Psychobilly

PSYCHOBILLY

Artifice Comics Presents…

PSYCHOBILLY

A Psychopomp Special

December, 2016

Greg Rosa, Matthew Cavazos, John Brown, C.S. Roberts, Adrian J. Watts, Jason S. Kenney and Tommy Hancock

The moral rights of Greg Rosa, Matthew Cavazos, John Brown, Tommy Hancock, C.S. Roberts, Adrian J. Watts and Jason S. Kenney to be identified as the Authors of this Work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2016 by

Mysteria Press

This version published 2020 by

smashwords

ISBN 9781005510886

Editor-in-Chief Jason S. Kenney

Cover design © Kevin Joyce 2016

Cover image: Billy the Kid (1859–1881), photographed by Ben Wittick (1845–1903)

Back cover image: Photo of all the Warner Brothers Studio television western stars who had programs on ABC. From left: Will Hutchins (Sugarfoot Brewster – Sugarfoot), Peter Brown (Johnny McKay – Lawman), Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick – Maverick), Ty Hardin (Bronco Laine – Bronco), James Garner (Bret Maverick – Maverick), Wayde Preston (Christopher Colt – Colt .45), John Russell (Dan Troop – Lawman), 12 January 1959

A Dangerous Name in Dangerous Times & Sunset and Shadow © Greg Rosa 2016

Eater’s Grin: Vana Gloria © Matthew Cavazos 2016

Legend © John Brown 2016

Crossing Contention & West of Fort Smith © Tommy Hancock 2010 – 2016

Tales of Tom Feller: Below Deep © C.S. Roberts 2016

The Forgotten Story of Loco Luke © Adrian J. Watts 2016

The Stranger © Jason S. Kenney 2016

Crossing Contention originally published in Tales of the Masked Rider, 2010 by Airship 27 Productions

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

CONTENTS

Foreword

A Dangerous Name In Dangerous Times by Greg Rosa

Eater’s Grin: Vana Gloria by Matthew Cavazos

Legend by John Brown

West of Fort Smith by Tommy Hancock

Tales of Tom Feller: Below Deep by C.S. Roberts

The Forgotten Story of Loco Luke by Adrian J. Watts

The Stranger by Jason S. Kenney

Sunset and Shadow by Greg Rosa

Crossing Contention by Tommy Hancock

Foreword

I’ve never been anywhere near the west and yet I feel at home when I enter a Western.

It started as a kid. A Sunday afternoon, it’s raining outside, there's nothing to do and on the TV is an old Western (and as a kid they always felt like they were old films); watching this outsider cowboy (because it always seems to be a man, unless you were watching/reading the brilliant True Grit, while the heroes, as we know of the archetypal Western, are always outsiders but very rarely actual cowboys) righting wrongs, I wanted to be them. I wanted to give out rough justice. I wanted to help the underdog against the bully, and then, when watching something like Oklahoma, I wanted to be singing about beautiful mornings and cowboys and farmers being friends. 

It wasn’t until I was older that I understood why our hero could never stay (I was the kid in Shane not wanting him to leave).

The thing is, Westerns have a predictable form. We know what is going to happen. Even when playing something like Red Dead Redemption, you know these characters and how they are meant to act because you’ve seen them in countless films and books. This is why the world of the Western is so comfortable; you know it.

Yet the last paragraph is not quite right. This is because the best Westerns are the ones where they take what we know and play with it. They force us to look at what this familiar world is like and question it, and in doing so question our own life and society (I promise you Lucky Luke is profound… I’m sure of it). Well, I hope that’s what you'll find in this collection of stories; the West you know but different, and with a little bit of the weird throw in. Enjoy. I'm off to spit tobacco and fail to lasso anything.

Heeee haaaaaa!

David Sommerfeld

(not really a writer. Wanted to be a cowboy, but fears riding a horse.)

A Dangerous Name in Dangerous Times

Greg Rosa

The town of Crusillo was nestled in a rich valley lush with green fields and a soil that seemed blessed by the rough gods of the American wilderness to bring forth life and cultivate many different kinds of crops.

The flat plains gave good pasture to the few souls rich enough to be able to afford cattle. The town was raw and green, growing and free. Soon enough, the cattle barons would start to put up fences and the banks would come along to claim their pounds of flesh and acres of soil no banker would ever furrow, or seed, or harvest. But that time was not yet. Outside of the town of El Crusillo, the dry desert winds took hold and the land became arid and rough, strewn with rocks and carved with dusty trails. On a hill overlooking the road, as the day cooled off into the autumn evening, a man made a smokeless fire. His clothes were the color of dust, and his skin was as rough and craggy as the barren landscape. His eyes were grey as flint, and the knuckles of his hand looked like the gnarled roots of an old tree. The scars that ran up and down his sunburned arms looked like silver fish swimming in brown water.

Like many of the new towns that dotted the frontier landscape, the wilderness was only tamed as far as the border of the town. Out beyond its reach, there were animals. Not all of which walked along on four legs, or flew. Some of those animals wore human faces.

The man by the smokeless fire heard them before he could see them. And he smelled them even before that. They came downwind of him, not endeavoring to be silent, or stealthy. Two of them, dirt-smeared and swaggering with confidence, stinking of liquor. They had weapons at their side and malice in their eyes.

Well, lookee here, Jedidiah. I told you I saw someone up here on the ridge, the first man said.

That you did, Gabe. You surely did, the second man replied.

The first man had hair the color of dried corn husks, and washed out eyes. He had a gun slung low on his left hip, and from the top of one boot there protruded the handle of a good-sized hunting knife. He had a scar that ran diagonally across his face, and his clothes were badly in need of repair, and a wash. Seams were split and patches had come loose. He approached the fire first, swaying like a tree in thin soil blown by a heavy wind.

His companion was a shorter man; rounder of face, with dung-colored hair and a smell too match. He had patches of dirt on his face and neck, and on his clothes. Here was a man with a strong aversion to water.

The man sat by the fire, watched the two approach him from separate sides. Clearly these two were well-practiced in their mischief.

Say, I think this here feller might just be an injun, the blond-haired man said. His voice managed to sound confused and hostile at the same time. He must not’ve heard that there ain’t no injuns ‘round these parts. He grinned evilly. He looked straight into the eyes of the man sitting by the fire. Not since we cleared ‘em out of these parts.

I don’t know, his cohort said, doubtfully. Don’t look like no injun I’ve ever seen. He approached a little more slowly, either because of his confusion, his girth, or the alcohol.

The first man shot his companion a sharp look. "Well, I say he does. He turned back to the man hunched on the ground, who had still not said a word. What about it, there, fella, the blond man said, speaking to the man by the fire for the first time. Are you an injun?"

The man on the ground didn’t say a word; he just stretched his arms to warn them by the smokeless fire.

He must not have heard about the tax, Gabe, the round-faced man said. His face was eager. That’s what I think.

The first man grinned. I believe you’re right, Jedidiah, Gabe agreed. We have us a tax on any Indian coming ‘round these parts. He straightened himself up to try and look officious. On account of the roads and upkeep and such.

When the object of his words still didn’t say anything, Gabe became cross. Say, are you an injun, or just an idiot? He kicked at the man’s leg. Then bent over, wagging a finger in the other man’s face. I said—

The man on the ground sprang into action. With his left hand, he pulled Gabe’s hand forward, while at the same time lashing out with his leg, knocking the man’s footing out from under him. In the same motion, he used his right hand to take the gun from its holster. In one swift and dangerous arc, the object of their antagonism had gotten the drop on the would-be taxmen.

Gabe lay crumpled on the ground, stunned. Parts of his ramshackle get-up began to catch on fire. A fact he wasn’t aware of at first.

Gabe, you’re on fire! Jedidiah screamed. Both men began to frantically and somewhat ineffectively put out the flames on the first man’s clothing. Being drunk didn’t help their cause much. Jedidiah straightened up from helping his friend, and there was pure dumb brute-animal anger in his eyes as he surveyed the man in the dun-colored clothes. He made to lurch forward towards his enemy, clearly either forgetting or not noticing the gun in the other man’s hand, until he was brought face to face with it at point-blank range. His momentum stopped; anger, along with whatever color that wasn’t covered with dirt, drained from his face.

A shift in his gaze, along with a slight noise behind him, was all the indication that the three of them were not alone before a flat voice said, That’s enough of that, you. There was a sharp rap to the base of his skull, and the man in the dun-colored clothes saw stars and fell to the ground in a heap.

*

When he came to, he became aware of three things. Without opening his eyes, he knew he was indoors. By the familiarity of the feeling underneath him, he knew where he would find himself. And he had the most horrific headache he had ever experienced. Not too far away from him, he heard men talking.

He ain’t no Indian, said a flat voice.

"Well, he ain’t no white man I’ve ever seen," the second voice protested. By the strident tone of voice, it was probably the guy he’d knocked down and disarmed, Gabe.

Maybe so, but still don’t change a thing. The flat voice again. Probably the unseen third member of their party. Well we can ask him.

I don’t know, boss. He didn’t seem like the talking kind, came a soft, wheedling voice: Jedidiah.

We’ll know in a second if that stays true. He’s breathing’s different, must be awake by now.

Footsteps approached him, and the man on the cot saw no reason to pretend he was asleep. He sat up. He was not surprised to find that he was in jail. He could tell by the age and uncomfortableness of the cot, and he could smell the rusted iron of the bars. And he was right about the owners of the voices. It was two of the three men who had accosted him. He hadn’t seen the third to tell for sure. What he was surprised by, however, was that all three men now wore tin badges.

Do you have a name? The closest man, the man with the flat voice, asked. His badge indicated that he was the sheriff.

Of course, the man on the cot replied. Then he rose to meet the sheriff. The two stood less than three feet apart, iron bars between them.

Behind the sheriff, Jedidiah exclaimed: Ask him what kind of injun he is!

The sheriff ignored him. You’re no Indian, Sheriff Taylor said out loud, looking the man over. No kind that I’ve seen, anyway. Are you some kind of half-breed? The sheriff was a tall man, skin like rawhide, weather-beaten and sunburned. He was an older man, with deep wrinkles around his eyes but not much on his cheeks or brow. Here was a man who was used to peering closely at things, but didn’t smile often. He had a close-cropped thatch of unruly grey hair, with eyes that matched. He had several days’ growth of stubble, and huge hands that dangled from arms an inch or two too long for the shirt he wore. He didn’t pay much attention to superficialities in speech or dress. His movements were self-contained and powerful.

When it became obvious that no response would be forthcoming from the prisoner, the sheriff continued in his even, flat voice. His comments were more musing, not really indicating or needing a response. The sheriff raised a hand to indicate the prisoner’s face and arms. Those scars, though. They look deliberate. The ones on your hands don’t. You’re some kind of fighter, that’s for sure. Once again he directed his comments to the man behind bars. But you still won’t tell me your name. You on the run from the law?

Are you a name? the jailed man asked calmly.

Of course not, he responded. Are you?

The jailed man thought about it for a moment. Yes. Just not the dangerous name. He turned and sat back down on the cot.

What does that mean? the sheriff wanted to know.

Behind bars, the prisoner responded, It means everything. He didn’t say anything else.

Sheriff Taylor walked back to his desk and sat down. Addressing his deputies, he said, Best we keep him here, just the same. I’ll make some inquiries; see if anyone matching his description is being sought after. If not, then I’ll release him.

Jedidiah was more confused than ever. He looked like a sheep brought out to a different pasture. His round eyes were watery, and his jaw was slack.

Gabe’s face, on the other hand, darkened and turned red.

"Let him go? he exclaimed. A series of expressions moved in succession across his face. First, he looked thunderstruck; then he looked madder than a shook-up nest of hornets. Let him go? That man assaulted one of your deputies, sheriff. Surely, you won’t—"

The sheriff put up his hand to stop the tirade. There was a certain humor in his voice as he responded, as if this was exactly how he’d expected his deputy to react.

There’s that, Sheriff Taylor conceded calmly. He paused, then added: Either way, you fellers can go on home now. I don’t think it too likely our guest will need much tendin’ to, tonight.

Jedidiah looked uncertain, while Gabe just glared at the man behind bars. Clearly he was looking for some payback.

Go on, now. Git, the sheriff said again, more forcefully. This time, the two men obeyed. When they left, the sheriff turned to his visitor. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. For a few days, at least. He put his feet up on the desk. Might as well get comfortable.

*

Hours later, as the sheriff sat in his chair, snoring, the prisoner had a visitor. Outside of his window, a young coyote, no more than a year old, loped to the window. He cocked his head, as if surprised to see the man in the cell.

The prisoner spoke.

"Little brother, why do you wait outside my door? I