Chapter 1
Dust was drinking. Alone. Again.
The Broken Bottle, that’s where he was. A little place in Texas, out of the way and unknown, it was the drinking hole of Low Tracks. Its low ceiling and sand-encrusted windows gave it a gloom that Dust could appreciate. Especially when you looked out over the empty gambling tables and other solitary drinkers; locals mostly, older than sin and uglier too.
But then, anyone could end up like them if they had to live in Low Tracks, the kind of small ramshackle collection of buildings that people only see when they’re going somewhere better. The homesteads had become decrepit in only a few short decades, just like their owners, and what little money Low Tracks earned went right to the Broken Bottle.
Mostly it was poor because it was right, smack in the middle of nothing. Maybe the town planners had expected a railroad to come through. Who knew? But whatever it was meant nothing happened here and so Low Tracks was isolated and shunned. And that was why Dust liked the place.
Dust had taken to drinking at the Broken Bottle because life up at The Solution was pretty dull for someone like him. The geniuses ran their experiments on him and he showed them how damn good he was at most things. All day, every day. Shooting, fighting, cheating at cards; he was a genius in his own right at all those things.
Becoming… what he’d become… it had left him with a hell of a lot of ability and absolutely no freedom.
At least, that was what the guys at The Solution liked to think. They locked him up every night to keep him from getting out, not really thinking through who and what he was. Most nights, he let them get away with it; there was no point riling them for no good reason. But not tonight. He needed a drink tonight.
Behind him, some little wretch started playing the piano. A walking rake with a moustache even thinner than his belly, he somehow eked a decent tune out of the white keys. Dust smiled to himself when he recognised it as a damn hymn. Of course it was.
“Something caught your humour Dust?” Elaine asked. The barmaid, she was made up like a whore and overweight in all the wrong places. Most of the profits she took from this place, if there are any at all, must go right onto the paint on her jowly cheeks.
Somehow, that thought struck him as funny too. “Yes,” he said through his smile.
Elaine gave him a worried grin. “Anything you’d want to share?”
Worry suited Elaine’s face. He decided not to take what precious little beauty the woman can garner. “No.”
She stared at him for a moment longer. Dust looked back with a blank expression and finished his whiskey.
“Another slug,” he said.
“Another dollar?”
Dust reached into his jeans, new things The Solution gave him that hadn’t quite worn in, and pulled another note from his pocket. Silently, he slipped it across the greasy bar and let Elaine’s chubby fingers take it.
As she always did, Elaine eyed it suspiciously and then eyed him. “You’re not giving me no duds, are you?”
“No.” Dust tapped his empty glass meaningfully.
Pocketing the money, she gave him more whiskey. The good stuff, not the watered down mess most others drank; Elaine had learned on his first visit not to stiff him when it came to whiskey. Her finest whiskey tasted like amber or sap from those trees the Yankees are always harping on about. He sniffed it first then took a small sip.
Elaine was watching him still. Normally she’d look away the first chance she could get.
“Yes?” he asked,
“Don’t let there be no trouble, you hear?” she whispered.
Dust frowned. Turning, he saw three tall men enter the tavern. Travel-worn as the leather they wore, each had the look of someone who’d shoot before drinking and drink before thinking. Big irons hung from their hips. The desert’s pale powder covered their jeans. And they looked around like people itching for a fight.
Dust turned away. He was only there to drink.
“What a shit hole,” one said. The youngest, maybe twenty two. A Texan.
“Say that a little louder, dipshit,” another replied. Then there was a dull thump, meat on meat. His voice was too deep to give up an accent, which made sense; he’d had a scar across his neck, one that doesn’t come from a shaving accident “Where’d you learn your manners from?”
“Fuck you, that’s where,” said the Texan.
“Ma’am, three whiskeys,” the last one said. Soft-voiced, measured, his voice gave him away as being from the Mid-West. Dust didn’t know the area enough to narrow it down.
Elaine nodded and smiled. Then she poured three shots from the bottle Dust enjoyed; you don’t own a place like this as long as Elaine if you can’t figure out who to serve the good stuff to. Then she brought the drinks down the other end of the bar, away from Dust, laid them out like a king’s banquet.
“Here you go fellas,” she said, a bright tone masking her fear.
Three sets of spurs rattled as they collect their drinks. Dust looked straight ahead but could see them from the corner of his eye; three outlaws, if he was not mistaken. There couldn’t be too high a price on the Texan but Cut Throat and Mid-West look like they’d fetch a good amount.
Not that Dust hunted bounties any more. He sipped his whiskey instead.
The Texan breathed out loudly and slammed his glass against the bar. “Damn but that is some damn fine whiskey.”
“Thank you sir,” Elaine said.
“Your own recipe?” asked Mid-West. His eyes crinkled in suspicion.
Elaine shook her head. “A gift.”
Cut Throat laughed and shook his head. The long, black hair surrounding his face swished with the movement. “Bullshit. I know whiskey and that’s a hundred dollar bottle. It fell off a wagon, didn’t it?”
“Stolen property?” the Texan said with mock surprise.
“Something this good? Here? It’d have to be. Clever to have it in a plain bottle though,” Cut Throat said.
Dust had always suspected that Elaine wasn’t serving from the right bottle. The cheap drinks were in more fancy holdings than they ought to be and the good stuff was, as Cut Throat had noted, in plain, unmarked bottles. These outlaws had good eyes, were perceptive. That worried him a little.
The Texan grinned. He only had four teeth. “Well then, what will we do with this here outlaw, gentlemen?”
Elaine took a step back. A bad move. “Now, I don’t want no trouble…”
“Then give us the bottle,” Cut Throat said.
The Texan nodded. “And… twenty dollars.”
“That’s…”
And then Elaine made the mistake of looking back at Dust, as though for support. He didn’t react, was too old to panic like some teenager, but he wanted to swear at her. Loudly.
“What’re you looking at him for?” the Texan asked. “Is he the local sheriff or something?”
The barmaid looked at the outlaws in wide-eyed terror. Dust would’ve thought her too old to panic as well. Obviously, he’d been wrong.
“Hey, ‘sheriff’, you have a problem with us reclaiming what ain’t rightly hers?” the Texan called out.
Dust slowly brought his glass up to his lips. “I’m just here to drink,” he said before sipping at the hazel glory.
“Then why does this pig think you can save her?”
“I don’t know.”
“There must be a reason,” mid-West said. Which was a shame; Dust felt certain he could’ve eased the situation with someone as stupid as the Texan going at him but Mid-West was much smarter than that. “Barmaid?”
Elaine swallowed. “I thought he… might… be a good man…”
“Clearly he isn’t. He’s not even a man,” Cut Throat said. The Texan laughed like a mule.
Dust sipped his whiskey again.
“What’s that on your hand?” Mid-West asked.
“There’s nothing on my hand…” Elaine replied.
“No, not you. Him.”
Dust looked down at his hand. For the second time in five minutes, he wanted to swear; his wandering tattoo had slunk up his arm and was sitting on the back of his wrist. Again, Dust was too old to blink or panic but that’d probably settled it.
There would definitely be some trouble.
“A tattoo,” he said.
“That weren’t there a minute ago,” the Texan said. At least all of the cocksure sass had drained from his stupid voice.
Mid-West stood. “I know.”
The worst thing about Dust’s abilities was how much they tempted him. He knew he could pull his pistol and down the three of them before they could so much as blink, without spilling a drop of the good whiskey. That knowledge was like a woman in heat, dancing naked in front of him. But he couldn’t kill in cold blood, not even outlaws.
If he did, he would deserve his reputation.
“I’ve heard about someone with a vanishing tattoo,” Cut Throat said, standing as well. “I’d thought it was just a myth.”
The Texan pulled his gun from his belt and twirled it around his finger, a ridiculous move. Then he stood. “Seems it ain’t no myth.”
At this, the locals decided to leave. It was a wonder it’d taken them so long. They charged out of the door and left Elaine and Dust alone with the three outlaws. Nobody paid them any mind as they ran and they certainly wouldn’t be going to get help.
Mid-West kept his eyes on Dust the whole time. Then he led his two friends around the bar and over to Dust. “It seems, my friends, that what we have here is the infamous ‘Wanted Man’.”
Okay, maybe the worst thing about his abilities was that damn nickname.
“You’re mistaken,” Dust says.
Cut Throat pulled his gun on Elaine. “Is this The Wanted Man?”
Elaine looked at Dust, tears forming in her eyes like morning dew. Then she nodded. Dust couldn’t really blame her for giving him up.
Mid-West drew as well. He placed the cold steel on the back of Dust’s neck. “Now there might be a price on our heads but it’s nowhere near the size of the one on yours. Quite a few people would pay quite a lot of money for you.”
Dust swilled the glass around under his nose, enjoyed the rich, varnish-like scent. “No, they wouldn’t.”
“Pardon?”
Another sip. “They wouldn’t. Pay, I mean. They’d kill you. Then take me.”
“We’ll just have to see about that,” said Cut Throat.
“Stand, you son of a bitch,” the Texan demanded.
Dust shook his head and smiled. “Can I finish my drink?”
Mid-West shrugged; Dust felt the gun at his neck rise and fall. “You might as well. We’ll bring the bottle for you. Call it your last request.”
“Thanks.”
He downed the whiskey and let it slide down his throat. It really was damn good whiskey. Being stolen explained how Elaine could get a hold of something that fine. He put the glass down and made a note to ask Elaine the make next time he was there.
“Stand, you son of a bitch!” the Texan repeated.
“You’re not too bright, are you?” Dust asked.
The Texan growled. “What did you say?”
“Easy Clarence,” Mid-West said to the Texan. ‘Clarence’. What a name.
To Dust, Mid-West said “Nice try. But it won’t work. Now stand up.”
Dust eased himself from the stool and stood. Cut Throat moved in at his side and pressed a gun against Dust’s arm. Clarence did the same to his other arm. They had him pretty well covered, it had to be said.
“Mind if I ask you something?” Dust asked.
“You talk too fucking much,” Clarence says.
Mid-West sighed. “So do you. What do you want to ask, Wanted Man?”
Dust caught Mid-West’s gaze in the dirty mirror behind the bar. His cold grey eyes held Dust’s as he said “A hundred men have tried to take me. None succeeded. What makes you any different?”
“We got the drop on you,” Cut Throat said, pushing the barrel of his gun into the flesh of Dust’s arm to punctuate his point.
“We got more skills than them,” Clarence continued.
Mid-West had enough sense to look concerned. Still, he said “And we’ve got three guns on your skin.”
Dust smiled. “Is that all?”
“What do you-?”
Dust lashed out with both fists, catching Clarence and Cut Throat square on the arms and sending them flying across the bar. Mid-West pulled his trigger but Dust had already ducked before the bullet roared from its chamber. Then Dust kicked Mid-West on the shin and broke it clean in two. Mid-West went down screaming, holding his leg.
Moving with his inhuman speed, Dust took Mid-West’s dropped pistol and shot Cut Throat in his gun hand. Cut Throat moaned like a bull and stared as blood poured from the wound. Dust would’ve thought a scarred man would be more used to the sight of his own blood.
This barely took a second but Clarence had moved with the speed of a coward, made a run for the exit. His back was turned. He was a clear target. An outlaw and a scoundrel. Many people might die if Dust didn’t take the shot. It was so tempting. Dark parts of him whispered how sweet pulling the trigger would be.
But he just couldn’t shoot a man in the back. “Clarence?” he called.
Thankfully, the outlaw stopped. He had enough sense to know Dust had a gun on him.
“Turn around,” Dust said, approaching.
Clarence turned. His jeans were stained with urine. Dust had to smile.
“Are you gonna kill me too?”
“I haven’t killed your friends.”
Clarence’s eyes darted behind Dust. “No, you haven’t.”
Dust spun, saw that Mid-West had pulled a second gun and shot it from his hand. That’s when Clarence pulled the knife and charged.
Thankfully, Clarence was shaking and nervous and yellow as an Englishman’s teeth. His swing cut through the cloth of Dust’s shirt and only grazed his ribs, giving him a bright new scar. Dust elbowed him in the side of the head, knocking him to the ground, and then broke his hand with a well-placed kick. Clarence screeched like a girl.
Then the doors to the tavern opened. Dust turned Mid-West’s gun on the newcomers but then spotted the light green uniform of The Solution.
He dropped the weapon to the floor. “Evening Tom, Bill.”
Tom and Bill looked at Dust. Then at the mayhem around him. Then back at Dust. Their expressions were sweeter than any whiskey.
Bill, a man who was built as thick as a tree with freckles at odd with the size of him, sighed. “Jesus, Dust, what’ve you started this time?”
“Nothing. Just ask Elaine.”
Dust pointed over to the bar but Elaine was nowhere to be seen. He walked over and saw that, during the brief fracas, Elaine had fainted. She had good survival instincts but it didn’t help him much.
“You’re really in the shit this time, Dust,” Tom said with a friendly smile. Dust liked Tom.
“They’re going to crucify you. Jesus Christ…” Bill sighed again.
Dust shrugged. He walked over to the two of them, took his hat from the coat stand and then settled it on his head. “We might as well get going then.”
He left the Broken Bottle. In company. Again.
By Sean Wallace
26/06/2012