The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

lantern-light. There was no way around it. Midas’ cursed heart sang with joy. His anger melted at the sight of her, for he’d been imagining this moment just this way since the arrival of the Chinaman’s first letter.

Midas stumbled toward her like some big stupid kid, and suddenly it was as if he were floating on air, as if his big clumsy Monitor and Merrimac gunboat feet weren’t touching the ground at all.

Red Bailey called out, “What about the nigger’s boots?”

“Forget ’em,” Midas said, taking the hand of his Chi-nee princess.

“What about the nigger proper, then? You want us to kill what’s left of him? Or you want us to save him for you?”

Midas didn’t give one good goddamn what his gun-dogs did, and he told them so.

For a time he imagined that he was back in that church Down South, the one with the black Jesus. It seemed in his reverie that Jesus lay on the pew next to his, and it was a hot day, August hot —

No. Worse than that. Brimstone hot. Hell hot. That’s what it was.

Jesus wasn’t holding up too well. He’d been born in a land of deserts, but He couldn’t take this. Whimpering like a babe in arms, He was. Why, Stack was pure embarrassed for the old boy. He wanted to tell Him to muscle up and bear it, the way He’d borne that crown of thorns while nailed up there on the church wall through the long years of Stack’s childhood, but he was so dry he figured he’d have to be primed before he could spit, let alone talk.

So Stack just lay there in the heat, taking it himself.

Just like Daddy had promised he’d do one day, and the fact that his daddy was long dead and buried didn’t keep the old man from reminding him. “See,” he said, whispering in his son’s ear, “told you how you’d end up, didn’t I? Told you it’d be the pit for you, you with your evil ways. You at the gate now, ain’t cha, boy? Take a look, see what’s on the other side.”

Stack wanted a look, a good long one. He’d heard about this place for a long, long time. He’d had the fear of it beat into him ever since he could remember. And now that he was here he wanted to see if all the fear had been worth it, if the short time he’d stood on two legs like a man was indeed cause for eternal punishment. He wanted to find out if the stark reality of his final destination would have made it easier to bow and scrape. He wanted to know if such knowledge would have made it easier to spend his life in lame servitude of one kind or another, in shame, apologizing for his very birth.

“Go ahead, boy,” his daddy said. “Look through the gate.”

He got one eye open. Sweet Jesus, he could see the fires. Feel them, too. One cheek pressed against the very bars that formed the gate, and that cheek was sizzling like bacon on a hot griddle.

“I warned you, boy. Didn’t I warn you? But you wouldn’t listen. Not one word did you hear. If you’d led the right life. If you’d been meek, like a lamb, you’d have been right, and the Lord would be forgivin’ you about right now, and you’d be enterin’ His Kingdom on your knees, the way He intended.”

“Easy on him, preacher,” Jesus said. “We forgive, Me and Mine. Your boy wasn’t a bad one. He wasn’t evil. He just never wanted to crawl, is all. And now that he’s done… Well, when you’re done, you’re done straight through. And then there’s no turning back.”

Even the preacher knew better than to talk back to Jesus. The preacher’s son was thankful for that little miracle, especially seeing as how Jesus had been kind enough to accompany him to the gates of hell.

Stack figured he should thank the Good Lord’s boy for that. He pushed away from the bars, turned toward the place His voice had come from.

A pig stared back at him with blind eyes, head charred, a well-cooked apple sizzling in its mouth. The pig did not utter a single word, and Stack had the strong suspicion that it wasn’t just the apple that kept the dead hog from talking.

The porker was ready for the knife and fork. Lying above coals that were a long way from brimstone but burned hell-hot nonetheless. Lying there on a scorcher of a grill with a few lambs which had no doubt come to the fire real meek and mild, a bunch of other hogs, a couple cows, and one really stupid bastard for company.

And then came the laughter. “Stick a fork in the nigger and see if he’s done.”

The gun-dog who held the fork obliged. He jabbed Stack’s shoulder, giving the big fork a generous twist. There were only two tines, each one just short of two inches in length, but they bit and sliced like the devil’s own pitchfork. Stack nearly passed out as pain stampeded his senses.

“It’s like they say, bucko,” the holder of the fork opined. “When you’re done, you’re done straight through. And it appears that you still got mucho momentos to go ’fore you’re cooked up good and proper, amigo.”

The men’s laughter mixed right in there with the pain. Stack grimaced. He’d stared through the gates of hell, lain on those gates with the other dead animals, the stupid creatures that went through life meek and mild, but nothing burned him quite the way the hyena laughter of these two fools did.

That was when he knew, for sure and for certain, with no questions at all. He was done, all right. Done, once and for all.

He was done crawling. And for damn sure he was done suffering the grief of bastards like these.

The man with the fork knelt over him, grinning, still giving it the twist. Bobcat-quick, Stack reached up and snatched a fistful of the man’s shirt, surprising him and tumbling him forward across Stack’s own chest, so that the man landed on the grill between half a cow and a generous hunk of lamb.

The other gun-dog might have pulled his Colt in that short instant, but he had to drop the half-empty whiskey bottle he was holding before he could go for the weapon. Stack was off the grill just that fast. An instant later the big fork was buried in the pistolero’s guts.

And then Stack had a pistol.

In the time it would take an exceptionally thirsty man to down a shot of whiskey, Stack had emptied the weapon.

That left him with a choice of six more just like the first.

He jammed a couple into his belt, snatched up another, and moved into the night.

Lead flew hot and heavy.

When it was over, Stackalee stood alone.

Midas hid, all alone in the dark.

He’d seen it all through the bedroom window. Seen his gun-dogs mowed down like they were an army of bovine retards. Blind bovine retards. And then he’d turned to the Chinaman’s daughter, and she’d looked at him with that little bitty bit of a smile on her face, her eyes seeming to say, Now he’ll come for you, and hearing a gal talk through her eyes, and realizing that the words those eyes had spoken were without a doubt the God’s honest truth, well, that had scared Midas worse than anything.

It was quiet now. Finally. That was good, because it meant things were most likely over. But it could be bad, too, because if things weren’t over he would have to stay hidden awhile longer.

And that meant Midas had to stay very quiet. That was a hard thing to do, especially since there was something down in his gut that was busy tickling him. He tried to ignore it, but every minute or two he just naturally had to let a little giggle bubble over his lips.

Like now. He giggled and spit like a babe in arms. Had to bite his lip real hard to cut it off.

The tickling thing didn’t satisfy easy, though. It scrabbled around in Midas’ belly, rippling over his ribs, but he couldn’t allow himself to give in to it. He closed his eyes and covered his mouth with his hands. He had to stop giggling, because if the gunslinger was still out there…