1. The Meeting

Spec meets the stranger and gives him a gun. The stranger comes to challenge the bossman. Does he know he's a demon?

***

“This is yours, stranger, by the right of challenge,” Spec said, slurring the words with his heavy drawl. The words felt weird from dis-use in his mouth. Then he handed the stranger the big gun, an old fashioned lever-action rifle. “But you can choose any other weapon you like. We got pistols, grenades, a couple automatic shooters, a flare gun"“

The stranger shook his head. “This is the one I want.”  And he took the big gun.  

They were in the village’s makeshift excuse for an armory. It was simple.  A room where they kept the guns and mags and boxes of ammunition until they moved on.  It had dry-rotted floor, ceiling, tables, shelves, and one ceiling lamp.  

Dust and sand from the dying world lived over, inside and under the skin of everything.  

The stranger rode in on a dry old dying nag from the east, holding up a grey kerchief" the sign of parlay. He probably would have been killed if he hadn’t done so. Then he called out that he meant to challenge their leader and demanded a gun. Spec had been there and couldn’t believe his eyes.  And now they were here.  Soon there would be blood.

No one ever came to town once the club took it over unless they meant to join the club- and voluntary recruits were rare. They never came riding a horse.   It was the bossman’s habit and ritual to spare exactly twelve survivors when they took a town, rape them personally until they were bloody, and cast them off with a day’s rations, each to a direction corresponding to an hour on the clock. The twelve were also made to watch as most everyone else in the town was raped or beaten and killed; or made to sell their souls in exchange for their life.  The tales the twelve told kept even the lawmen away. But there weren’t many lawmen around these days.  Spec hadn’t seen one in half a dozen years. 

The stranger pulled the lever on the big gun, sliding a bullet into the chamber, then cocked the weapon into the ready position, staring down the sight and aiming over Spec’s shoulder. 

Spec swallowed and scratched his scalp between his tangle of sun-bleached hair.  White flakes of dandruff rained down like snow.  “Hey mister, you sure you know what you doin’? I suppose I ain’t supposed t’ give a damn.  But you crazy.  The Bossman don’t fight like any man you ever seen. Everybody knows that.  He ain’t been challenged in twelve years.  Ain’t never heard of him been challenged by a stranger.”

Spec knew tonight was the anniversary of those twelve years. To the day. He could never forget that day. The day his da’ died trying to save him from this life. His father had challenged the bossman and failed. Spec thought about that showdown every day of his life and every night; it haunted his nightmares.

The stranger smiled grimly. He ran a dirty, sun-darkened finger along the chrome of the rifle.  “I know what he is,” the stranger said. He  chuckled dryly; it was a sound like crunching gravel. “I’ve seen it.”

Spec nodded. Then shook his head, disbelieving.  “You lying. If you seen him fight, you wouldn’t come here for this.  That be just crazy.”

“I bet,” said the stranger, looking Spec in the soul through the eyes, “that that son of a b***h still waits out in the open at the twilight hour every night, yeah?”

“How come you know ‘bout that, stranger? How come you know about any of our rules and about the laws of challenge?”

“Where does he wait?” the stranger said.  The rifle’s gunmetal caught the light from the lamp above, reflecting a sickly grey across the stranger’s black eyes. The feeling of soul-gazing intensified. And a weight fell upon Spec’s chest.

“Where does he what?…” started Spec, then his voice fizzled out, feeling the air in his lungs shrink under the weight of the man’s gaze. It took him a minute to regain his breath.  He struggled to breathe, his diaphragm failing to obey him.  Then the breath came. “Ain’t need to look at me like that, stranger,” Spec whispered. His lips feeling dry of moisture, tongue like sandpaper.

The stranger stood there. Saying nothing. Eyes like hammers.

“He waits at the square""by the, um, by the  fountain. You best hurry.  Night be falling soon. Witching hour almost come and gone.”

“The witching hour… so that’s what they call twilight these days.”  The stranger said. “It used to be once upon an olden time, it was mid-night they called the witching hour.”  

“The mid-night’s the killing hour now,” said Spec, finding himself sucked in deeper into the stranger’s gaze.  Mayhap, he thought, this man wielded some kind of magic.  Mayhap this man really could defeat the bossman. 

Before he knew he would do it, Spec reached behind the counter and placed a couple of mags in front of the stranger.  It was not necessary unless requested.  The rules said Spec could not refuse if asked, but even if the stranger hadn’t asked, Spec felt uncomfortable just standing there under the man’s gaze; and this felt right. 

“If any of us thought we could take him" that we could kill the bossman” Spec said, “I think we would have a long time ago.  We’re tired of the raping and the killing.” Spec swallowed, then cleared his throat. The last, he said it in a dead whisper. “But the bossman""he the devil; the devil hisself.”

The stranger took the mags and placed them in a pocket of his sun-beaten brown duster.  He patted the pocket once, and a thin cloud of sand and fine red earth puffed out and swirled in eddies midair. He nodded, rested the rifle on his shoulder, then turned to walk through the length of the dimly lit small armory.    

As the stranger’s brown figure passed under the room’s single lamp, Spec called out to him. “Hey, stranger, wait!”

The stranger paused directly under the lamp but didn’t turn.  His figure cast weird twisting shadows on the floor in a wild ideographic pattern.  For the briefest moment, he thought he could understand the language of shadow, then there was nothing.  Spec found that he had nothing to say; no reason for calling out to the stranger. Later, he recalled that moment and realized it was hope.  Hope that had provoked him to call out.

Searching for something to say, Spec said finally, “What’s your name stranger?”

The stranger placed a knuckle to his own chin and pushed sharply at an angle, cracking his neck; the bones in his neck popped and he groaned with pleasure.  

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.  And he walked the length of the room and out the door.

Spec looked up from being deep in thought and he saw before him the wide-eyed oily faces of fellow club members; here to ask about the stranger, and whether or not he really was here to challenge the bossman.  Spec was rapt in deep thought.  When he became aware of their inane voices, he barked at them to shut the hell up and listen.

“Get everyone together at the square where the bossman sits at nightfall. There’s gonna be a gunfight.  I expect it won’t be like nothing we ever seen.”

Reviews

[James]

I felt this was a rehash of the 'Highlander' series but with modern weapons. Sorry.

[Robert Vicens]

I chopped it up into pieces. Did you stop here? Couldn't keep going? There's 5 parts total. I remember watching Highlander. I remember loving that show. My story is a good versus evil feel good story with the twist being that my writing is chock full of metaphors and experiments to make the writing fresh.

I didn't set out to make a connection between Highlander and my story... My people have their own world and backstory... but I guess the "there can be only one" and the "last shaman" is very similar. And probably a popular trope in a lot of fiction. It's just a badass trope.

"There can be only one" , "It's the last man standing"

[James]

Yes I agree. 'There can be only one' type stories goes way back into antiquity and mythology - even Star Wars has some of that sentiment. I think it's hard to avoid.
lmao @ 'a badass trope' - yes it is.