Cowboy Necromancer: Infinite Dusk

by Harmon Cooper

  “Like Albuquerque?”

  “Yup, which I avoid like the plague.”

  “It’s crazy there; no way would I go to Duke City if I didn’t have to.”

  “You’re damn right it is, especially with all the gangs and vigilantes,” Sterling said, thinking of the Barelas Glyphs, the Old Town Toros, the Kirtland Airmen, and the Alta Monte Homecidos. Albuquerque was a war zone. “You remember that female I mentioned last night, Roxy?”

  “You said she was incredibly strong, part of your team.”

  “That’s my Roxy, and that’s who I fell in love with. There were six of us banded together—Roxy, Zephyr, the Sunflower Kid, Liam, Karina, and Yours Truly. But it didn’t matter in the end. We failed.”

  “And now you’re going to try again?”

  “To be honest with you, I would have been happy as a clam minding my own business for the rest of whatever godforsaken life I was cursed to live here in the great state of what was once New Mexico,” Sterling said, winking at the young man. “But them Godwalkers fucked with my property. They destroyed my pepper farm, a capital sin in my book, and if they could find my ass on the outskirts of Truth or Consequences, I knew they’d come looking for me even if I simply started over again. I’m done starting over, I’m done being trampled on, and I’m damn sure not going to let no aliens, bandits, militias, telemancers, or any other dubious grifters dictate how I am going to live my life. So we’re going to see what we can do about it this time around.”

  “And you think the Sunflower Kid will join you?”

  “The Kid? Sure, the Kid will join. It’s Roxy I’m worried about. We had a falling out,” Sterling said in a tone meant to tell Paco that he wasn’t going to be entertaining questions about what happened between the two of them. “Liam and Karina are dead, and then there’s Zephyr. God knows what she’s up to. Aeromancers, man, they’re just like the wind, and a breeze can be a good or a bad thing, if you get my drift. Hopefully, Don Gasper will be able to figure out where she is.”

  “But that only leaves four of you: you, the Sunflower Kid, Zephyr, and Roxy,” Paco said as they started up a rocky hill, Sterling’s eyes darting to a couple lizards that were basking in the morning sun. The sky was clear aside from a single white cloud on the horizon, which cast an epic shadow on the landscape. Sterling always liked the way this looked—it reminded him of the vastness of where he lived.

  “Yup, that particular part may be a problem. I’m going to need to recruit a few others. Maybe I need to go with lucky number seven rather than six like we had last time. I’ll need a technomancer, plus there is Raylan, the flectomancer, who I’m going to ask to join our cause. Either way, it ain’t going to be easy to find mancers willing to risk everything to try to bring down them Godwalkers. But they’re out there. “

  “I will join you,” Paco said, no hesitation whatsoever in his voice.

  Sterling slowed, Paco right next to him on a white horse with blips of red freckled across its coat. “You’re serious?”

  “If you are trying to stop these things, I would join you. They killed my parents right in front of me,” Paco said, his eyes twitching as he relived the memory. “I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to awake from a good dream covered in my parents’ blood. I would join you.”

  “What about your tribe? What about Abuela?”

  “It’s my choice. I’m going to be the Sun Chief, and if this is what I want to do, they won’t get in my way. Besides, one of the children you saw this morning is a mancer.”

  “Really?” Sterling asked. He had paid little to no attention to the two children that had joined them for breakfast, both looking to be under the age of five.

  “Yes, the boy is like me, a solimancer. So they have another.”

  “Damn,” Sterling said. “What are the odds of that? Two solimancers in one tribe?”

  “We are special people, us Hopi.”

  “That you are. I may take you up on your offer, but I still think you need to talk to Abuela first.”

  “I will talk to her.”

  “Good.” Sterling finished his cigarette and flicked it to the ground. “Let’s keep moving.”

  They came to the top of the mesa, the state highway somewhere off to their right now, the brown stone around them cascading down hillocks peppered in yellow shrubs, the occasional tree brave enough to grow out of a crack in a rock. Paco had told Sterling more about the cult during their trip, including that they had set up at the Abó ruins, a place that Sterling was instantly familiar with.

  The Abó ruins were part of what once was called the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, something he had read about extensively in his travel guide. The ruins dated back to the fourteenth century, when they operated as a major trading post. The Conquistadores eventually rode north from Mexico and turned Abó into a mission to convert the native Tiwa and Tompiro people, later doing the same at the Quarai and Gran Quivira pueblos, building on top of the stones of the historic sites. Kind of ironic, really, that what was once dust became the building blocks for something else, in this case the Culto Demente Sagrado and the female telemancer claiming she was Jesus.

  The cult’s structure was formidable, Sterling would give them that.

  They were about three miles away from it now and it loomed in the distance, completely enveloped in an enormous bright green cactus. Definitely the Sunflower Kid, Sterling thought as he rode toward the former ruins. He chewed on his lip for a moment, considering how he would get into the place. The odds were high that there were dead bodies between here and there, and he could use his Death Sense ability to find them. This would give him foot soldiers at his command. And obviously, at dusk or later would probably be the best time to approach the place, especially now that he had increased his sneaking skills.

  “Yup,” Sterling said to the running monologue in his head, one that Paco wasn’t privy to.

  “Is it the person you are looking for?”

  “I am pretty damn sure it is. Like I said, I’ve seen the Kid do something like this before. Never this large, but it has been several years, and the Sunflower Kid must have leveled up in that time.” Sterling took another look at the enormous cactus that wrapped around the Abó ruins. “Damn certain.”

  “Okay, then what? What will you do now?”

  “For one, it’s time for you to get on back to your pueblo. This here is a solo mission, Paco. I appreciate you taking me all the way out here, but I promised Abuela that I wouldn’t let you go any further.”

  “I can help.”

  “I’m sure you can, son, and I’m sure you would be mighty helpful in an endeavor like this. But I keep my promises. How about this? Once I deal with the Sunflower Kid and ride up the Turquoise Trail, I’ll loop back down this way if I can. I got to go south anyhow to get to White Sands. You can talk to your people, and if they agree, you can come join us. But only if they agree. Because the kind of things I’m planning to do… some would consider them suicide missions. Now, I don’t quite consider them that, I consider them necessary evils, things that must be done. But you should know going in that it ain’t going to be easy, there’s a good chance you’ll die. A great chance, actually. I’ll give you some time to think about that, and talk to your people.”

  “Fine…” Paco said after a long pause.

  “Now, get going.” Sterling motioned the rim of his cowboy hat toward the west.

  “What about the man in white? What if he comes around again?”

  “If the man in white comes around again…” Sterling looked up at the sky, the sun high overhead, a hawk circling above them. “How about this? You tell that sorry son of a bitch that I’m looking for him, and if he wants to make it easy for me, meet me in Alamogordo, down near the White Sands desert. I ain’t about to have no bounty hunter trying to snuff me out. Al diablo con él. Tell him I said that,” Sterling huffed. He didn’t like the fact that there was a bounty hunter looking for him, and he also didn’t like the fact that this man in white was
going around showcasing the fact, trying to intimidate folk. The sooner he got the bounty hunter off his back, the better.

  “Okay, I guess then… good luck,” Paco said.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” Sterling told the young man as he started to trot away.

  He waited a good five minutes to make sure Paco was actually gone. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, Sterling drank some water from a jug in his inventory list, rolled up a cigarette, and lit it as he started off toward the cultists’ compound. It was about ten minutes later that a feminine voice appeared in his head. At first the voice was faint, Sterling thinking it was the wind or something. But as he neared the compound, it grew increasingly louder:

  This is the story of the heavens and the earth when they were made, and the day the Lord God made the earth and heavens. Now no shrub of the field was yet on the earth. No plant of the field had started to grow. For Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth. And there was no man to work the ground…

  “Shee-it,” Sterling mumbled, realizing instantly that it was the telemancer. What sounded like a Bible quote quickly morphed into something else.

  Come, my child, to the river flowing out of Eden. Come to have your garden watered. Wake up as if you were asleep, call to the birds of the sky and every animal of the field. Give me your ear, my child, and come to the land of Havilah, where there is gold, food, shelter, a land without sin, the snake vanquished. Come to me, my child, come to your Lord Jesus…

  Sterling stopped riding.

  Why have you stopped, my child? It is not good for man to be alone. Come, join us, we will become one flesh, together we will rebuild. Together, we will birth a new Eden, we will replant the tree of life in the heart of this desert.

  He started to turn Manchester around.

  An urge within him beckoned the cowboy necromancer forward, one that he could barely control. “Git!” he shouted to his skeletal steed, and the horse galloped faster away from the voice. He knew if he moved any closer to the outer walls of the compound that he would give in to the telemancer. It was instinctual at this point. The telemancer was much stronger than the last one he had encountered.

  Do you not trust me, my child? Do you not realize what will happen if you leave? the feminine voice asked in his head, growing in agitation. Your eyes have been opened and now they must be closed. You are the snake! You will spend the rest of your days on your stomach eating dust and suffering!

  “Fuck off, lady,” Sterling mumbled as he veered north, the woman’s voice growing dimmer with each passing moment. He wasn’t going to be able to get near the compound if it had a telepathic shield around it, that much was for sure. But he knew who to talk to about it, someone who could perhaps conjure up a device that would help him break the telemancer’s hold.

  At least he hoped this was the case.

  .Chapter Four.

  Sterling continued on, Interstate 25 a few miles off to his left, riding in what would later be the shade of a long string of mountains with hazy tops, shrubs and cacti crowning their bases. It was still a clear day, the air crisp, the elevations slowly ticking upward as he grew closer to what was once Colorado. He had no idea how the Centennial State had fared after the Reset, and he wasn’t looking to find out. He just needed to find Raylan, and circle back down to the cult to rescue the Sunflower Kid from the telemancer claiming to be Jesus.

  “It always is something. Ain’t that right, Pingo?” Sterling asked his skeletal steed. Manchester trotted along at a good pace, not quite at top speed, steady enough that Sterling could eat a dried pepper and smoke a cigarette, which was a strange combination indeed. His eyes were as much on the horizon as they were on the interstate, Sterling hoping to come across a trading post before exiting onto the Turquoise Trail, staying as clear as he could of Albuquerque.

  “No point sticking my head where it don’t belong,” he mumbled, Sterling’s running dialogue with himself keeping him entertained during the ride north. He was fairly certain he wouldn’t hit Madrid until tomorrow, which meant he was going to need to camp out somewhere for the night.

  Oftentimes, the trading posts set in the abandoned buildings along the highway had lodging. Some of them had even morphed into small pockets of civilization with taverns, restaurants, even a local militia group to keep the riffraff out. Sterling didn’t know exactly what he would find, it had been years since he rode north, but he knew as long as he followed the Rio Grande River, the lifeblood of civilization in New Mexico times past and times current, that he’d find something.

  Cigarette in his mouth, a cloud of smoke trailing behind him as he exhaled deeply, Sterling turned Manchester toward the river which ran along the interstate, the two practically parallel at points. Civilization was a wound on the desolate landscape, some of it now a scab, other parts still festering, a patina of what once was. Things that weren’t abandoned were looted, knocked over, or exploded, shells of what they used to be. If there was still hope, it was in the form of plant life, which had taken over some of the structures, old trailers, shipping vehicles with deflated tires, scattered detritus hidden by clumps of cactus, rodents and insects and snakes and jackrabbits all watching as a man in all black rode on by, perched atop a bone horse.

  This was the way, this was the world that Sterling knew, beyond a far cry from the world from whence he came as indicated in his driver’s license photo, the home once shared with a wife and a child in Las Cruces. Even though his mind was still focused on what he planned to do, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was a family out there waiting for him somewhere, even though he knew this was a futile thought. Were they even alive? And if they were, how would they know who he was? Sterling had certainly changed over the last five years, as had anyone who had survived the Reset. Was there really a point in digging up an old grave?

  Sterling smirked. That’s what I do best, he thought as he grew nearer to the Rio Grande River.

  He rode until he saw a teenage boy dragging a cart with a jug of water on it. He approached the youth, and whistled at him to get his attention.

  “You know we got inventory lists, right?” Sterling asked in a friendly voice.

  The teenager looked up at him, his face covered in scars, the scars black with soot. He wore a jean jacket that had been patched up with an American flag, his hair the color of dirt, his knees like baseballs, legs like broom handles. He didn’t look quite malnourished, but he definitely wasn’t far off. If the youth thought anything about Sterling’s bone horse, he didn’t say anything.

  “Well? Can you hear me, son? You mute or something?”

  “I can hear you, mister,” the youth said.

  “Anything I should know about this area? A trading post? Hostiles to avoid?”

  “Bosque is that way,” the kid said, pointing to the south. “And Los Chavez that way.”

  “I got a map, what I’m asking here’s if there’s anything I should be aware of.”

  “You mean like Killbillies?”

  “Now we’re talking. And since you know who they are, you seen any of them boys?”

  “I saw some, mister. Heading north.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. A group on ATVs.”

  “Fair enough. They bother you?”

  The teenager nodded.

  “They kill any of your kin?”

  “No, but they hurt my friend.”

  “Well, don’t you worry none. I’ll find them, and when I do, our world will have a few less Killbillies. Say, you ain’t happen to see a man in all white, have you?”

  “I saw him.”

  “Was he with the Killbillies?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  The youth shook his head.

  “Ain’t much for words, are you, son?” Sterling asked, once again trying to go light with his tone.

  “Why talk?”

  “I guess you’re right about that. What about a trading post—is there one with lodging somewhere? I ain’t
trying to go to Albuquerque, and I’ll probably cut through the countryside to get back onto the Turquoise Trail.”

  “Los Lunas has a trading post, real big, run by people from the Isleta Pueblo.”

  “Isleta Pueblo…” Sterling got out his travel guide and located a map of central New Mexico. He found Los Chavez along the highway, Los Lunas not too far from it and right next to the pueblo. “Who’s living at that pueblo?”

  “Tiwas.”

  “Good enough for me. Well, anyway, I owe you one.” Sterling sent his travel guide back to his inventory list and retrieved his satchel of silver and turquoise. He selected a piece of silver that used to be part of a bracelet, a small hunk of turquoise lodged in it. “This is for you,” he told the youth. “And if anyone comes around asking if you’ve seen a man in all black riding a bone horse, what are you going to tell them?”

  The boy spat. “I ain’t seen shit.”

  “Good. It’s a pleasure doing business with you. Before I go, let me ask you, why are you dragging that cart anyway when you could just put the water in your inventory list?”

  “To become stronger,” the youth said without skipping a beat. “Cousin said it’ll make me stronger.”

  “I like your style, son. Keep it up, maybe we’ll all survive this together. But probably not.”

  The boy smirked.

  Sterling tipped his hat to the youth, and rode on.

  The trading post in Los Lunas was hard to miss. Set in what was once a grand gas station, the complex had grown to include a tavern, horse stables, a restaurant, and even a flectomancer shop, where Sterling saw a couple of natives tinkering with an ATV with the ominous letters KB spray-painted on its side paneling.

  He collapsed his bone horse, sending Manchester to his inventory list along with his saddle. No one had seen him yet, Sterling slightly hidden by scree that they had dynamited from a bluff long ago to create the highway. He approached on foot from there, the wind blowing through the ends of his black duster, a cigarette in his mouth, the shadow of his hat covering his eyes.