COWBOY MAGIC

Chapter Three: “The Showdown”

May 13th, 1993

3:12 PM

I retrieved my bag from the office and set about my work. The shadows hadn’t cooled the ground in the scrap yard in the slightest, and as I started prepping, sweat was pouring.

Just in front of the largest scrap pile, I dragged a massive bear trap out of my duffle, the kind pricks use to hunt big game animals, and set it up. I’d made a point of stealing the traps out of the woods since the late 80s, turning the worst in human nature into something to fight against the Dark.

They were heavy as hell.

Ed finally came stood over and stood by me as I crouched near the edge of the scrapyard, frowning down occasionally as I set a second trap.

“Alright. Explain this for me, cowboy. I’m in the dust here.”

Here we go, I thought.

I didn't want to tell him everything. Especially because I suspected he'd had more of a hand in things than he realized. But he deserved to know. And I needed his help.

“Ed, did you ever take a shot at the creature?”

He barked a laugh. “Three times. Couldn’t even line it up. It moves like lightning.”

“Yeah, it sure does.”

“Holy Jesus, you saw it?”

I didn’t look up from my work. “Second, all those game trophies and Native artifacts in your office. They all come from the woods around the property?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Got tons of em hung up at home, too. Why?”

I sucked a breath in through my teeth. Confirmation. I stayed calm and pointed a long trap pin back towards the woods where the hunting shed still stood. “So imagine you’re a cryp out there,” I said. “You stay outta the sun, away from humans, you eat what you want but you play it safe. Then one day, some guy with a big scary rifle comes into your world. He starts shooting it all over the place, hunts down your food supply.”

I glanced up at Ed. He frowned.

“I eat everything I kill,” he said by way of explanation.

“So you’re hungry, you get a little brave. You go outside your territory and find yourself a nice little disused hunting shed. You’re drawn in by the shadows, thinkin you got a new lair on your hands.” I turned back toward the shed. “And then something in that shed starts calling you to stay, whittling down your instincts. It changes you, and you just sit there with your new friend, the Conflux, while it mutates you. Imbues you with power. Poison. And rage.”

“And what in holy Heaven is a Conflux?” he asked.

I laid down the trap pin and muscled it into place.

“A Conflux,” I said, standing up and looking Ed straight in the eye, “is a mass of angry energy that coalesces when people do dumb shit like building a car dealership on a Native American burial ground, then overhunting the land around it while picking up artifacts in the woods and hanging them up on your walls. A Conflux is anger, Ed. Anger from a very old, very spiritual people.”

Ed’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. “Oh shit.”

I nodded. “Third. What is this, Ed? Comanche territory?”

He cleared his throat and loosened his bola tie.

“Atakapa,” he said. “They go as far south as Galveston. Thing is-”

I cut him off with a hand. He closed his mouth.

I admit, I was pissed off with Ed. A lot of hunters don’t think before they sack up and start pulling game out, the effect it has on the world around them. And Ed was exactly that kind of hunter. But as I stood there lecturing the old guy, I saw the stress on his face. The pain. Ed hadn’t meant any harm.

Like most Americans, he'd just forgot where we all come from.

I pointed off to the woods again. “In short Ed, you caused a Conflux to appear in the shed by disrespecting the land, and then some kind of nasty cryptid crept in and got mutated into what's eating your cars,” I took a breath and reached into my pocket. I was about to destroy Ed’s whole world. I fished out the leather watch strap I’d found in the shed from my pocket.

"And killing people," I finished.

Ed took the piece of leather from me, turned it over, then read the inscription. He closed his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, Jack. I gave this to him.”

“Found a finger, too.” I said, trying to sound clinical and professional. “Stew’s gone, Ed.”

There was a long pause. I watched him handle the information, blink back a few tears, then put the strap into his pocket.

We shared the silence. Ed stared off in the direction of the shed. “Anything I can do?”

I nodded. “Yeah. We tussled in the shed, so its dander is up and it's hungry for blood. I’m willing to bet it’ll come out for a snack tonight, so I just need some bait." I pointed to the show lot. “There’s a nice-looking ’88 convertible back there, the maroon one with the flashy hubcaps. Drive it out here to the edge of the biggest scrap pile. We’ll draw the thing in, nab it in one of the bear traps, and hope they stop the thing from disappearing.” I patted my shoulder rig. “Then I’m gonna put brass into its heart.”

“Would my rifle help?” he asked.

I shook my head. By his own admission Ed wasn’t good enough to so much as track the thing with a scope, and nothing he’d bought at a sports store was gonna do much to it anyway. “Not this time, Ed. Just clear the property of any humans you actually like, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

He didn’t ask any more questions, just did as I asked, then gave me his home number.

A few hours later the shadows were long, and I was alone. Sunset was falling fast, red, and sweltering.

In the silence, I felt ready. I found an old step stool and hid myself behind a pile of rusted out car panels piled up about five feet high, where I could keep an eye on the main scrap pile through the slats. Good a spot as any.

“Time to earn some money,” I said.

* * * * *

Folks who hunt game up in deer blinds and whatnot tell me hunting is a long, low energy wait. Most of them just get drunk up there and call it a day.

Cryptid hunts are the opposite. There’s a fire in your belly and a pounding in your chest because you know damn well that what you’re hunting will tear you apart (in some cases literally) and take sheer, unadulterated, oddly human levels of glee in doing it.

I felt that deep as I surveyed what was likely about to become a killing ground, one way or the other. I’d decided to make my stand in the scrap yard instead of the car lot. Fewer places for it to hide. There were towers of cars and scrap, sure, but I didn’t relish the thought of giving the creature row after row of cars to use for cover.

Night fell, and a pair of huge flood lights above the scrap yard clicked on with a satisfying thrumming sound above.

I glanced down at my shoulder rig, then drew my weapon.

My handgun is a special make to say the least, a modified Old West Colt make that belonged to my great-great-great grandmother, going back to just after the Civil War. It had a graduated barrel, a beautiful abalone grip inlaid with silvery symbols no one I knew could recognize, and it smelled of oil and hard steel. It had saved my ass more times than I’d deserved.

You gotta believe in what you’re doing if you’re gonna sling fire and magic at the Dark. It’s gotta be in your bones. That’s why so many of us carry totems and symbols and whatnot with us into the fray. And my ancestor’s colt, which she’d worn in our nation’s adolescence throughout the Wild West and dusted scumbags with abandon (or so I imagined) was something I could believe in.

I squeezed the polished grip. It didn’t crack under the pressure of my knuckles or anything, but the excitement I felt of facing a goddamn Stygian was real, so I wondered if it was gonna by the end of the night.

Not long after, about a quarter past pitch dark, my quarry made its entrance atop that massive scrap pile. Right where I'd planned.

The battle in the shed had been a fast, heart-pounding affair, without any time for me to get a good look at the thing. I’d just seen teeth and fur and claws the size of trash can lids, so it was fair to say it was the first time I’d ever seen the thing straight up.

It leapt up and over the backside of that huge scrap pile, then stood backlit in the flood lights, its head upright, afraid of nothing. An apex predator on its throne.

In the light, you might have figured the cryp for a huge dog the size of a St Bernard or better. It had pockmarked, glistening skin that was pulled tight to its frame, and the flesh on its rat-like face was wrenched back in a perpetually vile-looking grimace that revealed needle-like teeth. It had muscles upon muscles decking it out, and I gathered it must have outweighed me by a hundred pounds or more.

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I noticed it had somehow wrenched Early’s switchblade out of its shoulder. God knows how.

It stepped a little further onto the zenith of the scrap pile, and I saw its literal crowning glory – a set of massive horns jutting from its forehead. Like you’d see on a genuine Texas longhorn. That ID’ed it for me. I was amazed I’d missed them, even in the dark.

It was a chupacabra.

“A fucking mutant chupacabra,” I breathed.

Chups are legendary all over the southern part of the country. Most folk see mange-ridden possums and raccoons and give them the moniker, but real chups are nasty, vicious, and smart. When you see one, you know it. Thing is, I’d never even heard of one that size. Most of the stories of actual chups involved eating chickens. This one looked like it might have killed and eaten cows for supper if it had cared to.

Or people. I thought of Ed’s assistant’s watch. Jesus Christ.

It sniffed hard at the air, a deep sucking sound, then started to slink down the tall scrapheap. I wondered why it wasn’t gnawing on every bit of steel it came to, but lucky for me apparently it had finer tastes, as it kept making eyes towards the maroon bait car I’d had Ed place there, as if pulled in by a magnet. Maybe fresh steel was more its palate.

I started a countdown from ten.

By the time I got to seven, the Stygian chup was on the ground.

By four it was behind the car.

Then just before I got to one, I heard the first bear trap go off. It screamed.

I leapt up and lit out, barreling towards the convertible, and slid on one hip to a knee just in front of the grill and beside the right front panel. The second the chup noticed me, I slapped the hammer fast and double-tapped twice.

The chup had one leg caught and it managed to twist weirdly, but I’d nailed it just below the haunches in two bloody gashes. The chup howled something awful, and the part of me that remembers what it was like not to be at the top of the food chain before evolution gave us bang sticks and telephones quailed, but I kept my cool.

I watched the chup calm down with an eerie intelligence. Get all four clawed feet on the ground. Then it disappeared…and reappeared six feet away from the spent trap. The chup was free. And bleeding. And pissed.

The trap had done nothing.

All I could say was, “Holy shit.” So I did.

I fired a third shot, but it went wide as the chup leapt to my right and shimmied up the near vertical pile of steel. It didn’t even so much as limp as it shot back out at me and slammed into my chest like a runaway Harley. It sent me flat on my back, pinning me to the ground for the second time that day.

This time it wasn’t willing to give me a second to pull any tricks. I lifted my hand to protect my face, and it got its teeth around my forearm and bit in deep. I howled as my blood gushed around its teeth. Luckily the Colt hadn’t gotten far from my other hand, and I managed to reach over, snatch it up and fire into the center mass again. But damned if the chup didn’t let go, juked to the left this time and bail out of sight again.

It was silent. I was bleeding hard. And I knew what was coming.

I scrambled to my feet, leapt over the spent bear trap, and ran further out into the clearing with a wider plane of sight. My boots pounded dust and I got myself out of the shadows of the scrap pile, turning a 360 in hopes to see the chup before it came at me again.

I held the Colt out straight. And I held my breath.

Just as I made my third circuit, the chup sprang out of the darkness from out of nowhere and knocked into me again. I felt a jolt of pain suddenly light up against my arm as it did, and then a white-hot agony as one of those fucking horns gored a deep gash in my opposite shoulder.

It was worrying at me, wearing me down. I screamed holy hellfire and fired off my fifth shot of the night. I heard it yelp, but it bounded away into the shadows and disappeared again.

I looked down at my torn and bleeding arm. Where the chup had rubbed against me were long red welts, burns from its acidic blood, pairing neatly with the blood running down my shoulder.

It had hurt me. Pretty bad. I could run, I realized. Turn tail, pray for speed, and find a way to come at the chup again later. But in the meantime, I knew it would kill again. Not from hunger but from the sheer fucking madness of having brass in its system and a Conflux driving it. And it’d start all over.

I looked over and saw the second bear trap a few yards out. I thought to try and lure the thing toward it again, maybe end it quick.

That trap…that symbol of weakness that real hunters didn’t dare use.

I realized my error mighty quick then.

I wasn’t the kind of hunter that used a goddamn bear trap. I looked down at my pistol. At my torn flannel. At my dusty steel-toed snakeskin boots. Goddammit, I was something else. I was a Deadman, born to take out the old threats from the Dark. And I had the means to do it.

I felt my desperation turn to acceptance. There was an energy in me that wanted out. That wanted to fight. I’d learned to trust that instinct – a long suffering call from my ancestors: the essence of my spellwork.

I made the decision to cowboy up.

Instead of sprinting like a madman, this time I casually reached into my pocket for some spare shot, reloaded the revolver, and limped over to the maroon convertible, trying to seem as non-threatening as I could. I even hooked a thumb in my belt. I turned a slow circle, letting the chup (wherever it was) see my wounds, get confident. I knew that steel-hunger aside, no cryptid, no matter how smart or raged, sees a quick, easy kill and lets it go. I was the best bait I had.

After a few seconds, it gently touched down out of the darkness about ten paces away from me. Its snarl was still on its face as its jaw opened and a distinctly hyena-like sound escaped its mouth.

I resisted the urge to shoot. If the chup did its little disappearing act and I missed, well…that might be the end.

“You sir,” I said, “are one tough, nasty prick.” I held my gun hand out to one side.

It crept a few feet closer, its head raised, smelling my blood, I assumed. I steeled myself, and concentrated hard.

“If you’d stayed out there in the wild, we’d have no quarrel. As is, a good man is paying good money for your hide,” I said. “So we got business.”

It circled a little to my left and stamped angrily at the dust. Its yellow eyes looked straight outta hell itself.

It growled hungrily, its lips curling.

It barked, loud and echoing, three times.

The moment had come. I hoped my ancestors were watching.

“Come get some,” I spat. “Come get some motherfucking Texas magic.”

I gripped the air with my left hand and reached deep into my spiritual well. I was exhausted cause from bleeding so hard, but my energies answered true.

As the chup sailed through the air, a translucent jade-colored bullwhip manifested in my hand. It cracked hard in the summer air, a shimmering cloud of dust leaping up in its wake as it broke the sound barrier.

The chup managed to avoid the snap by changing direction in mid-air (don’t ask me how) and skittered to a stop. Its eyes darted and it looked furious but shaken up as the light of the whip flashed in its eyes. It leapt in again, and I snapped that leathery-looking jade energy a second time, keeping it at bay.

It snarled and set its feet. It was coming in, no matter what.

I cried out a mighty “HYAH!” like a cattle drover of old, circled the whip over my head and then shot my arm out wide to the left. As the chup launched itself at me, fangs bared for the kill, my spellwork cracked like God’s own thunderbolt, echoing around the scrapyard as it wrapped around the chup’s neck.

I yanked hard and stepped to the side as it smashed into the ground.

The chup screamed and rolled over, but my spellwork held it. It thrashed and howled, and I pulled the whip tight, cutting off its air supply. It howled a noise I never wanted to hear again - Satan’s own scream from a place where no man could tread.

I reached into my magical reservoir one last time, tore the last motes of energy I had out of it, and channeled it all straight into great-great-great grandma’s Colt .45.

The shot went off like canon fire and landed right in the chup’s sternum.

The cryptid was launched backward and smacked hard into the side panel of the car, still trailing the bullwhip like a noose. Yellow acidic blood shot out everywhere, burning holes into the hood and hardtop of the Lincoln with an evil sizzle. I watched as the rust set in from each droplet.

The chup let out a last hateful growl and slumped down. Dead.

I nodded at my work.

After a few seconds, I looked down at my hand, where the whip spell glowed bright like green torchlight. Spellwork is a part of your psyche, and I’m told that sometimes it lights up your subconscious, gives what you need, what you can handle, when you need it.

I didn’t know why the spell had come when I’d called, but right then I didn't care. I’d figure it out someday. All I knew was I had a new weapon to fight the Dark. I’d take it on faith. I shook my hand, dissipating the energy, and the spellwork faded away.

Immediately I got a little woozy, so I put my hands on my knees as the adrenaline wore off. The pain came in next, hard. I tore what was left of my shirt sleeve and tied off the wound the chup’s horns had given me. It would keep. I cleaned the forearm off too.

The quiet was a damn thing. I was hurt bad, and bleeding hard, but I’d survive as long as I got to a hospital. I looked over at the maroon Lincoln bait car with its huge dent and rust panel holes. The keys were still on the dash.

I gathered my stuff into my bag, tossed it in the back, got in and started her up, relishing in the roar of American engineering. I pushed a button and the hardtop came down as I drove out of the lot.

I looked up.

The stars were big and bright.

* * * * *

I called Ed’s number once I got to Houston General Hospital. He picked up almost immediately. I explained it had been a chupacabra munching on his cars all along, and he didn’t even sound surprised. Guess I’d built up some trust. I told him I had the Lincoln, and that the docs said I’d be out the next evening. Ed told me he’d call Angles and approve the bounty once he’d seen the corpse. I told him fair enough.

Two dozen stitches, a whopper of a tale about getting mauled by a bobcat, and a long sleep later, I walked out of the hospital on my own power. I hadn’t had much to eat. Not a fan of those green gelatin desserts as a rule.

Just as I was stepping out the doors of the lobby and into the evening light, I saw Ed there leaning up against a lamppost with a manilla folder in his hand, chatting with Janie. They’d been waiting, apparently.

“There he is,” Janie said. “Man of the hour.”

“Ma’am,” I said. I felt a little subconscious in front of her. They’d washed the blood from my clothes but they still hung off me in chup-shredded rags.

“How’s the wings?” Ed asked.

I sniffed. My shoulder and forearm were both wrapped in a dressing and covered in all kinds of meds. Honestly they still hurt like hell, drugs and whatnot aside. “They’ll mend up after a few plates of eggs and toast I figure,” I said. “Though my rodeo career might be on hold for a while.

He nodded but didn’t smile. “Good.”

“What did you do with the chup’s body?” I asked.

“Cut it up. Burned it. Most of it.”

I cocked my head. He handed me the folder and a pen.

“Sign this,” he said.

I opened the folder and squinted down at the pages of legal whatnot. I’m even less a fan of contracts than I am of hospital food. “What’s this? Receipt?”

“No,” he said, craning his head around behind him. “Your tip.” He pointed off to the garage, where the Lincoln sat. Not where I’d parked it.

It was washed and waxed…and I’ll be damned if the chup’s skull wasn’t mounted on the front grill.

“You’re giving me the Lincoln?” I asked.

“Yes, Mr. St George I certainly am. Used my spare key and prettied her up for you this afternoon. I pulled the dent and took the rust out, but my body guy won’t be in for a few days. Bring it back and we’ll fix the panel and hardtop holes.”

My heart quickened. The humble cowboy in me told me to refuse a “tip” to the tune of five figures, but the man who liked riding in cars instead of buses told said humble cowboy to shut the hell up.

“You’re sure about this, Ed?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. I owe a lotta debts. To the land. The people. To Stew’s family. And to you. This helps me get square with God. Maybe just a little.”

I didn’t argue. But there was still an issue I wanted handled.

“Well, consider you and me square. And then some.” I signed the papers. As I handed him the pen, I looked him hard in the eye. “But you need to re-consecrate that ground out there.”

Ed nodded. “How?”

“Tear down the shed, then burn what’s left down to the foundation. Then afterward, bury every single artifact you took outta those woods. Bury them deep. Then call the local tribe and ask them to bless that land, and do whatever they tell you. Pay what they ask. That should kill the Conflux.”

He looked down at his boots. Janie put a hand on his shoulder, then walked away.

“Will do,” he finally said. A few minutes later, Janie pulled up in Ed’s truck. Jack extended his hand as he got in. “Good luck Jack,” he said.

We shook. Ed and Janie drove away with a sad, quiet dignity.

I crept up on the Lincoln and ran a hand across the finish. His people had gussied it up right. The skull looked pretty as all hell, with deep angry grooves, a huge jawbone, and those proud horns sticking out wide. Most folks would think it was a longhorn from a distance. I was fine with that.

I dropped my professional façade, hopped into the car, and revved that beautiful American engine.

Ed had left the top retracted, so I just let the breeze shoot through my mussy hair as I pulled out and headed back for The Deadman’s Tally, eager to collect my money from Angles.

There are in fact, a lot of things you can’t un-see. But there’s also the occasional beautiful Houston sunset seen from the seat of a new car, the feel of new leather beneath you, and a reminder that very occasionally, good can be done.

That, everybody gets to see. Every now’n then.

I landed at the Deadman a couple hours later. Angles was happy with the outcome, pulled bills out from the register, stuffed her cut of Ed’s money into a pocket, and handed me ten crisp $100 bills.

She didn’t mention Chuckie or his hand. I figured I’d see an end to that story another time. Without further ado, I set out to spend my new fortune at the first greasy spoon I could find.

My dinner, that evening at least, was delicious.