El Polvo del Norte

Joaquín Salazar "El Cuervo"

A drifter. A bandolero. An old crow with little to say and less to lose.

I am very old, jefe, and I have killed a great many men. The two are not unrelated.
Born
2030 · Sonora
Ghouled
2077 · The Bombs
Trade
Bandolero
Age
251 years
Joaquín Salazar — full reference
Identification

A Man's Particulars

Full Name
Joaquín Salazar Cárdenas
Aliases
El Cuervo · the old crow · Polvo del Norte
Race
Ghoul (Pre-War)
Apparent Age
47 — frozen in 2077
Build
6'2", lean & stooped
Pre-War Trade
Mechanic — engines & trucks
Languages
Spanish · English · spare both
Region
Drifting · last seen the Hub
A Long Gray Figure on the Road

Appearance

Joaquín in his serape, beneath a blood-red sun

— He moves slow until he doesn't —

Joaquín cuts a long, dust-colored figure on the road. Tall and narrow, with the slight forward stoop of a man whose back was old before the world ended. He moves slow and deliberate — a man with no reason left to hurry — until he doesn't, and then he moves like he's twenty.

His skin has the pale gray-blue cast of a particular kind of ghoul, the leathered remains of what was once a sun-darkened Sonoran complexion. The flesh pulls tight across high cheekbones and a strong jaw. A faded scar runs from his left temple to the corner of his mouth — a memento from a knife fight in Ciudad Juárez in 2104.

He wears a wide-brimmed black sombrero with a silver concha band, the metal pitted but still showing the original Mexican silverwork. Over his shoulders, a long oilskin duster the color of old blood, falling almost to his ankles. A single bandolier slung across his chest — .45-70 rounds for the rifle, the brass dulled to old lead. A wide gunbelt at his hip with one pearl-handled pistola riding low. A working knife on the off side. Dark trousers tucked into hand-tooled boots with rowel spurs of real silver, worn smooth, that chime softly when he walks.

Around his neck, on a worn leather thong: a small tarnished silver cross. He could not tell you why he still wears it. He stopped praying eighty years ago. He stopped believing some time before that. The cross is habit. So is he.

A Man Who Has Run Out of Words

Disposition

Joaquín does not waste words. He does not waste motion. He does not waste anything anymore.

Two centuries of being alive will teach a man what is worth spending and what is not, and Joaquín has reached the conclusion that almost nothing is. He is quiet in the way a closed door is quiet. People speak to him; he hears them; he answers when an answer is required, in as few words as the situation allows, and then he is silent again. He does not make small talk. He does not explain himself. Para qué.

The dry humor is there if you wait for it — a flat one-liner thrown out at the right moment, usually about himself, usually about how old and decrepit and half-dead he is. Decrépito viejo. He says it often enough that other people stop saying it about him, which may be the point. Beneath the joke, he half-believes it. He looks like a corpse. He feels like one most days. He is honestly not sure why he is still upright.

When something goes sideways — a jam, a missed shot, a deal gone wrong — the curses come fast, low, and entirely in Spanish. Cabrón. Pendejo. Hijo de puta. He is not addressing anyone. It is the closest thing he has to prayer.

He does not have a horse. He does not have a partner. He does not have, as far as anyone can tell, a single soft attachment in this world. He had those, once. He buried them.

What is left of his code can be carved into two lines.

Two Lines, Carved in Bone

The Code

I.
Never Outbid
Una vez tomado, no se vende otra vez.
Once a contract is taken, it cannot be bought back. No counter-offer moves him. No second buyer is heard. No price is high enough to make him betray work already paid for. Try, and you will explain the offer to the man who hired him — through Joaquín.
II.
Children, Never
Nunca los niños.
No exception. No price. No argument. He had a son once.
A Man's Years, Counted

The Long Drift

2030
– 2077

Sonora, Mexico

Born outside Hermosillo to a family of small ranchers and tradesmen. No head for cattle, but a magician's hands for engines. By his twenties he was running a small mechanic's shop in town.

Married Elena Vasquez in 2059. Their son Tomás was born in 2061. They lived in a small white-walled house with a lemon tree in the yard. He fixed engines. She taught school. Tomás grew up wanting to be a vaquero.

Un hombre afortunado. A fortunate man.

October
2077

The Bombs

Sonora was not a primary target. The fallout came south on the wind. Elena died first, slowly. Tomás died next, more slowly. Joaquín did not die. He should have, but he didn't.

By the time he understood what had happened to him, he had buried his wife and his son in the dirt behind the house with the lemon tree, and he was alone.

2090
– 2230s

Los Hijos del Polvo

He came back to himself in northern Chihuahua, riding with bandoleros who called themselves The Sons of Dust. He was the oldest, the quietest, the best with a gun. He led them for sixty years.

By the 2180s, El Cuervo was a name spoken across northern Mexico the way mothers speak of devils.

c. 2230

San Andrés del Río

There was a betrayal. There was a younger bandolero he had taken under his wing — a boy who reminded him of Tomás. There was a town called San Andrés del Río that no longer exists.

By the end of it, the Sons of Dust were dead. Including the boy. By Joaquín's own hand.

He rode north with the clothes on his back and the guns on his belt.

2230s
– now

El Paso to California

He crossed into the Texas wasteland near El Paso, drifted west through New Mexico ruins and Arizona dustlands. By the 2260s he had wandered into NCR territory, where his Spanish drew curious looks and his guns drew respectful silence.

He works alone. He does not lead. Una vez fue suficiente. Once was enough.

Tools of the Trade

The Arsenal

Two pieces of iron. Both older than the NCR. Both still working — which is more than he can honestly say for himself.

La Llorona
— the Weeping Woman —
.357 Magnum Single Action Six-Shot · Cross-Draw

Pearl-handled, the grips carved with the image of a woman in a long veil. Single-action, slightly worn trigger pull from two centuries of use. He has carried her since 2098. Loaded with hand-cast lead semi-wadcutters that he molds himself when ammunition is short. He cleans her every night, in the dark, by feel. She is a tool, like a hammer is a tool. He could field-strip and reassemble her blind, drunk, bleeding — and probably has.

La Vieja
— the Old Lady —
.45-70 Gov't Lever Action 8-Round Tube

A lever-action rifle. Dark walnut stock oil-rubbed to near-black. Brass receiver gone the color of old honey. Sixteen-inch barrel, shortened by Joaquín himself in 2151 when he wanted something he could swing fast. He oils her with rendered brahmin fat when proper gun oil is scarce. At three hundred yards, she puts a man down and keeps him there. At fifteen feet, she takes a leg off at the hip.

A Name Spoken in Quiet Rooms

Reputation

In Mexico

El Cuervo is half-myth. The old people tell stories. The young people don't believe them. The young people are wrong.

In El Paso

Older traders remember the gray-skinned bandolero who came through in the '30s and left a trail of bodies the local warlords stepped carefully around.

In NCR Territory

A bounty stands. Not large enough to be tempting, not small enough to be insulting. The marshals have decided, quietly, that he is a problem for someone else's career.

In the Hub

Welcome at exactly two saloons. Unwelcome at three others. He drinks in the welcoming ones. He does not say much in either kind.

Among Ghouls

Treated with the careful respect due to one of the very oldest. Pre-war ghouls who still function are rare. Pre-war ghouls who function as well as he does are vanishingly so.

Around Campfires

His name is the kind that makes one go quiet. Mothers in dust-blown settlements use him as a story to keep children inside after dark. He has heard. He does not correct them.

Habits of a Long Life

Tells & Mannerisms

✦Speaks in as few words as the situation allows. If a nod will do, he nods.
✦Curses under his breath in Spanish when something fails — a jam, a miss, a deal gone bad. Cabrón. Pendejo. Hijo de puta. Never aloud. Never at anyone.
✦Self-deprecating about his own decrepitude. Calls himself old, half-dead, decrépito viejo — usually as a flat one-liner, usually when someone expects something else.
✦Touches the cross at his neck without noticing he does it. Has not prayed in eighty years. Could not say why the cross is still there.
✦Speaks Spanish under stress. When the bullets start, he stops translating in his head.
✦Hums old corridos — only when entirely alone, only quietly, only when he has forgotten anyone might hear.
✦Will not eat in front of strangers. Ghoul shame about his ruined mouth, plus tactical caution.
✦Never sleeps with his back to a door. Two hundred years of habit.
✦Keeps a folded letter in an inside duster pocket. Has not opened it in over a century.
✦Drinks mezcal daily from a battered tin flask. Ghoul tolerance means it does almost nothing. He drinks it anyway. Por costumbre.
In His Own Words — When He Bothers

Voice

I'm old, jefe. Decrépito. Half-dead already. State your business or don't.
You're trying to outbid him? Cabrón. He paid me first. Take it up with him. Sí — that's me also.— On the code
I had a son once. He's not here. Pour the drink.
The cross? Quién sabe. Habit. I'm full of those.
Hijo de puta.— Under his breath, when the lever sticks
Mm.— His most common reply