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.
