Geppetto's Orphans

By Kenneth Hoover

In the quiet streets of Haxan, New Mexico, circa 1874, strange enigmatic statues of wooden Native Americans appear. Beautifully carved, with exquisite attention to detail, the statues rest on massive pedestals and cannot be moved. They are harbingers of The Emergence, a time when the Lost People will spill from the dark bowels of the earth and bring with them the end of the physical world.

Marshal John Marwood is charged with protecting Haxan. The woman he loves, Magra Snowberry, holds the key to understanding what The Emergence is all about. But this time Marwood’s bone-handled Colt is useless against a foe made of living wood. And if he does somehow defeat these orphans from Gepetto...how can he find the man who is carving them, and bringing them to life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenneth Hoover
• Release date: Jan 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466057678

Book preview

GEPETTO’S ORPHANS

by Kenneth Mark Hoover

Copyright 2011 by Kenneth Mark Hoover

Published by Argo Navis Publishing at Smashwords

Jake Strop entered my office, stomping gypsum sand from his worn boots. His face was lined with worry.

There’s another wooden statue in the plaza, Marshal, he said. This one is outside the Texas Star Canteen.

That makes three in as many days. I opened the wooden shutters so the air could circulate.

Jake poured a cup of coffee from the boiling pot. "I asked Jonah Hake, the proprietor of the Texas Star, about it. He came to open up this morning and found it standing outside his door. We tried to move it but it’s too heavy, like the others. Eight foot tall and rooted to the spot. Like it doesn’t want to be moved."

That’s hardly likely, Jake. Jake Strop was a fine deputy and one of the few men I trusted. He had faced a killer with me last month and almost died for his loyalty. But this new business had him jumpy.

It’s certain someone is setting them out late at night while everyone is asleep, I said. Maybe he wants to make a name for himself, to drum up business.

Jake sugared his coffee. Downright spooky is what it is. He took a sip and started. Miss Magra been in today?

Not yet.

He stared at the coffee cup. Thought so, he mumbled.

How’s that, Jake?

Miss Magra makes a memorable pot of coffee is all I’m saying.

You don’t have to drink it, Jake.

Well, seeing as you don’t mind.... He put the cup down.

From now on we’ll let Magra make the morning coffee. I pulled my Sharps rifle from the gun rack. My side was stiff from the gunshot wound I received last month and it slowed my draw.