Black Mesa

Yuma, Arizona Territory, 1883

Hollis lifted the corner of the card that Cyrus had dealt him. One quick peek told him all he needed to know about his current situation; this bluff needed to be convincing. Two kings and a pair of nines wasn’t going to cut it. He let out a thin trail of cigar smoke as he smiled over the stacks of chips on the table.

“That bad, eh?” Cyrus chortled. “Son, you got a lot to learn about bluffing.”

“Fuck you, Cy,” he said, sliding his chips across the table. “I bet you ain’t got shit, anyway. Enjoy your winnings. Maybe buy yourself another shotgun? Anything would be more useful than that damned cavalry saber you insist on dragging around.” Hollis stood up from the table. “Why do you keep that old relic with you, anyway?”

“That old sword serves as a reminder of the man I used to be. Good and bad,” he said. “Never needs reloading, either.”

“Fair point,” Hollis said as he stood up from the table. “Gonna stretch my legs a bit and see if anything is going on down there yet.”

“Suit yourself,” Cyrus called out after him. “The festivities should start soon, anyhow.”

Festivities. Hollis sighed. He and the three other men occupied the second floor of a building above a mercantile. The shop below sold supplies to prospectors. The gold and silver mines were far to the north and east, but Yuma sat on the Colorado River, just sixty miles up from the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. Anyone that wanted to travel by ship to Arizona arrived in Yuma.

Hollis walked up to the window next to Jack. The mid-day sun stung his eyes, so he pulled his hat down over his forehead against the brightness. “I don’t know why they take down the gallows after each hanging. Just as well to leave it standing until the next one. Hell, the sight of it might serve as a deterrent to the rest of the drunken bastards.”

“Yup,” agreed Jack, teasing out a chuckle from Hollis. He respected the man’s brevity. Jack was the newest member of their group and Hollis had never known the man to speak outside of necessity and using the fewest words possible. He didn’t know if that resulted from the circumstances of the death of Jack’s wife and son, or if he had always been a man of few words.

Hollis squinted out into the bright Arizona day. “Anything goin’ on yet?”

“Nope. Them folks down there look alright to us,” he said, patting the side of his Winchester rifle.

Hollis was pretty sure Jack slept next to his cherished rifle every night. He couldn’t think of a time when the Winchester was out of his reach. “Well… ‘cept the fact they’re waiting in hundred-degree heat to watch a man get his neck stretched.”

Jack nodded. “Yup.”

Hollis scanned the gathering crowd. “They think he’s a child murderer. He is… but if they knew exactly what he was, I wonder if they would be more or less inclined to sweat away an afternoon to watch him die.”

Jack didn’t respond, which didn’t surprise Hollis one bit. Nobody would accuse Jack of being talkative. “Keep an eye out in case his friends show up. There’s always more than one.”

Jack shifted his gaze from the scene below to stare into Hollis’s eyes and held the gaze for a few heartbeats, then returned to his vigil below.

“Hey boss, looks like they’re finally bringing him out of the courthouse,” Raylan said.

Hollis checked his pocket watch. It was half-past noon. “About goddamned time,” he muttered to himself as he walked across to the other side of the office to the window, where Raylan watched. Raylan stood a full head taller than the rest of the men in the office and he carried a Winchester rifle similar to the one that Jack carried. But he also carried four Colt revolvers, his preferred weapons. One on each of his thighs, in low-slung gunfighter holsters. Two more tucked into holsters at the small of his back. Soon after Raylan got assigned to their group a few years ago, Hollis had asked him why he carried four pistols when most men only carried one or two at most. Raylan told him he’d never be in a position again where he needed another gun. Hollis wanted to know more, but the haunted look in his eye told Hollis that was all the answer he was going to get, and he understood that.

They watched as the crowd parted to let the sheriff lead the condemned man to the gallows. Hollis knew Raylan and Jack were scanning the crowd, looking for other cultists who might try to free their man. The sight of Joshua sent the ringing in his ears, tinnitus as the doctor told him, up an octave, causing him to wince.

Joshua Werner. Rancher and cultist. Child murderer and soon-to-be corpse.

Three days ago, they received a telegram from the Sanctum. It still amazed Hollis that a message could get sent as a series of beeps through wires across the country. A letter would take at least a week. The modern world and its wonders.

The directives in the telegraph were simple. They needed to proceed to a homestead that lay about a day’s ride to the north. Missing children and suspected cult involvement. As per usual, details about how the Sanctum knew about this were not forthcoming.

The shack that Joshua lived in wasn’t hard to find. Jack kicked in the flimsy door and they found a trapdoor heading down into the root cellar. They arrived just as Joshua was pulling a long knife from the chest of a young boy that was chained to a stone altar. The walls of the cellar were adorned with cult symbols and arcane writing. Guns drawn, Joshua dropped the knife and surrendered to the men. Hollis fought the urge to put a bullet into his head, but there had to be more cultists involved and Hollis wanted them too.

Joshua didn’t speak a word all the way back to Yuma. He sat in the saddle with his hands bound behind him, covered in the boy’s blood and a crazed smile that never left his face. More troubling to Hollis was the look in his eyes. It was as if he was seeing a different world than the desert all around them and whatever it was; it made him happy. Hollis couldn’t wait to hand the crazed, child-murdering cultist over to the sheriff.

There wasn’t a trial and even if there was, the details of the murder wouldn’t get mentioned. Robberies and murders were one thing, but child sacrifices to open a doorway between this world and another realm full of demons and monsters? No, that would not make the official court record. The court had all the evidence of guilt they needed for a conviction, as it was. When the judge asked Joshua to ender a plea of guilt or innocence, he laughed and said, “I was nearly done. A few more boys and the devil could walk among us.” The judge took that as a guilty plea. Joshua would hang the next day.

Joshua looked up at Hollis as they were fitting the noose around his neck. At least it looked that way to Hollis. He didn’t think there was any way he could see through the sunlight reflected in the glass. It seemed like he knew he was watching him.

The gallows were only about 20 yards away, close enough to see that Joshua was working his jaw aggressively like he was struggling with an enormous piece of over-cooked steak. He lurched forward and spat something large at bloody at the crowd, hitting a woman in the face. It only took Hollis a second to realize that he had just watched a man chew off his own tongue.

The crowd gasped. Some screamed. The hangman pulled the gunnysack over his head, which soaked right through with blood. His body contorted with laughter.

The priest took a step back, his Bible slipping from his hand, and looked over at the sheriff, who nodded to the hangman. His shaking hands yanked on the lever and Joshua dropped through the trapdoor.

“Shoulda just shot that fucker back at his ranch,” Raylan said, shaking his head in disgust.

* * * *

The next hour passed in silence until a knock at the door broke it. “Telegram,” the voice on the other side called out. Hollis glanced around the office at the three other men. Nobody got up or met his gaze. Hollis sighed, took another sip from his glass of room-temperature whiskey, and got up. As he walked to the door, he glanced back out through the window, as if expecting to still see the dead man twitching as he hung from his neck.

He pulled the door open to reveal a kid who couldn’t have been a day over twelve, standing at attention wearing a Western Union Telegraph uniform. Seeing the kid in uniform always brought back a flood of memories from the war, but he pushed them down.

“Good evening, young Jasper. What can I do for you?”

Jasper extended his hand towards Hollis, presenting an envelope. “Telegraph for you, Mister Decker.” Then he leaned forward and, in a conspiratorial whisper, added, “I think it’s from Massachusetts again.”

“Well, thank you, young sir,” Hollis said, taking the envelope. “And here’s a little something for your trouble,” he added, placing a silver dollar in his hand.

The twinkle in Jasper’s eyes betrayed his young professionalism. “Thank you, Mister Decker,” he said as he slipped the coin into his vest pocket.

“My pleasure, Jasper. Don’t let your Pa know you got that, okay?”

Jasper’s eyes shifted to the side and Hollis could see the internal debate working its way through the young man’s mind. “Yes sir, thank you sir,” he said.

Hollis patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid. Go on, now.”

The kid took off in a blur. Hollis hoped he was on his way to deliver more telegrams and not to hand over the coin to his Pa, but he knew which would be more likely.

Back at his desk, he sliced open the envelope and took out the paper inside. The kid was right; it was from Massachusetts. Another operation for him and his men to carry out, from the head office of the Sanctum at Danforth College. He read it twice, then folded it and put it back inside the envelope. Then he took a deep breath as he leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples.

“Well… What is it this time?” Cyrus asked.

“Another job,” said Hollis.

Raylan snorted a laugh. “I liked things better before the telegraph arrived. Pony Express suited me just fine.”

“Well, unless someone cuts the wire again, we’ll get our orders just about as fast as they can send them out,” Hollis said, then cocked an eyebrow at Raylan. “Don’t be getting any ideas about that.”

He got up from his desk and walked over to the large map of the Arizona Territory that hung on the wall. “Apparently, the Dalton Gang has gotten real good at robbing stagecoaches,” he said, squinting at the map.

“We’re not the law. Let the local sheriff put together a posse and go after them,” Raylan said from his desk.

“Sheriff Packard and his posse are gone. A dozen men all disappeared. Last seen in Meesville, headed northeast towards Black Mesa,” Hollis said, putting his trigger finger to the place on the map. “Cyrus and I ran into Dalton and his gang down in Antelope Station and I’m sure Cy would agree. None of them had the smarts to pull off anything more than robbing drunks in dark alleys.”

“True,” agreed Cyrus. “I heard the youngest one damn near shot his foot off while trying to draw his pistol during a duel. Too bad the other guy didn’t just finish him off then and there. I don’t think anyone would have faulted him for it.”

“Three stagecoaches,” continued Hollis, “robbed in the last month. No survivors. The last one was a Wells Fargo coach on its way to San Francisco, loaded down with gold from the Stanton mine. Heavily guarded and again, no survivors.”

Raylan let out a long whistle. “Sounds like a job for the Pinkertons, not us.”

Hollis nodded his head. The Pinkerton Detective Agency would be the organization that one would hire to investigate stagecoach robberies. They were an unusual mix of detectives and mercenaries but wholly unfit for this type of work. “Agreed. But that’s the thing, though. Wells Fargo already got the Pinkertons involved and besides all the dead and unaccounted for from the robberies, the armed escorts, and the missing sheriff’s posse, we also have four Pinkerton agents also missing.”

Cyrus stopped his pacing. “What makes the Sanctum think the Daltons have anything to do with any of this? Seems a bit of a stretch to think those imbeciles could pull something like all that off.”

“They left a calling card at each of the robberies. Seems like they are trying to improve their credibility.” Hollis said.

“A what now? Calling card?” Jack asked, getting up from his chair. “What’s a calling card?”

“An actual card. The king of clubs, in this case,” Cyrus said. When he saw the puzzled look on Jack’s face, he added, “in their infinite wisdom and desire to become infamous and get their names in the papers, the aforementioned imbeciles always left a card with each of their victims. The king of clubs. They liked to beat their victims with clubs. Some misguided attempt at being humorous, I reckon.” He turned to Hollis. “Assuming someone found the same card at each of the stagecoach robberies, then?”

“You, sir, are correct in your assumption,” said Hollis, “aside from an actual playing card. Perhaps they ran out of cards, or someone decided they wanted to be an artist. What they found instead was a large letter K painted inside the symbol for the suit of clubs, as I’m sure all you degenerate gamblers would recognize, painted on the side of the stagecoaches. Painted in blood.”

“Well, this just keeps getting better and better,” Raylan said, heading back to the half-empty bottle of whiskey on his desk. He hesitated for a moment, considering whether to pour it into his glass, or just drink from the bottle, then put the bottle to his lips.

Hollis checked his pocket watch. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll take the 7 o’clock train to Phoenix. Then we’ll saddle up and head north until we pick up their trail.”

* * * *

After arriving in Phoenix the next afternoon, they made their way to the livery stable and paid for the use of their four best horses and saddles for a week. On their way out of town, Hollis noticed Cyrus staring at the saloon as they rode past like he was leaving a family member behind.

“It’ll still be there when we get back,” Hollis called out to him.

“I’m sure it will,” replied Cyrus. “I just hope I am.”

The men laughed and headed north, their horses kicking up dust even at a leisurely pace.

They rode until the sun hung low in the western sky and found a good place to set up camp for the night. Raylan tended to the horses while the rest set up camp. Once the fire was burning hot, Hollis raked out some coals with a stick and set the cast-iron pot with the stew he put together on it to cook.

“What do you figure we’re going up against?” asked Cyrus. Hollis hadn’t even heard him come up behind him. He pushed some more coals up against the side of the pot, then stood up to face him.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out since we got the telegram. Could be that the Dalton Gang made some new cult friends, thus sparking the interest of the Sanctum, but cults err on the side of caution and operate in the shadows. But I never seen nor heard of any cult attacking such a large group of well-armed men-“

“Speaking of cultists,” interrupted Raylan, done with the horses and rejoining the group. “We’ve got some unfinished business back in Yuma. Joshua Werner hung for his crimes, but he sure as shit wasn’t acting alone.”

Jack cleared his throat. “And when we find ‘em, we’ll leave ‘em in the dirt.” He was using the point of his Bowie knife to clean some grit from under his thumbnail.

“Agreed,” Hollis said. “I was hoping if we took him in, his cohorts would make themselves known, but they’re not as stupid as the Dalton Gang.”

“Which brings us back to the matter at hand,” Cyrus said. “Exactly what the fuck are we dealing with here?”

Hollis scooped some more coals from the fire next to the stew pot. “Don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”

* * * *

The sun was just peeking over the eastern mountains when the coffee was ready. Hollis poured a cup of coffee. He had slept like shit and he craved the caffeine. The pot of beans and biscuits wouldn’t be ready for a while, so he thought he’d just sit and enjoy the sunrise.

It didn’t last long. The aroma had the others stirring in their bedrolls, and soon all four men were warming up around the campfire, sipping their coffee in silence while breakfast cooked.

It was Jack that broke the peace. “Rest of y’all have bad dreams last night, too?”

That question opened a floodgate in Hollis’s mind, the dreams from last night rushing into his mind. Though they were more memory than dream. That foggy night, almost twenty years ago. Camped with the rest of the 3rd Calvary near Antietam creek. Being on picket duty in the middle of the night in case the Confederates attacked, even though there would be a battle in the morning to stop the rebel advance into Maryland. The rebels liked to fight dirty and his commanding officer was expecting trouble. Hours and hours of quiet darkness shrouded in fog. Then his boredom and sleepiness cut down as if by a cavalry saber. Chaos. Screams from dying men. The smell of blood and bowels. The beating of horse hooves from the rebel cavalry charge and the Union counterattack. Then… something else. It was as if darkness itself took on some indefinable shape that cut down men faster than he could track with his rifle. Panic. Rifle discharged, pistol hammer falling on spent bullets. Then drew his sword, knowing that he wouldn’t live to see the sunrise.

Hollis woke up in a field hospital next to a Confederate cavalry officer and dread that he survived somehow, seized him, only to be taken prisoner by the rebels. Then the tent flap lifted and a short, bespectacled, blood-spattered doctor entered. His coat bore the insignia of the Union Army, quieting his fears.

“You two had quite the night,” the doctor said through a stout German accent. Hollis would later learn his last name was Weber.

Hollis tried to sit up, but the blinding pain in his abdomen forced him back down.

“Sit still and listen,” the doctor said. “You might have figured out by now that your world changed last night. Seen something that shouldn’t exist outside of a nightmare? And that ringing in your ears, the tinnitus… that isn’t from the battle.”

The man next to him, the one wearing the uniform of a Confederate cavalry officer, his sworn enemy, who he would later learn was Captain Cyrus Levesque, sat up. “Fuck you, you goddamned Yankee doctor. Now you give me something to make this humming in my head go away or I will-“

“Sit down.” the doctor said, “and kindly… shut your damn mouth.”

After a moment of silence, which the doctor took as acquiescence, he continued. “This war you’ve been fighting is for the survival of the Nation. But there’s another war, a secret war, that has been going on for thousands of years, and gentlemen, this one is about the survival of all humanity. Very few people today realize that we all owe our existence to a group of ancient Egyptian priests and the best fighters in the pharaoh’s army. Against overwhelming odds, they defeated the cult of Kurexoth and drove them back to the sea, and saved the world from annihilation. I am with an organization that is a direct descendant of those priests and fighters, and we’ve gone by many names over the centuries but are simply known as the Sanctum these days. But one thing remains the same - we need men like you who have seen the enemy and survived to help us in this war. People who have come up against this evil, like the creature that attacked the camp last night, those people end up with a special gift for sensing that evil again that nobody else does,” he said, pointing to his ear.

“After the Egyptians defeated them, the cult went into hiding, but their power and influence continued to grow. Since then, they fight indirectly, starting wars and sometimes summoning monstrosities from the void to help sway battles to their desired outcome. Like they did last night. Their goal is to open a door for their so-called god, Kurexoth, to come into our world, so we do everything we can to stop them. Our scientists and scholars look for ways to stop them and our fighters hunt them down and kill them wherever they hide.”

The doctor crossed his arms and looked at each man. “Now, there are some men from the Sanctum here who would like to talk to you about what you saw last night, and ask for your help in this fight.”

The door flap of the hospital tent parted and two men walked in. They spoke at length and afterward, neither Hollis nor Cyrus needed convincing. After they recovered enough from their wounds to travel, they traveled with the two men to Danforth College, where the secret order was hidden in plain sight and became fighters for the Sanctum. They had left one war and joined another, much older war with far more dire consequences.

* * * *

Meesville turned out to be a waste of time. The town was made up of about a dozen small buildings and every single window had been boarded up like the townsfolk were expecting a hurricane. Most of the doors were too. Cyrus was especially disappointed to find that the one saloon in town was locked up tight. Hollis glimpsed the blacksmith just as he was shutting the doors on the barn. They would not get any answers in this dusty excuse of a town.

They rode out of town and headed East towards Black Mesa. It was late afternoon when they saw the smoke. A thick plume of angry, black smoke rose to the sky over the next ridge. Cyrus and Hollis shared a glance, then urged their horses towards it.

They crested the ridge and surveyed the damage in the valley below them. A locomotive and about a dozen rail cars that had been attached to it lay on its side. The rail cars were a scattered heap of destruction. The coal in the tender had caught fire during the crash and was the source of the fire and black smoke they had seen from a distance.

Bodies, some whole, and others in pieces were scattered all around the wreck.

Hollis took off his hat and wiped the sweat and trail grime from his forehead with his handkerchief.

“Lord almighty,” said Cyrus. “I thought I’d seen my fill of death like that after the war ended.”

“Same here,” said Hollis. He pulled his handkerchief over his nose and the men spurred their horses and followed him down the hill towards the carnage.

They dismounted upwind from the burning tender. The horses wouldn’t settle, so Jack walked them over to a nearby mesquite tree and wrapped their leads around a branch. Raylan headed towards the back of the train wreck and Cyrus headed to the passenger cars.

Hollis stood for a moment, taking in the scene. The steam engine was lying on its side in front of the gash it had left in the earth when it had left the rails. The fire from the tender scorched the paint but otherwise looked intact. Might even be able to be repaired instead of scrapped. The small tender car, which fed coal to the hungry fires of the steam engine, was still burning hot and would most likely continue to burn until the coal burned itself out. Charred remains of vegetation were all around, but the fire hadn’t spread into a wildfire. The dirt was too dry and there was too little brush to ignite. A baggage car that ended up next to the tender was a total loss. The twisted metal frame was all that remained. Another baggage car, plus three passenger cars, rested on the other side of the tracks from the fire and were spared the flames. There were long gashes in the wood that reminded him of the destruction done to trees by bears done in search of honey. But much larger and more powerful than any claws from a natural creature.

Hollis had been trying to ignore the bodies, only making sure he didn’t step on any as he surveyed the damage. At a loss for what caused the derailment and destruction, he focused on the remains.

The torso of a man lay nearby. The head was missing, as well as an arm and both legs. He had been wearing a uniform when he died, the uniform of an Army soldier. Something had ripped apart the overcoat and shirt at an angle from the hip to the opposite shoulder with the missing arm. He bent forward to get a closer look and saw four ragged tears in the flesh. He doubted it resulted from the crash. Most of the bodies were wearing army uniforms.

The thing that was the most disturbing was that many of the bodies were missing their faces. Just bloody, meaty skulls smiled up at him as if they found humor in their last moment.

The blood was still fresh. Whatever happened here, it was recent. Not more than a couple of hours. Whatever caused this could still be here. The realization made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, despite the heat of the afternoon.

His hand made its way to his gun iron at his side as he stood up straight, pretending to stretch.

Jack came around the corner of the wrecked baggage car and saw that Hollis had his hand resting on his pistol. “We’re being watched,” he said, his eyes flicking to the left. “Two up on that ridge and another up ahead on the opposite side.”

“Apache?”

Jack spit out a wad of tobacco. “Too far away to tell for sure, but I don’t think so.”

“Why’s that?”

“Only three of ‘em. There would be a lot more if they was Apache.”

Hollis considered for a moment. “Fair enough. Watch them without looking like you’re watching them.”

Jack grunted and walked away. Hollis left the watchers to Jack’s capable hands and went back to trying to figure out what happened to the train and passengers. From the other side of one of the passenger cars, he heard Cyrus yell out, “Hollis, you need to see this!”

He ran over to find Cyrus squatting down in the dirt, running his hand through his hair. His hat lay upturned on the ground at his feet. “You hurt?”

Cyrus shook his head, then turned up to face him. All the color drained from his face, save for his haunted eyes. He pointed to the baggage car. Hollis turned, then took a reflexive step back, nearly losing his balance.

He gasped. “What the…”

The passenger car lay on its side. Someone had nailed bodies and body parts to it with railroad spikes. The blood smears told a story of a struggle, so Hollis knew some were still alive when it happened.

Painted in blood was a large letter K and next to it, the symbol for clubs. Surrounding the symbol, Hollis found the faces that were missing from several of the bodies. “Well, that answers the question about where the faces went,” Hollis said, pushing away the horror he was looking at. Trying hard and failing to imagine the last few moments of these people’s lives. He had a job to do. Stepping in for a closer look, he saw unusual long black nails stick out of the flesh, fixing them to the wall. Out of curiosity, he touched one. It was embedded deep into the wood but wiggled and bent and he tested it. “Definitely not iron. Reminds me of a porcupine quill.”

“Dalton’s?” asked Cyrus

“If not them, then someone who wants people to think it is. But… how did they do this?” Hollis said, motioning towards the passenger car. “It would have taken a dozen men to keep them from fighting back. And at least three or four to hold someone down while another hammered in the spikes.”

Cyrus picked up his hat and stood. “That’s the thing. None of those spikes were hammered in. The tops are all weathered. No signs of recent hammer blows. No, something pushed those spikes through flesh and into the wood. Something strong. And I’m at a complete loss what and how those black spikes got there,” he said, pointing to the closest face. “Seen nothing like ‘em and they weren’t hammered in like the rail spikes.”

Hollis scratched at his scruffy face while he studied the other symbols painted in blood all over the car. “Looks like cult symbols, but these are new to me. You recognize them?” Before Cyrus answered, a glint of metal caught his eye and he looked down to see an arm that was still clutching a revolver in its hand. Hollis walked up to it and, with the toe of his boot, nudged the gun from the hand. The fingers opened with no resistance, letting him know that rigor had yet to set in.

He picked up the gun and released the cylinder. Six bullets; none fired. The other end of the arm had been cut from the body, and not cleanly. Hollis had seen what a cavalry saber could do to a man’s arm back in the war, and this wasn’t it. The cut had slight rips along the edges that made Hollis think about what a chop from a dull meat cleaver might look like if delivered with a powerful swing. He guessed it would be like what he was looking at.

However, this man had been disarmed, it happened before he could pull the trigger.

He flicked the cylinder back into the pistol and tucked the dead man’s gun into his belt.

“Problem,” Jack said, coming around the corner. “I lost one of ‘em.”

Hollis scanned the hillside. “Think they saw you watching them?”

“Don’t think so. But where there was two, now there’s only one.”

“Plus the other one on the other side of the gulch, right?”

“Yup.”

“Well shit,” he looked over at Cyrus. “There’s four of them Dalton boys, right?”

Cyrus shrugged. “Give or take. Four that we know about, but circumstances unbeknownst to us might have either added or subtracted from that number.”

Hollis swiped at a fly that was buzzing in his face. “Assuming the men up on either side of the gulch here are Daltons, then there are at least one, maybe two other gunmen whose current whereabouts are unknown. And there’s all this,” he said, looking over at the bodies impaled on the passenger car. “I still don’t know what to make of all this.”

“I think I do,” Cyrus said, his voice just above a whisper. “I think someone was showing off.”

Hollis cocked an eyebrow at him, an invitation to elaborate.

“It’s like when a scrawny kid gets a growth spurt and fills out. All that mending fences and splitting cordwood catches up to him and one day, he realizes he’s stronger than he imagined he would ever be. Has one too many whiskeys one night in the saloon, says something untoward, or someone else does and fists start flying. Yet instead of just delivering a beating, the cocky son of a bitch beats the other man into a bloody mess. To send a message. That he’s not taking any shit from anyone anymore.”

Jack grunted an agreement. “Seen that myself. Often times that kid ends up on the gallows not long after,” he said, then stuffed another wad of tobacco in his cheek.

Hollis paced a bit, working that through his mind. “Daltons are all grown up. And by all accounts, not very smart. So what changed?”

“I only seen men change in such a drastic manner after getting acquainted with the opium dens. But that change goes in the wrong direction for this situation.”

“That is true, Cy. Opium makes a man worthless. So what makes men capable of all this?” asked Hollis.

Despite the heat, he could see Cyrus shiver. “Only other time I saw something like this was the night we met.”

Hollis stopped pacing. The dream from last night and the memories from the night before the battle at Antietam came flooding back.

“You still with us, boss?” asked Jack.

“Just thinkin’. Trying to make sense-” Hollis looked around past the destruction and carnage all around them. “Where’s Raylan?”

Blank stares from the other two men were their only response. Hollis wanted to shout out for Raylan but remembered the Daltons were likely within earshot. “Spread out.”

They fanned out, mindful to not step on any human remains while keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding hills in case the Daltons revealed themselves.

Hollis headed to the locomotive, staying clear of the burning tender and fumes from the burning coal. Cyrus headed to the rear of the wreckage on the south side while Jack made his way up the north. A circuit of the damaged locomotive revealed nothing about the present whereabouts of Raylan, so he headed back, following the tracks Cyrus left in the dirt, but about ten yards further out in case he missed something.

He met up with Cyrus. “Anything?”

“Nada, amigo,” he said. Hollis kept his head on a swivel, hoping to see Raylan poking around in the brush. But he saw nothing either. Not even Jack.

“Shit,” Hollis said, scanning the hills. Almost feeling the sights of a rifle trained on him. “Where’s Jack?”

Jack came back into view, stepping around some tall brush. “Raylan’s been taken. Looks like he got bushwhacked back there,” he said, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. “Guessin’ he followed this blood trail into an ambush. Probably hoping to find a survivor. His boots left drag marks for a few paces, then he got picked up and the other prints got heavier and headed off yonder,” he said, pointing toward Black Mesa.

Hollis’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Get to the horses. They can’t be far.”

Jack didn’t move, but took in a deep breath and let it hiss out through his nostrils. “Horses are gone. We’re walking.”

“Where are our horses?” asked Hollis. The tension rose in his voice. “Who took them?”

“They’re right where we left them. They’re just dead.”

Hollis and Cyrus followed Jack back to where they had hitched their horses. They were all just as dead as the bodies down at the ruined train. Heads torn from their bodies, lying in pools of their own blood. They died with no sound, no stamping of hooves or neighing in distress.

Hollis would have laughed at the absurdity of it all. Wanted to. But the fact that Raylan was gone kept his lips tight.

“Grab what you need from your mounts, but keep it light. We’re going to run these fuckers down, kill the shit outta them… and get Raylan back.”

Jack surprised Hollis with a rare smile. Then he collected his bedroll and saddlebags from his dead horse. Cyrus shook his head and followed, grumbling something under his breath.

* * * *

The trail was easy enough to follow. Three sets of boot prints in the dirt, one deeper set than the others. Hollis knew those would be from whoever - or whatever - was carrying Raylan. And judging from the distance between the prints, they were moving fast.

Hollis kept his head on a swivel, scanning the desert scrub all around. Jack watched ahead and to the left, and Cyrus watched their rear. Black Mesa loomed in the distance and the tracks lead straight to it.

“Weather movin’ in,” Jack said.

“Of course we got fucking weather moving in,” Hollis responded, not bothering to turn to verify. “I’m guessing a god-damned tornado?”

Cyrus slowed his pace to squint off into the distance. “Nah. Either a thunder-bumper or dust storm. Too far away to judge for certain just yet.”

“It’ll be both,” growled Hollis.

“I wouldn’t be surprised at this point, but I’m more concerned about Raylan than I am about some dusty wind.”

They hurried up the path. Ambush be damned.

The tracks followed a natural game trail. Black Mesa was a large hill with a flat top, formed by volcanic activity. Once lava had pushed its way through the surface of the earth, resulting in an almost perfectly round hill, rimmed by a low cliff around its circumference. The trail led to the base of the cliff, which stood about the height of ten men above them.

They never would have found the path up the cliff if it wasn’t for the tracks they were following. A large black basalt boulder that had fallen from the cliff was obscuring a rift in the cliff face that was just wide enough for a man to pass through without scraping his shoulders on either side.

Cyrus groaned. “We come all this way just to have someone drop some rocks on our heads while we scramble up this damned goat trail.”

Hollis sighed. “You’re not that lucky, Cy.”

* * * *

They reached the top, legs burning and lungs protesting from the steep slope. The light of the day had mostly given way to the night, the last remnants making the cloudy sky glow a deep reddish-orange framed by deep purples on the western horizon. The aroma of cooked meat greeted the men and the ringing in Hollis’s ears got louder.

The top of Black Mesa was flat and about a hundred yards across. Hollis could see that right in the middle there was a small circular rise in the earth that had the look of being made by man and not nature. The dozen upright stone monoliths that surrounded the central mound reinforced this impression. Each was as black as the stone cliffs surrounding the mesa, at least twice the height of a man and thicker at the bottom, tapering off towards the top.

There was another slab of rock, cut in a rectangle, in the center of the mound. A shiver ran up Hollis’ spine. There was a fire at the base of the altar and, though it was hard to tell for certain at this distance, it looked to Hollis like there was a tripod made from long poles over the fire, suspending a large kettle. A dark figure stood in front of the altar, its back turned to them.

“These cocksuckers sure love their alters,” Cyrus said and Jack grunted an agreement. “I don’t get the rocks, though. Looks old and I ain’t never seen the locals build anything out of rock before.”

“Me neither,” replied Hollis, drawing his pistol. “But the Daltons sure as shit didn’t build that, whatever it is.”

“Evil is what it is,” Jack said before spitting out a long string of tobacco juice, and Hollis thought that was a perfect description.

“I don’t see Raylan anywhere. Or the Daltons, for that matter. Keep your eyes peeled. I don’t want them jumping out of some spider hole.” Hollis said, scanning the ground all around them.

They approached the circle of stones with an abundance of caution. Hollis a few paces ahead and Jack to his left while Cyrus covered right. The scent of cooking meat increased with each step and the low hum of tinnitus in Hollis’s ear and as they got closer, Hollis saw that the source of the aroma was from a large kettle over the fire.

The campfire revealed the dark figure to be a scrawny woman, bent with age and wearing a tattered black robe. She busied herself with something at the altar.

“The Dreamer showed me you would come,” came a shrill voice that made Hollis wince, sounding like rusty nails across slate.

Hollis thumbed the hammer back on his pistol. “Where’s Raylan,” he demanded.

The figure turned to face him. An old woman with a face like a weathered old piece of leather and rheumy eyes looked across the campfire to him. “You’ve come so far, Hollis, so many miles… So many dead… Won’t you sit and share a meal before we talk?”

The humming tone in his ears was getting harder to ignore. “We ain’t here to talk, witch,” he said as a reflex, but the word struck a chord of truth in his mind. “We’re here for the Daltons and to get our man back.”

“Those boys are long gone,” she said. “But they are becoming so much more. You’ll see. But who is this man of which you speak?” the witch asked, her voice thick with phlegm. Her accent was unfamiliar to Hollis. She stuck a long, bony finger into the steaming pot and stuck into her mouth. “Ah yes, it’s just about done.”

Hollis kept his gun on her as she picked up a dirty bowl and ladled some of the stew into it. She returned the utensil back to the pot and seemed to have some difficulty chasing around something large and floating. Her eyes lit up when she finally succeeded and put it in the bowl. She took a step toward Hollis, presenting it to him. “Here, have a bite. You’ll love it,” she beamed.

He looked into the bowl of stew and saw a human hand. And then he recognized Raylan’s wedding ring.

Hollis squeezed the trigger. His bullet tore into the center of the witch’s chest, knocking her back onto the stone altar. She ended up in a heap at the base of the altar. He took a step forward and lined up his sights on the witch’s head.

“That wasn’t very nice,” a deep voice called out.

“Nice old woman invites you to sit down at her fire and share a meal and you answer that kindness with a bullet,” said another voice.

“Nope, that is not friendly at all,” said a third.

“Some would call that downright hostile,” added a fourth voice.

Hollis spun around. “Was wondering when you murderous, inbred, piece-of-shit Dalton boys would show up,” Hollis said. “Why don’t y’all step out into the open so we can have a discussion about some stagecoach robberies.”

“And that train that y’all tore up back down the valley,” added Cyrus.

“That train needs answered for,” said Hollis.

“And then we’re going to cut you up like you did to Raylan and feed you to the coyotes,” said Jack.

“Yep. That too,” said Hollis. “So get your cowardly asses out here and…”

The Dalton Gang stepped out from behind the stone pillars and the words died in Hollis’s mouth.

They were more monsters than men. Bony, black chitinous growths had grown through their flesh, giving nearly half of their bodies an insect appearance. It was shiny in the firelight, almost wet looking. Hands had turned into crab-like claws through some sorcery that Hollis couldn’t fathom. Their eyes were much larger than they had any right to be, and the light from the fire reflected a silvery, venomous yellow light that danced with the flickering flames.

Ice gripped his guts, but Hollis stood firm. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Jack making the sign of the cross. “Looks like you boys got yourselves in a bad way.”

The largest one took a step forward. Hollis assumed that meant he was their leader. He made a sweeping gesture with his claw to the others and scoffed. “A bad way? No, we were in a bad way when Niamh found us in the desert. Poisoned from bad well water and dying. I prayed to God to help, but he ignored us. But she,” he said, pointing to the dead witch at the base of the altar, “she heard us and made us whole. Stronger.”

Hollis turned his nose up in disgust. “I’d say that was up for debate, Cody. I’m assuming you’re Cody, right? Hard to tell with all that shit covering half your face.”

Cody smiled. “Don’t you worry none about it, boss. We’ll get you and your men fixed up the same. Lucky for you, we’re looking for some new recruits. We got some big plans for the future, don’t we boys?” He was answered by growls from the other three.

Hollis scratched his temple with the barrel of his gun. “I reckon I’ll have to pass on your kind offer. Now about that unfinished business we have-“

Hollis was fast, but Cody was faster. The bullet he fired slammed into the stone monolith behind where Cody was standing. In the blink of an eye, he had stepped aside, then jumped out of his crouch and landed some twenty feet away and slipped behind another stone. Curses from Cyrus and Jack let him know they missed their targets as well.

“See!” yelled Cody, glee dripping from his deep, gravely voice. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You lawmen are too god-damned slow!” laughed one of the other Daltons.

The creatures jumped and climbed all over the monoliths in the circle, laughing and taunting them as they went. It was pissing Hollis off.

As they were jumping around, dodging bullets, one would occasionally flick their wrists and something would fly towards them. Hollis did not know what that was about until something hit him in the arm, piercing his shoulder. He looked down and saw something black sticking out of the wound. He tugged on it, but it didn’t want to come out. It was a long black spike, just like the ones that were holding the skinned faces to the side of the passenger car back at the train wreck. He swore and kept firing.

Their bullets were keeping them from attacking outright with those vicious claws but didn’t stop them from flinging those porcupine quills at them. So far, he had been hit twice. The barbed ends made them a bitch to rip out, but unless they were poisoned, it would not be enough to kill Hollis and his men. But he knew what they were really up to. There were only so many bullets. They’d run out, and then they’d be at the mercy of the Daltons. It would be a fight with knives and Cy’s cavalry saber against monstrous claws. It was only a matter of time. Even when they hit one of them, the bullet would ricochet off the crustacean armor.

One Dalton, the smallest of the group, stumbled on a rock, throwing off his balance for just a second, and Jack put a bullet from his beloved Winchester rifle through the creature’s eye. Hollis saw flesh, bone and brain erupt from the back of its head and the body dropped fell to the ground, lifeless.

“That’s it! Aim for the fuckin’ head!” he yelled out. “Come on, you cocksuckers, come get some!”

There was a hateful roar as another monster rushed Cyrus as he was reloading the shotgun. He got it up just as a claw was coming at him and pulled both triggers, firing both barrels of double-aught buckshot into the thing’s head. It exploded in an explosion of light and a spray of gore.

Hollis caught movement out of the corner of his eye as one of the remaining creatures charged towards Jack. He fired his Winchester at it; the bullet ricocheting off the thick growth on the side of its face. Jack worked the lever of the rifle, putting another cartridge in the chamber. He adjusted his aim, but the thing slid down just as he fired. It came up under him, driving its claw deep into Jack’s guts, lifting him into the air.

Jack let out a scream of pain and rage, then levered the action on his rifle and pushed the barrel up under its chin and pulled the trigger. The blast blew the top of its head off and they both went down to the ground.

Cyrus shouted, “No!” as he ran to his fallen friend. He only covered a few steps before Cody, the last of the Dalton Gang, jumped off the top of a stone monolith and flew at him, claw outstretched.

Cyrus drops the shotgun and draws his pistol, firing off six well-aimed shots at his head. But Cody held up his armored arm as he charged, protecting his head. Hollis watched in horror, unable to shoot since he might hit his friend, as Cyrus tossed the empty pistol and reached for his saber. The sword was only halfway cleared of the scabbard when the monster crashed into him.

Man and beast tumbled from the impact, then both scrambled to get back on their feet. Cody is faster, the first to gain his footing. Cyrus was lifted off the ground by his neck, held up by the over-sized scorpion claw. It punches the other claw into his abdomen, then pitches his body into a stone pillar. Cyrus collapsed to the hard, stony ground.

Cody turned to Hollis, a wicked smile on his half-man, half-monster face. Hollis unloads on him, a pistol in each hand, walking towards certain death, punctuating each step forward with a bullet. The monster had once again covered its vulnerable head with its claws, so Hollis targeted bare flesh wherever he saw it. His bullets ripped into the creature, staggering it and dropping it to its knees.

The last bullet blasted from his revolver and ripped a chunk of flesh off its hip, then the mechanical click of hammers striking spent bullets.

There was silence for a few heartbeats, then a throaty laughter from the beast. It stood up, shaky at first, but it seemed to heal as Hollis watched. “Looks like you shot your wad, lawman. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I’m a hunter. Not a lawman,” he spat.

“I think I’ll eat your heart first, hunter.” It said. A hungry smile growing across its face.

Hollis threw the empty revolvers at the creature. It swatted them away and let loose another laugh. “No. I’m going to eat your guts first. While you still live so you can watch.”

The Winchester rifle lay on the ground at the monster’s feet. He didn’t know if Jack had time to work the action to chamber another round before he fell, but it didn’t matter. The creature saw him looking down at the rifle. It looked back up at Hollis and grinned. “That won’t help you,” it said, reaching down to snatch it before Hollis could get to it. That was the opening Hollis needed.

In a blur, he pulled the dead man’s pistol that was tucked into his belt. He held the trigger down and palmed the hammer with his other hand, firing all six shots from the hip in a second.

The creature that used to be Cody Dalton convulsed as its head blasted apart by the bullets.

Hollis tucked the empty revolver back in his belt and ran over to Cyrus.

“Did you get ‘em?” Cyrus asked, coughing up blood that spattered on his face. Hollis freed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the blood on Cyrus’s lips.

“We got ‘em all. But you took one hell of a beating, brother. I gotta figure out a way to get you off this hateful hill and to a doctor. Get you all patched again, just like last time. Hell, “he lied, “this don’t even look too bad,”

Cyrus started a laugh that resulted in a bloody coughing fit. “You can’t bluff worth shit. Never could. I ain’t much longer for this world. And that’s alright. My business here is done.” He coughed up another lungful of blood and his eyes locked on something behind Hollis. “Looks like you still got unfinished business to tend to.”

Hollis turned and saw the witch standing on top of the stone altar, naked and covered in tattoos. Arms outstretched, palms up, her lips were moving like she was reciting an ancient, evil prayer. Her eyes were as black and dead as coal. Eyes that seemed to see nothing and everything at once. And, most alarming to Hollis, where a bullet hole should have been right over her heart, there was unblemished gray flesh.

He reached for the pistol out of instinct, but remembered he fired his last bullets into the head of the last Dalton. He didn’t think a bullet would work, anyway. The last one didn’t.

“Well, fuck.” He said. “It doesn’t look like we’re getting off this hill after all.”

The wind kicked up and a flash of lightning arced across the sky, followed by a crash of thunder that he felt in his bones. Dust and leaves swirled all around him, then the wind shifted and started blowing in towards the center of the standing stones, towards the altar that the witch was standing atop.

He watched in amazement as the tattoos that covered her body changed color, shifting from black to gray and finally settling on that same sickly yellow color that he saw reflected in the Daltons’ eyes. Then they shifted all around her body like they were taking on a life of their own.

She crossed her forearms across her chest and threw her head up to the sky. Whatever silent prayer she had been saying was now being shouted to the roiling sky above in a language unfamiliar and sucked away by the wind. Her arms shot up into the air and it was answered by bolts of lightning crashing down all around the mesa.

Hollis put his hand on Cyrus’s shoulder. “Cy… it’s been my honor to- “

“Are you going to kill that bitch or what?” he interrupted.

He looked at Cyrus, confused. Was he so far gone already that he wasn’t aware of what was happening?

Cyrus’s face twisted in pain as he struggled to suck in a wheezing breath. “Get my saber, dumbass,” he said, trying to raise his arm. “Give her hell.”

He nodded at his old friend. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Lightning bolts rained down all around the top of the mesa as Hollis crawled to where the saber lay. Just as his hand closed on the grip, one bolt struck the stone monolith just in front of him. The blast sent his hat flying off his head. He rolled to his back, surprised he wasn’t dead. As he took a deep breath to steel himself for what he was about to do, he realized that the tinnitus was gone. The constant hum in his ears that has been his constant companion for 20 years was gone. He’s puzzled but decides he will worry about that later if there is a later.

He sat up and saw that all the stones were glowing and becoming translucent, reminding him of gigantic pieces of quartz or agate. Electricity arced between the stones, casting a blue light around the mesa.

The electricity in the air caused his hair to stand on end. The pungent stench of ozone and death violated his nostrils. He crept forward, saber raised, ready to strike.

There was a flash of light in the center of the circle that was replaced by a small glowing ball of light about the size of an apple, floating a few feet off the ground. It flickered as if there were some struggle within. He kept working his way forward, toward the witch on the altar and watched the ball of light as it grew larger. When it was the size of a cannonball, he could see dark shapes moving inside. Something was trying to be born into this world, and the witch was its mother. He didn’t think he had long to find out what it was.

Hollis raised the saber and charged. The witch looked down at him, cocked her head to the side and reached out to him, palm facing him. She squeezed her hand into a fist and Hollis crumpled to the ground.

Searing hot pain burned through his mind, unbearable pressure building in his skull. Hollis clamped his hands over his eyes to keep them from blasting out from his skull. The pain was too much. Nothing else mattered but to escape the pain, for Death to wrap her frigid arms around him to find relief in that eternal embrace.

Coming from some place outside of the pain, he hears a sound. A low hum that builds in volume. The tinnitus is back, a faint hum at first, but it gave him something other than pain to focus on. Then the pain gave way to rage. Images of his friends on the surrounding mesa, dead and dying. Other friends and family lost over the years in the fight against this evil that, and friends he lost during the war. Hollis is not ready to die.

The old cavalry battle cry started in his mind, growing louder until it’s not in his mind anymore, but screaming past his lips. He raised the saber again and launched himself at the witch. It startled her, not expecting him to get back up, and the battle cry stunned her just long enough for him to bring the saber down across her torso. Flesh and bone part and blood sprayed out in a wide arc and the next swing cut toward her throat. Her scream cut off as the saber followed its arc through her neck. Hollis watched as the witch’s head tumbled along the ground towards the expanding globe of evil light. When it finally came to rest, the wind and lightning stopped and the ball of light blinked out of existence like God pissed on a campfire to put it out.

* * * *

It took a few weeks for the new hunters from the Sanctum to arrive in Yuma. Hollis had waited until the morning of their arrival before gathering up all the remaining effects from the men he’d lost on Black Mesa. The card table was the hardest. Cyrus had left his cards on the table, face down, and for weeks he fought off the urge to flip them over to see what hand he had when Hollis had folded.

With the rest of the office all cleaned up and ready for his new team, he finally walked over to the card table. He looked back over to his desk, smiling at the cavalry saber displayed on the wall, then flipped over the cards Cyrus had left for him.

A pair of fives.

Hollis shook his head. “That lying son of a bitch.”