COWBOY MAGIC

Chapter One: “The Bounty”

May 13th, 1993

12:42 PM

I took my beer from Billy the waiter with a nod. It was something red and Texan and cold enough to chill the glass. Perfect.

It was May of 1993, and it was quiet in The Deadman’s Tally, an old-style cowboy bar way out in the part of southeast Texas with more weedy dirt roads than hard cement. The bar was so old-timey nobody knew if it was just a kitschy throwback or an actual Old West ruin made whole again with modern timber and neon beer signs. But it had a wide selection of whiskey, a decent juke…and was the center of the cryptid-hunter community.

For forty some-odd years The Deadman was where people dealing with honest-to-God monsters had brought their woes (everything from spirits to sasquatches), and where bounty-hunters like myself could grab a shot at making a little rent money by bringing those monsters to heel.

The weirder the monster, the more expensive the bounty.

I put a fiver on Billy's tray. He was good at what he did.

The place had just opened for the day and only a few of my fellow monster-killers were in there playing billiards and soaking in the opening happy hour. I liked showing up at the Deadman right as it opened to get dibs on the strange, obscure jobs that slunk in at closing time the night prior. Those were the desperate jobs. The weird ones. The jobs that make the tabloids and make skeptics into believers.

The owner of the bar, a damn warrior goddess made of dirty blonde hair and muscle we called Susie Angles for some reason was just getting in, and I flicked the brim of my nicely beaten-in pale straw cowboy hat at her as she set her bag down behind the bar.

She looked me up and down. My usual personal uniform of button down, tank, jeans, and boots wasn’t all that out of place for the bar, but I might’ve been dustier than I should have been in polite-ish company. Angles never appreciated a layer of dust on a man.

“Hey there St George,” she said.

Something mischievous lit up inside me. I glanced at the juke box about a dozen steps away and lifted a finger in its direction.

She glared. “Don’tcha do it, Jack,” she drawled.

I grinned, took a sip of my red ale, then mimed a Fonzie-style whack in the air. The juke sprang back to life, and the needle came down on a Johnny Cash song. The guys playing pool groaned.

A lot of cryptid hunters (or Deadmen as a lotta locals have taken to calling us) are Gifted (capital G), with born-in abilities that widen the eyes and make you question your religion. I don’t really know why so many extraordinary folk often get into my line of work, but spellwork is a rare Gift, one I rarely used except to defend myself. Or to make a buck. Or to annoy bartenders.

“Swear to Hades I’m taking that record out soon as you’re gone,” Angles hissed.

I smiled at her, then looked over my shoulder. “We like a little music with our debauchery, don’t we, folks?” I shouted.

One of the pool players, a thick-bearded guy I’d heard some call Rum Chuckie, flicked a spent cigarette in my general direction in response. “Fuck you, Hellson,” he spat.

I grinned, took my drink with me to the bar and fist-bumped Angles, who only reluctantly returned it. “Anything in last night?”

She looked over at the guys playing pool and lowered her voice. “Actually yeah. Something just your kind of stupid,” she murmured.

“Desperate?”

“Like I said. Real Jack St George territory.”

She reached behind her by the register and came up with one of those yellow sticky-notes. She handed it over.

Most of what came into The Deadman was a wild goose chase, the kind of jobs that turned out to be just mangy raccoons or nutria rats (though I’d honestly tangle with the average raging specter or rabid jackalope than a run-of-the-mill nutria. Look ‘em up if you don’t believe me). The post-it note read different.

Contact: Ed Holler, Holler Lincoln of South Houston

8100 East Telephone Road.

Poss cryptid “eating his cars”

$1200.

I liked that price. After Angles collected her piece, it’d mint me a cool grand.

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“Eating his cars?” I said.

“Yeah. Weird. You takin it?” she asked.

I rapped my knuckles on the table. I had bills, and a Camaro that needed a new everything put on it. “My kinda stupid indeed,” I said. "Mark me down.”

She grabbed a pen and pad with tons of jobs marked down and scratched out. At the bottom in between “noises in gramma’s attic” and “voodoo nonsense at the high school” was “Ed Holler’s car-eating whatsit.” She scrawled my name next to it.

I moved to leave, but she grabbed my wrist. Her grip was strong. I blinked down at it.

“Those idiots playing pool technically had dibs,” she warned. “But I’m giving this one to you cause Ed seemed like a good guy. He’s a pillar of his community and he’s eager to protect folks. I want this done respectful. As Deadmen go, you're a helluva hunter. But don’t make me regret this, Jack.”

I swallowed a sarcastic reply. Angles was a good human, and I knew when she meant business. “I won’t let you down, ma’am,” I said.

She nodded, then let go of my arm. “And that magical whatever-the-hell nonsense better not have broke my juke,” she said, slapping the pad back down below the bar.

I tipped my hat, paid my tab, and damn near scuffed my boots skippin out the exit. I felt lucky.

Mistake number one.

* * * * *

I was about three steps out the door when I heard it open again.

“Hey St George! Hold up there, you prick.”

Shit.

I turned. There was Rum Chuckie and his taller, rail-thin pal, a guy I identified as Early Thomas. Both wore biker cuts from a club I didn’t recognize, and were advancing on me quick.

They stopped just within arm’s reach.

I did a quick scan of the pair and noted Chuckie had a heavy chain (and what looked like a huge padlock at the end) sticking out of a pocket. His pal had a hand in his vest, so I figured he had a blade. As for me, I’d left my gun and shoulder holster in the car because Angles didn’t allow weapons in the bar. But assholes always find a way.

Cryptid hunters like a tussle. We’re sort of geared toward getting into scrapes, and I’d just taken a gig ahead of them. You didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what was coming.

“Hey Chuckie. Early,” I said. I hooked a thumb in a belt loop and smirked at them. “Need advice on your billiard break?”

“You jumped the line,” Chuckie said.

I barked out a laugh. “A US Marshall gonna back you up on that?” I replied. “Angles gave me the gig special. Wanted my touch on it.”

“That right?” Early said.

“Sure as sugar,” I said, taking a step forward. “Ours is not to reason why.” I could smell booze radiating from them. I figured they were both already drunk, or still drunk from last night.

“Screw Angles,” Early said.

That pissed me off some.

“Just git, you two.” I said, my voice dropping an octave. “This is how Angles would have it, so that’s how it’s happening.”

Chuckie sneered. “I don’t give a popelick’s ass what Angles wants.” He put out a hand. “Gimme the job, Hellson. Then walk.”

For what I assumed was dramatic purposes, Early drew a switchblade about the length of my hand and flicked it open.

I was still ready to let the whole thing be…but then Chuckie spat tobacco juice into the gravel at my feet. He missed my boots, but not by much.

I glared down at my boots. They were a gray-green diamond back snakeskin, well-worn heels but polished to a shine. My boots were the one thing I wore worth more than 30 bucks, and he’d just spat on em. Or near em, anyway.

I liked my boots. And I’d had enough.

I shifted my balance and kicked my heel into Early’s right knee, not hard enough to break bone but painful enough so he buckled quick. As he folded down, I grabbed his wrist and twisted his blade hand hard, clattering the knife to the ground.

In response Chuckie drew out his chain and swung it at me, that huge silver padlock coming in chest high. I was still holding Early close and couldn’t slip it fast enough, so I just aimed my shoulder at the blow and took it. It stung like a mother, and had I not rolled with it, it might’ve done some serious damage.

Chuckie recovered and twirled the chain high overhead for a second strike. I grunted, planted my feet, then rolled to the side and spun his hobbled friend in the way at the last second. Chuckie’s padlock smacked into the back of Early’s head. I let Early go, and he dropped flat to the ground.

The odds a little more even, I sprinted forward and tackled Chuckie, wrapping him up defensive end style and took five great leaping paces, slamming him backwards into a metal shed just off the curb to the side of the lot.

He took it on the small of his back. It must’ve hurt, but didn’t daze him much. He growled, grabbed me with his huge skillet-sized hands and shoved me hard in the chest, loosing a guttural scream and sending me sprawling ten feet away. I rolled but lost my balance and slammed into the gravel, my hurt shoulder lighting up with pain.

That’s when Chuckie drew a small derringer pistol from the back of his jeans.

My eyes went wide. Wasn’t expecting that.

I scrabbled up to a run, slid to a stop and jerked my body the other way just as he pulled the trigger. The drunken shot went wide…and landed in the right front panel of my old beater Camaro instead of in my back.

His one shot spent, Chuckie reached down, grabbed up a piece of rusted rebar at his feet, and charged me while I was still on my knees.

With the kind of strength he’d been throwing around, I took a second to wonder if Chuckie wasn’t at least a little Gifted. But as he advanced on me holding high that two-foot chunk of rusted metal, I decided I’d ask him about it another time.

As be brought the rebar down in the general direction of my favorite forehead, I lurched up at the last second and wrapped my right hand around his huge meaty fists, steeling my muscles and just barely stopping him from bringing the weapon down.

With a snarl, I let spellwork flood through my veins and into my fingers.

Heat began to swell in my grip and flow into Chuckie’s clenched hands, searing his knuckles, hot as fire. He grunted with pain through gritted teeth, and I didn’t let up. I poured on the energy, and the metal bar in his hands started to hiss then actually glow an angry red.

At last, just as I heard his skin start to sizzle, Chuckie let out an anguished scream. That’s what I wanted to hear. I stood up and released his hands.

He immediately dropped the rebar and fell to his knees, his hands smoking. A badly burned impression of my fingers was wrapped around them, and blisters from the heated rebar were rising all over his palms. Tears of pain ran freely down his cheeks.

“Y-you bastard…what the hell-“

I clocked Chuckie one across the back of his head for good measure, shutting him up. I looked over to Early, who was just staggering to his feet, a hand on the back of his head from the blow Chuckie had given him with the chain.

“Wha-what happen,” he stammered.

I walked up to Early as he got straight. He was dazed as all hell, and the fight was out of his eyes.

“Listen up, Early. Take this asshole outta here, wrap his mitts and get him to a doc.” I lowered a mean gaze at him, trying to make an impression. “Tell them Chuckie was drunk, stumbled, and landed on a red hot stove. Got it? Say anything else and I’m gonna remember an attempted murder on his part.”

Early’s eyes tracked down to my hand, where smoke was curling upwards from my palm. He swallowed.

“You…branded him?”

“That's right," I said. "Like a stupid, greedy steer. You won’t do it again though, will you Chuckie?” I said over my shoulder.

Chuckie shook his head.

“Holy hell,” Early whispered, a quiver in his voice.

I crouched and snatched up Early’s switchblade from the dirt, tucking it into my boot. Spoils of war.

“Yeah. Holy hell,” I murmured.

I didn’t wait around to see if Chuckie got to the hospital or not. Instead I just hoofed it over to my car, shook the last whisps of spellwork from my hands, revved the engine, and lit out.

I was a Deadman with a cryptid to kill and a bounty to collect. And no tobacco-spittin pretend biker trash was gonna get in this cowboy’s way.