Cowboy Necromancer 2: Infinite Dark: (A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG Fantasy), page 14
“She seems complicated.”
Sterling snorted. “That ain’t even the half of it. You get some rest, and if you want some food, just holler. I’m sure these women got something for you.”
Sterling entered the other room and found Rhonda seated on a chair, still with the baby in her arms, Lily preparing something in the kitchen. The place wasn’t lit with electricity, but there was enough natural light coming in through open windows that they didn’t seem cavernous.
“Paco’s going to rest. If y’all can, please give him some food later on, and I was wondering if you might have some clothing for him. Long story short, he came here just like Roxie and me, out of the blue. He was doing some ritual back in New Mexico when he came,” he told Rhonda. “And didn’t have nothing in his inventory list.”
“Certainly,” she said. “And you will be stepping out as well?”
“Not like the other one,” Sterling said as he aimed his chin at the door. “I’m just looking for a place to hunker down for a minute, maybe get a fine, adult beverage.”
“Only thing we have around here is Deseret hooch, which some of the more religious folks frown upon.”
“They can keep frowning then.”
Rhonda cracked a grin. “There is a place that serves it a few doors down. Just tell him Rhonda sent you because it’s not exactly on the menu.”
Sterling tipped his hat to her. “Sounds like a plan.”
He followed the woman’s direction and found a tavern constructed of concrete, one with a bleached canvas awning covering the entrance and two rocking chairs out front, both of which were empty.
“Don’t mind if I do…” He took a seat in one of the chairs and rolled up a cigarette. He smoked it slowly, watching the people go by in their white clothing, an occasional patrol by local law enforcement catching his eyes.
A flectomancer must have been involved in their clothing, that and a master seamstress. It was clear they wore armor, but the way that the white fabric was stitched over it made most of them look as if they were just naturally muscular. He saw two with batons, and another pair that had weapons strapped across their chests and tucked under their arms.
“Looking real tough,” Sterling thought as he finished his cancer stick. He flicked it to the ground, and put it out with his boot.
He entered the tavern to find an older man behind the counter, one with a limp to his step, the end of his gray apron tattered yet the man’s collar shirt beneath nicely pressed, crisp even.
“Hey there, stranger,” he said as Sterling gravitated toward a seat in the corner.
There were only a few other people in the tavern, all gathered around the bar and looking suspiciously at the man in black who had entered seemingly out of the blue. The bartender approached and gave Sterling a cold look, one that he gladly returned.
“Rhonda told me that I could get myself a glass of Deseret hooch around here,” he said, glaring at the bartender. “Is that the case?”
“Rhonda, huh?”
“I don’t know how many there are around these parts, but she lives just a few doors down.”
The stern look on the bartender’s face cracked and he began laughing. “Everyone around here knows Rhonda. She’ll give you the shirt off her back if you need it. I got what you’re looking for,” said the bartender. “I’ll tell you what, this first one will be on me on account of my own behavior.”
“Come again?”
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” the bartender said as he stepped away. He returned a few moments later with a glass of thick, yellow liquid the color of brittle paper. “Enjoy yourself, cowboy.”
“Is it strong?” Sterling asked, eyeing the brew suspiciously.
“It has been known to knock outsiders on their asses from time to time. How’s that?”
“Shee-it, I’ll be the judge of that.” He brought the beverage to his lips and gave it a sniff, taking in an alcoholic aroma. There was something sweet to it, and also something that kinda reminded him of medicine.
“You’ve got to drink it to get drunk,” the bartender said.
“Heh.” Sterling took a sip of the alcohol, the sting of the liquor hitting him like a brick. It was strong, it was damn strong, and it burned on the way down.
“Well?” the bartender asked.
“It’ll do,” Sterling told him.
The older man laughed again and stepped away. Once he was gone, and Sterling had officially nursed about half the glass of strong, local hooch, he began thinking about some of the things he had learned over the last few days, his thoughts returning to a subject that always interested him: natives.
If they were near Salt Lake City, the petroglyphs and other ruins that Lily Gray and Paco had seen likely didn’t belong to the Anasazi. They probably belonged to the Fremont people, Sterling remembering a map he’d seen of their ancestral grounds that extended past the lake. Of course, he could be wrong, and it wasn’t really the Puebloans who worried him anyway, it was Paco’s statement about the Comanche. He couldn’t shake this feeling that they were going to make getting back to New Mexico a bit tricky. Perhaps they would need to move at night, and befriend any of the locals that were nice enough to provide them with directions and shelter.
Then again, maybe what Paco had heard was hyperbole. Even if there were men and women claiming to be the Comanche and roaming around their old stomping grounds on horseback, this didn’t mean that they were necessarily a threat. And it wasn’t like Sterling and his group were trying to create a settlement or something, not like the white settlers did back in Texas in the nineteenth century. They would just be passing through Comancheria, and they would be well-armed at that.
Maybe I’m overthinking it…
An image appeared in his mind’s eye, his whole crew together at once, Don Gasper just about the only one not able to pull his weight in the fight, and that wasn’t discrediting the older man’s abilities. Sterling had seen what he could do back in Las Cruces; Gasper was no pushover, a hallucinatory fool at times, yes, but he wasn’t afraid to trade blows with anyone.
And this wasn’t to mention Sterling’s entire crew, his dream team, as it were. The Sunflower Kid, Zephyr, Roxie, Maron, Paco, and now Beep.
“Nope,” he mumbled to himself, a bit drunkenly. “Ain’t no Comanche going to be giving us no trouble. That’s for damn sure.”
“Do you mind if I sit?”
Sterling looked up to see a man wearing a wool poncho, the thread bleached, a bandanna pulled tight around his head and a bit of silver dangling from his ear. Gray hairs crisscrossed his arms, which were thick with muscle, and decked out in various jewelries, from beaded bracelets to strips of leather with pottery tied into them.
“You going to buy us another round?” Sterling asked.
“No,” the man said as he sat anyway. He had a squirrely voice, a bit of an edge to it in that tone of a salesman that Sterling had heard plenty of times before. “I’m going to sell you something.”
“Is that right?”
The man produced a leather pouch, which he unfolded across the table to reveal a variety of charms. “You interested?”
“You should have asked me before you sat.” Sterling went ahead and threw back the rest of the Deseret hooch, wincing as it seared its way down his throat. “I’d be a better customer if you bought me a drink.”
“Heh. Wouldn’t we all?”
“What made you think I want a charm anyway?”
“I recognize a connoisseur when I see one,” the man told Sterling. “From what’s visible, I see a carved bone bracelet, a necklace, and there was a rattlesnake tail hanging from your belt, if I’m not mistaken. I know what all them things are.”
“You got something good for me?” Sterling asked.
“See for yourself.”
He hovered his hand over the first item, a bracelet featuring a bison carved of stone. Its information appeared:
Item: Bison Bracelet
Item Type: Uncommon
Description: +2 Resolve
“Doesn’t look like it. Plus two Resolve? That ain’t that hard to come by,” Sterling said.
“Ha!”
“Something funny?” Sterling asked, noticing his vision waver just a hair.
“I knew you wouldn’t be interested. That laugh was for me, to remind myself to trust my damn instincts.” The man rolled his things back up. “I’ll tell you what, cowboy. I won’t bore you with trinkets and whatnot, things you can find anywhere. I got one charm worth more than anything in all of Saltair.”
“It’s a pretty big place…”
“Been here enough times to know where to get the good stuff, and I can tell you right now, this very moment in time,” the salesman said, his eyes twitching, “all the good stuff is gone. Except for this thing.”
“I’m listening.”
The man started to press away from the table. “I don’t think it’s right for you.”
Now it was Sterling’s turn to laugh. “Shee-it, you calling the shots now? Ha!”
“Someone has to, am I right?” The man grinned and sat back down.
“I know a salesman when I see one.”
“And I could say the same for a customer. You want to see this or not?”
“I done told you I was listening,” Sterling said.
“Maybe it would be nice for us to have a little of that there hooch, soften our attitudes a bit.” The salesman motioned for the bartender to bring over another round. Once the two glasses arrived, the charms salesman paid for them and quickly threw his back, drinking the entire contents of the glass.
“Is that how we’re doing it?” Sterling asked as he did the same, the immediate effects of the alcohol making him feel a hint of nausea.
“It sure is.” The charms salesman reached his hand under his poncho and came back with a copper ring. “Ever heard of Brigham Young?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Sterling told him as he looked at the ring. It was big, and featured the letters BYU etched onto its surface, little gemstones on the side.
“All these people around here, lots of them anyway, they’re what’s left of the Mormons.”
“Now, I’ve heard of them folks.”
“I’ll bet you have. Brigham Young was the man who brought them here in the first place, to Utah. Back in the 1800s. This here ring is from the university over in Salt Lake City, his namesake.”
“A college ring, huh?”
The salesman placed it in his palm and extended his hand to Sterling. “See what it does; I guarantee you’ll want it.”
Item: Copper BYU Ring
Item Type: Legendary
Description: Additional ten Technique Points per level gained.
“Ain’t bad,” Sterling said, trying to play it cool. In actuality, it was one of the best charms he’d yet come across.
The charm salesman laughed. “Ain’t bad? This is one the best items you’ll find in Deseret.”
“Deseret seems pretty big…”
“You interested or not, cowboy?”
“I’ve got turquoise; I’ve got silver.”
“Turquoise?” The salesman snorted. “Nobody around here wants turquoise, but the silver will do.”
“Nobody wants turquoise?”
“We don’t trade in turquoise, we trade in jewels and sandstone, gold and silver too.”
“I don’t got a lot of silver,” Sterling said. “But I can give you what I have.”
“Let’s see what you have.”
Sterling equipped the leather bag that he kept his money in and dumped it onto the table.
“Nope, that ain’t enough.”
“I got a bottle of tequila…”
“Why do I want tequila when I can have this?” the salesman asked as he lifted his empty glass.
“Good point. Tell you what, I got something that you ain’t never going to find here. I don’t know if that makes it valuable, but hear me out…” Sterling pulled out the chair next to him and summoned the box of Big Jim peppers he’d taken off the Killbillies outside of Los Lunas. “Ever seen peppers this big?”
“I… I don’t believe I have…” said the salesman, his eyes wide with delight upon seeing the peppers.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m from somewhere else, and that somewhere else is called New Mexico. These peppers are a staple down there. Not too hot, a Scoville rating of about three thousand, if that means anything to you northerners. All of them are between ten and twelve inches long,” Sterling said as he produced a pepper. “Half seem to be mature, or red, the other are green. Both are equally good. Got a bit of heat, like I said, but boy if they ain’t fine eating. If you must know—and I’ve already said this much, so I’m going to tell you anyway—they were genetically engineered by New Mexico State University in the 1970s, them scientists crossing a local chili with a Peruvian chili.”
“Peruvian chili?”
Sterling handed the salesman one of the peppers. The man sniffed it and nodded.
“How about this: you take all the silver, which I know ain’t worth much, and this box of Big Jims. There’s a lot you can do with it, but the first thing I would do is find the best chef in the area and have them whip you up something. Put a little kick to whatever you want to eat. Or you could trade them. Or you could tell these clueless locals that they’re magical and from a faraway land. You can grind them up and use the powder; you could boil them; you could eat them raw like I do from time to time; you could also dry them out and use them that way. I think you want them, to be quite honest with you,” Sterling said, turning on his own charm, one amplified by the Tech Points he’d put into persuasion. “Ain’t nothing like that around here. It’s a big box too, a crate, really.”
The salesman nodded. “There’s a lot I could do with these…”
“Then I believe we have ourselves a deal, partner.”
Sterling reached his hand across the table and the salesman shook it.
.Chapter Ten.
It was a miracle that Sterling made it back to the home they were staying in. The Deseret hooch really was that strong, and he hadn’t drunk any alcohol over the last few days which, mixed with his empty stomach, led to quite the spell of intoxication.
Yet he’d made it, he always did, the cowboy necromancer cozying up to a corner and falling into a deep sleep, no dreams, no nightmares, and certainly no flashbacks. A good drunken rest, well-deserved.
He woke up the next morning to find Paco still asleep in the cot next to him, and Roxie crouched on the ground, going over a map she had drawn of Saltair.
“Mornin’,” Sterling said in a cheerful way, only to remember that he was supposed to be angry at her.
“Looks like you found alcohol.”
“Yup.” He ran his hand through his stringy black hair and felt dirty, realizing it had been several days since he had taken a shower. “Do they got a place to wash up around here?”
She pointed toward a wall. “Out back.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?” Roxie asked, still crouched, her poncho over her shoulders.
Sterling noticed that she was already wearing her custom-made body armor, and her almost auburn hair was swept behind both of her ears, pulled into a short ponytail at the back that looked like it needed adjusting. This brought a smile to his grizzled face. Upon waking, she immediately equipped her armor, yet she had paid little attention to her personal appearance before she went over what she had discovered the previous day.
Typical Roxie, he thought with a subtle shake of his head. Typical.
“If you are waiting for an apology, you’re not going to get one.”
“Apology? Shee-it, I know you better than to expect an apology,” he said, his voice thinning. “Don’t forget that.”
“And it looks like you are up to your old ways, just going around getting drunk. Hope you had fun.”
“It’s been a rough few days,” he admitted. “I needed a drink. And that ain’t the only thing…”
He reached into the front of his shirt and retrieved his topaz necklace, which granted him an additional Resolve Point. Sterling now had two rings attached to the necklace: the amber ring with the scorpion tail inside that gave him a Class Proficiency bonus every three levels and the piece he had gotten last night, the copper BYU ring netting him an additional ten Technique Points per level gained.
“You have more jewelry than a whore.”
Sterling snorted. “Last I checked, they don’t got much jewelry.”
“I didn’t know what else to say,” she admitted with a playful shrug. “Fine, I’ll bite. What are you trying to show me?”
“Get your ass over here and see for yourself, Rox. It’s a good piece.”
“You could just tell me,” she said, not budging.
Damn stubborn woman, Sterling thought, yet again not able to hide the smile on his face. That was why he liked her. She really was something else.
“The ring gives me an additional ten Technique Points per level gained,” he said, giving in. “It’s a legendary item. What can I say? There are other ways to skin a cat.”
“What cat are you trying to skin exactly…?”
“While you went out gathering information, I went out shopping and I got me some information in the process.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of information?”
Sterling squinted at her as he tried to remember what the charms salesman had told him after they’d had made their transaction.
“Ha! To be honest, I can’t remember,” he said. “But it was a good deal of info, I know that. Only thing is I’m broke now, aside from some turquoise, but all it really cost me was a crate of Big Jim peppers. I can get silver anywhere. Just takes a bit of searching. Heh… you should have seen me, Rox. Heh! I had that fool eating out of the palm of my hand. Telling him all about these magical peppers, and how they were going to make him so much money around here. Little does he know that these northern folk don’t seem to like spice.”
