Dover Plains, Montana – 1877 “Tin star or not, Mackay, I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch. And I’m going to kill him right here and now.” The gamblers and drunkards and whores in the Tin Horn Saloon quietly pushed their chairs away from their tables as John Hardy made his declaration. But Sheriff […]
“She was a whore,” Davis said. “Just like all the others.” His head lay against the oily wood of the ancient church bench inside the confessional. It was saturated with the reek of decades of burned incense. “And labeling her makes it alright?” The priest asked. “She was Chinese. That’s a label too, huh? My […]
His wife was always right. No really, she was. It was indisputable as she had warned for years that global warming would soon make the earth uninhabitable. And yes, something had to be done about the trafficking in rhino tusks, drugs, illegals, and children. The clubbing of seals—now that was a real disgrace. And using […]
Samuel Dorner was eight years old when he witnessed his first public hanging from the withering execution oak tree on a dry, dusty afternoon. The hanging man swung like retribution’s pendulum and the youngster, having scrapped hard with the other children for a front row view, took a good long look into his lifeless bloodshot […]
Walt Cranmore walked into the Cranmore Construction supply room and stood in front of Joe and Will. He looked at the two men standing behind them, aiming .38 snub-noses at their backs. He looked straight at Joe. Joe looked down. He held his posture straight, kept his arms at his sides. Fifteen seconds went by. […]
The sting of sweat hit my eyes as I spotted Mickey’s Lincoln in the parking lot of the Tiger Tail Lounge. Two giant neon tits welcomed me as I pulled in to park. The tits were wearing neon cowboy-hat pasties. Even in an outhouse of a town like Rockford, Illinois there were decency laws. The […]
I tapped on the row home door on Berkeley Boulevard, just down from University City—the prime market we sought rights to—and grabbed my Luger from my jeans, ready for the Beast of Berkeley Boulevard. Louie spit laughter. “She’s going to lie down. Dominic’s just fucking with us. She’s just some nasty old Medicare—” The Beast […]
Daisy Bateman, her face half covered with a scarf, entered Parker’s General Store. She purposefully came into town on this morning because she knew it was Peter Hutchins’s day off. The last thing she wanted was to see Peter. The thought of it brought shivers. Daisy’s plan was to pick up a new coffee pot […]
They might as well have done a tap dance routine for all the good it did them. The sky cracked open like an egg. Thunder boxed our ears. Bullets swarmed and buzzed like locusts on a crop of fat golden wheat. Blood mixed with the rain and turned the world a dirty pink. I’m covered […]
A Model-T chugged into the shimmering horizon of Albert Hunsicker’s land. There was time to decide if he needed the Flat Top Colt .44 sitting next to the pitcher of lemonade on the small table. People on the border should know better than to come unannounced. His Mexican, Ruiz, was putting up a picket fence […]
At 3 P.M., Cherie walked the streets, wild-eyed. Like she used to, most nights, when Danny was drinking. Tol’ja, he’d said, I gave that shit up . . . For Lent. It was Good Friday. In three days, Lent would be over. But she bet he’d already slipped. Once again, he’d stood her up. But […]
Cards, cash and a mountain of poker chips covered the round table between them. The fancy pistol atop the pile of everything had been emptied of bullets as a precaution — but not the guns the men had aimed at each other under the table. Those were loaded. “Now what?” the fat man asked. “Now […]
