Chapter 7
Dust sat on Horse and read the mission dossier. Certain they wouldn’t be in any danger when barely into the Badlands, he paid the way ahead no mind.
The kid did not do the same; she watched the horizon like it was about to do a trick.
When Dust did glance up, he saw the crooked mountains and sandy plains of the Badlands looking over the pages of information as if reading up on Penelope Chalmers. As before, cacti littered the land. Though these were no ordinary plants; they twitched and danced and took pot shots at passing wildlife with their spiked arms. Some were unnaturally tall, others were stunted as they curved like an old miner’s spine. Each one was onyx. Some leaked blood. The cacti didn’t dominate the landscape – brushes and grasses and flowers were visible too – but they were the plants most corrupted by the Badlands.
Dust looked back at the dossier. According to the file, the Texan Telegraph Concern had repaired multiple breaks in a telegraph line two miles from where the Solution guessed Penelope Chalmers had been taken. It seemed too coincidental to ignore so Dust decided to lead the kid to the downed line.
It must have cost the TTC to do those repairs; no-one with half a brain went that deep, not without damn good reason or a lot of money changing hands. He looked at a photo of the kidnapped girl; she was a pretty girl, blond with a wholesome smile. The was no clue in her smile as to what had been so urgent that she and fifty soldiers had crossed the Badlands as the crow flies rather than skirting the border. What couldn’t have waited a few days?
It wasn’t important, he supposed. Not really. What mattered that Penelope was at the mercy of this cult, held by people and less-than-people dedicated to That Which Sins. ‘Sinners’ spend their lives exploring the limits of pleasure and often include their captives in their search… It was a fate most well-bred girls wouldn’t survive for long.
Then again, neither would most low-bred men. Remembering his previous experiences with Sinners made Dust want to spur Horse and charge in. Getting the kid killed through recklessness would be of no help to the poor girl.
Plus Dick would pitch a right fit if that happened.
Speaking of the kid, Dust folded the dossier back into his pack and watched her. Again, she was a puzzle. He couldn’t reckon what made someone with so much going for them – the wealth, money and power – grub down at the worst end of the Dixie Problem.
Could it be the glamour of facing the truly monstrous? Dick had once told him that dime novels had turned the Badlands into a place for heroes and villains, that they drive young men to become uniforms in the Solution. Dust had scarcely believed him. But Jacky said some uniforms had a bunch of these stories and here was the kid maybe risking her life for a taste of it, so what did he know?
As if sensing she were being watched, the kid looked up. Not at but the horizon again. Hopefully any romantic ideas of the Badlands were draining away; he needed her alert and scared, not mooning for adventure.
Dust looked away and they rode for a while like that until the kid broke the silence.
“Tell me, Dust, do you know what happened here?” she asked. “Do you know what made this the Badlands?”
Suddenly Dust needed a cigar. Or a drink. Or both. Not that they affected him but having a fine whiskey would’ve gone down mighty well. “Same thing that happened elsewhere. Though not on so grand a scale.”
“Which was?”
Either she didn’t know or was wanting to hear his tell of it. Neither option made sense but that was no reason to be rude. He looked down at Horse and patted him gently. “The cults. They used their powers to make havens. Tainted the land. Poisoned the wildlife. Killed most everyone who called it home.”
“Well yes,” she said, her pitch rising, “but how?”
Now he could feel her eyes on him. He took a moment then said “I don’t truly know.”
“But you could take a guess.”
“I could.”
“Go ahead then.”
Dust had to bite his words like they were a belt in his mouth and the kid was a field surgeon. He didn’t like this. But the memory of his tattoo’s punishment was fresh as burnt skin; he didn’t want another punishment. “Why?” he asked.
“Because I want to hear what the famous Wanted Man thinks happened here.”
“Don’t call me that.” His tattoo tingled again. His fingers itched. So he added “Please.”
The kid blinked and had the look a four-year old gets when they think they’re being sly. “Oh. I’m sorry. Was that rude of me?”
Dust narrowed his eyes. She was mocking him. Why’d he given her so much credit? Why’d he think she’d fallen for the romance of the Dixie Problem when she was really just spoilt? All she wanted was to get her own way, right then, right there. And she had no compunction about how she got it. She had no guile about getting it either, mind.
In a way, Dust was relieved that she’d done this so early and warned him he couldn’t rely on her. He would’ve hated discovering that during a firefight or at a critical moment. Now he could plan appropriately, not get into any situations the kid couldn’t survive because she was a selfish handicap.
But rather than giving this away, he took a slow, deep breath and said. “I’m afraid it was.”
“I’m sorry, Dust,” she said, genuine as a three-dollar bill. “I didn’t realize you hated that nickname.”
“No harm done,” he said.
Silence blossomed for a moment. Dust allowed himself to hope it’d bloom. But then the kid punctured it by asking “Are you going to hazard a guess as to what happened, then?”
Before he could feel even tempted to tell her shove her questions, he felt an awfully familiar tingle. It was the one that warned him something eldritch – he had to admit that word was growing on him – was nearby and it felt unpleasant as having a recently-struck tuning fork pressed against his teeth might be.
He examined the horizon and the tingle intensified. No, it wasn’t just one something he felt but many somethings. And, if he reckoned rightly, they weren’t your ordinary somethings either.
“Put your goggles on,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Put your goggles on,” Dust repeated.
She scoffed. Dust didn’t think people actually did that after the age of five. “And why should I do that?”
Her promise to do as he said had already been forgotten, it seemed.
Dust just pointed to the north-east. “We’re about to get attacked.”
The Naismith kid followed where he pointed but wouldn’t see what was coming; not even Dust could pick them out at this distance. But a rising cloud of kicked-up dust gave their position away and it was thankfully enough to shut her up and make her listen.
Reaching into her pack, the kid extracted those thick Solution goggles. The brass on them was polished and the leather straps were barely worn; they must’ve only been built yesterday, probably on special orders from Daddy. She fastened the goggles round her pale, severe face. The big brass rings surrounded her eyes and made her look faintly insectoid. On these rings, a spell had been carved so the wearer could see what was really there.
Dust didn’t need such things. All he needed was his other pistol, which he reached for.
He had two guns; one for people and another for everything else. The regular one was a Colt. The other gun was custom; big in the barrel, wide and silvery, this other gun was made of a Solution alloy that was damn-near impossible to damage. Dust had managed it though; he’d etched hundreds of spells and symbols into the barrel and handle to increase its potency and give it a kick a mule would be proud of. It also meant only Dust could fire it, which was important. Some of the spells were fake to protect the Indian’s secrets; if the Indians didn’t want to share them, Dust wasn’t about to either.
But what really made the gun special was the Word at its centre. A Word’s an eldritch power source made from the memory of a horrible or strong experience in a person’s life. They’re rarer than an honest man in Washington. The Word in his other gun had been extract from Dust, was some memory he had apparently given up in order to fight the Dixie Problem, which made it even more powerful.
Dust hefted the other gun upward. He hadn’t drawn it for a while and as he held it between his hands, felt its cooling metal and mahogany touch, he decided he’d missed it. Mostly. He hadn’t missed its weight; if a stranger saw it, it wouldn’t be unreasonable of them to mistake it for a small cannon.
He fired into the dust cloud. The report was quiet as a mouse’s whisper but the bright spear of energy it shot more than made up for this timidity; it was so fierce that new shadows were cast on the ground and the sun was overpowered for a moment.
Dust felt the shot hit home. Two of the creatures died as the spear went right through its first target. But that tingling warning increased; there were more of them than he’d thought. Many more.
“Fire at will,” Dust ordered.
“What are they?” she asked, raising her rifle to her eye.
Dust kept his eye on the approaching creatures and shot again. The shot cleared the dust they’d kicked up racing along so he could see them clearly. And there was no mistaking what they were. And what a sight they were; almost insubstantial, they looked like clouds or thoughts or moving handfuls of powdered paint. They came in many colours and shapes and changed both on a second-by-second basis; in the space of a minute, they were tall, short, wide, fat, a human, a dog, a coyote, an abomination and many things in between. And there was always something wrong with each shape, some creeping unnatural detail that made Dust’s eyes itch.
“They’re Paints,” he said before rattling off more shots.
The kid swallowed and started shooting. At least she knew enough to not need that explaining. Her weapon was less impressive than Dust’s but was effective enough; between his shots, he felt it strike and wound, sometimes kill, the Paints.
Between them, they whittled down their numbers. Soon they would be close enough to see and that would be another test for the kid. He fired a sixth shot and then rolled the cylinder along the palm of his hand; this stimulated the Word, made sure it kept firing, and was as near as he ever came to reloading. Then he went back to firing. By the time the Paints were in the kid’s viewing range, Dust had killed thirteen of them. The kid had taken six. But there were still dozens left; this was no random hoard.
There must be something of interest to the north-east. Something damn interesting.
To her credit, when faced with so many Paints, the kid only paused for a second. In an oddly comical moment, she lowered her rifle in time with opening her jaw. It was a second in which Dust killed two more Paints but it was forgiveable, especially when she raised her weapon and started firing again.
The same bravery wasn’t forthcoming from her horse. Horse couldn’t have cared less but the kid’s mare trotted nervously beneath her, shook its head from side to side. The beast had been trained by the Solution but not to face this many Paints. No-one at the Solution was; Dust could see what Jacky had meant about the Badlands getting worse. As men and goats and combination creatures that most artists would vomit at the sight of crawled or ran or trotted at them, the mare looked more and more like a lit fuse.
Dust emptied his gun into the pack and shouted “Dismount!”
Unfortunately the kid stopped firing, looked at him. “What?”
The cylinder rolled under his fingers. They were only a dozen yards away now. He fired into the pack again. “Dismount! Get off your horse! It’ll buck you if you don’t!”
For some reason, she just kept staring at him.
“Do it, you dumb bitch!” he roared, feeling a warning flare from his tattoo.
That raised her ire. She snarled and leapt from the saddle, landing neatly. Then she raised her rifle and started firing, more accurate and more deadly than before.
Paints like bulls bred with squid or an uncaring creator had thrown together a handful of leftover parts together fell beneath their attentions. Shining shots and piercing bullets took them down. Dust allowed himself a brief moment to wonder whether their deaths would warn whatever kept taking down that telegraph line, then continued firing. More died, each peculiar and horrible in its own unique way. A dozen remained. Then half a dozen.
But they were getting close, nearly six feet away; soon they’d be able to grab at them, which would be bad news for the kid. And she needed to reload, couldn’t defend herself. The Paints were so close.
He couldn’t let her become a target…
Without hesitation, he leapt from Horse and charged the Paints, roaring and rolling the cylinder of the other gun. Thankfully the swirling masses of ever-shifting colour reached for him with hands that became claws or tentacles or mouths; he had their attention. One wrapped a scorpion’s leg round his ankle like it were a rattler’s tail. Dust halted and brought his gun down on the Paint and it withdrew, faded, died; the other gun didn’t need to be shot to be lethal to these things.
It was much more efficient when fired, though.
Free of this attention, Dust dove into the centre of the pack to get them to turn in on themselves. He looked around him, head moving at a blur and mind racing like a bullet. Five Paints remained, each within touching distance and eager to consume him. They were all surging at him. The kid was safe.
Now he could kill them.
He span the other gun in his hand, took the trigger with his index finger and let off five quick shots before they could get within a foot of him, his hand moving with inhuman speed.
There was a beat and then the Paints disintegrated.
Dust holstered the other gun and nodded, satisfied at a job-
The kid fired a shot right at him. He dove to the side and it missed, went just beyond his shoulder; he felt it whistle past.
Just as he was about to go off like dynamite, there was a hiss behind him. He turned and saw a half-snake thing bleeding to death. It must’ve burrowed from beneath the ground to get a shot at Dust’s neck. And the kid had shot it true, ripping that eight foot long, slender body in half and saving him an annoying few hours of pain.
Dust watched it die. Then he turned back to the kid, who had a broad smile on her face. Her chest rose and fell quickly. She was glistening with sweat.
“That was… amazing!” she shouted.
“You weren’t so bad yourself,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He looked at the snake thing again and then stood, started towards Horse. The kid’s beast had taken to its hooves during the last of the firefight and had made a good hundred feet on them. They’d be able to catch it if they moved quickly.
The kid was looking at him expectantly. Damn it but he owed her a kind word. “Thank you too. That might’ve stung quite badly.”
She frowned. “You mean… I didn’t save your life?”
Dust shook his head. “Nope.”
That seemed to take the steam from her engine a little. Dust didn’t feel bad because he’d just been honest. He climbed back onto Horse and then offered her a hand up.
“C’mon, let’s collect your ride.”
The kid looked around. She hadn’t noticed it had gone. He couldn’t blame her; that must’ve been her first battle. “Alright. Phew. That was… I still can’t get over how great that was.”
When she took his hand and climbed behind him, he decided he might be able to tolerate having her with him after all. Even if she were a stuck-up, spoilt heifer.