The Ballad of the Junk Heap Gun Man and Mistress Bullet
M. Todd Gallowglas
The art and entertainment of Quisquiliarum are as jury-rigged and recycled as the rest of that junkyard planet’s society. Take the hai sixtina, for example, a complicated and complex poetic form that uses both prose and poetic stanzaic structures to offer readers a multilayered narrative that traditionally explores the strange interactions between discarded human technology and the remnants of the previous alien inhabitants. Word repetition, slant rhymes, and permutations on old Earth phrasings are paramount for this form. I offer, for an example, one of the oldest known recorded hai sixtinas of Quisquiliarum.
—An excerpt from Esoteric Poetic Forms of the Galaxy by Turner Bryant.
Was it a chance that got the old timer to pick the perfect night to ride into town on that cyborg steed? A rare breeze at dusk cleared most of the rust particles from the air, and many of the town’s citizens had gathered in the saloon. Without bothering to ask, that stranger stepped into the light shining above the piano. We all stopped our chatter to lean forward and listen to what they planned to say. Off came the hat, duster, and gun. Under all that travel gear was a lady, not a man. While rare, t’wern’t too unusual to hear ’bout a woman traveling these parts alone. The way her finger played on the trigger, when she set her iron aside, spoke volumes that she’d be able to handle herself just fine when it came to action. She opened her mouth, and we were ready. A lady that old, carrying iron like that, almost certainly had something for us to learn.
1
Patrons, put down your drinks and listen.
Scavengers, put down your cups, lend an ear.
Warriors, take your fingers off your triggers,
open your minds so you may learn
ancient secrets from that day of violent action
between Mistress Bullet and the Junk Heap Gun Man.
I see by your expressions, you know of that dreaded man.
Perhaps if you turn from your drinks and listen,
you might avoid membership within that faction
of victims left bleeding, groaning, dying between there and here
because they would not, could not learn
these lessons and avoid that clenching rigor
mortis gripping harder than a greenhorn’s trigger
finger hoping to keep from becoming a grave man.
Out among the black, man had much to learn
for not all life was as we knew it. On planets there and here,
strange species adapted to our incursions, those reactions
became real-time darwinistic interactions
where selections natural did not always side with vigor,
size, or intellect. Pray, heed me, and hear
how one such life form, the Junk Heap Gun Man
rose into being with its cogs, gears, and pistons.
Once again, my tale can help you earn
a victory over that vile, gun-blazing, ever-learning
creature of death. Though only a fraction
of you will commit yourselves fully to listen.
The rest of you might as well pull the trigger
against your own heads, for each is a dead man
walking. If I could force each soul here
to leave his pride in his cup and truly hear
this vital lesson and live. Have we not learned
that every soul on this garbage-strewn sphere—man,
woman, child—is sacred. When bullets flare to action,
and that ambulatory, garbage alien touches its triggers
it will be too late. So, heed me, iron slingers, and listen.
Each man and woman glanced at each other. The lady’s words triggered dark dreads in our deepest parts. But, we’d take no action to stop her, standing and speaking under the performer’s light.
2
Just how did the Junk Heap Gun Man
come to be? That demigod alien other
sprang into its semilife through a chain reaction
between digitized memories and spare parts
from dozens of worlds—oh, and a bit of alien ichor—
created a perfect technological storm, causing light
to flare in camera-lens eyes out in the blight
of the Scavenger’s Wasteland. Alien, machine, man—
a seemingly incompatible triumvirate—jury riggered
by this planet’s bizarre ecology, unlike any other
on the star charts, where disparate parts
merge together in demonic transactions.
On Earth that Was, machines could make a retraction
Of painful memories, removing them to lighten
the burdens the mind carried, those parts
of their pasts that made them feel like lesser men.
Wouldn’t you, my audience, like to reject or smother
All the terrors of growing up on this world of trigger
happy scavengers, always blasted and blasting from liquor?
Out in the Scavenger’s Wasteland, chance interactions
of neuro-drives storing disparate minds connected with other
minds tormented by perpetual purgatory took delight
in communion after such long loneliness, because Man
should never exist in pieces outside the sum of all his parts.
Sometimes, the Scavenger’s Wasteland shifts and rumbles. Parts
roll, slide, fall, and collide. One day, neuro-drives fell quicker
than quickest silver into a pool of alien ichor left eons before human
ships left Earth that Was. The volatile chain reaction
led to that unnatural warrior’s very first fight
when human and alien imperatives struggled to smother,
overwhelm, and extinguish all trace of the other
entities vying for control. They rallied on virtual ramparts.
Garbage churned and integrated until a creature rose into daylight.
That monstrous metal maniac keeps gravediggers
across this world employed, for death is its only satisfaction.
And, that is the origin of the Junk Heap Gun Man.
Another verse begun and gone. We settled in for the part. Light from the day faded with the sun setting under the jagged horizon. Still, even with our dusters wrapped tight, we couldn’t shake the chill.
3
You’ve met the villain, but this tale’s only just begun.
I’ll tell you now about Mistress Bullet, her long duster
and even longer range. Hailing from strange parts
unknown to all be the oldest scrappers, she wandered under
stars, moon, sun, and sky stretching above her
and seeking the Junk Heap Gun Man to remove that blight
from this world. She traveled in constant flight
from her past and in hopes she’d find the Junk Heap Gun
Man’s weakness. Years before, a girl and her brother
worked to clear debris from a field. That day was dustier
than most with rust and loose dirt. But the Plunder
from a field of bare earth with irrigation made from parts
of a starship’s coolant system could become the start
of a new life for their family. Except in the fading light
of dusk one evening—clank, clack, clunk—metallic Thunder
churned its way into their ears and the Junk Heap Gun
Man followed close on its heels. They stood, dusters
flying wide open, hands drew iron, and sister and brother,
sun at their backs, face off with that scrap-heap other.
“Go,” the brother said. “Warn Pa.” At first, the girl refused to depart,
but the enemy drew its own iron, and the girl’s duster
billowed out behind her like leather wings in flight
through the garbage fields. Retorts of rapid-fire gun-
shots chased the girl scrambling over junk and under
the night’s new stars. The following silence made her wonder
but deep down, she knew what fate befell her brother.
Close to her family’s ramshackle home, she had begun
shouting for Ma and Pa. Somewhere behind her, that spare-parts
assassin came clacking, clunking, clanking to revel and delight
in killing. The girl had no illusions the garbage demon would dust her
and her parents. Almost home. Sweat soaking inside her duster.
Breath burning throat and chest. Legs aching. Stomach heavy under
the weight of imaginary nuts and bolts. Almost home. Lights
in the windows. Screaming for Ma and Pa. Hoping her brother’s
sacrifice gave her the time to get her family out of these parts
to safety. Clunk. Clank. Clack. And the whir of alien-powered guns.
Ask any of us later, and we’ll tell you her voice was able to hold us under some kind of spell with no chance of escape. Her words hit like bullets shot from the gun of her mouth. Every duster in the place got pulled a little tighter.
4
Now that you know the primary warriors of this fable,
listen, hear, and learn on the minuscule chance
you scrappers and reclaimers find yourselves under
unfortunate circumstances like facing a Junk Heap Gun
Man. Oh, did you think the girl gone? Not so. Trust her
more than that. “How is this possible?” you might ask.
After slinging iron and reveling in that murderous task
the garbage-alien-demigod, as always, felt safe and able
to move on. One corpse wasn’t a corpse. Strips from her duster
staunched the blood flowing from wounds, giving her the chance
to heal, to train, to take her father’s and brother’s guns,
and put that spare parts killer at least twenty-six feet under.
The Junk Heap Gun Man continued wandering under
skies of falling garbage from far-off worlds. He basked
in the trail of blood and tears left by his whirring guns.
Even those ironslingers who were quicker on the draw were unable
to damage that alien-powered metal form. “No human stands a chance
against me!” the slaughterer intoned when posses would muster
at edges of towns. The girl traveled in her brother’s duster
filled with bullet holes and covered with bloodstains. Under
the weight of familial spectres in her dreams, she advanced
town to town and through the scrap yards, her face a mask
of grim determination. She set no particular timetable
on her vengeance. She trained with each gun
until her movements blurred faster than the Junk Heap Gun
Man’s. Tapping into Telewaves, the alien cyborg killer heard about a duster-
wearing mad woman, faster than any human should be capable.
Mistress Bullet, the people called her. A true wonder
to behold. Slayer of bandits. Killer of Warriors. She wore a mask
of rust and blood. Our villain followed those signals for the chance
to test metal against this Mistress Bullet, yearning to dance
against an opponent who might be an equal with a gun.
After so long and so many empty victories, that’s all he asked
for. But somehow Mistress Bullet, it seemed, could readjust her
path one, two, three steps ahead of him and never blunder
into a firefight finality that would end her hopeful fable.
She stopped then and asked for something to drink. A man hopped to action, quicker than a trigger on a well-greased zipshooter. The sooner she got that drink, the better chance we’d be able to know Mistress Bullet’s fate.
5
It wasn’t luck that kept Mistress Bullet from the Junk Heap Gun Man’s
firestorm of lead. You see, she was a bit of a trickster,
and knew when her home exploded, the only possible action
she could take to save her life was to assume the mantle and mask
of death: bleeding, only the faintest breath, and limbs at twisted angles.
Deception, that night and in this chase, was her only chance
To survive the inevitable confrontation, that final dance
between Mistress Bullet and the Junk Heap Gun Man.
Mistress Bullet knew she could make her enemy unstable
if she could just stay out of range of that hair-trigger
killer. That part-alien, jury-rigged automaton in a rusted iron mask
chased and chased—clackity-clunk, clickity-whir—with no satisfaction
because Mistress Bullet remained an ever-elusive abstraction,
always behind the next garbage pile or over the horizon. Chance
had no place in this game. Mistress Bullet has set herself the task
of taunting her foe by matching the numbers of dead men
brought down by the tricked-out scopes and tipple-action triggers
on her .75-caliber revolvers. No outlaw or ironslinger was able
to outdraw that self-styled angel of death. She was willing and able
to sacrifice any and all desperados to gain permanent traction
in her enemy’s mind. She became the ultimate thimblerigger—
herself the pea, the scrap fields her cups. Alas, circumstances
conspired against Mistress Bullet. The Junk Heap Gun Man
has a few tricks hidden deep in his holsters. You might ask,
“Why didn’t he use this sooner?” Might as well ask,
“Why didn’t it just broadcast how anyone might be able
to bring about the demise of the Junk Heap Gun Man?”
She wasn’t the first to dream of ending this demonic contraption.
No one else came this close, stood this much of a chance
because those men believed they could stand trigger
to trigger, eye to eye, toe to toe, gun to gun, all of them trigger-
happy idiots, too ready to die. With any near defeat, our villain asked
how they could get so close. No other ironslinger would get a chance
to come that close the same way. The scrap-field murderer turned the tables
on Mistress Bullet by spilling his alien blood and sending a fraction
of its mind through the discarded circuits to find that walking dead woman.
She bade us listen, hear, and learn. So we leaned in, breathing close to stopped. She looked us over, meeting the gaze of each man, and pulled the trigger on the final action of her tale.
6
Using this trick, from its alien origins, the Junk Heap Gun Man
located Mistress Bullet. The chase was on. It adopted the action
of the tiger, stopping every so often to connect and listen
to where the circuit system said she was. There and here.
Here and there. With every linkup, the recycle metal monster learned
He was gaining on his prey. With each link up, the killer’s triggers
sent twitches and itches through souped-up and over-clocked trigger
fingers. Little by little, bit by bit, that garbage-born boogeyman
closed in. However, on this harsh world, Mistress Bullet learned
the hard way not to take anything for granted. Her triple-action
revolvers were always at the ready, her ears cocked to hear
any out-of-the-ordinary sound. One night, she noticed a circuit glisten
at the edge of a junkpile. She crept closer, with her fist in her
mouth to stay silent so she could try to figure
why cast-off computer bits would be lit up out here
in the scrap fields. Then, she shot the circuit, and man, oh, man,
did Mistress Bullet gain a sense of extreme satisfaction
when a shower of glowing goop splattered around. You can learn
something new every day if you open your eyes. Learn
so you can fight another day. Mistress Bullet had listened
to her guts and took decisive and immediate action.
Glowing processors surrounded her. Fingers squeezed triggers.
Metal and silicon shattered. Alien ichor splattered. That artificial man
Felt a new sensation. For the first time since its formation, fear
spread through all its wires. Gunshots grew closer, and here
that brutal killer stood, while Mistress Bullet burned
it down, piece by piece. That revenge-bent woman
blasted away. The hunter became prey, and could only listen
to each gunshot. Weaker and weaker. Fingers slipped off triggers.
Steps became slower. The mechanical murderer could take no action
by the time Mistress Bullet caught up to him. A smile of satisfaction
glowed, and she put a bullet in its final lit circuit. Did you truly hear
how Mistress Bullet defeated the seemingly undefeatable? Figure
out the secret of her triumph? Did you honestly learn?
When your guts shout to get your attention: listen!
That’s the lesson of Mistress Bullet and the Junk Heap Gun Man.
And that woman finished her drink, replaced her hat, duster, and gun, and walked out of the performer’s light over the piano. The old saloon man asked if she’d offer another tale for his patrons to hear. Her smile barely showed under her wide-brimmed hat. We all figure we only chanced to see that smirk on account she wanted us to. No way we’d been able to otherwise. Her final action before setting off was to hand the saloon man a single bullet. Once she departed, we all learned from the saloon man that the bullet had a word written on it. Protected. That triggered years of speculation from everyone in our town. I swore if she ever returned to these parts, I meant to ask her about that gift. Not surprised I’m still waiting.