Iron Dogs

By Neil Chase

Sometimes, when evil dies, it doesnt stay dead.

Six outlaws, barely a day ahead of their pursuers, find shelter in a freshly deserted New Mexico town. With no water, and one of them gravely wounded, they realize too late theyre trapped inside the lifeless town.

As they soon discover the grisly truth behind the disappearance of the townsfolk, the outlaws find themselves hunted by something far worse than anything theyve faced yet - an unspeakable evil that seemingly cannot be killed. When the malevolent creature targets them in turn, the previously tight-knit group begin unraveling past the breaking point. Thinking it to be a Strigoi Morti, a monstrosity that can only be harmed while feeding on the living, the surviving few are faced with an agonizing choice. Who will they sacrifice so the others may live?

Spine-chilling, poignant, and action-packed, Iron Dogs is an instant classic for Horror and Western fans everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Apr 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781458221674

Neil Chase

Neil Chase holds a PhD in electrical engineering and has won over fifty screenplay and short story awards. Happily married with two amazing daughters, Neil lives in Edmonton, Canada. Iron Dogs is his first novel.

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ENDORSEMENTS

Neil takes you on a tension-filled ride through hell and back, creating memorable characters and throwing you back to cheering for the bad guys… This book leaves you rooting for death and destruction, and hoping to God the Devil wins! – Dylan Pearce, Award-Winning Director

One theme remains consistent – that of otherwise ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances, which elevates the work and makes it relatable on every level. This is the mark of a gifted writer; one who can connect with his audience from the first page and keep them enthralled to the very end. – Del Weston, Action on Film Festival

Brilliant! – Michael Gibrall, Eerie Horror Fest

Iron Dogs is a highly original and exciting story… It is highly unusual for a story to so completely draw you in to the narrative. – Creative World Awards

Lean, mean and truly gifted!… [Neil Chase is] an important new writer whom I deeply believe in. – Logan Thomas, L.A. Fear & Fantasy Film Festival

IRON DOGS

NEIL CHASE

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Copyright © 2018 Neil Chase.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Abbott Press

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.abbottpress.com

Phone: [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2169-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2168-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2167-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018903382

Abbott Press rev. date: 4/13/2018

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

For Christina and Ken

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Wayne Cumbria and Patricia Ruth for their invaluable feedback and suggestions on how to improve this work. Thanks to Kenneth Barr and Dylan Pearce for their friendship and tireless assistance when I needed it most. Thanks to everyone at Writers Store and the Screenplay Replay Contest, without which I would never have thought of novelizing this tale. Thanks to my Mom for being my biggest fan since forever. And last but not least, thanks to my wife, Christina, for her love and endless support. It was a hard ride, but you kept me in the saddle.

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PROLOGUE

What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?

— Mikhail Bulgakov

I t was all going to hell.

Not figuratively, either, Father Ramon thought, as his feet raced to keep up to his hurtling girth. In his near-blind panic, he was astounded that some fragment of the rational thinker still remained lucid enough to form these thoughts. But there they were, nonetheless.

He would often say that hell is not a real place. It is a condition of the mind. A weakening of the spirit. A fracture of the soul. It leads us astray, and down lonely, soured paths to an inner perdition. Father Ramon Bernal believed those words his whole life; from a childhood in Fort Duncan, Texas, to seminary work in El Paso, to his appointment to San Carlito, the old Spanish mission that served the town of Testament.

Testament. A mighty name for an undersized town in the heart of New Mexico Territory. Up until the recent calamity, it was a steadfastly peaceful and hospitable place. Though not as distant from Albuquerque as other small communities, Testament was more remote on account of its situation and relative difficulty of access.

What started as a simple pueblo with adobe homes nestled in a peaceful valley, changed when the Spanish missionaries came some hundred and fifty years before to convert the indigenous tribes, and further after German and English settlers moved west to find their fortunes. It now resembled any non-descript town west of Louisiana, with ramshackle buildings made of wood rather than the sun-dried bricks of old.

It was the English newcomers who renamed the town in hopes of attracting more Western European settlers, but it never panned out. No one stayed for more than a generation or two, and the town eventually fell into disrepair, being more of a way-station for passers-by than for folks looking to set down roots. Still, it was home to some hundred of God’s flock at any given time, and Father Ramon was their shepherd.

They were good people, God-fearing and hard working, mostly dirt farmers and ranchers, with the small town at the heart of the community. But even good people can stray from the Word when faced with tragedy. Such was the sad truth in Testament.

A plague hit first the surrounding farms and then the town proper. In only a few weeks’ time, crops and cattle withered away to nothing, the water dried up, and the children and elderly succumbed, wasting away despite all attempts to the contrary. The town’s saving grace had always been the town well, which tapped into a deep aquifer, and provided plentiful clean water to a desert that sorely lacked it; but even that lone comfort had vanished once the blight took hold.

No one knew what caused it; such was the swiftness and wrath with which it spread. In their loss, some blamed the Devil, while others, in their grief, blamed God. And all sought answers from Father Ramon, though he could offer only mere words that neither quenched their thirst for answers nor their drought of faith.

By the time they found what they deemed the source of the sickness, it was too late. The community was ravaged, and only a few dozen survivors remained. Fueled by righteous anger and overwhelming grief, they exacted what little revenge they could. Or at least they thought they did. In fact, all they did was make matters worse, and the small town that teetered on the brink of oblivion fell over the precipice with Father Ramon himself foolishly leading the charge.

So what the hell did he know of hell? Nothing, it seemed.

He wished so often in the last few days that he could undo what was done; that he could right the terrible wrongs done in God’s name. But there was nothing for it. The flock and its shepherd had been tested, and they sorely failed, yielding an unholy wrath from heaven or hell or perhaps both.

Except for the pounding of Father Ramon’s heart, the small main street running between two sets of tired, aging wooden buildings lay asleep in peaceful darkness. The only lights came from the mission’s open doorway at the end of the street.

While about as tall as the two-story buildings in town, like the hotel and dentist’s office, the church dedicated to San Carlito was still the most imposing structure in the entire valley. With its cross-crowned bell-tower and sun-bleached white walls kept in meticulous repair by Father Ramon and his predecessors, and as befitting the patron saint who received his martyrdom by being burned alive in a great pyre, the church dazzled as if on fire in the summer sunlight. And even now, well after dark, its white walls were a beacon in the night; one that Father Ramon prayed he would reach in time. In all his sixty years, he’d never known fear such as this.

Unable to sleep for days, overcome by guilt and dread, he had holed himself up in the mission for longer and longer stretches of time. Soon after the calamity began, and the power of prayer and scripture neither dispelled the dark nor held it at bay, he began locking the church doors when alone, something he’d never done before, then going so far as to bar them outright at night. He saw fewer and fewer people on the streets when he dared look out the mission windows, and each night he surrendered to sleep, he prayed for morning light to come as quickly as the Good Lord could see fit to grant. Every new day brought word of fresh tragedy, along with a greater sense of isolation and hopelessness.

On top of it all, he hadn’t given mass for almost two weeks now. Not that it mattered, since most of his parishioners had resorted to either hiding themselves or fleeing town altogether. So much death already. So much suffering.

He’d considered not going out tonight, but Eliza was so insistent. The poor girl’s mother finally passed, having succumbed to the foul condition that plagued them all. Eliza begged Father Ramon to give last rites. He argued with her. Pointed out his unshaven face and dirty robes; surely unbecoming of a man of the cloth. But she persisted in her agony, her large brown eyes, the color of fresh coffee, overflowing with grief and piercing his very soul. She knelt before him, kissing his calloused and slightly trembling hands, the tears running onto his once-strong fingers as she pleaded and wept. So despite his better judgment, he gave in.

Just until nightfall, he told himself, and not one minute more.

Of course, he stayed too long. The girl made a meal. She was as frightened to be alone at home as he was to venture into the street. Once again his judgment lapsed, and he supped with her. Afterwards, sensing his discomfort, she invited him to stay the night, but even in the face of fear, the impropriety of such an invitation could not be ignored. People would talk, and even though the offer was innocent enough, there was little innocence left in Testament. Whether real or perceived, he would not add more guilt to the already overburdened pile.

So now it was dark. The houses along Main Street lay silent, their curtains drawn and their doors barred. What residents remained were in bed, though Father Ramon was certain few, if any, would sleep this night. Though it seemed at peace, the street was not empty. Father Ramon wished to his Maker it wasn’t so. But the horror was real. With his silver crucifix in hand, he ventured into the night, hopeful the almost-foot-long talisman would keep the shadows at bay. Even though he could see or hear nothing, from the moment he stepped out Eliza’s front door, the sense that something sinister pursued him was overwhelming. So he did the only thing he could. He prayed and he ran.

The darkness consumed everything but the sliver of light coming from the mission doorway – the beacon to his salvation. In his blind terror, he hurried toward that light, ignoring all else. He stumbled a few times, not being the sprightly man he was when he’d taken this position over thirty years ago. But he dared not go down, for he knew too well what terrible fate would befall him if he did. Every few steps, Father Ramon glanced back, as if someone was at his heels. Each time, there was nothing there but the shadows. And each time, they seemed to reach for him, wanting to pull him into their murky depths.

In the final moment before he reached the door, he felt as though the night would overtake him. Only feet from the doorway, the old priest cried out, though whether in prayer or blasphemy, he couldn’t say. In truth, maybe it was a mixture of both, though he would never admit as much.

He careened into the church, pushing past the solid twin doors, a look of abject fear on his face. He slammed the doors shut, throwing his weight behind them. Sinking to the floor, his weary head fell back against the heavy wood and a grateful sigh escaped his lips. Just having crossed the threshold, a heaviness lifted from his shoulders. After a moment, his eyes opened. Despite himself, he took in his sanctuary, as if for the first time, taking solace in all its blessed details.

As if in contrast to the thick, plain doors against which he leaned, Father Ramon’s eyes fixed on the detailed wooden carvings of the gallery over the entrance. The many angels, flowers, leaves and other figures carved into the woodwork gave him pause, their beauty slowing his heart to something resembling normal. His gaze fell from the gallery and traveled into the church itself.

Like many built in the same period, the mission was cruciform in shape. The nave, some twenty feet wide, had two rows of bare, wooden pews running down the center aisle. The ceiling was supported by carved and ornamented vigas, the older wooden beams being more elaborate than those erected in more recent times. In contrast, the side walls were simple, firm masses of adobe without much ornament. Yet their strength and solidity gave the repentant priest a feeling close to courage. Small windows were set high on the walls, their ancient glass thick and warped with age. In each of the transepts crosswise to the nave sat a rude altar of solid masonry, and weathered paintings of the Virgin and Child serenely looked down over small statues of Spanish saints.

Finally, his eyes rested on the chancel. A large, intricately carved wooden cross occupied the reredos behind the main altar, surrounded by paintings of Christ, Mary, and a host of saints, in a variety of styles and conditions. The simple beauty almost brought Father Ramon to tears, and a small sigh of relief again passed his lips, when—

A furious banging made him start. A desperate woman’s voice beckoned from the other side of the door. Father! Please!

Father Ramon ran a trembling hand over the crown of wild, silver hair around his otherwise bald head. His coal-black eyes, once more wide with fear, darted to and fro, as if weighing his options. Who was it? Eliza? Had she followed him to the church? Or someone else? She sounded older, but between the screams and the pounding of his heart in his ears, it was hard to tell.

Don’t leave me! she shrieked. Father!

The old man despairingly looked skyward to an answer that never came. He vaguely wondered why no one would come to the poor girl’s aid, or to his own. Where was the sheriff? Why hadn’t he come to help already? Didn’t he know there were people in trouble here?

A lingering, painful moment of terrified indecision passed. Father Ramon went to open the doors. The moment was too long, and as his hand reached for the door handle, a guttural, throaty scream pierced the night. Unlike the cries of simple horror that preceded it, this one brimmed with pain as well. An unbearable, horrid suffering vocalized for the world to hear. A sound of hell itself.

The color drained from Ramon’s face and his hand fell away from the iron latch. His feet propelled him back in sheer terror. The unseen girl pounded on the heavy wood with renewed vigor, the panicked torment of her shrieks setting rise to the hairs on Father Ramon’s tanned flesh. Dear God, some part of him thought, those screams are so loud. His hands went to his ears, unable to deafen the ghastly sound. Some part, far braver than the one that stood here with fresh piss running under his robes down one bare leg onto the stone floor, roared at him to open the door and let the poor girl into God’s sanctuary. But that part of him was so far away that its yelling was akin to a murmur. And what’s a murmur compared to the piercing cries on the other side of those doors?

Soon, the screams cut short, replaced by sounds of tearing and rending. Fighting the urge to throw up the dinner he had eaten less than half an hour before, Father Ramon took hold of the nearest pew. With panicked strength, he shoved it against the door. Then he took hold of another, and one more for good measure, barring the entryway from the danger outside. In his alarm, a single question repeated in his mind. How can this be?

They had banished the evil. He was certain of it. It was gone and could never return. Wasn’t it? How could it return? How could it be just outside his… outside God’s own door? He had seen to it himself. Performed all the rites. Said all the words. Carried out all that needed doing. Hadn’t he? No, it was ridiculous. It was impossible. Oh Lord, it was here.

The old priest stumbled backwards down the aisle, never taking his eyes off the doors. Until his feet tripped on the small step leading up to the altar at the head of the congregation. He fell back onto his haunches, barely missing the lectern and dropping the crucifix. His fingers desperately pawed at the floor, while his eyes refused to move from the doors. The sounds from outside were so primal, they could only belong to a rabid animal gorging itself. Father Ramon’s panic grew as the crucifix was not where his fingers searched. Finally he tore his gaze away long enough to look down. There it was, right next to him. Were he not so scared, he might have laughed at himself.

A loud, wet thump from the door brought him back to, and he snatched up the silver ornament. He scrambled back on his elbows until his head hit the base of the altar. And yet, still, his legs pushed him back. When it dawned on him he had no further to go, the priest got to his knees and turned toward the altar. His eyes looked pleadingly at the large wooden cross mounted on the wall above it. With shaking hands he placed the crucifix down on the altar. His fingers interlaced around its base, refusing to let go.

As the appalling sounds died down outside, he began to mutter the Lord’s Prayer through trembling lips. O-our Father— was all that came out before he heard something more sinister echoing over the stone tiles of the small church.

A whisper. Unintelligible and faint, but only at first. The terrified preacher strained to hear what it had to say. Just as he was about to make out the words, there was another whisper that overlapped the first, then another, and so on, until a chorus of hushed voices played throughout the building. There were so many of them, that though he couldn’t understand the words, he immediately grasped the raw, naked emotions underlying them. Dread, hatred, malevolence, grief. Each a chorus unto itself, vying with the others for prominence and failing, only to give rise to a greater desperation. And something else, something worse than all the others combined, penetrated Father Ramon’s ears. It made him cry out like a child lost in the wilderness.

In his overwhelming terror, he couldn’t begin to understand either its meaning or intent. He could only grasp the concept of it. What it could be, not what it was. And it filled him with a fear so powerful, the world outside the mission walls ceased to be.

In that instant, the whispers stopped. The resulting silence was immediate and deafening. He shut his eyes as tightly as he could and lost himself in agonized prayer. After reciting over a dozen hurried Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s in his head, he eventually managed to blurt out, Help me. Dear Lord, please. Somebody help me.

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CHAPTER 1

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

— Plato

C ole Masters hated the dark. Always had. But he hated closed spaces even more. They made him think of Jed.

When he was nine, he helped his pa and older brother dig a root cellar out back of their stead on the Texas Gulf Plains. By all accounts, his father was a decent enough blacksmith, but the lack of work drove him to take on other professions throughout the state that were ill-suited to him. His old man was a poor fisherman when they lived on the coast, and an even worse farmer when they moved west after his mother’s death.

So they dug wrong. Cole couldn’t recall exactly why the hole was dug wrong. Holes are holes, and he’d dug his fair share since, never with much of a problem. But this one was wrong. Maybe the dirt was too sandy, or the pit too deep, or the beams his father put in weren’t strong enough. Whatever the cause, the walls caved in on them. His pa was barely in when it happened, and so was spared the worst, but Cole and Jed were right in the thick of it.

It all happened so damn fast. One moment they were setting spades to dirt, and the next, they were fighting for breath in a vice of clay. Cole remembered his pa yelling something, but it was too muffled to make out. His own panic wouldn’t have let him hear anyway, so it didn’t really matter. He tried to run, to move, to escape, but couldn’t. He was bound tightly as if by rope. Some rational part of him wondered if this was what a caterpillar felt like before it sprouted wings. Some larger part supposed it more like what a mummy felt being sealed in its tomb forever.

By some miracle, two beams crossed over his head when they fell, stopping inches from his scalp, and creating a pocket of air. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep the ground from his nose and throat. Soon, though, Cole felt the world recede as what little air he had was quickly used up. All he could taste was soil, and as his consciousness slipped away, he imagined his lungs filling with the stuff. And though the dirt filled his ears, Cole could have sworn he heard Jed calling out to him at that moment.

Don’t give in, his older brother said in a voice so hollow it was barely a whisper.

Cole knew there was no way he could have heard those words nor that Jed could have spoken them, and yet it kept him going for a few precious seconds. Cole’s pa dug for what seemed like hours to the trapped boy. In truth, it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before he took hold of Cole’s leg and yanked him out. But Lord, it felt like an eternity.

The moment Cole was free and coughing up dirty phlegm like his lungs were on fire, his pa set to finding Jed. Cole tried to get to his feet to help, but his legs wouldn’t listen. All he could do was watch through coughing fits and tear-filled eyes as his father desperately labored to find his other son. His older brother was a strapping lad. Though only sixteen, he was already as tall and broad in shoulder as his pa, and strong as an ox. But Jed didn’t have fallen beams to protect him from the crushing weight, or provide him with extra minutes of air. He was in the dirt too long.

In the months after the simple funeral, Cole often thought of Jed’s last moments. He wondered if his brother was as scared as he had been, if he felt as helpless and trapped, and if he spent those last few moments of breathless life in pain. He hoped not, though he knew better, as he recalled the burn in his own lungs just before his father’s strong hands grasped his left leg by the ankle. It wasn’t painless. It was agony, and a most horrible way to pass on. And he remembered thinking bitterly, why did they bother pulling Jed out of the dirt in the first place if all they did was put him right back in?

They left that dirt farm soon after. The crops never came in as well as they hoped, and the constant reminder of the tragedy made it too unbearable for the old man. He took to drinking after Jed’s funeral, and the two of them spent most days in uneasy silence.

One day, Cole came back from tending the fields to find his pa hitching a wagon with all their meager belongings tied up in back. The broken man looked like he’d been crying, but neither he nor Cole acknowledged the fact. Without a word, Cole threw down the rusty hoe he carried and climbed aboard. They left without a single look back.

The two of them roamed from town to town for a spell, taking on whatever work needed doing. When they came to Laredo, on the Texas-Mexican border, his pa once again tried his hand at smithing. The town was big enough that there was call for such work, so a man of skills could survive, and even prosper. It went well enough, at least when his father was sober, and Cole learned the trade, at first as a striker, and then as a full apprentice. By the time he was eleven, he could work the forge, hammer with confidence, and bend the metal with a skill that came naturally. As time passed, he did more and more of the work while his pa slept off one bottle after another in the corner of the smithy. By the time he was fifteen, the old man had drunk himself into an early grave, leaving Cole to fend for himself. But while folks had faith enough in his work passed off as his father’s, they became more apprehensive when it was his alone.

He often wondered how he would have fared had the War Between The States not erupted soon after. The call went out for men and burly lads who could pass for such, and so he again left his home for the unknown. With his skill at the forge, he soon found himself tied to the Cavalry, making shoes for horses and fixing metal parts on the battlefield when not trading pot-shots with Yankees. He distinguished himself in battle, and earned a spot at his commander’s side. Yet through it all, he never forgot about Jed, or how he felt every time the world began to close in around him.

Since that terrible day some twenty years earlier, Cole swore he’d never find himself in that position again. Even now, as he fought every urge in his bones to bolt for freedom, a sliver of a smile found him as he recalled all the times that oath was broken. Hell, in the war alone, he spent countless days in ditches and holes, in cellars and graves, under logs and bridges, and crawl spaces a dog wouldn’t enter, always fighting the urge to flee.

And once in particular during that war, a moment so dreadful, he could not, would not, recall it. Especially now. Not in the blackness surrounding him. Not with musty, stale air filling his lungs. Not with the world pressing in on him.

He would get out. He always had before. And each time he felt the open breeze on his face and basked in the warmth of the sun, he swore anew, certain he’d break that vow once more. So here he was again, in the closed, damnable dark, with his heart in his throat and the cold sweat on his brow and the pounding silence in his ears, fighting a losing battle with his own senses and biding his time until he could taste free air.

Only he realized with equal parts relief and foreboding it wasn’t his heart in his ears that was pounding. No, that sound came from somewhere else, and it was getting louder by the second.

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CHAPTER 2

Neither love nor evil conquers all, but evil cheats more.

— Laurell K. Hamilton, Cerulean Sins

T he thunder of hooves broke the tranquil silence of the western Texas plains, as ten black-clad riders charged over a rise at full gallop. At the head, Max Clayburne cursed the heavens for making Texas in the first place. He hated everything about this godforsaken place, from the unbearable summer heat to the dusty emptiness to the ill-bred morons who sparsely populated it. But duty was duty, and his was to track down his prey.

Being a proud Yankee from Illinois, few felt he was up to the task he now undertook. What’s more, his Northern accent and attire often marked him for a dandy in these parts, though no man had teeth enough left in his mouth to call him the name twice. He could hardly wait to get this job over with and head back to civilization. Max growled in delight as he spotted something on the grassy horizon. There! he shouted, pointing dead ahead.

A lone man stood under a withered tree in the otherwise empty distance. With a Stetson low on his bowed head and a long, ragged overcoat down to his ankles, his back was to the riders. Beside him lay his horse, dead. The fool looked to be saying a prayer over the fallen animal, though Max wondered if the prayer was for the animal or the fool.

Speaking of which, Max didn’t know which imbecile in particular it was. Probably one of the greenhorns Hollister took on recently, left behind to fend for himself after his horse died on him from exhaustion or a broken leg. The others would have had more sense than to stand out in the open.

Max knew the man could hear them coming, and yet he stood planted with his back to them like a damned coward, more than likely counting on their Yankee pride from shooting a man in the back. The notion made him laugh. Got you, you bastard, he chuckled under his breath, as the men at his sides drew their guns and spurred their horses.

Without any order given, they all opened fire on the lone man as they got into range. Clumps of dirt and rock detonated all around him, but he didn’t so much as flinch. Too scared to move, Max thought, savoring the moment. He drew his Colt Army revolver, the same one he used at Gettysburg ten years ago to the month, and brought it to bear straight ahead. With the black-clad riders bearing down, the lone man still didn’t move, as bullets whizzed by dangerously close. Max afforded a smile, the solitary, gutless coward in his sights.

He fired. A clean hit ruptured in the center of the man’s back. He lurched forward, some hidden strength keeping him upright. Max’s smile turned to a snarl as he emptied three more rounds from his weapon. His men followed suit, firing wildly. Bullets riddled the man’s back as the riders thundered ahead, almost on top of him. To Max’s relief, the coward finally fell forward, face down into the hard-packed dirt.

The riders whooped and laughed as they came to a halt just feet from the body, a few still firing off a shot or two into the corpse. Abner, Max said, nodding to the bushy-bearded rider in the bowler hat on his left.

Abner dismounted, and hurried to the body. Max had to know which of them it was, if for no other reason than the size of the bounty that the Railroad offered on each man’s head. But it didn’t really matter. He’d get each one of them by month’s end, and he would be a rich man. That much he knew for certain.

Abner kicked over the body. The pleasure in his eyes turned to indignant surprise, as what stared back at him was