by David Boop
Pandemonium erupted. Guns waved, bullets flew, knives flashed, boots pelted for the door.
In the back, laughter as deep as thunder.
Earp and Bullock tried to shove through the crowd, hollering for order, but they were fighting upstream.
Gunshots erupted as them that still had some shreds of courage cut down on the attackers. All I can remember of that knock-down-drag-out is bloody flesh hanging from teeth, terrified eyes like a herd of stampeding critters, fists flying, chairs crashing, glass shattering amidst the smells of blood, smoke, and cheap whiskey, and a trainload of cursing. Worst part was, several people found themselves with lead poisoning didn’t deserve it. It was a godawful mess.
Jane jumped up on a table, howling her grief and rage. She leaped like an antelope from one table to the next, scattering glasses and cards, as the tumult raged.
I could see where she was headed. “Jane, no!”
She jumped down behind the thing that wore Shorty’s skin.
There was nothing human in that face anymore. Those coal-black eyes, that amused grin, that hunger, all lodged in my bones like an arrowhead. That moment still haunts me some nights, as I lay in the dark wondering when I might see that face again, looking out from somebody else’s eyes.
Jane leveled her pistols, but before she could fire, its black hands seized her wrists. Her pistols hung limp as it squeezed, but she kept hold of them. Obscenities gurgled out of her as it stretched her arms wide, fixing to tear them off like chicken wings. Its arms were too long to be human now.
Earp had one of the attackers in a headlock, hammering the man’s skull with his pistol butt.
Bullock ducked a flying chair, only to be flattened by a panicked miner clambering for the door.
Jane was a goner.
With a trembling hand, I leveled my pistol at Shorty. I might have hit Jane, but if I didn’t shoot right goddamn then, she was dead anyhow. So I let fly.
The bullet plowed a narrow trench across the top of its skull and ricocheted into a lantern, casting deeper darkness into the back. My shot must have staggered it, as Jane struggled with it in some sort of hurdy-gurdy dance.
Oil from the shattered lantern spattered the pot-bellied stove and caught fire.
In the rising firelight, I saw Jane wrestle one of her arms free. She leveled her Colt and blasted a hole through one of its eyes. It released her other arm and seized her around the throat. Hands free, she brought both hoglegs to bear. More obscenities strangled out of her as she emptied both her pistols into its face, spraying cold black ichor all over the same wall that once wore Bill’s blood, as well.
It let her go, stumbling backward.
Bullock had regained his feet. Nuttall tossed him a shotgun, and he charged toward the back.
With two perfect shots, Wyatt Earp cleared Bullock’s way.
“Jane, get back!” Bullock roared, leveling the scattergun at Shorty. Jane ducked away, and Bullock blasted both barrels. What was left of Shorty Muldoon dropped like a poleaxed mule.
The booming laughter faded into the blizzard like a receding locomotive.
When I finally reached Shorty’s body, it had shriveled up like a black, leathery raisin. Goddamn if the face didn’t look, just for a moment—just for the shortest moment, so quick I couldn’t be sure—just like Wild Bill’s face on the day we put him in the ground. Then the whole body collapsed like melting pork fat, bones and all.
* * *
By midnight, the temperature had dropped to five degrees, and the storm lasted for three days.
Cassie, the little lady who’d decided Emmaline’s ear looked like bacon, claimed she couldn’t recall the fight at all. That didn’t stop Emmaline from cutting off Cassie’s ear one night about a week later. What happened to them both after that, I could never get Swearengen to say.
Then six feet of snow melted, the mud thawed and deepened. The stories percolated, festered, and faded into the fabric of daily iniquities. We drank instead of ate.
What became clear to me, watching Earp and Bullock in the time after, something had broken in these two lawmen who used to look at the world in a certain way.
Seth Bullock lost the election for sheriff a year later and went back to the hardware business with his friend, Sol Star. Later, he and Teddy Roosevelt got thicker’n feathers in a pillow.
Wyatt Earp spent the winter selling firewood at a hundred dollars a wagonload, said he’d never get warm again. When he left Deadwood in the spring, riding shotgun on a wagon full of gold headed for Cheyenne, they say he had five thousand dollars in his pocket.
Jane stopped howling for Bill, but she remained calamitous until the end of her days. She hid the finger-shaped frostbite scars on her neck with a bandanna. She ran with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show for a while, but hated it. Ten thousand people came to her funeral in Deadwood.
History don’t remember the likes of Colorado Charlie Utter or other decent folk that came through Deadwood, or those that got swallowed up by it. History cloaks the respectable and venerates the Wild Bills and Calamity Janes. Deadwood likes its people with the hair on. All I know is that the four of us—Jane, Earp, Bullock and me—we done for that thing that came to Deadwood that winter, call it whatever you want.
I’m reminded of another story some fifteen years after the aforetold, about a town called White Pine. They say something awful came down on that town and the nearby reservation—but old Charlie’s getting tired. Bring me another iguana for supper tomorrow, and I’ll tell you that story.
You niños run along, now.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
About the Editor
David Boop is a Denver-based speculative fiction author and editor. He’s also an award-winning essayist and screenwriter. Before turning to fiction, David worked as a DJ, film critic, journalist, and actor. As editor-in-chief at IntraDenver.net, David’s team was on the ground at Columbine making them the first internet-only newspaper to cover such an event. That year, they won an award for excellence from the Colorado Press Association for their design and coverage.
David’s debut novel, the sci-fi/noir She Murdered Me with Science, is back in print from WordFire Press. David went on to edit the bestselling weird western anthology, Straight Outta Tombstone, for Baen. Dave is prolific in short fiction with many short stories and two short films to his credit. He’s published across several genres including media tie-ins for Predator (nominated for the 2018 Scribe Award), The Green Hornet, The Black Bat and Veronica Mars.
He’s a single dad, Summa Cum Laude creative-writing graduate, part-time temp worker and believer. His hobbies include film noir, anime, the Blues and Mayan History. You can find out more at Davidboop.com, Facebook.com/dboop.updates or Twitter @david_boop.
About the Authors
Shane Lacy Hensley lives in sunny Arizona where he runs Pinnacle Entertainment Group. He’s best known for creating the world of Deadlands and the Savage Worlds role-playing game. He’s been an executive producer on numerous video games, written a passel of novels and short stories, and loves to run and play games with fans all over the world.
Charlaine Harris is a true daughter of the South. She was born in Mississippi and has lived in Tennessee, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas. After years of dabbling with poetry and plays and essays, her career as a novelist began when her husband invited her to write full time. Her first book, Sweet and Deadly, appeared in 1981. When Charlaine’s career as a mystery writer began to falter, she decided to write a cross-genre book that would appeal to fans of mystery, science fiction, romance, and suspense. She could not have anticipated the huge surge of reader interest in the adventures of a barmaid in Louisiana, or the fact that Alan Ball would come knocking at her door. Since then, Charlaine’s novels have been adapted for two other television series. Charlaine is a voracious reader. She has one husband, three children, two grandchildren, and two rescue dogs. She leads a busy life.
D.J. (Dave) Butler has been a lawyer, a consultant, an editor,
and a corporate trainer. His novels include Witchy Eye and sequels from Baen Books, The Kidnap Plot and sequels from Knopf, and City of the Saints, from WordFire Press. He plays guitar and banjo whenever he can, and likes to hang out in Utah with his children.
Mike Resnick is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. The author of seventy-eight novels, ten books of nonfiction, and 286 short stories, Mike is the winner of five Hugos (from a record thirty-seven nominations), plus a Nebula and other major awards in the USA, France, Croatia, Poland, Catalonia, Spain, Japan, and China, and has been shortlisted for awards in England, Italy and Australia. Mike was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon.
When she was growing up, Jane Lindskold read Louis L’Amour novels and daydreamed about what it might be like to live in the Wild West. She’s lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, since 1995, so she guesses that dreams do come true.
Jane Lindskold also dreamed about someday being a published author. With over twenty-five published novels, seventy-some short stories, and numerous works of nonfiction to her credit, she’s achieved that, too. Her novels include the Firekeeper Saga, the Breaking the Wall series, the Artemis Awakening series, the Athanor novels, and a number of standalone works. She’s also written in collaboration with David Weber, Roger Zelazny, and Fred Saberhagen.
When she’s not writing, Jane Lindskold rides herd on a passel of cats and guinea pigs. You can find out more about her and her publications at www.janelindskold.com.
Jeffrey J. Mariotte is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels, including thrillers Empty Rooms and The Devil’s Bait, supernatural thrillers Season of the Wolf, Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts, horror epic The Slab, the Dark Vengeance teen horror quartet, and others, including works set in the worlds of Narcos, Deadlands, Buffy and Angel, Supernatural, Superman, Spider-Man, 30 Days of Night, The Shield, CSI, NCIS, and more. With partner and wife Marsheila Rockwell, he wrote the science fiction/horror/thriller 7 SYKOS and the video game tie-in Mafia III: Plain of Jars, and has published numerous short stories. He also writes comics, including the long-running horror/Western series Desperadoes and original graphic novels Zombie Cop and Fade to Black. He was VP of Marketing for Image Comics/WildStorm, Senior Editor for DC Comics/WildStorm, and the first editor-in-chief for IDW Publishing. Find him online at www.jeffmariotte.com.
Frog and Esther Jones are a husband-and-wife writing duo from the Olympic Rain Forest. Their work can be found in a number of anthologies. The descendants of both the Lorents and Neilson families are still summoners, and appear in the Gift of Grace series of urban fantasy novels.
Brooklyn born and raised, Derrick Ferguson is the author of several novels, short stories and comics. He says he’s been writing as long as he can remember, inspired from classic pulps like Robert E. Howard to Mad Magazine’s Spy vs Spy. When Derrick was finally able to retire, he focused on full-time writing. He’s written new pulp, westerns, and more, including characters like Dillon, a soldier-for-hire, Hollis P.I., Fortune McCall, and Sinbad the Sailor. “I like telling stories,” he said. “It is no deeper than that.” Derrick is also renowned as a movie reviewer. Read his reviews on his blog, “The Ferguson Theater.” He can be found at dlferguson-bloodandink.blogspot.com and www.facebook.com/derrick.ferguson.566.
Cliff Winnig’s fiction appears in the Escape Pod podcast, as well as the anthologies That Ain’t Right: Historical Accounts of the Miskatonic Valley, Gears and Levers 3, When the Hero Comes Home: 2, Footprints, and elsewhere. Cliff is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop and a three-time finalist in the Writers of the Future contest.
When not writing, Cliff plays sitar, studies tai chi and aikido, and does choral singing and social dance, including ballroom, swing, salsa, and Argentine tango. He lives with his family in Silicon Valley, which constantly inspires him to think about the future. He can be found online at cliffwinnig.com.
Jennifer Campbell-Hicks’ stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge, Fireside Magazine, Daily Science Fiction and many other magazines and anthologies. She lives in Colorado with her husband and children, a dog and a guinea pig. You can find links to her stories and more on what’s coming next at jennifercampbellhicks.blogspot.com.
Alex Acks is an award-winning writer, Book Riot contributor, geologist, and sharp-dressed sir. Angry Robot Books has published their novels Hunger Makes the Wolf (winner of the 2017 Kitschies Golden Tentacle award) and Blood Binds the Pack under the pen name Alex Wells. A collection of their steampunk novellas, Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, is available from Queen of Swords Press. They’ve had short fiction in Tor.com, Strange Horizons, GigaNotoSaurus, Daily Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and more, and written movie reviews for Strange Horizons and Mothership Zeta.
They’ve also written several episodes of Six to Start’s Superhero Workout game and races for their RaceLink project. Alex lives in Denver (where they bicycle, drink tea, and twirl their ever-so-dapper mustache) with their two furry little bastards. For more information, see www.alexacks.com.
Steve Rasnic Tem is a past winner of the Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. His novels include the Stoker-winning Blood Kin, UBO, Deadfall Hotel, The Book of Days, and with his late wife Melanie, Daughters and The Man on the Ceiling. A writing handbook, Yours To Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Writing, also written with Melanie, appeared in 2017 from Apex. His young adult Halloween novel The Mask Shop of Doctor Blaack appeared in October 2018 from HEX publishers. His YA collection Everything is Fine Now recently appeared from Omnium Gatherum. He has published over 430 short stories. The best of these are in Figures Unseen: Selected Stories, from Valancourt Books.
Multiple Scribe and Rhysling Award nominee Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell is the author of twelve books to date. Her work includes Mafia III: Plain of Jars, co-written with writing partner/husband Jeff Mariotte and based on the hit video game; 7 SYKOS, a near future SF/H thriller (also with Mariotte); The Shard Axe series, the only official novels that tie into the popular fantasy MMORPG, Dungeons & Dragons Online; an urban fantasy trilogy based on Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice comic books; a trilogy based on the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess (co-written with Mariotte); dozens of short stories and poems; multiple articles on writing and the writing process; and a handful of comic book scripts. She resides in the Valley of the Sun, where she writes dark fiction and poetry in a home she and her family have dubbed “Redwall.” Find out more here: www.marsheilarockwell.com.
Mario Acevedo is the author of the national bestselling Felix Gomez detective-vampire series, and the YA humor thriller, University of Doom. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies. His work has won an International Latino Book Award and a Colorado Book Award. Mario serves on the writing faculty of the Regis University Mile-High MFA program and Lighthouse Writers Workshops. He is the editor of the anthology Blood and Gasoline, from Hex Publishers. Mario lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.
Betsy Dornbusch is the author of several fantasy short stories, novellas, and five novels, including the Book of the Seven Eyes trilogy and The Silver Scar. She likes writing, reading, snowboarding, punk rock, and the Denver Broncos. Betsy and her family split their time between Boulder and Grand Lake, Colorado.
Stephen Graham Jones is the author of sixteen novels, six story collections, and, so far, one comic book. Stephen’s been an NEA recipient and has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, a Bram Stoker Award, and four This is Horror Awards. He’s been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award a few times, and he’s currently a finalist for a World Fantasy Award. He’s also made Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Freelance writer, novelist, award-winning screenwriter, editor, poker player, poet, biker, roustabout, Travis Heermann is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Work
shop and the author of The Ronin Trilogy, Rogues of the Black Fury, and co-author of Death Wind, a horror-western novel and screenplay set in the same universe as “Blood Lust and Gold Dust.”
His short fiction pieces appears in anthologies and magazines such as Apex Magazine, Alembical 4, the Fiction River anthology series, and Cemetery Dance’s Shivers VII. As a freelance writer, he has produced a metric ton of role-playing game work both in print and online, including the Firefly Role-Playing Game, Battletech, Legend of Five Rings, and the MMORPG, EVE Online.
He enjoys cycling, martial arts, torturing young minds with otherworldly ideas, and monsters of every flavor, especially those with a soft, creamy center. He has three long-cherished dreams: a produced screenplay, a New York Times best seller, and a seat in the World Series of Poker.
