That’s really it.

East of West, Issue #32 [March, 2017]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“The Man Makes a Move”

Flashback. The adult Horsemen approach what looks like a defiant young woman shrouded in a white sheet. The Oracle. War slams down hard on her and rips out both her dang eyeballs! Gross! Yuck! Alluring!

“Look here, Chosen,” War says to Cheveyo, Bel Solomon, and Archibald. “The eyes of the Oracle. One for answers – to learn things hidden. One for questions – though the asking brings death.”

Cheveyo is currently holding a knife up to a Hunter’s throat. Looks like we have a lucky man, here. “Bring me the answering eye, Bel,” he says while the Hunter gasps and moans and poops his Hunter pants. Then Cheveyo gouges out Hunter’s eye and tells him to be quiet! Stop screaming and yelling and writhing in agony, you horse’s ass! In plops the answering eye.

“What of the other eye?” asks Bel. Perhaps they could bring it as a gift to one of the other leader motherfuckers of their country. Freeman or Mao or that other lady with the thing. “Well, until you gentlemen figure it out,” Archibald says, slamming shut the box containing the questioning eye. “Maybe I could hold onto it for you.”

“Just because you don’t see the strings. Doesn’t mean you’re not a puppet.”

As previously reported, the White Tower just got ‘sploded by a rogue team of rebels. “Let this be a lesson, dear…” Archibald says as he watches the action on his whiz-band LCD television. “This is what comes from subjugation.”

He sucks on his fat dick-looking cigar.

Constance enters the room and tells her uncle that she knows he takes great pleasure in putting people in their place. Archibald is like “true dat” and feels that, as a humble servant of the Maker’s providence, he should work very hard to keep things… “tidy”.

Archibald then teaches Constance a lesson about the carrot and the stick: “The mistake that many new to power make is thinking the two are separate things, but they are wrong. The carrot is the stick.” Archibald looks at photos of his little four-person team of rebels, all of whom are probably dead now. “People love to think they’re defiant. They love to play the rebel. Tell them they cannot have the leash – deny it to them… and they will put it on themselves. And beg you for the privilege.”

Aha! Sneaky sneaky, you rugged manly man you! It’s not about beating someone into submission, as fun as that is! God only knows how fun making somebody suffer is. It’s about coercion. “Wield it well, and what they will cave most is surrender to your cause.”

What’s next on the agenda? A meeting with the Kingdom of New Orleans! Very good! I love crawfish and gumbo! Let’s get a move on.

“You know what to do now?” Archibald asks his niece sneakily.

“I do. I’ll have her for you in a minute, sir,” Constance responds. Sounds like Archibald is getting the mail-order bride he asked for. Excellent.

Next, Archibald starts talking to his pet eyeball in the box. The rhymin’ ocular organ thinks Archibald is a fool for using violence as his only tool (see, I can rhyme too). Archibald thinks the eyeball is full of beans. He will not be deterred from his mission, goodness no. Archibald pulls on his ol’ suspenders and gives Xiaolian Mao a ringy-dingy on the holophone.

“Well, hello there, Xiaolian. Forgive me for being so bold, but dare I say that for someone upon whose shoulders the well-being of an entire people rests, you look positively… exhausted. Terrible. Just horrific, dear. Are you having trouble sleeping?”

You shrewd so-and-so! Xiaolian merely frowns, brow furrowed and all, and tells Archibald that someone tried to kill her in her sleep. Archibald empathizes oh-so sincerely, of course. “I can imagine worse ways to go,” he says. “The world how it is, it might be argued someone was trying to do you a favor.”

Xiaolian took this act as an effort to shame her. She will not die in bed like some twerp! A sword in her left hand and an erect penis in the other! That is how she shall die! “I am a warrior. I am the House of Mao and the Bride of Death Himself.”

Archibald disagrees. She’s a Whore from Slut Town and she can go fuck herself. And yes, he did try to shame her. lol. Whatcha gonna do about it? Nyah nyah nyah. *raises middle finger*

I’m sure she’ll think of something. Archibald is a dead man.

Later, Archibald arrives at the Kingdom to a warm welcome.

“Now. Either you tell me what it is you’re up to, Archibald, or you can return to your ship and pray to whatever god you pretend to serve that I do not shoot it down,” says King Whatever His Name Is. Archibald coyly tells the King that he’s always up to something. Up to many things, actually! Which one would he like to know about specifically?

John Freeman VIII tells the old man to just answer the goddamned question. Bitch.

The King tells his son to put a sock in it. He asks Archibald straight up, what’s he doing here. Today. At this moment. Right now. Concurrent with time as they are now living in. And Archibald remains as coy as the day he plopped out of his mother’s grotesque vagina. “In a word? Decorum.”

Archibald knows that an alliance is forming. His nation is a member. There are others, too. KnowwhatImean? Except that he doesn’t want to be a member anymore. “My desires now extend beyond their meager plans… and I just wanted you to know.”

It’s because Archibald wants the King’s blessing. Oof. John Freeman VIII is tired of Archibald’s shit and is hankerin’ to put a bullet through the old man’s dome. Archibald flashes his own holstered gun and warns the kid to back off. The King similarly warns his son to back off. John Freeman whines about it, but the King presses on.

“When you were nothing but lust in my heart, this man was the greatest gunfighter of his age. Most people don’t remember because either they operated in other spheres, or because they died at his hand.”

“Who would ever believe that the most dangerous shot around would turn out to be an even deadlier politician?” he continues. Freeman VIII is salty and skeptical. The King promises Archibald that their Kingdom will stay out of the affairs of the Confederacy. Pinky promise.

I vaguely remember a Cheveyo’s-ghost-plagued Bel Solomon hanging out in the desert with his Hunter buddy Thomas. They’re still out there, cozying it up in the middle of nowhere while Cheveyo yaps in Bel’s ear: “I tell you, Bel… Something gathers on the horizon. You can smell the coming lightning in the air. You can taste it on your tongue. A storm is not coming, Bel. It is here.”

Thomas’ robot dog senses something in the distance. “Woof!” it says. “WOOF!” it then says. Thomas readies his Hunter gun. Here comes trouble with a capital T even though I spelled it with a lowercase t back there. Sorry.

Archibald shows up with his cavalry. “Hello, Bel. I’d be remiss to say that by the looks of it, you’re in desperate need of some modern comforts – like a decent meal or a hot bath. Fortunate for you, I’m a man of the times.”

Bel boggles ferally at the southern gentleman with the very long, stupid mustache. “Archibald… how… how did you find me?”

Pffft, it was easy, guy. He’s been keeping tabs on you for years and you aren’t very subtle about it. You keep farting and his Fart Detection Machine keeps picking up your farts. Also, because Archibald made you drink something that had a tracking device on it, I guess, and after all this time you didn’t poop it out for some reason.

Anyway, Bel Solomon of the Republic of Stinky Texas, it is time for you to return to your Chosen duties! Thomas is like “go suck a dick, old man” and opens fire. Thomas’ robot dog opens fire too. They kill, like, everyone. Everyone except Archibald himself.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says, “you put those guns down and I’ll allow you to live.”

Thomas does not put the guns down, so Archibald pulls his own gun out and fires three rounds.

One goes in the guy’s neck. One cuts through his leg. One cracks through his middle finger. He moans and groans on the ground like a dingus. “Next time…” Archibald says, “you might want to be more appreciative when a man like myself is feeling generous. Understood?”

I guess the guy is not dead, miraculously. Thomas tells Archibald to do his worst, so he shoots his robot dog in the face. It’s worth mentioning at this point that Archibald’s has a bulging questioning eye affixed under the barrel of his gun. Thomas hoots and hollers about some day having his justice while Archibald drags Bel to his ship by his hair.

“Justice?” says Archibald incredulously while Thomas bleeds out. “Haven’t you been paying attention your entire life, lawman? Justice is what the strong do to the weak. And now I’ll show the world just how strong I am.”

Final Thoughts

I’m still rooting for Archibald. He’s one cunning motherfucker. I like his luscious mustache. Mmmm, I just want to eat it off his face.