Tales from The New West: Dusty Begins
Dusty D wasn’t born in the New West. He rode in one day, carrying scars from a different frontier. Back then, he didn’t wear a badge.
He stumbled into the New West, lost, half-dead, but even then, he knew it was a place freer than anywhere he’d known. At first, he tried to keep to himself, but the New West is rough, and that approach only lasts for so long. Every gang had their hands open. Dusty got tired of those fools, so one day, he stopped letting it slide, and one of them found his face in the dirt. Then another, then another until all of them knew you couldn’t rob Dusty.
Dusty never asked for the title, but people referred to him as a lawman and started asking him for help. No badge, no court, no deputies, but he had their support. The law in the New West soon became Dusty, his word, and his trigger finger. Townspeople love him. They trust him, not because he’s perfect, but because he’s the only one who gives a damn.
After he found Alien Cheese, it was pretty much settled for Dusty. He adopted the new role and with no place left to run, Dusty finally had a reason to stay.
The One They Call Cheese
It’s been years since Dusty came across Alien Cheese, but that night will always be legendary. It was late. Dusty had just gotten home when the ground began to rumble beneath his feet. At first, he chalked it up to him being stoned, until he saw fire and smoke billowing in the sky.
When he got to the scene, Dusty could see the crash from far away and the closer he got, he could see the wrong kind of men had gotten there first, they were HOVs, people you don’t want to fuck with. Dusty kept his distance and watched them drag a little, green man out of the wreckage of a spaceship by his little legs. They threw him in the back of their van and sped away. Dusty thought that was the end of that.
Then the desert roared again, a bone-shaking blast that lit the dunes white. Dusty dropped low as a shockwave tore across the night. When he looked up, the source was clear: the crash site. The little ship that had streaked across the sky earlier was now a smoldering crater.
HOV’d bodies were everywhere, thrown dozens of feet from the blast, burnt and twisted.
And there, right at the edge of the wreck, half-buried in a drift of sand and glowing debris, was the creature they’d taken.
Alien Cheese, he was dazed, but alive.
Dusty ran hard toward the wreckage, trying to understand what the hell he was seeing. As he got closer, Cheese blinked up at him through the dust, wide-eyed, confused, completely harmless.
In that split second, Dusty knew: Cheese wasn’t the danger.
Dusty dug him out, lifted him clear of the wreck, and hauled him away from the burning metal. Cheese didn’t fight or try to take off. He just clung to Dusty, and that was it. They’ve been homies ever since.