopped in front of a toothless man who was huddled in the corner. A shiny tin star was fastened to his lapel. As sheriff, Nigel found he could make good on his promise to look after Mabel while remaining impartial. Otherwise, she might be inclined to let Buddy know it wasn’t him who shot John Wesley Hardin. Nigel still reckoned Buddy needed all the confidence he could get to protect Martin, especially with another vampire in town.

Nigel’s wounds from the fight with Luther had healed up good as new, though every passing day without warm blood made him weaker. He was still a far shot stronger and faster than any man or wolf in town—just not stronger than the other vampire. Luther had healed up as well, except for his blackened skin and the cheek that had melted away. Nigel might have missed his only chance to take out the big blond in a weakened state.

“This is a child’s toy, sir. Not a derelict’s!” Nigel yanked a wood-carved rattle out of the toothless fella’s hands, then tore out of the saloon as quick as he’d come.

“Who was that?” the soldier asked.

“The sheriff,” I told him.

“How’s he move so quick?”

“He’s a vampire.”

“There’s vampires here?”

“Just two, and some werewolves,” I added. “But most of them got wiped out when they came after Ms. Parker’s baby.”

“So there’s babies?”

“Just Martin. Only living thing in Damnation.”

“Shh, keep it down,” Sal scolded. “Luther might come in and hear ya.”

“The other vampire don’t know about the child,” I explained to the soldier. “We’re afraid he might eat the little bugger. So if you see a tall blond fella missing half his face, pipe down about the kid.”

Ever since Martin was born, the wolves were afraid to attack because they believed Nigel had a steady supply of warm blood to keep him strong. Nigel never had a drop of the kid’s blood, though. Some folks reckoned he was just waiting till Martin got bigger, fattening him up like you would a hog.

There were also worries about a vampire being sheriff, so Buddy was made deputy. At first, he took some pride in the position, but when Ms. Parker began spending more time with Nigel, his mood quickly soured. Eventually, Buddy stopped interfering in any quarrels unless one of the rules was broken, and he was a little loose on their interpretation. One hungry man pointed out that rule number one said everybody eats. Buddy lifted his face from his glass, squinted angrily, and told him, “It don’t say what, though.” Then he shoved a gun barrel in the man’s mouth.

“Got any whores ’round here?” the soldier asked.

“Whores go to heaven,” I told him.

“So there is a heaven then?”

“Wherever they end up must be heaven,” Red added. “’Least you can get a reg’lar poke there.”

“It wouldn’t be heaven for the lady suffocatin’ beneath you!” Mabel laughed.

“I can’t stand that damn racket!” Sal complained as he peered out the window to the half-finished building across the road. “The hammering is driving me crazy.”

Mabel had hired a bunch of dead carpenters to build her saloon just opposite the Foggy Dew. She used Lucky’s poker winnings to pay them. On account of their thirst, they worked fast. They had framed up the walls with a balcony and a pitched roof in just a couple of weeks. The top floor was already finished, too. It was going to be larger and grander than Sal’s dingy saloon. They were using some brand new wood for the exterior that had come in from the dust on a lumber wagon. There weren’t any new nails, though, so they had to yank old ones out of the rotted-out buildings. The rusty round heads stood out from the shiny new cedar, giving it an odd look, like the new was being held together by the old. Mabel was going to call the place the Rusty Nail on account of it.

“Why we need another saloon anyway?” Sal complained.

“Town’s growing.” Mabel smiled with no apologies. “’Sides, a girl’s gotta keep herself busy somehow.”

“Don’t think about underpricing me,” he warned. “If folks start crossing the road for cheaper whiskey, I ain’t gonna bother feeding ’em for free.”

“Who says I won’t serve food?” Mabel said. “Just ’cause you got a frying pan don’t mean you have claim to every dead pig that wanders out of the dust.”

“The whole system’s going to pot!” Sal huffed, then he counted out ten chips for the new soldier. “We’ll all be in hell before the year’s through. Mark my words!”

The tomahawk sticking out of the soldier’s back parted the crowd as he stood. He took his money straight to the poker table, where he lost a few hands. The gray in his hair had long overtaken the brown. He was likely the grandpa of a little tot he’d rather be holding than a straight flush somewhere shy of hell. When he got down to his last chip, he bought a bullet and borrowed a gun. He stuck the barrel in his mouth and squeezed the trigger. As the bullet broke apart the back of his skull, the piano player paused till the body hit the floor. Then he took up the song again right where he left off.

“Imagine that,” Old Moe remarked. “He didn’t even make it to lunchtime!”

“Just another soft army boy who didn’t care much for whiskey or poker,” Sal said. “Third one this month. Get the Chinaman to haul that sad sack away.”

As the day wore on, more dead soldiers arrived with stunned looks in their eyes and loads of fear-shit in their drawers. There’d been another battle in Florida, and for every soldier that came out of the dust, four Seminole followed. Their hooting and hollering made the army boys as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Some of the same Indians they’d killed were right outside the door with their war paints on, making bows and arrows out of scrap wood.

“I seen that prairie coon before!” a soldier barked angrily. “He followed me here, damn it! How many times I gotta kill that sumbitch?”

Sal tried to calm t. . .