Joe R. Lansdale - The Magic Wagon

THE MAGIC WAGON

Joe R. Lansdale

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE MAGIC WAGON

The Magic Wagon is "to the 1980s what True Grit was to itsdecade." Dean R. Koontz

"Part tall tale, part suspensestory, part dark fantasy, The Magic Wagon is wholly unique andunfailingly Successful ." Ed Gorman, TrailsWest

"A delight." Books ofthe Southwest

"An assortment of colorful,often humorous characters gives this insightful and gritty tale authenticityand a sense of wonder." Booklist

"Pure escapist reading." The AntiochReview

"This is a rare, wonderful book." Lewis Shiner, TheAustin Chronicle

"Joe R. Lansdale proves he can show his readers a goodtime and leave them a little something to think about afterward." The NewYork Times Book Review

All of the characters in this book

are fictitious, and any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

This edition contains the complete text ofthe original hardcover edition.

NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

THE MACIC WAGON

A Bantam Book published by arrangementwith

Doubleday & Company

PRINTING HISTORY

small portion of this novel, in slightlydifferent form, first

appeared in Pulpsmith.

Doubleday edition published October 1986

Bantam edition /July 1988

All rights reserved.

Copyright1986 by Joe R. Landsdale.

Cover art copyright 1988 by Lou Glanzman.

No part of this book may be reproduced ortransmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic ormechanical,

including, photocopying, recording, or byany information

storage and retrieval system, withoutpermission in writing from

the publisher.

For information address: Doubleday & Company,

Park Avenue, New fork, NY 10167.

ISBN 0-553-27365-5

Published simultaneously in the UnitedStates and Canada

Bantam Books are published by BantamBooks, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Croup, Inc. Itstrademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayalof a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in othercountries. Marco Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue. New York, New York10103.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OFAMERICA

O 0987654321

This is for Phyllis and Harlie Morton,

and Ann and Herman Kasper, for theirfaith, love, and support.

Wild Bill Hickok, some years after he wasdead, came to Mud Creek for a shoot-out of sorts.

I wasthere. Let me tell you about it.

***

Aboutan hour before sunrise, mid-July, 1909, we came rolling into Mud Creek in theMagic Wagon Billy Bob Daniels, Old Albert, Rot Toe theWrestling Chimpanzee, the body in the box, and me.

Nightbefore we'd sort of snuck out of Louisiana and made the Texas border on accountof some medicine Billy Bob sold this fella, telling him it would cure thepiles. Which it hadn't. Not that any of us thought it would. It was just somewater, coloring, and a little whisky. Well, mostly whisky.

Butthe fella who bought the stuff was a teetotaller and it made him drunk enoughto hit his wife some and have a bellyache. And later when he passed out on thebed drunk, she sewed him up in the bedsheets, got herself a broom, and whaledthe tar out of him till he was bruised enough to pass for a speckled pup.

When hiswife finally did let him out from beneath the sheets he had soberedconsiderable, and he got to figuring on what he'd done and the fact that he hadthe piles bad as ever, and he came looking for Billy Bob.

Normallywe'd have been long gone, as that was the smart thing in our business. Talk thecrowd up good, sell them some watered whisky, smile big, wave a lot, and soonas we had their money and they were walking away, we'd pack up and hightail itout of town like a jackass with his tail on fire. Avoided a lot of unhappycustomers that way.

Butnow and then we didn't get on our way soon enough, like this evening I'mtelling you about, and usually that was because Billy Bob had spotted some galin the crowd he'd taken a hankering to, and with the way he looked, they oftentook a hankering hack. He was tall and lean with gray eyes and he wore hisblond hair long like them old gun-fighters you read about in the dime novels.Lot of times he wore guns and did trick shooting, which was something he wasdarned good at. But this time he didn't have no guns, and that was for thebest.

He wasspruced up and leaning against the wagon, ready to go gal'n, when this fellawith the piles and the broom bruises shows up with a piece of cordwood in hishand and a converted .36 Navy revolver stuck in his belt. Since Billy Bob wasthe one who had given the talk on the medicine, told him how it could shrinkthem piles, it was him he wanted. He tells Billy Bob the whole sad story abouthow he took the medicine and it made him drunk, how he hit his wife, got sewedup in the sheets and beat, and how his piles weren't any better. In fact, hethought they might be considerable worse. Just told Billy Bob the wholeshooting match. If he'd had any sense he'd have just walked up and conked BillyBob on the head with that stove wood, but I figure he was aiming to talk himinto giving him his money back before he took to raising knots.

Well,all the time this fella is telling Billy Bob his story, Billy Bob is leaning upagainst the Magic Wagon with a hand-rolled hanging out of his mouth unlit. Whenthe fella finished, Billy Bob brought a match out from somewhere, lit thehand-rolled and puffed up a little cloud, squinted his eyes and said,"Ain't nothing to me."

ThatBilly Bob always was a considerate sort.

"It'seither my money back," says the speckled pup, "or I'm going to takethis here stove wood and work you up a new hat size."

"Ireckon not," Billy Bob said.

That fella moved pretty quickthen, swung that wood at Billy Bob's head, and Billy Bob caught his wrist withone hand and hit him in the stomach with the other, just above where that oldNavy stuck out of his belt. When Billy Bob pulled his hand back, the Navy wasin it and the fella was on the ground making noises like a loose treadle on asewing machine.

BillyBob pointed the gun and cocked back the hammer. That old cap and ball had beenconverted over to a cartridge loader, but it looked worn and dangerous, like itwas just as likely to blow up in Billy Bob's hand as shoot that fella on theground.

"FigureI ought to put a hole in your head," Billy Bob said.

Itensed when I heard that. Billy Bob of late had lost his sense of humor, whichbefore had been about like a kicked badger's anyway.

Butright when I thought things were going to get their ugliest, Albert said,"Mr. Billy Bob, don't reckon you ought to do that."

Albertwas colored. About fifty, with snow in his short kinky hair and shoulders sowide he had to turn sideways to get inside the wagon. He looked a little bitlike a bear that had been trained to wear clothes.

Allthe while things had been going on between Billy Bob and the fella, Albert hadbeen standing quietly by with his arms crossed, showing about as much interestas a cow watching a couple of stumps.

"Youtalking to me?" Billy Bob said, glancing at Albert. Billy Bob reckoned thewar wasn't over yet, and he'd never cottoned to a colored fella telling himanything. Hated it worse than anyone I'd ever seen. Once, in Kansas, I saw himbeat a little colored man to his knees just because the fella brushed upagainst him and didn't say pardon me with enough feeling. But when he talked toAlbert like that, the talk seemed mostly just talk. Somehow, Albert had the Indiansign on him, and Billy Bob, who didn't seem afraid of nothing as far as I couldtell, didn't give Albert a whole lot of trouble, in spite of Albert being hiredhelp. I sort of got the feeling there was something between them I didn't understand.Something going on I didn't have no sense about.