Day 7
Today we visit with Chantal Noordeloos as she shares a chapter from her novel, Coyote: The Outlander.
The Outlander
Barman Bill, a large man with a ruddy face and
freckled hands, spotted trouble from the moment it walked through the swinging
doors of his saloon. A few of the regulars sat at little round tables staring
into their glasses, ignoring the newcomer. The stranger wore a long dark coat,
and his suit underneath looked pristine. His reddish-brown moustache and beard
were neatly trimmed and showed wisps of grey. Two sharp blue eyes peered
beneath his Stetson, drinking in his surroundings with a solemn, serious glare.
His eyes glanced over the patrons, the bar, and Bill could see that the man
looked for the location of the exits. Everything about the man screamed
“trouble” to Bill, as his regular patrons lacked both the air of authority and
the immaculate grooming of this newcomer.
The thin layer of dust on the man’s coat and hat told
a silent tale of his long journey travelling through the country. ‘Strangers always bring strange dealings with
them,’ Bill thought.
Barman Bill felt nervous because this man looked like
some sort of official. He anticipated a Prohibition Party Officer since that
trouble started over in Michigan with the nonsense Chairman John Russell was
trying to set up. The man took a stand against producing and selling
intoxicating beverages, and those happened to be the main source of income in
the Bullhead Saloon. Bill hoped it would all blow over soon, and in the
meantime, he would fill his pockets with profits. He slapped the dishrag over
his shoulder and walked to the table where the newcomer took a seat.
“What can I get you, Stranger?” Bill asked. He wiped
the table with his spotted rag and smiled courteously at the man, who in turn
ignored him, and removed his hat. With a gloved hand he gently wiped the dust
off the top and the brim. Bill watched, hypnotized, following his new patron's
every movement. There was something about this stranger that irked him; he was
just too damn neat, and too damn cocky. Bill fidgeted with his apron, and
waited for the man to speak to him.
The stranger
placed the hat on the table and took off his gloves. The smell of the road, the
scent of dirt, rain, and fresh air, clung to the stranger like a pungent
cologne. He produced a white handkerchief from his pocket, and used it to wipe
the dust off his face. Only then did he pay attention to the fidgeting barman.
A little muscle twitched in Bill’s face, and caused
his cheek to tremble ever so slightly. The barman did not like the disrespect
he felt the man was showing him.
The man
replaced the handkerchief in his pocket, and his large hand patted his thinning
hair. “Just get me a beer,” he finally said. His voice was deep, with a hint of
a Scottish accent.
The Barman nodded, relieved and agitated at the same
time. With slumped shoulders and a heavy tread, he walked back to the tap with
an instant feeling of fierce dislike for the stranger.
His back turned, Bill dropped the jovial barman
charade. His smiling eyes looked sour, not friendly at all, and the corners of
his mouth twisted with contempt. He felt as if the man looked down on him, as a
lesser creature. Bill could have made a big deal out of the stranger’s
demeanor, mocked him in front of his customers, or treated him with equal
indifference, but Bill had been in the business long enough to not let his
emotions get him into trouble. He considered spitting in the stranger's drink,
but thought better of it. Instead, he tried a charm offensive. With an
inaudible sigh, he twisted his face back into a pleasant smile.
“You’re not from around here.” The barman made light
conversation as he poured a mug of beer and served it to his strange customer.
A thick layer of foam peered over the rim of the cup and spilled over in thin,
long streams.
“I’m not,” the man said. “I come from Dundee,
Illinois.” He put the mug to his lips and looked at Bill.
“You don’t sound like you’re from around there either.” Bill saw the man’s lips
curl into a smile behind the mug, and could tell the man was warming up to him.
That made him inwardly smile. No one could resist a good barman.
“I was born in Scotland,” the man confessed. He put
the mug down. “The name is Allan Pinkerton.”
The barman nearly swallowed his tongue. He knew this man was trouble! Bill had to
be on his best behavior. This here was a lawman. And not just any lawman like a
sheriff or a deputy, this man was the law in the whole country.
Before Bill could respond, his attention was drawn to
the movement of the batwing doors when a woman stepped through. Bill was about
to protest that this was a man’s establishment when he realized who she was.
This was no ordinary woman. She stepped inside as if
she owned the place, and she wasn’t dressed like an ordinary woman either. She
wore trousers with the same confidence as any man. Her journey must have been a
long one, since thick layers of dust covered her long black leather coat and
Derby. Two pistols hung around her waist, and a bullwhip coiled around her
slender shoulders like a thick snake. Two long, blonde braids cascaded down her
back and reached as far as her knees. Her heart-shaped face, attractive in a
young and confident way, scanned the near-empty saloon until she found what she
was looking for.
He knew who this woman was. Everyone knew. She was not
the kind of woman a humble man like himself would refuse patronage. Her
presence made him as nervous as the presence of Pinkerton.
Behind her, the doors opened again, revealing a figure
of what initially looked like a child. Bill instantly corrected this mistake as
he realized an unnaturally short man followed the blonde woman in. His thin,
wiry frame was clad in ordinary traveling clothes and a long, light-brown coat.
On his head he wore a hazelnut Stetson that was a stark contrast with his black
hair and dark skin. The skin of this man was as dark as Bill had ever seen. It
was so black that he had the hue of coal: blue-black instead of brown.
The barman held no great respect for women. He never
married, and they were not his patrons. Silly
creatures with frilly clothes, he thought, yet he liked black men even
less. Bill spat on the floor, a gesture of contempt and silent protest. He
wanted to tell the man that he would not tolerate ‘colored’ in his saloon, but
he was too much of a coward to do so. The black man was her companion, and insulting him could invoke her wrath. Instead,
he bit his tongue, and pulled his face back into a friendly smile.
He wondered what this strange duo sought in his saloon
in the middle of the day. Surely there was no business for them here, but to
his surprise, the woman sat down at the same table as Allan Pinkerton, and the
black man followed suit. That ominous feeling of ‘trouble’ stirred in his belly
again. He hoped that their business was not in his town, and he hurried towards
the table. If he played his cards right, they would drink, then leave, and
nothing would happen in his saloon.
“What can I get you, Coyote... Ma’am?” Bill asked
humbly. His freckled hands betrayed his nerves with their wringing motion. The
barman made a little respectful bob, as if he were meeting a queen instead of
taking an order. The woman turned to him and smiled. Something in the way her
lips curled, the way her bright white teeth gleamed, made him weak at the
knees. Such a pretty face. A little nose, big blue eyes, and a pair of soft
pink lips that were shaped as only a skilled artist could shape them. All her
features made it difficult to imagine that this was the most dangerous bounty
hunter of his time. Beauty could have
such an innocent look, Bill decided. But in this case, beauty lied.
“My friend and I would like some whiskey,” she said
with a hint of an English accent. “And please don’t give us any of that stuff
you’ve tampered with. I don’t want Tanglefoot or Tarantula juice or any of that
nonsense.” Bill nodded and almost stumbled over his large brown boots as he ran
to fetch a bottle.
The barman
fumbled with her beer mug, and his hand shook a little when he poured her
drink. He tried to hide his nerves, but almost dropped his bottle. Bill noticed
the corners of her mouth curled into a knowing smile, and her eyes held his for
a moment. The barman groveled a little more, paid them a trivial compliment,
and then scurried back to his bar.
Coyote chuckled
under her breath. Her reputation preceded her yet again.
Being a female
bounty hunter, Coyote made men nervous. Being an official, she made them wary.
But being the best gunman, or in her case, gunwoman around, Coyote made them
downright anxious. The popular consensus was that women shouldn’t be allowed to
be bounty hunters, but no one dared say this out loud when Coyote was near.
Great gunmen had challenged her and great gunmen had
lost. Those memories made Coyote smile even wider. She had little mercy for
arrogant men.
Coyote turned her attention to the man at her table.
“Mister Pinkerton, always a pleasure.” She tipped her Derby, and flashed him a
different smile, one that spoke of business and courtesy.
“Miss Webb.” He nodded, but did so with respect.
Coyote noted Pinkerton's stern face. He was a serious
man, and his face was like sun-browned stone. His eyes were kind, though, and
she knew it didn’t bother him that she was a woman. He was a professional, and
all he cared about was working with the very best. And there was no one better
than she.
“We’ve been over this, Mr. Pinkerton,” she scolded,
“people I do business with call me Coyote.” There was a mocking sparkle in her
eye. One eyebrow was slightly raised and she continued, “You have a job for
me.”
It wasn’t a question. Allan chuckled and pulled a
drawing from his coat. He unrolled the thick paper and handed it to her. The
face of the ugliest man she had ever seen stared up at her from the page. His
face looked like that of a weasel with a bad haircut.
“Handsome,” Coyote quipped. “How much is Prince
Charming worth?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
“Big catch,” she said, and she pushed her Derby back
slightly with her thumb, as was her habit. Coyote leaned back in her chair and
whistled. The man next to her did not bat an eyelash.
“Very big
catch, this...” she scanned the printed name beneath the uncomely face,
“Alfonso Martine.” Her large round irises were a strange shade of cornflower
blue that gave the illusion of being violet in the soft light of the saloon.
“Unusual name for an Outlander.” Her eyes fixed on Pinkerton to see his
reaction.
A corner of her mouth pulled up, creating a little
dimple in her soft, tanned cheek, and she gave Pinkerton a crooked smile.
Without breaking eye contact, she handed the drawing to the silent black man
next to her. The little man pulled the paper from her hand and studied the face
that stared up at him.
“Caesar?” Coyote looked away from Pinkerton and tried
to read her companion's face. As usual, she found that difficult. His features
lacked all forms of expression, and presented nothing more than a blank stare.
Her slender fingers pulled a silver box from the inner
pocket of her coat and picked out a cigar. Without much ceremony she bit off
the head. The tobacco scraped against her teeth and poured in little specks on
her tongue. She spat out the head and lit the cigar.
The scent of the smoke soothed her. She liked the feel
of the tobacco leaves against her lips, like being kissed by a comforting
friend with rough dirty lips. A good cigar was appropriate for so many
occasions, and one of those was the start of a good deal. And this, she knew,
was going to be a good deal.
“His real name is Qu’arth Slevanko.” Pinkerton’s eyes
darted around the saloon while he spoke, though he kept his body still and
inconspicuous. Coyote admired the man, and his regal posture. He’s a lot more cunning than he lets on. The
saloon was empty except for the curious bartender and three drunken customers
out of earshot. He threw the barman a warning look, making it clear that the
beer-slinger ought to keep his distance. From the weary expression on the man’s
ruddy face, Coyote knew he understood what Pinkerton wanted from him. He was
probably glad that this place, like most saloons, was quiet during the
afternoon hours. There would be no trouble. Pinkerton was the sort of man who
abhorred trouble. Most lawmen were. Coyote, though she often mingled with the
law, still liked a little bit of trouble now and then. She liked to play her
own game, and felt no qualms with rubbing people the wrong way. Yet she
respected Pinkerton, and was willing to play by his rules. Up to a certain
point.
“What kind of
Outlander is he?” she asked, waving her hand in the direction of the warrant
poster in Caesar's hand. A ring of smoke freed itself from her soft, shapely
lips, hovered in the air, then grew larger and larger until it dissipated.
“A different species from the ones we have encountered
before.”
“Crimes?” Coyote gave him a hard stare, and her
eyebrows furrowed together at the bridge of her nose.
Everyone knew she was the best at hunting Outlanders,
but she had a rule: she only hunted Outlanders that were guilty of a crime.
Coyote was unrelenting when it came to that rule. She had a past with
Outlanders, and a good reason for hunting them, but she also knew that
Outlanders consisted of many different types of creatures. She did not have a
beef with all of them.
The Pinkerton Agency was probably the most famous of
the U.S. fronts for the IAAI, the International Agency of Alien Investigation,
which killed all Outlanders, without
exception. The Pinkertons were famous throughout the whole country, and
everyone heard of the prestigious agency. They had a lot of authority and often
quipped that they were the law. No
one argued. Coyote decided that she agreed with most of their laws, but not
all, and she stood up against what she didn’t believe in.
Finding and exterminating Outlanders proved to be a
real challenge to the Agency, as some of these creatures were a lot trickier
than human criminals, and not all could be killed with human weapons.
Not every Outlander posed a direct threat, but the
IAAI refused to take risks. Their agencies had a lot of connections, and they
were tied to several bounty hunters. There were a few special hunters the
agencies particularly liked to work with, the kind who knew the ins and outs of
the trade, and Coyote was one of those hunters. She never failed her
assignments, no matter how tough her foe was. Her prices were high, but she was
fast, and she always delivered. Coyote made sure that she did her job well. She
met some of the other hunters, and some were arrogant men who were gods in
their own minds. It took a special person to hunt the creatures that came
through the rips.
There was only one disadvantage to working with her
–she played by her own set of rules. She knew that not all Pinkerton agents
appreciated that, but she and Allan understood each other very well. The
Outlander had to be guilty of murder, or Coyote would not take the time to hunt
him down. If an Outlander posed no threat, she saw no reason to bring him to
the law, it was as simple as that. She was quite stubborn, and the agency knew
that she would turn a job down flat, and charge a hefty fee for wasting her time.
Pinkerton had to offer her a damn good reason for her to hunt. If she wasn’t
convinced, she would walk.
“At first he only killed cattle, young cattle,” Allan
said. “Baby cattle.” His voice was low, and he looked from Coyote to her black
partner. “But it seems this gentleman has a craving for anything young.” He
paused for dramatic effect, and then added, “Likes children too. Very young
children. Anything under four.”
It was enough to draw her in. A familiar heat burned
in her mind, and flashed under her skin, her cheeks burning with anger. Her
eyes were aflame and she leaned towards him with an eager, listening
expression; she did not want to miss a single word he had to say. She already
had a bullet with the name Qu’arth Slevanko, but Coyote could see in Allan's
smugness, the glint in his eyes, that he had something to sweeten the deal, to
make her really want this job. He
leaned forward and tweaked his moustache with the tips of his strong fingers.
Coyote watched the hairs roll between the callused digits. He has the hands of a hard working man, she noted.
“I’m also told that Alfonso Martine is part of the
James Westwood crew,” Pinkerton said in low, conspiratorial tones. “Mr.
Westwood located the Outlander and took him under his wing several weeks ago.”
The muscles in her face twitched, and he must have
seen her flinch. The long dark lashes that crowned her eyes fluttered slightly.
He kept his face straight, but she could almost see the inward smile of
victory. He’s got me.
Westwood was Coyote’s Achilles heel, and she hated
that it was common knowledge.
“You don’t say,” she said softly and slowly, with an
edge of danger to her voice. The pretty young face looked murderous, and she
snapped the piece of paper from her partner’s hand. The black man looked
solemn, but he did not protest. Instead he let the paper slide through his
fingers.
Coyote could feel Pinkerton’s eyes on her, watching
her intently as she examined the picture more thoroughly. Her eyes had lost
their joyful mocking expression, and she sucked in her lips so that her mouth
was nothing more than a thin line. Anger ate away at her, and her heart pounded
in a fast heavy beat. She quickly extinguished the cigar that she suddenly lost
all taste for.
“So he’ll be in Indiana?” She was short, and to the
point, and no longer showed any of her flirty gestures or smiles. When Westwood
was involved, Coyote’s blood ran cold. Pinkerton answered her question with a
nod. A sigh escaped her lips, and she handed the paper back to him. Her
agitated fingers played with the rim of her derby.
“I should just set up shop in Indiana. Plenty of work
for a girl like me.” There was a ghost of that crooked smile again, but her
eyes remained dark. “Indiana must have the most rips in all of the U.S.”
Next to her, the black man stirred. Allan looked at
him in surprise. It was as if the little man shifted in and out of the shadows,
and it was difficult to remain aware of his presence. Coyote was used to this,
she had a sixth sense to where Caesar was, but she liked seeing Pinkerton
struggle.
“Indiana is called the crossroads of America,” Caesar
said. His voice was a slow baritone, and he had a hint of an Haitian accent.
“Many people do not know that there is a spiritual meaning behind that name.”
His teeth were a startling white against the blackness
of his skin, like a line of pearls on an ebony windowsill. His gnarled dark
hands, with skin dry as old, cracked leather, moved as if he were trying to
weave his words in the air.
“The veil of reality is thin in Indiana," Caesar
continued. "There is much magic there. The rips occur easily at those thin
spots in the fabric.”
“I don’t know anything about magic,” Pinkerton said.
He coughed in his fist, and cleared his throat. The subject of magic clearly
made him feel uncomfortable. Coyote knew that most men found Outlanders weird
enough to deal with, and magic was a subject that did not work well with lawmen
like Allan Pinkerton “But I do know that Indiana is a place of many rips, and
their frequency seems to be increasing. The IAAI has been investigating a lot
of the rips, and we have some records of the Outlanders who pass through them,
but it is still unpredictable when and where a rip will appear.”
He scratched his neck, slick with moisture from the
heat, and sighed. “We know so little about the rips, and each time we find one,
we find more species of Outlanders.”
“Is there any new information about the other side of
the rips? Do we know where they lead to yet?” Coyote asked.
The Scotsman shook his head. “Special agents have
entered the rips, but few have ever returned. There are some small realities
that we have investigated, some portal dimensions, but that’s about all.
Nothing to indicate where the Outlanders come from. Most rips don’t stay open
long enough for agents to return.” His face was grave, his jaw, set, and his
eyes hovered half lidded and dark. Coyote looked past Pinkerton and she saw the
barman cleaning his bar for the fifth time, shooting them nervous glances. “The
only things we can determine are where the rips have been, and if we are lucky,
where they are at present. That’s it. Everything else is still pretty much a
mystery.”
Pinkerton wrapped his suntanned hand around his mug
and brought it to his lips. He inhaled the comforting scent of the lukewarm
liquid, and he closed his eyes for a second to savor it, and the soft foam
speckled his impressive moustache with little white clouds. Placing the mug
back on the table, he wiped his lips and moustache, then brushed away little
flecks of foam from his whiskers with a single finger.
“IAAI is
working on it, but so far with little result.” Pinkerton looked a little
deflated, as if he wished he had more information to share. He’s not telling me everything, Coyote
thought, I wouldn’t tell me everything if
I were him, either.
“Shame,” Coyote muttered instead of sharing her
thoughts. “Looks like Westwood’s people might have one up on IAAI.” There was a
little twitch at the corner of his nostril, and she could see she hit the
lawman where it hurt.
“Perhaps,” Pinkerton said cautiously. “I can assume
you are taking the case then?”
Coyote sat back in her seat and pulled on her Derby,
trying to hide a smile.
“Was there ever any doubt?”
****
****
Born and raised in the
Netherlands, Chantal Noordeloos lives in The Hague with her beautiful
daughter and wacky husband.
She writes mostly in English and her work has been featured in several
magazines and anthologies. In 2013 she published her first Steampunk
novel and horror collection. You can find her here and her books here.
A whole lot of trouble walked into that bar, alright!
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