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The night Ned was killed the girls and I were down by the river doing wash. We were discussing the sweet peas we’d planted at the end of February, which had started to sprout now that it was March. We heard a man yell out, but it wasn’t Ned. I told the girls—commanded them—to stay where they were, on the riverbank, and not to move an inch, which is where I found them when I returned, my face set as normal as I could muster.

“Everything okay, Ma?” June, our oldest daughter, asked.

“Yes. Everything is fine. Keep on with the wash,” I replied.

But it wasn’t fine. I had stood at the foot of the forest, but I hadn’t gone in. I suspect my body knew something my mind didn’t. Sure, I yelled out for Ned, but my shout only let loose a murder of crows that ascended the sky like a handful of coal thrust up to heat the sun.

That evening, over supper, I told the girls that their father had gone to town to fetch some supplies and wouldn’t return before morning. Kate and June accepted this, but Annie did not; she was the youngest of the girls, and as such, each answer led to another question.

“Why’d he go so late in the day?” she asked.

“I’m tired,” I said. “You go get ready for bed.”

She sulked, but did as she was told.

It wasn’t until the dark had swallowed up the land wholly, and the girls were soundly asleep, that I pulled on my large coat and boots and walked down the trail toward what I knew was waiting for me.

The moon shed her light through the branches of the evergreens, and after some time my eyes adjusted to the night. When I saw Ned, I knew at once he’d been murdered; in the blue hue of the moonlight, the right half of his face looked like chiseled alabaster, but the other half was caved in like a hardboiled egg tapped with a metal spoon. I was angry—murderous, even—but more than that, I was in anguish. More than that, I was scared.

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Or, if you were bummed when we sold out of the first edition print—in a day and a half, I might add!—then you’ll be glad to know the second edition print is available at the Spare Press website. The second edition print won’t have the letterpress-printed covers, but everything else is more or less the same.

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US 1903

The snaking conscience, writhing through men who have no business being cruel—that being another’s game—slithered into my mind that night. It took me by surprise. I’d always thought of myself as being cold-blooded, but somewhere along the way, I’d lost my desire to do harm. Now, when I look back, I wonder if my appetite had always been for the love and acceptance of my brothers. 

The heat from the campfire made my face feel swollen, but I did not turn away. I let the waves of heat press against my skin until they were no longer waves but a constant oppression.

I was twelve, and I’d already killed five men and two women. I killed a dog down in Tulsa—that stuck with me—I killed a baby once, too. Accidental. Hiss.

My brothers had killed more. In fact, they were out there now, somewhere in that mess of dark, killing, robbing, raping, and then laughing and drinking.

It was my turn to watch camp, which was fine by me. I made a f…

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Dr. Clancy is lying on the dirt path leading into the town of Calico. The mud beneath him isn’t from rain, nor is it from a spilled canteen; it’s from his own life spilling out of his head—death’s black halo—the end is nigh. 

He’s been lying on this dirt trail for over two hours, and not a soul has come to his aid, not one weary traveler. But that’s not to say he doesn’t have company: three vultures are skipping about nearby, skittish, feathered, hunchbacked pallbearers hiding their greed. They want desperately to pick at him, to rob him of his eyes and lips. He knows that it’s only a matter of time. 

It wasn’t nefarious. There was no criminal intent or monstrous event that caused him such harm. No, it was a snake, not particularly big, slithered in front of Caroline, his horse. Caroline’s gone now; she waited around an hour or so, then headed off toward town. He loves that horse. It’s a small comfort to Dr. Clancy to know that she’s made it to town, but he’ll take it; there won’t be an…

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Dust. Darkness. Every terrible minute I’ve ever had is here with me in this closet. Boots clack on the other side of the closet door. Below, the raucous saloon patrons: gamblers, drinkers. Out in the street, a horse neighs; a living world.

A knock at the hotel room door; a second pair of boots enters the room. A match is struck, tobacco with a hint of licorice, an aroma that I’d generally find pleasant, but this comes from the lungs and lips of men I’m lusting to kill. It’s repulsive.

Nose itches, but my hand doesn’t scratch it. Fingers are numb, sorta strange, seeing how they’re gone.

“Don’t know why she insists on cutting my beard at the table. End up with hair in my potatoes every goddamn time.”

The voice of Braun, gravelly, firm. Cowpoke with the intelligence of the cattle he drives. Met him downstairs. He was nursing whiskey like a cup of hot tea, tiny, delicate sips. Asked him why he was drinking it that way, ‘Don’t like the stuff.’ He offered it to me, I obliged.

“At least your wife…

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They found him in the church, face down in the baptismal basin. In his last moments, the preacher, who’d grown up just steps from where he’d taken his first sip of the blood and first nibble of the body, was relieved. I’ll be home shortly.

Walking away from the church, a boy, not more than 12, coffers cleared and pocketed, heading away from the festering goodness of boredom, puts the Roman collar around his neck. He sips the pinched cup of grape juice, then, in further defiance, bites the cracker, letting the juice soak into it; it turns to mush.

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Let me disabuse you of the notion that a man on the brink cain’t elevate himself to a higher status, even in this gristmill of a world. Constraints bein’ what they may, I needed an influx of cash, so I walked into the Terra Casa bank and withdrew every dollar attributed to my name. Then, like the many fools before me inflicted by the notion of grand living, setting their sights on a higher power, I put my head down and went across the road to the saloon. There was a space open, to my amelioration or degradation, the answer to that forthcoming, so I placed every cent I’d scrounged rustling cattle on the table. “Whiskey!” I shouted at the barkeep. “On red, please,” I whispered to the table runner. As it spun, so did I, and it wasn’t until the final ticks of that wheel I drained my whiskey. Bitter, necessary. 

“Winner,” said the table runner. 

I had done it; a small part of me knew I would, but I’d kept that part at bay, not wanting hope to muddy the waters of luck. Then, to my consternati…

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The prairie had a way of making a man feel small. Conway, a “behemoth” as his father had dubbed him, was okay with that. He liked feeling hidden from the world. More than that, he liked feeling fragile; the fragile deserved kindness, and the small deserved tenderness. And the behemoths? They bore the yoke. 

In the middle of the nothingness stood an oak tree, its trunk divided in half, resembling a giant lying on its back with two mammoth legs pointed at the sky. God could have easily created two separate trees, had He been so inclined. Yet, the prairie was a lonely place, and being connected to something felt natural. It provided balance and context to the world. Conway understood this, and he wondered if God knew it too. Perhaps that’s why He fused them together from a single seed—much like He brought Jesus into the whole thing. God was alone before that—Lucifer having fallen. It was just like him and his brother, Oatho. Conway smiled at the idea, adjusting the girthy canvas bag on hi…

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