West Wheel: The Twin Machines Chapter 4: Shootout at Grim Ranch By: Joel 'Cop' Furches

 

Yonder rides the gunslinger

Riding hard, the lead flinger

Don’t ride round here, bell ringer

We got no need for thee

 

We’ll ride him down the gunslinger

We’ll drag him down, the death-bringer

And when he comes, the hell-singer

He’ll be hanging from a tree

 

 

            The center of the West Wheel is a dense patch of mountains that even the mighty mountain men have never penetrated.  Scrayling lore says that at the moment of creation, a great mountain rose out of this patch, greater and higher than all other mountains.  They call this Poi Shatobba, the Mountain of God.  Now, the Scraylings claim, there is nothing there but a great pit, a vast and gapping hole to the heart of the earth that they call Poi Drodidi.  From this Hub (as the white man call it) stretch six ‘spokes.’  Mountain chains that stretch northwest, northeast, east, southeast, southwest, and west.  The southwestern chain stretches out from the mountains to become a series of buttes and spires that the Scraylings call Drambapeyui: stone towers.  This chain of Drambapeyui is the border between the Badlands and the Wyrdelands. 

            It is on this southwestern chain of broken rocks and desolate, ugly plains choked with dust, baked with sun and devoid of all but the crabbiest redweed, that you might chance to find a little cattle-trail winding its way through the narrow canyons in-between the high, red rocks.  Here the cowboys drive their cows through the toughest part of their yearly trek.  If it were not for the well-hidden Grim Ranch nestled in the crags of the Drambapeyui, the cows would have little chance of making the journey alive.

           

            It was a bright and thirsty day in Steerbone Pass as a young man walked in the welcome shadow of the canyon ridges whistling “Angel of the Trail.”  Though the tune was an old cowboy favorite, the whistler had never driven cattle in his life.  His faded jeans hung down to his faded rawhide boots, swinging freely as he walked in the dust-blown valley.  The left pant-leg hung just a smidge higher than the right, as the gun-holster, tied down above his knee, synched the pants up a little.  His thumbs were hooked in his gun-belt as he strolled, and his twinkling blue eyes below his canted hat could turn any young woman’s face in a blush. 

            Presently the young man took a turn, his loose shirt, unbuttoned to the breastbone flapped in the hard wind that drove down the canyon, wild as a boor.  The passage was a narrow one, one cow at a time if you please, boys.  It was not a passage you would see unless you were looking hard.  The climb was steep, and the boy stopped his whistling in favor of keeping his breath.  His sharp eyes darted left and right, trying to pick out the spots where unseen riflemen sat high on the wall and watched him come. 

            “Ho!” a voice echoed down from above, “Why Kid Jimmy, didn’t you ride outta here last night on a horse?”

The boy flashed a brilliant smile against his tanned skin.  “That’s right.”

            “So which is it?  Did you kill this one too, or lose it in a poker match?”

            “’Fraid to say this one gave its life for the cause, gentlemen.”

            “And which cause would that be?”

            “The Seven-fifteen between Almos and Sansleburry.”

            “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.  When are you gonna learn?  You drove down a stage an’ got nothing to show.”

            “I got a mile of blisters on my feet, and a song in my heart.  Oh, and I managed to burry the take in a spot only I know.  You boys are welcome to split it with me if you lend me another horse.”

            “Well you come on in and put your feet up a spell, Jimmy.  I recon Coot’ll have some words for you.”

            “Good ol’, Coot.  Never did agree with a word he had to say, but I love him like a father, gents.”

            “Don’t we all.”

 

            Jimmy sidled up the rest of the path and was met with the welcome sight of the wooden and hand-painted Grim Ranch sign that hung between two sandblasted and wind-worn poles.  Strips of tattered cloth were nailed to the posts, and to their supports, and fluttered in the hot wind.  An old skull of some long-dead steer sat askew atop one of the sign-poles, and to either direction stretched a fence that was made of sandstone boulders as much as it was of wooden posts. 

Beyond this on a slight grade sprawled the Ranch itself.  It was more like a small town, complete with saloon and gambling parlor, mess hall, ranch house, several bunk houses, a barn, and fenced pasture with a few dozen steers.  In contrast to the dusty hellscape Jimmy had spent most of the day walking, the pasture here, about five acres all-told, was green with grass.  It wasn’t lush by any stretch of the imagination, but it was there.  The entire spread was sheltered by a wall of rocks that left only the single narrow path for entrance.  This wall narrowed at the back to a point where a spring, cold as winter ice, flowed freely into a small cistern.  This made the Ranch possible, and also an essential stop for any cattle-drive through this barren stretch of earth.

 

Kid Jimmy noted without surprise that the ranch seemed pretty empty this morning.  Trent “Buffalo” McKusker lounged on the porch of the ranch house, his boots up on the railing.  His chair canted at a dangerous angle, which Kid reckoned might put him flat at any moment. 

Trent was nicknamed “Buffalo” not so much after the animal as by his reputation for clobbering opponents with the butt of his rifle.  While this tactic could be damaging, it had saved a number of lives that would have otherwise ended in pointless shootouts.  He had been a lawman for years, and a fine one, at that.  Then a Judge had been appointed in his town and it was made abundantly clear that Trent’s hard work and fair judgment were no longer wanted.

Buffalo was the only soul to be seen, and he caught sight of Kid Jimmy almost immediately.  Jimmy could see him shaking his head in ‘what-have-you-done-now’ sort of way, and then returning to his smoke.  Kid Jimmy liked Buffalo McKusker.  In fact, everyone liked Buffalo.  The man had a calm, quiet way about him that made folks feel at ease.  Still, Jimmy didn’t much care for a tongue-lashing this morning, which McKusker would inevitably dole out when he heard of last nights shenanigans.  Instead Kid headed into the Saloon. 

Two men and a woman were engaged in a quiet game of what appeared to be high stakes poker.  Kid had no doubt this had started sometime last night, and probably with quite a few more players than he now saw. 

            The one man was “Crazy” Chuck Bishop.  Chuck was one of the few Negro men in the Ranch.  He had once been a Buffalo Soldier, one of those who had volunteered to fight against the Riflemen in the 40-year war.  Chuck was only just turning 40 himself, which by Jimmy’s reckoning meant he must have joined the war in the second generation.  Near the end. 

            Crazy Chuck didn’t talk much about his war days.  Kid knew he had been a scout, and he must have been a good one, because Chuck was one of the best sure-shots Kid had ever seen.  Kid fancied himself pretty good with a plow-handle, but he’d never voluntarily go up against Bishop.  Too many men had fallen beneath Chuck’s lead.

           

The other man was Allen Danfield.  Danfield was one of those insufferably smooth men that the ladies loved and most fellows resented.  He was a cardsharp, and always well dressed.  Kid thought he was innocuous enough.  He was one of the few regulars at Grim Ranch that was not known to be a gun hand.  In fact, Kid was sure he never carried anything more lethal than a derringer.

            Still, Kid Jimmy couldn’t help but think of a night about a year back when he had stumbled upon Allen in the middle of a game of solitaire.  Allen had been at the bar most of the night, charming the ladies and turning down offers to play a friendly game.  In the course of the evening, Allen had downed enough whiskey to subdue a mule, and then staggered out of the Saloon.  Jimmy had basically assumed Allen had gone off to bed.

            Later that night, Jimmy had wandered out of the Saloon to find a good spot in the dark to relieve himself.  Seeing a lantern burning in the barn, he had gone to investigate.  When he turned the corner into the stall the light was coming from, he saw Allen laying cards out, five at a time, with wild eyes, and tears streaming down his cheeks.  When Allen saw Jimmy, he jolted forward, trying to cover the cards with his arms.  He succeeded in knocking the barrel over, and the lantern with it.  The barn might have burned if Jimmy hadn’t caught it before it smashed to the floor. 

            “Don’t tell no one!” Allen had pleaded with wide eyes, grabbing Jimmy’s shirt in his small fists.  “Please, Jimmy, don’t tell NO one!” the man began to cry.  Jimmy smelled the booze heavy on Allen’s breath.  Allen stumbled out of the barn, bawling.  Jimmy knelt and picked up one of the cards.  It was an Ace of Spades.  Nothing unusual.  In fact, the whole deck was regular playing cards.

            Jimmy never got the courage to ask Allen what he had been doing that night.  But he could never look at the man without thinking there was something more to him than just a smooth cardsharp.  After all, why else would he be on Grim Ranch?

 

            The woman was Birdie Kulp.  Kid Jimmy lusted after Birdie on a regular basis.  She was almost ten years his senior, but her face was thin and young, and her lips were a full rosebud.  She had wide blue eyes under dark hair that had a deceptively innocent look about them.  In fact she was nothing close to innocent.  She had spent the last ten years of her life as a soiled dove, making money on the side running blackjack tables and tending bars.  It seemed the sort of life she was happy with, and she very likely would still be at it if she hadn’t killed a man.

            Every one at Grim Ranch had heard the story, though never from her.  The man was of high rank in the Baron’s service, and had approached her while he was drunk.  He attempted to force her, and she pulled a pepperbox she kept tucked away for self-defense.  She knew it would have been a mistake to stick around and plead her case.  Penalty for killing an official would be hanging.  There would be no trial.

            On Grim Ranch, Birdie was allowed to do pretty much whatever she wanted.  The men were simply thrilled to have a few women around.  Jimmy had tried to get close to her, but she had become somewhat selective in the men-folk she fancied, and to her Jimmy was just a kid.

            And, curse the woman, she was right!  For all his big talk and gun slinging, Jimmy knew he was just ‘The Kid;’ the lovable (if irritating) little brother of the ranch, who everyone looked down on.  And that woman (the obsession would not die) had a world-wisdom, a sophistication about her that Jimmy never could meet.  He would sit and listen to her laugh about naughty deeds done years ago in far-off places and stew with his inadequacy to all this.  He could barely imagine these experiences much less compete with them.

            Of course, Birdie was not the only woman on Grim Ranch, though for Jimmy’s money, she was the only REAL woman.  There was, for instance, Anne Wilmoth who was currently puttering about behind the bar, presumably putting things in order and serving anyone who might come by to be served.  She looked tired, and her expression was a flat lot of nothing, but Jimmy reckoned she was probably happiest being busy.  Anne Wilmoth was a piece of work.  She didn’t look like much, but she was about the toughest lady Jimmy had ever seen.  She had, more than once, disguised herself as a man to work as a bullwhacker or a teamster.  Jimmy had heard stories, even read dime novels, about her renown as a sharp shooter and whip cracker long before he had come to Grim Ranch.  He had always imagined her as a fierce woman with a short fuse and a mighty temper.  The fact of the matter was that Anne Wilmoth was actually quiet and focused.  Sure, she could get mighty riled at times.  And in those times, not a man Jimmy had met could stand up to her.

            To be honest, Jimmy wouldn’t WANT to stand up to her.  There was something about Anne that just made you like her.  Like her, and want desperately for her to like you back.  She was a woman who worked hard because she just seemed to like to work.  And on the rare occasion that she smiled, you’d give your best boots to see that smile again.

            Kid Jimmy had thought about trying to join the poker game, especially with the prospect of spending time near Birdie Kulp.  Now, though, as he stood in the door of the Saloon and watched Anne Wilmoth labor over a spotless counter, he began to feel every inch of the ten miles he had walked this morning.  He felt a bunk bed calling his name.

 

            Jimmy had entirely forgotten about Buffalo McKusker as he stumbled past the ranch house on his way to what he felt would be a well-deserved rest.

            “Ho, Kid, get yer tail up here, Son.”

Jimmy muttered a curse and hauled himself up onto the porch.  Buffalo didn’t immediately say anything once the Kid was standing there.  He just took another pull on his cigarette then tossed it on the porch and crushed it under his boot.  Then he leaned way back in his chair, stretching his neck and turning toward the open door of the house.

            “Bo!  The boy’s here.”

The man who strolled through the door was a legend.  Of course, the Kid was, in his own way, a legend.  He’d had a dime novel written about him, and probably more to come.  But this man, Bo Davey, was a part of the West Wheel history. 

            Kid Jimmy guessed that Bo “Coot” Davey was in his middle or late seventies.  It was hard to tell when you were around him because he was an enormous man with great power and energy.  You forgot that he had buried three wives and most of his children decades ago.  You did not, however, forget that he was a pioneer of old and had trail blazed most of the best trails into the Deep South and western parts of the Wheel. 

            The man had a cantankerous sense of humor, but today he was gazing down on the Kid with unsettling sternness. 

            “What’s this I hear about you holding up a stagecoach, Jimmy?”

Anger welled up in Jimmy’s chest.  Hank or Roy, one of the guards on the entranceway must have run and spilled the beans to Bo and Trent almost as soon as he had finished talking to them.  It wasn’t like he was the only one on the ranch who pulled an occasional holdup or bank robbery.  These mining towns were always pulling new gold out of the ground anyway, so they weren’t losing much, and he almost never shot anybody.  He thought about saying as much, but he knew better.  Right now he was riding on the edge of getting kicked out of Grim Ranch.  Getting Coot riled up more than he already was would not be wise.  He stared down at his boots so intensely he expected holes to burn into them.

            It was Roy that saved him from the interrogation.  Running up from behind, the passage guard bawled out, “Bo, Trent, you’d better come take a look at this, quick!”

 

            He sat on the seat of a buckboard wagon, staring calmly up at the watchmen perched high in the rocks at the hidden entrance.  The wagon was heaped with the bodies of dead-men, about ten from the looks of it.  The man at the reigns was dressed in a yellowing shirt with a black vest and trousers.  His clothes, however, were nearly hidden beneath the belts that were wrapped tightly around most of his body.  These leather straps and buckles were especially thick at his forearms and shins, coiled and re-coiled around his body like some kind of leather-bound mummy.  Hanging on a leather strap around his neck, a golden ring glinted in the late morning sun.  His face was entirely hidden.  A red bandana, faded almost to pink, was drawn up over his nose and mouth.  Above that perched a wide-brimmed black hat that hid the narrow slit of his eyes in its shadow.  Perhaps the most unusual thing about this wagon-driver was the sword that hung at his left hip, leather straps hanging from its hilt and sheath.  A pistol hung at his right hip, strapped securely in its holster, but from the looks of the wounds on the dead-men, they had met their fate at the tip of the sword, not the bite of a bullet. 

            “Must take that feller a long time to get dressed, mornings,” Roy quipped uneasily.  No one responded.

            Hank, who had remained silent up to this point said, “You boys know who that is, dontcha?”

His comment was met by silence.  Of course they knew who it was.  It could only be one man, dressed the way he was, and carrying a sword.

            “Rando!” Bo Davey shouted down, his strong voice echoing through the sandstone canyons, “What business brings you here?”

            “We know why he’s here, Bo,” Trent muttered, cracking open the chamber on his rifle and checking the rounds.

            “Hush, Trent.  Hank, go find out who’s awake and warn them who’s at the gate.  Tell anyone who might have a bounty on their head to get out through the back way.  Anybody else had best be packing, in case there’s trouble.”

Bo turned back to the man sitting perhaps 20 feet below them.  He was now holding a browning and tattered piece of paper, flapping in the wind.  Bo, long ago, had won the Alhoochie sharp shooting competition five years in a row.  Now his eyesight was not what it used to be.  He leaned over to Trent.  Before he could even ask the question, Buffalo Trent answered.

            “It’s the wanted poster we put up for Jamie Connell and his men over in Sansleburry.”

Bo nodded.  He had thought as much.

            “The Sheriff there said that he would take care of it for us.  We already gave him the reward money to give whoever brought them in.”

            “Well you know who we are dealing with, here.  Rando ain’t just your average bounty hunter.”

            “He’s a bounty slayer is what he is.  Ain’t never brought a man in alive, so I hear.  And I reckon you must be right.  Whatever his reasons, Rando wanted to get his reward from the source.  Might as well invite him up and send him on his way.”

            “We don’t owe him nothing.  Let him get his reward in town.”

Bo leveled Trent with a hard look.

            “You know what kind of men we got here on Grim Ranch.  Rando may have a reputation, but so have I.  So have you, for that matter.  He already knows where we hole up.  If he takes a notion to come here to catch himself a bounty, there’s a good chance he’ll find a way to slip in, slit a few throats, and slip out.  Now we can make him our enemy or we can try to make him our friend.  You hearin’ me, Buffalo.”

Trent nodded his head warily.

            “You’re the boss, Coot.”

 

            ‘Crazy’ Chuck Bishop sat steadily on the wall, shoulder to shoulder with Kid Jimmy.  He sighted along the barrel of a well-cleaned and kept rifle.  Kid had his own rifle which was nothing much to look at.  He had gained his reputation as a left-handed quick-draw, and did not have the patience or experience Bishop had with rifles, and he could see the older man was annoyed with his tucking the rifle in against his left shoulder.  On the other ridge, Hank and Roy had been joined by Anne Wilmoth who was perhaps the best sharp shooter of all of them.  Everyone else on the Ranch had been woken and warm, but only those bodies which were active had volunteered to stage protection. 

            Below them in the pass, Coot and Buffalo were taking a slow mosey down toward Rando the Bounty Slayer.

            “This guy is bad news, right?” Kid Jimmy whispered toward Crazy Chuck.

            “You’d best hope no one posted a reward for you over the trouble you’ve been stirring up lately,” Chuck responded without taking his sight off the Bounty Slayer.

            “Then why don’t we just shoot him?”

            “Some of us still have some honor left, Kid.  Besides, you see those nickel emblems in his hatbrim?”

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s the kind of hat the old Pistoleers of The Valley used to wear.  You see the wedding ring around his neck?”

            “That what that is?”

Chuck grunted in affirmative, “Story goes, this guy was shot down alongside his wife in the massacre of Stella Terra.  They say he survived, but under all that wrapping he’s wearing, he’s so tore up, he’s hardly human.”

Kid Jimmy shut his mouth at this point.  He had no wish to discuss the topic of the Great War with Chuck.  Crazy Chuck was at all times a maddeningly calm and irritatingly harsh man, but when the subject of the War was broached, he had been known to go ape wild.

            Below them Coot and Buffalo walked with strained casualness side by side.  Coot was sporting no weapon.  He had spent his life with a muzzle-loader in his hand, and was a clever shot with a rifle, but not much for pistols.  Buffalo had his old cedar strapped to his hip, one tucked away at his back where it was hard to see, and a derringer in his boot.

            “This is crazy, Coot.  We let this man drive his wagon into our Ranch, he’ll be able to get the whole layout of the place in his mind,” Trent said in a harsh whisper.

            “We let cowpokes in all the time.  You don’t worry about them.”

            “I worry about everyone.  It’s my job.  And this man is no cowpoke.”

            “Yes, and behind me in yonder ranch are about two dozen of the best guns in the West.  Rough men who have, somehow, become our friends.  Trust me, Buffalo.  I trust you.”

            “You trust my gun.  Not my judgment.”

And then they were at the wagon.  The wagon-rider stared down at the men from under his mask of shadow and cloth.  The men stared back.  Bo Davey held up his hands, empty palms up, fixing a distant smile on his friendly face.  Trent McKusker took the opposite approach, pulling back his jacket and tucking it behind the plow-handle at his side with a cold glare.  Despite his antagonism, Bo was glad to have the younger man beside him.

            “You must be Rando.  I ‘spect you’ve come to collect the bounty for these fellers.”

The man in the wagon made no response except to extend the wanted poster down.  Bo walked forward slowly and took the poster from him.  He looked at the sketch of the face on the poster.  It said:

WANTED

Jamie Connel

For the crimes of: Robbery, Murder, Rape, Cheating at Poker

$500 Dead or Alive.  $50 Reward for any compatriots of Mr. Connel also brought to justice.

 

He nodded.  This was the poster they had negotiated with Sheriff Shonnely to put up.  Jamie had been another tenet at Grim Ranch for about a year.  His crimes had included a number of holdups and a few train robberies.  He had promised to lay low and do his share of work at the ranch.  Within a few months, however, it became clear that he was more interested in finding other men interested in participating in his crimes.  Jamie may have been a heartless killer and a scoundrel, but he was also very good at winning people over.  Bo saw what was happening, but not quickly enough.  The Ranch divided into camps, and Bo was stuck in a dangerous position.  ‘Buffalo’ Trent would have confronted Jamie, all alone if necessary.  Only Bo’s insistence had kept him back.  Bo still felt certain that Trent would have gotten himself killed if he had confronted Jamie and his men.  For close to a month Jamie had held Grim Ranch in a stand-off, too powerful to be driven out, but not so powerful that he was in full control. 

            It was actually the cheating at cards that had tipped the scale.  The men of Grim Ranch were able to wink at any number of offenses, but one thing that no man could abide was a man that cheated… and got caught.  Several of Jamie’s own men turned on him and Jamie fled Grim Ranch at night, carrying off a strongbox with gold, and also with the land plans of the Ranch. 

            Bo would have let it go at that.  He was not at heart a hateful man.  He even talked the men out of forming a posse, riding him down, and stringing him up.

            But two days after Jamie’s leaving, Mary-Anne Levy came to Bo in tears.  She told him, haltingly, and with no inflection, of the quiet rape Jamie had perpetrated on her while he and his men had been carousing in the saloon.  Two of Jamie’s companions had even stood watch at the door while Jamie had his fun.

            One hour after Mary-Anne had spilled her tale, ‘Coot’ Bo, ‘Buffalo’ Trent, and ‘Crazy’ Chuck marched into the Bunk house and turned over the bunk where the two men slept all-too blissfully.  They spilled from their splintered beds cursing and fuming, that is until they saw the fury burning in the old trail-blazer’s eyes and the cold steel of ‘Crazy’ Chuck’s stylish six-shooters along side ‘Buffalo’ Trent’s legendary rifle.  All these weapons aimed at them.

            “Shoot ‘em now?” Chuck’s deep voice questioned eagerly.

            “No.  We ride them out into the Wyrdelands.  If we ride straight along the cattle-trail until sunset, they should be two-day’s walk out.  Let God decide their fate from there.”

            The men did not speak.  They did not need to.  Their consciences told them clearly that they deserved no better.  And if their hearts were dead to conscience, then Chuck’s .45’s told the story more squarely.

 

            After Jamie’s conspirators had been taken care of, there was the matter of the man himself.  His trail had grown cold in the three days since he had ridden out, and most of the men on Grim Ranch had too much reputation to be safely riding around hunting down the outlaw. 

            Bo had long had a distant but respectful relationship with Sheriff Shonnely in the mining town of Sanslebury.  Sanslebury was the closest town to Grim Ranch, and a good place to sell a few head of cattle.  Hungry miners needed beef in the desolate Badlands.  Officially, Shonnely did not know that Grim Ranch existed.  In payment for his silence, Bo made sure the men of Grim Ranch stayed clear of Sanslebury except for a monthly group that rode in to purchase supplies and sell a few stock longhorns. 

            Sheriff Shonnely was happy to be supportive of Bo, whom he openly idolized from his historic exploits.  So it was that when Bo Davey needed a bounty posted on a man, he went to the Sheriff of Sanslebury.

 

            Seeing the empty eyes of Jamie’s disemboweled corpse lying in the back of Rando’s wagon, Bo could not help but think that the man had met such a death as he rightly deserved.  All pardon begged of God. 

            Bo nodded to Trent from where he surveyed the bodies in the back of Rando’s wagon.

            “It’s him alright.  Some of the men that left with him, too.  The rest he must have picked up elsewhere.”

Trent nodded back and gestured to Rando.

            “Drive that buckboard up here, bounty hunter.  We’ll pay you for the bodies and you can get on your way.”

Rando snapped his reigns and the wagon lurched forward, the horses straining to pull it up the steep incline.

 

            The men of Grim Ranch did their best to look casual as the infamous bounty-slayer rode into their midst.  The fact was that what men here had a reputation were mostly regarded in some degree as heroes.  Kid Jimmy had knocked over a few stages, and Allen Danfield had been accused a few times of cheating, but neither had any proof against them.  Kid Jimmy had been sly enough to choose his marks wisely.  He tried to take stages that were transporting young women.  He was a real charmer even as a thief, and, much to the lawmen’s frustration, he never did get reliable witness accounts against him. 

            So no one here had a bounty on them.  As ‘Coot’ Bo Davey well knew, even when he sent his man to warn the Ranch.  ‘Coot’ had been rowdy enough in his own day, a fact he may have forgotten from time to time in his old age.  These men, of whom he was secretly so proud, milled around displaying their best poker faces as the man wrapped in leather belts rode mute into their bastion. 

            The hot wind picked up for a moment, shifting the bandana that lay snuggly around the stranger’s face.  In that moment a bit of the bare flesh on Rando’s neck became clear, and Bo could have sworn in that moment that he saw the scar of a rope-burn.  A lynching rope.

 

            The man who came out to take charge of the bodies in the wagon had not been summoned.  Each man assumed another had fetched the undertaker, but the truth of the matter was that he knew when he was needed.  And you can bet your bed’n’vittles that stacked on the edge of the Ranch lay a dozen freshly-made pine boxes, each adorned with the simple cross.  As Rando dismounted his wagon, Joe Crow the undertaker moseyed in un-hurrying fashion climbing with an almost painful lack of haste to the seat of the buckboard and nudging the horses, whenever they were ready, to trot out toward the rim of the Ranch.  The dead were a patient lot, and Slow Joe Crow had all the time in the world.

 

            “Here’s your pay,” Buffalo Trent handed a bag of gold eagles over to Rando.  The bounty-slayer took them, jiggling their weight in his hand before nodding in mute satisfaction.  “You can claim your wagon and horses just down that street.  I would be happy to walk you there.”

But Rando seemed to have other plans, for even as Trent talked, the bounty-slayer was trotting, head down against the sun, in the direction of the saloon.

            “Guess the man is thirsty,” Bo Davey commented.

            “I don’t like it, Bo.”

            “Now, Trent, let the man refresh himself.  Its rough country.”

            “He gets one hour.  Then he’s getting out of town one way or the other.”

Bo did not argue.  Trent may have been a harsh man, but that is exactly what kept him alive so long as a lawman.  Bo trusted the man’s instincts.  Besides, he was no more comfortable with the presence of Rando than was Trent.

 

            Kango Twofeet was a day’s journey into the Wyrdelands.  He had traveled out of Grim Ranch on foot, as he often did, to read the land.  For him, life and loneliness were two strands of the same rope wound together never to be separated.  He had once been part of the wandering nation of Dan.  He had had a wife, a squaw, whom he had loved deeply.  In the night in his dreams, ever would her beauty return to him.  He had had children in whose faces he could see his father.  He had instructed them daily in the Way of the Horse, for no nation understood the secrets of that animal greater than his own. 

            All this was lost to him now, as he had known it would be.  No great fortune came without loss.  The greater the fortune, the greater the loss.  But Kango Twofeet was still young by an Isrean’s reckoning.  He had just passed his forty-fifth season, and often he thought that God’s hand was harsh to take away his happiness when so much of his life remained.

            So now Kango Twofeet lived among the Dead Faces, the white man.  He had even abandoned his tribal weapons for the thundering staves of the Dead Face.  The men of Grim Ranch had a certain honor as white men go, and Kango found that they allowed him to live among them so long as he also worked among them.  He could ask for no more.  In exchange, they gave him his isolation, and Kango drank in the loneliness and sorrow without end.  If such was to be his lot, then let him embrace it.

            This may have been part of the reason Kango would walk out into the Wyrdelands on frequent occasion, but not all of it, no, not all.  Kango Twofeet found that within the Wyrdeland, a place the Dead Faces feared even more than the harsh Badlands, there were voices.  He would listen to these voices, even if he did not understand.

            But voices were not all that abided in the gray and gruesome Wyrde.  The Kliech lived here, as well.  They actually lived in this lifeless place.  The ways of the Kliech were mysterious, even among the Isrean.  They were a nation that had refused to treaty when the Dead Faces came with war.  They spoke their own tongue, refusing to speak in any other, even the language of the Lilliquoi which had long ago united the disparate tribes.  Kliech warriors (and they were all warriors, every man and woman of them) would boil the pulp of the Ganga brush which made a foul-smelling black paste.  This they would coat their bodies with, all but the narrows of their eyes.  They would take knives and carve the forbidden symbols in their black second skin.  This black tar was their clothes, they were otherwise naked. 

            Their spears also were black, made of the darkwood that would grow in the Wyrdelands alone, and tipped with razor-sharp obsidian that they chipped from the Glass Cliff deep within the Wyrdelands.  These strangelings, these Kliech, wore only the feathers of the scavenger birds, the raven and the vulture, in their single braid of hair.

            Kliech would kill or Kliech would spare.  They did not follow treaty or honor.  Their hearts were as black as their tar-skin, and unreadable among the Isrean.

            But Kango Twofeet feared them not.  Even the Kliech knew of the legendary warriors of Grim Ranch.  And was not Kango Twofeet, in his own small way, a legend among the Dead Faces?  Was it not Kango Twofeet who was written in their talking pictures, that he had helped the great trailblazer, Bo Davey, in finding the path that the cowboys now took?  Yes, they together had located and marked all the fresh springs that flowed along the path the longhorns followed to the Plainlands. 

            However, it was not his legendary status, or his friendship with Bo Davey that spared Kango from the fear of the Kliech.  Kango had no reason to fear them.  If they found him, and killed him, he would pass on to the Hunting Grounds, there to be with his wife and children and father and mother, and all his worthy cousins.  If they found him and spared him, he would continue on in his life of solitude.  In either way, they did him no ill.

 

            What Kango Twofeet saw this day, however, made him ill indeed.  Across the Wyrdelands rode a figure.  His horse looked nigh unto death, but the rider did not seem to suffer the same.  He rode, his long white hair blowing in the musty wind.  While gray dust blew all around this man, none seemed to touch his white shirt or black vest.  Nor did he look worried that the guns that hung at his middle and back would clog or blemish at this dust.  This figure sat straight in the saddle even as his horse bowed its head in exhaustion. 

            Kango, who had been taught in the Way of the Horse, felt a certain horror at this man.  He seemed to care nothing for the beast that carried him.  He would ride, Kango was certain, until the animal fell out beneath him.  As the horse tumbled, this man would simply walk off the dead beast and continue to walk on his way. 

            The Wyrdeland, Kango reflected, was the perfect place for a man like this.  A home for him if ever there was one.  For this man respected no life, it seemed, and the Wyrdelands would grant no life, save it be unnatural. 

            But this man would not be in the Wyrdelands much longer.  No, in another day and night, this man would ride right into the canyon where Grim Ranch lay.  And would he be welcome there?  No he would not.  Grim Ranch had taken on its share of scoundrels and even killers, but this man looked to be a whole other species.  Perhaps not even a man at all.  He had a look about him that said to Kango’s eyes that this man would not bide with other men, or Isrean, or Gorgo (Kango wondered if the Kliech would take him in).

            At any rate, it would serve the men at Grim Ranch well to know this rider was on his way. 

            Kango Twofeet watched him come from a squatting place behind two pin-prick spires of swirling black and gray stone.  This was some distance away, but Kango saw clear for he was Isrean, and his eyes were sharp.  And he thought.

            The men at Grim Ranch must know he comes, ho.  But a Dan would never bide the suffering of a horse.  Many of his people had been shot or hung by the Dead Faces for just this reason: that they would often free horses they saw being mistreated under the cruel hand of the Dead Face. 

            Kango saw even now that he could not kill this man.  This man was a warrior, and Kango Twofeet was not.  But even this cruel man must sleep, and soon, for the sun was passing into the West, into the gulfs of the Great Chasm. 

            And so Kango’s plan was a simple one.  He would slip upon this man’s camp in the dead of night, free the man’s horse and ride it on to Grim Ranch to warn his friend, Bo Davey.

            Kango Twofeet nodded to himself.  It was a good plan, a simple plan, and God smiled on simple plans.  Kango rolled over on his back and closed his eyes to nap.  He dreamed of the beautiful and tender face of his lost wife.

 

            Hours had come and hours had gone and Rando still sat nursing a small glass of whiskey in a shadowy corner of the Saloon.  Buffalo Trent’s patience had expired.  Even Coot Bo Davey’s patience, which was infinitely more refined than the younger lawman’s, had worn thin.

            “Let me talk to him,” Bo told Trent, firmly.

            “The man’s dangerous, Bo.”

            “Which is exactly why it’s me who should do the talking.  You come in there huffing and waving that big smoke pole o’ yours, yer liable to get his steel through your gutt.”

Trent gave Bo a long, hard look.

            “After, what, four years now that’s still all you think of me?  A hired gun with more grit than brains?”

Bo sighed.

            “Maybe I wasn’t being fair to you, Trent.  But you did get your nickname by walloping folk over the head, after all.”

Trent shot him a sour look.

            “I still think I should do the talking,” Bo finished.

Trent waved a hand dismissively.

            “You’re the boss.  Have been boss all your life, haven’t you, Bo?  But I’m coming with you.”

Bo Davey made a gesture of surrender and splashed some water from the washbasin in his face.  It was still cool from the spring it had been hauled from.

 

            Kango Twofeet opened his eyes on a full moon.  The face of his wife melted away into the silver disk of light.  It was with no surprise that Kango noted the Lady of the Moon showing with the brilliant jewel shining at her throat.  This was the one Allen Danfield, the card player, called the Queen.  This was spring, Kango thought absently, so the woman on the moon would be, appropriately, the Queen of Hearts. 

            Ten years ago, Kango might have cried.  But the well of tears had long since dried up.  His heart now beat with a slow and steady yearning.  The yearning would slacken or deepen sometimes like the tides pulled by the moon, but it was always there, always constant. 

            But the hour was late, and Kango had work to do.  He rose soundlessly and paced out toward the cattle trail that the strange white-haired rider had come along earlier in the day.  Kango had known the moon would shine brightly, even in the Wyrdelands, this night, or he would have settled on a different plan.  As things stood, though, the trail of the rider was clear.  Here lay the loping strides of a horse worn to the brink.  The horse had been a white-man’s horse.  It wore white-man’s shoes on its feet.  It had been injured, probably by an arrow, some months ago, in the left thigh.  The arrow had been broken off, for Kango had not seen it, but the tip still lay within the horse’s muscle.  It was probably not infected, for the horse would not have stood out the infection the long months since whatever battle had happened, but this hard object buried in its muscle must cause it great pain on every stride.  He marveled at a beast that would strive on, despite its obvious pain, to please a thankless master.

            Kango Twofeet followed the track in silence, running low to the ground as he had been taught so many years ago, to avoid being seen or heard.  He kept his eyes peeled for a campfire, for Dead Faces were notorious for building fires high so that they were visible to all.

            There was no campfire, though.  Kango did, however, see the horse standing silhouetted against the star-clustered horizon.  The man, who lay at the horse’s feet, lay on his back with only a blanket beneath him.  His arms were crossed at his chest, and each one clutched a long revolver.  From his perspective, Kango found it impossible to tell if the man’s eyes were opened or closed.

            Kango had grown up in a tame section of the Badlands, and knew how to blend with the scrub and rock-bristled dirt that was similar to this section of the Wyrdeland.  Meditating, Kango slowed his breathing and stilled his beating heart.  He then crept spider-like closer to the place where the white-man lay.  When he came as close as he felt he could afford, Kango began calling out softly to the horse in a series of whispers and sighs he had learned in his youth. 

            The horse’s ears perked up, and its head rose.  To the horse, those whispers spoke of green fields and rushing springs.  Leaning dangerously to one side, the horse took a few stumbling steps in Kango’s direction.  Then the worst happened.

            The man with the guns was suddenly standing.  Not just awake, not sitting up, but actually standing.  In his hands, his guns were ready, their hammers drawn back.  The arms that held the guns were held straight out at his sides.  His head swept from side to side like a lizard, his feathery white hair swaying with it.

            “He knows I am here,” Kango Twofeet thought. The movement of a roused horse was not enough to tell him.  He must have had some other way of knowing.  Kango felt fear gripping his heart.  If this man could rouse instantly and be alert, if he could sense a hidden Isrean in the darkness, through his sleep, how dangerous he must be.  It was, Kango felt, all the more reason he should survive this encounter to warn the men at Grim Ranch.  He MUST. 

            “HYEAH!” Kango Twofeet shouted the herding cry.  His voice was high and eerie.  He rolled as he shouted.  The man spun and the two bullets nicked the ground where Kango had lain.  The horse knew somewhere in its mind what it must do.  It bucked and began charging forward.  Kango was on his feet, running alongside the horse hidden from the gunman by the horse’s mass.  His legs and the horses blurred as they galloped across the Wyrdland.  Kango wrapped his thin, sinewy arms around the horses neck and the momentum of the beast carried him up onto its back.  Shots rang out from far behind, and Kango felt the hot lead bite through his legs.  Later Kango would reflect in amazement: he was well out of pistol-range.

 

            When Buffalo Trent McKusker and Coot Bo Davey came strolling through the batwing doors of the Grim Ranch Saloon, the crowd within (by then quite large) was in full swing of evening activities.  What ranching there was to do that day had been done, and everyone was relaxing.  Grateful cowboys left a few head of cattle on Grim Ranch as payment for the water.  Everyone was expected to do their part in the work.  Bo Davey had the policy that, “If you don’t pull your weight on Grim Ranch, then you need to lose some of it.”  

Games of blackjack and poker and faro were running on every available surface in the saloon.  The old piano that had been hauled in from who-knows-where was clanking loudly in its hopelessly battered and off-key meter.  The drinks were flowing pretty freely from the bar (a fact that always made Bo cringe; it was a nightmare keeping the stuff stocked, and without it, the men started to get cranky.  You did not want famous gunfighters getting cranky.)

As the two strode in, the people within the saloon immediately knew something was up.  Things quieted down a bit, not out of fear but simply out of curiosity.  Most of the patrons unclasped their side arms or reached for hidden knives on the sly.  If trouble was going to happen, they all wanted a piece of it.  While most had an ego the size of Tenten, they all harbored some affection for ‘Coot’.  None of them wanted to see any harm come to the man.  By the same token, they all knew that Coot could handle himself.  Had handled himself for the last 70-odd years.

The two men walked purposefully over to the table where Rando sat by himself.  The man had not removed his hat or, more surprisingly, the bandana over his nose and mouth.  Trent looked to where the man fingered a small glass half-filled with an amber liquid and wondered if the man was even really drinking any of it.  How could he with that ridiculous face cloth covering up his grub-hole?

‘Coot’ Bo Davey took the seat opposite Rando, while Buffalo Trent walked to the end of the bar behind Rando and set to cleaning his rifle.  Rando showed no sign of noticing the two men.  His head was bowed on his chest and his leather-wrapped left hand crossed his belly.  If it weren’t for his right fingers constantly probing the smooth sides of his shot-glass, Bo would have thought Rando was asleep. 

“Rando,” Bo said, his voice cracking with his years, “You got your pay and you’ve dropped your cargo.  You can find your mount and wagon out by the undertakers shack.  We’re obliged to you for bringing those men in, but we ain’t got a bed for you here.  It’d be best if you just moved on.”

The Bounty-Slayer made no movement or response.  Bo frowned and shot a look at Trent.  Trent nodded, and heaved the butt of his rifle toward the Bounty-Slayer’s head.  Hands everywhere within the Saloon pulled leather. 

The blow never landed.  Rando looked up at an astonished Buffalo Trent, his eyes expressionless.  Rando’s right arm was wrapped around the big rifle, his index finger tapping at the trigger guard.  His left hand rested on the base of the rifle’s butt where it had caught the blow.  The Bounty-Slayer had moved so quickly, Trent was not sure whether or not he had seen it happen.  With a jerk, Rando disarmed Trent and stood, pushing his chair away as he did so.  He dropped the big rifle on the table in front of Bo Davey with a loud cracking sound.  Then Rando wordlessly left the Saloon.  Bo looked up at Trent.

“You think he’s leaving?”

“I think we’d best find out.”

 

            Bo Davey, Trent McKusker, and Crazy Chuck Bishop sat at the lookout spot peering down into the pass outside Grim Ranch.  Rando had recovered his wagon and headed down into that pass.  Now he sat beside a small fire he had built in the pass.  Trent passed a look at Chuck.

            “Waddya think?”

Chuck shrugged, “I think you should have offered him a bed and sent him packing in the morning.  Rough treatment for a man who helped us out.”

Bo grunted, “He was never invited to stay.  Come to that, he never asked.”

            “That man’s mute,” Chuck muttered, “He ain’t able to ask you nothing.”

            “You just gonna make him sit out there all night?” a new voice asked.  The three men turned around to see Anne Wilmoth standing over them.

            “Better down there camping than up here slitting throats,” Trent said without reserve.  Anne rolled her eyes, “You’re just mad he took your rifle.  That buffaloin’ trick you do may work fine for hoodlums and such, but did you really expect to pull it on a famous bounty hunter?”

            Bo turned to Anne.  “Annie, I’m shot for today.  I need to get me some rest.  I want you to take first watch on that man down there.  If he heads up toward the Ranch, give him a warning shot, then shoot him dead.  Do you understand?”

Anne nodded reluctantly.  Bo continued.  “Trent, you have second watch, Chuck, you have third.  All three of you camp out here.  If there is trouble, I want all your guns working for me.  I got a bad feeling,” Bo finished drearily, “A real bad feeling.  Something’s coming.”

 

            The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Coot was yanked physically from his bed by rough hands.  He saw through a haze of sleep that it was Crazy Chuck Bishop.  He had a grim look on his face.

            “What th…” Coot began to holler.  He was cut off by the pain in his joints, causing him to wince. 

            “Sorry, old man,” Chuck said, “But you’re gonna want to see this.”

 

            What lay in the street as Chuck and Bo exited the Ranch house was a fallen horse and a red-skinned rider dressed in the buckskin outfit Bo recognized all too well.  When stories were told and paintings were made of his historic exploits, Bo would forever be remembered as wearing a buckskin outfit and a coon-skin cap.  Some of them might even have this gasping and bleeding Scrayling in them along with his wife and child.  Bo could never look into the face of his long-time Scrayling friend without the regret of knowing he was, at least partially, responsible for the death of the redskin’s family.

            “Kango Twofeet,” he whispered, and then said aloud, “Get him off the street and someone fetch the sawbones.”

            “What do you want done with th’ dead horse?” Trent muttered, kicking the bag of bones the creature had become.

            “Tell the cook we got fresh meat.  Do I have to do all the thinking around here?”  Bo snarled.  Trent nodded deference.  It wasn’t time to harass the man.  

 

            Bo paced across the dining room with a limp, savoring the pain his bones were giving him this morning.  It was a distraction from the feelings welling in his chest.  First Jamie, then Rando, now this.  Something bad was coming.  Doc Friday was still in the bedroom looking over Kango.  Bo had seen blood on the Scrayling’s legs, but had no idea what sort of injuries the man had taken.

            “Did the bounty hunter get off okay this morning?” Bo asked Trent, who was sitting on a bench smoking.  Trent yawned and then replied, “Last I heard, he was still sitting out there.”

Bo swore loudly.  “I’m telling you Trent, we’re gonna have to shoot that man.”

Trent held his hands up, “Preaching to the choir, Bo.  I think your friend in there is alright.  Just exhausted from riding through the night.”

            “He was out in the Wyrdelands, Trent.  What do you think shot him?”

Trent had no reply.  But now he knew why Bo was worried.

            Just then, Doc Friday exited the bedroom, shutting the door softly.

            “Kango should be back on his two feet in a couple of days.  Though he’s gonna be sore for a long time.  The slugs that hit him were pretty big.  Probably a rifle, but could be a large pistol.  They got him in the meat of his legs, though, so I was able to dig them out and stitch him up alright.  Barring any infection, he’ll live to run another day.  Anyway, he wants to talk to you, Bo.  He seems pretty anxious about it.  Don’t talk long, though, that Scrayling needs his rest.”

Bo nodded at this and waved the Doctor out. 

            Kango looked up at Bo in desperation as he entered the room.

            “How’re ya feeling, kid?”

Kango waved his hand in frustration.

            “There is no time, Bo!  He’s coming!”

            “Who, Kango?”

Kango told him.

 

            The Mess Hall where the meeting was held.  It was the only building large enough to hold every hand on Grim Ranch.

            “You sure it’s the Dust Devil we are talking about here?” Birdie Kulp questioned.

Bo nodded wearily, “Fairly.  He led a regiment of riflemen through about fifty miles west of here a few months back.  You all heard about that one.  Recon they went out to fight the Benaquinn tribe in the Westlands.  They all winter in pretty much the same area, so it was a good time for him to strike.  Anyway, I don’t know what he’s doing riding alone through the Wyrdelands, but if he wasn’t heading for us before, I think our friend Kango ensured that he will be now.”

Murmurs of resentment rose through the Mess Hall, and Bo held his hand up.

            “What I said just now wasn’t fair.  The Dust Devil was following the cattle trail.  He would have come this way regardless.  If all he wants is his horse, we can give him a fresh one and some money to pay for the nag Kango took and send him on his way.  But we all know the stories of the Dust Devil, and we know that just ain’t gonna happen.  That man leaves a trail of blood wherever he goes.  We can try talking to him, but we have to plan for the worst.”

            “Why are we all afraid of this man?” Kid Jimmy shouted from the back.  “I mean he’s just one man.  He doesn’t have his regimen of riflemen with him now.  Why would he be a threat to us?”

There was a grim silence throughout the hall.  In the front, Crazy Chuck Bishop shot up and took long steps back to where Kid Jimmy sat.  Grabbing a handful of Jimmy’s shirt, the powerful black man pulled him up from his seat, snarling in his face.

            “Now you listen here, you snot-dripping whelp.  This man, this Tenten Twister Man, isn’t even human.  Those Riflemen that took down Stella Terra?  I’ve personally killed a dozen of them.  Stella Terra and the gunmen there, those gunslingers of the OLD times were the best gunmen on earth.  Better than Trent over there, better than me, and a DAMN-sight better than you, kid!  But this Dust Devil, who hasn’t aged a day in the last ten years, walked through a valley with thousands of these gunslingers and killed them all.  They say he can’t be killed.  They say he’s already dead.  Whatever he is, if he chooses to walk into Grim Ranch, if he chooses to start shooting, well you had better give Slow Joe Crow your measurements now, because he’s gonna have a lot of work on his hands.

            “You had better believe I’m scared.  And if you have any sense in that rotted pumpkin you call a head, you would be too!”

Chuck dropped the kid on his rump and stalked back to his seat at the front of the Mess Hall.  He nodded at Bo.

            “Continue.” 

Bo nodded back.  “The way Trent and I figured it, and you’re all welcome to kick in any suggestions you have, we mount a five-tiered defense.  I will meet our guest in the pass.  I’ll offer him a fresh horse and pay for the one he lost.  I expect he’ll shoot me and walk into Grim Ranch if he wants to.  If that happens, we’ll have two sharpshooters posted on the canyon walls.  Anne Wilmoth and Hank Patterson, that’s your duty.  Trent McKusker and Roy Donald, you will have the guard positions at the entrance to Grim Ranch, in case he gets that far.  Try to pin him down in the pass if possible.  I don’t want to, but if we have to cave the entrance in with dynamite, we will.  Better to trap him out than let him in.  If he somehow gets through the entrance, the rest of you will be waiting for him.  You’ll form a semicircle at the entrance of the Ranch.  Bring your six-irons, your scatter-guns, whatever you have.  Ya’ll are supposed to be the greatest guns in the West.  Let’s show that man what the words mean.”

            Crazy Chuck Bishop raised his hand politely.  Bo looked at him.

            “Yes Chuck?”

            “How soon is he coming?”

            “Sometime today, most like.  ‘Round noon, near as I can figure.”

            “And what are you gonna do about the Bounty-Slayer sitting around at our gate?”

Bo remained silent.  He had forgotten about Rando.

 

            Rando was leaning against his wagon polishing his sword with an old rag when Bo, Chuck, and Trent came walking down the way.  Anne and Jimmy watched from the lookout.

            “Morning,” Bo grinned at the Bounty-Slayer.  The man glanced up from his work and then looked back at his sword.  The weapon was mirror-clean, and had frost-fine etchings all the way up the back of the blade.  The handle-guard was dull iron, intricately molded by the hands of some skilled craftsman.  The handle itself was wrapped entirely in black leather.  Two cords of the leather trailed down from the back of the handle, drifting in the breeze.

            “I know you don’t do much speakin’ so I’m going to get straight to the point.  We’re expecting unwelcome company sometime today.  You may have heard of him.  Folks call him the Dust Devil or the Tenten Twister.  We’re willing to offer you all the gold we have, over $100,000, if you can kill this man.”

            Rando looked back at them, his shoulders shaking slightly as he polished the blade more vigorously.  Trent looked down and saw that his rag was growing red with blood from the man’s hand.  He had cut himself on the blade, and didn’t seem to notice.  His eyes bore holes through the men looking at him.

            “…and, of course, you would be welcome to stay with us as long as you like once the deed is done,” Bo added.  Rando continued to stare.  His hand had stopped moving along the blade.  Finally he nodded and put away his sword, slamming it into the sheath.

 

            The wind swept across the broken Wyrdelands, kicking up little whirlwinds of gray dust.  The Wyrdelands, in this daytime light, dimmed by the clouds that boiled endlessly against the Drambapeyui, made no sense to the human eye.  At points they humped up in swirling mounds topped with a single dead tree, or a growth of scrub brush.  At other points it fell into gullies that were lined with needle-sharp rocks.  Across this broken land strode a tall, thin man.  He had been walking for miles now, but his long strides never faltered or wavered in any way.  His black vest fluttered behind him and his long, white hair seemed to have a life of its own in the plains-winds.  His head was down, his eye sockets shadowed by his brow.  But from that shadow, his eyes seemed to shine out, needle pricks of light in the darkness of his face.  Rising before him, like destiny, rock walls formed a jagged corridor to the boiling sky.  It was a devilish scene.

            An old man stood alone at the opening to the canyon.  He was a powerful figure, even in his declining years.  No man in all of the West Wheel would mistake him as he now stood, dressed in his legendary buckskin clothes and coonskin hat.  Beside him stood a fresh horse.  It was pale-gray. 

            The spurs on the thin man’s black boots jangled as he strode up and stopped, nearly toe-to-toe with the legendary pioneer.  The two figures regarded one another for a long time.

            “Bo Davey,” the thin man nodded, his ghost of a voice showing regard.

            “Jared Mann,” the old trailblazer nodded back.

            “It’s been a long time.”

            “Not long enough, Jared.  Not nearly long enough.”

A smile floated across the thin man’s face.  “Age has treated you kindly, I see.”

            “Age hasn’t seemed to touch you, Jared.”

The thin man shrugged modestly, then looked at the horse.

            “Going somewhere?”

            “This is payment for the horse that was stolen from you.  I’ll also freshen your supplies and give you payment for the horse in gold eagles if you keep moving on.”

Jared gave a little snort.  “And the snipers on the rocks?”

            “Forgive an old pioneer for being cautious.”

            “You’re afraid of me.”

            “You know I am.”

            “You’re afraid I’ve come to kill you all.”

            “Have you?”

Jared’s smile showed teeth this time.

            “Yes.”

Things happened very fast.  Anne, who had a quick eye, could barely follow the action below.  Jared spun, drawing his guns from behind and in front.  As he did so, a dark shape dislodged itself from the rocks and flew out, kicking down on Bo’s shoulder, shoving the pioneer to the ground as he did so.  There was a clash and sparks of steel on steel.  And for a moment they paused that way, Rando standing with his sword pressing toward the Dust Devil.  Jared’s guns were crossed, stopping the blade at their crux.  Then Jared’s leg swept under Rando, and the Bounty-Slayer fell to his side, Jared rolling over on top of the man to press his advantage.  The Bounty-Slayer thrust his sword upward, and the blade nearly slid into Jared’s chest, but the Dust Devil pushed off him at the last second and danced away from the swordsman. 

            “You must be Rando,” The Dust Devil said breathlessly, as he swung his pistol toward his target.  The Bounty-Slayer was already on his feet, and slashed the gun aside with his blade.  Jared spun with the slash, barely avoiding the thrust that followed.  It sliced through the back of his vest exposing pale flesh.

            “It’s refreshing to see one so skilled at an artful form of combat in this age of draw-fast-and-fire-true,” Jared continued, spinning as he spoke, ducking under slash and dodging blow.  His dance was fluent as ever, but Anne could tell that he was only barely keeping ahead of the swordsman, and with effort.  Rando was moving like a caged demon, his blade flickered insubstantially through the air like liquid-light.  As he moved, straps from the leather belts that covered his arms and legs swept along behind his movement.

            As he danced away from the blows, Jared flipped his guns by the trigger guard, bringing them around in his hands.  Using the butts, he caught the sword between his pistols, charging into the blow.  His pistols slid along the blade until he was nose-to-nose with Rando.

            “You fight well, Bounty-Slayer.  The Baron may have use for a man such as yourself.  You would be paid a fortune for your services.  What say you?  This is not an offer I make lightly.”

            The two men paused, looking into one another’s eyes.  The pause was long, the stare a hard one. 

           

            There is a point whenever two men meet wherein they size one another up.  At that point each man decides if he could defeat the other physically.  Once that has been determined in their minds, order has been established, and they can come to be friends.  But if uncertainty remains, if either one is unsure of how physically fit he is to take the other in combat, then tension will remain until they come to blows. 

            For killers, such as Rando and Jared, this tension goes much deeper than with ordinary men.

 

            Rando stepped back from Jared and sheathed his sword with a curt nod.  Above them, Anne gasped and took aim.  She never fired.  Nor did Hank fire off from the other side.  Jared’s guns had swung to the sides as soon as Rando had stepped back.  They both fired as one.  Anne and Hank slumped dead in their roosts.

            Rando was already scaling the canyon wall with quick lunges when the Dust Devil strolled into its shadow, loading bullets into the emptied chambers as he went.

 

            Bo Davey was running faster than Buffalo Trent had ever seen a man move, much less a 75-year old. 

            “He’s comin’!” The old man shouted breathlessly as he rounded the corner, climbing the passage into Grim Ranch, “He’s comin’ and Rando is coming with him!” 

            Trent’s heart stopped cold in his chest.  So, the Bounty-Slayer had turned on them.  He should have shot the man while he had the chance.  Bo Davey collapsed to the ground beside Trent.

            “He can shoot you where you sit, Buffalo, he already shot Anne and Hank deadeye, and at twice the height on the canyon pass.  We have to throw the dynamite.  If we collapse the passage, we may still have a chance.”

            “Maybe you should go start clearing the women and some of the men out the back way,” Trent replied, “Roy and I will take care of the passage.”

Bo nodded and said, “First I think I’ll pull old Dinna out.  If I’m gonna die, I want to die with my best rifle by my side.  Lord knows, she’s all I got left.”

            “Hurry, old man.  We’re short on time.  Real short.”

 

He came loping along the corridor at a casual pace, neither fast nor slow.  His head was bent low, moving side to side in predatory fashion.  The ghost of a smile curled his lips.  The men who had fought at his side, the black-and-silver clad Riflemen, could tell you that he never showed emotion.  Never, that is, until battle.  At this moment he looked like some feral dog at the edge of a feast.

High on the rock wall, Buffalo Trent held the blade of his knife over the edge, looking into the reflection.  He saw the man coming.  Then, to his horror, the man’s face crept upward until his eyes were looking right at Trent in the reflection of the knife.  The man’s smile grew a little stronger.

Trent cursed and pulled the knife back.  He nodded across the way to Roy.  Roy snipped the fuse on a bundle of dynamite with his teeth and struck a match on the rock beneath him.  The dynamite was crackling and sputtering in his hand as he tossed the bundle down into the corridor.

Or he nearly tossed it.  As his hand came up to throw the bundle, the man beneath pulled leather.  The shot that rang out was smothered in the roar of the explosion.  Trent felt his body lifted like a rag doll and thrown out into the yawning depth of the canyon.  The canyon floor rushed up at him, then blackness.

 

The “Welcome Wagon,” as Crazy Chuck had named it, consisted of himself, Kid Jimmy, Doctor Friday (who was no slouch with a scatter-gun), Moore Tennant (who had once run with Jamie’s gang), and six other gun-hands.  It was an ambush for one man.  One ordinary man.  For the Dust Devil, Chuck figured, it was breakfast.  They had formed up in a semi-circle at the entrance to the ranch, ready to blow the living daylights out of anything that showed its head over the rim of the hill.

When the explosion came, it came much too close.  The blast knocked his men back and chunks of rock the size of his fist came raining down on them from above.  Chuck set to rolling, and he guessed Kid Jimmy must have done the same, because when he came to his feet, three of his men lay unmoving on the ground.  Everyone else had bumps or scratches.  Only he and the kid seemed to be alright.

The kid was screaming curses, and Chuck couldn’t blame him.  However, Chuck maintained the silence of resolve.  He felt sure he would die today, but he was going to get some licks in before he went.

 

And then it happened just like in all the stories.  Over the ridge his head appeared, every bit as white, every bit as lean, every bit as hungry as the stories said.  His hands hovered at front and in back tips of his fingers a fly’s breath away from the butts of his guns.  Chuck’s ears were still ringing from the explosion, but he imagined that the man’s spurs were sounding off like bells with each step he took.  Like a death-toll.  The Dust Devil strode on until he was standing full above them.  Everyone seemed frozen in that moment.  All their vainglorious plans of shooting at the whites of his eyes were lost.  Above them, somewhere, a bird called out in a half-scream of the predator fowl.  And Chuck thought to himself in that ludicrous inner voice, “He’s not as tall as I imagined.”

“Draw,” Chuck heard himself say, his voice calm.

The Twister man just stood, grinning like a wolf.

            “Draw you monster!  Draw!” Kid Jimmy screamed, his voice cracking with rage.  And without waiting, the Kid set in to pull his gun.

Shots erupted.  Shot on top of shot so that Chuck found it impossible to count them.  The man had skinned his daisies like a cow swats flies, and was spinning, spinning in that dervish-dance of his.  The death dance.  In amazement Chuck realized the Twister-man was fanning his pistols with his thumbs.  It was impossible, but it was the only way he could fire so fast.  The men at Chuck’s side were falling, most without discharging a shot.  Chuck also realized that he must still be alive if he was seeing this.  He dove, and pulled his guns. 

           

            The legends say that ‘Crazy’ Chuck bishop only fired two shots that day before he took a bullet through his heart.  One shot went wild, only God knows where it fell.  The other found its way into the Dust Devil’s shoulder.  And blood ran there, blood as red as yours or mine.  The Twister-Man’s left arm hung dead, the pistol spilled from his hand.  He paid it no mind, though, he went right on firing at the men before him, until they were all dead.  Then he side-stepped as ‘Buffalo’ Trent McKusker came up from behind, injured from his fall, but not dead.  Trent was wielding the butt of his rifle harder than he ever had before.  They say he was trying to crush the Dust Devil’s skull with that blow.  A blow that never landed.  The battered man tumbled as his blow fell on air, and the Dust Devil brought the spur of his boot down into the old lawman’s neck, then left him to lie in a pool of his own blood. 

            The sharpshooters on the building-tops faired no better.  They fired round after round at the dancing mad-man, but none hit him.  When the fire-fight on the ground was finished, the Twister-Man disappeared behind a building.  The rifle-men mostly stayed their position but one got up, hopped across the roof, and peered down the barrel of his gun behind the building the Dust Devil had used for cover.  A shot ran out and the man fell from the building.  Then the thin man danced back around the corner firing from his good arm and the rest of the snipers died.

 

            The back way out of Grim Ranch ran through a series of caverns through which the spring that fed the ranch spilled.  The caverns led back for about a mile, emerging into the badlands.

            Bo Davey had grabbed his old rifle, a powder-packing relic from his days on the frontier, and gathered up the women and two men.  His old Scrayling friend, Kango Twofeet, and the card-player Allen Danfield.  They made it only ten paces into the caverns before Kango grabbed Bo frantically and pointed ahead.  Bo squinted into the darkness, then gasped.  There stood Rando, head bent, sword drawn.  All three men went for their weapons as Rando sprang.  Kango was the first to fall beneath Rando’s sword.  He dove into Rando, knocking him off-balance, and took the sword fully in the chest to give the other men time.  Bo fired old Dina at the Bounty-Slayer.  The shot struck his forearm, but did not seem to fully penetrate the bands of leather wrapped up there.  Rando threw Kango’s body aside, and made a charge for Bo.  Brought the rifle-butt around to meet the on-rusher, and the two locked together, sword against gun.  The younger man pushed the old pioneer to the ground, grappling with him there.  The gold ring that hung from his neck dangled into Bo’s face.  Bo clamped the ring in his teeth and shoved the younger man up, rolling out from beneath him.  The ring’s strap snapped and he came away with the prize.  His old bones screamed in pain as he stumbled to standing.  He spit the ring into his palm and held it before the Bounty-Slayer.  Like some charm, it stopped the swordsman in his tracks.  It hung there, a small yellow circle, just a woman’s size

            “What would she think, Rando?  Whoever wore this ring, what would she say if she could see you now?”

The Bounty-Slayer stood, framed in the orb of that ring, the match of which he no-doubt wore deep under his leather-wrappings on his gloved finger.  Slowly, his sword lowered groundward.  It scratched long lines in the dirt, letters that formed two words.

            “I MUST”

Bo, Allen, and the women looked down at these words, sensing the inevitability with which they had been written.  And then the words were erased by the sweep of Rando’s boots as he darted forward.

            Then a shot rang out.  Everyone turned to see the man, the Tenten Twister Man, standing silhouetted in the mouth of the cave.

            “Well done, Rando,” the man said, his quiet voice a counterpoint to the shattering crash of gunfire that had just echoed through the cave.  “Without you, these few may have slipped away.  However, if you would stay your blade but a moment, I have a few here that I would have to live a while longer.”

            And then the Dust Devil chose who would live and who would die.

 

            The moon that rose over Grim Ranch that night was no longer the Queen of Hearts.  The season was spring, so the suite remained the same.  However the face of the moon had shifted, this time displaying a lean jackrabbit, eternally curved in the arch of a leap.  This was the face that Allen Danfield would identify as the Jack of Hearts. 

            The bodies of the recently deceased still lay moldering in the streets or on the roofs, or in the case of ten women, in the belly of the spring-cave.  No one would be there to clean them up but the birds and the mangy, half-starved desert dogs.  Slow Joe Crow had already lit out across the desert on his black coffin-wagon.  But we will see him again.  Wherever there is death, Slow Joe Crow will show his smile.

           

            This time they met in the Saloon.  There was plenty of space there for the five of them.  Bo Davey slumped in a chair, tired unto death and bleeding from his battles that day.  Defiance still showed in his eyes, but behind it something more terrible.  Resignation.  Allen Danfield also sat in the saloon.  He sat looking at his own fingertips with terrible guilt showing in his face.  The third and final survivor of Grim Ranch looked nothing like herself.  In the moment Jared Mann had appeared within the cave, Birdie Kulp had dropped her ‘terrified woman’ act like yesterdays fashion.  She had greeted the killer with a coy smile and he had responded with only the hint of a resentful grimace.  Bo had no idea what may exist between them, but something did for certain.

            Birdie’s current position seemed to prove that much.  Since the slaughter in the cave, she had acted like she was the one in charge, instructing them to return to the Saloon and have a little powwow.  Once there she had disappeared upstairs, telling giving Rando instructions to put a chair on top of one of the tables for her return.  When she had returned, Bo was not even certain he was looking at the same woman.  She wore a black silk dress he had never seen her wear before.  It was at once seductive and repulsively wicked.  It hugged her body like a second skin, sinking to an unlikely depth at her neckline and coming to a difficult point at her feet.  Only the immensely high slit at her left leg explained how she was still able to move in this fabric creation.  She looked like an enormous blacksnake.  Her hair was freed from its typical pile on top of her head, and now hung nearly to her waist, straight and black, framing her pale face. 

She had thrown a silken blanket from her bedroom over the chair and table, making some sort of throne out of the structure, and now sat atop it smoking a cigarette and smiling with a sort of triumph.  Rando leaned in the shadows of the doorframe, arms crossed and head low.  The Dust Devil had disappeared for the moment, and Bo knew that Rando was their guard.  He tried to determine exactly what was going on here.  Birdie was, apparently, in league with Jared.  Does this mean that Allen Danfield was also a compatriot of the Dust Devil?  Or was he spared death for the same mysterious reason as Bo had been? 

Bo tried to catch Danfield’s eye.  The gambler clearly saw this, but looked down rather than meeting eyes with his elder.

The silence was finally broken as Jared Man strolled back through the batwing doors.  He had recovered his other revolver, and now held the medical bag he had probably found in the Ranch House where Doc Friday had been examining Kango Twofeet, both now dead.  The Dust Devil removed his vest and white shirt and began stoically probing the bullet wound that would be Crazy Chuck Bishop’s final legacy.  Bo noticed coldly that Jared’s body was covered with more scars than even HE had amassed in 60 years of pioneering.

“Oh you poor dear, did you get hurt?” Birdie said teasingly, “Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?”

Jared looked up at Birdie.

            “Gotten comfortable, I see.  I wouldn’t.  The Baron will want your services in Cottonseed.  I suggest you begin packing your belongings.  There is a buckboard wagon out by the coffin-place.  That should do you for travel.”

Birdie blew smoke and smiled at the Twister Man.

            “And will you be my travel companion, Jared?”

Jared snorted.

            “I have urgent business elsewhere.  You will have to fend for yourself, Lady Morra.”

            “Oo, listen to the Baron’s most important servant.  Urgent Business!  Another city to raze?  More people to kill?”

            “Always.”

            “And do I not receive credit for my work here?  How I lured all the famous heroes of the West Wheel to my ranch like a Judas Goat?”

            “So credited,” Jared gave a sarcastic bow, then plunged a pair of pinchers into the bullet wound on his arm and pulled the slug free.

            “This ain’t your ranch, Birdie,” Bo spoke up for the first time.  The lady he had known as Birdie laughed musically.

            “Think back, old man, if your memory is not dead.  Think hard.  To a time when a weary pioneer, fresh from burying the last of his family, a family he killed by dragging them out into his beloved wilderness, shared a drink in a wintry trading post with a scarred and lonely whore who had just killed one of the Baron’s men and was seeking to escape it all.”

And as she spoke, Bo DID remember.  He remembered her showing him the deed to some land in the Badlands she had said she inherited.  There was a spring there, she said, but the land was dead.  It would work, he assured her, he could make it work.  He also remembered something else.  Birdie had indirectly suggested each and every one of the men and women he had eventually sought out to live in Grim Ranch.  She had done it so subtly, letting him think they were his ideas.

She must have read the dawning realization on his face, because she giggled, “Aw, don’t cry, Bo, better men than you have fallen to the whiles of a pretty face.  Did you think every servant of the Baron was a mindless killing animal?  Think of how pretty the dream I put in your head was.  Think of that, and forget that it was all a lie, a trap.”

            “But why?” Bo whispered.

Jared answered him.  “There is a rumor among the people.  The rumor is that a Hero will save them.  Well for the last decade I have been in the business of hero killing.  When the people of West Wheel hear the story of Grim Ranch, they will hear that their best-loved heroes, led by the great Bo Davey, abandoned them.  Heroes that could have stayed in the world and united the people to rise up against the Baron instead chose to escape.  They died hiding in a hole, like cowards.  Then and only then will they know the truth of the matter.  There are no heroes, that rumor is a lie.  They will finally realize that there is no hope.”

Jared began stitching the bullet-wound. 

 

            The Jackrabbit Moon was high overhead when Jared Mann sat down in front of Allen Danfield.  His arm was in a sling he had made out of cloth he tore from the silk blanket on Birdie’s ‘throne.’  His gunmetal eyes looked directly at the sullen gambler.

            “I have to confess, I’m a fan of yours, Danfield,” Jared said, pulling a thin, black book from his belt.  On the cover, in golden letters was written Fate in the Cards by Allen Danfield.  Allen looked at this with a sort of shame.

            “I don’t do that any longer.”

            “Do you really play poker?  Because that was a poor bluff.  I want you to deal us both in.”

Jared placed one of his pistols on the table for emphasis.  Allen’s face became a mask of professionalism, blank to scrutiny.  From inside his vest he pulled a silver-plated rectangular case.  This he opened, producing a sleek deck of cards that gleamed dully in the lamplight.

“You intend to kill me, don’t you,” Allen asked.

“No.  I need someone alive to tell the tale of the massacre at Grim Ranch.”

Allen nodded, satisfied.  His hands worked with skill as he shuffled the cards and produced five for each of them.  Jared picked up his hand and said.  “These five cards show fate.  But I can choose to alter my fate and exchange several cards for a better hand, yes?”

Allen nodded again.  Jared placed three cards on the table.  Allen dealt him three and then took one card for himself.

            “Now,” smiled Jared, “I will place my cards down one at a time and you tell me what fate holds in store.”

The first card he placed down was a six of clubs.

            “The six of clubs represents Ill Fortune.  My interpretation of this is that wherever you go, you bring bad fortune to those around you.”

Jared nodded then placed another six, this one of hearts, making it a pair.

            “The six of hearts represents Great Sorrow, usually brought on by some tragedy.  This is related to the ill fortune.”

The next card was another six, this of spades, making it three of a kind.

            “The six of spades represents death by violence, thus completing the theme.  Wherever you go, death follows.”

The next card was a king of spades.

            “The king of spades is a man of violence that you know now, or will soon meet.  He will play a significant role in your life.”

Jared grunted, “That’s vague, gambler, I kill men of violence regularly.”

Allen shrugged, “Perhaps the next card will enlighten us.”

The last card was an Ace of Spades.  Allen nodded.

            “He brings death.  This man will kill you.”

Jared looked at the gambler coldly, “Is it not possible the Ace of Spades, which I read in your book means a theme of violence for the entire hand, may mean that I will kill HIM?”

Allen shrugged.  “It may mean that, yes.  Perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part.  At the very least there will be a confrontation between the two of you, at the end of which one of you will die.  Whoever dies, it will have a significant affect on the rest of your life.”

Jared motioned.  “Now your hand.”

Allen placed three Jacks on the table.

            “This has been a very unusual hand for the both of us.  Clearly a powerful fate is at work here.  Three men will come together.  One will be a man of violence, one a man of fortune, and one a man of courage.”

He placed a two of hearts on the table, “They will unite in courage…” then he placed an Ace of Clubs on the table, “And they will come to some fortune.  It could be ill fortune or good fortune.  The cards don’t say.  It may not yet be determined.”

Jared looked grim, “So much work yet to do.  Rando, there are some chains in the blacksmith shop.  Bring them here, and prepare to ride with me in the morning.  I have more work for you, and it will profit you greatly.”

 

            Allen Danfield did not wait for the morning to ride.  He fled in the night, as Jared had known he would.  When the woman who had been known as Birdie Kulp rode out the next day, Jared and Rando were already gone.  Looking back on the Ranch, she saw a terrible thing.  Chained to the cliff side with iron chains nailed into the sandstone with iron bolts, Bo Davey hung.  She saw by the rise and fall of his chest that he was still alive.  Painted beneath him were red letters that said, “Thus end the Heroes.”

 

Chapter 3: Hounded Chapter 5: steed
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