The sun burned down from the sky as a furious face, like some sort of demon, all red and white face paint and tusks. Its beams rained down on the land like ten thousand burning arrows, torching all that resided below the great face's heavenly domain. If Red squinted, he could almost peel back its armor and peer into the demon's eyes. He lowered the brim of his hat. That monster's gaze was one he didn't want to meet.
His horse returned to its galloping down the blasted desert road, alongside the railway tracks that had stood silent and unshaken, keeping watch over the bones of so many of his family members. The irony didn't strike Red, that he was a holy man sent out to wander the wilderness in a search for answers; he'd never read the Bible and he never would. Right now, he was just a dirty man on a dirty horse looking for a glass of water in the wilds of California.
The demon was dancing, smoldering at the very pinnacle of the sky. Up ahead stood a sign post, but he could not read it; the desert heat rippled and tore it in strange ways. He took a deep breath and watched the vultures circle. His horse was suffering as he was. The beast was named Lazarus, so he was told. The the previous owner assured him that this meant it could rise from the dead. It seemed like a joke, so he laughed. The man didn't. The man had bought the horse to till fields, but upon coming to California, discovered that there was nothing approaching fertile in Death Valley. That was three days ago. Three days and nights of riding straight. He didn't have any food, didn't really feel the need to stop unless his horse needed too, so he just kept riding.
Lazarus trotted up to the sign and Red wiped the pooling sweat from his eyes. It was constructed of bleached wood, the iron nails visibly sizzling in the heat. In big black letters was written, "Still in the Valley. Mind the Vultures." The English was a bit hard for Red but he made them out alright. He spoke the language fine, but the writing gave him trouble. He missed Mandarin; characters just had more life than the letters of the American tongue. He recalled the way they would dance around the signs and books of Hong Kong, like fish slipping through a deep sea of blank canvas. But this place, this Death Valley, was all canvas with none of the characters, only the occasional cactus for punctuation. And the vultures still circled overhead. Still, he was not upset that he came, only mildly annoyed that the Tao had drug him out to the West in search of who knows what. But trust was all he had and trust was all he knew. He felt under his robes for the map, but instead pulled out one of his twin revolvers. It was a slim sliver shaft latched onto a black wooden handle, made to draw quick and fire quicker. He pulled the trigger a few times because it felt right, then twirled it back into its holster, folded deep into his dusty white and red robes. Then he got the map. Another twenty miles from Clay Bluff.
Red sucked the perspiration off of his upper lip and looked up to the sky. Somewhere, a rattlesnake shook in warning.
"Any chance it might rain?", Red called into the endless bluffs. The demon in the sky just continued to leer. Red slid the map back into his robes, gave Lazarus's reins a snap, and rode into the sun, twenty miles from Clay Bluff.
By the time he got to Clay Bluff, it was night, all stars and the howls of brooding coyotes. But what is time to an immortal? The demon was buried deep in the earth to be replaced by a white half-saucer, broken by the shadows, hanging peacefully in the sky like an ornament. It made him thirsty just to look at it. The night did not give as much respite as Red had hoped, and his robes continued to reek like sweat and sand. In the dark he could make out the twin beacons of lanterns, blocking the entrance to town, like two foo lions, eyes bugging out, mouths drooping in righteous joy. He missed his home.
"This is the place?" Red whispered the question under his breath so not a soul could hear him.
A soft breeze ruffled his robes, the first he'd felt in days and he smiled. Lazarus trotted up to the town's edge. Two filthy men eyed Red as he rode up. He had smelled them about a quarter mile away and even in the cloak of darkness could see they were badly sunburnt and at least mildly intoxicated. They did not return his smile. If Red judged things by their beauty, he would have said the uglier one walked up. But he didn't, so just one of them walked up, basking in the lantern light. He had a beard that looked like the ass-end of a overgrown, inbred squirrel and a face to match. In his left hand rested a double-barreled shotgun, and his right wiped the grease and sweat of the night away on a pair of tattered overalls. He hacked a bullet of phlegm at the hooves of Lazarus and spoke in a slow, rancid drawl, like he was afraid he might break Red's brain with his powerful occidental words.
"What you want Coolie? No work here. Keep going." The man looked with cold eyes at the Chinese rider and his gasping horse.
Red just stared at him. Perhaps, he thought, he has some sort of speech impediment. He responded, smiling, "No work. Water. Drink. Bed."
The man saw that he had made the right choice in his approach with the rider and responded, "Money? You have?" He rubbed his fingers together in an almost lecherous gesture.
Red grinned, "Yes. Much money!" He reached into his robe and tossed a nickle at the man who caught it lustily in his greasy palm. He grinned a wicked grin and sucked on the coin, ensuring its genuineness and cast a look at his partner, a lanky older man who leaned on a rock smoking a cigarette. The sitting man shrugged and puffed away. The bearded man giggled and made a sweeping gesture towards the dim lights of the town square. Red bowed as low as he could in the saddle, tipped his hat, and rode past the pair and their lanterns, Lazarus's hooves kicking up dust in the pale moonlight.
When the rider had trotted out of earshot, the lanky man finished his cigarette and spoke aloud, "What do you suppose he really wanted?"
The bearded man ignored him and continued to giggle at his mastery of diplomacy.
"Well look at you. The goddam chinaman whisperer." He lit another cigarette and tried to keep the heat of the night off him as much as possible. The half-saucer just grinned down on them, mingling its light with the yellowish glow of their lanterns. The breeze did not come again.
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