Cowboy Necromancer: Infinite Dusk

by Harmon Cooper

  “I guess you ain’t as obvious as I am, even if it is a pronghorn you’re riding. People may think you just tamed it.”

  “I did tame him,” she said as she ran her hand along Watermelon’s neck, a few of her bracelets falling down to her elbow.

  Sterling took a big whiff of the air, as if he would be able to sniff the shaman out. “Don Gasper is here somewhere, and I don’t think it will be hard to find him. Let’s just see what the locals are saying.”

  They continued along the highway, around the occasional abandoned vehicle, and past a pink minivan with a giant golden phallus scrawled across its hood. One of the brick buildings had an image of white sand dunes painted on it, the mural weathered, which added to its character as it exposed the cayenne red of the brick. Sterling saw some familiar abandoned restaurants—a Pizza Hut, a Sonic, a McDonald’s—just as there had been in Truth or Consequences. The before people liked to eat, and they liked their food fast, carb heavy and full of meat. Sterling couldn’t really blame them for that. If he could eat meat more often, he probably would.

  As long as there were peppers.

  They had reached the center of Alamogordo without seeing a single soul. A boy stepped out of one of the buildings, the door creaking and slamming shut behind him. He couldn’t be older than ten or eleven, his long black hair all the way to the small of his back, his arm wrapped in gauze, the face of someone who had seen incredible hardship beyond his years.

  “Hey,” Sterling called out to him as he flicked his cigarette to the cracked asphalt. “Son, can you hear me?”

  The boy pressed on.

  “Son,” Sterling tried again, a bit louder.

  The kid kept walking to the other side of the street, where he was stopped in his tracks by a cactus with beautiful pink flowers on it that continued to grow in size.

  “We’re trying not to show people we have powers,” Sterling reminded the Sunflower Kid, but her gesture had worked, the boy finally turning to them.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Good. Hey,” Sterling said as he stepped up to the youth. “I’m looking for a shaman that goes by the name Don Gasper. Can’t miss him. Shirtless, with or without shoes, white beard, crazy look in his eye. You know him?”

  The kid nodded.

  “Well, where is he then? And what’s wrong with your arm?”

  The kid showed Sterling his injured arm, black blood visible beneath the bandages.

  “Damn, son, what the hell did you get yourself into?”

  Sterling watched as a vine lifted from the body of the Sunflower Kid’s cactus. The tip of the vine became razor-sharp, and it hovered before the youth for a moment, Sterling understanding what was about to happen. “You don’t mind if she takes a look at it, do you?” he asked.

  The boy glanced down at his infected arm, and then up to the cowboy necromancer, and from there to the Sunflower Kid, who was still seated comfortably on her pronghorn.

  “Don’t go telling no one, but she can heal it,” Sterling said, assuming that the boy hadn’t really had much of a chance to put points into his Resolve.

  The youth nodded. The Sunflower Kid’s razor-tipped vine carefully cut the gauze away, revealing a festering wound that spread from the boy’s bicep almost to his wrist. A leaf formed on the vine and it slowly began to smooth down the boy’s arm, the wound slowly fading away, his flesh turning pink. He looked up at the Sunflower Kid and smiled. With that, the boy stepped away, motioning for them to follow him.

  He led Sterling and the Sunflower Kid through what was once a parking lot, the lines that delineated the parking spaces barely visible now, bleached by the ever-present desert sun. They turned another corner and Sterling saw a line of people wrapping down a stairwell to the second floor of a ramshackle motel. The boy pointed at the motel.

  “I think we found our shaman,” Sterling said as the youth left, continuing on his way.

  The Sunflower Kid gracefully floated down from her pronghorn and joined Sterling, as if to remind him that he too could fly. Sterling grunted in response. They headed toward the line outside of the motel, the two having to pass a rusty blue dumpster that reeked of garbage, trash spilling out of it. They came to the back of the line, and were just about to make their way up the stairs when a one-eyed Mexican with teeth sharpened into points stopped them. “In line, like the rest.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Sterling told the man. “There’s a shaman in there named Don Gasper. He’s a friend of ours, and we traveled a long way to meet him here. He knows we’re coming.”

  “All these people traveled to meet him, ese.”

  Sterling was shaking his head when the Sunflower Kid approached, a plant tendril lifting from the ground beside her. People cleared out of the stairwell as the vine began wrapping around the railing, on its way toward Don Gasper’s room.

  “You can’t intimidate us, mancer,” the man said as he went for the big knife on his belt.

  Sterling swept his duster aside and placed his hand on his sickle-sword, its blade immediately glowing with turquoise energy. “I do believe we got ourselves a size difference here, amigo. Gasper knows who I am; he’s expecting me. You’re getting in the way—”

  A woman exited the hotel room and came to the banister, crouching as she observed the vine. She stood, and for a moment Sterling didn’t recognize her, not with her clothes on. Then it struck him. He was looking at Magdalena, the woman who had rubbed her painted body against Don Gasper back at the shaman festival.

  “Shee-it,” Sterling mouthed as Magdalena locked eyes with him. “Things just got complicated,” he said quickly to the Sunflower Kid.

  “Who’s she?”

  “Gasper’s lover and enemy, the one I told you about.”

  “You know about her too?” the man wielding the knife asked. “She’s fucking crazy, ese. Muy loco en la cabeza. But Gasper is okay.”

  “I figured as much. Put your knife away, and I’ll pretend you weren’t just pointing it at me. And clear these damn people out of here while you’re at it. The shaman shop is closed for the day. Trust me on this one. I’ve been dealing with one of them fools up in that room for the last five years. You’re doing yourself a goddamn favor by clearing the hell out of here. The less people around, the better.”

  Magdalena’s long sun-bleached brown hair was like a lion’s mane. She tilted her head as she looked at Sterling and the Sunflower Kid, and eventually motioned for them to join her in the bedroom. The Sunflower Kid took a step forward, and Sterling stopped her. “Let me roll a cigarette first. I should probably roll a joint too for Gasper.”

  The locals started to shuffle past, a few of them grumbling under their breaths, one of the children pausing as he looked at the pronghorn that had joined them.

  “That woman up there is certifiably insane. The whole reason for Gasper to even come to Alamogordo was to kill her. So if she’s in the hotel room with him, it can mean one of a couple of things. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess the damn fool is lovestruck again. Probably higher than a kite too.”

  Sterling looked up at Magdalena again, the woman gesturing for him to join her. He lifted a hand, letting her know that it was going to be a minute.

  “I should have known,” he said under his breath. “I should have fucking known.”

  .Chapter Four.

  Don Gasper’s room reeked of incense, patchouli, and some other herb that Sterling didn’t recognize. It was hazy inside, the space consisting of a king-sized bed that had been stripped of its frame, the sheets purple, the carpet emerald shag, a half-shattered mirror propped up against one of the walls. There was a milk crate of peyote buttons on the bed, and a series of cauldrons on the dresser filled with plants and liquids in mason jars. Gasper was seated in the center of the bed and draped in tie-dyed robes, a hood over his head, his beard sticking out.

  “You have visitors, my love,” Magdalena cooed. She was in a similar outfit to Gasper’s, which appeared to be clothi
ng that had been collected from various sources. Stitched together and tie-dyed, her sleeves hung well past her arms, dozens upon dozens of necklaces draped around her neck.

  Gasper slowly looked up at Sterling and pressed his hood off of his head. “I was wondering when you would arrive,” he said, his voice indicating that he was less intoxicated than Sterling figured he would be. Magdalena got on the bed and found a position in Gasper’s arms, her head in his lap as she too looked over at Sterling.

  Nope, I don’t like this one bit, Sterling thought as he tipped his hat to the old shaman.

  “Sunflower Kid, it is so wonderful to see you,” Gasper told Sterling’s counterpart. “I’ve been having dreams of you, you know, of sunflowers lifting from the desert. I told you this was a good sign,” he said to Magdalena as he ran his hand through her thick mane of hair.

  “You’re always right, my love.”

  Sterling grumbled as the two stared up at him like a pair of raccoons caught in the act.

  “I got a joint for you,” he finally said. “How’s about you step outside here and smoke with me? Hope you don’t mind, but I ran your groupies off.”

  “I’m quite comfortable where I am. You don’t mind if I smoke here, do you, dear?”

  “By all means,” said Magdalena. “As long as you share some with me.”

  “Gasper, I need to speak to you privately. No offense, ma’am,” he told the enchantress.

  Sterling didn’t know if Gasper had completed his quest to deal with the sorcerers that he claimed were trying to kill him. Perhaps Magdalena had helped him double-cross them, or perhaps they were still alive and she was about to double-cross him. He really didn’t know, but if he was going to get to the bottom of what he was witnessing, he was going to need a bit of privacy to do so.

  “I would like to show you something,” the Sunflower Kid said as she focused on Magdalena. “We can let them talk while I show you.”

  “Show me something?”

  The vine that the Sunflower Kid had grown from the asphalt below twisted into the motel room. Flowers began to form on it, various fruits as well.

  “Oh my,” Magdalena said, clearly never having seen a biomancer at work before. She scooted over to the fruit and plucked an apple from the plant, examined it, and finally took a bite, her eyes filling with satisfaction. Sterling nodded for Gasper to follow him and the old shaman obliged. He shuffled off the bed, and met Sterling at the door, the two making their way to the railing.

  “As promised,” Sterling said as he handed Gasper the joint he had rolled up. He lit it for him, and then he lit his own cigarette. “Blink twice if you’re being held hostage by the witch,” he said, joking, but with a hint of seriousness to his voice.

  “Magdalena is my lover, no? Do you remember me telling you this?”

  “From what I remember, you said she was trying to kill you.”

  “Then I guess she’s no longer trying to kill me,” Don Gasper said as he exhaled a cloud of gray smoke. He pushed his hood off his head. “Thanks for the mota.”

  “What happened to all those maleficiadores you said were partnered up with her?”

  Don Gasper turned, now leaning his back against the railing as he took a long drag off the joint. “What do you think happened? They’re dead now.”

  “So let me get this straight: you and Magdalena killed them all, and now you two are united, like a pair of star-crossed lovers or something. Am I reading the situation right?”

  “You aren’t reading it wrong, mi vaquero nigromante.”

  “Dammit, Gasper, I ain’t trying to get into any future bullshit.”

  “All you do is get into future bullshit, no? And what’s wrong with me taking a lover? You are going after your lover, are you not?”

  “Roxy and I ain’t like that, not after what happened three years ago.”

  “And what happened? You still have never been very clear about that day.”

  “I’m not the one on trial here, Gasper, you are.”

  “Trial? No one is on trial; life goes on and sometimes souls align. Surely you must understand this. Often, we have no control over our fate no matter how much force we hope to exert.”

  For some reason, this made Sterling think of Sierra, the pyromancer in Madrid who had already said she was interested in joining his cause. He hadn’t really thought what would happen once Roxy entered into the equation, how the two of them would get along. That remained to be seen. Sterling shook his head, focusing in on the conversation at hand. Leave it to Don Gasper to get me all twisted up, he thought as he ashed his cigarette over the railing.

  “So you trust her?”

  “¿Mi corazón? Of course, I trust her. El que con lobos anda, a aullar se enseña.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sterling said, having heard the phrase before. It was a proverb that translated to: he who runs with wolves will learn to howl.

  Don Gasper tapped the side of his head. “Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo.”

  “Yeah, heard that one too,” Sterling said. Gasper’s quote referred to the devil being wise because he was old, not because he was the devil, which was a saying on wisdom. “But you ain’t the devil, and you ain’t that much older than me.”

  “At least twenty years, no?”

  “I can’t believe I rode all the way down to Alamogordo to deal with your crazy shamanic ass,” Sterling said, a grin cracking across his face. Don Gasper started laughing, which turned into a wheezing cough. “Maybe you should let up on that joint.”

  “I just need some rest. I had a wild night last night, and the night before, and…” Gasper looked up at the sky and nodded. “Yes, the night before that. Many people died.”

  “You mean your enemies?”

  “So many enemies, so many bodies. You would have enjoyed it,” he said, pointing his joint at Sterling. “Lots of dead for you to animate, mi vaquero nigromante.”

  “Well, if your enemies are dead now, that’s one less thing we’re going to have to worry about. Although, if I’m being honest with you here,” Sterling said, lowering his voice, “I don’t know about that one in there.”

  “¿Por qué? The Sunflower Kid seems fine to me.”

  “What? No, I ain’t talking about her. I’m talking about Magdalena.”

  “Magdalena? Pfft. Don’t worry, we can trust her. In fact, it is because of her that I have some good news,” Gasper said, the smile on his face showing Sterling a set of yellow teeth. “She was the one that arranged the meeting, you know.”

  “Which meeting?”

  “With the people that are going to help us break into the Air Force Base, where the White Sands Militia is living. Where Roxy is.”

  “The former Air Force Base, huh? I figured that’s where the militia would be at. But who are these people you’re talking about?”

  “Don’t worry,” Gasper said, waving his concern away. “You aren’t the only one that considers the militia to be their enemies. Many of the locals hate them as well. They ran them out of town, you know.”

  “They ran them out of Alamogordo?” Sterling asked skeptically. “I find that hard to believe. It seems damn near impossible, considering the militia’s strength.”

  “Impossible? No, no, it’s possible. They did. You don’t see any of them here, not like Las Cruces.”

  “There ain’t nobody in this town, not enough to take on a militia.”

  “There is if they diverted most of their resources to Las Cruces,” Gasper said, once again pointing his joint at Sterling. “Don’t worry, we will make this happen. I told you I would help you.”

  “Did you? I thought it was me telling you that I would help you.”

  “I helped myself,” Don Gasper said with a shrug. “So now I have room in my life to help a dear old friend.”

  “Is that what we are?”

  “You, me, the Sunflower Kid, we were the first to meet, in Las Cruces.”

  “I remember.”

  “So you trust me then, no? For th
e rest of the day, you should relax. There are some empty rooms on that side of the motel,” he said, nodding toward a pair of doors in front of an empty pool half filled with sand. “There’s a restaurant not far from here, and a tavern. It’s nice. You can have some food, some libations, no? And tomorrow, we meet with the people we need to meet with, and make a plan.”

  “Why can’t we meet with them tonight?”

  “Magdalena has to set it up,” Gasper said. “She’ll need to leave town to do so. And return. Tomorrow is best.”

  “Why don’t we just go with her then? Save her the trip back.”

  “No,” Don Gasper said after a subtle nod. “I think it would be best to make sure everything is in order before we press on.” He clapped a hand against Sterling’s shoulder. “You should be excited. Soon, you will have your Roxy.”

  “She ain’t mine.”

  “But she was, and she will be happy to see you.”

  “You’ve met Roxy before,” Sterling told him. “You know that ain’t the case. She’s liable to try to punch my head off.”

  “No, I don’t see that happening. It was just a lovers’ quarrel, and while I am not an expert about these sorts of things, I have been in several myself. El pasado es el pasado, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, the past is the past.” Sterling flicked his cigarette to the ground below, and licked his teeth. “But that don’t mean it can’t haunt you.”

  “Nope, I don’t like it one bit,” Sterling said once he arrived at the room he would be staying in, which, among its stained walls and questionable droppings on the ground, featured a door that had been torn off its hinges connecting to the space where the Sunflower Kid would sleep.

  “The accommodations, or something else?” she asked. Watermelon was with her again, the pronghorn eating some brown grass jutting out of the curb.

  Sterling looked up to the second floor, where he saw Don Gasper passionately kissing Magdalena, the two of them floating a foot or so in the air.

  “Something ain’t right.”