Coyote: The Outlander (with FREE second screen experience) (17 page)

Coyote pulled at the brim of her hat, a sign of respect, then took the box from the small, wrinkled hands and looked at the woman oddly.

“You
have
met me before?” she asked, feeling a little overwhelmed. The woman shook her head with such vigor that Coyote feared one of the sticks in her hair might dislodge.

“No,” she said firmly. “I have met you
after
.”

Coyote opened and closed her mouth, subconsciously mimicking the movement of fish gasping in the air. She wanted to argue, to tell the woman she was speaking in riddles—she was so very tired of people speaking in riddles to her—that she made no sense, but decided it was no use to talk about this any further.
Leave well enough alone.

“What is the price you want for this particle gun?” Coyote asked, knowing the answer already. She tipped her derby forward and scratched the back of her head.

The woman looked at her with her narrow, dark eyes. She gave no answer but waited. There was a long moment that passed between them, and finally Coyote nodded and lifted Tokala’s necklace. It felt so light in her hand, and yet the burden of it was heavy. This was the heirloom of her friend, probably his last heirloom. With a grim resolve, she handed it to the strange little woman.

“A trade is made,” the woman said, and handed her the weapon. “There will be many more in future,” she added. “You one of my best customers.” There was warmth in her face as she smiled. The woman radiated something almost maternal.

“Nice to meet you, eh, Ming?” Coyote guessed. The woman smiled again.

“You go, hunt Outlanders,” she said, proud as a mother hen. “We speak later.”

“Okay . . . ” Coyote was about to turn around when she thought of something. “Ming?”

The little woman looked at her.

“How do you keep the rip open?”

The woman narrowed her eyes, her expression more serious.

“This a transition dimension,” Ming said, lifting her hands to indicate her shop, her accent shifting, now sounding less sharp. “Magic always lets you enter a transition dimension. You just need to know the key to the magic.”

“The key to this shop being the bone dice?” Coyote glanced at Caesar, who had a glassy look in his eyes.

“No, the bone dice are just a tool.” Ming tapped the side of her round nose. “The key is the need. Everything about this place is about need.”

“So it’s not you keeping the rip open?”

“That would be very dangerous.” Ming’s accent was almost gone now. “It’s not good to mess with the rips’ openings, Coyote. There are those who can, but they never keep rips open. It could be too destructive.” Ming squinted at her. “Why do you ask?”

“We have encountered a rip that opens each day around the same time.” It was Caesar who spoke, and Coyote turned to him in surprise. His eyes still held a dreamy expression. “We worry that someone might be controlling the rips.”

Ming sighed and nodded. She grabbed a calendar from underneath her counter and leafed through it, her pointy fingers running past the pages.

“Your year is 1969, no?”

“1869,” Coyote corrected, and the woman leafed back several pages.

“1869,” she muttered, tapping the paper. “Yes, I remember. Nothing to worry about yet. The information will come to you when the time is right.” Her words were barely above a whisper. She looked up and cast her sharp eyes on Coyote. “You deal with your Outlander first. Use that gun wisely.”

“I shall try.”

“Keep asking questions of everyone, Charlotte Webb,” Ming said. “You always get your answers in the end.”

Coyote blinked at the woman, nodded, and held up the weapon in a grateful gesture.

“You go now, time precious.” Without warning, the strong accent was back. Coyote narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but the little lady spun on her heel and ducked behind the counter again.

They could hear her rummage around, and Coyote bumped deliberately into Caesar, who looked as if he were in some sort of a trance.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

Caesar nodded. “With pleasure.”

A PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS

To his dismay, Sam saw the hunter and her friend step out of the door. No matter how hard he had prayed that these two would never come out of that rip, his prayers had been left unanswered. They had been gone for several hours, and the saloon had filled up quite nicely. Their previous visit hadn’t hurt his business, Sam had noted. Even some of the patrons that had skulked off during Coyote’s visit had returned to spend their money and time in Sam’s humble saloon.

But now she was back, and Sam relived the humiliation he had felt earlier. His cheeks burned with anger as he looked at the attractive bounty hunter. Coyote walked over to the bar with a confident swagger. Her face looked less amused than it had before.

“Sorry about pulling a gun on you, Sam,” she said.

Sam huffed, unwilling to entertain her apology. “If you tell anyone what happened here, it will be the last time we do business,” he spat. He couldn’t get himself to look her in the eyes, and stared at his bar instead.

They both knew she would be back, and despite the bad rep, Coyote made a better ally than a foe. He really didn’t want to piss her off. Besides, she paid very well, and she would occasionally trade some incredibly valuable weapons. He didn’t like her, and she had an annoying habit of disgracing him, but he was still a businessman. He would never turn her away as long as she was convenient to him, but Sam knew if something were to happen to her, he would dance on her grave.

Coyote smiled. She placed a cigar between her teeth and clenched it there.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Sam.” She handed him a purse filled with dollars, something to ease his suffering.

“Not a soul,” Sam said again while his hungry fingers ran through the purse. His eyes twinkled with greed.
She does always pay well, though I would have preferred the healing crystal.

“My word as a hunter,” she promised. She pulled the pistol from its box and looked at it with an appreciative eye.

“Now, Sam, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see a man about a horse.”

THE PARTICLE BEAM GUN

The late afternoon sun painted the sky a sapphire tint. Little puffs of clouds interrupted the unending blue with shocks of white, and endless emerald plains made the travelers feel as if they were riding through a jewelry box. The horses trotted languidly through the warmth of the sun. The slow walking caused the riders to sway to and fro in their saddles. With a gloved hand, Coyote shielded her eyes from the light and stared into the distance.

Caesar was quiet as always. His gaze was fixed on the little clay idol in his hand. It was a figure of a woman with a large, flat head and pointy breasts. Once, it had been painted, but time and too much handling had caused the figurine’s paint to wear off. Caesar mumbled a monotonous prayer to the idol.

“Next town, we are taking a break,” Coyote said. She continued to stare off into the distance, hoping to spot a town. “I’m starting to feel a little saddle sore, and I’m out of cigars.”

The latter comment caused Caesar to stop mumbling, and he looked at her.

“That is a bad sign,” he stated. “Really? No cigars?”

Coyote rolled her eyes, shaking her head and fixed her eyes back on the road ahead.

“We are only a few days’ ride from Angel Camp,” he added, making conversation. “Do you have a plan on how we are going to shoot your Outlander yet?”

Coyote kept her gaze straight ahead.

“Hmmm, no,” she said. “I really don’t. Getting near Alfonso Martine—or Qu’arth Slevanko—or whatever the hell his name is, won’t be easy.” She sighed and rested her hand holding the reins on her saddle.

“You will have to face James Westwood again.” Caesar studied his partner. Just mentioning Westwood’s name made her shoulders tense.

“I know,” she muttered, and a sigh stuck heavily in her chest.

“You have faced him before.” His words were soft, but they stung.

“I know.” Coyote let her shoulders hang. A bird of prey flew up ahead, silent and graceful. She envied it briefly.

“Each meeting has led to a defeat.” There was no judgment in his voice.

Her horse reared as she shifted her weight in agitation.

“I
know
.” Despite her growing show of annoyance, he would not relent. She looked right into his dark eyes. “What are you trying to tell me, Caesar?” she snapped. She grabbed the brim of her hat for comfort. “That this guy is tough? Because I know that. If Westwood hadn’t been tough, he would be dead.”

“I am merely pointing out that this man is your weakness. Your hate for him blinds you.”

In the back of her mind, the faceless voices whispered again: “
Did you see it
?”

“What’s your point?”

“How can you defeat an enemy if you cannot see him for who he is?” Caesar’s thick, callused thumb rubbed the idol. “People take advantage of your hate for him, Coyote. Allan Pinkerton does, and so will James Westwood himself. You need to listen to the spirits. They want to guide you. Tokala saw it, and I see it too.”

Coyote shifted on her saddle again. Something ate away at her thoughts, and memories flooded her mind’s eye. She was that young girl again, the one Caesar had met years ago, the girl who’d rescued him from a trio of angry white men. He had later told her she was the fastest draw he had ever seen, and she was just seventeen then. Her skills had improved greatly over the past six years, and even the most competent gunslingers feared her.

But she still had a weakness. Hate was something that she could not afford for herself. It was too dangerous. She had to stay focused.

“I want to get this guy so bad, Caesar,” Coyote admitted with angry passion. “I want to hurt him. I don’t even want to kill him. That’s not enough. He needs to suffer.” Her eyebrows met in an angry knot, and her nose wrinkled with anger. “I want to humiliate him.”

“I understand, Charlotte.” Caesar rarely called her by her birth name. “But you can’t make him suffer as long as you are suffering yourself. He owns you, no matter what you do.” He watched her profile as he spoke. Her face was a mask of anger. “You can’t hurt him until you find some emotional distance. Otherwise, he will be your master forever.”

A silence took hold as Coyote looked up at the sky, her eyes following the bird of prey. His words were hard for her to hear.

“I ask you again, what is your plan?”

Coyote reined in her horse and looked at Caesar. “Westwood keeps his Outlanders close, especially the ones he believes will get out of line. I have to figure he’s going to keep this guy close too.”

“That will be a problem,” Caesar said. “Westwood is a strong technomancer. Your weapons are useless near him.”

Coyote nodded, thinking of the last encounter she had with James Westwood. Her weapon had plainly refused to work. Technomancers controlled all firearms, so there was no point in using one. She’d tried fighting him in hand-to-hand combat, but he was just too strong.

Often, she felt blessed being a woman, but when it came to physical strength, Coyote wasn’t a match for even an average man. Westwood had not harmed her, but he had handed her over to the authorities. She was eighteen at the time, so she had gotten off with only a night in the jailhouse and a reprimand. Westwood hadn’t even pressed charges. He called Coyote a confused girl with a chip on her shoulder, which had only fed her anger.

“Come back when your head is cleared,” he’d said at the moment she was being cuffed. “I always have a job opening for a woman as feisty as you.”

His words came paired with a mischievous wink, which made the hair on Coyote’s neck stand on end. Five years later, that moment could still make the bile rise in her throat.
That condescending bastard will get his money’s worth of this feisty little woman
, Coyote told herself time and again.

“If we are going to get to his Outlander, we will first have to find a way to distract Westwood,” Coyote mused.

She pulled the particle beam pistol from her holster and looked at it. It looked like a larger version of a Smith and Wesson. It was bulkier, and reminded her of a toy. The metal was a dull black that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Tiny copper tubes were attached to the barrel, giving the impression of gleaming veins. Dark holes dotted the barrel, almost invisible to the eye. There was something sinister about the gun, and it felt heavy in her hand.

“We can’t risk this pea-shooter not working.” She held it up proudly to Caesar.

The black man eyed the weapon with a look of contemplation. “How does it work?” he finally said.

“What do you mean?” Coyote cocked her head and looked from the pistol to Caesar. She stared down the barrel, squinting one eye. “You point it and pull the trigger, I should think.”

She could not think of any other way to use it since the weapon resembled a real pistol, after all. It was a little fatter, and the barrel had those weird tubes, but otherwise it was pistol-shaped.

“You are not sure, though.” Caesar wrinkled his nose. “You have never shot a weapon like this before.”

“Well, no.” There was doubt in Coyote’s voice. Shooting it had seemed so simple before, but now she felt a little insecure.

“Do you not think it wise to test this weapon first?”

Coyote noticed a patronizing edge to her companion’s tone.

“Coyote, you may have some experience with Outlander weapons, but you have none with this one. Do you know what the effect will be? You can’t just randomly fire weapons at people. I expected you to know better than that.”

Coyote sighed, holstered the gun, and steered her horse to the side of the road.

“Fine, Chatty Cathy.” She shot her words at him. Usually, Caesar was a quiet companion, but lately he had an awful lot to say. She had to admit that Caesar was right, but she was not about to take his advice gracefully.

“We’ll test it on a tree first to see what it does.” Coyote pulled a face and jumped off her horse. With big strides, she walked to a large, gnarled tree, kicking up dust as she moved along. Caesar slid off his horse and followed suit.

“I wonder if there are bullets in this thing.” Coyote said. She inspected the weapon, “I don’t even know how many shots I can fire with it. Let’s just hope one shot is enough.” She aimed the weapon at the tree. With one eye closed—her tongue protruding from the right side of her mouth—she pulled the trigger. There was a small trembling sensation and a gentle humming sound as the pistol zoomed to life. Blue light illuminated the holes in the barrel, and Coyote began to fear nothing else would happen. Then a ray of light shot out with such force that it pushed Coyote back a few steps, and she stumbled over her own feet. The light engulfed the tree and then faded. For a moment, the tree looked unscathed.