Redbone 2: Beginning to End

By Jimmie N. Barnes

Tim Jones had found a victory against his demonic foe Chucaree, the son of the demon werewolf Redbone. He was sure after this battle that the world would be safe from these hell-spawn demons. But as it turns out, the battle has just begun. Tim finds he is faced with the same task as he had with Chucaree. The werewolf's twin brother is now stalking him and his new bride Sally with the intent to enact revenge and take his bride as his own. A scratch from the previous conflict has marked Sally with the torment of the wolf, thus making her the first in this new century to be cursed as a she-wolf.

Tim not only must find a way to protect and cure Sally but again face a foe of unearthly strength and power in order to save the world.

The strength passed to Tim by James Mathew Trinton, the first to rid the world of these creatures, and the killing of Chucaree gives him an added fighting chance for peace here in our world. But in Tim's own words, "Never underestimate the devil."

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685702335

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Redbone 2

Beginning to End

Jimmie N. Barnes

ISBN 978-1-68570-232-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68570-233-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Jimmie N. Barnes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

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

About the Author

Can you not hear

Can you not see

No one can tell

No one but me

I must fight

I cannot fail

I seek the power

To no avail

The darkness falls

Around my eyes

The sleeping evil

Comes alive

I pray for strength

And the courage you give

But the morning tells

Who dies, and who lives

—Unknown

Prologue

Terryville, Arizona

Just north of the Mexico border

August 1904

The complete and unadulterated safety of the world was at hand. And the responsibility to save that world was resting there squarely on the shoulders of a young teenager: James Mathew Trinton. He was standing beside his blood brother and best friend, Lewis Patrick Jones, there in the dark sultry evening shadows between Terryville, Arizona's, storefronts. A southern border town. Home to a rustic and simple life. Mostly good folks just striving to live there in the harsh lower desert area. Awaiting what could only be described as an unholy terror with a vicious sinister nature riding on the devil's black stallion. Just over two months ago, life here in the southern desert was as normal as the rough south western life could be in the early nineteen hundreds. These two were carefree and doing all the things that kids could do—fishing, swimming, and chasing fireflies as the night replaced the day. Then it happened! The trip of a lifetime. A hunting trip with James's father, Sheriff Joshua Trinton. Earlier that month they had encountered very bad men who had robbed and killed in their peaceful hometown and were being pursued by the sheriff. The two boys had come face-to-face with death at the hands of one of these bandits. They prevailed in protecting James's mother and lived to tell about it. The sheriff rewarded their bravery with two of the dead outlaws' horses. A prideful ownership boys their age seldom acquired and now were on a trip to the mountains with his father some fifty miles north of Tucson. Yes, life was good.

But the best-laid plans mean nothing when fate decides to intervene. Because of the sheriff's unique intuition, halfway through the trip, he packed them all up, and they rode desperately hard from their camp spot there in the White Mountains to Tucson. He knew something was wrong. He just had no idea how wrong things really were. The sheriff of Tucson was Joshua Trinton's longtime friend, Bob Massy. And he had been gunned down in the Tucson street like a rabid dog. The killer was a black-clad outlaw on a mammoth black steed. No one could understand how this Goliath criminal could be shot at close range multiple times and not be harmed. Surely at that close of a distance, the marshal could not have missed. Then the stranger takes out a red-boned handle six-gun and in record speed shoots the sheriff six times. The man was dead before he ever hit the ground. The Terryville lawman was enraged. This was not only a good Christian man but an honest upstanding man of peace. A great law officer. But his life seemed to be taken for no reason but to kill.

But as Sheriff Trinton gathered information there in the office of his fallen friend, his anger grew even hotter. What he's being told by deputies and townsfolk is ridiculous. These people must be mad. To see the marshal fire multiple times at close range and miss every time? Or the shots he fired back simply had no effect. To see this huge outlaw draw and shoot six shots in just a second, then laugh and take off out of town, everyone seems to wake up and form a posse to go after him, but when they reach the city limits, the tracks stop! Just disappear?

Sheriff Trinton searches through his fiend's desk only to find notes of lawmen around the state and surrounding area being killed under a full moon and an old leather-bound book, obviously brought over in years past from Europe. But it bore a very ominous engraving on the cover. It was a collection of stories about vampires, demons, and werewolves. The sheriff thought to himself, Fantasies and myths.

There had been two full moons this cycle. There was one left. James Mathew and Lewis Patrick are nervously watching his father try to make some sense of the situation. The sheriff can't believe his friend could believe in this fairy tale. But the sun is going down there in southern Arizona. The townsfolk are disappearing to their homes. There's a fear hanging on the town. Frustrated, this man of principle and law enforcement stands to go out in the street. As he opens the door of the Tucson sheriff's office, the desert heat is blasted with a wind that is cold as ice. He starts to step out to the hitching rail, and there before him is the black-clad monster of a man on a huge black stallion. The outlaw has a black bandanna over his face. Sheriff Joshua Trinton, consumed with anger, draws his six-gun and fires three shots directly into his opponent's chest. He is close enough to see two holes in the leather vest but no blood. When he blinks, the holes in the leather magically heal themselves and are gone. The stranger laughs a deep guttural laugh. He sits high in his saddle. The horse and the villain have eyes that are burning like red-hot coals. The sheriff can smell what surely must be brimstone in the horse's snort. The dead of the night is broken by a voice that carries a satanic tone.

Joshua Trinton, by the five points of the pentagram, the silver death of the moon's glow has chosen you to be an offering to the Lord Satan. Be proud, Joshua Trinton. Your soul is a prize held in high esteem by your conqueror, the mighty Redbone.

Trinton turns to grab the sawed-off shotgun by the door. Six shots rang out and hits him squarely in the back. Joshua hears that horrid laugh as he spins around on his way down. He looks up with his dying glance as the gunslinger pulls down his scarf. The sheriff screams as he hits his knees not only in dying pain but in fear. The laughing face taking so much pleasure in watching the good man die is covered in hair. His nose is a snout-bearing fangs. He bellows out a howl and spins his steed in the middle of the street as Sheriff Joshua draws his last breath and falls flat on the wooden walkway. He recovers his face and looks back to the doorway and comes eye to eye with James Mathew, standing in shock over his dead father. At that, the villain rode out of Tucson. James and Lewis call for men to follow as they mount available horses and pursue the black-clad outlaw, but at the edge of town, they too find nothing to chase. The tracks end with a fading criminal laugh dying on the night air.

It's been a month. Tonight is the first night of a full moon since James watched his father die. He and Lewis Patrick had brought his beloved dad back home to be buried in Terryville where he was loved by the whole town. They also brought back all the papers and notes Sheriff Trinton had gathered of his old friend. They also had the book. Over those last three weeks, James had studied the old text, derived a plan to stop this evil beast of the night, and to avenge his Father. A plan they could not ask for help with. No one would believe what James believed to be true. That a demon of hell was coming to kill again. And now, here they were, waiting in the shadows, staying out of sight. The plan had been for Lewis to overlook the center of town from atop the general store. Should James fail in his quest, there would be one more chance to save mankind. For no one else would let themselves believe that a werewolf in the guise of an outlaw could really be real. It's almost time for the moon to rise. If James was right, this creature would be riding in from the north. Down from the Superstition Mountains. He sent Lewis up to the roof. James then headed over to his father's office. He knew this thing would come after him. He felt it in his mind and bones that Redbone knew he knew the truth. He would have to come and kill him. Just as he hit the street, a blast of frigid air cut through the evening heat. There was a cry on the wind of past dying souls. Redbone came blasting into town. He kills the town deputy and a territorial marshal who were both just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The marshal had investigated the killings in Tucson and had followed that trail to Terryville to talk to James and Lewis. He wanted the information they had taken when they left to bring James's father back home. This menace on horseback had trampled them in the dirt with the girth and polished steel hooves of the stallion. The creature whorled the stallion in the street and was instantly facing James. The were-beast begins his homage to the moon and the devil but is suddenly interrupted by a bullet to the chest. But this bullet burned into his body, and he began to lose precious blood. He falls from the horse, and it bolts from the scene as if knowing his rider is not getting up. James walked up to Redbone as he lay there in disbelief at the fact a child could do what no man had been able to. His wolf-like face held the expression of how is this happening? With no remorse or guilt, James sent his father's murderer straight back to hell with a silver bullet right between the eyes.

In only seconds after Redbone had hit the ground and James fired his final kill shot, Lewis had made his way down from the store roof and was beside his friend.

Standing there in the middle of the street of Terryville, James looked to his friend Lewis, and again that sinister wind blew across them. He started to speak, but he was bewildered at the sight of Lewis Patrick standing stone-cold and still as a statue. James looked around the storefronts and found that everything was frozen in time. Nothing moved. People that had started to venture out of the saloon were stopped in motion as they came through the swinging doors. A horse that was tied to a hitching rail stood motionless, and its tail was stopped in mid-swing as it went to swat a bothersome fly. The town lanterns were aglow, but the flames had no flicker. No movement anywhere. Time had been stopped all around James Mathew, and he felt behind him a searing heat. He spun to be facing a crack of white-hot light splitting the air. Then through the crack appeared a ball of molten fire, slowly spinning as if it were being stirred, a flaming spiral hanging there in the night. That's when he heard the demonic voice of Satan himself.

Young human. How it has come to pass that you have defeated my soldier of evil is a bit beyond me. You have killed where so many others have failed. As begrudging as I must admit, the wager between good and evil that has stood for a millennia will be honored. My demons of the dark realm will be forbidden to roam the earth for a century. Less my anti that will stand for the next wager. Enjoy your newfound rewards and pray they don't become a curse that hangs around your neck. Though the coming future for you will seem a time of calm, that span of time for me is but a fleeting moment. You will still endure the burdens of your own kind. For the greed and evil that exist among the humans of the earth are still ever present. Farewell, young James Mathew Trinton. Farewell until my wrath returns with a vengeance.

At that, the flaming ball disappeared, and the world resumed as if it had never stopped.

James had won. But no one would ever know the scope of what had transpired there in the south Arizona desert. The beast laying there on the ground transformed back into a normal-looking man. This body that was once the werewolf outlaw would be buried on the outskirts of town. It would turn to dust and be suspended in purgatory between earth and hell, never to have a place in either contingency. All would just believe James had somehow gotten lucky and killed a gunslinger. This was a horrible thing in itself. Other fast guns would seek to find the gun that killed the bad outlaw. They would want to challenge that gun for their reputation. But much had changed with James Mathew Trinton. Unknowingly, by killing this demon, he had won that wager against the devil. One hundred years the earth would be free of the dark clan. One hundred years less the devil's anti: 666, eighteen. In that instant, he understood there would be eighty-two years of normality. In that very moment, his consciousness was flooded with all the knowledge of the changes that had just transpired.

And James found he now was in possession of more-than-human powers. His senses were so much sharper. Though his appearance was the same, the young man inside was forever enhanced. He could feel strength and mental completeness he had never known before. James would find ways to live his enchanted life in quiet seclusion. He had saved the world from the spread of this curse. And he had become more. He could hear things in his mind that would help him evade the glory seekers and to protect himself and his mother. He also had acquired a somewhat more-than-human strength. A strength that would serve him well in his next stretch of life just short of a century. All these things he understood at the very second the devil left his sight.

It's at this point James Mathew turns to his only friend Lewis and tells him, We must leave Terryville. That he must take his mother and start over somewhere else. If not, their lives would surely always be troubled and in constant threat of danger. What had happened here would be talked about. And the infamy would spread and bring them trouble. The next day James headed north to Phoenix, and Lewis went east to Texas.

James set his mother up in a comfortable place to live. He spent some time in the cavalry and eventually bought the land around the small house he had arranged for his mother to live in, then with his bare hands built a massive orange grove for the market.

Now in winning that incredibly lifesaving battle, James transferred some of the mystical goodness that lived inside him to the grove. The orchard was enchanted.

Over the years, he lost his mother, found love only to lose her from mental visions of the dark side's demons that literally scared her and her weak heart to death. And he grew old. His life was living there on the orange plantation. Yet he knew the time was growing short, and the monsters of the dark would soon be able to roam again here in our world. And he also knew that even with the powers he had been granted, he would not be strong enough to win again. He needed to pass the torch to a new crusader. A younger man to fight this necessary battle against evil. But who? Who would even believe the story he had lived through?

As if divine intervention had been sent to earth, Tim Jones comes to Phoenix in search of an old friend of his beloved grandfather who had just passed from this life. A young man in his early twenties, grandson of Lewis Patrick Jones, stout and pure of heart yet now all alone in this world. Hoping to find a story from his grandfather's past. Lewis Patrick Jones had left his grandson with the means to take care of himself and gave him a direction to follow. Little did young Tim know the story he sought would become a dire legacy. He finds the old man and is baffled by what he sees. An old man in his mid to late nineties just like Gramps. Yet this old man still stands tall, exuding strength and confidence, power no man of his elder years should be able to possess. As they commune and learn of one another, James realizes his old blood brother and friend has sent the only one who might save the day. James begins to tell the story of the sinister outlaw that killed his father and so many more good men back eighty-two years ago. The more of the story he tells, the weaker he becomes, and the stronger Timothy Jones becomes. Slowly Tim realizes Gramps has not just sent him to find a story to write about. He has woefully sent him into the fire. As his mind begins to connect with James telepathically and his body begins to bulge with newfound strength, he realizes this destiny being thrust upon him, though not wanted, is a necessity for the good of mankind.

It's only days till the scourge of hell will be making its way back into this realm, and as the story is finished, James Mathew Trinton dies, having passed all his powers and knowledge to Tim, along with what was left of Sheriff Joshua Trinton's silver sheriff's star. The young man and his new love, Sally