Rule number one while working security in a boomtown: a living roughneck does more work than a dead one. Rule number two: there’s plenty more waiting to take his place.

Eight saloons-turned-speakeasies flecked a slapdash shanty town as it, in turn, choked the muddy streets of Breckenridge, TX. Born from the roughnecks’ constant efforts to hold back mud while bringing forth oil, the bars aggravated the once quaint cattle village like horse flies on a dead calm day. Save it was night, and the last of the biting flies had stiffened and dropped in a hard frost around Thanksgiving. Prohibition had failed even a piss poor semblance of the cold’s effectiveness.

Then again, I reckon public drunkenness and the nitro-blasting of liquid gold from the begrudging Cambrian limestone of Texas’ underbelly rightly go hand in hand. That’s where I come in.

The Bloody Bucket had served as purveyor of intoxicating lubricants to a majority of the J&J Company men for most of the winter. Entering through the back, I had just closed my eyes to begin my mantra when the flap-trapping commenced between an Irishman and a yokel.

“If ya hadn’t a dropped the hammer less than tree seconds after giving ‘er the soup we hadn’t a blown out over two hundred feet a casing, ya flat-headed idgit.”

It hadn’t taken sixteen years experience as a Ranger to know the explosion at Edelstein #6 earlier that day would leave pockets of bitterness and blame only liquor could light off.

“If your foul-smelling excuse for a mother had ever learned you to count higher than the remaining fingers on your left hand, you’d knowed I cleared the torpedo by a full seven ticks.”

The threat of mortality and the loss of pay had drained their tanks of all save the liquor’s fumes. A well-placed insult had sparked ‘em off, and three dozen onlookers served as backdraft, sucking the fetid air from the room. I opened my eyes as a mug full of beer struck the hastily-milled floorboards still dripping with pitch.

“Saint Patrick as my witness, I got a fistful of knuckles on me right, you noodle-armed bastard.”

 Striding toward the ruffians, I registered the nature and range of their motions. Irish led with a predictably slow haymaker, wheeling from too far outside his core. Yokel threw up a block with his left, uppercut with his right. Without focus or force, the blow glanced off both chest and chin.

Having lost his center, Irish stumbled. Flailing his left, he caught an onlooker in the nose, inviting a plus-one to the party. Three strides away a metallic flick honed my senses as Yokel drew a knife. Closing my eyes, I used the back of my lids as photo paper to sear Yokel’s four strike points into my consciousness.

Before me I see a wooden dummy, two dirty bands of cloth wrapped around its top and middle. Opium smoke clings to the walls of my throat and lungs while chirruping Mandarin Chinese packs my ears like molasses and gauze.

Elbows in and muscles relaxed, I focus my forty-year-old frame. Eyes open, the saloon returns. Strike one hyperextends Yokel’s thrusting elbow. He drops the knife. Before it falls six inches, strike two, a vertical-fist straight punch to the solar plexus, stuns him. As the knife hits the floor, strike three, a finger punch to the throat, drops him faster than the knife.

Upset at the intrusion, Irish announces his intentions with an ejaculation of inane banter. Lunging with a left at the back of my head, he barely ducks a wild right from Plus One who cracks his knuckles across the jaw of Plus Two. Invitations are flying faster than I can seat the guests.

I dip and spin, letting Irish’s blow whiff over me while sweeping his feet. Catching him, I bury my knee in his groin before hurling him backwards. He strikes Plus Two, a burly roughneck with tightly wound hair bursting from his neck and sleeves, and bowls him over.

Finally, I charge Plus One, a lanky chap in a butcher’s apron. Temporarily frozen, he fails to utilize his extra reach. With three quick chain-punches, two to his chest and one to his already bloodied nose, the fight’s over. I blink until time resumes its normal pace, filling the room with sound.

That was that. Another normal evening in Breckenridge, another training session.

I bound the wrists of Yokel and Irish with leather straps, indicating they’d be spending the night in jail. Yokel looked to weigh more, so I heaved him onto my shoulder first and left out the front. After returning seconds later, no one had mussed with Irish.

I suspected no one would have, even if I left him there all night. Not that he wasn’t chummy enough, but the tense stances around me conveyed that my reputation communicated what my battered, old body failed to. I yanked Irish up by the armpits and lugged him over my left shoulder just to spread the wear and tear evenly.

With a nod I shoved past the swinging doors. After depositing Irish into the back of the buckboard, I huffed a cloud of breath into the frail night air. The teeth of a norther nipped at hem and collar.

Grateful the fight hadn’t lasted long enough to cause a sweat, I fastened two buttons and lurched up onto the seat. The combination of quick motion and tightening muscles caught me like an electric poke in the eye, flashing a jolt from stem to stern until focusing along the jagged scar under the brim of my grandpappy’s hat, where the pain continued to smolder.

Soothing it through several rounds of mantra, the pain subsided as Irish began to moan from the back. I shook out the numbness and lashed the company mules. Discipline couldn’t keep the devils in the chute forever, but I was determined not to crack just yet.

Trip Jones, of J&J Southern Oil and Gas Company, had served as my boss for the previous eight weeks. Currently, he whistled through his teeth while clenching a cigar stub I figure he’s held there for the greater part of the day. It seemed like an occupational hazard for an oil man, but he bore the daily burnt nub as a matter of pride or a gesture of scorn. Which, I never could be sure.

He removed it to eject a bit of sodden paper, before lodging it back in place. “You sure know how to frack skulls, McCutchen. And not even a scratch on ya.” Reclining in his chair, he thumped the brim of his hat. “How many does that make this week?”

I cracked the vertebra at the base of my neck and made an effort to smile. “I reckon the same number that deserved it.” My smile may have lacked verve, so I added, “Just doing my job” and crinkled my left eye. The right one didn’t function properly anymore.

Hooting in delight, he swatted his thigh with his ten-gallon hat before flopping it down on his desk. “And a damn fine job you’re doing, I might add. But,” he dropped the cheesy grin, “you might a guessed I ain’t invited you to the office to chat over mundane niceties.”

“Yessir.” I leaned forward, glad to be getting to the point.

“J.T. McCutchen III.”

I nodded and scowled.

“If I ain’t missed my guess, the J stands for John.” He raised a brow, waiting for me to acknowledge, but I didn’t. “Son of John T. McCutchen II of Ranger, Texas?”

The mention of the old man together with the town named after my grandpappy tilled my dirt. “I’ve been known as such.”

“Hey, a man’s family is his own business, and I don’t mean nothing personal by it.” Trip tugged at the loose flap of skin above his Adam’s apple. “I just needed to know if you were him.”

“I am.”

“Alright, then you deserve to know trouble’s coming the way of your old man worse than a tornado in a tent town.”

I didn’t like his smugness—like he was doing me a favor. “You know this?”

He nodded. “I like you, McCutchen. So I’ll cut the crap.”

“Why don’t you.”

He grinned. “I want the leases to your father’s land.” He sat up. “I’m sure you know it’s dead center of the richest oil in Ranger. Hell, anyone with his head halfway out his butt knows that field’s running dry, but there’s still several million in the ground resting right underneath the McCutchen ranch.”

I adjusted my hat and made to stand.

“Now hold on, lest you get the wrong idea.” He narrowed his eyes until I settled back in. “This ain’t about acquiring those leases, not entirely.” His smug look returned for a flash. “I know for a fact that some of my, shall we say, less savory competitors, have been making runs on your family land already. And let me be crystal clear.”

He drummed his fingers on the desk. “When I say I want those leases, I’m being gentlemanly. The competitors I’m referring to are as subtle as a prickly pear up your britches leg. They’d just as well drill 3,000 feet after burying your father six. The word in the wind is they done already tried, but he’s burrowed in like a tick with teeth.” He looked me in the eye, sincere about what he was saying.

“I thank you for the heads up.” I stood.

“Like I said, a man’s family is his own business.” He stood as well. “You done right by mine, so now I’m giving you space to take care of yours. Take as much time as you need.” He stuck out his hand and I shook it. “But you heed my words.” He squeezed hard, displaying the iron grip of a man who hadn’t always sat behind a desk. “These competitors are nasty folk with a taste for blood. It’ll take more than a few fractured skulls to back ‘em off.”

I rubbed the scar under the brim of my grandpappy’s Stetson, reliving the moment the business end of a shovel had left it there. “Same’s been said about me.” I turned to go.

Trip Jones, always the business man, restated his interest as I hit the front door. “If you could talk some sense into your father while you were at it… Some of them millions should rightfully be yours, is all I’m saying. Take care, McCutchen.”

I nodded before shutting the door and turning to face the starlit sky of what would be a sleepless night. But a ride over rough country in the dark would be a cakewalk compared to seeing my old man.

Night hadn’t gotten any darker, nor winter any colder. I’d gotten older. Sleeplessness and I had been acquainted my whole life, but now it took more work to overcome its toll. The first leg of the ride unfolded across flat land via a rutted dirt road, so I gave Chester the reins and focused my mind and body with exercises.

It felt good to be riding somewhere with purpose, even if I didn’t want to think about the confrontation waiting at the end. Instead I tested the balance of my Colts, spinning them palms up then down, forward and back. Elbows in, I closed my eyes and imagined the spinning barrels as extensions of my strikes, until the time came to leave the road west of Caddo. With a sigh, I cut a straight path south.

A man can kill the past and bury it. But time turns everything to oil, and sooner or later, circumstance brings it bubbling to the surface. While the chill of the norther lashed my back, bitter memories stung my eyes. Ranger lay at the end of the trail. Home.

The town had been named after a camp of Texas Rangers, my grandpappy chief among them. While the area was still a village, he’d bought the land surrounding the old campsite. After retiring, he settled there to finish raising his family.

Slowly, Chester picked his way through mesquite and prickly pear. The invasive species had invaded swaths of rolling hills that used to be covered in hard woods and stirrup high grasses. It was exactly the kind of bull plop my father preached on; overgrazing, over-logging. It didn’t surprise me in the least he’d refused the wildcatters, millions be damned.

I’d forsaken Ranger to follow in my grandpappy’s footsteps, but then the Rangers had forsaken me. Now I was coming full circle, and for what? To convince an old bastard who quit everything he ever started, save the damn ranch, to quit that too? I had no choice. He was my father.

Chester and I peaked Ranger Hill as lavender and gunmetal-pink streaked the eastern horizon a half hour before the sun would pull back the covers on a Texas encased in hoarfrost. Two hours earlier the winds had died without delivering a single puff of cloud. Instead the stars bled into the stillness until the back of my duster crackled with it.

Of course God would take the old man’s side, conspiring against me. The stark contrast between the silhouettes of clanking derricks and the crystalline skeletons of oak choked the bitterness in me. The constant popping of the two-stroke pump jacks, shattered what should have been a quiet thick enough to drown a man.

But I still had nagging questions. Questions God wouldn’t, or couldn’t answer, and that my old man sure as hell better. After sixteen years, he was about to get his chance.

Suddenly, instinct took over. The perimeter fence to the family ranch had been cut and rolled back. Dismounting, I slapped Chester twice on the neck, instructing him to get out of sight but stay alert. I shifted my bandana over my nose and mouth while making my way to a juvenile stand of live oak growing in the fence. Normally my father would never allow anything to clutter his fence line.

With no pump jacks nearby, the early morning fell quiet. Whoever had cut the fence had gone through it. Not expecting anyone else from the outside—they’d be more worried about their fronts than their backs. Good news for me.

Seconds later I stooped to inspect tire tracks left in the mud. Two distinct vehicle treads, weighted down with either men or equipment, had been in and out more than once. That changed things, a little. I whistled for Chester, who loped into view instantly.

“Time to go to work, boy.” He snorted his readiness. A blind New Yorker couldn’t have lost the tracks, but I knew where they were headed anyway. We loped as quickly and silently as we could toward the house, not knowing whether the men in the autos had just come or already gone.

Five minutes later the old home station, a half dozen buildings, corals and a large garden plot, sprouted out of a stand of stately pecan trees. Without pause, we loped straight for the house. I stroked Chester’s mane before gripping the horn and making a running dismount. Two targets were better than one when charging an unknown enemy.

Stiff and old, I fumbled the landing and rolled once before regaining my feet. A quick glance right showed no movement. On the left Chester continued his stride, fading wide in order to circle the structures before finding me, hopefully still in one piece. Not knowing whether the enemy was in front, behind or both could make things a mite tricky.

So far so good. The lack of autos, no doubt my father still relied on the same ancient tractor and buckboard, started me thinking the coast might be clear—unless they’d stashed them in the barn.

Just like that, the morning’s first powder ignited the chill air at the same moment the sun ignited the sky. A flash and roar burst from a window in the main house. It’s immediate and hollow echo indicated I’d been the target, and it hadn’t been a warning shot. With a sharper jolt than I would have liked, I dove shoulder-first and rolled into a hedge of mountain juniper my father had trained two decades ago.

No idea of the shooters’ numbers or their arms, very few options readily presented themselves. The sun sparked the eastern horizon behind me—the thin, yellow-gold orb still tangled in brush. Maybe using the rising sun to blind anyone trying to shoot me was a brilliant idea. Or maybe I was just pissed off.

Holstering both Colt .45 Flat Tops, I hurdled the hedge and made for the clapboard garden shed at a full sprint.

On the evenly packed soil of the garden path, I prepared this time for a more graceful landing. Five feet from the shed, I threw my leg out like a ball player sliding into first. The moment my backside struck the dirt, the corner of the shed exploded into splinters above me. I shielded my face as my foot struck the clapboard base and popped me upright behind a structure in which I was rapidly losing confidence to sufficiently slow lead projectiles.

Then the truth struck. The shooter had waited patiently for me to reach my destination, targeting the shed rather than a moving object. He knew his surroundings and had been watching for intruders.

“Dammit, Dad! It’s me,” I swallowed hard. “Junior!”

 No response. If I was wrong, I had just given ‘the competition’ both additional leverage and inclination to kill me. I vaguely recalled one of my father’s sermons from my childhood. Something to do with killing the landowner’s son, who was supposed to represent Jesus, in order to lay claim to the land. But Jesus was a quitter, like my old man.

“It’s J.T.! You already know I’m alone and came on horse.” I took a deep breath. “But hear this. If you ain’t my old man, alone or no, I’m sending you to hell at the count of three. One!”

Okay, so telling the enemy exactly what you plan on doing and when may not sound like the best of plans, but in situations like this it’s all about projection and fulfillment. “Two!” Some might call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I call it desperate. But deliver on your promise just once and the payoffs keep coming.

I opened my mouth to shout out the number three, mentally preparing to round the same exploded corner of the shed I had just ducked behind. Hell, I’d been shot over a dozen times. But I was willing to bet whoever held the piece inside my daddy’s house hadn’t been shot once, and didn’t want to be. “Three—”

“Hold your horses, young’un.”

At the sound of a thickly accented woman’s voice, I tumble from behind the shed. In an effort to redirect my aborted charge, I rolled into a furrow and stared up at a sky lit more brightly than my surroundings. “So you know who I am…” I waited for more information.

“I reckon I do! Jer daddy been sick, just a bubblin’ away about dis prodigal son whose comin’ home. I reckon you done be dat son, so git your raggedy ass in here, young man, before I come on out there and drag it in.” Then as an afterthought, “Don’t you think nothing about da gunfire. I done put the guns away da moment you declared all dramatic-like who you was. I swear on a bowl of gumbo, young men and their guns.”

I’d been away, this last time, for sixteen years. A dozen house maids could have come and gone. Her use of the words “prodigal son” rang true enough, and there was no way my father would allow a woman to do his shooting unless he was indeed sick or dead. It made sense. And as a ruse, it was simply too bizarre. Criminals and thugs are generally speaking, stupid.

I got up slowly, dusted myself off and whistled for Chester. He loped in from the north. “It’s alright, boy. We’re home.” He tossed his head while I loosened the girth and slid the saddle to the ground. I stroked my hand over his rump and gave him a good slap, indicating he could take his leave. It was December and cold, but there was still grass to be had. He knew I’d whistle for him if I found some molasses and grain.

As I made for the front porch with saddle in hand, Chester trotted toward a cement tank beneath a windmill. I hoped to find some strong, black coffee for myself.

With the threat to life and limb gone, I felt the anxiety of the moment with sudden force. Now it seemed even sickness had colluded to smother my vindictive gall. For over twenty years I’d envisioned putting my old man in his place, but none of those scenarios involved me riding home, pistols drawn, to help a sick and embattled man protected only by a maid. And where the hell were the hands?

I dropped the saddle on the porch loudly and threw open the door.

“Take your sweet time. I swear, young’uns these days. No respect for their elders. Just a boilin’ away with a fever, no hurry.”

A woman not quite as old as my father and darker skinned than a moonless night shooed me into the middle of the room. After shutting the front door, she barred it. Somehow, without changing the identity or ethos of the three-room house, almost every item in it had been rearranged. It smelled different, better.

I turned to face the rather large woman, more a mound of rolling hills than a mountain, and certainly more of a babbling brook than still waters. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“You still ain’t asked it, Mr. Smarty-Pants.” She stopped for nothing. Brushing past me, she tutted before continuing, “I swear, young’uns these days.”

“Well pardon my prodigal manners—”

“Junior? Son?”

The maid threw back the bedroom door and disappeared inside. “He sure ain’t much to look at, fer all your fussin’. Calm yourself. He’s a tad on da slow side, but he’s a comin’.”

Bracing myself and half-expecting to see an emaciated madman, I strode into the room.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Damn it all. I gritted my teeth. “Nice to see you too, old man.” Physically, he didn’t look too bad—an older, smaller version of myself. Less scars. Then again, some of mine were his fault. He was too pale, his eyes bloodshot.

He started mumbling, maybe to me, maybe to himself. “Not that, not that. That’s not what I meant.”

“I never could figure what you meant. Why should now be any different? I swear, for a man practiced in preaching you ain’t for shit at simple conversation.”

He burst upright, scattering his sweat-soaked covers. A buck-naked, crazy-eyed specter, he screamed at the top of his voice, “And what’s so simple about this! This isn’t right, none of it!” His face spasmed and he blinked faster than a machine gun for a full eight seconds.

“Son? J.T. I knew you’d make it. I knew God wouldn’t let me die yet, not yet.”

I looked from my father to the maid, one eyebrow raised. She shook her head and went about fluffing the pillow. “Some how they both your father, da angry one and da calm one. But they ain’t lived together for these last few weeks. You gonna have to talk to one or da other at da very least. I like me da angry one personally, ain’t quite so mushy as da other.”

I breathed deep. “Dad, I came ‘cause you’ve got trouble. I reckon more than you can handle. Word on the wind—”

He leapt out of bed altogether, naked as the day God made him. “I’ve had more trouble than you could know for these last sixteen years. But that’s over now, ‘cause you’ve come home.” With that he embraced me in the full-on, without a stitch from his Canada to his Mexico. He started to cry, and it was too much.

The whole damn experience felt like opening a dozen-year-old bottle of Lenoir, expecting an explosion of black currant and licorice but getting a mouthful of vinegar and dirt instead. I bolted.

Snatching up my saddle, the natural course of things found me rummaging around in the barn. If any place on the ranch had felt the least bit mine, it had been the barn. The exact opposite of the house, nothing had been moved—every dusty, old farm tool in the same damn spot. Just the way I’d organized it. The fingers of my left hand curled and twitched. I needed a dadgum cup of coffee.

The work bench was strewn with an assortment of leathers and check valves. Face muscles twitching, I swept them to the ground. Hefting a post driver, I smashed the bench I’d built when I was twelve—the year we relocated to the ranch and crushed my mother’s spirit. “I was just a boy, dammit!”

I clutched the driver with white knuckles, delivering another splintering blow to the brittle lumber. “You were her almighty, self-righteous husband. You selfish piece a…” My right eye twitched out of control. Lightning pulsed through my face and neck until the seizure forced me to drop the pipe and stumble to my knees, drunk and blind.

Helpless as a baby, I laid there in the dirt and writhed for untold minutes. When I came to, the air above me sparkled with motes as daylight sliced through unshuttered windows and two dozen jagged holes the size of rifle slugs. The truth burned the back of my eyes worse than any grand mal seizure. Not only had my piss poor father preserved the whole barn as a shrine to his failures, but he’d left off his maintenance weeks ago—before winter hit, and the war began.

I’d been able to decrease the frequency of the treatments, but I doubted I’d ever stop smoking all together. If I wasn’t just a bundle of complexities.

Response still sluggish and muscles working like they were submerged in butter, I pulled myself onto the hay loft and dangled my legs over the edge. After popping open a crusty metal tin and retuning it to the inside pocket of my duster, I lit the marihuana cigarette and held the smoke in my lungs. Exhaling through my nose with my eyes closed, I began to drift. This time I relied on discipline and clarity rather than chaos and weakness.

Trip Jones floated by, dead cigar stub clenched in his teeth, with a smug look on his face. You sure know how to frack skulls. The opium den dojo replaced the front office of J&J. Its toothless proprietor grinned—an Asian man whose body had lost to time and intoxicants, the same skills he imparted to me. Next, the burning timbers of a Mexican medicine woman’s jakal, a searing pain in my hand, an Aztec amulet. Good medicine.

Elizabeth. I fluttered midstream, struggled against the current, before relenting. Elizabeth hovered over me, laughing. Her golden hair sparked and popped like embers before drifting into darkness—the last fireflies of the season. Mother. I whisked my eyes open, cigarette still hanging from my lips. My mother had finally died when I was twenty-one, a year before I finished my schooling at University of Texas.

“Never did take you for da smokin’ type.”

My cheeks puckered, as I reached for my Colt.

“Uh-uh, not dat it bother me none. I used to take a good chew ever now and den, lady-like or no. But John always have a hissy on da matter, yammerin’ on about how there taint no way someone under his employ gonna smoke nor chew. So I gived it up right then and there.”

I quickly overrode my first instinct. Releasing the grip of my .45, I pinched the cigarette and held it out of sight. I could count the number of people who knew I smoked and were still alive on one finger. I never liked big numbers.

She scanned the barn with keen eye before shuffling toward the sideboard with the kettle in her hands. Placing it on the grease and sawdust-laden boards, she sniffed the air. Her eyes bulged slightly, a tell that she recognized the tang distinguishing marihuana smoke from tobacco. “But I suppose dat’s why you smokin’. Young’uns these days.”

“I don’t smoke.” I pocketed the remainder of the cigarette. What was I afraid of? That this old maid would tell my father? “Is that coffee?”

“I figured a young smarty-pants might need a slug after his all-night ride. And since you don’t smoke maybe dis can wash out da taste of dat cigarette you ain’t just smoked. Now git your raggedy, lying ass down here before I drink all dis coffee myself.” I obeyed as she poured two steaming cups and continued the one-sided conversation. “No good, lying, disrespectin’ smarty-pants drinking my coffee with out even a thanks.”

“I apologize, ma’am.” I tipped my hat before placing it on the sideboard. “You’re right. Bullets is no excuse for one to forget his manners. I’m J.T. McCutchen III. And I’d be grateful if you could spare a cup of that fine smelling coffee.”

“Well ain’t you proper when you get thirsty?” Hands on her ample hips, she scanned me from head to toe before riveting me straight in the eyes. Finally, she softened. “You’re John’s boy sure enough, uh-huh. Stubborn, self-righteous, persuasive and good lookin’.”

She raised her hand surprisingly fast, in what I figure was an attempt to swat my behind. I blocked it on instinct. “Sassy too. Help yourself, Mr. J.T. Smarty-Pants. I made da coffee for you, so you might as well drink it. But don’t go getting offended if I don’t hang around sipping it with ya like some gun slinging young’un with nothing better to do at nine in da morning. I got a sick one to tend to, shells to reload, and beans that are burning, so you might as well tell me if I gotta get another bed ready.”

I took her gently by the wrist. “I’m staying.”

She sipped from her coffee before nodding. “Good. John needs you.”

I still had no idea who this lady was or how she’d gotten elected for the role she’d taken, but I owed her. “Look, I… thank you. Thank you, Miss—”

“Bougere. Nanette Bougere. But I ain’t no miss. Call me Nannie.”

I nodded. “Nannie. Last thing I want is the beans to burn, but I need to know—”

“Oh, never you mind. I ain’t even started them beans to cooking.”

“Where are the hands?”

“Gone.”

“Who’s been shooting the place up?”

“Other than me?”

“What’s wrong with my father?”

She shook her head. “You wanna know what, or why? As to why, I’ll tell ya, but you ain’t gonna like it. Nobody ever does.”

“I don’t have to like it to do something about it.”

“No, I suppose you don’t. Might make it easier dat way. But I’ll tell ya, it don’t make a lick a sense dat man curse the earth and wonder why the devil comes out to play. But they do it all da same.”

“The drilling? So this is about the oil rights?”

“Rights or wrongs, it ain’t just about da oil no more. Uh-uh. It’s about da curse.”

Bad mojo, a curse of unimaginable strength released to ravage the earth. That was how Nanette explained it in a rather impassioned speech: “It attacked your father straight away. I reckon it’ll leave me alone due to the fact I been destined for hell a dozen times over. But John has a good soul, something da devil can’t stand.”

I sipped my coffee and stepped off the porch to soak in another dazzling night sky. I’d napped during the afternoon so I could keep first watch. The old maid wouldn’t say, but I suspected she hadn’t slept a night through for weeks.

Superstition aside, something had gripped my father in its teeth and torn him up bad. We spoke two other times in broken spurts. Come to find out, that same something had killed the entire herd of cattle. Dad suspected the spring to be the source, said he’d ridden along the seep expecting to find a dead animal or something of the sort. Instead he found dozens.

Holding the tin cup in both hands, I puffed a cloud of breath into the air. Pestilence or curse. Hell, who was I to judge. At the mention of the dead animals—something about the way they’d died—the old man stiffened, shook his fists at the ceiling and shut his eyes. I choked, thinking at first he’d died. But Nanette shuffled in, rolled him over and replaced his bedpan, mumbling all the while. In exchange for me refilling her shells she filled some gaps in my timeline.

I drank the rest of the coffee and left the cup on the porch before heading to the stable to check on Chester. The pair of us had made the rounds before dark to confirm the whole story. A phone had been put in on the edge of the property two years ago, but recently the pole had been cut down. Picked-over carcasses of cattle and wildlife littered the place, but concentrated around the water. Maybe too much oil and gas had leaked into it.

A covey of quail flushed from the rafters as I reached the stable. Maybe the ranch’s overall state of disrepair had set me on edge, or maybe it was the curse, but all the same, I jerked my Colts from their holsters and slid into the moon shadow of the building. After taking a deep breath, the disconnect hit me. What the hell were quail doing in the rafters like a brood of hens? Ground nesters, bobwhite quail only took flight when encouraged to do so.

But who, or what, had done the encouraging? The night held its breath. So did I. Slipping into the stable, I finally exhaled. Whatever flushed the quail to the rafters had stopped short of coming inside. The birds had told me that much. Could have been a coon, or an armadillo. Real trouble would have come most likely with all the subtly of combustion engines and Thompson submachine guns, like it had off and on over the last two weeks.

“Chester.” He stamped the dirt twice in response. But a strange whinny followed. “Goody? That you?” My father kept a range horse and two mules. Goody was so damn old he’d been around since before I left. But this didn’t sound like any of my father’s animals.

“Ranger McCutchen, you’re a hard man to find. Well, not really.”

I swore. “Son of a—”

“Maybe so, but she died when I was little. Something else we’ve got in common.”

“If you’ve got anything to do with this, Lipscomb, I’ll add killing a lawman to my growing list of sins.”

“Nonsense. I’m here on business, same as you. And who says you could kill me if you tried, old man?”

I spun a Colt in my hand, closed my eyes and listened for clues the darkness couldn’t tell me. A weighted belt dropped to the floor with a double thud.

“I stole the double piece idea from you, but the Flat Top is a bit out-dated and cumbersome, don’t you think?”

I didn’t budge.

“Look, I’m in a hurry, but if you want to play for a bit, put down the irons. I’ve heard some good things about your recent efforts at self-improvement. Or was it just about the opium after all?”

“You steaming pile of—”

“Consider it a training session, a chance to put a pup in his place.”

I trusted Sheriff Lipscomb about eight feet less than I could throw him, assuming I could still throw a grown man around seven-and-a-half feet. But he hadn’t come here to kill me, or he would have put a bullet in my back, the same way I would have done him.

Don’t get me wrong, I make it a general rule to kill a man face to face. But a cold-hearted bastard with a taste for blood, you kill him any way you can. With gentlemen like us, any way was the only way. “Alright, but I’m not dropping my cumbersome Flat Tops in the dirt like trail turds. I’m hanging ‘em on a hook as I speak.” 

Lipscomb’s movements must have been masked by my own, because the moment I let go of my belt I felt the air in front of me swell. Bull rush. Too dark to land a punch with accuracy, he’d try for a take down, probably high rather than low. Too late to block, I sagged, relaxing every muscle simultaneously.

The hit came more playful than malicious. He didn’t want to break me, a qualm I didn’t return. Rather than resisting, I embraced gravity and the momentum of the other man, waiting to regain connection to the ground. In a fight, the laws of physics are a friend. You can’t beat ‘em, so the only choice is to join ‘em.

Angling so my shoulders absorbed the blow, we struck the ground and slid. The moment my limp back and buttocks contacted the dirt, I surged with my hips and feet, allowing all the force of his assault to rebound from the unforgiving earth, through me and back into him.

Together we bounced and began to flip, boots overhead. But the separation between us indicated he’d gathered a quicker spin than I. With no connection to the ground, he had no center from which to attack. Arching backwards, I planted my palms in the dirt and threw my feet the rest of the way over to complete the flip. Now I held the high ground, and unlike Lipscomb I didn’t believe in mixing play with work.

But I didn’t want to kill him either, which from here would have been pretty easy. A crushed larynx or shattered solar plexus would have done the trick. A sound like a tearing sack of feed indicated he’d struck the ground. At the last moment, I opted for an improvised blunt chop to his chest with the back of my elbow—just enough to knock the breath out of him.

Instantly, I popped up and hovered over him until he expected another impending blow. “No one’s saying I could kill you. I said I would. Now why don’t I dust your irons off for you while you catch your breath.”

To his credit, Lipscomb didn’t appear to be the type to gloat in victory while taking defeat personal. As soon as he could draw a full breath he complimented me on my form and asked if I could teach him some moves when time allowed. I handed him his stupid-looking bowler and told him to cut the crap.

“Same old McCutchen.”

The two of us stepped out of the stable and into the starlight. The brittle crescent moon had finally topped the trees in the east. “Some things never change. They just get older and less patient.”

“Alright, I got a job for you.” He pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “You mind?”

“About the job or the smoke?”

“Both.” He salvaged an unbroken one and hung it from his lips while fetching his lighter.

“I’ve already got a job.” I scanned the tree line for dark spots indicating more flushed birds.

“My condolences.”

“What for?”

“I hear your father’s sick.”

I sucked a deep breath through clenched teeth. “How the hell would you know that?” In the dark it was impossible to search the man’s expressions for evidence of truth or deception, so I assumed anything he said would be some of both.

“So he is sick?” He flicked the flint to life and puffed. The lighter’s flame revealed nothing but the same poker face Lipscomb always wore.

“In God’s name, yes. This is your idea of cutting the crap?” I started for the house. “I need more coffee.”

“Pale, profuse sweating, fever, sensitivity to light, dementia?”

I stopped cold. “Yes. What do you know, Lipscomb?” For a split second, in the silvery starlight, I swear I saw something kin to fear flash behind his eyes.

“Damn. I’m truly sorry.”

“Spill it.”

He took a long drag, allowing the smoke to escape with his words. “There’s an outbreak, McCutchen. An illness, a nasty one. That’s the job.”

“Hell, I’m no doctor. I know how to kill people, not heal ‘em.” I held my tongue, too late, and shook my head. “Your business is done here. You can see yourself off.” I strode toward the house, faster now, haunted by thoughts of the curse.

“There’s no quarantine for this one, no treatment, no cure,” he continued.

I turned on him. “Like hell. I’m hitching up the wagon tomorrow and taking my old man to the Thurber Clinic to see Doc Quick.”

He scoffed, flicking ash. “Afraid not.”

I closed the gap so he could see my eyes. “We gonna go through this again?”

He didn’t blink. “Thurber’s off limits. Hospital’s a bloody morgue.”

I couldn’t take much more. “You said there wasn’t any quarantine.”

“Not quarantine. A prison, a bloodbath.”

I suppressed a shiver. “Doc Quick’s a friend, and I’m taking my father to see him, come hell or high water.”

“Let the dead bury the dead, McCutchen, or hell is what you’ll find.”

“And what exactly is it that you’re offering, a membership to paradise? You and your power-hungry employers?”

“No, you’re right.” He adjusted his bowler and shook the dust from his jacket. “It’s hell for the two of us either way. But I’m talking about the whole damn state, maybe the country.”

“Bull—”

“You do what you gotta do. See it with your own eyes. By this time tomorrow you’ll know, the only doctor’s instruments the people of Texas need right now are those you’re wearing on your belt.” He puffed an aggressive drag, suddenly in a hurry to be done with it. “But watch yourself. The people coming after your father—it’s not about the oil. Not anymore. It’s about containing the plague. They’ll shoot first, as will the good folk at the hospital. And for God’s sake keep an eye on the old man.”

“And you’re telling me this?”

“People are scared, McCutchen. This thing has gone way past heroes on white horses. Don’t get yourself killed trying to be something you’re not.”

“I’m touched.”

He turned and strode back toward the stables. “Job still stands. You’re the doctor, McCutchen, and the only cure’s a bullet.”

I’m not afraid to tell you, I stood there shivering for a full five minutes after he’d gone, and not because of the cold.

With my dad babbling in the back of the buckboard and Nanette beside me, a quiet and reflective trip was out of the question.

After concluding there wouldn’t be a late night visit from local hooligans, I had dozed for a good hour and woke sometime between five and six in the morning to the sound of Nanette making biscuits. We had packed and headed out before first light.

We chose the old pioneer route from the Ranger camp days that no one much knew about anymore. Blending with the contours of the land, rather than gashing across them, meant more switchbacks and meandering bends. But it also meant a single buckboard would rarely be exposed to a clear line of sight, if any wandering eyes be looking for one.

The Thurber hospital had been built ten years earlier midway between the largest mining town in Texas and what had become the largest oil boom in the nation, in and around Ranger. The location seemed prophetic. Maybe it had been one of those self-fulfilling kinds.

Top of the line facility. I’d been there once, a few years earlier, to visit my father-in-law, Doc. Elizabeth and I had only been married a couple of years, but I stayed in touch with the old-country-vet-turned-people-doctor more regular than the rest of my family. Save his love for Model Ts, he’d stayed true to the values of an older era—one I still preferred.

A couple miles from the facility, we spotted our first signs of trouble—a roadblock perched where the wagon path crossed Highway 1. The new state highway had bypassed the company town of Thurber, private rail the only way in or out, while including the hospital on its route to Ranger. The implications meant Texas Pride Energy, the company that built the hospital and owned Thurber along with much of Ranger, was either cocky, reckless or as powerful as they projected. At present it meant a rough couple of miles for me and my dad.

“Just like we planned. All I need is a head start, then you get clear.” Before I crawled into the back of the wagon to lie down next to my father, I looked Nanette in the eyes. “You sure you can get back on your own?”

“Hell yes. What, you think I can’t walk? I was born ‘fore horses were domesticated.”

She took the driver’s seat as I pulled the blanket over me. Drenched in sweat and radiating heat, my father came to when I touched his side. “Junior? J.T., what are you doing here?”

“Don’t worry, I’m taking you to see Doc Quick. It’s not just you. There’s been an outbreak. He’ll know what to do.”

“It’s the land son. The land’s fighting back. The water, the soil. The company’s poisoned it, now it’s poisoning us.” It was one of the most cogent things my father had said since I arrived, even if it was hogwash. “I’ve seen things son, things that won’t let me live.”

Voices hailed us. “Hush now, Dad. Nanette’s gotta work her magic.” I laid my hand on his chest to quiet him. The rate of his heart beat startled me, faster than a caged rabbit.

“Oh Lordy!” Nanette wailed. “I got myself a troubled pregnancy here. Young girl all but gave out, and da baby still won’t come. Please, good sirs. Gotta git ourselves to da’ hospital lickety split.”

“Not possible, ma’am.” A cold voice returned. “Quarantine for influenza. No one in or out.”

“Oh Lordy, a sick baby is better dan a dead one.” The buckboard pitched as Nanette jumped off to plead her case. I hoped she’d trained these mules as well as she claimed. Without pause she clucked her tongue loudly, the cue for the mules to carry on with or without her. “Surely ‘ere’s room in dis big bad world for one more little baby!” We were moving again, the mules carrying on without a driver just as the maid had said they would.

“Ma’am! Your wagon!”

“Oh, tis a miracle! The Lord is driving da mules now. Surely tis a sign he deems to spare my niece and her little unborn angel.”

“You need to stop that wagon, now.”

“Do I look like some kind a athlete to you?” She seemed to be enjoying everything a bit too much. “I suppose you boys better help me run it down.”

I lifted the corner of the blanket enough to illuminate my father’s face with the early morning light. “Hang on, Dad. Things are gonna get bumpy.” I counted to three and leapt out to take the reins.

“Hey! Hey you!”

I cocked my head to see how much trouble would be on us, and how quick.

“Stop that wagon!”

The only two guards were still giving chase on foot. Through the corner of my eye I caught Nanette already beating a retreat. “Hyah!” I slapped the reins, kicking the mules up from a walk to a smooth lope, another sign of their top-notch training. The guards swore, and I figured it a good time to duck. Precisely then, bullets whizzed overhead, kicking the mules into full speed.

They’d be coming. It would take time to get back to their Model Ts, but not enough. Nanette had gotten us half way there, I’d have to buy the rest.

“Junior!”

I turned to see my old man creeping out from under his covers like death’s spindly pet.

“It wasn’t either of our faults.” His shriveled frame bounced and tossed with the jolting movements of the wagon.

“For God’s sake, get down and hold on.” I was trying to think of a way to get us to the hospital in one piece.

“It’s for God’s sake I’m talking to you now, son.” Quivering and weak, like a newborn calf sloughed from the womb, he flopped into the seat beside me. “Your mother’s death, it wasn’t either of our faults.”

A coil sprang in my gut. “Really? We’re gonna talk about this now? After twenty years of neglect, you’re gonna bring this up right now?”

“Now or never, son.”

The whine of a revving combustion engine caught up with us as two Model Ts sprang into view, closing the gap fast.

“I suppose it was God’s fault then?” Superstitious old bastard wasn’t any different than Nanette or the rest.

“In a matter of speaking, yes.”

“So you quit on him, like you did with the rest of us? Is that it?” The highway was smooth and straight, the Model Ts less than a hundred yards behind.

“I never quit on any of you.”

“Like hell. Mother loved the faith so damn much. It was everything to her. When you quit the Church it killed her.” After nearly twenty years I had finally said it. I’d finally laid the blame for my mother’s death squarely where it belonged.

“I know you want to believe that, son. Hell, I believed it for a time. You’re right about one thing. I did quit the church. But what you’ve never understood, is that God and the Church are two separate things.”

“Sure. The Church is full of all the idiots who worship him.” As much as I wanted to focus on putting my old man in his place, I knew the impending forecast for flying bullets was somewhere north of fair to middlin’. I just didn’t know how many bullets to expect.

“In that, we agree more than you know.” A violent coughing fit interrupted him. I took the opportunity to check the progress of the Ts—thirty yards and closing. Finally he continued in a weaker voice than before. “In the end, your mother understood. I couldn’t serve an institution that no longer believed its own founding documents or values. We didn’t belong in that church any more than God did.”

“You know what I don’t understand? How do you justify making decisions about what everyone else gets to believe?” Machine gun fire sprayed across the back of the wagon, answering my question from earlier. Lots of bullets.

“It’s called the truth, son. Whether you believe in it or not. I thought you would have understood that much, being so black and white as you are.”

“Since you’re so full of beans, take the reins so I can save your self-righteous ass.” I tossed the reins in his face and leapt into the back of the wagon.

Kneeling, I tore two strips of cloth from the blanket and wrapped the palms of my hands. I knew what I was about to do would hurt a hell of a lot more than continuing this abysmal conversation. But at ten yards away I figured the chance of machine gun bullets hitting their target was about straight odds with me hitting mine. Good thing I don’t gamble.

Two full strides and I launched off the tailgate of the buckboard. Briefly I caught the expression on the driver’s face—the one that said “I’ve never believed in God or devils, but I think it’s time to start.” Maybe I’ve made more believers out of men than my father after all.

I floated for an eerie split second, preparing my mind and body for the collision. Knees bent slightly, I impacted the top of the grill feet first, absorbing as much of the blow as the muscles and tendons could stand without tearing. The brakes squealed as the car began a subtle slide. Crumpling into a ball I let my knees strike my chest, absorbing more of the blow. Then tumbling head first I shattered the windshield with my buttocks before clutching the roof of the T with both hands.

Despite the cloth wrapping, glass cut into my palms. The auto bounced, in danger of losing control and killing us both. Once again taking advantage of the laws of physics, I swung my body over the driver’s side of the car and let the force of the slide push me through the opened window and into the seat. Clocking the driver in the chin with my boot, I shoved him out of the way long enough to stabilize the vehicle.

The shock having worn off, he took a swing at my face. Ducking, I let him crack his knuckles on the back window before delivering a headbutt to his nose. Effective as it is messy, he grunted and fell limp. I kicked the passenger side door open and shoved him out. He landed poorly, the second Model T barely missing him. This was where it would get fun.

The second driver had hesitated until he spotted his buddy flopping in the road like a fish tossed on shore. That seemed to clarify his predicament—the new directive being something about killing me. Each driver carried a Tommy Gun. One of them lay on the seat beside me while the other unleashed a torrent of shattered glass and buckling metal in a burst of bullets.

Maybe I think better with my head between my legs, or maybe I just couldn’t see the wooden crate labeled “dynamite” from any other vantage. But once the idea had come, there was no going back. Yanking open the crate, I dumped its contents on the seat with one hand and fetched my lighter with the other.

Lightning fast, I tossed a handful of sticks out the window for later, flicked the lighter to life and lit the closest fuse I could find. Slamming on the brakes with one foot while kicking the driver-side door open with the other, I waited for the impact to come from behind. As the pursuing Model T slammed into the rear bumper, I sprang from the seat.

Tucked into a loose ball, I struck the dirt road butt-side first, protecting the back of my head with my hands. Over the melding sounds of my body impacting the road, squealing brakes and grinding metal, a feral screeching and skull-fracking rumble subsumed me. A hot blast accelerated my roll, tossing me into the ditch.

After rolling over a dozen times, I came to a stop face down. Maybe it hadn’t been fun so much as satisfying. But immediately my thoughts shifted to my father. If the wagon had been too close to the explosion…

I hefted my chest off the ground with effort and scanned the scene. Apparently, Model Ts were built pretty solid. The majority of both chassis had remained intact, only the top of mine completely gone. Beyond both smoldering autos, I spotted the wagon. I exhaled. My father had reined the team of mules off the road, and was leading them around to pick me up. Tough old bastard wasn’t dead yet.

I stood slowly and checked for damage, finding nothing worse than superficial cuts on my hands. I’d have Doc stitch ‘em up if they needed it. Limping slightly, I backtracked to pick up the sticks of dynamite I’d tossed out of the T. If the company kept security two miles away, there’d be even more at the front gate.

For the first time, I wondered if they’d allow Doc to see patients at all, and what I could do to encourage them to reconsider. It was uncharacteristic to not plan things through, but my father had always rattled me.

“You think those men were ready to die?” Dad coughed as he dropped the reins to scoot over.

“Ready or not, I sure as hell ain’t.”

“That’s the problem, son.” He looked me in the eyes, his whole body trembling uncontrollably. Something vast and terrible was dragging him down, yanking him below the surface. Maybe only his arrogance allowed him to keep coming up for breath. He continued, “I’m ready. Your mother was ready.”

I slapped the reins gently. Less than a mile away, no doubt the hospital had heard the explosion. “Picking up where you left off, I see. But wait, weren’t you lecturing me about the truth?”

He clutched my arm, grip like an eagle’s talon. “Weren’t you accusing me of killing my wife? What the hell do you know about the truth? Dammit, son. You’ve used one lie all these years to hide from an even bigger one.”

On the cusp of a closet full of bones, I snapped. “Why did you leave the barn exactly the way it was?”

He paused, looking concussed by the question. “It was the way you left it.” He blinked, sheltering his eyes from the sun. Just when I thought he’d gone under again he continued. “Son, I never quit on you. You quit on me. I’ve waited all this time for the chance to say I’m sorry. To tell you it wasn’t your fault. I hurt so much after your mother’s passing, I never realized what I was doing to you.”

I applied two fingers to the pressure point at my temple, my eye twitching gently. “Why are you saying this?” My mind had bitten down hard in effort to numb the pain.

“I’m telling you what you’ve always needed to hear—since the first time you came back, just days after your mother’s death. I know now what I should have said then.” His lungs began to gurgle as he spoke. The muscles in his face and jaw jerked, making each word harder to form than the last. “It wasn’t your fault. She died from a weak heart, a physical condition. She’d had it since before you were a notion. Nothing would have changed, son, whether you stayed or left. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I…” My hand fell from my temple. I wanted to argue, to take offense at such a brass assumption. Instead, my hands shook. A burning swelled behind my eyes, none like the seizures that had gripped me my whole life, but of a different sort.

Struggling silently, I gave in and the door burst open. What had been a closet full of bones burst into dazzling flame before my mind’s eye. In an instant it’d changed to the gentle humming of my mother’s voice as she held me close on the way to Sunday service.

For the first time in twenty years I didn’t want my father to die. All but dragged under and done, I clasped him in the only embrace I could remember us sharing as men. His ribs dug into mine as the pounding of his heart nearly split the man in two.

And the next words came harder than any others I’ve spoken, knowing full well that once they’d left my lips, there would be no others between us. “I know. It weren’t yours neither.” His grip slackened. “I love you, Daddy.” I choked on the words while lowering him gently into the back of the wagon and covering him with blankets.

I pulled up on the team one hundred yards shy of the hospital gates. The facility resembled an abandoned military base more than an active medical clinic. Sloppily-strung barbed wire littered with newspaper and tattered clothing encircled the perimeter. An unpainted guard booth blocked the drive.

My father was still alive, and nothing on heaven or earth was going to stop me from getting him to Doc.

Slow and steady, I rolled up to the gate. As far as the guards knew, I had permission to be here. Right? But Lipscomb’s words about the hospital folk shooting first kept replaying in my mind. I hailed them before they had a chance. “Supplies! Got a wagon load for the hospital.”

Irritated, the less glossed-over guard of the pair sidled out from behind the booth where they’d built a fire in a metal drum. “What supplies?”

Still thirty yards out, I turned sideways as if fetching a manifest or a sample and kept my face averted the whole time the mules closed the gap. “I got a list here somewhere. How the hell am I supposed to know, a bunch of medical junk.”

“What’s up with this getup? Where’s the truck?”

“Broke down, I suppose.” Hiding my movements with my duster, I flicked open my lighter and lit a bundle of dynamite.

“Hey, hold up. Let’s have a look. Maybe there’s something Jed and I could use.”

“Ah, found it!” Just as the mules pulled up beside the booth, I looked the guard in the eye for the first time. I gave him the same smile I’d given Tripp Jones a couple days before, with much the same failed effect. What was it about my smile?

Or maybe it was the hissing triple sticks of dynamite I held in my outstretched hand. “Got any use for these?” Tossing the explosives over his head, I lashed the mules and stood. “Hyaw! Hyaw!”

Obediently, they thundered across the fancy parking lot, paved with Thurber brick. The morning sun had melted just enough frost to make the surface slick. As the team skirted what had once been planters filled with roses, the wagon’s wheels began to slip.

On cue, the dynamite detonated, ripping the guard booth apart and catapulting splintered pine planks overhead. Spooked, the mules barreled down on the front doors at full speed. Plunging my boot between the horses’ rumps and the head of the wagon, I snapped the pole.

Without rigid connection to the team, the wagon yanked on the tugs unevenly, causing the animals to stumble and slip. Leaping onto their backs, I unclipped the slack tug first, barely clearing my fingers before the leather harness snapped taut while loosening on the opposite side.

The building only yards away, the weight of the wagon and the force of our turn continued to pull the whole damn lot of us into a broadside collision. Shifting to the back of the left mule, I unclipped the final tug. Finally free, the team regained traction and heaved out from under the building’s shadow.

Leaping from the animal’s back, I cringed as the buckboard buckled against the brick and glass of the hospital entrance, my father still inside it. Then I hit, feet and knees first. Grating across the surface of the brick pavement, I came to a stop against the base of the hospital wall.

Surging toward the wagon, I tugged a .45 free from its holster. Any human life threatening that of my father’s would be worth the cost of a single bullet, no more, no less. But the doors had been temporarily barred by wagon debris.

With the front wheel shattered, the wagon had tipped and deposited the old man, still bound in blankets, right on the front stoop. Moaning lightly, his heart and lungs rattled like a snake’s tail. “Come on, Dad. I’m taking you to see Doc.”

I lugged him over my shoulder and kicked the door in, bristling both irons. “Doc Quick, now! Anyone else come closer than thirty paces and they’ll be your last.” A stiff electricity fizzed between everyone in the lobby, melting boots in place. “Ten seconds and I start shooting everyone not looking for the doc.”

I drew a bead on the forehead of the nearest armed individual, an out of place cowboy with an angry look on his face. Still no one budged. “For God’s sake! Is this a hospital or not?” Finally, several folk scurried off in every direction. I hoped at least one had intentions of finding Doc Quick.

The lobby fell quiet, revealing soft sounds from deeper within the facility. Without the bustle of activity the room depended on, distant grisly horrors seeped into it—none of them human, save echoing footfalls. What the hell was this place?

Counting the ticks, I narrowed my eyes at the cowboy—boots still planted firmly in place, hand hovering over his hip. The visible bulge beneath his jacket telegraphed his intent. The couple guards I’d seen earlier had either run or taken cover. But this one had a taste for blood. Have it your way.

“Ten.” I squeezed the trigger smoothly. His steely look of anger fizzled as lead buried into the meat of his thigh, dropping him unevenly to the hospital floor, his pistol still in his belt. The deafening roar of my .45 flooded the tight confines, gratefully washing away the horrors for several seconds, replacing them with a more pleasant ringing.

The cowboy clutched his leg. Dragging himself toward the counter, he left a slick trail of bright red. “Someone help him. He’s a little slow with his numbers, that’s all.” An orderly emerged hesitantly until I lowered my weapons. “Just remove his pistol and slide it over. Then take him and get the hell out of my sight.” Seconds after the orderly and cowboy had gone, Doc emerged from a mechanical lift. “Doc.”

One look at us and he started barking orders like he ran the place. “Stop gawking, you dipsticks, and get this man a gurney, dammit.” No one else wanted to be in charge, so they took to his orders fast enough.

“Hell, J.T. What happened?” Doc strode to help me, but the look on his face said he didn’t need or want an answer.

“You gotta help him.” I lowered my father onto the gurney, while the man who’d brought it disappeared.

Doc shook his head as soon as the blanket fell away from my father’s face. “John. Not you, John.” He stood there and shivered.

“Doc?”

“There’s nothing I can do, J.T. It’s the twitch.” He locked me with his eyes, dripping with grief and apology. “It’s taken him. And there ain’t no coming back.”

“Doc.” The same pinch burned behind my cheeks and in my chest. “I got him here. Just have a look.” He relented, going through the motions. He slipped the stethoscope from around his neck and into his ears.

Leaning close to my father’s face, he brushed the small, metal disk against his chest. With the touch, my old man’s eyes shot open, a snarl on his lips. Never in all my days had I wandered closer to the gates of hell than those two lust-filled eyes. Whatever the twitch was, it had consumed my father already, and was hungry for more.

Frightfully fast, the old man’s brittle frame snapped taut, muscles jerking his head and arms off the gurney. He latched his jaw onto Doc’s collarbone with a grinding fury. And what happened next, just happened—a trained reflex.

The shot had been at such close range, powder burns scarred the fringes of the opening where his heart exploded in his chest. Doc clutched my father’s limp body in his arms, a warm, red mist covering his face. He looked up at me, my ears still ringing, and mouthed three words, “It’s a prison.” His eyes darted toward the front entrance, and I gathered his meaning clear enough.

“I’m taking him with me.”

Doc nodded at the same time he shoved the gurney toward the doors. “Hold your fire!” He turned toward the others who were watching from their hiding places and waved his arms.

I pushed the gurney with my butt, backing out the way I’d come as fast as I could while keeping my irons trained on anything that moved. But I didn’t need to pull the trigger again that day.

Two hours later, after hooking the mules in tandem and tying my father’s shriveled shell on the back of the second one, I found Nanette resting on the edge of the property. Her eyes sank when she spotted us, but she never asked or spoke of the happenings of that morning beyond her own involvement. I got down and walked, letting her ride the rest of the way to the house.

As hard-headed as my father had ever been, Nanette couldn’t be convinced to leave with me. She wanted to carry out my father’s last wishes, make sure the land remained free of development and exploitation. I promised her I’d send backup within a few days, and that I’d resolve the transition of the land legally into my name. And then leave it just the way it was.

But the thing that had taken my father in the end, the demon curse both Nanette and Lipscomb had tried to warn me about, posed an even larger threat. For all that Doc wished he could have done, he managed one thing.

The twitch, he’d called it. And then the one simple sentence. Maybe he meant the hospital was a prison. Lipscomb had certainly indicated as much. But I took him to mean the infection. A bullet wasn’t the cure, but it was release. Freedom from a hell no man deserved.

My father said he’d seen things that wouldn’t let him live. Well so had I. But at a certain point, a man’s got to accept it’s either him or the bones.

Dark settling again, this time under a warm wind from the south, I tugged my bandana over the lower half of my face and stroked Chester on the shoulder. All afternoon I’d mulled over something my father had often told me. “Life isn’t black and white, son. Someone isn’t either all guilty or none at all. But everyone’s guilty.”

Taking a last look at the place where my dreams of being a Ranger had sprung to life, I willfully left the memory of being one buried there with my father. He’d been right about my mother. I’d been so busy blaming him, I didn’t realize I’d carried that burden myself. And in the end, her death was neither of our faults.

But about the other, I couldn’t take his words to heart. For a man who has the courage to look life in the teeth, everything is black and white. Any prophecy can be the self-fulfilling kind, if you fulfill it yourself. And Lipscomb had most certainly hit the nail on the head. Eventually, it would be hell for the likes of me, but I wasn’t ready yet.