You're The Gunslinger In This One

5

You’re The Gunslinger In This One JACOB TASHOFF

Y

ou awaken, suddenly and without warning, greeted by a gray sky morning. The old wooden slats of your bed groan as you roll over and push yourself sitting, one hand covering eyes that betray the lateness of last night. Dark circles nestle under your eyes, and you reckon from a distance you look newly on the wrong end of a fist. You rub the sleep from your eyes with the palm of your hand, clear your throat, and ease up onto your feet. The wood paneling of the floor is cold, as it is every morning, even in the stirrings of early summer, as it is now.

You pull the curtains away from the single dingy window in your bedroom, frowning at the dull color filtering through the dust in front of you. Mama always said a day was most dangersome when the sun hid his face from the dirt, and you never were one to disagree with your mama. You run the same hand you had rubbed at your face with through your hair, noting how greasy it feels to the touch. You try to recall the last time you had a bath, and that’s clue enough it has been too long. Your frown deepens. There is no bath in your house—hasn’t been since Mama died—and a bath at Rowly’s costs two dollars.

You raise your arm in the air and take a daring sniff of your armpit. Your nose wrinkles and you recoil. You are quite ripe. You haven’t found real work in nearly a week, and all your money has been going to keeping you fed. No money for a bath. You sigh again. You seem to be doing that a lot lately. You scratch idly at the side of your face and think about the options before you.

Clearly, a job needs to be found.

You remember the carriage trains that passed through three days ago, headed out to the deeper country. Fools in search of gold. No one has found gold in these

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parts in nearly seven years. You know the carriages stopped the next town over. Some had taken up the last few rooms available here in Devil’s Ridge. You scoff at the name. Hasn’t been a devil sighting in nearly three months anywhere near the town. Shame, that. Putting a bullet between the eyes of a devil always pays best.

You shake your head to rid yourself of your musings. You can’t find a job lost in your own thoughts. No one there to pay you. You see two viable options before you. Plenty of folk huddled up in Dean Brody’s saloon out in the middle of town, and what with the goldchasers setting up shop a town over, some poor fool has to have dragged up a haunting or two.

The other option is John Rowly and his dry goods shop. Farther than the saloon, but he has a way of drawing out people’s talkative side. Always has a tidbit of information for you. Hell, your last job had been thanks to him. A wendigo of all things. Come up from Mexico, most likely.

Further south, cradling the border, they spoke of chupacabras. All the same to you, really. They certainly look the same. Die the same, too. That job had paid well. Save a rancher’s cows and he’s all too willing to pay extra for your troubles.

If you want to head to Dean Brody's saloon, turn to page 7.

If you want to head to John Rowly's store, turn to page 8.

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The saloon is probably your best bet. You’d pay John a visit later. For that bath. Brody is good at collecting information as well, perhaps not so good as John, but he too has netted you some decent jobs. There ought to more people hanging around the saloon today, anyway. You heard wind of a singer—decent, at that—that’s travelling with the goldchasers. Performers always bring crowds, and crowds always mean more alcohol. The drunker a tongue, the looser it is. Someone is bound to know something, and let it slip. Your mind made up, you scrounge along the floor for your wayward trousers. Slipping them on, you search for a shirt. The white shirt you wore yesterday is hanging off the back of the chair next to your desk, but the sleeves are still stained with dirt from the job you finished up late last night, if you can call burying two dead cows and a wolf a job.

You open the small chest of drawers against the wall next to your bed and fumble inside the top drawer for any decently clean shirt. You find a black one and another white one. You debate with yourself for a little bit, and decide that it’s better to switch it up. You slip on the black shirt, and it’s a bit tight around the gut. As long as the shirt still fits. You slip your usual leather vest over top the shirt, and locate your boots next to the door. You slip your feet in, finding comfort in the familiar shape. As you head out the door of your room, you turn to grab the handle and pull it closed behind you. You happen to see your hat sitting on the edge of your desk. How you missed it as you got ready you don’t know. You march back into your room, scoop up the hat, and mash it firmly onto your head. Better safe than sorry, and it shades your eyes from the sun, weak though it may be today.

You close the door to your room on your way out, and your gaze drifts across the rest of your home. Your house is small, just a single floor. The bedroom opens to a dining room populated by a simple wooden table flanked by two simple wooden chairs, a coal burning stove resting in the far corner. There’s a small covered horse stall out back, where you keep your trusty steed Shiloh.

A modest dwelling, but you had been born and raised here, just as your father before you and his father before him, whose father had built the thing up from the ground, back when there was still plenty gold to be found.

You exit your house, and pause outside. The sun may be hidden from view, but the air is still warm, and not unpleasantly so, with the stickiness of late summer. The saloon is in the middle of town, your house resting along the outskirts on the opposite end as John’s store. The walk to Brody’s is barely anything to make note of, and it would be good to take in the fresh air. Shiloh hasn’t been off your property in days, though.

To make the journey by foot, turn to page 14.

To make the journey by horseback, turn to page 19.

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The shop is probably your best bet. You stopped into the saloon last night, on your way back from the job you barely finished two hours before midnight, and Dean had nothing to share with you then, nor had any of the patrons.

You know that his shop is, however, a popular stop for goldchasers before heading deeper west, and no one could talk up his problems like a goldchaser. You’d stop by Brody’s if John turned up nothing fruitful, if for nothing more than a drink you know you can’t afford. The big difference between Brody and Rowly, and one that occasionally makes you think you may like Brody a little more, is that Brody lets you build up a tab.

But no, John is always a good font of information. Most of your jobs come from either things he picks up or people seeking you out themselves. He’s sure to have at least heard of a runaway farmhand who left a fence unbuilt. You’ve become unfortunately adept at building fences. Your mind made up, you scrounge along the floor for your wayward trousers. Slipping them on, you search for a shirt.

You open the small chest of drawers against the wall next your bed and fumble inside the top drawer for any decently clean shirt. You find a black one and a white one to match the dirty one flung on a chair. You debate with yourself for a bit, and decide on the white shirt. Even with the sun buried behind clouds as it is, the heat still picks up quickly, and a black shirt would serve as a sweat rag too quickly. You smell of stale sweat enough already.

You slip your usual leather vest over top the shirt, and locate your boots next to the door.

You slip your feet in, finding comfort in the familiar shape of the boots around your feet. As you head out the door of your room, you turn to grab the handle and pull it closed behind you, absentmindedly patting the top of your head, wondering where your hat could have gotten to.

Your house is small, just a single floor. The bedroom opens to a dining room populated by a simple wooden table flanked by two simple wooden chairs, a coal burning stove resting in the far corner. There’s a small covered horse stall out back, where you keep your trusty steed Shiloh.

A modest dwelling.

You exit your house, and pause outside. The sun may be hidden from view, but the air is still warm, and not unpleasantly so, with the stickiness of late summer. You’re tempted to make the journey to the other side of Devil’s Ridge on foot, stretch your legs a little and breathe the fresh air. Shiloh hasn’t been off your property in days, though, and she always enjoys going for a jaunt through town.

To make the journey by foot, turn to page 9.

To make the journey by horseback, turn to page 12.

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You decide to make the journey on foot. You’ve been cooped up inside for too long, and even though you got out on a job last night, it hadn’t taken you far out of town, and you want the fresh air before the heat of midday makes it nigh unbearable to be outside. You stomp down the three steps in front of your house that lead up to the small porch cluttered by a simple chair and a small round table. You can see Shiloh in her stall as you walk away from the house, and she whinnies softly in greeting.

“Hey girl,” you say, waving in the horse’ direction. “Let’s hope John has some good news for us today, huh? Need an excuse to get you out running.” Shiloh snorts and tosses her head. You take it as a sign of agreement.

You set a leisurely pace for yourself across town. The walk to John’s shop takes you ten minutes most days, so long as no one stops to talk. Your house and John’s shop flank the outskirts of Devil’s Ridge. The walk is worse in the rain. You pass houses and familiar faces as you meander through the town, nodding to those who like you and glaring back at those who don’t. Patrick Waters has a particularly nasty glare, on account of the puckered scar running cross the bridge of his nose courtesy of the wolfman he had tried to handle himself three years back. You’d been the one to put the bullet between the shifter’s shoulders, but Patrick held you accountable for the scar all the same.

“How’s the old sniffer holding up, Patrick?” you shout to him as you pass him perched on the edge of a bench outside the barbershop. You hear his growl clearly across the wide street separating you. You laugh and dodge the bottle chucked your way.

“On your way, hunter. You ain’t killed nothin’ in weeks! Best you got movin’ on, I should think.” He nods sagely at his own advice, but you wave him off. He’s saying nothing he hasn’t said before.

Before long, you pass Brody’s saloon. You take a peek through the swinging doors, and catch a glimpse of a small crowd. Respectable business for this time of day. Plenty of unfamiliar faces.

Must be the chaser folk. No matter. They tend to stop in at John’s their way into town. He’d have heard anything they have worth sharing. You continue on your way, and as you pass the last few houses of town, you find yourself in front of John’s shop. You don’t, however, see any movement inside. Odd. John lives above the shop and rises with the sun every morning.

You walk up the porch of the shop. Every building in this town has a porch. You knock on the front door, calling out “John?” when you don’t hear anyone moving to respond. As you prop the door open a little with your foot, you notice, down the road and nearly out of sight, a wagon flanked by three men on horseback. Each is dressed in dark clothes. Not unusual. As you squint at them, trying to see if you recognize any of the three, one turns

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back, and you swear you make eye contact. It’s hard to tell at this distance, and his face looks covered by black cloth, but you can feel his eyes burn into your own. You frown. The men remind you of bandits, but none have been fool enough to turn to crime in years; there’s no gold to steal, and the sheriff in Gravestead serves as good deterrent from a life of crime.

You turn back to the shop, and walk up the porch. Every building in this town has a porch.

You knock on the front door, calling out “John?” when you don’t hear anyone moving to respond.

You prop the door open a little with your foot.

“John Rowly, I had better not find you ignoring me. I need work!” No answer. “I’m coming in John. Better not have gotten your fool self stuck somewhere stupid. And you had better be wearing pants,” you add as an afterthought.

You enter the shop quietly. The door swings shut behind you, and you jump at the loud bang that follows. “John?’ You call again. No answer. Odd, but not unheard of. Occasionally John will deliver larger orders himself. You head to the back of the store where you know the stairs to the upstairs are. The door that usually closes the stairs off is open.

You walk up the stairs. They lead up into a small sitting room with a table and two chairs. Off to the right, the door to the bedroom I ajar. You head to the bedroom. The room is an absolute mess. The mattress is off the bedframe, straw spread over the floor. The drawers of the dresser are thrown across the room, and clothes are scattered everywhere. You walk into the room and something crunches under the heel of your boot. You kick aside a stray shirt and see that the mirror John keeps on the dresser shattered on the floor.

You move closer to the destroyed mattress. You kneel down next to it, and notice that there are large slashes where the straw is peeking out. You examine one closer. The cuts are clean, something sharp did this. You rub a hand across your face. It’s too early for this. There’s no blood on the sheets lying on the floor, but they do seem to be wet in spots. You hold one of these damp patches up to your nose and sniff. Sweet. Medicinal.

You stand up abruptly. You make haste to outside the shop again, and walk in careful circles around the perimeter of the building. It’s early summer, and even during spring the ground is hardly wet at all, but there are tufts of dying grass sporadically around the shop. And as you look closer, you notice quite a number have been trod on. You get down on one knee in the dirt, looking carefully at the prints barely traceable in the crushed grass. They look fresh. A few minutes later and the grass would have begun to retake its form, but now you can clearly make out three different sized footprints. One looks roughly the same as your own, and you line your boot up with it to make sure. It matches. You know you didn’t make the mark. The other two sets are larger than your own, one by quite a margin.

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None of the three match John’s own foot. He’s smaller than you are, and his feet match his size. Unless he were to wear oversized boots, none of these prints could have been made by him.

You frown as you mull this information over, rocking back on your heels. A group of people— men, most likely, judging from the imprints of the heels—had been at this store not long before you arrived, and John seems to have gone with them. Not willingly, either.

Three men. Three men! You had just seen three men riding away from Devil’s Ridge. And the carriage—John must be inside. But why would these men take John? What purpose could they have with him? He wouldn’t fetch a high ransom, if anyone would pay it. The wagon trains brought enough supplies to trade or bargain for, and there was a small shop in Gravestead. But, regardless of why these men want John, he is your friend. You need to find a way to get him back.

If you want to chase after the men and the carriage, turn to page 22.

If you want to return to town and get help, turn to page 24.

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You decide to take Shiloh with you to Visit John. He always has an apple or two for her, and Shiloh always seems to know when you’ve seen John without her. You can see the horse stall from the steps in front of your house, and catch Shiloh looking at you. She tosses her head as you smile and start in her direction.

“Hey girl,” you say, as you run your hand down her mane. She knickers, and curls her lip.

You laugh. “I know, girl, I know. I need a bath. But hey, we’re going to see John. Think he’ll let me bathe for free?” At the mention of John, Shiloh stamps her hooves and shake her head.

You smile at her excitement. You mover further into the stall, searching for where you had left her tack. You find the saddle pad and saddle hanging over the far wall of the stall, and drape the pad quickly over Shiloh’s back. You lay the saddle down over it, letting the straps hang to her sides. You tighten the straps under her belly, giving her a light kick to the gut to make her exhale the breath she was holding. Wouldn’t do to have a loose saddle. You slide the bit into Shiloh’s mouth, fit the crown of the bridle over her head, and secure the straps.

You look around the stall, and notice your gun hanging in its holster from a nail on the wall.

Can’t go out without that. You slip the belt around your waist, and feel the familiar weight of the un as it settles against your hip. A simple six shooter, nothing at all fancy, but your father gave it to you when you came of age. Saved your neck more than a few times out past the boundaries of Gravestead. Saved Patrick Waters’s life three years back, too. And besides, you never know when a gun may prove useful.

You untether the rope you had loosely tied around Shiloh’s neck and a standing beam, and pull lead your horse out into fresher air. You pull yourself into the saddle, having chosen to forgo spurs, and with a nudge of your heels, she sets off at a trot towards the other end of town. On foot, it’s more than a ten-minute walk. With Shiloh, you make it in half that time.

You move quickly through town, not stopping to converse with anyone. Patrick Waters is sat out on his porch, rocking in a chair. He shouts something to you as you pass, but you choose to ignore it. Knowing him, it was a comment about wanting you out of the town. He still blames you for the long, puckered scar running horizontal across his nose. Got that from the business end of a wolfman he thought he could handle. The bullet you put between the shifter’s shoulders saved the rest of him, luckily or not.

When you get to John’s, you drop Shiloh’s reins. She knows not to wander, and you doubt you’ll be too long. She recognizes the store besides. Always an apple waiting here for a well behaved horse. As you make your way up to the porch steps, something you hear makes you stop.

There are multiple sets of boots tramping through the store. And yet, you don’t hear John’s voice.

Odd. He quite enjoys

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conversing with his customers. You unholster your gun, flipping open the cylinder. Six bullets loaded. You cock the hammer, but keep the gun held at your side.

As you move towards the door, it flies open, and you’re face to face with a man much larger than yourself. His face is covered with black cloth and a black hat is pulled low over his eyes. The rest of his clothes are a matching black, and the thing wrapped in white linen over his shoulder is thrown into sharp contrast. A muffled curse escapes his covered mouth, and he dumps his load unceremoniously to the ground before bullrushing you.

His shoulder catches you in the sternum, and you feel your breath rush from your lungs. He barrels you down the steps at the front of the store and drops you to the ground as two more men exit the building, guns drawn. One fires a shot from his own revolver, but you’ve already started moving. Your breath comes in short gasps, and the stabbing pain in your chest makes you think a rib is broken.

You scramble to your feet. Gunshots are not uncommon out here, where most folks own at least one gun, and most of their ammunition is spent scaring off coyotes and foxes. You doubt anyone will think twice about the shot just fired, or the shots most probably to follow.

A second shot sounds soon after the first, dust bursting in a cloud at your feet. The man who tackled you has a gun out now too, but is a noticeably worse shot than the man on the porch. The third man hovers in the doorway, his gun held loosely in his hand. Somehow, your own pistol is still in your hand. You raise it up and fire at the man on the porch, but he sees your movement and dives to his right. The shot glances off the door frame and in a cloud of splinters, the man standing there ducks back into the store.

Then the large man moves faster than someone his size should be capable of and there’s a knee in your gut, and you can’t breathe again. You fall backward, clutching at your stomach with your free hand. The man raises his gun again, and you know, no matter how bad a shot, at this range, there’s no chance of him missing, and you hear the shot at the same time all feeling in your body turns to pain, pain, and heat like a flower blooms from your chest, warm and wet, and you think of summer rains, and the dance you had with Isabel Weeks last year as the sun was going down, and how badly you had wanted to kiss her, but what an odd thought, and suddenly your face is on the ground, and you forgot this is what dirt tastes like, and distantly Shiloh neighs as the three man run past your gurgling, prone form on the ground, the smaller two carrying the thing wrapped in sheets between them, but it’s blurry now, everything is looking black, and then—nothing.

An End. But not the End. Museum of Portals

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You decide to walk to the saloon. It’s in the center of town, only a five-minute walk from your house. The weather, though perhaps overcast and gray, isn’t unpleasant. The heat of the summer has yet to settle in for the day, and if you find it too bothersome, it’s a simple task of returning home and fetching Shiloh. You can see Shiloh in her stall as you walk away from the house, and she whinnies softly in greeting.

“Hey girl,” you say, waving in the horse’ direction. “Let’s hope someone at the saloon has some good news for us today, huh? Need an excuse to get you out running.” Shiloh snorts and tosses her head.

You pass houses and familiar faces as you meander through the town, nodding to those who like you and glaring back at those who don’t. Patrick Waters has a particularly nasty glare, on account of the puckered scar running cross the bridge of his nose courtesy of the wolfman he had tried to handle himself three years back. You’d been the one to put the bullet between the shifter’s shoulders, but Patrick held you accountable for the scar all the same.

“How’s the old sniffer holding up, Patrick?” you shout to him as you pass him perched on the edge of a bench outside the barbershop. You hear his growl clearly across the wide street separating you.

“On your way, hunter. You ain’t killed nothin’ in weeks! Best you got movin’ on, I should think.” He nods sagely at his own advice, but you wave him off.

Soon enough, you make it to Brody’s saloon. You head inside without much fanfare. The doors flap behind you, and draw a couple sets of curious eyes, but you meet their gazes evenly and they turn back to the more interesting food and drink in front of them. None of the faces seem all too familiar. A couple recognizable traders and chasers who had been lucky enough to find a nugget in a river once, and now got it in their heads to come back with the wagons each year to try at it again and again.

New folk came out every year. Maybe they’re running from something, maybe they’ve got family out here, maybe they got property from the government real cheap. Doesn’t matter much to you what dragged them out west. All you know is more people means the possibility of new jobs.

You catch sight of Brody wiping down the bar. You head on over, hoping to score a drink you can pay off later with whatever information he may have for you.

“Mornin’, Dean,” you say, taking a seat. “Got anything new off the wagons this time round?”

“Nothin’ new for you, my friend, till you manage to pay off what you still owe me. I’ve let you get away too many times now. Can’t have you goin’ off

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into the desert in debt and never comin’ back to pay it off, you know?”

You grumble. You’ve paid it off every time before this. “Have you heard anything I may be interested in, then?” you ask. “I’d like to get back to drinkin’ whatever you throw my way.”

“Nothin’ new, unfortunately. You just missed Isabel, though. Came in askin’ after John.

Seems he’s out this mornin’ on a delivery run. Said couple a men popped out the shop luggin’ somethin’ behind them when she stopped by. Rug or somethin’, she wagered. Said they said John’d told ‘em to swing by and grab it, but he was out, so’s they just grabbed it without ‘im.

Already paid last time they’d seen ‘im.”

“She didn’t mention anythin’ of interest to me, then, did she?”

Brody shakes his head. “No news, I’m afraid. May do you good to see if John’s back. Might’ve picked somethin’ up rest a us missed on.”

You nod. You were looking to do that anyway. Still want to see about maybe scoring that ‘I owe you’ bath. “I’ll do that, then. Thanks for nothin’, then, you alcohol hoardin’ madman.”

Brody nods cheerily to you as you exit the saloon. Mood soured by both the lack of a solid lead on work and the lack of alcohol, you make your way the rest of the way through town to John’s shop. When you get there, you call out to him. No answer, you make your way up onto the porch and bang on the door.

“John!” you call. “You made it back yet? I need work!” Still no answer. You sigh and run your hand through your hair. No luck. Must still be over in Gravestead. You turn away from the door, intent on loitering around Brody’s in hopes someone takes pity on your dry gullet, when the front door bursts open.

Isabel hurries out, her face set in a fierce scowl. “Glad I caught you, hunter.”

“And why’s that?” you ask.

“Someone been through here ‘fore I got here. Place trussed up real good. No sign a John neither. Whoever tore through here musta done somethin’ to ‘im.”

Your face turns out a scowl to match Isabel. “Who’d want John for anythin’? No good it’ll do them. He ain’t got any family worth nothin’ out here.”

Isabel sighs and heads down the steps in front of the store to meet you on the ground. “I got no clue. Hoped you’da known somethin’, maybe he’d mentioned somethin’ when he set you up with work.”

You shake your head, parsing through the last few conversations you had had with John.

Nothing stands out as odd, until you remember something Brody had mentioned before you set out. “Brody said you saw unfamiliars comin’ outta the shop when you stopped by earlier.”

Isabel’s eyes widen. “Don’ know why I didn’t think a that. You don’t think—”

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“John sometimes had some interestin’ things on display. Charms and the like—anythin’ he’d find out in th’hills dropped by devil chasers. Had a couple a real interestin’ pieces last time I was here.

Real dark stuff. Blade a the Beast—sigils and all still on it.”

“You think those boys ran off to cook up some devil juice? Know they had the rough ‘em up look about ‘em. Why take John?”

“He knows how it all works. Spent long enough collectin’ the stuff he learned how to use some of it. Reckon they don’t know too much, else he’d probably be just as torn up as his store.”

“Well, shit, hunter. Looks like you found yourself some work.” Isabel takes off in a jog toward the center of town. “Let’s get our ponies and go find John. Bully boys can’t’a made it too far.”

You follow Isabel, but part ways at the saloon. Her own horse is tied up outside, and you need to head back home to saddle up Shiloh. You speed into her small stall, glancing around for where you had left the tack when you last unsaddled her. You find the saddle pad and saddle hanging over the far wall of the stall, and drape the pad quickly over Shiloh’s back. You lay the saddle down over it, letting the straps hang to her sides. You tighten the straps under her belly and slide the bit into her mouth, fit the crown of the bridle over her head, and secure the straps.

You look around the stall, and notice your gun hanging in its holster from a nail on the wall.

Can’t go out without that. You slip the belt around your waist, and feel the familiar weight of the sun as it settles against your hip. You untether the rope you had loosely tied around Shiloh’s neck and a standing beam, and pull lead your horse out into fresher air. You pull yourself into the saddle, having chosen to forgo spurs, and with a nudge of your heels, pull her up into a fast canter back to the center of town.

Isabel is waiting for you there, two men also saddled up beside her. You nod to her companions, and Isabel leads your group of four towards the edge of town and the road presumably followed by the men who have taken John. The road leads to Gravestead and a heavy outcropping of stone, a popular destination for those wanting to try their hand at drawing up a devil.

The thunder of hooves on hard-packed dirt is the only sound as the four of you race past John’s shop and fly down the road in search of the wayward men. If you push the horses hard, you should near the outcropping by nightfall. Isabel seems to have a similar thought, as she leans lower over her horse’s neck and flicks the reins, urging the horse faster. You mirror her, digging your unspurred heels into Shiloh’s sides. She whinnies and tosses her head, but she matches the pace of the other three horses fiercely.

The sun dips low in the sky as you barrel down the road, but you are forced to slow the gallop of your horses as their breathing grows more labored. You keep

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your steeds at a steady canter, and beads of sweat gather along your forehead as the sun drops ever lower in the sky. At last, the stony ridge comes into view.

Isabel pulls her horse to a stop and dismounts. You and her two unnamed companions do the same. She turns to you. “What next, hunter? You’re best knowledgeable about what we do with devil chasers.”

You nod. “You two—” you gesture to the two men, “head round and up to the cliff. See what you can find up there. Be careful. Bully boys may still be lurking. Isabel and I go round the bottom. They may be camped underneath out from the sun.”

The men nod and split up, working their way back to the path that leads up the cliff. You unholster your pistol, flip open the cylinder and check each chamber houses a bullet. Satisfied, you cock the hammer and adjust your grip. Isabel, too, has a pistol in hand.

“Shall we?” she says, gesturing for you to take the lead.

You creep along the edge of the road, eyes trained ahead of you, sweeping back and forth across the ground and hoping to catch sight of any movement. Nothing sticks out to you, but the last vestiges of light are fading quickly from the sky. You skirt the cliff face, hoping something catches your eye, but nothing at all is out of the unusual. You sigh and turn to Isabel.

“Don’t look like there’s anythin’ here,” you say. “Let’s hope your boys found somethin’ up top.” As if on cue, a small cascade of rock chips away from the cliff and rains down beside you.

You lead Isabel back to the horses, releasing the hammer of your gun and slipping it back into its holster. The horses come into view quickly, and Isabel’s companions are standing beside them, holding something on their shoulders. You turn back to Isabel, a question on your lips, but she has already halted, a hand pressed to her mouth.

“That’s the rug the bully boys were carryin’ out from the shop when I stopped by.” The words come out quietly. “They had best had just disposed of it. Don’t know what I’d do besides.”

You grab Isabel by the arm and force her to continue walking. “We gotta find out, Isabel. We need to see what your boys found.”

You and Isabel halt in front of the two men, and, wordlessly, they lower the rug to the ground. Too gently. One of them unrolls it slowly, and Isabel turns to you, pressing her face to your shoulder. John lies on the rug, white faced and not breathing. A bloody stain mars the front of John’s shirt, a gash through the dirty white fabric clearly visible.

You push Isabel standing, and she falls to her knees beside John. “Oh, John,” she says, barely above a whisper. “We came too late.” She reaches out with shaky fingers and brushes John’s eyelids closed. Her face hardens as she stands back up,

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turning to you. “We got to track down the men what did this. John was your friend too, hunter. I’ll hire you if I need to. But you’re helping me find them.”

“Peace, Isabel. I’ll help.” You voice belies the steady anger you’re barely keeping below the surface. “John needs back to town first. We need a rest. And to mourn. Those men ain’t goin’ nowhere. We’ll get them.”

You help Isabel’s companions hoist John’s body onto the back of your saddle, still wrapped in the rug. You turn Shiloh back toward Devil’s Ridge, kick her sides, and head off back home, vengeance fresh on your mind.

An End. But not the End.

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You decide to take Shiloh with you to the saloon. You figure at least one person there would have stopped by John’s on the way into town, and on a stroke of good luck, John might’ve passed on mention of a job for you. Especially if that someone happens to be a familiar face to either John or yourself. You can see the horse stall from the steps in front of your house, and catch Shiloh looking at you. She tosses her head as you smile and start in her direction.

“Hey girl,” you say, as you run your hand down her mane. She nickers, and curls her lip. You laugh. “I know, girl, I know. I need a bath. But hey, why don’t we ignore my smell, and instead go for a little ride into town?”

You mover further into the stall, searching for where you had left her tack. You find the saddle pad and saddle hanging over the far wall of the stall, and drape the pad quickly over Shiloh’s back. You lay the saddle down over it, letting the straps hang to her sides. You tighten the straps under her belly and slide the bit into her mouth, fit the crown of the bridle over her head, and secure the straps.

You look around the stall, and notice your gun hanging in its holster from a nail on the wall.

Can’t go out without that. You slip the belt around your waist, and feel the familiar weight of the un as it settles against your hip. A simple six shooter, nothing at all fancy, but your father gave it to you when you came of age. Saved your neck more than a few times out past the boundaries of the last town. Saved Patrick Waters’s life three years back, too.

You untether the rope you had loosely tied around Shiloh’s neck and a standing beam, and pull lead your horse out into fresher air. You pull yourself into the saddle, having chosen to forgo spurs, and with a nudge of your heels, she set off at a trot towards the center of town. On foot the journey would have taken upwards of five minutes, but on horseback, it’s over in less than two.

You loop the reins, loosely again, over the last free pole stuck in the dirt outside the saloon after you dismount, dust your pants off, and march through the swinging doors, intent on locating fruitful employment. Inside, there is a solid handful of salon-attendees, and someone has sat themselves at the piano in the corner. Soft music wafts through the rest of the room, and a few curious gazes meet yours before returning to the food and drink at hand.

You notice a familiar face among the crowd, Isabel Weeks, sat with a bunch of worn-looking gents. You move in their direction to offer a word of greeting, hopeful she had visited John before stopping at Brody’s.

“Isabel. Ain’t too often I see a face pretty as yours round this town.” You slide into the vacant seat to her right. The men she sits with give you a once over, but the friendly smile Isabel sends you and the hand she briefly rests on your shoulder turn away their glares.

“Not too surprising. Closest you lot got is Patrick, and you seen his nose.” Her smile broad-

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ens. She knows your history with Patrick. She was there three years ago when you took down the wolfman. “What can I do for you on this fine morning?”

“Was wonderin’ if you’d been by to see John earlier. Hopin’ to stop by his and see if he can’t fix me up with some work.”

“I was by his, yeah, but he ain’t there. Down the road in Gravestead makin’ delivery, maybe.

Couple a boys waltzed out while I was there, said John’d given ‘em the go ahead to pick up somethin’ they paid for. Looked like a rug or somethin’.”

You grunt. “I’ll drop by later then. May be back by now. If not, I’ll hang round the shop and try not to drink him broke.”

One of the men at the table leans in, almost conspiratorially. “Damn Injuns musta got ‘im, I reckon. Theys sneakin’ round them hills down the road, past the big bend, ya know? Shot at us as we was makin’ on fer Gravestead. Got a couple a folk what need burying cause a them now.”

You shake your head, dismissing the possibility before the man has finished talking. “John does business with most the neighboring tribes. He’s got goods they can’t get nowhere else. None’d be too happy were one o’ the others to go after him. Don’t take much money with him anyway.”

“Bandits, then?” one of the other men asks. “Heard they was a problem this far west. Couldn’t find gold themselves, so theys steal it from who finds it past the town limits.”

“Ain’t no gold to find out here no longer,” you say. “Bandits don’t hunt folk who got nothin’ worth takin’. Indians’d do ‘em in quicker ‘n we could, to boot. And besides,” you say, leaning further to the two men, “Sheriff over in Gravestead got a blanket bounty out on any less-than-law abiding citizens unlucky enough to hunker down way out here. Nothin’ but death awaitin’ the next man fool enough to take what ain’t his.”

The first man nods in agreement. “Aye, you might be right about that. Met that sheriff when the wagons pulled in. Don’t look like no man crossed him in years. Came out the army, I’d say.

Too grizzled to be just ‘nother gold man.”

You rise from your seat. “You hit it on the nose there, friend. Nice meetin’ you fellas. Now’s about time I pay John a visit, see if I can’t get some decent work outta him.”

You head out of the saloon and unwrap your reins from where you had looped them. You give Shiloh a small pat. “Off to John’s, now, girl. Might be an apple in it for ya.”

The short jaunt to John’s is uneventful. When you get there, you call out to him. No answer, you make your way up onto the porch and bang on the door.

“John!” you call. “You made it back yet? I need work!” Still no answer. No luck. Must still be over in Gravestead.

“Dammit. I’m bored, John! And I got no more damn money. Why’d you need to make a

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delivery today of all days?” You hit the railing lining the porch in frustration.

Back to Brody’s it is. See if you can’t squeeze a few free drinks out of the goldchasers in exchange for some of your more exciting stories. Better drunk and bored than sober and broke.

An End. But not the End.

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The best option, you decide, is to chase after the carriage. Those men seemed sinister, almost.

You don’t want to take any chances, and with the evidence you’ve managed to collect pointing right at them, and the less chance they have to get away, the bigger chance you have of finding John.

You run round the back of John’s store, hoping his horse is tethered out back like usual.

Luck is on your side, and you find his horse Trotter munching at the thin grass around him, still saddled. John must have been planning to head somewhere. You catch up the reins in your hand as you swing into the saddle, wrapping your fist in them and yanking Trotter into action.

He turns into a gallop quickly, and you rise in the stirrups, moving with the jolting stride of the horse beneath you.

You check your side for your gun. It’s not there. You curse yourself for forgetting it, but turn to the saddlebags hanging from Trotter’s saddle. You dig your hand into the left one, and your hand finds the butt of a revolver. Bless John’s constant preparedness. You had been in John’s house for maybe ten minutes, and the carriage had been moving slowly, as carriages tend to do. You know at the pace Trotter was setting you’d catch up to them before too long.

And, true to your word, after five minutes of hard riding, the telltale cloud of dust becomes visible on the horizon. Your heels dig into Trotter’s sides, spurring her to move even faster. Her ears press back against her head and her neck bows down as she tries to find more speed.

The carriage comes into sight not too much later, and it looks like the men have yet to notice you. You slow Trotter down to a trot and draw your gun. You double check the cylinder. Full.

You reach into the outside pocket of the saddle bag on your left and feel bullets nestled within.

Five more shots. You fit them carefully into the pocket of your vest and cock the hammer on the revolver. You grip the reins tightly in your left hand, the pistol clutched in your right. You had better be right about this.

You spur Trotter on once more, drawing close to the men and the carriage quickly. As you draw up into firing range and raise your gun, the largest of the men notices you behind them, and shouts something to his companions. They turn and catch sight of you. The one nearest you rips off the cloth covering his mouth and you see his mouth move as he says something to the man in front of him.

You raise your pistol and squeeze off a shot. The jolting of the horse beneath you sends the shot stray and it rips through the fabric covering the wagon. You hear a shout, and the wagon turns sideways and stops as the horses pulling it bolt from the sound of the gunshot, pulling their reins from the now slack grip of the man that had been driving them. Somehow, your shot had hit him in the back.

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The large man pulls out his own revolver, and wheeling his horse around to face you, fires off a shot of his own. The shot is low, and misses you, but strikes Trotter square in the shoulder.

He screams as his leg buckles, quickly painted red. You are thrown over his neck, and hit the dirt road hard. The breath is knocked from your lungs, but you scramble to our feet quickly, cocking the pistol a second time.

By now the other two men have stopped their own horses. The one closest holds a rifle up at you, clearly military issue. The last holds his own revolver.

“Enough!” barks the man with the rifle. “We have no quarrel with you. Go back to town.”

You gesture at the carriage. “You take my friend. You shoot my horse,’ you gesture angrily behind you with your gun, “and you tried to shoot me. We’ve got a quarrel.”

“So be it.” The second man with a revolver, still wearing the cloth over his face, fires a shot, but you’re ready you’re already moving as the gun sounds. Unfortunately for you, the man with the rifle is also paying attention. He anticipates your movement, and you feel fiery pan in your abdomen. You splutter, tasting iron, and fall to your knees.

The men dismount, and, together, walk to you. The large man kicks you roughly in the chest, and you fall into the dirt. The masked man moves past you, towards Trotter, and you hear a shot.

Trotter falls silent. The final man, unmasked, grins humorlessly at you as he tosses aside his rifle and draws a pistol. He cocks the hammer, aims the barrel between your eyes, and fires.

An End. But not the End.

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You decide the safest option is to return to town and gather help. You turn around and run fast as you can back to the center of town, hoping to catch Isabel before she leaves the saloon.

When you reach Brody’s, you crash through the double doors, and catch sight of Isabel still sitting with her companions.

“Isabel!” Your voice is hoarse.

She turns and looks at you, and sees the panic in your eyes. The men with her do as well.

They all jump up from the table and hurry your way.

“You’re back quick,” Isabel says when they reach you. “Find John?”

“John’s gone. Went inside the store, and his room upstairs. Trashed. Chloroform on the sheets. Those men you mentioned seein’—comin’ out of the store—I saw them riding down the road away from the store with a carriage. I think they took John. Don’t know why. May be devil chasers. We need to hurry.”

Isabel looks momentarily stunned. “Wha—John’s room is trashed? Devil chasers? What are you talkin’ about? Where do we need to hurry?”

You grab her shoulders, not gently. “I think those men took John, Isabel! They’ll be gone before long. We need to head after them!”

She puts her hands on yours. “I won’t pretend to understand what’s going on, but I’ll trust you. Sounds like we’ll need guns. Go fetch Patrick—don’t give me that look—he’s a damned good shot with a rifle. Meet us outside John’s store. We’ll catch those men.”

You nod wordlessly and run out of the shop and down the dirt street towards Patrick’s house. He should still be seated out front. When you reach his house, you see him sitting in the same chair, but this time you notice the rifle propped up next to him.

“Back again, hunter? Thought I told you to get movin’ on—” “John’s gone. Group of men grabbed ‘im. We need you. And your rifle.”

Patrick immediately drops his smug grin. Devil’s Ridge is a family. When something happens to one of you, you all work together to fix it, petty quarrels aside. Patrick rises quickly from his chair, grabbing his rifle from beside him.

You nod at him. “Meet at the store. The rest of us will be there.” You turn without waiting for a response and run further down the road, back to your own home. You need to saddle Shiloh quick.

You find the tack and saddle Shiloh up with extreme efficiency, pulling the loops tight under her stomach as you grab up the reins. You see your gun hanging in its holster from a nail in the wall of the stall, and grab it, belting it on around your waist before your foot finds a stirrup and you hoist yourself into the saddle, kicking at Shiloh’s sides.

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You turn Shiloh towards the far end of town and kick her into a canter. As you near the store and catch sight of Isabel and a few men from the saloon gathered, Patrick pulls up next to on his own horse. You give each other a nod meet up with the rest of the group. As the two of you join the group, Isabel catches your eye before speaking.

“Alright, here’s the short of it. John’s gone, grabbed most probably by the men I ran into here.

The hunter,” here she gestures at you for those unfamiliar to you, “saw them headed down toward Gravestead. Likelier than not, they’re disappearing before the town. They got a wagon with them, should slow them down some. I’ll take Patrick and the hunter with me up the ridge, see if we can’t get ahead of them and pick them off from a distance. The rest of you, guns loaded and full speed after them down the road. I want horses faster than those trains back east, ya hear?”

The men gathered shout in assent, and you and Patrick peel off with Isabel towards the path that leads to the bluff. Isabel tosses you a rifle. “Figured you wouldn’t have grabbed one, and this’ll get better range than that pea shooter ya call a gun,” she said.

You hook it to the side of your saddle. The three of you take off at a full gallop, down the path and up onto the bluff. The ridge closely parallels the road, and before long, the carriage comes into view. You can see the rest of the group gaining quick ground on the carriage. It won’t be long before they’re on top of it. The three men you are in pursuit of are severely hampered by the speed of the wagon, and you soon overtake them. As you near the big bend in the road, the three of you slide out of your saddles, rifles in hand, and slip your way down the hillside of the bluff leading towards the road.

You find a fairly flat area and wait the carriage out there, checking and rechecking the rifle Isabel had given you. You exchange no words with either Patrick or Isabel. You each know the gravity of the situation. Should you fail, you may lose John. Certainly some of you would die. The flat you found is close to the road, and fairly easy to reach from it.

Soon enough, the carriage comes into view, and as it draws even with you, Isabel raises her rifle, aims, and fires a shot at the masked man riding at the rear of the carriage. The shot takes him in the shoulder, and he shouts in surprise. The three men riding turn in your direction, the injured man shouting and gesturing wildly in your direction.

The large man slides from his saddle, a growl emanating from his lips that you can hear even far away as you are. He rips off his shirt and cloth mask. He bends at the back, his spine growing quickly distorted. Your eyes widen as you recognize change taking place.

“Shit!” exclaims Patrick. “Shifter!” He fires a shot at the wolfman, now covered in a thickening layer of silver fur, and catches him in the right arm. The shifter howls, dropping to all fours as his hands lengthen into paws, his fingernails growing out into claws. He roars at you as he

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charges, his face elongating into a muzzle full of razor sharp teeth, blood coating the coarse fur of his arm. You fire a shot. It misses, and tears through the wagon’s fabric covering.

The wolfman is nearly on you now. Isabel fires a second shot and hits the shifter in the leg, but it doesn’t slow him down. Patrick is feverishly attempting to reload his rifle. He won’t make it in time. The shifter leaps at you. You drop your own rifle, pull out your revolver, cock the hammer, the wolfman sails over you, his leap carrying him towards Patrick, you raise the barrel of your pistol, pull the trigger—the bullet rips through the underside of the shifter’s jaw, cracking through the back of his skull. He dies instantly, and his corpse crashes into Patrick sending both to the ground. A muffled curse escapes Patrick’s mouth.

Down at the carriage, the other two men are both dead. There are two extra unridden horses.

Must belong to your group. The surviving men have entered the carriage, and as you, Isabel, and Patrick—pulled from under the shifter’s body—head down the slope to join them, they carry John out of the back of the wagon. You and your companions sigh in relief.

At the carriage, John is untrussed and unwrapped. He stands on shaky legs, looking wideeyed at the four bodies around the wagon. You grab him in a rough hug and say, “Alright, John.

Let’s get back to Devil’s Ridge. We’ll get you a drink, and figure this whole mess out.” You hear a quiet mutter of “could’ve sworn it been them damn Injuns out here.”

An End. But not the End.

The Sanctuary Magazine Vol. XIII