by David Boop
Table of Contents
FOREWORD
by David Boop
COOKIE
by Shane Lacy Hensley
A TALK WITH MY MOTHER
by Charlaine Harris
THE GREATEST HORSE THIEF IN HISTORY
by D.J. Butler
THE DOCTOR AND THE SPECTRE
by Mike Resnick
DOTH MAKE THEE MAD
by Jane Lindskold
SUNLIGHT AND SILVER
by Jeffrey J. Mariotte
PINKERTON’S PREY
by Frog and Esther Jones
THE RELAY STATION AT WRIGLEY’S PASS
by Derrick Ferguson
NOT FADE AWAY
by Cliff Winnig
THE SPINNERS
by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
THE STOKER AND THE PLAGUE DOCTOR
by Alex Acks
BIGGER THAN LIFE
by Steve Rasnic Tem
DREAMCATCHER
by Marsheila Rockwell
EL JEFE DE LA COMANCHERIA
by Mario Acevedo
THE PETRIFIED MAN
by Betsy Dornbusch
STANDS TWICE AND THE MAGPIE MAN
by Stephen Graham Jones
BLOOD LUST AND GOLD DUST
by Travis Heermann
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
STRAIGHT OUTTA DEADWOOD
Edited By
DAVID BOOP
Straight Outta Deadwood
Edited by David Boop
Things that Go Bump at High Noon! Tales of the Weird Wild West from Charlaine Harris, Mike Resnick, D.J. Butler, Stephen Graham Jones, and more.
Baen’s Bestselling Western Fantasy and Horror Anthology Returns for Another Showdown!
Once again, we return to the Old West with a new posse of top authors spin tales of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. We take no prisoners as they explore what really was, and mix in what might have been.
Charlaine Harris [The Sookie Stackhouse Series, Midnight, Texas] shows us a glimpse inside her new series as a tormented gunfighter faces a true demon of her past. Mike Resnick [The Buntline Special] reveals what Doc Holiday thought was so funny on his last day. Jeffrey Mariotte [Desperados, Graveslingers] introduces us to a man who specializes in pictures of the dead who won’t stay dead. Jane Lindskold [The Firekeeper Saga, The Star Kingdom Series (with David Weber)] teaches us not to underestimate a schoolmarm when her students are in jeopardy. And Shane Hensley [Deadlands] cooks up a stew that threatens to send every famous lawman in history to their graves!
Plus, a dozen more stories of how the west was wilder than any history book could contain, such as a new Native American legend by Stephen Graham Jones and a Mormon troubleshooter straddling the line between his faith and the supernatural by D.J. Butler.
The west that was rides again with west that could have been in this follow-up to Straight Outta Tombstone!
Contributors:
Mike Resnick
D.J. Butler
Jane Lindskold
Shane Hensely
Jeffrey J. Mariotte
Steve Ransic Tem
Stephen Graham Jones
Derrick Ferguson
Frog and Esther Jones
Cliff Winnig
Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
Alex Acks
Marsheilla Rockwell
Mario Acevedo
Betsy Dornbusch
Travis Heermann
BAEN BOOKS edited by DAVID BOOP
Straight Outta Tombstone
Straight Outta Deadwood
Straight Outta Dodge City (forthcoming)
STRAIGHT OUTTA DEADWOOD
Edited By
DAVID BOOP
Straight Outta Deadwood
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Straight Outta Deadwood copyright © 2019 by David Boop
Additional Copyright information:
Foreword copyright © 2019 by David Boop; “Cookie” copyright © 2019 by Shane Lacy Hensley; “A Talk with My Mother” copyright © 2019 by Charlaine Harris Inc.; “The Greatest Horse Thief in History” copyright © 2019 by D.J. Butler; “The Doctor and the Spectre” copyright © 2019 by Mike Resnick; “Doth Make Thee Mad” copyright © 2019 by Obsidian Tiger Inc.; “Sunlight and Silver” copyright © 2019 by Jeffrey J. Mariotte; “Pinkerton’s Prey” copyright © 2019 by Frog and Esther Jones; “The Relay Station at Wrigley’s Pass” copyright © 2019 by Derrick Ferguson; “Not Fade Away” copyright © 2019 by Cliff Winnig; “The Spinners” copyright © 2019 by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks; “The Stoker and the Plague Doctor” copyright © 2019 by Alex Acks; “Bigger than Life” copyright © 2019 by Steve Rasnic Tem; “Dreamcatcher” copyright © 2019 by Marsheila Rockwell; “El Jefe de la Comancheria” copyright © 2019 by Mario Acevedo; “The Petrified Man” copyright © 2019 by Betsy Dornbusch; “Stands Twice and the Magpie Man” copyright © 2019 by Stephen Graham Jones; “Blood Lust and Gold Dust” copyright © 2019 by Travis Heermann.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8432-9
eISBN: 978-1-62579-739-1
Cover art by Dominic Harman
First printing, October 2019
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Boop, David, editor.
Title: Straight outta Deadwood / edited by David Boop.
Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2019] | “A Baen Books original.” |
Identifiers: LCCN 2019026260 | ISBN 9781481484329 (trade paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Western stories. | Frontier and pioneer life—West
(U.S.)—Fiction. | Short stories, American—21st century.
Classification: LCC PS648.W4 S763 2019 | DDC 813/.087408—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026260
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Electronic Version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
Dedicated to
Dylan Boop:
My amazing son, who has overcome
much, especially his writer-father.
Know that I’m more proud of you than
any word I’ve written, or book I’ve edited.
FOREWORD
HISTORY’S MYSTERIES
David Boop
September 11, 2018
History has a funny way of changing on us.
Events our grandparents experienced, which had been imparted to our parents, are now taught in our children’s history classes. I remember a time when the majority of my classmates were able to hold up their hands when asked if they had a family member who fought in World War II, Korea or Vietnam. How many of today’s young adults even remember Desert Storm? My son was a two-year-old when 9/11 happened. What will the next generation be taught about the causes and aftereffects of that era of history? More to the point . . . how accurately will the history be taught?
I remember distinctly my first college-level American history class. My professor was a southern gentleman from the “Great and Sovereign State of North Carolina.” He said his style of teaching tended to upset some of his students, as he would explain history from both points of view,
not just the “winners.” I found this fascinating right up to the moment we hit the American Revolution.
“What do you mean the Founding Fathers weren’t best friends? What do you mean they hated each other, backstabbed one another, and even tried to kill each other?”
I still possessed an elementary school, idealized version of the Founding Fathers being of one mind—united to stop oppression by the British rule and shape our great country. I had no concept of agendas, betrayal, political parties, and how our country nearly fell apart in those first years after the war.
That’s when history woke up in me. I came to recognize that my elementary and high school views of major events were no better than a Hollywood treatment of the topic. It only hit the highlights. Everyone is perfect. And the good guys always win. This is not how history played out, and it’s certainly not what happened in the era we call the Old West.
The Old West is one of the tricky times in history to write because it has become romanticized. We’re over a hundred years from what is classically referred to as the end of that era, 1910. (I’ve heard some historians go as late as the early twenties. As a recent researcher into my own family history, that’s still quite a few generations back.) Most peoples’ understanding about westward expansion is from movies like Far and Away, and television shows like Little House on the Prairie. There are so few people left to hand down those stories to their families that were handed down to them. For many modern audiences, a “Cowboy” is someone who “Bebops” in a spaceship with a corgi.
So, short of taking college history courses, how does one remove the glamorized picture of the Old West without diving down the rabbit hole into research hell? What responsibility do we as writers and editors have to explain the struggle between Manifest Destiny and Native American rights? Or do readers even need to know the rail baron wars were mostly fought by mercenaries, such as Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday (portrayed as heroes in most movies)? And what about the influx of elves, aliens, vampires, and wizards into a recently re-United States of America?
Okay, that last part might fall under an inaccurate teaching of history. We certainly don’t have any “proof” of these fantastical elements in the past. However, it makes for a better story than great-grandpa’s tale of when he went fishing one day and pulled up a mermaid, who he threw back because he was already in love with your great-grandmother (like we’d believe that). The combination of weird and west is exciting to explore, but it also carries a chance to view history in a new way.
My directive to all the authors in these anthologies were to give me the Old West the way it really was, where applicable. I wanted the history within to be accurate, the voices authentic. They will attest that I called them on anything I had doubts on, and they, in turn, backed their assertions with facts. They did an excellent job, in my humble opinion.
But I also asked them to give me, and you the readers, the world we wished to see: dragons flying overhead, or the ability to drink with dwarves, or hear how grandpappy fought off zombies in Deadwood. Fear of the unknown should play big, because that is a reality to the era. I wanted triumphs (or failures) over adversity, which forms the basis of every tall tale, and these authors rose to the occasion. Not every story has a happy ending, but they are real to the stories—the true stories—that inspired them.
For those of you who read Straight Outta Tombstone, this second anthology is my Empire Strikes Back. It’s darker, and includes a couple pieces that left me shaken afterward. I challenge you to read all the stories and let them infuse you with the images, smells (and, in some cases, the tastes) of the West. Don’t worry if you get scared easily, though. I have broken the narrative up with humor, victories over evil, and gunfights.
Lots of gunfights.
Which, if you’ve studied the Old West, did not happen as often, or in the way that’s been portrayed in the aforementioned popular media.
But then, it wouldn’t be a weird western anthology without them, would it?
STRAIGHT OUTTA DEADWOOD
COOKIE
A Deadlands™ Story
Shane Lacy Hensley
It was an event of momentous proportions. Some of the greatest legends of the West had gathered together in Deadwood for a single purpose. Cookie didn’t know what that purpose was. He was just the cook. Hence the name. But he was sure it was important.
He’d heard something about a “Twilight Protocol,” something that brought Texas Rangers, Union agents, and independent lawmen alike to the city, but he didn’t know much more than that. It must have been important to bring them through the fickle Sioux Nations though. Especially after the recent troubles.
But then, there were always troubles out here.
Despite all the talk of a ceasefire, the North was still at war with the South, Deseret was its own nation in what was once Utah territory, California had split not only into the Maze after the devastating Great Quake of ’68, but also into North and South territories as the nation’s wounds continued to keep it apart.
All that was fine by Cookie. Armies had to eat, and someone had to cook all that food.
He wasn’t a great cook, but he was resourceful. He could feed a company with a few pounds of turnips, chewy meat scraps, and moldy bread. He’d done it, in fact. More than once.
He’d cooked and served chow for over twenty years. From the battlefields of the East to the new ones out West. He’d served the rail bosses and enforcers at the Battle of the Cauldron of the Great Rail Wars and even made it to Alaska once—though that adventure had cost him a toe.
Today, Cookie had plenty of ingredients. The Earp boys had brought him an elk and Ranger Hank Ketchum had dragged in an antelope. Bat Masterson had come to town with a brace of conies, and “Bad Luck” Betty McGrew drove a wagon full of potatoes, carrots, and onions in from Rapid City. The always smiling Bass Reeves somehow found enough apples and molasses to make pies.
It would be a feast fit for a…well, maybe not a king…but certainly fine fare for these august personalities.
Cookie sharpened his cleaver one last time and got to work carving.
* * *
“Where you goin’, little missy?” The tall stranger sat atop a white horse. It wasn’t symbolism. It was almost exactly as it appeared. His name was Jasper Stone, and he served Death itself.
The girl scratched at her head. Flakes fell from her long, tangled black hair. She’d clearly been wandering the area around the Black Hills for days. She stopped, somewhat dazed, and looked up at the Servitor of Death. He was terrifying to behold—gaunt, white skin stretched taut by undeath, a rictus smile upon a face that wasn’t built for anything but cruelty, and dead but somehow sharp eyes. He wore a ragged brown coat and a ratty top hat with a bloody feather in it—recently taken from a Sioux brave who dared cross Stone’s path.
But Millicent wasn’t afraid. She had her own secret.
She looked up at the man on the horse with glazed eyes and rubbed down her dirty gown more out of habit than any effort to clean up or impress.
“I’m lookin’ for people,” she said, her voice dry and almost as raspy as Stone’s.
Stone looked about. “Your people?”
“Just…people,” she replied.
“You need water, little one.” Stone looked on the back of his horse to a collection of packs and other items that weren’t his. One was a canteen. He plucked it off and handed it down to the girl. He smelled her secret. Death did not speak directly to Stone, but he could sense when someone—or some thing—had common cause with his master’s aim to bring about a literal Hell on Earth.
Millicent took the canteen. Though it was covered in dirt and maybe a little caked blood, she didn’t seem to mind. She slurped it down and gazed out through the woods and over the prairie. Toward Deadwood.
“Yup. That way, little one. Go there and do what you do. It will save me some effort.” Stone looked out toward the distant speck that was Deadwood himself. “Not that I mind. But let’
s see what happens. A little mayhem is right up my alley.”
* * *
The papers were there to cover the event, despite it being at least nominally secret.
Reporters from the Black Hills Weekly and even the Chicago Tribune were on hand, probably following the gunslingers or the increasingly famous Bass Reeves. Cookie was especially impressed to see the famous Lacy O’Malley of the Tombstone Epitaph in his trademark white suit and hat. Everyone knew O’Malley, but none of the big gunslingers, agents, or Rangers seemed to care for him much. That was fine by Cookie. It meant he might get a little of the renowned newsman’s time.
“Evenin’, Mr. O’Malley! Will you be joinin’ us for the dinner?” Cookie said a bit too enthusiastically. He tried to cover his eagerness by hacking at the elk’s loins again, then busily and pointlessly stirring the hot water he’d set to boiling.
Lacy O’Malley was a blonde-haired Irishman in his early forties going on untold eons. He’d seen things few others would believe in their wildest nightmares, and it showed in his tired but sparkling blue eyes.
