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It was mid-morning when the Stranger rode out of the desert, the sun already baking down and sending the ground cooking in waves so thick you’d look at the horizon and think it a mirage.
Any onlooker would’ve sworn the Stranger was just a hallucination brought on by the heat, seeing as he just seemed to be there all of a sudden, even if he clearly wasn’t before.
They tied their horse to a hitching post outside the rather rundown looking inn—all towns looked rundown and dirty ‘round here (there was a brief flash of a town by a lake, “Hell” painted in blood red paint over the sign—200 gallons, he’d needed) the Stranger shook his head, and pushed open the doors to the inn.
“¿Que se llamas, Señor?” the innkeeper asked.
The Stranger was taken aback by the question. No one had ever asked for their name before. To others, the Stranger had no known name or title, and he was, in fact, privately of the belief that they had none at all. Some called them a ghost, others, a manifestation of God, the Devil, or Death. But he wasn’t any of those, not really, not necessarily a person, either, but rather, something in between. A liminal entity, a ghost of the desert that was here one moment, the next, gone. (They ignored the brief flash in their memory of a familiar name on a gravestone outside a town formerly painted red and set aflame.)
What were common names of the people north of here? He ran through the list of names he’d learned through his travels, and then chose one that he felt would be normal enough to be considered ordinary, and yet there would be something about them that anyone who met them wouldn’t be able to place.
The Stranger grinned (in what they hoped was a semi-friendly way, though going by the innkeeper’s expression, they had failed on that point) and pulled a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and drew in a lungful of smoky licorice scent, then exhaled, watching the way it curled toward the ceiling like breath from a dragon.
“Walker,” the Stranger said, and why not?
It was as good a name as any.
‘Round and ‘round the wheel of time, that great glowing ball in the sky that most of the up-northers called the “sun” or as the locals were fond of calling it, “el sol”, went, and so went the Stranger, taking on countless names and identities in the process.
There was Walker, James, Randall, Carson, Morris, Cassidy, Neal, Amos, Jim, Levi, Thomas…all of them with different stories, different personalities, mannerisms.
What’s your name, Stranger?
‘Round and 'round el sol rolled, and with it, so moved the Stranger, ever changing, ever nameless, shifting like the sands of the desert, one day somewhere, the next gone.
And then the people he met started giving him nicknames. Years of semi-anonymous gunslinging and bounty hunting and chasing down the bastards of the world who deserved to be chased had earned them a reputation, it seemed.
And your name, Sir?
The Hunter. The Bounty Killer. Manco. Nameless. Señor Ninguno.
Oftentimes, the nicknames arrived before the Stranger did. It was fun, however, humorous even, to eavesdrop on a conversation where the talkers were yawping about “Mr. Sudden Death”, as he was called on occasion, or in the language of the locals, “Señor Muerte Súbito”, lean over, grin like a coyote, and softly say something like, “Oh, him? Yeah, he’s me,” and watch them piss themselves trying to run out the door. They didn’t usually get very far.
Very unfortunate that they usually had to trip over chairs or run smack into door beams instead. It was even more a pity that they ended up getting themselves killed in the process.
Over and over, the same question. It always got the same answer, even if the answer was never said. (No one knows about the town that still lingers in the Stranger’s mind, red like blood and always, always on fire. No one asks.)
It was high noon when the Stranger rode out of the desert.
They tied their horse to a hitching post outside the rather rundown looking inn in El Paso, Santa Fe, La Paz, countless other unknown places San Miguel — old news by now, he could ignore the flashes behind his eyes.
Time to go see how life was here. From what he’d seen, there wasn’t much of it. A shame. The Stranger had grown to like people, even if they were, for the most part, a loner.
“¿Oye, Stranger, tienes nombre?” The bar-innkeeper asked once he’d stopped eyeing them like they were off their head for hanging from his supporting roof beam like a maniac. But then, their horse had just been shot at by the guys down the street. Not the most welcoming place, that much was certain.
The Stranger grinned friendly-like (was happy to see the bar-innkeeper grin back, even if slightly — progress), pulled a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and drew in a lungful of the now familiar smoky scent, then exhaled, watching the new person putter about the bar, wondered what his story was.
“Joe,” the Stranger said finally, and why not?
It was as good a name as any.