The Drop Edge of Yonder (17 page)

Shen Zebulon appeared on deck, he was greeted by shouts and applause from the assembled, everyone believing that Dorfheimer had been shot because of his overpriced accommodations and rotten food.

At the end of the gangplank, Zebulon turned to offer a salute to Dorfheimer, who was staring down at him from the bridge.

"I will see you in hell," Dorfheimer shouted.

"I'm already in hell," Zebulon replied.

Tossing the admiral's hat into the harbor, he pushed his way through the crowd on the dock.

T DIDN'T TAKE HIM LONG TO FIND THE BUSTED FLUSH HOTEL, saloon, and Sporting Emporium, a three-story brick warehouse rising above a squalid row of one-story saloons, dry goods stores, and whorehouses. Inside, the cavernous space was jammed with sailors, gamblers, and prospectors, as well as the usual variety of thieves and entrepreneurs. There was no sign of Stebbins. In one corner, a crowd had gathered around a pit in which a wolverine was fighting a half-starved wolf. Across the room, two bare-fisted fighters were slugging each other into oblivion until the larger one, a three-hundred-pound Samoan, picked up his opponent as easily as a sack of flour and threw him against the wall, breaking his back.

When challengers were called for, Zebulon stepped forward - much to the amusement of the crowd, who, by the look of his uniform and stubby half-grown hair, took him for a runaway convict or crazed East Coast Argonaut.

Stripped to his waist, he was introduced as Admiral Doom, a champion of the Maldovian navy, undefeated in over a hundred bouts. Before the introduction was finished and bets were in place, the Samoan kicked him in the groin and tried to gouge out an eye. He struggled to his feet, only to fall back again as the Samoan raised his hands in victory. Waiting for the end, he experienced an unexpected stillness followed by a rush of energy that poured through his veins like water running through an open sluice gate. The release traveled up the length of his spine and launched him in a cold fury across the ring, where he pummeled the Samoan with blows to the head and body, followed by a vicious kick to the solar plexus. As the bewildered Samoan sank to his knees, Zebulon chopped down on his head. Then he broke his cheekbone with his forearm. The assault, as Stebbins wrote later in one of the San Francisco newspapers, lasted less than a minute and was as precise as an execution.

The crowd broke into hysterical foot-stomping approval: "Hurrah for Admiral Doom!" they shouted. "Doom! Doom! Doom!"

For his efforts, Zebulon received twenty-five dollars and a clean towel to wipe off the blood.

He pushed his way to a side room where drinks were served from thin rubber tubes that allowed each customer to suck out all the booze he could handle until he ran out of breath or passed out. As the liquor trickled down his throat he heard a song drift over the raucous din, a voice that entered his heart like the pointed end of a stake:

Delilah stood on a wooden platform at the back of the room wearing a low-cut red dress. Her eyes were half-closed, her face caked with thick makeup. The newcomers in the room had never seen anyone like her or experienced a voice so penetrating and melancholy. As she sang, two fiddlers and an accordion player provided enough rhythm to keep her on course:

Zebulon noticed Stebbins sitting alone at a table, rocking back and forth as she repeated the last line to wild applause.

His eyes narrowed as Zebulon sat down opposite him.

"I heard you been writing lies about me," Zebulon said.

Stebbins filled up his glass and pushed it towards Zebulon. "It's why I'm here: to satisfy the public's insatiable hunger and curiosity for frontier lore. And you, my friend, rank with the very best, thanks to my adventurously inflated prose."

He looked over at Delilah. "Lucky for me that she has contributed more intimate details about you than any scribbler could wish for. How you forget to take off your boots when engaging in the act of love, how you become violent when you lose at cards or billiards, or how you obsessively invent your past. All touching human fallibilities which help make a story appealing and accessible."

Zebulon walked over to Stebbins and lifted him off his chair.

"Extry! Extry!" Stebbins shouted, struggling to free himself. "Read all about it! Deranged mountain man goes berserk! Kills reporter for spilling the beans about his outlaw past! Read about his squalid love affair with an Abyssinian courtesan and a Russian count!"

Zebulon dropped him into his chair and sat down as Delilah launched into another song: