Gruesome and confusing.
Later on, Sterling rolled a couple of cigarettes during a quick rest break and drank some more water. He didn’t know exactly where he was heading, but his plan was to ride until it became dark. There weren’t a lot of places to stop along the way, but if he saw a trading post, he would check it out, hoping for a charm or two, and perhaps a hot meal and some lodging. After all, he was flush with silver and turquoise, the money practically burning a hole in his inventory list.
“Sunflowers grow on the airy side of the mountain. Head north,” Sterling mumbled as he mounted up and turned back to the highway. “We’ll figure all this damn riddle out,” he told his skeletal steed. “Just you wait, boy.”
Sterling rode for hours, took another quick break to relieve himself, and continued on his way, Manchester always able to gallop at his top speed without experiencing fatigue. They passed plenty of signs, some better off than others, pointing to cities that used to exist yet were likely ghost towns by now. Most of the towns had Spanish names—Socorro, Bosquecito, Escondida—but there were a few other names thrown in there that didn’t seem to fit the landscape, a red vein in the turquoise, as it were, names like Tiffany, Bingham, Adobe Ranch, all abandoned aside from a few dirt bikes swirling around a trailer in Socorro that Sterling planned to avoid.
This particular area of south-central New Mexico was as historically famous as it was desolate, the area once home to the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, which Sterling had read about a year ago in a book he borrowed from Ingo. You never knew what a pig would do until you poked it, and the Spaniards found this out the hard way after over a hundred years of soldiers, missionaries, settlers, and disease had riled up the Puebloans.
The 1680 Revolt was over security, the Spaniards not able to protect the Puebloans from the nomadic Apache, which led the tribes to turn to other means, namely sorcery. Any thoughts of magic not related to Jesucristo didn’t sit well with the Spanish governor at the time, who arrested all of the medicine men, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Sterling remembered thinking which side he would have been on after reading the history of the revolt. It wasn’t that hard to pin Sterling down when it came to the invasion of his property, be it from a group of dimwitted bandits or an unknown alien force. He would have been there front and center with Popé, the Tiwa man who had planned and orchestrated the 1680 Revolt. Sterling wouldn’t have bought what Popé used to incite fervor amongst the natives—that driving out the Spanish would please their ancient gods—but he would have fought tooth and nail anyway, Sterling always down for a good scuffle if it was the right thing to do.
Like all revolts, the 1680 Pueblo Revolt eventually ended, driving people out of the Socorro area for well over a hundred years due to the Spaniards’ inability to protect against the constant raids of the Apache. Spain’s rule over New Mexico ended, making way for the country of Mexico to take ownership of the territory, which brought in new tools and provisions to the central region, settlers looking for farmland.
Why they chose Socorro was beyond Sterling. The area was desolate, flat, and surrounded by mesas and a couple of rocky mountains, by no means a fertile valley, simply a place in the middle of nowhere. But there was something peaceful about it, something otherworldly. Maybe that was the appeal.
Sterling smirked at this thought as he passed a sign pointing to a small village known as Polvadera. The homes seemed mostly abandoned, but Sterling had a feeling that there would be squatters there, perhaps a trading post a little bit closer to the Rio Grande River, which could have been christened the Nile of New Mexico for all intents and purposes. Anywhere the river went, there was life.
Another few hours and the sun started to set, the landscape painted in colors of amethyst and marmalade that would be breathtaking to someone who didn’t see it every day. More birds continued south, the highway empty aside from abandoned vehicles or the occasional critter crossing to the other side. Anyone who knew what was good for them was settling in for the night, Sterling just about to do the same when he noticed something bright on the horizon near what used to be the village of Alamillo. It flared up again like a firefly.
He stopped for a moment, licking his dry lips as he examined it. “Well, what do you think?” he asked his skeletal steed. “How stupid would it be for me to go to see what all that light is all about? You’re right, I’d be a dumbass to go and poke my head where it don’t belong. Heh. Maybe it’s aliens. Last I checked, we’re a ways away from Roswell.” He examined the light for another minute or so. “Fuck it, let’s go.”
Sterling headed toward the glow, which he estimated was about five miles away. The wind whipped through his hair as he rode, the cowboy necromancer already sensing the drop in temperature as that desert night cool painted across the landscape. Manchester slowed his gallop as they grew closer to the light. It was coming from a mile or so off the highway, Sterling instantly recognizing the structure as a pueblo. Did it have electricity? How was it producing so much light?
Sterling approached the adobe structure and hopped off his horse. He was just about to send Manchester’s bones to his inventory list when a scrawny young fellow stepped out of the pueblo. Sterling looked to the top of the structure to see that there were several men, all with rifles aimed at him.
“I ain’t here for trouble,” Sterling said, keeping his hands where they could see them. “Y’all natives? I’m assuming so, considering how you’re living in this here pueblo. I got me a seal here from—”
The young man’s eyes started to glow, which triggered a sudden flash of warmth through Sterling’s body. It felt like his insides were boiling, and it wasn’t seconds later that he had fallen to one knee, his heart racing, his temperature rising, his skin on fire from the inside. Sterling wanted to get his weapon but he no longer had control over his own muscles. It felt like his body was melting, the feeling finally leaving after he heard someone tell the young man to stop.
“I got a seal…” Sterling managed to say, and rather than go for his weapon, he simply equipped the piece of paper with the wax seal on it, and dropped it onto the dirt in front of him. He’d never felt his heart beat so quickly. “I… don’t mean no harm,” he said to the young man, who was clearly a mancer.
“Skeleton Man, why have you come here?” asked an older woman who stood beside the young man.
“Hold on a moment… ma’am… just let me catch my breath here,” Sterling said, his eyes clenched shut. “I come in peace, I’ll tell you that. Look at the seal.”
“Paco, don’t harm him. Not yet,” said the older woman.
Sterling heard the men atop the pueblo slowly lower their rifles.
“What the hell did you do to me, son?” Sterling looked up at the mancer whom he assumed was named Paco. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-three, clearly of native descent, his hair long and dark, bangs nearly hanging over his eyes. He was skinny and sinewy, the young man in a pair of overalls, no shirt underneath, his muscles tight, the light from inside the pueblo reflecting off his tanned skin.
“You got the bone horse?” the elderly woman asked.
“Him? He just follows me around,” Sterling said, trying to make light of the situation. This didn’t seem to work, the old woman still with a hint of coldness to her voice.
“You are the Skeleton Man, no?”
“I’ll be honest with you, ma’am, I don’t know who that is. Never heard of no Skeleton Man. Look, I got Don Gasper’s seal. Did you see it?” Sterling pointed toward the piece of paper with the wax seal on it.
Paco took a step forward and retrieved the piece of paper, which he brought back to the elderly woman.
“Don Gasper, eh?” she asked after she examined the seal.
“Don’t tell me you hate him too…”
“He’s the brujo from Las Cruces.”
“Shit, the one and only,” Sterling told her. “Pardon my language, I’m not used to having my insides heated up like a tortilla.”
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“Skeleton Man, this is my grandson, Paco. He’s a solimancer.”
Solimancer? Everything made sense now. Sterling had never encountered a solimancer before, but he knew that they wielded power over heat and light. It explained how the pueblo was lit up, and it also explained what Paco had done to Sterling.
“Like I said, I don’t know who Skeleton Man is, but I assume you’re calling me that because I have a bone horse. I have an actual name; it’s Sterling. And in case you’re wondering, the horse’s name is Manchester.”
“Vaquero nigromante, that’s what Don Gasper called you,” the old woman said.
“Sounds about right. He likes to call me that, but I don’t like the name. For one, I ain’t no cowboy, although I guess I sort of look the part. Anyway, Sterling will do just fine. What about you? What should I call you?”
“We are from the Hopi tribe,” the woman said, gesturing toward the pueblo. “This is where we live. You may call me Abuela. Everyone here calls me this.”
“Nice to meet you, Abuela,” Sterling said as he took a look up at the pueblo. He tipped his hat to the men that still stood along its roof. “Pardon me for asking, but did you say Hopi? Y’all are a long way from Arizona, ain’t you?”
“Our medicine men in Arizona had a vision for our group to honor my grandfather,” Paco said. “My grandfather, Don Talayesva, was the Sun Chief. After the Reset, this is where we came to start over.”
“His grandfather, my late husband, was Sun Chief. Que su alma descanse en paz,” she said under her breath, which Sterling recognized as a prayer for her deceased husband’s soul. “And now, our Paco is the sun. Give him his seal back, Paco.”
“Yes, Abuela.” Paco approached Sterling, still a bit hesitant to interact with him.
“Don’t worry,” Sterling said, “I don’t bite.”
“You have the power of a god, yet you joke?” Paco asked, genuinely confused.
“Shee-it, any god not laughing at a time like this ain’t no god to me.”
This statement forced a smile on Paco’s grandmother’s face. “You seem to share Don Gasper’s dark sense of humor, Skeleton Man.”
“To be frank with you, ma’am, I never found the old bastard to be that funny,” Sterling said. “I don’t know what that says about myself.” Once again, he glanced at the men that were standing atop the pueblo, still clutching rifles. “Are them boys going to lighten up anytime soon?”
“Over time, but they won’t bother us for now,” said the elderly woman. “Come inside. You can rest here for tonight. There’s much to discuss.”
“About what?” Sterling asked.
“We can talk about why I call you Skeleton Man, for one. Something else too.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Maybe someone is looking for you,” Paco said. “And he damn sure wasn’t as friendly. Didn’t joke neither.”
“Someone is looking for me?”
“We’ll explain inside,” Abuela said, ushering him in.
“In that case, let me just take care of my horse here.” Sterling approached Manchester. He placed his hand on the horse and the bones collapsed to the ground, his saddle resting atop the pile. He sent it all to his inventory list, adjusted his jeans, smoothed his hands over his duster, and finally fixed his cowboy hat. “Lead the way, amigo,” he told Paco.
The Hopi pueblo was made of sandstone blocks, the clay mortar binding the blocks together and giving off an earthy scent. Sterling could hear the shuffle of moccasined feet above him, and as they came into the next quarter, he got a whiff of juniper smoke coming from an inner courtyard.
Sterling had been invited into a pueblo three years ago, during his last journey across the state of New Mexico in the hopes of bringing down the Godwalkers. But he had never been invited into one of their kivas, an underground ceremonial chamber used by various Pueblo tribes. He was both surprised and humbled as the elderly woman led him deeper into the complex, where they eventually came to a set of stairs carved into the ground. She used Paco for support as she went down, the space instantly illuminated by the solimancer.
Paco and his grandmother sat on the ground, Sterling trying not to gawk at the various kachinas painted on the walls. He wanted to make it seem as if he had been in a place like this before, even if he hadn’t, so he ignored the intricate paintings made from black, white, and red ink, Sterling’s sole focus being the two seated before him. Once he was settled on the ground, his boots crossed under his body, he placed his hand on his knee and waited for Abuela to speak.
“Yes, yes,” she said, nodding as she took him in. “You are the Skeleton Man. Aren’t you?”
“I ain’t nobody, and regarding my power, it’s just something I can do. Just like your grandson here, how he can control heat, how he’s a solimancer. Same thing.”
“He’s the grandson of the Sun Chief,” she said, looking up at the ceiling, her eyes a bit glassy, “that explains his power. Do you know Masau’u?”
“One of your kachina?” Sterling asked, going with a logical guess as he gestured toward the inner walls of the kiva, to the painted figures. He noticed how the room was illuminated. The light wasn’t coming from Paco; rather, it was coming from rocks placed in the four corners of the room that seemed to have been charged in a way. Sterling recognized them as crystals upon further examination. The youthful solimancer had control over his skill which gave him a fairly large radius of influence. It was impressive, to say the least.
“We Hopi don’t say kachina,” Paco told him, “we say katsina. But that is okay. How did you know that word?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time over the last five years leafing through, looking at travel guides about New Mexico, and I’ve also stumbled upon a few that dug a bit deeper into our native roots. You can’t find a travel guide that doesn’t mention the pueblo natives, mostly for tourist reasons, to entice the before people to visit the Land of Enchantment. I haven’t been able to find too many books on the state’s history, however, aside from a couple that include it as part of the history of the entire Southwest. That, and a middle school textbook with more pictures than text. It kind of feels like we are overshadowed when it comes to history by our neighbor Texas, and I don’t quite know why. Lot more magical here.”
“Pinche Texas,” said Abuela.
“I don’t disagree with you there, ma’am. I only had a run in with some Texas boys once, years ago. To be honest, I’m surprised to see the Rangers haven’t moved up into the White Sands desert and beyond, but maybe they have their own bandits and militias to contend with around El Paso. Hell, maybe they are the bandits. I don’t know. You want my personal opinion? What was once New Mexico might as well just be an island. Every place around us, it’s like it don’t exist. I hope that makes sense.”
“So you are the Skeleton Man,” Abuela said, once again smiling at him. Sterling noticed in the light that she had few whiskers on her face, the elderly woman in a long flowing dress and a puffy blue jacket over it that had been patched up. “Masau’u set the boundaries long ago, Paco,” she said to her grandson, “and it’s like he does so again.”
“I’m guessing this Masau’u you keep referring to is the same person as Skeleton Man, right? Which one of these here fellas are we talking about?” Sterling asked as he once again gestured to the walls. He made sure not to point directly at any of them, just in case that would offend the two in some way.
“That one.” Paco motioned toward a painting of a man in tribal clothing, his face hidden by a mask that resembled a skull for the Día de los Muertos celebration. The man wore black moccasins and multicolored leggings covered by a skirt made of yucca. Draped around his shoulders was a cloak interspersed with patterns and stripes, something about it reminding Sterling of the mesas that dotted the Southwestern landscape, albeit upside down. The areas around his eyes and mouth were accentuated, and there were dots along his darkened skull, yellow, evergreen, red, and sticks jutting out of the back of his head.
&
nbsp; “I guess we do look alike,” Sterling said, which caused Paco’s grandmother to laugh. He removed his cowboy hat. “Aside from the fact that I got more hair than he does.”
Seeing that his grandmother was loosened up around Sterling caused Paco to do the same, the young man also chuckling quietly to himself. “And he don’t have no cowboy boots.”
“He sure don’t. So this is who you think I am? Skeleton Man? Is it because I’m a necromancer?”
“Masau’u is the Hopi god of death,” Abuela explained. “He is the one who led the Hopi people to this region of the world. You see, long ago, the Hopi people lived underground, where it was dark and cold, no sunshine. The people began to look for fire and wood, but they could find little in the underworld, so they were forced to live in the cold. They sent messengers out to find a new place to live, and one of these messengers was a bird named Motsi. Motsi found Masau’u surrounded by fire, the world bright and yellow, corn and beans and watermelon growing in fields all around him. Motsi told Masau’u that he had come in search of a new home for his people, and Masau’u, the Skeleton Man, invited the Hopi to join him, as long as they were willing to live in poverty, and share a life of both beauty and strife here in the desert. His direct quote went something like this: ‘Now this is the way I am living here. I am living here in poverty. I have not anything; this is the way I am living here. Now if you are willing to live here that way too, with me and share this life, why come, you are welcome.’ That’s what he told the bird, Motsi, and that’s what Motsi told the Hopi people to convince them to leave the underworld.”
“That simple, huh? And you think that’s me?” Sterling asked, trying not to sound skeptical.
“Yes.”
Sterling was quiet for a moment. He wasn’t about to argue with the elderly woman out of respect, but he definitely had some doubts about what she was saying. He knew who he was. He’d even seen the photo, his old driver’s license picture of the man he used to be, and he remembered waking up after the Reset in a neon vest, likely some type of road worker. “That’s all well and good,” he finally said, ready to move the conversation along, “and we can get deeper into that later.”
Cowboy Necromancer: Infinite Dusk Page 24