“The Spaniard” is a serialized novella.
Synopsis:
A lone gaucho traverses a barren landscape in a 1930s era alternate world, chasing a shade that took what he loved most from him. Joining him is the mysterious Gunslinger, a woman he has met only in dreams, and a trickster spirit, who may or may not have an agenda of his own.
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This week’s episode:
The Spaniard and the Gunfighter face a great evil. In the heat of battle, a terrible secret is revealed and a choice is made.
Shrugging with the barest hint of a smile to replace the growing fear on his face, the Spaniard strapped his revolvers to his waist, methodically, sure of each gun to its home. “I’m going in and that’s all. For her.”
The Gunfighter nodded to him. Following swiftly behind, the Spaniard and the Gunfighter exited the room, likely to not return, and down the curving staircase. The wood on the handrail was well-worn, dark patchy spots randomly dotting its surface from constant use. The bar below was empty, save for the old bartender, who stood stoically behind the counter, his shotgun lying in front of him. There was a sense of anticipation about the old man, eyes moving to keep up with the couple as they came down. The gloom had increased, the shadows deeper, the subtle smell of old tobacco, chew, and alcohol stronger as they came down. The Spaniard flared his nostrils in response to the stink wafting in from outside. It was odiferous to the senses, ravaging the mind with its pungency. This was new. It was—
“Death,” the Gunfighter murmured.
He clenched his jaw in anger. This was it. And it was here to tear him apart, possibly this woman too. He moved to take the lead but the Gunfighter did not move aside, merely continuing her path toward the outside light past the swinging doors; suddenly he had the desire to stop her and keep her from this. Inside he wanted to reach out by the hand and grab her, stealing away into the basement confines of this place to wait out the harbinger of Zalmon’s wrath, to slide over the land to some other town. Forget the mess and the destruction. He wanted it to be only the two of them.
But no such thing occurred and they continued together as they were supposed to, past the doors swaying, the rotting boards of the porches faded a dismal gray with years of weathering, through the dusty streets covered in manure freshly dumped this morning, buildings that cried in agony over the wind passing through their creaks. The town bore the stench of this creature’s evil, and up through Lobos to the town hall. Overhead, a great furious fist of thrashing clouds twisted in gnarled tendons of cumulus and nimbus. It swelled, engorged on the fury of the creature below it, standing on the steps as the steeple scraped the flesh of the storm.
The building seemed to breathe in and out, the brick a flushed red, the white slowly shifting into gray as the sun slunk away into the west, leaving the view dismal, foreboding. It screamed with the wind that the creature brought. Creaking, the shutters flapped violently. There was no other living thing in sight, save the Gunfighter and the Spaniard. They looked downrange of the street at Zalmon’s man. The shadow creature could not even be called living, for there was no heart to pump blood into its host’s veins. Life did not power this creature; hatred and night was its generator.
They stopped short of it, still as horrible as it had been only a few hours before. It suddenly shot its hand to the sky and called the lightening down; the electricity struck it, the voltage flying through its body, the eyes glowing with eerie fury, crackles of white, blue, purple, and green licking at the lids and sockets.
“See what I can call Rojas? Don’t you want to be able to call lightning and strike tremors of fear through them?” it laughed, a sound that crackled dryly, totally different from that of the lightning. The lightening was alive—it breathed a fiery life. This creature was mummified, parched flesh in the desert. “Have a taste!” it shrieked, extending its other arm, reaching for the Spaniard, reaching into his eyes and his soul, pulling the very life out of him. But the Spaniard moved, feet shuffling sideways quicker than the Gunfighter could have followed as the tendrils of electricity shot past and down the length of the dirt road. The bolt collided with a building behind them, a sickening crack sounding from the force of the blow. The building was the town bank, made of stone, rendered in half with the crack of a grizzly, maligned smile.
It roared angrily and aimed again for the Spaniard, jagged teeth open and stretching impossibly long, bared wide. He ducked and fell to the ground, revolver loose from the holster in his hand, pointed at the thing. It changed tactics and directed its energies toward the Gunfighter. She dashed across the sidewalk behind a tree, gasping for breath as she felt the heat of the lightning shake the tree, burning it with the creature’s wrath. The leaves above her set fire and rained down around her head, the smoke choking the pathways to her lungs as the resin crackled and popped as it burned. Streaming leaves died as they fell, golden light bathing her as it attempted to kill her.
“Come on Rojas!” it chortled. “Let me taste that steel of yours, lemme feel it slide down my hot throat to my belly. I wanna know your power; I wanna know why my lord fears you, a pathetic human with a dead wife, above the likes of her. She’s the one I should be after, and instead here I am offering you the coveted chance of becoming one of his agents.” It stared down at him from the height of those steps, white light burning, licking at the edges of his skin. There was no quicksilver left to be had in his eyes.
Straining to hear over the roar of the storm above, the Spaniard grasped at ideas that might get him out of this alive. Nothing came to mind. He was laying there with his gun in his hand and this monstrosity staring down at him with all the intensity and power of nature at its blistered fingers. From the corner of his eye he saw the Gunfighter run from behind the tree and wind her way behind the shade, flanking his right on the steps of town hall. It did not notice her movements, too preoccupied with delivering its monologue to him. And it was then his idea occurred to him.
“I want to know what the hell he wants with me too. Do you think that my joining you and your lord, you could actually bring back my wife?” he shouted, pushing himself up off the ground to stare at it. He held his gun up, finger resting above the trigger, ready to move to pull it, ready for the bullet to eject and make sweet contact with its intended quarry.
It pulled its shoulders into a horrible imitation of a shrug. “I could do that, but it’s better for you to do it for yourself. That way, she’ll be totally yours, as she should be right now.”
Something in what it said made the Spaniard stop. “What the hell do you mean by that?” he growled. He didn’t like what it had implied. The wind whipped around him, dragging at his shoulders, as though the creature was making it try to knock him down. It probably was, somehow.
“Didn’t you know? My lord has your wife right now, playing with him and doing to him all the things you used to do together. And that sweet little boy…such a pity that he has to grow up in that kind of place, dark and alone in a filthy cage. Bitch and pup, together. And my lord—how he makes her howl howl howl.” It grinned its horrible smile, the teeth glistening with stinking saliva that dripped down its chin and to the ground, little curls of smoke coiling where the acid bit the steps.
Grinding his teeth, the Spaniard raised his gun to shoot. “You lie. My wife died. I watched her die and I watched her get buried. My son is dead. He died in the fire.”
“My lord thought her so beautiful, he brought her back for himself. Why that boy is like you, and my lord would never waste such a valuable asset like that. He thinks it would be wonderful for you to watch it die with her, again and again before he finishes you himself. But I think I’ll finish you now. You got my best show, and now I’ll take you in exchange! You’re nothing, and you have no power to be feared.” Raising its hands once more, the lighting began to flicker and jump between his fingers. The Spaniard saw the Gunfighter align herself behind the thing and instinctively, he knew when to shoot.
The shots rang out in unison, striking the thing in the heart at the same time. The lighting, blue and piercing, blindingly white, died as the electricity soared back to the sky. The clouds began to dissipate, but not instantaneously. The body fell to the ground, crumbling to ash, the creature that had inhabited it smoking up into the air.
The Spaniard and the Gunfighter stared at one another as the wind rose up, blowing the dust of its former shell into the trees and grass. The plants shuddered as the former thing became no more.
Sinking to his knees, the Spaniard breathed heavily. There was no way anything it had said was possibly true. There was nothing to substantiate it, so he pushed it away and only stared at the town hall, now returning to it full color, the trees no longer drained of life and covered totally in shadow. She approached him slowly, the barrel still smoking from the ejected bullet. She allowed her hand to fall to her side as she came to stand beside the Spaniard, who still stared at the spot where it had stood.
“He said they have my wife. And my son.”
“I heard.”
Shaking his head, the Spaniard covered his face with his hands. “I can’t let this be. That was my wife, and our son. I…I was looking for him, for revenge but…it’s different now…I think…” he was heaving but he could not cry. The Spaniard breathed in and out heavily for a few moments, as his mind searched, struggling. Then, staring in a far off way at the ground, he said quietly, more to himself than anything, “I have to go after them. I have to send her back. I have to get my son …”
The Gunfighter was quiet, pensive as she watched this man. Then softly, she replied, “I have to face him anyway. I will go with you, if only to see this through to the end. We deserve that much.”
His eyes flicked upward. The smile she bore was a grim one. Extending her hand, he grabbed onto it and pulled himself up, knees knocking together as he tried to steady himself. Hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes and nodded, pulling herself to him. His grip was strong and he clung to her. There was no grief to be had or tears, but it felt like grieving.
Around them, the town lay mostly untouched. Broken branches and bits of other foliage or forgotten newspapers littered the street, having been ravaged by the wind. The buildings returned to their normal level of gloomy dishevelment, still gray, still sorrowful. Life began to return to the street; birds flew from their hiding places and insects whizzed irritatingly past the Spaniard’s ear. He took the Gunfighter’s arm and they travelled across the dirt to the quiet safety of his room, as people shuffled from the tight places of the world where they’d hidden. They’d been unable to do much else against such a force, as they did not have the stamina of the Spaniard and his dream woman.
In the room, they laid together, staring at the other, studying each crevice and canyon in the face before them. He didn’t dare touch her – somehow he knew it would break the spell of quiet respite between them and shatter the illusion of such faultless calm that the world seemed utterly gone. Eyes searching for new details previously missed, he leaned forward, close enough that they almost touched. But still he could not bring himself to disturb the perfection of the moment; the shutter in his eye clicked and he stored away her image for days that were ugly and dark. The Gunfighter broke the forbidden rule by running her fingers over his cheek. She settled into him and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Upon closing his eyes, the Spaniard found himself in the dreaming. The Gunfighter stood nearby, staring off into the macabre forest in front of them. It was not that the forest was dead; lush fronds and vibrant flowers of incredible hues towered against the dense foliage. But a sense of a millennia’s age worth of power radiated from the humidity floating in the air. The backlit forest cast curling shadows that slithered slowly along the ground, tasting the environment, curious towards the new visitors on its soil. The Spaniard stepped back, hand itching for the gun that was missing from his belt. The Gunfighter continued staring into the leaves, lips tight and hard. From the spot she watched, a nose emerged, brown and black, ears pricked forward and intelligent eyes conveyed a familiarity the Spaniard dreaded and thanked the heavens for.
“Coyote,” he breathed, kneeling as the spirit trotted forward, limping on the one paw, deep gashes running the length of his leg. Upon leaving the forest, Coyote transformed into his man-like form and limped toward the couple.
“It is good to see that you made it in one piece after that battle.” Coyote’s smile was pained. Wincing on the downward step, he gently leaned in to the Spaniard as the scenery shifted. They had all returned to the butte, though the moon now shown against the black sky, a brilliant searchlight casting the three of them into perfect view, though there was no one to see them.
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Rachael Varca is a writer of more than fifteen years experience. She writes at Inking Out Loud, a collection of essays, poems, short stories, and home of the serialized novel, Heart of Stone. To see which books she’s working on for Commonplace Thoughts, visit her at Bookshop.org.
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