Cowboy Necromancer: Infinite Dusk

by Harmon Cooper

  “Muy bueno. Where to now? Back to your ranch house?”

  Sterling simply shook his head. “Something tells me I’m going to be gone for a little while, maybe a long while. We will have to see.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be back,” Veronica said in an almost flirty way. “Are you heading north or south?”

  “That, young lady, is the question. Where am I heading?” Sterling shook his head. “Only time will tell.” He summoned his skeletal steed by simply lifting his hand, the horse taking shape, Manchester’s bones clinking together as they arranged themselves.

  “People would kill for a power like that,” Veronica said in awe as she watched it happen before her very eyes.

  “Ain’t the first time I’ve heard that,” he said after he arranged the saddle and mounted up. “Come on,” he told Manchester, now heading toward the center of town.

  It was September, approaching the end of chili season. The days were still hot, but the nights and mornings were cool, frigid even, and Sterling knew that there would be flashes of snow sometime in the near future. The weather was already starting to cool down, a breeze coming in from the Rio Grande River.

  “Desert snow,” Sterling mumbled, mentally reminding himself to write a haiku about the beautiful phenomenon later on.

  It didn’t take him long to reach the center of Truth or Consequences, and as they always were, most of the establishments were boarded up. At least Ingo’s Café was open, which had a great chile relleno dish that Sterling planned to enjoy before he headed to the tavern down the street where he’d likely find Kip.

  The sun was just starting to set on the horizon, the sky somewhere between peach and tangerine, a dusty haze. Sterling spotted the old water tower on the hill that overlooked the small city. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the sun set behind it, the streets suddenly dark, the town shut down for the night, aside from the tavern, which never seemed to close. He squinted at the hill on the outskirts of downtown, the one with the water tower on it. Sure enough, Sterling made out the forms of a few masked men—Killbillies—just hanging out, which meant he was going to have to be extra careful. He also saw that there was new graffiti on the water tower that read FUCK GODWALKERS.

  Poetic, Sterling thought.

  From what he had been told, the Killbillies’ reach extended across the southwestern corner of what used to be the state of New Mexico. Sterling didn’t know how long it would take the two vandals who had escaped the incident at his ranch to get the word out that he had slaughtered a dozen of them. It really depended on which direction they were heading. All he knew was that word would get out eventually, and when it did, Sterling would be up for a challenge.

  His dark hair whipping around his face as a breeze picked up, cowboy hat casting a shadow over his eyes, Sterling stepped into Ingo’s Café and ordered the chile relleno special, which was the name for a popular New Mexican dish that featured two battered and fried chilis smothered in cheese and salsa.

  As he ate his meal, Ingo came to the table and sat, the man in an apron, a dirty towel tucked into the front pocket.

  “Sterling,” Ingo said, a weary look on his face as he wiped his hands on a cloth sticking out the front pocket. Ingo was from a country known as Germany, at least that was what it had been called before the Reset. Ingo knew this because after the Reset, he had found a German passport in his back pocket. Sterling hadn’t been so lucky. He never was able to find any identification on his person after the Reset.

  Maybe Ingo could have made his way back to his home country, or what was left of it. But he never did, deciding to run the restaurant, which turned out to be the same thing he was doing in Truth or Consequences before the Reset.

  “Ingo,” Sterling said as he cut into the second fried chili pepper. He had opted for red chili salsa this time, and he was glad he had, Sterling still stinging from losing his crop. “How are things holding up, amigo?”

  “Yah, the Killbillies have been stopping by so much. I don’t know what to do anymore, you know? Typical bully assholes,” Ingo said in his unique accent. “First they want tax, then they want free meals, and after that, they want more free meals and higher tax. They have also done some things to a few of the women in town. At least rumors I heard. I am at my… how do you say?” Ingo asked, gesturing toward his hair. The man had short gray hair and baby blue eyes, a softness to them that made him instantly likable.

  “You looking for the phrase ‘wits’ end’?”

  “Yes, wits’ end. I am at that location.”

  “Just don’t start killing them,” Sterling said, not able to stifle the grin on his face. He certainly didn’t take his own advice. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “I’m fairly sure I could take at least three of them by myself,” Ingo muttered.

  “I’ll bet you could, and believe me, I’d like to see you whoop some Killbilly ass as well. But they always seem to travel in packs of six or more, so you’d be a few ‘Billies short, if you get my drift. Look, I’m going to level with you, Ingo,” Sterling said as he leaned over his plate, his eyes locked on the displaced German. “And not in a bragging way, mind you. Fourteen of them boys showed up at my place earlier today. Now there are only two left. In case you’re bad at math, I killed me a dozen Killbillies earlier today, Ingo. Now, I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, but some people in this town, myself included, are ready to take our little slice of heaven back. Just be ready when I give the signal. I got things I need to handle first, most notably finding a man named Don Gasper, but just be ready to run these bastards out of town.”

  “Did you say you killed twelve of them? A dozen? Zwölf Männer?”

  “Next topic.” Sterling was starting to feel the spice, a robust flavor that started well after he swallowed a bite of chili. “Say, where’d you get these here chilis anyway?”

  “Ah, those. Some boy was selling them. I think he lives out near Cuchillo, yah? Have you been out that way?”

  “Can’t say that I have; I don’t normally head west unless I’m forced to at gunpoint.”

  “Ah, yes, it is quite a ways. You said you were looking for a man named Don Gasper. I am afraid I have yet to hear of this man. Is he a local I’ve yet to meet?”

  “Don Gasper? Not exactly. Let’s just say he’s local to everywhere, a bit of a global denizen, at least he seems to think he is. I need to start with him, though.”

  “Is there something in particular that you would like from this Herr Gasper?”

  Sterling bent forward once again. “Don Gasper is what Mexicans would call a hechicero.”

  “That is a Spanish word, yah? I’m unfamiliar with this word.”

  “A sorcerer, shaman, brujo, a witch—that’s Don Gasper in a nutshell. I don’t know the word in German.”

  “Zauberer.”

  “Yup, he’s that,” Sterling said, pointing his fork at Ingo. “And to find him, I need to talk to Kip. As crazy as that drunk son of a bitch usually is, Kip’s got a knack for knowing where people are.”

  “Yah, I can see that. So you find Herr Gasper. Then what?”

  “After I find Don Gasper, well, let’s just say I got a few plans.” Sterling pointed up at the sky and swirled his finger around, offering a little whistle. He licked his teeth as he slowly nodded his head. “You seen that graffiti on the water tower out there?”

  “The one about the Godwalkers?” Ingo asked. “Fuck Godwalkers. Ha! Made me laugh the first time I saw it.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Confusion set in on Ingo’s face. “You plan to fuck the Godwalkers? But they are so large…”

  “Not literally, shit. What’s with you Germans always taking everything so literally? You know what I mean.”

  “You… intend to do something else about the Godwalkers?”

  “Bingo. Or, at the very least, die trying. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, I need to find Kip.” Sterling pressed away from the table. “I got peppers, turquoise, and silver for this here meal. Take
your pick.”

  “Well, let’s see. I have plenty of peppers, turquoise is always valuable, but I’m a bit low on silver. I will take silver.”

  Sterling’s satchel of turquoise and silver jewelry appeared in his hand. He placed the clasp of a silver earring on the table and Ingo nodded.

  “Yah, that will do. Good luck wherever you are going, and extra good luck in fucking those Godwalkers,” Ingo said, a grin taking shape on his face.

  Sterling snorted. “Yup. Keep your head up, Ingo. And mark my words: we are going to deal with these Killbillies sooner rather than later. We’ll run the bastards out of T or C. Just wait for the signal.”

  He tipped his hat and stepped out of the café and into the streets of downtown Truth or Consequences, the sound of shattering glass catching his attention. Sterling looked in the opposite direction, toward the tavern at the end of the street. Sure enough, there were two men out front just about to fight, one with his fists at the ready, the other gripping a broken beer bottle in his paw. Kip.

  “Just the man I’ve been looking for,” Sterling said, a crooked smile forming on his face.

  His smile quickly faded when the earth began to shake.

  Kip was a tall man, a bit lanky even though he had a beer gut. He wasn’t one of the Adapted, meaning he wasn’t a mancer like Sterling. While Kip didn’t have a power, the man was certainly strong, Kip putting as many Stat and Technique Points as he could into his Strength, Fortitude, and the various combat arts. Kip should have been able to beat the living hell out of the man who stood in front of him. Instead, he was writhing in agony, in more pain than Sterling wanted to imagine as two spikes made of asphalt tore out of the tops of his thighs, pinning Kip in place.

  A gaiamancer, Sterling thought as he went for his revolver.

  But the gaiamancer wasn’t done. Before Sterling could fire a shot, the man swept his arm to the side, the ground shifting as more stones ripped from the earth, uprooting what was left of the sewer lines below, sludge and antediluvian muck bubbling up. The ground beneath Kip’s feet shifted once again as the two spikes of asphalt pinning him began to grow, lifting the poor man higher into the air.

  “You motherfucker! You goddamn cocksucker!” Kip bellowed, spit flying out of his mouth. He lost his cowboy hat, revealing a bald dome peppered by age spots and barely covered by a few stray hairs. There was snot and spittle in his thick beard now, Kip sucking in breaths like he was going into labor, cursing and shouting, wincing as he tried to remove one of his legs from one of the gaiamancer’s asphalt spikes.

  Bam!

  Sterling fired a shot in the air just to get everyone’s attention.

  The gaiamancer turned to him. He was of Hispanic descent, slick dark hair and bloodshot eyes, clearly drunk, a tattered red scarf tied around his neck. A few of the people who had stepped outside of the bar to watch the fight began to murmur, Sterling recognizing a handful of them.

  “Now, before I put this next bullet right between your eyes,” Sterling said, his weapon aimed at the gaiamancer, “I want to know what the hell is going on here.”

  “Shoot his goddamn ass, Sterling! He ain’t going to talk to ya! The damn fool!”

  “All in due time, Kip.”

  He knew that Kip was in excruciating pain, but like Sterling, the man had put enough Stat Points into his Resolve to be able to heal from the puncture wounds. Every ten points put in Resolve nearly doubled the recovery speed of a normal person. This didn’t include fatal wounds, like Sterling had given the Killbillies earlier, nor did it apply to a limb being completely severed, but even something debilitating like what Kip was going through was healable over time.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time,” Sterling said as the gaiamancer started to curl his fists. “You move a goddamn muscle, or try any of your little rocky road tricks with me, son, and I’ll give you a wound that you won’t be able to heal from.”

  “Sterling, you kill that motherfucker dead!”

  “I’ll kill him when I’m good and ready,” Sterling said. He didn’t know what their dispute was about just yet, but he would have bet what was left in his satchel of silver and turquoise that Kip had likely started the fight. “You ready to tell me what’s going on here, amigo?” Sterling asked. “¿Que pasó?”

  A tentacle made from asphalt rose from the ground.

  Schwap!

  It struck Sterling as if it were a bullwhip, his revolver flying out of his hand.

  “Hey!” he shouted, the sting catching him off guard. Sterling jumped just in time to avoid another enormous spike, the Hispanic gaiamancer now with his dark hair in his face as he conjured more of his stony creations.

  Cursing to himself for not just shooting the man to begin with, Sterling tried to circle around the man so he could cleave him down with his sickle-sword.

  “Damn good-for-nothing mancers,” he mumbled as he ran past a crumbled brick building, his boots clicking on the pavement as the concrete was torn away behind him. The ground shifted; a crack ran along the asphalt on the side of the street headed straight toward Ingo’s Café.

  “Don’t you dare!” Sterling skidded to a stop and changed his trajectory. More crags lifted from the pavement, destroying what was left of some of the buildings, street lamps falling like lumber.

  Sterling needed his gun and he needed it badly.

  He just so happened to catch a glimpse of the blackened revolver out of the corner of his eye, a strange turquoise color radiating off its barrel, the piece slowly sliding into the sewer beneath the town.

  No…

  Sterling whistled as loudly as he could and Manchester came running, his skeletal steed catching the gaiamancer off guard. Manchester collided with the man, giving Sterling a chance to grab his revolver before it slipped into the earth. Manchester reared up onto his two hind legs, and the gaiamancer was so distracted by the horse that he chose the wrong target. Rather than try to use one of his earth spikes to put an end to Sterling’s incoming assault, he focused on the horse instead, whipping Manchester away.

  Sterling tackled the man. They rolled around for a second, Sterling quickly getting the upper hand. He swatted the side of his revolver across the gaiamancer’s face twice, streaks of blood appearing.

  “That’s right, Sterling… Whoop his ass!” Kip shouted from his pinned position. “Shoot him dead!” One of the men watching the fight cheered for Sterling as well, the big man clapping his hands together and whooping.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t,” Sterling said, seething as he finally got the muzzle of his revolver under the gaiamancer’s chin. “Tell me, son. Use your words, goddammit.”

  The gaiamancer bared his bloodied teeth and spat in Sterling’s eye. Sterling fired a shot, but not before a giant hand made of concrete and asphalt wrapped around his body, Sterling firing several more shots as he was lifted into the sky.

  “Shee-it… shee-it…” Sterling said when he was about twenty feet up. He fired a few more shots. There wasn’t much that Sterling was afraid of, not an amalgamation, definitely not a Killbilly, and not even a Godwalker even though they could disintegrate him as quickly as he could light a match.

  But Sterling was deathly afraid of heights.

  “Let me down!” he shouted, already panicking as he tried to break free from the stone hand suspending him in the air. He reached forty-five feet, everything growing smaller beneath him as he caught a glimpse of the Killbillies over on the hill outside of town. He needed to get out of T or C, pronto.

  “Come on, Kip, do something,” Sterling said as he tried not to look down. He caught a quick glimpse of the tips of his cowboy boots, the ground moving further and further away. He started to feel queasy, his limbs tingling, Sterling’s breaths short and exaggerated now.

  The column of stone stopped advancing once Sterling reached about sixty feet up. He didn’t know how he was going to get down, and unless Kip or someone else could fly…

  The stone hand holding him high in the sky quaked.


  Sterling prepared for a drop that would probably take a day to recover from, if he survived at all. The rock began to crumble, gravity yanking Sterling down, the ground rushing toward him. He was saved at the last moment by one of the men who’d been watching the fight, the local springing into action and jumping high enough that he was able to catch Sterling in his arms.

  Sterling didn’t even know the man’s name, only that he had gotten drunk with him before, just a random face in the small crowd of booze hounds that called Truth or Consequences home.

  “You all right?” the man asked, his voice low and syrupy. He set Sterling down. The cowboy necromancer immediately set to dusting himself off, not at all embarrassed to be saved from a drop like that.

  “I ain’t a fan of heights,” Sterling mumbled, “and I ain’t afraid to admit that.” He glanced over to see that the gaiamancer was on his knees, still breathing, but out of Mana.

  “I’m taking this one,” Sterling called over to Kip, who now lay on his side, the thighs of his jeans drenched in blood. “I’ll make it quick,” he told the gaiamancer as he lifted his revolver and put an end to the man’s life with a single shot.

  Bam!

  Sterling holstered his weapon and turned to the local who had saved him from having to spend the next twenty-four hours or so healing from broken legs. Sterling extended his hand to the man. “Appreciate that save there. What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Noah,” he said.

  “Noah, huh? It’s nice to officially meet you. You can call me Sterling. I would stick around and buy you a bottle of tequila, but I got a hunch that the Killbillies ain’t gonna be too happy to see me here.” Sterling equipped his bag of turquoise and silver. He rummaged around in it for a moment and got enough out to buy Noah a bottle. “Get yourself a bottle on me, share it with whomever you’d like, and pourpour a shot out for this poor fella here,” he said, gesturing toward the dead gaiamancer, now lying on the ground, a halo of blood forming around his head.

  “Mighty kind of you,” Noah said.