COYOTE SISTERS:
THE ADVENTURES OF LARKSPUR AND CALICO
By: Guy C. Brownlee
PART ONE: ESPERADOS
Taken from the journals of professor Ebenezer Henway, AKA "Doc Rooster" M.D.; D.D.S.; P.H.D.; historian; profound intellect; gadgeteer.
Now, before I commence on this trite and self-indulgent narrative, I wish to defer to the collected wisdom of the Random House Dictionary of the English language, 3rd nanotext edition, wherein it reads on the following subject:
railhead : (rayl`hed)/noun:1. the farthest point to which rails have been laid in a railroad under construction 2. a depot at which supplies are unloaded to be distributed or forwarded by other means.
Just so you'd know, the planet Railhead was so named as it was the first truly habitable Earth-like world man and womankind found on its awkward rush outward into the great unknown.
Lush green and crystal blue, with fresh, clean air and wide open spaces ; it was God's country. No need for the overcrowded urban blight of environmental domes, or the unstable, unpredictable snail-slow process of terraforming.
It was the end of the line, the farthest point; a dream come true for many, many tired and lonesome travelers.
It was the start of a new and brighter future.
We were home.
Railhead.
It was truly the birth of interstellar exploration, the pioneer days. Back then, great, ponderous nuclear engines punched ships into the virgin heavens -- vessels that more resembled the oversized torpedoes that shot clowns out of circus cannons than any pulp video luxury yacht (kind of appropriate, though, when you think about it).
Technology was breaking a sweat just to keep up with an ever expanding frontier, and anything even remotely resembling a fold drive was at least a granny's age off - a hundred years or better. So each and every last colony that was established had to be pretty damned self-sufficient as the next ship was probably going to take its own sweet time. Thus, given the right tools, and utilizing the raw materials at hand, folks set about staking out and homesteading the place, carving out a civilization that was more Roy Rogers than Buck Rogers.
"Roughing it," I believe it was called.
Next up, livestock and wildlife from back home was introduced into the planet's ecostructure without much of a fuss - although some accidental crossbreeding with some of the indigenous fauna yielded some mighty interesting results.
Everywhere, everyday, old ways were rediscovered and put into practical application. Methods that were once thought to be nothing but such old wives' tales brought new respect for those matronly spouses.
Anyone could run a computer, just about as many could fix one, but if you were a blacksmith or a carpenter, you were considered near a god. It was a queer juxtaposition of hand-me-down hi-tech and born-again Industrial Revolution.
Orbital satellites would map out and guide massive, cyberlinked, steamdriven ironhorses, each rigged with miles of construction platforms that would help set up colonies and townships, as well as automatically set down tracks as they rolled.
Oversized diamond-tipped lasers would be widely used in coal or mineral mining operations, but buckshot from a sawed-off, or six silver projectiles from a Colt 45, would still be more likely used to settle unfriendly disputes.
It was not too much longer, however, before the exchange of goods and services flowed not just between town to town, but 'twixt Railhead and the other colonized worlds of the systems. As a result, the world's first bona fide starport was built -- "San Laredo" by name. It was soon followed by a vast metropolitan sprawl, a true hub of culture and commerce, spreading out and up from the rolling plains like kudzu on the vine.
It wasn't utopia, with its neon-splashed casinos, speak-easies, and brothels, but it was bigger than life. Just like Railhead. Just like Larkspur and Calico.
* * *
Hidden away in one of the more disreputable, downright squalid reaches of downtown San Laredo, at an intersection where the sun barely touched the cobblestone streets, and the moon was felt more often than seen, was a curious establishment by the name of "The Tequila Mockingbird."
A dance hall and melodeon wildly popular with the young and disaffected, it had an atmosphere that could only be described as "gothic cowpunk," with its mixture of southwestern early American and European Victorian decor, faux Anglo-Celtic religious icons, faux AmerIndian religious icons, strobe lights, blacklights, and neon.
Think Louis L'amour meets Anne Rice.
And its clientele were even more spectacularly peculiar, reaching dizzying heights of sartorial variations on a theme. Indeed, it is doubtful that any more creative uses for the colors of black could have been found: black stetsons; black dragonskin boots; black leather longcoats; and lipstick, worn by both sexes, to various degrees of pretentiousness. All offset by the occasional silver ankh bolo tie or Eye of Horus earring. You know, the usual.
But, admittedly, the music, piped in or played live, was anything but the usual. Pure powercord rock and roll that is, hard-edged and serrated, and infectious as all-get-out. Especially when Ms. Nellie Bliss sashayed up to the mike.
On that particular night, the room was packed denser than a herd of colonists in a dropship, the heady aroma of angst and tearose filling the gaps between writhing human forms. They were ready, each and everyone -- some since the wee early hours of the previous morning; others as if all of their life -- for this very concert; staked like cordwood up, around, and down several city blocks. They were here to party, dammit, root hog or die.
Meanwhile, somewhere backstage, in a dank grey dressing room with the suspicious ambience of early maintenance closet, Ms. Bliss, the proposed catalyst for such a potential mass epiphany, was leading her star guitarist into a spirited dialogue over personal aesthetics:
"Think this top shows off enough cleavage?"
Typical Nell, absently leaning over to better inspect her decoutage in the mirror.
"Cleavage, Mien Kampf? What cleavage?"
Typical Pony, haughty and oblivious, studiously applying blush to her cheeks.
Nell was incredulous. "Excuse me, Helen Keller, but what do you call these?!"
To this, Pony's eyes grew wide in mock doe innocence, as her voice took on a singsong quality. "A really great sternum? A push-up bra and an almost Pollyana sense of optimism?"
There was a knock on the door; a disembodied voice, male, announced, "Ladies, ten minutes."
Standing there before the floor to ceiling-lighted mirror (standing because there were no chairs, no dressers either, only an overhead clothes rack), Nellie Bliss and Pony Nokidomo appraised themselves and each other with a critical eye. As the saying goes, they had certainly dressed the part:
Nellie, after numerous paradigm shifts in wardrobe, was resplendent in a rose-colored, tie-died body stocking, a black tuxedo half-jacket, thigh-high stiletto boots and fingerless leather gloves. Pony, meanwhile, was all decked out in a blue-violet swashirt, a black, brocade vest, crushed velvet tights, and stiletto half-boots. Her hair was set about her face in a ragamop fashion, playfully bouncing and swinging with even the slightest movement.
Nell made a face like she had just sipped from a carafe of pickle juice, her nose all crinkled up -- "Tarnation, Pony! You're not gonna wear that, are you?!"
Pony was incredulous. "And just what is wrong with this ensemble?"
"You look like a Sears and Roebuck catalogue just threw up all over you!"
"WHAT?!"
Suddenly, grooming utensils flew like shuriken.
Then came another knock on the door -- "Five minutes!"
Well sir, it was getting nigh-on impossible to be complacent about that night's performance, as the sounds and spirit of the gathering horde started shoving its way under the dressing room door and into the collective worries of our two young heroines.
The joint was hotter than a den of minks and it was damned intimidating, one of those rare moments that made the girls fret over whether they could still back the hype.
It was time for "the lab test."
While each facing the mirror, Pony would pantomime her reply as Nell ticked off an item on the fingers of her right hand -- a ritual preshow inventory, so designed to bolster confidence.
"Youth?"
- Wide-eyed innocence, small pout, dimples.
"Exuberance?"
- Chin out, shoulders back, full salute.
"Charm?"
- Big smile, cocked eyebrow, swivel of hips.
"Moxie?"
- Sly wink, thumbs up, flex of muscles.
"Talent?"
- Blank stare, head tilted to one side. "Talent?"
Nell cracked a wry grin -- "Yeah, you're right. We'll fake that part..."
Pony was almost successful at keeping a straight face -- "It's always worked before..."
"Start now and we'll confuse people!"
"Continuity! That's the ticket!"
As if on cue, one last knock came to the door -- "Showtime!"
And it was, indeed:
In an instant, like night unto day, the room verily exploded with energy, brilliant, dazzling, and joyous, transforming all within. It was like Mardi Gras, New Year's, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one, with sweet Nell supplying the fireworks.
Foot and spotlights danced, guitars wailed, and a shower of gold and silver glitter filled the air, released from offstage in gold lame pouches, and kept aloft by two huge floor fans, pointed angelside.
With the force of a steel avalanche, Nell and Pony first tore into a lethal power metal version of the recent radio-ruining hit, "Lawless."
I'm not what you'd call proper
No apparent sense of shame
More than willing to be ruthless
In this heart as hostage game
You could say that I'm a wildchild
Just some misfit crazy dame
More than ready to be conquered
But never to be tamed
I'm reckless, insatiable
I'm out to steal your heart
I'm breathless, unrelenting
I'll blow your mind apart.
Stand and deliver!
Your body and your soul
I'm lawless, armed and dangerous
Your Venus on parole
I'm Lawless.
Someone once wrote that Nell "had a voice as coarse as sandpaper and as sweet as cotton candy; a voice built for chainsaw ballads and switchblade seduction."
Sounds about right.
Now it was sometime between the third and fifth song that Nellie noticed that a young fellow of her and Pony's acquaintance was sitting in the audience -- Chas. Rifleman, "Chuck" to his friends, police deputy, Precinct One, incognito, stalwart friend and informant to Larkspur and Calico... and head over heels sweet on a "certain" Ms. Bliss.
With his shoulder-length, sun-bleached hair, heart-shaped baby face and crystal blue eyes, Nell entertained a few thoughts about Chuck as well, but she had too much respect for him as a person and as a friend to ever use him as some boytoy. And at the height of both of her careers, she was also not about to go and settle down with anyone. As if!
Still, she thought, he was adorable, just sitting there all childlike, his face beaming rosily up at her, hanging on to every word and every note of each song.
Well, the girl simply couldn't help herself.
The next song, "Stiletto Kiss," she played up as a real old-fashioned torcher, singling him out, slinking over and purring all over him, sitting in his lap, lightly running her hand through his hair, playfully chucking his chin. It was hard to tell who was enjoying her performance more -- Nell or Chuck.
And no, not even he knew Nell and Pony's secret identities.
And the boy was far from Dummyville, having formed and maintained a network of fellow informants and aides inside the precinct and out on the streets, all in support of our heroic duo, all under the collective noses of his superiors (one Chief of Police Theodore Vanderbelt in particular). And he certainly had the gumption as well, for if he was ever caught, it would have automatically called for not just his dismissal, but for his court martial, no less.
The funny thing is, nobody else ever caught on to the girls, either. With only passing, theatrical attempts to hide height, hair color, or nationality, the unsuspecting public at large seemed to remain so thoroughly distracted as to never draw similarities between their popular icons. Nobody, not their friends, family, fans, law officials, roadies, personal managers, booking agents, or publicists knew -- not once -- that the petite yet curvy Nellie and the voluptuous Pony were also the heroic LARKSPUR and CALICO.
(In the words of the great Arnie Saknussemm, "Damn, it's dark in here...")
Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, Nellie spotted a young uniformed police officer urgently working his way through from the back of the crowd -- she marveled briefly that the kid didn't start a riot -- and her heart sank. Official business, no mistake. Something was going down. Chuck must have caught her line of sight, because he quickly turned to face the approaching officer. His face went ash white; he had known instantly what this was all about.
Meanwhile, Nell surreptitiously extracted herself from the young deputy's lap and slinked back onstage to finish the number, carefully keeping a trained eye on the exchange between the two officers. She had clearly read their lips and just about froze, dead still, onstage.
Four words were all it took. Four words:
The Clementine was down.
* * *
They were too late.
Volcanic clouds of black and rust billowed forth from the scarred and blasted husk that was the freight locomotive, the Clementine. Embers flew like fairylights as a myriad of blue electric discharges swathed the derailed leviathan in a lethal glow. Its mighty steam whistle wailed across the open plains unabated, sad and eerie, like the lonely deathcry of some ancient sandbanshee, proclaiming its own demise.
All about, carnage and the confused stragglers of livestock, mostly cattle, spread out over the barren landscape; twisted black iron and shattered redwood testimonials to an unnatural cataclysm. This was no accident.
The idle downshifted to just below earthquake, Larkspur slowly coasted her four cylinder, candy apple dirthog to a stop as she took in the grim spectacle before her. No sign of human life could be found, but the smell of pungent, raw fear still hung heavily in the air
. "Tarnation, not again. What the Sam Hain's going on here?"
Calico rose from the sidecar and stretched, catlike. "I don't know. Why don't we find out?"
To the east, a faint sliver of orange hue peaked just over the horizon. Soon it would be dawn.
"Wait here..."
Solemnly approaching the wreckage, Calico gestured before her, sweeping her right arm in a crescent motion, then flicked her wrist, palm out. Instantly, the steam whistle silenced and the blue arcs dissipated.
Larkspur had always downright hated that -- just showing off, she would say, indignant-like. Calico knew she was just jealous.
You see, although born of Japanese descent, Calico -- AKA Ms. Pony Nokidomo --- had spent much of her adult youth in sabbatical with the Svaha, a mighty Indian nation founded on Railhead and comprised of the descendants of the greatest tribes of the entire American continent of old Earth. She learned the ways of the warrior, the shaman magics, walking the path -- rejecting the corporate future her family had so firmly planned for her.
Larkspur silenced the twin engines to her beloved Harlequin, and in one fluid motion, kicked out the stand, swung from her seat and eased her swivel barrel rifle from its holster strapped across her back. Thumbing up her riding goggles from her already masked features, she watched after her companion with a mixture of exasperation and concern. "Be careful, hon."
Indeed, she and Calico were both masked, costumed, that is, in disguises meant to obscure their true identities. For the waifish Larkspur, that meant obscuring her well-known button nose, crystal blue cat's eyes, and freshly-scrubbed heart-shaped face, with a long black silk scarf with cut-out eye slits, tied securely under her equally silky page cut, dirty blonde tresses, a brief train protecting the back of her neck from the harsh Railhead sun. Only her sweet smile, with its pronounced canines and slight overbite, remained undisguisable. Boy howdy.
As for the exotic Calico, her "mask" would be even more dramatic, and more daring -- her own face. Combining the ancient Japanese theatrical make-up techniques -- "kabuki" by name -- with the Blackfoot Appalachian snow mountain camouflage traditions, Calico would cover her elegant, high cheekboned features with a cake-white powder, together with a solid black band painted across her golden brown, almond-shaped eyes, temple to temple. Her signature jetblack hurricane-wild mane was adorned with a bouquet of snowdove feathers and pulled back tight over her head into a ponytail that would flair out again at the crown, looking for all the world like blackened sagebrush caught in a barbed wire and flying in the wind.
Almost caressing it, Calico gently, ever so gently, touched the hull of the train, then pressed her forehead to the ironplate and concentrated.
And suddenly there it was, as clear as the here and now, the visions playing back right there over reality, like a monochrome filter over a color lens; a theater of the mind, no truer was...
* * *
Fade from white...
The train plunged headlong into the night. Mountain pass blurred into forest range blurred into open plain as the pastel yellow of the moons Maverick and Paladin cast a surreal, ghostly pallor over the land, somehow emphasizing an otherwise undiscernible alienness to the terrain.
Standing bathed in the nocturnal glow, perched stoically atop the open bed of the Clementine's massive coal car, was a man whose skin was as nightblack, and whose mass and frame could be likened to the great ironhorse itself.
He was balding, with granite grey dredlocks and fuller brush beard, his jaw, his lips, his nose, his forehead all blunt like a cinder block. His eyes were deep-set and hawklike, black and proud under thick brows. Beneath a patchwork inverness of animal skins, he wore the dark vestments of a holy man, his snowwhite round collar proudly starched and unstained. Tucked under his right arm was a massive tome of Christian writ; in his left hand, a twelve-gauge sawed-off.
His name was Otis Van Briggs; his profession, perhaps Railhead's greatest bounty hunter; his passion, the sweet and righteous word of God.
The tabloids had given him another name: he was the Sierra Padre.
Behind and below him, in the hold of the crewcars and throughout the line, a battle was being raged; sounds of automatic gunfire, barked orders, small explosions, cries and screams, all reached the ears of the Padre as if from a great distance, swallowed up by the rush of wind and the rhythmic thunder of the rail rolling below; it was a firefight of Biblical intensity between the hardsuited armored guard of Pinkerton's finest, and one-half of the single most dangerous criminal teams then alive.
And there before the Padre, the other half. Before him and above, floating literally in thin air, laughing the wicked, merry laugh of an arrogant young godling; of a predator taunting his prey.
His hair was spun gold, long and full, flying wildly about in the slipstream; artfully framing a chiseled face of high cheekbones and smoldering jade-green cat's eyes. He was long and lean, and framed into a midnight blue frock coat, tailored suit, and dragonskin boots.
No guns. He didn't need them.
His name was Yellowjack Dupree, and he was as beautiful and as deadly as his sister, Ms. Belladonna. Twisted, ruthless, and psychotic, they possessed the keen intellect of master criminals, and the demonically lethal power of Level 10 psionics.
"Psionics" -- the ultimate power of mind over matter, the highest form of psychic phenomenon. Simply put, it is the ability to bend the very laws of physics by sheer will. And the Dupree twins had it, in spades.
Still and still, young Yellowjack just stood there, levitating, as if fixed in space by an unseen hand, looming overhead and smiling smugly, effortlessly keeping up with the train.
The Padre was having none of it. "Nick trick, Peter Pan, but kinya pull a rabbit out of a hat? Pat yer head and chew gum?" Briggs taunted, to no expected reply. He casually began loading shells into his shotgun. "Whydja do it, boy? Why attack all those locos and abduct their crews? You got some sort of vendetta against the rail commission, boy? The Mitcherooney Company? Pappy Dupree never got Baby Jackie a choo-choo?"
Still nothing. What was he paying his writers for, anyway? thought the Padre.
Then -- "You don't actually think you can do me any real damage, do you, you old fool? Just you? With that poptoy?" If arrogance had volume, Yellowjack was deafening, his smirk alone the sound of nails on a chalkboard. "Or do you think your God's going to fall out of Heaven to help you?"
"I already have his help, boy," replied the Padre, his expression and tone suddenly flat. "He gave me a brain..."
With that, Otis Van Briggs simply aimed his sawed-off straight overhead and fired.
Now, imagine a bee sting direct to the inner ear; the split-second advanced warning of a high-pitched buzz, angry and vengeful; followed by a needle-thin lightning strike of steel-cold pain -- a pain so abrupt, so intense, that your very perception of reality is defined by it. Ouch, huh?
That, in a pinch, is what an "E.M. Pulse Twelve Aught" -- a sort of bullet-sized grenade -- does. Developed by the German military back on Old Earth, its primary function in combat was to narrowcast scramble the system of anything electronic within close range, the "E.M." standing for "Electromagnetic."
And apparently, it had its uses against big-time psychokinetics, as well.
And like a grenade, it did not have to impact with its target to do its job -- the Padre never even had to aim his shotgun anywhere near Yellowjack, as the projectile arched high into the night and simply went off, packing a sonic wallop that sent the young dandy doubling over headfirst into the coal, dropping like a one-man landslide.
Out cold.
Just like that.
Working quickly, Otis pulled out a plastic-wrapped syringe from an old velvet pouch, and a vial of something with a long, Latin-sounding name basically meaning "Rip Van Winkle." He applied it to Yellowjack's right arm, then proceeded to cuff the rogue's hands behind his back
Now, it has been suggested that the Duprees had a bond that was downright Freudian in nature, but that could all be nothing more than heresy, gossip to add an extra blemish to their already villainous reputation.
What this all boils down to is that the Padre, in his zeal to bag Mr. Dupree, neglected to notice the sudden quiet from the aforementioned battlefrought freight and crewcars, or the distinct lack of any violent swaying and lurching that had resulted from said such. Otis had forgotten about Ms. Belladonna Dupree. Completely.
You don't forget about Belladonna.
"JACK-EEE!"
It's kind of like forgetting not to sit on a cactus, actually.
"Oh, woe! Woe! What have ye dun t'me poor Jack?!"
Well, sir, ol' Otis knew he was in for it, majorly, and he mentally cursed himself in the head for his lack of diligence.
Then she did it for him, harder.
In an instant, the black coals beneath the Padre's feet morphed and coalesced into a massive, blunt-edged spike, diamond-hard, hooking him with an uppercut that sent him flying backwards. Scrambling to his feet, Otis -- absently checking his jaw, amazed to find he still had one -- found himself defiantly staring down the most beautiful killer Railhead ever knew.
She rose like an angry phoenix reborn, ready to smite butt and take names. Impossibly emerald cat's eyes shone fiercely like green suns, set in a face of pure alabaster, a fine and perfect match to her brother's. Her luxurious copper-red tresses billowed wildly like Botticelli in a hurricane. Her outfit was also a match for her brother's, but peach in color and, despite its gentlemanly cut, was unable to hide the build of its wearer.
The very air crackled with power, the scent of phosphorus and brimstone, thick and heavy, as light radiated from her, surrounded and enveloped her. Hot white, blinding, pure. The color of vengeance.
But Otis was not impressed with Belle's Goddess of Destruction display -- he had "seen the light" decades ago and, for better or worse, was not about to go all slack-jawed now over some psionic pyrotechnics.
Besides, he had a few tricks of his own. You see, the Padre was never what you call conventional, and in his line of work, unpredictability was considered a highly desirable quality. Which would go far as to explain why Otis would suddenly do a series of backflips out and over the side between cars, supposedly plunging himself to his own gruesome demise.
Indeed, this too, left our villainess rather, shall we say, nonplussed.
"Oh no, ye come back here, ya miserable coward! Don't you be taking the easy way! Hypocrite!" And lo, the righteously indignant Ms. Belladonna shot after the terribly inconsiderate Sierra Padre, thinking him dead or gone, this, of course, cruelly cheating her of certain victory...immediately discovering herself on the business end of an E.M.P. Twelve Aught, temporarily having her levitation mojo scrambled.
"HAWR! Sociopaths are soooo predictable!" This from Otis, hanging from an access ladder, playing possum.
For one, breathless moment, Belle just hung there motionless, like a puppet with its strings caught up, as the train rolled on beneath her. Then, like a bag of anvils, she dropped...
Straight into a livestock car...
Smack into the chicken pens...
Covered in chicken goop.
Lots of chicken goop.
All over her brand-new, tailor-made, did I mention peach-colored, suit.
Well, it clashed, terribly.
"I'LL KILL YOU SLOW, YE GREAT BLACK HAGGIS! SLOW, Y'HEAR?!"
No idle threat, but before the swirl of sawdust and feathers could settle, the Padre was right there, imparting wisdom upside Belle's noggin with his industrial strength tome, knocking her out flat. "'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' Book etc., verse etc."
"If that's true, Brother Otis, why do I still owe alimony?"
Shotgun cocked and ready, the Padre spun around to face down any and all comers -- and instead found someone who wasn't coming or going, and was already, well, facing down.
"Lord a'mighty!!"
"I don't think so, but thanks for the vote of confidence..."
It was the captain of the guard, a one Mr. Redd Rover, one of Pinkerton's elite, limp and bloodied, hidden among the debris of the aforementioned firefight. His gunmetal grey hardsuit all pocked and broken, like a high-tech Humpty Dumpty, with Mr. Rover himself unfortunately resembling the runny yellow parts. The phrase "rode hard and put up wet" comes to mind. But he was still alive.
The Padre cracked a smile so wide it seemed to divide his chin from the rest of his head. "You babyass tinhorn anorexic whelp! Still trying to convince the world you're some kinda Sir Lancelot! Zounds!!"
To this, the Pinkerton agent managed a warm chuckle through some body-rattling coughs, a wry grin stiffening into place.
Now, what the Padre said was a terrible rude thing to say, of course, but as ever in the Padre style, Absolutely Factual: Redd Rover had the flamboyance of a riverboat gambler; the shame of a used car salesman; and the heart of a noble warrior -- you know, the kind that writes ballads to fallen foes? -- all wrapped up in a tall, lean and lanky figure that should have tilted to one side in a good headwind. He had an angular, square-jawed face, a head of buzzcut cherry-blond hair, goatee, and a pair of fox-shaped baby blues that alone got him laid more times than a jack rabbit with hormone injections.
"Well, well, if it ain't the boulder of Mount Carmel! You Bible thumpin' black Methuselah! Ain't you dead yet?! How the hell did you get on this train without my men or my cameras or my cleverly placed, damn expensive warning systems knowing about it? And --"
"Calm down, boy! Don't get yer Underroo's into a knot! I seem to recall you askin' me something similar before. Answer's still the same: the Lord moves in mysterious ways. I just try to follow his example..." The Padre then sat the young captain upright, carefully, and tended to what wounds he could.
"You look like hell..."
"You should know -- OUCH! Don't menace that, you senile, old GodNazi!"
"Sorry, Nancy boy. Would you rather I amputate it from the stump later?"
"You mean I got a choice?"
Tearing strips from his Inverness, the Padre went about bandaging and setting Redd's fractured left leg with broken crate slates; Redd bitching every time Otis cleaned a wound with rubbing alcohol or tied a bandage in what Redd would colorfully express as a might firm.
Soon realizing he had a captive audience, Otis asked the Pinkerton agent some pertinent questions: "OK, boy, I'm not gonna waltz around with you on this. I know the Duprees have been targeting trains -- not for cargo, but for crew. And I know they've been only going after crew who count old timers among their ranks. Geriatrics who've been with the rail practically since it was first laid down!
"First off, why? And second, we both know kidnapping ain't exactly the Duprees' usual forte -- takes too long to get any results, too iffy. Which leads me to thinking they may only be the hired guns on this one -- also not their usual style." The Padre leaned in close to Redd, then real close, close enough for Redd to see his own reflection in the beads of sweat on the Padre's forehead. "What the hell is going on?"
Redd Rover considered his old friend and rival for one, tense, razor-sharp moment. But only a moment. "What do you know about The Cotton-Eyed Joe?"
They both knew the captain wasn't talking about no square dance.
"What -- the old legend? The folk tales? I don't have time to be playing games with you, boy..."
"It's not a legend, damn it! Listen... listen, we think the Duprees -- or whoever they may be working for -- hell, we think they found it!"
At that moment, the Padre's face went ash white, his eyes bugged out, and his mouth gaped open, causing his jowls to fold up like an accordion.
The captain was grateful that Otis understood the gravity of the situation, but thought the bounty hunter might've been overreacting just a touch. Then he noticed the rather large wooden crate shard stuck through the Padre's right shoulder. Blood spurted everywhere like a cheap horror vid.
"TAKE THAT, YE OLD LUMP O'CLAY! HA! BUMPKIN!"
Otis Van Briggs forgot about Belladonna Dupree. Again. This, you will know, did nothing but make Otis plum mad; at himself, mostly, but with enough to spread around.
"GOD'S DENTURES, WITCH, YOU ARE BEGINNING TO ANNOY ME!"
Spinning around to face Belle, he whipped out a long strand of red beads hidden in his Inverness and, looping them between the third and fourth fingers of each hand, clapped his hands twice loudly, and started rubbing the beads together vigorously, acting like he wasn't even stuck like a pig at a church barbecue.
And he began to glow. Soft. Amber. Warm.
Huh, Redd thought absently. Didn't know he could do that. Must come in handy at Christmas...
Belle stood transfixed, actually shocked; she didn't know he could do this, either.
The brightness seemed to quickly intensify, rising from the car floor, pushing it way up and around the Padre in a curtain of ethereal imagery, angelic and ghostlike. Somewhere, from far, far away, Redd could have sworn he heard a heavenly choir...
Then, abruptly, the light show was over. The music was gone. Time stopped. The battle was joined.
Striking a stance, the Padre threw back his shoulders (owie!), arched his back, and shot his cusped hands before him, wrist to wrist. "FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!" he commanded.
Sure enough, a great blue ball of fire appeared, instantly speeding across the floor in a blazing trail straight for Belle.
Unfortunately, by this time, she had regained much of her composure -- and all of her ego. "Oh, puhleeze!" Out of nowhere, the villainess slammed down the illusion of two breadbox-sized dice, disintegrating the fireball. "Ha! Snake eyes!"
Otis wasted no time in retaliation. "SWORD OF DAMOCLES!"
In a blink, all of the previously shattered wood debris splintered into a barrage of needle-like projectiles, all of which flew swiftly at Ms. Dupree.
Belle simply snapped her fingers and poker cards flew everywhere, deflecting the darts. "Royale flush!" she announced, crossing her arms all haughty-like, throwing her head back with a snort. "Come now, Father, I was doin' this hocus-pocus while still in me diapers!"
Meanwhile, the Padre's strand of beads seemed to expand exponentially, the length lassoing itself around him in a DNA chain-like pattern. This was going to have to end soon, Otis lamented. He was beginning to feel his oats. Wait for it, he thought. Wait for it...
"So tell me, Father, when did you take up parlor tricks?"
Just a little longer, witch. Just keep talking, stay distracted...
"Hmn? And why is it that you be waiting until now to show them off?"
He was sweating chihuahuas, pacing himself...
"Not wantin' to be stoopin' to my level?"
Suddenly, the Padre's hair bristled; he couldn't believe it -- she had dropped her shields! He could sense it; she wasn't even trying to read his thoughts! The arrogance!
"Ashamed?"
"Naw. Just don't like showing off." Now!
"SNAKE IN THE GARDEN!" the Padre commanded, spinning a full 360-degrees and releasing the beads from his orbit. Faster than thought, the strand snared Belladonna Dupree, snaking around her and binding her completely like a boa constrictor in a feeding frenzy.
"ENLIGHTENMENT!" He then whipped out a piece of paper about the size of a grocery ticket and slapped it onto her forehead; it stayed there and seemed to release a fountain of steam, shooting out from just behind the leaflet.
"Wha -- What have y'done t'me?!"
It was a parchment scroll, and looked to be as old as Old Earth; illuminated with text in Gothic script, featuring an elaborate, blood-red cross that seemed to finely bleed into the very grain of the paper.
Belle's skull glowed briefly from within; intense light shot from her eyes like lasers and she screamed, a piercing soul rattle, her bound body contorting like a worm on a hook, more in defiance than in pain. She then passed out, falling to the floor with an anticlimactic thud. Then it got real quiet, except for the rattle of the tracks below and the occasional stuttered clucks of some pretty shell-shocked poultry.
Redd Rover looked up at his friend, curious-like. "ROSARY BEADS?!"
"OK, so I'm a lapsed Catholic!"
Redd was incredulous. "You're a Baptist!"
"OK, so I'm a really lapsed Catholic!"
Hunched over, breathing raggedly, soaked in sweat and blood, the Padre simply grabbed the wooden shard and yanked it from his shoulder, all without so much as a gasp. He then promptly slid to the floor next to the captain of the guard. In unison they each sighed, pointedly.
"Twice I forgot about that woman! Twice! Women are the reason I escaped to seminary school in the first place! Women! Gads, what was God thinking?"
The captain had to laugh. "Forget about it! You were looking out for me. Your heart was in the right place..."
"Yeah, but my head was up my ass..."
Suddenly, with a boom and a lurch, an all-too familiar nova-bright whiteness blasted its way into the car.
"MY SISTER! WHAT HAVE YOU BASTARDS DONE TO MY SISTER?!"
The bounty hunter and the Pinkerton man wearily regarded each other.
"It just keeps getting better, don't it?"
"Scooping up the fun like roadkill..."
So much for "psionic strength" knockout serum. Otis didn't know what he was going to do: sue his chemist or just break his thumbs outright.
Fade to white...
* * *
A good ninety seconds had dragged by, molasses-slow, as Larkspur stood watch over her friend Calico, her mind elsewhen, kneeling over a patch of dead iron.
This was yet another thing in a list of many that profoundly annoyed Larkspur about her companion: they could be set upon by a pack of pink, fez-topped velociraptors and Calico would be completely oblivious to it, locked away in some sort of psychic rewind, prostrate like a sack of wet potatoes. And, truth to tell, it sometimes worried the vigilante for her friend to be out for more than a few seconds, for fear of her somehow maybe getting stuck like that... not that she would ever confess to it, not by gunpoint or threat of marriage.
Sighing in mock resignation, Larkspur unhooked her lipstick-red neck scarf from the lower half of her face, rubbed under her nose vigorously, and scratched her chin, to great relief. She then unbuttoned her grey half-jacket and, grabbing the lapels, flapped like a young hen, fanning herself, the cowboy fringe pointedly slapped against the soft leather.
Underneath was revealed a rather racy (and completely impractical) white lace bustier, the outfit's main concession to flash and dazzle. Rounding out the whole gratuitous inventory were her flared cuff riding gloves; skin-tight grey denim jeans; black soft leather knee-high lace-up boots; and black oversized leather belt with silver doubleheart-shaped buckle -- most of which was covered in varying degrees of red dirt, grass stains, motor oil stains, and bits of sagebrush, bristles and caked mud.
How glamorous.
As for Calico's "costume," it matched Larkspur's almost exactly, with the sole exception of a sleeveless, cavalry-style button overvest, rows of bone hair-pipes decorating the front. All of which remained spotless, immaculate, even. Larkspur didn't much care for that, either.
"They are alive!" exclaimed Calico, just suddenly aware, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Caught offguard more by Calico's bold proclamation than by her abrupt resuscitation, Larkspur stammered, "What?! No way! You're crazy! After this?!"
Calico was adamant. "They have been abducted. Why, I cannot say. And I have reason to believe others may yet live from the attacks before. You will have to trust me..."
It was almost too much for Larkspur to hope for. She wasn't used to playing the cynic, but --
"Tarnation, Pony! You know that doesn't fit the Duprees' M.O.! They're Chaos Theory personified!"
"Just so..." Calico calmly replied.
Silence fell briefly between the two as Larkspur steeled herself to the idea, her head swung low.
Now, let us pause here to say that there are likely two things you need to know about the core psychological make-up of the heroic Larkspur and Calico, and that they are this:
Although they both fell into the hero business completely by accident, Larkspur stayed in it for kicks, while Calico remained for the sense of freedom it afforded her.
You see, the plain and unexpurgated fact of the matter is that Railhead's two greatest heroes started out with absolutely no intention of being said such, and in fact were aiming to be career criminals, with a collective eye towards train and stage robbery.
What kept them from being very successful at this was a combination of ethical standards and bad timing. First off, they would not rob blue-collar workers, nuns, or children. Second, it always seemed that some meaner, more ruthless set of banditos or highwaymen were just ahead of them at the scene of their intended crimes, and that they found themselves compelled to save the day, preventing unsightly loss of life. This was perpetual.
To their credit, though, they got to be pretty good at this, going up against some of that era's most fearsome criminals. Problem was, once they whomped up on the bad guys, they just didn't seem to have the heart to pillage anybody. It didn't seem, well, seemly.
Well, faster than you can say "film at eleven," the media circus got ahold of our heroes like a pitbull to a mailman, turning an already unlikely set of tales into an even more convoluted "ongoing saga of the eternal struggle between good and evil."
Not bad for a pair of lasses barely into their twenties. For indeed, it seems that Larkspur, daughter of financial baron Preston Bliss, and Calico, heiress to the Nokidomo Software empire, were -- at the beginning, at least -- nothing more than two spoiled rich kid wildchilds, out looking for the puerile thrills and decadence that could only be had by living life on the cutting edge.
Now, Larkspur and Calico loved making music, make no mistake. But the glamour of rock stardom started to pale, and the dark lure of high risk and sudden death looked to be their ticket out of Dullsville.
Little did they know.
It's the same, sad old story, all right, or would have been, had not the Fates been so determined of its outcome. So verily, it came to pass that each successive adventure was more outrageous than the last, finally outclassing anything the newswebs could embellish.
Life lessons were learned hard and fast out on the prairie, and so the reluctant duo began to earnestly accept the mantle and responsibility of their reputation. Earnestly, but thankfully, never too seriously.
For Larkspur, it was just plain fun to be the good guy, a source of joy and merriment, racking up the brownie points and basking in the glory. For Calico, having chosen this path was simply a matter of great personal pride and fulfillment. This was not to shine Larkspur in any bad light, however. She was as brave and true as a pride of lions and then some. It's just that she would occasionally lose that "joie de vivre" when things stopped being a lark, and had to be coerced into action by her partner -- prodded, as it were -- whenever any particular adventure was turning especially grim.
Fortunately, it didn't take much. Case in point:
"HOT DAMN AND DON'T SPARE THE CHILI PEPPERS!!"
With a bounce and a rebel yell, Larkspur smiled that smile as big as all-outdoors, grabbed Calico by the wrist, and led her into a little doesy-doh.
Giddy, Larkspur breathlessly inquired, "Okeedokee, so where were they taken? It's a big damn planet --"
Calico looked thoughtful (which was quite a stunt, considering she was currently being swung around by a madwoman). "I think I know. It was nothing that was said, barely even thought. But it makes a crazy kind of sense..." She then paused, more to catch her breath than for any effect.
"... Cathedral Station!"
TO BE CONTINUED..
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Howdy.
What you have (hopefully) just read, I began around four years ago as nothing more than a writing exercise, a bit of stream-of-consciousness disguised as something with an actual plot. But, as I am sure has happened to countless other creators, the work soon took on a life of its own.
I realize that I'm not breaking any new ground here, as the concept of the "fantastic" Western has been around for quite a while:
On TV: The Wild Wild West; The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.; Legend.
In movies: Valley of the Gwangi; Westworld; Outland.
In comics: Dusty Starr; Far West; Virtex.
In American cartoons: The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers; Calamity Jane.
In literature: A Spectre is Haunting Texas; Santiago!; Dark Tower.
And, of particular interest to me, in anime and manga: Riot; Outlaw Star; Trigun.
All of the above are a few of my favorites, and are probably some of the best examples there are.
But even they, to some extent, suffer from the same problems the rest of this redheaded stepchild of a sub-genre does: an inherent layer of cheese. "Inherent" because for a "fantastic" Western to work, it must adhere to at least some "horse opera" conventions to be recognized as such, and when put into combination with the science fiction or fantasy genres, the result is often convoluted.
Because of this, most creators opt for the lighthearted approach, utilizing elements of pastiche, homage, and character humor.
I am no different. Make no mistake, I know that my work is derivative. My only goal is to entertain, and to give life to characters that have been knocking around in my brain, in one form or another, since 1986 (Hi, Edd! Hi, Edith!).
My name is Guy Clayton Brownlee, and I eagerly await your critiques. By all means be honest, but also please be considerate in your responses. I am overtly sensitive, and prone to bouts of melancholy when provoked. :)
This installment of "Coyote Sisters: The Adventures of Larkspur and Calico," has been brought to you by:Benten Label/Sister Records@: fine purveyors of Japanese girl-punk and retro-pop bands! Check 'em out at --
[http://www.sister.co.jp/english/index.html]
Highest recommendation: "Lolita No. 18!"
Every last damn thing copyrighted @2000 Guy Clayton Brownlee, unless where otherwise noted. Comprende, buckaroo?