Day of Fury (#1 in the Claw Western Series)

By Matthew Kirk

Trained to live by the strength of his hand ... he would learn to kill by the power of his CLAW.
Blacksmith Tyler Wyatt was not a man to go looking for trouble, but trouble found him the day Vance Jennings and his gang hit town.
They took away his wife, his home ... and his left hand.
They gave him in return a searing lust for death and revenge that nothing—no matter how bloody—could ever satisfy.
Mean, fast, packed with action, DAY OF FURY is the first in a shattering series of the brutal, savagely violent American West ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005355791

Matthew Kirk

Matthew Kirk holds a B.S. in Economics and a B.S. in Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences with a concentration in Quantitative Economics from the University of Washington. He started Modulus 7, a data science and Ruby development consulting firm, in early 2012. Matthew has spoken around the world about using machine learning and data science with Ruby.

Book preview

Chapter One

TYLER WYATT STUDIED the man stretched on the sunbaked sand with dispassionate grey eyes. He was big, not far off Wyatt’s own six feet plus, but fear had deflated his bulk so that he seemed shriveled in on himself, sweat plastering his tow-colored hair over his forehead, staining his shirt dark at armpits and chest. His eyes were wide, staring with the fixed rigidity of stark terror at the brown-haired man looming over him. He shuddered as Wyatt extended his right arm, a hoarse, rasping groan escaping his dry lips as the hand closed on the five-pointed star pinned to his shirtfront. A gasp that might have been relief following as Wyatt tore the badge loose and tossed it away into the mesquite.

Above them, a black speck against the brilliant New Mexico sky, a buzzard circled. Watching; waiting.

The man on the ground went on staring at Wyatt ignoring the dark stain that spread across the crotch of his pants. From his position, his view of Wyatt was elongated so that the tall man assumed the aspect of a giant, an impression accentuated by the width of his shoulders and his broad, muscular chest. A flat-brimmed Stetson shaded his face against the glare of the noonday sun, shadow pooling beneath angular cheekbones, the powerful line of his jaw. His mouth was set in a hard line, complementing the cold fury in his eyes. The man stared at the eyes, then, as though drawn by some invisible string that counteracted his will, his gaze moved slowly to Wyatt’s left arm. And a strangled moan rattled deep in his throat.

Wyatt was dressed in black pants, the cuffs falling over scuffed black boots. A black leather gun belt circled his waist, the butt of a .45-caliber Colt’s Peacemaker protruding from the cutaway holster. His shirt was a dirty white, soiled by travel so that its color came close to matching his tan. The sleeves were buttoned at the wrists, his right hand large and powerful.

He had no left hand.

Where skin should have covered bone and veins and tendons there was a structure of metal, gleaming bright in the hot sun. It jutted from beneath his sleeve, leather straps showing where it fastened to the stump of his wrist. It was the size of a bunched fist, smoothly rounded, tapering to the end, where three foreshortened tines protruded. The tines were about four inches long, curved like claws. They ended in needle tips, the undersides honed to razor sharpness.

The whole appendage looked menacing; lethal.

It occupied all of the man’s attention as Wyatt went down on one knee, thrusting the talons forward, close to the man’s face.

‘You tried to kill me.’

His voice was cold. Flat and deadly. It brought a fresh spurting of urine, acrid in the warm air. The man tried to shake his head, but the blades were too close: he lay still, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

‘Jennings paid you for that. How much? How much is your life worth?’

‘No!’ It was impossible to tell whether the single word was a denial or a plea for mercy. ‘I ain’t seen Vance in a month.’

Wyatt’s lips curved in a vicious approximation of a smile. The talons touched the man’s cheek, indenting the flesh so that droplets of sweat trickled into the fold. He pressed down, driving the tips harder against the skin. Three glistening beads of crimson appeared, mingling with the sweat.

‘Not Jennings then. Who?’

‘Wade! Him an’ Andy Chance come through Terlingua. Said you might be on their tail. Said to stop you or send word.’

Wyatt grunted, not moving the blades from the man’s cheek.

‘You tried the one.’ There was cold contempt in his voice. ‘Tell me about the other.’

‘They’re holed up.’ The man’s eyes showed white as he strained to keep the metal hand in focus. ‘There’s a place over the river—an old Mex hacienda. It’s near a pueblo call Villalta. They’re fixin’ to hit the silver mine there. Jennings an’ the others are due to meet them.’

‘When?’ Wyatt shifted the tines, scoring three thin lines down the man’s cheek. They stood out red against his sudden pallor.

‘I ain’t sure.’ Spittle flecked the man’s lips. ‘Inside the month. Wade an’ Andy was watchin’ the mine.’

‘Jennings?’ Wyatt’s voice was harsh. ‘He’s coming through Terlingua?’

‘Maybe.’ The man’s tongue flicked out, licking at the blood running down his face. ‘Christ, feller! Why you want them so bad?’

Wyatt lifted his left arm, glancing at the metal hand. ‘They gave me this. They killed my wife.’

‘Oh, Jesus!’ Liquid excrement puddled in the seat of the prostrate man’s pants, soaking through into the sand beneath. ‘I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that.’

‘You tried to help them,’ Wyatt said coldly. ‘You tried to kill me.’

‘I only got yore horse.’ As he looked into Wyatt’s eyes, the man saw it was a useless plea. ‘I missed you.’

‘Your mistake,’ Wyatt said. ‘Your bad luck.’

‘They’ll kill you.’ Words came faster now: prompted by terror; by the desire to escape. ‘Look, I’ll make you a deal. You let me go, I’ll tell them I ain’t seen you. There’s six of them—you’ll get a better chance, I tell them that.’

‘Real good friend, ain’t you?’ The talons stroked the man’s face; almost gently. ‘Where’s this hacienda?’

‘Three days’ ride. Due south. There’s a line o’ hills an’ Villalta’s on the crest. The hacienda’s a half-day eastwards. We got a deal?’

‘No.’

As Wyatt shook his head he brought the metal hand down and across. The tines caught the skin below the jawline. Penetrated, crimson bursting hot and thick over the polished steel. The man’s mouth stretched wide in a scream that was suddenly a whistle as the flesh severed, peeling back in bright scarlet lips to expose the hole of the windpipe. A great jet of blood spurted from the carotid artery, and the whistling became a gargling, choking sound. The tines caught for an instant on cartilage, then cut through, opening a huge gash that ran from ear to ear, spraying blood in a gouting curtain over the man’s chest.

Wyatt lurched back clear of the spray, shaking ribbons of cartilage and flesh from the tines. His eyes held the same dispassionate expression as he watched the man jerk and writhe, hands pressed hard against the awful wound in his throat. Blood jetted from between his clutching fingers and his face blanched white as he felt his life drain away. The choking sound bubbled down to a faint whining, then silence as the man’s back arched, heels and head driving against the sand. Abruptly—as though he admitted defeat in the hopeless struggle—his hands flung clear of his neck and his body slumped flat. The blood spurting from his neck trailed off, the crimson arcing dying away to a thin trickle, then an irregular welling that slowly eased and halted as his heart ceased pumping and his eyes glazed over.

High in the sky above, the buzzard was joined by another, and then a third, the birds describing descending spirals on the warm air as they drifted lower.

Wyatt reached down, wiping the metal hand on the dead man’s shirt. His face was calm, emptied now of the rage as he glanced up at the sun, then off to the south. He saw the glitter of something metallic in the mesquite and recognized the badge he had ripped from the dead man’s shirt. His mouth curved in a faint smile as he murmured, ‘Rest in peace. Officer.’

He walked over to the stand of pinon where the dead marshal had left his horse, checking the animal with casual expertise. It was a big, deep-chested bay stallion, watching him with calm eyes. He stroked its muzzle, then went over to where his own pony lay, the blood from the rifle wounds drying under a clustering of flies. He tugged his saddle loose and transferred it to the bay, then mounted up and rode out heading southwards.

Behind him, the buzzards drifted lower, circling above the corpses of man and horse until they were confident he had gone. Then they dropped clumsily from the sky and began to tear at the still-warm flesh.

By nightfall Wyatt was across the Rio Grande. The terrain ahead was broken in a series of low ridges that climbed gradually higher towards the starlit sky, the crests illuminated by the glaucous disc of the full moon. He made camp where the trail wound around a long, low outcrop of rock, building a fire under the leeside after hobbling the bay stallion where it could browse on the lush grass. He set a skillet over the flames, carving thick slices of salt pork from the slab in his saddlebags and drinking coffee as the meat sizzled.

His wrist was aching dully, and he turned back his shirtsleeve, exposing the leather harness that held the metal hand in place against the stump. The metal nub covered the ending of his arm, the interior padded to reduce friction against the flesh, and from the edges of the steel straps ran back, winding about his forearm to hold the contraption in place. He loosed the buckles, easing the hand clear with a faint sigh of relief. He was not yet fully accustomed to wearing the hand, and movement had chafed the still-healing flesh. It was pale in the moonlight, the stitch marks where loose skin had been folded over the amputation red. He took a bottle of liniment from his gear and poured some over the stump. It stung, first cold and then hot against the sweat-moistened flesh, but as he rubbed it in, the dull ache began to ease, and after a while the irritation ceased, the stump regaining its customary numbness.

He settled the hand between his knees, holding it in place as he wiped an oiled cloth over the vicious tines, clearing the final remnants of dried blood from the steel. Then he worked oil into the straps, kneading them to pliant suppleness, and set the hand on his bedroll.

His shirtsleeve flapped loose about the emptiness as he lifted the skillet from the fire and forked meat into his mouth. Somewhere off in the hills a wolf howled, a wailing, lonesome sound that triggered a grin on Wyatt’s leanly handsome face. It sounded like a lobo, another loner, and he thought, You and me, wolf, we both hunt alone. Then he chuckled out loud as he glanced at the stump where his left hand should be.

‘Yeah,’ he murmured, ‘singlehanded.’

Chapter Two

SUNLIGHT BURST THROUGH the grey aftermath of the false dawn, announcing the start of true day. Wyatt rolled clear of his bedroll, shaking dewfall from his long, brown hair and yawned as he watched the sky transformed to shimmering blue. The air was