The DarK Tower: 1 The Gunslinger

The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.

In her eyes it was the apoteosis of deserts. Wide, flat, dry and hungry. The ground ate up moisture and hope.It was going to be hard crossing that expanse. But then again, she couldnt turn back.

She threw the last sack onto her mule and led it out of town. The town was quiet and empty. The dry desert wind pushed a shutter back and forth.

When the gunslinger had arrived here 2 weeks ago, this little town had been alive, or what had past for it.

Now she left it, the ghost town it really was. There were some survivors, but they had fled before last nights carnage.

Under her deadly skilled hands, every man , woman and child in this town was dead. Thanks to her, and thanks to the man in black.

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( see OOC)

The gunslinger

Two weeks earlier...

By the time the gunslinger had arrived in Elgin, her mule was half past dead. She was only doing mildly better herself.The badlands leading to this strip of bare humanity were full of harriers, slow mutants, and poisoned oasises. This was not an encougaring sign.

Elgin wasnt a big town, but it was bigger than most of the place she had passed since coming this far east. * East is theway of cowards,east is where the failures go*

Corts words struck in her ears. No, she wasnt a failure. She hadnt fled east into the lands of chaos and mutiny. She came east for one reason and one reason only.

The Man in black. Marten.Walter. Randall Flag. Whatever his name was this week. Him and his cronies had spread treason through the west, all hail to the crimson king and all that..but it didnt matter now..the world had moved on.

Elgin was compose of two streets running north and south and three streets running east and west. There were some patheticlly barely fallow fileds beside an open stream, ensuring its meager survival.

And beyond that..the desert.

The man in black had to stop here

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heres the OOC link

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=322512

I'll probably put a few more mosts up and gert the character into town

She could feel the eyes on her from halfway down the hill. They werent used to strangers, this much was true.

Once she had reached the town of Elgin proper it just wasnt a lone single woman they were staring at..which in of itself was an oddity, women didnt travel in these dark days. It was her hips, or more importantly..what was on them.

Slung low on her hips were her irons. Six shooters, a gunslingers weapon. While there were a handful of rifles and muskets around, and even a few knock off nickle plated imitations of the theirons from failed gunslingers. No one could doubt these were a gunslingers tools.

They hung low and heavy at her hips, the sandalwood handles smooth from regular grip. The belts crisscrossing her waist were lined with shells, live bullets.

But what was a woman doing with a gunslingers tools? No woman, was ever a gunslinger. Not one. But there was no mistaking her methodical walk and powerful presence . She was a gunslinger.

She wandered up to what was obviously the remainder of a blacksmit, and currently a local barn and approached the man staring uncomfartable at her.

" Evening to ye", the gunslinger drawled

" Evening to ye, ma'am" was the pudgy mans response, " we dont get much strangers in Elgin these days"

" Don't reckon so"

He shifted on his feet, obviously uncomfortable under her casual and cool gaze. She spoke again

" I need my mule rubbed down, fed and put up"

" That..sure, can do, stranger, but it'll cost you"

The gunslinger with a qucik deft flick to a pouch on her waist landed a gold coin at his feet. The man jumped probably expecting her to go to her guns. He was relieved, and repatured at the sight of gold.

" i dont got no change for that missy"

" Didnt ask for none..and dont call me missy" she let out cooly.

He looked into her icy blue eyes and felt his soul seep out. He saw only death in them, he had insulted a guardian of the west. His time had come.

He fell to his knees half grovelling

" I cry thee pardon gunslinger, i have forgotten the face of my father"

She half sighed quietly to herself.

" Rise bondsman, dark days are on these lands and times change as the world moves on" she intoned in a lilt of the hight speech.

He was awestruck, the words, the grace. Truly she was a gunslinger. Maybe, just maybe..He stared at her open mouthed. Seeing he was going to placate himself till Judgement, the gunslinger turned and walked away.

" Take good care of my mule" was all she saidf as she headed down the main street.

Ahead of her , the gunslinger spotted the town inn..and from its saloon she could hear " hey Jude" warbling on a piano.

There'd be beads here at least.

Ooc: Thankee-sai


Derrin felt immediately drawn to her. He had been sitting outside today, unusual for him, when he'd first seen her. Most days left him inside or at the tavern talking and getting drunk as the days passed on. Here days always passed on, they tried to catch up with the world, which had passed as well. In a way it felt relieving, a sense of nothingness calmed everyone, numbed everyone. He had felt it in his heart, hated that feeling at times, but also embraced it.

Today he just happened to be outside, today he just happened to be smiling, and today he just happened to see the gunslinger. He knew right away who she was, despite being surprised. It looked like an illusion at first, someone pretending to be a gunslinger, some woman dressing up, playing a part, but the feeling around her, the aura, the true calling of her father could not be ignored.

She was a gunslinger, and he knew she was. He knew just as sure as he sat outside, somewhere he hardly ever sat since the world had gone by.

He walked up to her, already smiling, already pleased, already knowing she was the one.

"My lady," He bowed, remembering his father, "I am Derrin. The sheriff of town, if you can call it that. We have nothing much, but I would be more than willing to share, show you around, whatever it is you like."

He had a gun on his hip, old and rusty. A huge cannon of a thing that hadn't fired when his father had been sheriff. He used it as a club more than anything else. Could he find bullets, he'd be too scared to try and fire it anyway.

Still, he felt kinship with its weight there, looking down at her own guns.

Yes... he felt drawn to her immediately.

Jackie

Everything in Elgin was hot, dusty, and dried out…and that included the women. The sun out here would turn you into a prune in no time flat. Luckily, for business’s sake at least, Jackie still had a few more years of moisture left in her. It wasn’t as if the sun had left her untouched – her skin had tanned and it had bleached her blonde hair until it was as pale and straight as dried straw. But still, she wasn’t from around here…someone had sent her here, for some reason or another. It didn’t much matter to Jackie anyhow; she didn’t see any reason why it should. She was where she was, and she would make the best of it.

She had become well enough known here, but she still wasn’t a native. Jackie knew for damn well sure she hadn’t grown up here – even in her fading memory, images of green pastures and massive stone-walled houses stood out from the fog. But still, she wasn’t sure how long she’d been here. Could have been six months, could have been as long as a couple of years. Time’s always funny in small, isolated towns where the routine gets into yer bones…but it was especially funny out here.

Jackie moved through the dark back rooms of the honky-tonk, in much the same way that nagging that lurked in the dark back rooms of her mind moved. It was something important, she knew that much, but what exactly it was, she just couldn’t remember. She closed her eyes tightly, the pain in her forehead growing to an excruciating hot spike. The headaches had gotten worse lately, especially when she tried to remember. Not that it did her any good – all that would float to the surface of her mind was his dark, chilling, black touch. And that was something best left unremembered.

She slumped against the cool stone wall, letting time rush around here. When Sheb sat down and started plunking out his nightly rendition of “Hey Jude” – come to think of it, could the man even play anything else? – she gathered up her wits in much the same way she gathered her lacey skirts. She found her way in the dark with the grace of one who is used to a nocturnal routine, and emerged into the warm island of well-known light that was the tavern.

The Gunslinger

The gunslinger dipped her head and set forth her leg in a country curtsy. She tapped her throat with two fingers.

" Thankee sai, long days and pleasant nights"

She took hin in an instant, he was rip cord taut and lean. Hard living here on the edge of the desert did that to folks. Her eyes curosrily took in the hand cannon on his hip . Nickel and iron. Not a gunslingers tool and it ddint look like it had been drawn in a Beam's age.

Still, its presence was reminder that the White could still hold.

" I seek lodging and a good meal.." her lips curled in the practised courtiers smile , " ..or what passes for it"

She took off her beaten hat and shook her hair free. The red man cascaded onto her shoulders.

She took a deep whiff and could almost smell the anticipation from the watching eyes in closed shutters. The people were watching, seeing how their sherrif would defend them from a wild woman from the desert, or if she was really a gunslinger from the line of Eld and the days of Old.

" I mean ye no harm..I am merely passing through, looking for a man..you'd remember him"

A man in black. Yes. They would have remmbered him if he passed through.

ooc I Declare this thread to be KA KA!

Mostly cuz I had this name first. *evil grin*

I hope you have read all the books, because I have. Any room here for the -real- Roland of Gilliad?

"Please, come inside. We have much to talk about."

Kind and generous, something lacking in this day and age. A time of forgetfulness had come over them, swept like a desert storm, blind and scared, feeling through the huge empty for something to cling too...

But in the desert, all you had was sand.

He led her inside, common, quiet, a smile on his face. He could remember smiling, being told to smile. The list of commands were coming to him, cold, precise, everything needed for her.

"I am afraid we have seen the black man," His tone neutral, not quite cold, but indifferent, "He was here. Left a few days ago though. He offered many things, gold and promises of the old life, but in the end could pay nothing. He slunk away in the middle of the night, before he could rise against him. Who knew one man could be so strong, so smart."

Unnattached words, not his own, forming and fitting through his lips as if he had created them himself. As if they were a collage of phrases melancholied together for a symp[hony. Fake and beautiful at the same time.

"He talked of you as well. From what I could hear of snipped rumors and conversations. A half breed of a gunslinger, whore who had been hurt by him, and seeking her own cunt revenge. His words, not mine. From what he is, and what he did to us, I can only imagine your intentions following him are good. You do look like a real gunslinger, a guardian of the west. We've been waiting a long time for some old relic of the past to come back, lift up our spirits."

He smiled, pouring them both water and whiskey, something to quench and something to burn. Life and death, swirling around each other, dancing to their own games, pretending for the sake of the audience that had long since disappeared into the twilight.

The Gunslinger

The Sherrif mentioned Marten, Walter, whatever the hell his name was, so flippantly, that the gunslinger raised an eyebrow in response.

Walter was Parsons right hand man. Walter had led to the falling of Gilead. It seemed far too bizarre for him to have failed in a dried up town on the edge of suffocation. Far too easy.

Eyes unconforably turned as they sat down at a table.Even a group of oldtimers turned from their game of "Watch Me" and sat gawking at the newcomer.

Her eyes took in everything. The place stunk of desperation. Of last hope in an endless death that surrounded them. They didnt drink here for celebration, but to numb the encroaching twillight.

The bar wasn't much, the bottles few and scattered. Dust and sawdut were everywhere.

Sheb. In the name of Eld it was him. As the sherrif talked , she let her eyes take in the piano mplayer. It had been an ange. When she had forst earned her irons. She was a youngun, so was he. She still remembred his betrayal, and of the woman in the window, the lovely woman....

That was 19 years ago, or was it 10. Didnt matter. The world had moved on..

She rolled tobacco into a paper in her deft fingers and lit it the end of a guttering tallow candle.

" One night, you say"

Puff

" Is there anyone in particular he talked to"

"The town isn't that big. I supposed he got around to talking to most everyone by the time he left... but I think I know what you mean. He was intimate, if you may say so, with one woman. One of our ladies of the night, Jackie..."

As if on cue, some commemorative author decided to have her come through the swinging double doors at this very instant, a bright smile on her face, and checkered lines of doubt running through her eyes.

"There she is. I was almost surprised to still see her after he had left. I was sure she would have gone with him."

The sheriff motioned for Jackie to come over, share a drink with them, and have pleasent conversation.

Jackie

The Sheriff caught her eye, and Jackie gave him her best, professional smile…faltering when she realized he was with a woman. Still, he motioned her over, and she obeyed. There was a time in the distant past when she would have done no man’s bidding, even if there was coin in it. But this place had bent her, if not come very close to breaking her.

Jackie shifted her focus to the woman…she looked strangely familiar, in much the same way a person remembers a foggy dream. A gunslinger, yes, from the West, that much was obvious. Somehow she seemed right here, as if she belonged, as if she had been sitting at that corner table for her entire life.

Walking forward to join them, her skirts made disconcerting shuffling noises against the plank wood floor, akin to the dead dried skin of a corpse. Her face brightened as she greeted the pair with a simple “’G’evenin, long days and pleasant nights’” but her eyes were dark with suspicions and half-memories.

The Gunslinger

There was something hauntingly familiar about the woman. She had seen her before.She had known her before. Known her quite well.

She felt a hollow heat rise up in her spine. It had been a while since she had felt this. And she knew it stirred from the woman. Oh yes, she had "known" her, but it was true..the gunslinger had never laid eyes on the woman in her life.

She was pretty in that burnt way. The gunslinger let her bombardier eyes take inthe woman all at once. Yes, there was something about her. Something hungry.

" Please sai.." the gunslinger pushed out a chair and gestured for the lady

" Will ya join us?"

Jackie

Jackie offered the woman a half-smile. “I wouldn’t think it wise to say no to a request from one such as yourself,” her eyes lingered at the pair of six-shooters.

She sat daintily at the edge of the chair offered to her, now feeling the heat of the patrons' watching eyes turning towards her. The animosity was almost palpable, what’s a whore like that doing in such company.

She knew what they wanted, and she also knew it was something that she couldn’t give them. Even if she wanted to…which something gnawing at the back of her mind said she definitely did not. She doubted she could be of any help anyway…she had lived the last few days in something akin to a trance, everything from eating to sleeping to her business had been done mechanically.

Looking anxiously from gunslinger to sheriff, she waited for the questioning to begin.

Derrin eyed with with mutual hatred and innaffection, as if someone were walking on eggshells, about to spill over any minute. He never waried from her, hoping she would screw up, all he needed was a single excuse from her. A single excuse and no one would blame him for his next actions.

"We want to ask you about Flagg," he spoke, pouring her a drink, "You spent the most time with him. Intimately..."

The word almost spit off his tongue as he said it. A harsh word, almost as harsh as calling her what she really was, but he wasn't in that kind of mood today. Today he was just doing what he had been told.

It was sad, too, to hurt her like this, to play this game. He had always liked her, always tolerated her, in their passioned moments he had even loved her. But then this man came, this man in black, and now everything was changed.

"What did you two talk about? Do you know where he is going?"

The Gunslinger

Flagg

The sherrif had said the name out loud. The name that had only been hinted at throughout the years. The name that it was said only the line of Eld and the Good Man Parsons only knew.

Randall Flagg.

Her eyes grew wide for a moment and he hand itched to reach for the sandalwood holster at her belt and plug him where he sat. Oh yeah, the man in black had been here..Walter, Marten, Flagg..and he had also certainly laid his touch upon the sherrif.

There was a trap here. And one the Gunslinger knew she was going to have to spring before she left this town.

A couple slovenly drifters inched their way nervously to their feet..wanting to overhear and come to the sherrifs assistance if needed. One subcosciously brushed the knife on his hip.

She didnt have time for this

" Go sit down" she adressed her voice to the men who probably didnt even know they were seen.

They sat back down.

She turned to the straw haired woman.

" You dont have to tell me much about him, not here to force ya..but I'm willing to pay if that helps"

She looked straight into the weathered womans face to let her know she would pay in any coin.

Jackie

Jackie took a deep breath and told them what she could; what came easily to her memory, that was.

“He didn’t talk….they rarely do. He was completely silent the whole time, either that…or I drowned him out.” She favored the pair with a shy smile, “He didn’t tell me his name, just that I was to refer to him as Sir. He got a bit rough, not that that’s not normal these days – there’s a lot of hard cases in this town.”

Jackie stood and pulled down the hemmed waist of her dark gray linen skirt, revealing her pale hip and the dark thumbprint of a bruise that stained the skin’s unmauled surface. She shrugged off the hungry glances she received from the bar’s clientele at this blatant show of flesh.

“He paid me well, his coin was true.” She conveniently left out any mention of the gift he had left adorned upon her body while she slept. The silver anklet that wove sensually around her ankle was for now safely hidden in her button top boots.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Derrin said roughly, leaning slightly over the table at her.

“I can’t…I can’t remember,” Jackie stammered in reply, her heart beating hard beneath the tight corseted top she wore.

Closing her eyes, she tried, and felt the darkness and pain ebb in on her consciousness like an overeager tide. Panicky with a sense of drowning, but unable to do anything about it, she let herself fall. Physically, she collapsed in her chair and slid in an almost graceful arc to the floor. Mentally, she continued falling, deeper and deeper into the trench of blackness.

The best they could hope for at this point. Derrin moved with lightning speed, almost as if he aniticpated her fainting, catching her before she hit anything hard. He saw her in his arms, dead to the world, scooping her up in a single swoop.

"I think she needs some rest. Apparently this man left a few more bruises than she thought."

Upstairs she had her own room, nice and complimentary for her services. He had spent a few nights of his own up here. Not regretting it, but then again, not relishing it either. The past was simply that, and he could leave it alone.

He tucked her into bed, kissing her sweet lips.

"You did well."

He came back downstairs, smiling, "Well, I don't think there's anyone else. If you'd like to question the rest of the town, I'd be more than happy to accompany yourself. If not, I can show you to your place. A nice little cottage here in the city. I save it for special people who come into town, elites and whatnot... but the world has moved on, there are few of those left. Except, of course, for you. Please, by my guest."

The Gunslinger

She had seen this all before, the fainiting spells, the rolling of eyes. All touches of the man in blacks dark gift.

Like some phantom crusader the sherrif dragged the bar wench to her room. The old timers at their game of Watch Me eyed her suspiciously. She threw a gold coin on the plank that served as a bar.

" its for the whiskery, touch it, and I'll know" she said to no one in particular.

She took the bottle and set out fron of the swinging doors, and stepped smoothly aside as the sherrif returned.

A cottage? No, wasnt her style. The inn would serve fine.

" Thanks sherrif, but I'll stay here..I'm nothing special, just a soldier in a war thats got no more battles"

Before the sherrif could protest she fired over her voice into the bar

" Sheb.. whats the first room available"

Shebs fingers crashed on the piano. Oh yeah, he rembered her too. And Jonah, and Cuthbert and Alain. And the lovely lovely lady at the window...


" Nine.. Nineteen" he squeaked out.

19

What a suprise

The sheriff nodded at this, sad to hear of her not wanting her own place. He had rather hoped to give her something more than hospitable.

"There is another reason I wanted you away from the others. I was rather hoping we could spend a little more time together. Something more than just professional courtesy, as it were. Do you mind supping at my place? It could be a fantastic enchanted evening with just us two."

The Gunslinger

She sighed softly between her teeth.


Always the same. She wanders into town and the local establishment flirts her, wines and dines her and tries to bed her. To see if they can be closer to the lines of Eld. And to brag to their friends.

" I have no interest in romance, Sherrif..none..I'm here to kill a man and that is all"

She cracked her neck

" I'm tired, I'm hungry and I just want to sleep now"

She turned and looked cooly at him.

" But if you damn well insist, i'll come..but let it be known, I'm not happy about it"

"You are the gunslinger, my lady. You need to follow your own heart, your own code, and remember the face of your father. I simply asked you to dinner."

Derrin smiled, coming out of the cool insides of the bar to the blasted hot street, moving up to his own cottage in town. The servants would at this point be in the middle of preparing a fantastic meal for them. Derrin had informed them of company coming earlier in the day.

"You are tired, I will feed you good, sai. When you're hungry, there are several beds open to you..."

He bowed low, "And when you are ready for romance, that is available as well."

Jackie

The nightmares came, as she knew they would, inconsistent images that felt almost like forgotten memories. His face, filling her vision, and his naked body somewhere beneath. She had been tied and she could almost feel the prickly aching pain in her wrists. His reptilian, hissing voice, hot against her burning skin, “Do you like your cunt used like that. You want it rough you, my whore?” His black walking stick, thick and gnarled on the end, embedded in her pussy…the strange carvings digging into her flesh in a disturbingly pleasurable manner…him breathing hard as she stood above her, pumping it in and out….his throbbing erection bouncing obscenely up and down with every stroke…

And as she began that heavenly descent into the strongest orgasm she had ever felt, the images and sensations melted away. Jackie was drowning in the dark, in the black of his cape, smothering in those obsidian eyes. Without knowing what she was doing, her hand reached to the knife that hung by a leather strap on one bed post. She held it above her for a moment, grasp with two hands, it’s moonlit blade pointed suicidally down to her chest. But instead of plunging it into her breast, like a demented Juliet without her dark lover, she began to cut at the confiding top that was choking her. Ripping at the fabric like a possessed woman, she tore it to shreds with the knife and fingernails, desperately trying to allay the drowning sensation.