Heat was a force of nature one had to accept in the New Mexico desert. Sun blisters dotted the necks of the townsfolk of Milton, and a lackadaisical atmosphere was disturbed by a posse stampeding down the streets.
The Samford mob, made of the cousins of the patriarch Samford had just caught and lynched three men. Their crimes were unspoken, yet well understood by the men and women of the town. Sheriff Jebidy, a former gunslinger, and still a fast draw went out from the shade of his office to meet the posse.
Seated on their horses still, the men of the murderous gang didn’t climb down, as they saw the worn yet steely eyes of the lawman march to stand at a good shooting distance.
“Samford, you and the rest of your mob are under arrest.” There was no hesitation in his voice, no hint of humor, and he had his thumb on the grip of his colt 45.
Eyeing the deputies who remained in the office, Samford senior rubbed his chin, and tried to gauge the situation.
“By yourself?” one of Samford’s youngest son’s chuckled at that, but an older one slapped him upside the head. He was too young to understand that even though he was graying, Sheriff Jebidy learned to shoot with the best of the best. Legends of their times fought with and against their sheriff, and they were lucky to have him in office.
“I ain’t come out here to kill anyone, lest I have to. Now get off your horses, all of you, you’re under arrest for three counts of murder.” The eyes of the mob looked at Samford as they heard the firm order by the lawman.
“Now look here Edd, you may be sheriff but we got rights—” Samford was caught off by a harsh scolding tone by Jebidy as if he was a naughty boy.
“—Damnit Samford, they were three kids who robbed a stagecoach. No killing, just robbery, they would still be young when they got out, but you took what is only the Lord’s will to take or give. You liquored up your sons and cousins, and rode out of here without even waiting for me to get my britches one, and you come back expecting a hero's welcome? You’re a murderer and I’m taking you all in!”
Anger flared in Samford’s face. “Why you son of a—” he tried to quickly draw, but Jebidy with the speed of the devil, shot the patriarch through the heart.
A sudden contorting pain shot through his body, as his hand clawed out, straining hard, before his whole body went limp and he fell over his saddle. Scared, the youngest son tried to ride off but Jebidy shot him in the back, killing him in one shot.
The young man fell over his saddle and was trodden on by his own horse.
Anger, grief, and frustration flushed on the eldest son’s face, his brothers and cousins were confused, unsure how to handle the situation. Some wanted to draw but were too afraid of being gunned down. Four bullets was all he had, but no one wanted to die—they didn’t have the stomach to play that risky game.
Eventually they were led to the jail, and all of them were crammed into the one cell the town had. Faces pressed against the bars, as the brick interior kept them firmly in the confined space. Sheriff Jebidy after putting away the cell keys looked over his three deputies.
“You two are fired.” he pointed to the more laxed of his former employees. One crossed arm, leaning on the far wall, and the other had his boots up on his desk, as he leaned back in his chair. Shock was on their face as he singled them out for termination. “You.” he pointed to the shameful looking young lad who was clearly guilty for his cowardice. “You watch the cells, and make sure these two turn in their guns and badges, I’m going to the saloon.”
Before he heard the young man respond he left the sheriff’s office and strolled over to the Dry Horse Saloon just across the street. The sun was especially hot that day, and no one dared go out of the shade unless they were getting something to wet their whistle. Walking into the swinging doors, the sheriff saw a calm poker game being held in the corner, with four regulars seated there, a stranger seated at the bar, as Jules the owner was serving him shot glasses of bourbon.
Seemingly out of nowhere the rodent-like Kurt Damsey of the local newspaper snuck up on him, startling him as he was bombarded with questions. “Howdy Sheriff, did you regret killing Samford and his boy? Is the town paying for his coffin? When’s the funeral? How long do you think the judge will give them? Or will they hang? Sheriff—” Edd Jebidy pinched closed the lips of the newspaper man.
“I just came in here for a beer. Not to be interrogated so you can sell outhouse paper!” he roughly pushed aside the man, who nearly sprawled out on the floor.
That made the men at the poker game laugh. “Still the fastest gun around here, eh Sheriff?” commented on the men as he examined his freshly dealt hand.
Jebidy modestly tried to conjure a response, but was cut off by the stranger.
“I am.” as he downed a shot glass, the mirror above the bar reflected the cold face of the stranger.
“What’s that friend?” asked one of the men at the poker table, asking the question everyone wanted to ask, as no one believed they heard him right.
“I am the fastest gun here.” repeated the stranger as he tilted his thick, black leather sombrero, showing off his milky white eyes. Betraying his handicap, the stranger despite being blinder than a bat in a snowstorm, his pale, dead eyes focused on the Sheriff.
“Who says so?” Sheriff Jebidy spoke in the tone of a man with a wounded ego. Never had his reputation of speed been questioned in town before.
“The man who hired me to kill you.” answered the stranger, who turned on his barstool to reveal a row of six shot glasses, all empty. Deftly before anyone could respond, the blind man displayed his dexterous coordination, of flipping the glasses perfectly upside down in a straight row, in smooth rapid movements.
Much like a gunman fanning his revolver, the blind man had shown his exact hand movements at a speed that befuddled those that witnessed it.
“This better be a joke of some kind, cause if I warn you—” Sheriff Jebidy stammered and went silent when he saw the blind stranger rise to his feet, and stroll to stand opposite of him; pale eyes were affixed to a narrow face akin to a snake.
Faint shades of blue were on his lips, that softly spoke ill omens and were then closed, for he was done talking.
Wind blew in the street, kicking up dust. The church was closed, but you could hear the priest’s daughter start playing the organ, towering, triumphant notes that filled the quiet, hot day. A child playing with his ball in the shade, missed his catch as he bounced it off the bank wall, it rolled out into the street. Rushing to get it, he picked it up but heard a deafening—crack!
Straightening up, the boy felt his body get rigid as if he were a corpse in a coffin. Shaking in his shoes, his eyes were somehow transfixed on the saloon doors. Inside there was some commotion but no further gunshots, and through the doors what the boy believed was a demon. Putting on tinted spectacles the sun reflected off them as if a ghostly light was shining out his eyes, much like a cat's eyes looking at you from the darkness.
The boy watched as the stranger in black went to his ebony horse, untying it, he leapt on its back, and before anyone knew what happened the stranger sped off into the distance.
***
Devil’s Gulch was a secluded place, haunted by the spirits of an old Indian battle, it was a place left forgotten, except for scorpions and sun bleached bones. Those that came there, came there to conduct business or throw a body into a black pit.
A blind gunman rode his horse into the gulch, and sensing an uneasiness made sure his gun was loaded, and ready. Walking cautiously, he felt around with his thick, black leather boots, using the vibrations of the ground to guide him, keeping his ears perked for the hissing of a rattler, or a hammer being pulled back on a pistol.
Climbing a steady slope, he could hear the nervous breathing of bushwhackers in the rocks ahead, and their boots grinding into the dirt. Taking what he felt was cover against the suspicious sounds, he called out against the growing wind.
“Burcher, I want my money. Don’t try anything or you’ll be dead.” the blind man spoke sternly.
“Don’t go talking to me about death, blind man.” echoed out a voice from a perch high in the rocks. “You must've known this was—” Burcher said enough, his words carried enough to pinpoint his location to the blind man’s keen ears. Crack!
A bullet caved in his forehead, and sent him falling down, tumbling down the rises of sand, till his carcass was swarmed by ravenous scorpions.
Crack! Crack! Blam! Blam! Crack!
A storm of bullets stormed down on the blind man’s rocky rover, the bullets tore into the rockface, sending bits of debris scatter in all directions. From the ringing of gunfire, he could hear something, the shifting of sand from above, the distinct movements of someone handling a rifle.
Pointing his revolver skyward he fired and shot off the nose of someone who tried to ambush him from above. As he listened he heard the man cry out blood filling his nasal passages, as he scrambled about trying to retrieve his rifle, which dropped into the path of a rattler.
The shaking of the tail was distinct enough to be picked out even in a church choir. A sound of a sharp hiss, a shriek of agony and horrific realization, and finally the contorting finality of death. After there was a definite pause in gunfire, as he heard his attackers rush to reload their weapons, he leaned out from his cover, and delivered a rapid, instant death.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Spending what was left in his revolver, he ducked into cover once again, to reload, as he heard the flight of frightened men who didn’t want to die.
“Cowards!” called out the familiar voice of Butch Clayton. “He is just a blind man!”
“A blind man who can shoot!” replied one of the fleeing bushwhackers who climbed onto his horse and rode away from Devil’s Gulch.
“Just you and me blind man!” Butch hollered down into the gulch. “No matter what I’m gonna see you dead!” jumping and sliding down the rocks, Butch barely dodged a bullet aimed for his heart. Taking shelter behind a large rock, he looked out from around his hiding place, and as he looked down, he smiled wickedly.
From his vantage point he could see a small opening through the cover where the blind gunman was situated behind. With one well aimed shot, he could blow the dead eyed man's brains all over the sand.
As he took aim, he pulled the hammer on his gun, making a snappy metallic click that the blind gunman heard as he finished reloading his revolver. Hearing the hammer being pulled in the direction he believed was a solid rock formation, he swiftly took aim and fired in the direction he heard the sound. Shot missed a fatal wound, but the bullet scraped past Butch’s eye of Butch who howled in shock and pain like a coyote caught in a bear trap.
Clutching his bloody eye, he lost his footing, and Butch slid down the steep decline of sand, and without anything firmly to grab onto he went screaming into a black pit. His voice echoed as he fell, and eventually faded as the wind picked up into an eerie howl.
Disappointed he would leave unpaid for a job, and at a deficit of the cost of a handful of bullets, he went back down to his horse, and started to ride out into a rising sand storm. Sand had risen past the legs of his horse, and despite keeping his beast calm, it started to try and buck him in a panic.
Fearing he was going to be swallowed alive, the horse thrashed about, as the sky became a weird yellow, and all around was a haze of flying sand. Trying to calm his horse, the blind man tried to keep himself calm as he felt his waist become entrenched in sand.
Before his horse could call out in distress its head was swallowed into the sand, and shortly the blind man, unable to stay afloat the ocean of sand was pulled down along with his ebony horse. Without a scream or a prayer to God he was swallowed up, and the sand as if having what it wanted settled, and the winds calmed down.
A bright blue sky returned, and calmness settled on Devil’s Gulch.
***
El’Mo’Quai, the imperial castle of Lord Bushido, and his clan of samurai warriors was swiftly being overrun by the sorcerer Djinn Yoūn’s Amber King Beatle. Positioned on his palace balcony, Djinn watched as his colossal beetle stomped over the walls of the city that surrounded the mountainous retreat of the Samurai Lord.
Arrows from the defenders on the walls and tower couldn’t reach the sorcerer and seemed to bend when they hit the beetle. Careful not to destroy what would be his latest conquest, Djinn planned to have his castle carried to the front of the castle of Lord Bushido.
Aged from the years he has allowed his sons and generals to take up defense of his realm, a shameful show of weakness he intended to exploit. Standing ready to defend the castle, the samurai warriors stood ready in the mirror garden that surrounded the castle. In such cold weather the court artisan was able to show off his master craft by making glass that couldn’t break.
Reflective as any mirror, the frost of the mountainous domain occasionally brushes across it, and frost had covered patches of the smooth surface, but it had yet been shattered. Even as the Amber Beetle heaved his carapace heavy form over the buildings.
“Conjurer!” called General Paō into the open gate of the castle. “Hurry with your incantations or we’ll all be crushed!” The warning did little to hurry the yellow garbed magician.
Having had his acolyte paint occult iconography on his body as he prayed at an elaborate circular pattern he chalked onto the floor. The magician Gai was trying to conjure an equal force. Shattering through the barriers that separate the spheres of reality, the magician called out to the spirits of foreign worlds to bring to their aid a champion of great power.
Seconds passed on the outside world, but in Gai’s mindspace he saw a constellation of realities he spent eons visiting. Shifting through deceitful demons, and cryptic spirits, he happened upon a demi-god of wind and sand. Smoking a peace pipe, bundled in heavy blankets of alien design, he was a former chief of a prideful people, who are now all dead.
“Great spirit.” Gai got on his knees and bowed to the demi-god, as he begged for assistance. “I beg, for my lord and his people, I ask you to give us a creature or man of great skill, who can save us from a wicked sorcerer.”
“Sorcerer?” the great spirit breathed deep the contents of his pipe, and blew a rainbow of smoke from his thick, clay colored lips.
“Yes. A man who can—” he tried to find a distinction between himself. “—who commands the forces of nature, enslaves it, instead of asking for cooperation.”
“Ah.” The spirit instantly understood the explanation, as he laid his pipe down to conjure a blue flame before him. “You are a shaman. He has become a spirit caller, bad käkra.” The great spirit reached into the fire, and pulled something out, at first it looked like a tiny man, but the more Gai looked at it, he saw it was a toy of a man and a horse. “He desecrates my people’s land with death…take him, he will stop spirit talker.”
With that the world around the magician faded, and he was once again in the castle entryway.
“Magician!” The violently loud voice of the general broke Gai out of his mystified stupor. “Did you find something that’ll help us!”
“Yes!” the magician produced the human doll and horse in his hands. “...I think so.”
“Idiot! I could’ve gotten that at the toymaker.” the general turned to his men outside. “The magician blew it men, we must take this fight to the enemy. Draw swords!”
Pulling free his katana so did the other men at his command, as he went down the stairs to join his men, as they waited for the beetle to arrive at the castle gates.
“Master.” the magicians acolyte hurried to Gai’s side, and looked with blunt skepticism at the dollar. “Will that really help us?” he pointed to the doll.
“Maybe.” The magician laid the horse doll and the man doll on top of the horse into the enchanted circle. “Stand back, I am going to break its ties to its own worldly plain of existence. Be prepared.”
Standing over the circle, the magician brought his hands together and said aloud an incantation. As the castle shook with vibrations from the incoming beetle, so did the castle shake with the fabric of reality being stretched apart, in an attempt to break the doll's spiritual tether to its own world. Flexing his mental strength, Gai had to break it, but it wasn’t just like breaking something with your own strength, what was required was mental toughness.
Brain felt as if it was going to split apart in his skull, the harder he pulled at the tether, the more it contracted.
“Master, please let me help.” the acolyte offered, moving to stand by his master's side.
“Go away!” commanded Gai, but the acolyte stayed.
“Please Master, I’ve been practicing, watch.” Closing his eyes the acolyte flexed his well studied mind, having spent hours studying each day, far more than his lazy master, he was easily able to break the tether.
As if kicked by a donkey's foot, both master magician and acolyte were flung back, as the circle became encircled with a vortex of wind and sand. From within came the groaning sounds of a man, as if he was being pulled back to life from his grave, and the proud neigh of a horse.
Springing from the vortex before it dissipated, a black horse, and rider leapt over the fallen magician and apprentice, before making an escape through the first open doorway.
Bewildered, and confused the blind gunman felt as if he was somewhere he shouldn’t be, and felt a skin numbing coldness in the air. All around was the world shaking, and despite being blind, he could tell he was in a dangerous place. What sounded like two pistons hammering into the ground continued to move in steady rhythm, one after another, and drawing closer.
“What is that?!” the gunman heard someone say, as he heard what he believed was a sword being swung about in the air.
“Stay still, or I’ll give you one in the gut!” the gunman threatened as he aimed his revolver in the direction of the samurai.
“What is that General?” one of the warrior’s asked, as he wasn’t sure what the man was holding, or what or who he was, considering his strange dress.
“I don’t know—” General Paō wasn’t sure what the rider was holding, but he had the feeling it was something dangerous. “—Rider, if you want to give anyone one in the gut, do it to the wicked sorcerer Djinn Yoūn.”
“Sorcerer?” the blind rider was confused, he had never heard of such a word before outside of children’s fairy tales. Still his situation of being resurrected to a frigid climate after being entombed in sand, he felt as if he was more willing to believe, if only because what senses he does possess tell him he is in an unusual circumstance.
“How much?” the blind gunman asked. At first he heard the sounds of hesitation from the men, but soon he heard the General start to understand.
“You want us to pay you?! You’re a mercenary!” General Paō saw the magician and his underling start walking out of the open castle gate. “Gai you street corner trickster, you conjured a lousy hired fighter!”
“If that is what he is—” Gai spoke back, as he watched the Amber Beatle loom ever closer, as it stomped on the mirror garden grounds, its weight putting pressure almost enough to damage the glass. “—then that is what we need. Listen mercenary, if you kill the sorcerer I will make sure you are paid handsomely. More gold than you can carry, women, and a good position with the Lord.”
“I rather the gold.” the blind gunman said back. “Where is the sorcerer?” he asked as he made sure his revolver was in working order.
“He on his castle balcony, up on the Beatles' back, quickly does something before he gets too close!” the magician begged, as the shadow of the incoming behemoth cast darkness over the Lord’s castle.
Listening carefully, the blind gunman focused not on the sounds that shake the ground, or the whining of the men around him, but a particular breathing high in the sky. Figuring that was where the sorcerer was, he forced out all other noses but the sound of air whistling out of the target’s nose.
Raising his gun, he made sure it was pointed in the right direction, compensating for wind, the trajectory of the bullet, and finally aiming a bit down and to the left, in order to hit the heart. Slowly he squeezed the trigger—crack!
Through the wind, the cries of the men, and the shaking of the ground, came a whaling cry, one that screamed out in anguish. Holding his shaking hands to his chest, the sorcerer, Djinn Yoūn felt the blood cover the palms of his hand, as he tried to hold onto his fleeting essence. Breathing hard, his vision seemed disoriented, spinning around, till he saw himself, outside his body, as his spirit flew away, carried off by the wind.
Falling down dead, his enslaved giant Amber Beatle sharing a lifeline to its master crumbled to pieces onto the mirror garden. As was the sorcerer’s castle, tumbling over, brick by brick till only the fractured roof tiles remained, all in one large heap before the Samurai Lord’s Castle.
After a moment of surprise beyond shock and awe, the defenders of the castles and city released a mighty cry of victory. Bells were run, the city folk left their homes to celebrate their victory, and the gunman on his horse rode up the castle stairs, till he shadowed over the magician and his acolyte.
“I want my gold…and a wagon to carry it all in.”
***
Lord Bushido became incensed when he heard the savior of his castle was allowed to leave the city without given proper thanks, and a possible invitation to join his armies.
“Forgive me sire.” begged the court magician. “But he insisted, rather harshly, that he receive his payment, and a wagon his horse could pull to carry it and supplies needed to go on his way. I tried to get him to stay, but after I explained I couldn’t return him to his reality he seemed disinterested in staying.”
“Damn your eyes, pathetic witch!” Lord Bushido bed bound tried to strike the cringing magician but a coughing fit, forced him to bed, where his personal physician saw to his needs. “Enough, if he wished to go, I suppose I cannot refuse my savior, but still even if he is a stranger to our lands you should've been impressed with the honor it is to be received by a Lord of my standing.”
“I tried. I really did.” through quivering lips of apology, the magician Gai took brief scowling glares at General Paō, who silently gloated at the magician’s scolding.
Seeing the childish rivalry brewing between his military general and court magician, Lord Bushido faced his General and barked at him roughly, “Paō enough!”
Bowing down low to accept his scolding, both General and Magician were on the same level. “I cannot believe my court is filled with such children…if only that rider would’ve stated, we could’ve done so much with his help.”
Lord Bushido laid back in his bed, as he imagined what things the stranger from another world would do in theirs? Heroic or villainous, he couldn’t help but feel wonder at the stoic stranger roaming the lands, with a wagon full of gold, and a sorcerer slaying weapon strapped to his hip.