The Evangelist & The Space Cowboy

A fiery orange of an almost vibrant red tint lit up the mammoth skies to the West. The desert land carried on forever in it’s infinite outward appearance. In the center of all this blank-desolate badlands there stood a small town, set up in the formation of two rows of buildings.

The town was deserted from the outside and the townsfolk happened to not wake from their beds and greet the day until the dry and calm afternoon of each day. Today was one particular fancy as this was the day a man of strange character was to enter the town, with intensions unknown. Out from the hazy heat of the far land of sand that swept in from the East, there he stood.

The Space Cowboy, sporting a metallic revolver with lights and sounds that echoed with an immense sense of an inhuman and otherworldly nature. He wore a sombrero and a long light cloak with a wall of guns, knives, explosives, and weapons still unheard of by man, beneath his cloth. He walked robotically, with limbs jointed with bolts and strands of belts that made rubbery noises when he moved quick-like.

The Space Cowboy, part machine, strolled into town, casting a shadow that enveloped. He stepped slowly until he saw the local tavern, turning and making his way in as everyone stepped and stumbled out of his way. The Space Cowboy peered in at the blackness of the bar from the outside, grabbing a hold of the door to push it in.

The Space Cowboy entered the bar, looked up at a man dressed in black at the bar. He gave him a long hard look and drew his revolver as the man in black, holding a glass of scotch, turned to see him too. Meanwhile, sixteen hours prior to this encounter…

The bullet floated deep within the stomach of the wounded soldier. The priest, Father Alekhine, looked down upon his subject as the man lied there, slowly fading in his arms. War raged around the small blue tent as the soldier looked up to the holy man. A holy man who’s cigarette ashes had been falling down upon the soldier’s uniform.

Alekhine, with a long brush of jet-black hair parted to one side of his face, fixed his glasses and peered down at the gasping man with a sort of distain. In his final moments the soldier looked up and upon Alekhine; Begging one final request following the reading of his last words. “Tell me about heaven… about paradise.”

Alekhine looks coldly down until his head looms over that of the dying soldier. He puts his cigarette aside and replies. “Never heard of it.”

The soldier, after hearing his, makes a quick fist and widens his eyes. In an instant he’s gone. Alekhine sets the soldier’s head on the floor and retakes his cigarette off a nearby table.

Turning his back on the corpse he thinks to himself. “Lucky b*****d.” Outside, the curtains of the small blue tent as Alekhine emerged, suited in black, tossing his f*g to the dusty desert ground.

Around him bullets did fly as he marched forward, ignoring the carnage. Bullets fly left, up, down and right. Fires range and artillery screams and explosions detonate and tear the land.

Alekhine presses forward, stray bullets bouncing off of his flesh as he strolled through blasts of fire raining down from the sky. His heart, mechanical in nature, served to stop metallic objects from coming within a certain perimeter of Alekhine. Thus, bullets were useless.

He cleared the battlefield and walked until he saw desert. Till the endless glow of the might orange sun ruled the skies. He picked up his cellphone and dialed a bizarre number.

The only things discussed were the subjects of location, price and method. Alekhine threw his phone in the sand, pressing forward to this place out there, somewhere in the desert. Now, Alekhine comes to notice the Space Cowboy standing in the door way.

Alekhine lifts his drink to the man as the Space Cowboy inquires about his pay. Alekhine points to the man’s side, to a sack of gold coins that wasn’t there a few seconds ago. The Space Cowboy chokes and steps backward in astonishment for a moment.

Alekhine remarks. “Let’s get this over with.” As he stands to walk out the door the Space Cowboy is too shaken to shoot and decides to wait until they are both standing in the street for this assassination to commence.

When both men found themselves at equal ends of the entrance and exit of the town. The sun hadn’t moved, but the air became cooler. And with the fall of a wet glass in the bar to their side, the gun fight commenced with the shattering of glass.

Blasters imploded from the cuts of revolvers. Hollow-point tips were reduced to chunks of woven metal. The two men stepped slowly toward one another as smoke filled the streets.

Metal flew as armor, weaponry and artillery alike were blown off of the men. The Space Cowboy fidgeted at the revolver rounds that flew through his limbs. Though it stunted his movements and ability to walk, he didn’t feel the pain of a single slug.

He was full of holes by the time he and Alekhine faced one another in the center of the town. The priest stood tall, not a bullet had touched him, but that was more than he could say for the laser blasts that had burnt through the front of his torso. He wasn’t bleeding as the heat from the blasters had fried the wounds upon making them.

Alekhine put his right hand upon the shoulder of the Space Cowboy and thanked him for his services. As Alekhine turned away the full extent of the Space Cowboy’s injuries overtook him and he collapsed to the ground in a damaged mechanical heap. As the priest walked out into the sun, the townsfolk looked on.

Alekhine had come to die; And in the desert outside the town, in the deserted land with the sky of a vibrant fiery orange sun, he did.