COWBOY MAGIC

Chapter Two: “The Quarry”

May 13th, 1993

1:17 PM

About an hour or so and 25 miles later, I was dead in the water on the side of a Texas feeder road, watching my ’73 Camaro billow steam out its hood. It looked like Rum Chuckie got the last laugh – the bullet from that stupid derringer of his had nicked my engine. The car couldn't handle it, and had crapped out.

I was so mad I actually drew my revolver and pointed it at my less-than-loyal steed.

My car had never been reliable, though it had looked cool back in high school. For a second I was almost pissed enough to shoot it right between the headlights, but I decided to be the more mature, modern cryptid bounty hunter and not waste a bullet.

I slapped my ancient colt revolver back into its shoulder holster, sighed, opened the passenger side and slid my big black duffle bag over my shoulder. I started walking.

Houston heat is a real thing, folks. It sits heavy and wet on your shoulders, slinks into your pores, and makes you grateful as all hell for AC and margaritas. I was craving both before too long, and was glad my weaved cowboy hat was providing at least a modicum of shade. After a good bake in that early summer Texas sun, I made it to the edge of a dirt road and came to my destination: Ed Holler’s massive car lot, tucked into a greener, more rural area of town than I’d expected.

The dealership housed a wide commercial show yard full of blacktop and beautifully-polished cars, and then behind that, a commercial junk yard. A huge fleet of shiny new Lincolns spread out before me in the main lot, contrasting with the towering heaps of metal in a scrapyard beyond it.

I thought to find the office and introduce myself, but stepped in solo instead, hoping to get some ideas unbiased. I bypassed the show lot and its hypnotizing rows of cars. Nothing there to see but good old fashioned American steel.

The scrapyard was a different story. Flanked by a massive crane and huge machines that I supposed chopped up useless cars, the place was well-organized and crowned by a massive pile of scrap almost two stories high. The pile cast a shadow over what to my eye looked like ten gorgeous, brand-new cars, but each of them had “scrap” written in white shoe polish on the windshields.

I crouched by the side of a green two-door, where I found what looked like huge bites been taken out of the steel, and a huge toothy hole straight into the side panel.

Rust caked the area around the bites. But I wondered if there was more.

From my pocket I pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses I’d bought off a shaman a year prior. They were scratched all to hell, but all along the rims were tiny runic symbols that had been attuned to the energies in cryptid blood. They’d helped me on a number of bounties, and I’d never regretted the price.

Sure enough, through the lenses I could see tiny flecks of yellowish energy, the remnants of blood drops all along the bite. I figured whatever had done the biting had cut up its gums pretty bad on the steel.

“Looks bad, huh?”

I looked up to see who’d spoken. Standing behind me was a leather-faced guy in a pale three-piece suit, beaming down at me. He wore a pair of ostrich skin boots, and the only thing on him whiter than his Stetson was his gleaming pearly smile.

I swear to almighty God above the man even wore a bola tie with the state of Texas on it. He held out his hand.

“You gotta be Jack St. George,” he said.

I nodded and grinned back at him. “Yeah, that’s the rumor. You sir, gotta be Ed Holler,” I said.

I throw a lotta “sirs” and “ma’ams” around. High school football leaves an impression on you.

Ed showed me his back molars. “Susie Angles at that…uhh…bar y’all call an office says you can help me. That you know some…uhh…sorcery and whatnot.”

“Did she,” I murmured.

Ed squinted out at his property, concern in his voice. “She said they call you the Hellson, but didn’t say why.”

I just nodded.

He broke the tension with a laugh. “Well hell, son!” he said, opening his arms wide. “Come inside, you need some iced tea.”

* * * * *

Ed’s office was everything a Texas car salesman’s space should be: tan walls, comfy leather furniture, and pictures of himself shaking hands with mayors and football players all over the place.

In between each photo was what looked like Native memorabilia – about a dozen framed arrowheads, the head of a hatchet, and a piece of leather strap decorated with feathers, maybe a bracelet or broken headband.

And of course, there were hunting trophies everywhere. Three wide-racked deer, a few rabbits, a couple raccoons. I never understood taxidermy myself. Seems disrespectful, even if it does look cool as hell up on a wall.

A woman in a clean blue polo shirt came in with iced tea on a tray. Ed gestured for me to take a glass. I did.

“Obliged,” I said gratefully, taking a less-than-gentlemanly swig and setting my half-empty glass down on a coaster.

Ed held up a hand. In some parts of Texas, that’s the same as saying you’re welcome. He groaned comfortably and sat into a swiveling desk chair.

“Janie, hold my calls while Mr. St George and I have a conversation. Thank ya.”

Janie nodded and left. Ed and I sat there for a second, and the old man took my measure.

“That’s Janie,” he said. “Manager. She’s filling in for Stew, my usual assistant. He ain’t been here in a while.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Sick I figure,” he replied.

“Huh.”

“By the way, where’s your ride, son? You got a bike or somethin?”

I smirked. “Between automobiles just now.”

He didn’t push. He pointed up at his trophies. “Yeah, I eat everything I shoot out there. In case you’re wondering.”

“That’s probably good,” I said, waiting.

Finally he cleared his throat.

“So as you saw, we got something out there taking bites out of my Lincolns, Mr. St George.”

“How long?”

“Half a year,” he said, and pointed a remote control at a little bar setup on the back wall. A panel slid upward and revealed a 20-inch tv set. My eyebrows went up. I hate sounding like country come to town, but the hidden tv thing was cool as hell. He clicked the remote a bunch of times and the tv started cycling through a series of security camera images – the dealership driveway, the scrap yard.

“Hang on,” he said. “I got it cued up.”

He stopped at an image of one of the cars rocking back gently for about ten seconds. I watched as it went back and forth, then suddenly violently lurched to one side.

Then came the crazy shit.

My eyes went wide as something large and furred, a quadruped about twice the size of your average wolf leapt up and bolted away. It was disturbing the way it moved, too fast for its size, too lithe. Natural things don’t move like that.

Stolen story; please report.

Then the shadows swallowed it.

Ed paused the screen.

“That was last night,” Ed finally said from behind steepled fingers. “What exactly it is you do, Mr. St. George?”

This was the part of the job that the best hunters handle with extreme care, the part where you gotta turn a client into a believer. Or at least make them think you're not a charlatan about to cheat them out of a ton of cash. You gotta be delicate.

Then again, sometimes it's best to just keep them out of the know. I cleared my throat.

“Mr. Holler, it might be best to save the storytelling and just let me get to work and find that thing. Honestly, hearing what’s really out there sorta…realigns you. Most folks wish they could forget.”

He thought about it for a long few seconds, then shook his head. “I’d rather know than not, son. Tell me about the man I’m hiring.”

I respected his choice, took off my hat and set it on a side table. “I’m a bounty hunter specializing in cryptids. One of about two dozen in the Houston area that gets jobs out of the Deadman’s Tally on the regular. Been at it about a year. A lot of the legends of supernatural creatures and spirits and curses and whatnot here in the South are just that, legends. But some of em hold weight. Toothy, tentacle-waving, shadowy weight. And I make a living hunting em down.”

He smiled a little. “Okay then. What got you into that line of work?”

I thought about ignoring the question, then decided to be honest.

“A while back I dropped out of college with half a law degree and started bounty hunting, tracking down bail jumpers. That same year I was looking for a jumper named Cookler who’d I’d heard was camping inside a system of caves just outside of Dallas. I tracked him, then went inside. Took me about an hour to find him and when I did, he was laying flat by a small creek outlet on the east side of the cave system. His skull was cracked open.”

“By what?”

“By a pair of bats the size of German shepherds hovering over him, eating his brain with giant exposed tentacles from their mouths,” I explained.

I heard a clock ticking somewhere for a few seconds before Ed spoke.

“Then what?”

“I shot at ‘em. They flew away. Found out later they're called ahools, these bat-pterosaur hybrid things first ID'ed by a priest in Indonesia." I smirked at the memory. "Terrified as I was, finding out there's a whole science dedicated to these kinda monsters was a hell of an awakening for me. Fascinated me. And ever since then I’ve been in the cryptid game.”

He nodded, and it took him a few second before he spoke again. “It was Janie that told me about The Deadman’s Tally. She said she’d heard that was the right place for…this kinda business.”

“It is,” I said, smiling a bit. “There’s a lot of things out in the Dark. Where humankind doesn’t really have a foothold and the critters there just see us as meat. And as far as your lot is concerned, honestly a lot of those things eat metal, but if something is leaving rust behind…then that’s something I ain’t seen before.” I stood up and put my hat back on. “So I should get started. Are there any areas of your property with strange goings on? Odd temperature spots no matter the season, wells that run funny colors, anything like that?”

He picked up his glass of tea and drained it. “Temperature-wise there’s an old hunting shed built by the previous landowner about a mile east from the scrapyard. I used to tan and skin game out there, but something about the place bothered me. Stopped going in. Seems like it’s cooler’n there sometimes than should be in Texas heat. About a half-mile out past the northeast marker.”

He put his glass down opened the door for me, his eyes a little unfocused. I wondered if he was more bothered than he’d made out.

“Mr. St George…can you get this done? Get my business back in order?”

I tipped my hat. “I’ll do my best. If not, go reclaim your bounty from Angles. No problem.”

I walked out the door, and got to work.

* * * * *

I left my duffel just inside the main office, but retrieved my gun and holster, slipping them over my shoulder for safety.

I took about a half hour to pace around the property a while, cover the bases. Ed had taken scrupulous care - all the fences looked a few months old at best, and the land was mostly clear of brush all the way to the property lines. Nothing tripped my trigger.

With no other clues I headed toward the shed.

I followed Ed’s directions and found it about a mile out, nestled in a little copse of trees that stuck out against the modern Houston skyline on one side and a deep patch of woods on the other. It was small, maybe the size of a studio apartment or so.

I stepped up onto the creaking wood porch, where weeds grew through dark, rain-softened slats. A broken rocking chair lay heaped in the corner. Roof tiles had fallen and shattered all around, likely dislodged by animals or bad weather. All of the wood slots were rotted, the bannisters falling apart. The whole porch stank of mold.

The door at least was still in good working order. As I pushed it open and stepped inside, it closed behind me, apparently on one of those spring settings designed to keep bugs out or whatever.

It was near to pitch dark inside. My boots crunched gravel and broken glass beneath my feet. I pulled out my Zippo and struck it up, illuminating a floor strewn with more glass and about a half dozen spoor piles – reddish, dry, and stinking.

“Jack,” I said. “You found yourself a lair.”

I crouched down near the mess and used a stick to move one of the spoor piles around. Buried within was a small leather handle, maybe the hilt from a knife or some kind of carving tool. Beside it was a piece of plastic, again a sort of tool handle, but longer and with a small hole on the top.

More pieces like that were scattered all around, and all of it lay atop a fine layer of rust, like beach sand, coating the floor. I scraped another huge pile of scat out of the way and found the leather strap of a watch. I lifted the strap on held it in the sunlight. On the underside of the leather was an engraving:

“For Stew: Ten Years Making Great Deals.”

My stomach dropped. I started looking at the scene with new eyes. Sure enough, a few minutes of rooting around rewarded me with a chilling sight - a two-inch digit, fleshless and dried out. A goddamn finger.

I blew a sigh. I’d figured the cryptid had been taking out animals before it had somehow gotten a taste for steel. But not this.

“Dammit,” I said.

In the wake of that dark evidence, I started to put the pieces together. A big, nasty something had got into the shed, got mad, and had somehow gotten a craving for steel and developed a rusty saliva to help it eat, and then at some point went full predator, snacking on human flesh out of madness or God knows what.

And where a run of the mill cryptid could get rusty saliva, I didn’t know. But I got an answer pretty quick.

True to Ed’s word, the temperature in the shed suddenly dropped easily twenty degrees cooler. I drew my pistol. I don’t remember making the choice…it just sorta happened. Something in my brain said, “fight or flight,” and I’d obliged it without thinking. Not a great habit to get into.

I closed my eyes and calmed myself.

The sudden blast of cold wasn’t a pleasant, air-conditioned feeling, but more like an old, icy wind wafting over your bones. Something that wanted you to attend to your business and get the hell out.

“Like a damn morgue,” I whispered. “…or...”

I slid my Empowered aviator glasses on again, then followed the drafts of cold air to some floorboards in the corner.

The floorboards were streaked with yellowish energy in long strands. It looked to me like something had been clawing or rubbing itself against the wood until it bled trying to get to whatever was below.

And beneath the floorboards, something was glowing, slowly igniting brighter and brighter.

I looked around for a crowbar, but instead found a claw hammer hanging on the wall. I seized it and went to work on the floorboards. It was tough in the dark, but with a few tugs on the nails and a little elbow grease, I managed to pull them up.

And there it was.

Beneath the floorboards was a translucent sickly yellow cluster of energy, with reaching tendrils that waved slowly in the frigid air like long fingers on a man’s hand, or kelp beneath the sea.

I knew it from my research. It was a Conflux.

I took my aviators off and stared at it, waving at me like glowing seaweed flowing gently on the ocean floor.

Most of what I’d heard about Confluxes was rumor and conjecture, the coalesced remnants of old pains done to angry, angry people. Some folks in the know have said that anger has a power all its own. The deeper the hurt, the more powerful the manifestation.

Another part of our lore claimed that cryptids exposed to them could tap into strange, unknown abilities. As if they evolved Gifts all their own.

They were called Stygians – mutant cryptids. And most of hunters didn’t believe they existed.

As I mulled the details, I realized that none of said details claimed that being near Confluxes was a good idea, so I turned to leave.

…and just as I reached for the door handle, something slammed against it, swinging the door inside and sending me stumbling backwards into the shed.

I dropped the zippo. It went out, leaving me in the dark.

I kept upright, managing to draw my gun again just as a massive wolfish creature with too-long legs was silhouetted for just a moment in the late afternoon light before the door closed again.

I couldn’t ID the thing, because I’d been damn near hypnotized by its two yellow burning eyes. I blinked.

Then it disappeared, as if it suddenly evaporated in the darkness. I heard nothing.

My instincts told me to start firing, but I knew better than to empty my weapon into the darkness. I stood there in the black, frozen. I crouched down and groped for my lighter. No such luck. A few heartbeats later I gave up and stepped toward the door.

The movement set the thing off. It slammed into my legs and I tripped straight away, smashing into a side table and scattering what sounded like empty beer bottles. One of them broke, cutting my hand some.

I turned got up and turned to take a shot, but suddenly there was a powerful weight pushing against my chest, slamming me back down again. I felt hot, putrid breath on my face, and saw those two burning eyes glinting in the dark.

I grit my teeth and grunted as a deep bubbling growl vibrated from the thing’s throat.

I went over my options.

I could try to brand the thing like I’d done to Chuckie, but my branding hand held my gun…and my gun arm was pinned by the wrist.

My knife arm however, was not.

I lifted my knee up and from my boot pulled the switchblade Early had brandished at me that morning. The best I could do from that angle was hold the handle straight against the thing’s massive foreleg as it pinned me there, and then trigger the knife.

The blade stabbed straight into its massive shoulder. The creature screamed something loud, old, and awful that only vaguely sounded canine in nature…then disappeared, taking the switchblade with it. I saw another side table lurch to the side, and my glasses treated me to a spatter of blood leaking out as the now-invisible creature bled from the wound.

Suddenly the wood panels at the back of the shed cracked once, twice, then a third time, and exploded outward as the cryptid broke free.

Weak sunlight flooded in through the hole it left behind, and I heard a terrible wailing retreating in the distance.

Once my heart stopped threatening to beat straight out of my throat, I took a second to take stock of what happened. The knife had done way more damage than I’d expected it to, so I figured Early had treated the blade with brass, an anathema to most cryptids in this part of the country.

Apparently Early wasn’t a total moron after all. I made a note to buy the little prick a bottle of beer as I walked out the door.

“Shitfire,” I swore.

The cryptid had gotten away, and I hadn’t even gotten a good look at it, let alone figure out exactly what it was.

But, I thought as I stared around the wrecked shed, at least I knew what had driven it insane and likely given it a new host of weapons – that goddamn Conflux still waving at me from the corner. I had an idea of what had caused it to spring up, but not much else.

I aimed to find out. I checked my gun and headed back for the dealership, ready to end this mess and put some old spirits to rest.