[excerpt from Rogues in Hell]

A Hatful of Dynamite

by Deborah Koren

Bat Masterson found Wyatt Earp, hand poised over his holster, facing a young man in the dusty street. Gawkers spilled out the open door of Josie’s, Wyatt’s New Bodie saloon and gambling house. Before the upstart’s gun cleared his fancy rig, the crack of Wyatt’s single action Colt.45 reverberated between the buildings, and the young punk’s body toppled.

Bat winced. Wyatt’s outward calm was edged with sorrow, resignation, and a simmering anger that Bat recognized all too easily. He knew the daily stream of young men – and occasionally women – who wanted to outgun the man who’d escaped Tombstone’s infamous gunfight without a scratch wore on Wyatt. His old friend wanted nothing more than to disappear, live quietly and, of course, find some way to escape hell to rejoin his beloved wife Josephine Marcus. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance of that. Wyatt would never see her again. And Bat knew that no matter how hard you clung to memories, as time passed in hell, those memories of cherished ones inevitably faded. And that was a torment all unto itself.

The body of the young gunfighter disappeared, sent to the Undertaker’s table, and the onlookers began dispersing. The saloon door swung shut behind Wyatt.

Bat followed, but paused as a flash of color caught his eye. “When did you get back?” he asked the squat red demon perched on the roof of Wyatt’s saloon.

The ugly creature flaunted a mouthful of jagged teeth and held up his neon sign. “Wyatt Earp, he makes me burp,” the sign blinked in vulgar, unnatural colors.

“Don’t you have anything else to say?” Bat put his hands on his hips. “You know how much Wyatt hates that.”

The demon obligingly blinked, and the garish sign changed to, “Bat Masterson, he is no fun.”

“Very funny.” Bat glared. “Just once, I’d like to see you say something useful for a change.”

Another blink, and the sign flashed: “That careless Bat, he let in a rat.”

“I what?” Bat demanded. “What rat? What the hell do you mean by that?”

The demon smirked, belched loudly, and then studiously ignored Bat. The statement vanished, replaced simply by “Josie’s.” The sign winked on and off, an ugly advertisement in gaudy purple.

Bat stomped up to the saloon entrance, where instinct made him pause and survey the street outside Josie’s. Thirty or forty people loitered within sight, lingering after the brief gunfight, keen for more. None stood out as dangerous, though several peered back with equal suspicion.

He had just returned to New Bodie from New Hell, summoned by an urgent missive from Wyatt stating only that Bat was needed. To his knowledge, the secret underground passages linking the two realms were traveled solely by him, with special permission from the powers-that-be. A labyrinth of tunnels lay beneath the rocky substrate of No Man’s Land, the desert surrounding the Old West hell town. Others who had discovered and tried negotiating the maze on their own invariably got lost and starved to death.

Could someone have followed him through the tunnels without him knowing it? What else could the demon have meant? The demon may have been a nuisance sent to plague Wyatt but, Bat had to admit, he wasn’t a liar.

Bat, he let in a rat, the demon’s cryptic message board had proclaimed.

And a failing any demon in hell pointed out so gleefully surely spelled trouble.

*

Henry Charles held his breath, watching Masterson eyeball the crowd. Excitement fluttered his stomach at the thought of killing the former lawman. Henry had been a serial killer just after the turn of the Twentieth Century, before the term had been applied to repeat murderers like himself. While alive, Henry had never been caught; but down here, the challenge was different, the opponents far tougher and warier.

When he’d died in a mustard gas attack during the Great War and been revived in hell, Henry had rejoiced. He had experienced the first moment of true and utter happiness of his short life. Hell… a place where he would be at home with souls as damned as he, as depraved, as cruel – crueler, maybe. Hell had been his concept of heaven. What better home for a murderer?

But he had forgotten: hell was designed to punish sinners, not cater to them. It was not the playground of the wicked he had dreamed it would be.

And, to his despair, he found hell was not occupied solely by his evil brethren. No, it was also filled with ordinary people who had sinned. And worse, far worse, it fairly teemed with heroes. Famous heroes from all the ages of history, men and women. Icons he’d read about in Miss Palmer’s third grade primer. Those he’d had his knuckles rapped over, when he’d failed to recount their proper birthdates. When he’d found out he had to share the afterlife with them, he had fallen to his knees on the streets of New Hell, retching uncontrollably.

He had recovered and gone on a killing spree with a new target in mind: the famous heroes who had no right to be there, whose presence affronted Henry’s very being. And on his first kill, he had discovered that an even more terrible fate had befallen him. With the flick of a finger, Satan had deprived him of the only thing he’d ever valued or craved: he could no longer feel a victim’s pain when he cut them up. He had howled with rage, then mourned and sulked. Then he had killed again. And again, hoping each time some trace of rapturous delight would return. It didn’t. His single pleasure was denied to him for all eternity.

The only time he’d approached that gut-tingling ecstasy had been the one day he’d pulled a knife on a man who’d fought back. The man had taken his knife away, used it on him, and Henry had gone straight to the Undertaker. The pain he’d suffered on the Undertaker’s table had made him think he wasn’t going to come back human… and it had been exquisite at the same time, delightful and horrible all rolled into one. It was the closest he’d come to an orgasm since arriving in hell.

Back on New Hell’s streets, how to replicate that experience remained uppermost in his mind. It seemed so easy to get back to the Undertaker’s table. Pick the wrong target or, quite simply, kill himself… only he couldn’t do either. Death in hell was temporary – logically, he knew he’d come back – but the thought of dying evoked all his primal fears, and, to his shame, some innate sense of self-preservation prevented him from consciously putting himself in a situation where he could die. He loathed that about himself. It made him like them. Like the ordinary damned: scared of dying, scared of hell, scared of consequences.

It was ridiculous to know what he wanted and be too afraid to jump out and seize it.

Henry Charles wanted to find H.H. Holmes, a fellow serial killer, who’d been executed the year Henry had been born. He wanted to see how Holmes was handling the afterlife. And he hoped to meet Jack the Ripper. He knew the famous murderer was here somewhere, but he did not know the Ripper’s true identity, didn’t know where to search or whom to ask. Asking questions was a good way to get noticed. He did not want to be noticed. Ever. Not here in hell. His own victims had footnoted history, but he himself had not. Killers who became famous were eventually caught. Well, except for Jack, which was why Henry Charles idolized him.

Henry had avoided notoriety while alive, but the afterlife in New Hell ran by different rules. He had been ratted-out by a resurrected victim and brought to trial. He’d thought he might be executed that time, and the thrill at the prospect had nearly overwhelmed him. But he’d been thwarted there too. His court-appointed lawyer, one Alan Bensinger, had gotten him off. How, he wasn’t sure, considering two of the witnesses were people he’d killed. But he’d been acquitted. He’d tried to lay low after that, but the lure of a new target was irresistible. The next murder, he would think… the next one would bring him that elusive, incomparable orgasm…

Thus he’d ended up here, in this dusty corner of hell.

He’d been prowling for victims when a vaguely familiar soul had passed by. Familiar enough that Henry knew he had seen that face in a book once. And this sinner hadn’t been afraid of dark alleys. Cautious and wary, but not afraid. Hero qualities. Henry had been intrigued enough to trail him to a shadowy corner where the soul had disappeared.

The corner concealed an entrance to a tunnel. Henry made the mistake of following his quarry in – far enough to know he desperately wanted to turn around, but too far into its labyrinth of branching tunnels to find his way back alone. This maze was the most terrifying place he’d ever been, full of foul stenches and the scrabble of claws in the dark. Things had touched him, tripped him, and spit at him. The red and yellow eyes of some demon had blinked at him from above.

But he’d made it out again, onto hellish streets. And what he’d discovered on this side of the tunnels pleased him. That had been Wyatt Earp out there in the street, the famous Wyatt Earp. And he’d finally recognized the man he’d followed as Bat Masterson.

This place called New Bodie was a rich hunting ground for heroes.

Henry smiled and watched Masterson enter the saloon.

*

Bat pushed through the door and dodged immediately to the right as an empty glass sailed past to shatter against the wall.

Normally, Wyatt’s saloon was rather loud, but orderly. The gaming contraptions, the gambling tables, the dealers and the gamblers placing their losing bets, the clink of bottles and glasses on the big bar contributed to the hubbub. A streak of luck rarely lasted any player more than a couple hands. No one could win for long in hell and, usually, losing was spectacular.

At Josie’s, the losers didn’t rile up and retaliate the way they did at other gambling concessions around town. Here, the broke losers swore and skulked away, usually to steal another stake from some poor New Bodie citizen and come back to try again. Somebody attempted to outgun Wyatt on the streets just about every day, but they rarely pulled anything inside his saloon.

Today, an angry undercurrent coursed through the clientele. Even the kerosene lamp flames seemed to flicker with evil glee. Cowboys bellied up to the bar, shoving each other. Their voices clamored in complaint. Trouble was brewing, and this group of patrons was clearly itching to bust up the joint.

Bat spotted Wyatt at his customary seat at the back corner table with a few select customers, including the young lawyer, Alan Bensinger. Wyatt wasn’t dealing, though. He was staring at the increasingly angry crowd threatening his establishment.

Silently, Bat counted to three…

“Out!” Wyatt roared. “Everybody out! Now!” He shoved his chair back and stood, right hand closing around the shotgun he kept beneath the table.

Patrons scrambled for the exit like cockroaches suddenly caught in the light. Bat prudently stepped away from the door, out of the way of both the exiting rabble and Wyatt and his scattergun. Alan Bensinger hadn’t moved, but the other members of their game had hightailed it.

The sudden silence in Josie’s after the last customer left made Bat wiggle a finger in one ear, as if he’d gone deaf. The dealers had quietly departed too, leaving only Joe behind the bar, Wyatt and Bat, and Alan, still seated and toying with his cards.

“You, too,” Wyatt snapped at the lawyer.

“Now, Wyatt…” Bat began.

“Mister Bensinger – out!”

Alan’s eyes widened. He dropped the cards and scurried off without a word.

Wyatt slammed the door closed and turned the key in the lock.

Bat took off his hat and smacked it down on the table. “Wyatt, you got no call kicking that youngster out.”

“I own this place. I got every right. You want to leave, too?”

“He’s harmless.”

“He’s moping around and driving me crazy.”

“It’s just ’cause that songbird of his didn’t come back here after she was hanged.”

“You making excuses for him?”

Bat said nothing. He liked Alan Bensinger. An unusually dark mood was sharpening Wyatt’s tongue, and arguing wouldn’t help. He was starting to dread learning why Wyatt had sent for him. “Hey, Joe,” he called, dropping heavily into a chair. “Gimme a glass of that appalling swill you call whiskey, would you?”

The bartender’s gaze flicked to Wyatt.

“There is none,” Wyatt said curtly, resuming his own seat. “Ran out this morning. Why do you think the customers were near rioting?”

For a moment, Bat couldn’t take that in. “That’s not possible. There’s always whiskey.”

“Not anymore. Not after the hell cattle.”

Warily, Bat asked, “What about the hell cattle?”

“And here I thought you prided yourself on keeping current. The cattle are spooked. Erra and the Seven will get here sooner or later. That panic which all of hell is feeling, well, it’s infected the cattle too. They’ve shied off their normal range, guarding New Bodie’s border. They got themselves a new stampede route. Swings them through the eastern part of town on each circuit. The distilleries were completely smashed a week ago, the supply houses churned into kindling. Whiskey’s been running dry all over town.”

Bat suddenly understood. No wonder Wyatt was in a foul mood. Hell’s whiskey was the life blood of New Bodie. Just about all the residents drank it. It didn’t matter how execrable it tasted, or how it ulcerated your guts or sledgehammered your head – it still left you addicted and craving more. Going without it for any for any length of time produced DTs like nothing any mortal ever experienced. If the whiskey reserves had been destroyed, thousands of New Bodie’s damnedest would be increasingly angry and desperate enough to do just about anything.

“Oh, shit,” Bat murmured.

“You see the problem.” Wyatt’s fingers drummed the table.

“That why you sent for me?”

“The only whisky in all of New Bodie right now, aside from a few private bottles people have stashed under their pillows, is the twenty casks you squirreled away for me years ago down in the tunnels.”

“Oh, shit.”

Wyatt raised an eyebrow.

“Those stampeding hell cattle… well, they explain the state of the tunnels. I had assumed it was earthquakes or demons that had collapsed half the maze. I have no idea if we can even get down there anymore. I had to take quite a few detours just to get here.”

“Let’s find out.”

“Now?”

“No time like the present, Bartholomew.”

Bat grimaced at the use of his hated given name, particularly since he knew Wyatt was using it just to irk him. He jammed his hat on his head and let Wyatt lead the way out without another word. Alan sat moping on the bench outside Josie’s, but Bat just nodded to him in passing. No use riling Wyatt any more than he was already. Wyatt relocked the door to the saloon, ignoring the forlorn lawyer.

A voice called from the street, “Hey! You Wyatt Earp? You shot my brother last week, and I’m calling you out–”

Wyatt turned, almost lazily, but his gun was already in his hand. The second youngster who’d come gunning for him that day tumbled backward before he’d even finished threatening Wyatt.

The kid’s two companions stared, slack-jawed.

“I’m in no mood!” Wyatt yelled. “So get the hell out of here or I’ll shoot you, too, just for the fun of it.” It was a lie, Bat knew, but it sent the two sidekicks sprinting away without a backward glance. Alan watched wide-eyed and prudently said nothing at all.

On the roof, the red demon applauded. His sign flashed: ‘10.0.’

Wyatt shot at the demon, but the bullet ricocheted off the roof. The creature yawned and let out a long rolling belch. No matter how carefully Wyatt aimed, he couldn’t hit the demon. Wyatt cursed, then spun the other way.

A nondescript man in a bowler and dirty white shirt, hands stuffed in his pockets, leaned against a post watching the proceedings. A sly grin quirked the lurker’s lips, and his eyes followed Wyatt’s movements with obvious interest.

“That goes for you too,” Wyatt growled.

“Whatever you say, Hero,” the man drawled, lingering over the last word. His gaze switched to Bat, and he stressed, “Heroes,” before he grinned at them and slunk around the corner of the building, hands still deep in his pockets.

*

Henry Charles about-faced as soon as he was out of Earp and Masterson’s sight, curious to see where they were headed. That Wyatt Earp…He’d be tough to take by surprise, but that just made Henry’s blood run faster, and he giggled in anticipation. It wouldn’t be that hard. Earp seemed reckless and angry. He wasn’t in a careful mood.

Henry Charles left the alley’s shadows to follow the fast-disappearing ex-lawmen.

“Hey!”

Henry jumped, startled. A young, clean-cut man in a suit had just risen from a bench outside Earp’s establishment and was squinting across the road at him as if they knew each other.

Did they? Fear gave Henry delightful goosebumps, and he shuddered. “Afternoon, gov’ner!” he called, before running back into the alley to evade the unwanted scrutiny. Earp and Masterson would have to wait.

Did he know that man? Yes, he thought he did. He scoured his memory for a name to go with the face and finally snapped his fingers in recollection: Alan Bensinger, the defense attorney who’d gotten him off the hook back in New Hell. What was the lawyer doing here? Henry chewed on that as he ran. Bensinger had recognized him immediately, and Henry didn’t like thinking that someone knew his face.

He might have to do something about that.

*

Tunnel cave-ins forced Earp and Masterson to detour twice, but the chamber holding Wyatt’s whiskey stash was untouched. They jammed their torches into cracks in the wall. Bat had tried flashlights once, but the capriciousness of hell’s batteries had quickly nixed that idea. A good, old-fashioned, flame-burning torch and a pocketful of matches were more reliable.

Wyatt rested his arms across the top of the stack of casks, counting and figuring.

Bat leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, and licked dry lips. He could smell the alcohol, tantalizingly close. Wyatt, who wisely never touched a drink in hell, seemed unmoved. Bat commented, “Bringing out that whiskey might make things worse. You think of that? Besides, you’ll run out again in twenty-four hours.”

Wyatt’s eyes gleamed in the flickering torchlight. “But there’s a fortune to be made during that time. Virg and Morg’ll get me a wagon tomorrow. They can help us carry these casks up to the surface.”

“Why not today?”

“Because tomorrow, people will be willing to pay even more for a drink.”

Bat snorted. “And what good will that do? What are you going to spend your fortune on?”

“Leave that to me.”

Bat shook his head. “You always did have an eye on making more money.”

“You did, too.”

“Yeah; but I face facts, old friend. And I spend my money on living. Here. Now. In bloody, goddamned-for-all-eternity hell. We aren’t getting out of here, Wyatt.” He moved closer to his friend and added softly, “And you can’t buy your way to her.”

Wyatt’s expression hardened, cold blue eyes narrowing with glacial frost visible even in torchlight. Bat didn’t budge, but, for a second, he thought Wyatt might slug him. Even at the best of times, Josephine Marcus was always a touchy subject to broach. Yet a moment later, Wyatt’s shoulders slumped, and his emotionless facade crumbled. His voice was soft, but determined: “If I can’t be with her, then I want to die. Oblivion death. No heaven, no hell, just nothing. I want to cease to exist.”

A sharp bark of laughter. “No such animal, Wyatt. We’re stuck here.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“You know how many Old Dead are running around down here with those same ambitions? You know how long they’ve been at it? You know how many have succeeded–”

Wyatt exploded into motion, shoving Bat against the wall, fingers balled in Bat’s shirt front. “I’ll find a way,” he snarled. “I’ll find a way to be with her again.” He snatched up his torch and strode away, kicking at a stray rock in his path.

Bat exhaled sharply, tugged his shirt straight, and muttered, “Son of a bitch.” Since arriving in hell, he’d seen Wyatt in many a dark mood, but this one seemed particularly ominous.

With a last, wistful glance at the stacked casks, Bat headed back toward the surface. Wyatt was long gone.

Bat hoped Wyatt remembered the way out. He didn’t want to turn their scouting expedition into a search party.

Bat kicked at the wall. Wyatt needed to face up to the loss of his beloved wife and move on…Of course, Josephine was part of Wyatt’s particular torment: Wyatt couldn’t move on. Bat wondered what it was like to love someone that much. He’d loved his own wife, Emma, but he’d spent so little time at home with her. They’d stayed married thirty years, more a testament to her good nature and tolerance for his love of New York City’s night life than because of any concessions he’d made as a husband. He liked to think he regretted that. But he knew, if he had it all to do over, he’d follow the same path. Wyatt and Josephine had certainly had their marital ups and downs. Yet somehow, through it all, something indefinable and special kept their love strong, even with hell between them. He shook his head and hurried on.

Alan Bensinger was waiting for him in front of Josie’s.

“Wyatt come back here?” Bat asked.

“He came by, but didn’t go back to his place. Headed downtown.”

Toward the gambling houses that Virgil and Morgan Earp frequented, Bat guessed. To ask their help for tomorrow. His brothers were the only ones Wyatt would trust to help move the precious load. And they were the only ones save his own brothers whom Bat trusted as well.

Bat glanced up at the red demon still perched on the roof. The monster’s wide, toothy grin broadened. His neon sign was flashing ‘Hero’ repeatedly, the same way it had flashed ‘Josie’s’ earlier.

“Wonder what Ernie means by that?” Alan said, following Bat’s gaze.

“Ernie?” Bat stared at the lawyer. “That’s its name?”

“Well, it’s what I call him.”

“You nicknamed a demon? Like he was a friend or a stray dog?”

“He’s harmless. He doesn’t do anything but sit up there with his sign,” Alan said defensively.

“Harmless, my Aunt Irma’s bloomers,” Bat muttered. “No demon is harmless. I find it extremely ironic that a lawyer, of all people, is humanizing a no-good denizen of hell whose sole purpose in perdition is to drive Wyatt crazy.” Bat stalked away but Alan caught up. The sign winked mockingly behind them.

“Mister Masterson,” the lawyer asked, “how often do guys from New Hell end up over here in New Bodie?”

“Rarely, why? You thinking about your songbird again?”

“No.” Alan turned his hat over and over in his hands. “I tried a case once back in New Hell, right after I arrived. Defended a murderer…Yeah, yeah, I lied and got him off. He couldn’t have been more guilty – damn near bragged about the famous people he’d killed, and the way he’d killed them…”

Bat felt ineffably tired and, for once, he found he didn’t have the patience to listen to the attorney. “This story going somewhere, son?”

“I saw him here, on the street, this morning.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. It was him.”

Bat tried to puzzle out why this was important to Alan. “Well, maybe one of his victims caught up with him and he was reborn here, like you. It’s rare, but it does happen.”

“He was a bad one, Bat. Is a bad one.”

Bat laughed humorlessly. “Aren’t we all. You know how many nasty, unrepentant, murdering sons of bitches there are here in New Bodie? Who kill people daily? It’s one of the joys of living here, that you’re likely to get sent to the Undertaker any minute. Doesn’t matter if you carry a gun or not. Someone always wants to shoot someone.”

Alan shook his head, as if to indicate that Bat wasn’t getting it. Which he wasn’t. But who cared? Murderers were a dime a dozen. So were arsonists, rapists, petty thieves, cattle rustlers, and dumb miners and farmers who took the Lord’s name in vain. Bat wanted to chalk it up to Alan’s newness to the underworlds, but the lawyer had been here long enough now. Something personal was bothering him. But what? The fact that he’d lied to get the bastard off?

“This guy killed only famous people in New Hell. Liked to have witnesses around. And he did it with a knife, Mister Masterson. He carved up his victims. You know what he called himself in court? The ‘Etcher.’”

“Alrighty, he’s vain as well as cruel. So what?”

Alan shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know. It just bothers me to see him here.”

Bat shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Alan. It just doesn’t matter.”

“He was watching you and Mister Earp earlier.”

That made Bat pause. ‘Hero,’ the demon’s sign had read. The same thing that man lurking outside the saloon had called them. “Young gangly fellow?” Bat asked. “Wearing a bowler?”

Alan nodded.

“I let in a rat,” Bat murmured. He wasn’t sure how someone had managed to follow him, but Ernie the demon had been right. Bat rubbed at his eyes. He was tired, so tired. And he wanted a drink. Not wanted, needed. Damn Erra and the Seven and the chaos they precipitated. Damn the hell cattle. Damn Wyatt and his fortune-seeking plan. Damn Ernie the demon and his mocking messages. Why was Ernie even paying attention? What made this one murderer so special?

“Alan,” Bat said, “we’ve got bigger problems right now than some murderer, so I’m going to…” What? What was he going to do beside tag along on Wyatt’s whiskey retrieval mission and make sure no one got lost? What they really needed was a plan to get the cattle back where they belonged, but Wyatt couldn’t see that. Or wouldn’t see that.

Bat waved a noncommittal goodbye and left Bensinger behind without another word. Wyatt’s mood was contagious, that’s all.

*

Henry Charles quelled his uneasiness at the whore’s proximity. She reeked of perfume that did nothing to mask her body odor. She had dull eyes, limp brown hair, and a scar marring one side of her face. It was this knife scar that had made him approach her. Seeing someone else’s handiwork with a blade relaxed him slightly, made him feel a bit paternal toward her.

“Sure, Mister,” she said in a voice as flat as her eyes. “I seen them Earps around. Who hasn’t? They got this attitude, see? Nervy and nothing makes ‘em flinch. Even if you don’t know their faces, you know when you’re lookin’ at a real gunfighter, know what I mean? Anyway, Wyatt runs his own place over on the south side. Virgil and Morgan like to play poker across town at the Dirty Dog Palace. James and Warren…well, they’re around here somewhere. There’s a half-brother too, but I ain’t never seen him…”

He’d thanked her and turned to leave, when his gaze was caught by a yellow-haired, mustached fellow in a distinctive buckskin jacket who was just coming in. Beside him was another man in buckskins, just as familiar with his long, dark, curly hair and big mustache. Henry smiled to himself. General Custer and Wild Bill Hickok, he thought. New Bodie was just chock full of famous heroes who needed to die all over again.

*

Bat’s preferred lodging was a hotel located in the busy center of town. The midtown streets broadened to accommodate the concentration of human traffic. Dance halls, saloons, boarding houses, hotels, livery stables, general stores, and even a few banks (for those who trusted their funds to institutions likely to be robbed three times a day) offered their goods and services. Wyatt had attempted to avoid crowds in New Bodie, his saloon built on the outskirts, not in the center of things where he once might have erected his business. But Bat had never tired of lights, color, and action, even in hell.

The streets seemed more congested than normal, and he drew up sharply as he rounded the corner. The damned overflowed the plaza outside the mayor’s office. The lack of hell’s alcohol was clearly getting to them. It wasn’t a gathering calling for action, so much as a riot of frustrated souls determined to make somebody pay. Empty bottles shattered against walls and windows, and gunshots ricocheted around the plaza. Screams of pain came from bystanders and participants who caught stray bullets, and a few fistfights turned into brawls in the middle of the swathe of protesters.

Bat cursed. If those cattle weren’t set back on their proper path and the distilleries working again soon, New Bodie was going to be a war zone no one could survive.

Determined to avoid the madness, he ducked down the nearest side alley. His hotel was no longer a safe destination, so he skirted the riot and headed east for a boarding house he sometimes patronized. It would serve for the night. The streets remained crowded, but the mood of the passersby seemed glum, not violent.

“Masterson!”

Bat turned to see Pat Garrett approaching. Garrett was a tall, thin fellow, taller even than Wyatt. A marshal’s star adorned the lapel of his black coat. Masterson had held that office just once in New Bodie. No job in town guaranteed a quicker meeting with a bullet, but some men were gluttons for punishment. And mean enough to stick with it. Garrett was one of them.

“You heard the news?” the marshal asked him.

“Let me guess,” Bat said. “Cattle ran rampant over another section of New Bodie?”

Garrett frowned at him. “No. But they’re due back around this way any time. I meant the murders. George Custer was just killed. Bill Hickok, too. Over at the Lost Penny Saloon.”

“It’s not the first time that’s happened,” Bat said. “Nor will it be the last.”

“This time was different.”

Masterson shrugged. “People don’t last long around here, and that’s a fact. Custer and Hickok, neither.”

“You’ve lasted.”

“I’m careful,” Bat said. “But that doesn’t matter. Being cautious merely prolongs the inevitable. What do you want from me, Garrett?”

“I want to deputize you.”

“No, thanks. Been there, done that.”

“You’re a good lawman, Masterson, and you’re an even better man-tracker. I could use your help finding who did this. Custer and Hickok? They wasn’t shot. They was knifed. Cut up. There was witnesses for both of them, people who showed up just before the bodies went back to the Undertaker. Like their deaths was meant to be seen. Like it was planned that way.”

Bat kept his face carefully free of expression. Wasn’t that exactly how Alan had described the modus operandi of his New Hell killer? That careless Bat, he let in a rat. And the rat wasn’t wasting any time getting busy. “I’ll keep my eye out,” Bat said.

Garrett grimaced at the refusal. “Have it your way. But I’d watch my back. If you see any of the Earps–”

“They’ve got their hands full themselves right now,” Bat cut him off. “But I’ll pass along your message…”

The ground rumbled beneath their feet, the tremor growing in magnitude. Both men threw out their arms to aid their balance.

“Oh, shit,” Garrett said. “The cattle are back.” He ran.

Two cowboys nearby spurred their hell horses into a gallop, riding past others in the street who were too busy looking at the danger to react. Bat was one of them, frozen in awe at the sight of the stampeding hell cattle. An incoming tidal wave wouldn’t have looked much different: an unstoppable wall of destruction, only this one was made of dust, fire, and a million tons of man-eating beef. Some hell cattle lowed as they ran; some bellowed like a cross between a freight train horn and a thousand Comanche raising a war cry all at once. Only three times louder and more terrifying.

Someone screamed a belated, useless warning – “The cattle!” – but it broke the spell. The people around him panicked and ran for their lives.

Bat fled with them. Garrett was already out of sight.

*

The stampede was a thing of sheer beauty. From the upstairs window of his cheap hotel room, Henry Charles had an unplanned ringside seat. He gazed at the destruction and clasped his hands together, biting at a finger to keep from crying with joy. The gigantic cattle were like nothing he’d seen in hell before. Their hooves churned up so much dust he couldn’t even see them clearly, but he’d witnessed enough to be impressed. They were a roiling mass of bloodied horns, gouts of fire and smoke, and awesome physical strength, bulldozing through the eastern edge of town as if it were made of cardboard boxes. Buildings crumpled, stomped into splinters and dust. Anyone not quick enough was eaten or trampled or gored. He saw people snapped in half by the massive white-toothed jaws. Their screams delighted Henry’s ears.

An explosion blew apart a building down the street. The cattle closest to the blast shied away, bellowing in alarm. In moments, the herd charged into the broiling desert, vanishing as fast as it had appeared.

Henry studied the remaining devastation and shivered.

Who was he, killing men one or two at a time with his knife? How amateurish. How boring and unimaginative. The cattle…now they knew how to destroy. Henry Charles was not one to ignore a lesson in wreaking havoc, particularly one right in front of him. He’d been thinking too small. Why track and kill heroes the way he’d been doing, when he could wipe them out wholesale? The whole town. Everyone. From those Old-West lawmen and famous outlaws to the whores, cowboys, gamblers, and shopkeepers. Instead of a knife, he could wield the cattle, use them to carve right through the heart of New Bodie.

But the herd was a weapon he didn’t know how to use. How did one drive the hell cattle deeper into the town, to stomp it all into guts and kindling? How did one direct an uncontrollable herd of gigantic hell beasts? He’d hated farms back on earth. Hated the smells and long hours and people who worked with animals and plants. Few subjects were as detestable as animal husbandry. And the wild cattle? He’d have an easier time steering a tornado.

Henry sprawled on the bed, eyes closed. His mind drifted back a few minutes and replayed the gloriously destructive spectacle he’d witnessed, and–

The answer, he thought abruptly, sitting bolt upright, was always in front of you. That explosion…the hell cattle had shifted away from it. They had flat-out veered away from it. A grin spread across his face.

What he needed was dynamite. A whole lot of it.

He contemplated the big wad of cash he’d stolen from General Custer when he’d killed him. What exactly could money buy in hell? he wondered. Big spending would leave tracks. He’d have to be careful but if this worked, in a short while, it wouldn’t matter. There would be nothing left of New Bodie or the people in it.

And that was a very pleasing thought.

*

“You sleep all right?” Wyatt asked Bat sarcastically. Wyatt was seated at the back table, playing a two-person card game with Alan. Besides Joe, who was cleaning behind the bar, they were the only people in the building.

The lack of patrons in that big, empty saloon made Bat feel out of place. The pungent odor of whiskey still lingered in the air and made Bat’s mouth water. His stomach hurt, his nerves jangled, and he knew only a drink of non-existent liquor could help. He rubbed his sweating hands against his thighs. “I didn’t sleep at all,” he said. “I saw those cattle come through yesterday. We gotta get them back where they belong.”

“Not that one,” Alan said, when Wyatt laid down a card. “That’s the jass, highest trump in the deck. You want to hold onto that.”

“I know what it’s worth,” Wyatt said crankily. “And that’s the card I’m playing. Let’s see what you got.”

Alan frowned and set down a card before he glanced at Bat. “Nothing’s going to settle those cattle down except Erra and the Seven leaving hell, so we better just get used to it. The cattle are probably only a prelude anyway. All the scourges the Seven can bring down on our town are going to punish us in ways that will make those rampaging cattle look downright civilized.”

“There’s gotta be something we can do,” Bat insisted. He paced beside the card table while Wyatt and Alan played out their hand. “General Santa Anna’s got his army surrounding the Hellamo – why don’t we just have him send his men out there?”

Alan gaped. “But that’s suicide!”

“And how is that different from what they’re going through every thirteen days anyway? This way, maybe the hell cattle will eat enough men and get too fat to destroy any more of New Bodie.”

Alan looked like he was about to vomit. “That’s sick!”

“It’s practical!”

Wyatt waved a hand, dismissively. “Santa Anna’s too proud to sacrifice his men like that. He got an invite to that big shindig over in New Hell…He thinks he’s important now.”

Bat spread his hands and shrugged. “Then I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He twisted around as the front door opened, and Morgan and Virgil Earp strolled in. Morgan had recently made the decision to shave off the traditional Earp family mustache and looked quite boyish as a result; Virgil radiated calm competence, his own sweeping mustache still firmly in its place.

“Well, howdy, Bat,” Morgan said. “Wyatt, this had better be good. Pat Garrett’s been asking around. He’s got a job for us. Hunting for some murderer–”

Bat cleared his throat, interrupting, “Never mind Garrett. He’s focusing on the wrong thing. We should be finding a way to stop the cattle.”

“You’ve already said your piece on the subject, Bartholomew. Multiple times.” Wyatt’s tone was mild, but Bat heard the rebuke and bit his lip to stay quiet.

Virgil frowned. “But Garrett doesn’t ask for help lightly. He’s a mean hombre, likes to do things his way. Must be something serious.”

“So’s this,” Wyatt said.

Bat breathed a sigh of relief as Wyatt’s comment turned his brothers’ attention away from Garrett and the so-called Etcher to the hell cattle. Bat wasn’t ready to admit his role in leading that knife-murdering rat into New Bodie. Besides, he still couldn’t figure out why one killer was more important than any other. Ernie (when had Bat begun thinking of the red demon by Alan’s nickname for him?) was just plying his trade, bothering people with whatever would get under their skins. And succeeding. It bothered Bat immensely that this murderer had somehow trailed him through the tunnels without him knowing it. And he couldn’t even blame the lack of alcohol. That had come afterwards. He studied his trembling hands, then shoved them in his pockets.

Wyatt laid down the last card, taking the final trick and finishing out the hand.

Alan stared at him. “I think you just set me.”

Wyatt said nothing, just gathered up his cards to count his points.

“Who’s this fella?” Morgan jerked a thumb toward Alan.

“Lawyer,” Wyatt said. “He’s okay.”

Alan hadn’t shifted his gaze from Wyatt. “You said you never played klabberjass before!”

“I learn fast.” Wyatt tallied the score on a pad of paper. “That hand gave me one hundred and twenty-seven points. You’re set, and I do believe I just won the game.”

Alan tossed in the cards he’d been counting. “That’s not fair!”

“Playing cards with Wyatt is never fair,” Morgan muttered.

Wyatt’s thin smile lasted only a moment, then he was all business. “Okay, let’s get moving.”

“Where we going?” Virgil asked.

“Tell you on the way.”

*

Henry Charles watched them leave the saloon and climb onto a flat-bed wagon. He hadn’t been able to resist returning to Josie’s to wait for Earp and Masterson. He wanted to do them special. He’d been disappointed that he hadn’t found Earp’s two brothers the previous night, but he’d just needed to be patient, because here they all were, in one place. The family resemblance was unmistakable between the three men, with their thick dark blond hair, blue eyes, and similar builds. Virgil and Morgan Earp’s presence now more than made up for his failure to locate them earlier.

Alan Bensinger was with them too, though: the one soul who could recognize him. Henry withdrew into the alley’s shadows. He’d have to take out that lawyer fellow, or he might warn his friends. Henry couldn’t have that. It would spoil all his fun.

Henry trailed them cautiously through the streets to a deserted, decrepit barn. He recognized it immediately: the underground tunnel entrance was in there. Morgan Earp drove the wagon inside, and Wyatt immediately closed the doors behind them. Henry circled the barn until he found a cracked board through which to spy on their activity. He watched the Earps and Bensinger follow Masterson through the trap door. It was some time before they returned, lugging a wooden cask apiece to load onto the wagon.

They made three more trips, while Henry waited and watched. Henry prided himself on his patience. It was one virtue that served his hunting instinct well, and it paid off when, after that fourth trip, Bensinger sank unceremoniously to the ground, back against a wagon wheel, and mopped the sweat from his brow with an already sodden handkerchief. Henry could hear his strained breathing.

“How come he gets to cool his heels?” Morgan complained. “The rest of us is working just as hard.”

“Oh, shut up and leave him be,” Virgil shot back. “Sooner we finish, sooner we can all rest.”

The Earps and Masterson disappeared back into the tunnel, leaving the exhausted lawyer behind. Alone.

Henry smiled. New Bodie was being too good to him. Sure, there’d be no witnesses this time. No convenient and scared whore to scream and babble about the murder. Nobody to expound on his handiwork – but the lawyer was a nobody. Witnesses weren’t required for nobodies.

*

“That’s the last of it,” Bat said, and wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his handkerchief. His muscles ached from hauling the heavy whiskey casks. Earp’s brothers seemed even more tired, and both were still grumbling under their breath at Wyatt’s refusal to let them take a drink. Like Bat, they were suffering from alcohol deprivation and clearly galled by the fact that their own brother was denying them. Wyatt was the only one who appeared unfazed by the work, the only one with an irrepressible gleam in his eye. Dollar signs were the only things he was seeing.

Wyatt snugged a tarp down tight over the wagon to hide the contents from prying eyes. Unlike Virgil and Morgan, New Bodie’s average citizen had no familial ties to restrain them from making a try for the whiskey on the wagon. Bat could just imagine the riot that would ensue if any of New Bodie’s damned realized what precious cargo was being transported under their very eyes. It was a good thing Josie’s was close by.

“Where’d your lawyer friend go?” Morgan asked. “I thought he was

too tired to budge.”

Bat looked around the empty barn in alarm. “He wouldn’t have left. That’s not like him.”

A quickly shared glance, and the four men silently spread out, guns loose in their holsters. Virgil and Morgan scouted the outside perimeter, while Wyatt and Bat checked the barn’s interior.

Wyatt found the scene of the crime, the puddle of blood still seeping into the dirty straw, and called the others over. Finding that evidence hurt more than Bat expected. He swore under his breath. He’d failed the young lawyer. He hadn’t thought Alan would be in any danger. Alan had been so sure the Etcher only carved up famous people. Alan Bensinger was hardly famous. Bat’s gaze swept the barn, recreating the scene. “Alan saw someone coming and tried to run, got caught here.”

“Who did this?” Wyatt’s voice was harsh.

Bat said nothing.

“More importantly,” Virgil asked, “why kill some poor fellow and not take the wagon with the expensive goods?”

Because, Bat answered silently. Someone like the Etcher didn’t care about wagons or whiskey or money. He returned to the wagon, Wyatt trailing close behind.

“What’s this all about, Bat?” Wyatt said. “You know something and you’re not saying. Who would want to shoot Alan?”

“He was knifed,” Bat said with grim certainty.

“And?”

And that was the problem with knowing someone as long and as closely as he had known Wyatt, Bat thought. It was impossible to hide things for long. Sighing, Bat said, “It was someone from Alan’s past, someone he’d defended in court over in New Hell. A murderer who likes to cut up famous people for sport. I think he’s the one Pat Garrett’s hunting for.”

“Anything else you forgot to tell us, Bat?” Virgil said sarcastically.

“Just that we’d all better watch our backs – I think we’re the next targets. Alan knew this killer, which made Alan the only one around here who could’ve identified this fellow.”

Virgil blew out a breath, nodding slightly. “And if this man’s killed your lawyer friend, that can only mean he wants to make sure there’s nobody to warn us if he’s around.”

“Well, this murderin’ fella’s in for a surprise then,” Morgan said. “ ’Cause we ain’t no lawyers. And we ain’t running. And no one’s going to take me with a knife while I’ve got a gun.”

Wyatt shook his head. “Let’s just get the whisky back to my place. We’ll talk about it there. Won’t we, Bat?”

Bat accepted the chastisement silently and, with a last look at the murder scene, climbed onto the wagon with the others. Morgan yelled to the team of hell horses, the traces snapped taut, and they were on their way back to Josie’s.

*

Henry pounded on the alley wall in frustration. It wasn’t fair. Killing the lawyer should have given him at least a moment of elation but, once again, pleasure had eluded him. Destroying New Bodie would change that, he felt confident. One could not condemn an entire population to death without being swept by a feeling of bliss. This would change everything for him, let him feel again. He stopped punching the wall as he heard the wagon approaching.

A quick peek around the corner showed the wagon drawing up close to the saloon entrance. The four men aboard, three on the driver’s bench and one in the back, appeared alert and wary. The Earps had shotguns handy.

So they knew he’d killed their friend. They suspected he might be close. That thought, at least, tantalized him with a thrill of excitement.

He’d used the money he’d lifted from Custer’s corpse to hire some brawny miners and a load of dynamite. They’d been surly and uncooperative until he convinced them they’d be helping to save the town by driving the hell cattle away. It had worked. They’d enthusiastically smacked him on the back and set out immediately to rig and wire the dynamite at the locations he’d marked on a map. The miners had been instructed to venture out a bit farther, just beyond the hoof prints that the cattle left behind. Henry’d had a harder time persuading them to keep the plan secret than getting them to agree to it. He was fortunate that after the last stampede the wreckage east of town was now mostly deserted and his miners less likely to be observed.

When the time came, he’d push the plungers himself: the pleasure of detonating the explosives would be his and his alone. By the cattle’s next circuit, he’d be ready. Only he’d detonate the dynamite after the cattle had passed, not before. Then they’d spook and stampede right through the middle of New Bodie.

Listening to the Earps out on the street, Henry thought about how he still wanted to do something special for them. He fingered the stick of dynamite he’d filched from the miners’ supplies. He’d needed to hold it, feel the weight of it. Explosives were foreign to him. Just having it tucked in a pocket imbued him with a sense of power. A short fuse protruded from the blasting cap. Dynamite wasn’t as personal as a blade, but he could get all of the Earps at once. All he had to do was cross the street and toss it under the wagon. Without that lawyer to point the finger, they wouldn’t even give him a second glance.

His fingers dug in his pocket for matches.

*

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Wyatt demanded, pointing up at Ernie. The demon’s sign was pulsing incandescent red: ‘Forget the whiskey, it’s far too risky.’

“I think he agrees with me that your plan to make a fortune off this stuff isn’t going to work,” Bat muttered. When Wyatt whirled on him, Bat held up his hands and said, “Ernie’s just trying to get your goat like always, that’s all.”

“Ernie?”

“Don’t ask.”

Wyatt glowered up at the red demon, who for once wasn’t smiling. The sign’s message did not change, just flashed more urgently.

Bat studied the street, checking out various people watching them prepare to unload. Most looked only mildly curious. Morgan was right. No knife fighter would be stupid enough to try killing armed gunmen out in the open. It would be suicide. When they were done here and split up, that’s when this Etcher would strike. A coward’s way to kill.

Wyatt was eyeing the crowd as well, shotgun at the ready. He gestured to his brothers. “Okay,” he said, “get the cover off and be ready to move the goods inside. I’ll get Joe to give us a hand.”

Wyatt unlocked the saloon, pushed the door wide. Bat followed more cautiously. The darkened interior of Josie’s was a more likely spot for an ambush. Wyatt had just crossed to the back rooms and was calling, “Hey, Joe, we got the whiskey,” when the world exploded.

*

The detonation was bigger than Henry anticipated. It knocked him face-first into the dusty street. He blinked and sat up. He heard screams and shouts and the pounding of boot heels as onlookers ran every which- way. The wagon and casks had been blown to bits, but the contents of the wagon had exploded into voracious flames. The wooden awning over the saloon’s front door had caught fire.

Henry couldn’t locate the two Earp brothers who’d been climbing on top of the wagon. He gawked a moment, then laughed and ran, blending in with fleeing bystanders. Sure enough, no one gave him a second look. It was a wonderful thing, being anonymous.

And this was just a prelude, he thought gleefully. Just a single stick of dynamite. Like tuning up the orchestra before the symphony. He giggled in anticipation and kept running.

*

“Bat! Bat!”

Garbled and distant, the voice sounded like someone calling him from beyond a sunset he’d never see again. A hand shook his shoulder insistently. Bat would have shoved it away, only he couldn’t seem to make his muscles obey. He forced his eyes open and saw nothing but a blurry fog. He kept blinking until Wyatt’s face came into focus. “What –?” he croaked.

“Explosion,” Wyatt answered tersely. “Come on, get up. The place is burning.”

Not fog, Bat thought: smoke. He smelled the fire then, accidentally inhaling deeply. A coughing fit spasmed him forward. Arms tightened around him, pulling him upright.

When he came to again, he was outside on the street. Joe helped him sit up. Wyatt was standing a few feet away, back and shoulders stiff, staring as Josie’s burned.

“Virg? Morg?” Bat asked.

Joe shook his head.

Bat closed his eyes and groaned. Shit, he thought. Talk about misjudging this killer. The rat had changed the rules. With Joe’s help, he made it to his feet. He scanned the empty street, the scattered remnants of the wagon and whiskey casks, and the roaring inferno consuming Wyatt’s saloon.

Ernie perched on the roof next door, despondent and shaking. He glowed even more brilliantly crimson in the firelight, but the garish neon colors of his message board were muted. A message flashed glumly: ‘It’s just the start, we’ll all depart.’

Bat read it twice, recalling a thought he’d had once, that the demon hadn’t ever lied to them.

Abruptly, he was grabbed and spun. Wyatt caught him by his shirt. “Tell me about the damned fool who did this,” he growled. “I thought you said he knifed people.”

“That’s what Alan said,” Bat protested. “Seems he’s expanding his repertoire.”

“My brothers are dead, Bat. My whiskey blown sky high. My saloon burning to the ground. It’s a little late for –”

“Wait a minute,” Bat interrupted. “Let go of me, damn it.” He yanked himself free of Wyatt’s grip and took a few steps back so he could see Ernie’s sign better. “‘It’s just the start, we’ll all depart,’” he echoed. He asked Wyatt sharply, “Do demons fear for their lives?”

Wyatt looked at him like he was crazy. “What the hell does that have to do with –”

“I mean, they don’t get resurrected, do they? They’re not damned souls, they were born and raised here. They’re natural citizens. There’s no visit to the Undertaker’s table for them.”

“So?”

“So, if they die, they die, right? So they might, just might, have a strong sense of self-preservation.” Bat jabbed a finger toward Ernie’s sign. “Look at him! He’s afraid. He tried to warn us about the whiskey. He knew what was going to happen, but we didn’t understand. He’s trying again now.”

Wyatt’s lips pressed together into a thin line, before he deigned to look at the roof. “Are you trying to tell me that…that demon is trying to help us?”

“Yes.”

“That bastard sits up there taunting me day in day out, and you’re telling me he means well?”

“You dealt with bad press your whole life, Wyatt. Ernie’s just a continuation of that, part of your torment. But not all reporters are liars. And Ernie has never lied.”

“You would support him,” Wyatt snapped. “Kindred spirit and all, Mister New York City Newspaperman. But my brothers –”

“Damn it all, Wyatt. Your brothers will be back! But – ‘it’s just the start, we’ll all depart?’” Bat poked Wyatt in the chest. “You want to tell me that message doesn’t mean that something a helluva lot bigger than this,” Bat gestured to the conflagration behind them, “is going to happen very soon? And that Ernie knows about it?”

Ernie burped loudly, his toothy mouth widening into a hopeful smile. His sign changed to: ‘He’s bright, that Bat, I’ll give him that.’

“What have we got to lose?” Bat demanded.

Wyatt said nothing.

“Alrighty then,” Bat said. He gave the red demon his full attention. “Okay, Ernie, we’re listening.”

*

Henry fondled the handles of the four plungers in front of him. The well-worn wood soothed his twitching hands. His gaze traced the myriad cables snaking away into the desert. On their last circuit, stampeding hell cattle had passed just thirty feet from the building that sheltered him; he could see the hoof prints in the dirt from where he crouched. He quivered with delight. If he didn’t detonate the dynamite at just the right moment, the hell cattle would very likely trample his position. He could not run or hide this close, and he welcomed that risk with glee.

Let the cattle veer too early. He’d be first to the Undertaker’s table. Finally! He’d be back there again, for that terrible, wonderful torture only a creature with the Undertaker’s talent could inflict. This, coupled with the knowledge that he had destroyed the town, would reward him with a moment of incomparable pleasure. It must. And that would be worth giving up even a front seat at New Bodie’s destruction.

His thoughts were interrupted by the bellow of hell cattle. It was time. He nearly bounced with exhilaration. He risked a peek around the corner of the building and saw the wall of dust approaching. Red dust, the color of rusted blood. An auspicious color. He raised his voice in a cheer that was drowned out by the thundering cattle. His voice cut off mid- cry…

A crushing grip seized him around the chest, and he was hauled bodily away from the plungers.

“No!” he shrieked. He fought with strength born of sheer panic: scratching, hitting, kicking.

A shape loomed out of the swirling dust preceding the hell cattle’s charge. Henry recognized Wyatt Earp, arm raised.

Henry Charles screamed once again, unable to break free of the implacable grip that held him down. Nor could he evade the butt of Earp’s Colt as it struck his temple.

*

Henry dredged himself up from unconsciousness. His head throbbed abominably, and his eyes refused to focus properly. Familiar voices stabbed through the silence around him. He was still having trouble concentrating. He did remember the dust, the cattle coming, so close, so close…and Earp. Henry flexed his fingers, found no restraints around his wrists, and without another thought, he bolted.

A vice-like grip clamped around his upper arm. Henry swung in a useless, flailing circle. His own momentum would have tripped him if the grip on his arm hadn’t kept him upright.

Wyatt Earp: tall, thin, blond, face utterly expressionless except for those cold blue eyes. The hatred there lay like shards of ice ready to impale him.

“Kill me!” Henry demanded. “I killed your brothers! You want revenge, I see it in your eyes…you’ve killed for them before. Kill me now. I deserve it!”

Another man stepped around Wyatt’s side: Bat Masterson was smiling almost genially.

“I’d have killed you, too,” Henry snarled at him. “I’d have killed the whole town! My dynamite–”

“Well, you can spend all the time you want thinking about all the things you might have done.”

“What do you ?”

Wyatt thrust him forward, and Henry fell. Vertigo rose in his stomach, and he flailed wildly before finally slamming into the ground. The air was knocked out of him. His lungs closed up, then opened painfully as he sucked air. His right side throbbed and, when he touched the abraded skin, he realized he was nude. Not a stitch of clothes on him. He squeaked in dismay and scrambled backwards as if he could escape from himself. He struck his back against a curving wall and looked up.

He was at the bottom of a well, twenty feet deep, eight feet across. His palm slid over the smooth stone wall. Henry swallowed hard.

Masterson stood at the top, next to Earp, peering over the edge. “In the early days of Dodge,” he called down conversationally, “we had a well like this…before they built us a real jail. Used to toss the drunks down there until they sobered up. You’ll keep.”

Henry gaped at him. The man couldn’t be serious. They were going to keep him here? In this hole in the ground? “But – I killed people. You have to execute me for my crimes!”

Masterson cocked his head. “And have you returned somewhere? Recycled? No, I think you’ll just stay down there awhile.”

“But you can’t!” Henry gulped air in panicked wheezes. “You can’t leave me down in this hole!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll feed you every once in a while. We’ve assigned someone to look out for your well being.”

A familiar yellow-haired man stepped up beside Masterson, and the fear in Henry’s stomach congealed into a ball of gnawing possums, all teeth and claws and naked twitching tails.

“This is General George Armstrong Custer,” Masterson said. “But then, I believe you’ve already made his acquaintance. He’s graciously volunteered to take care of you, in return for your kind hospitality to him.”

And Custer smiled a terrible smile.

Henry Charles screamed.

*

Bat winced at the piercing noise. He tipped his hat to Custer and walked away with Wyatt.

“Noisy fellow,” Wyatt muttered.

“You know,” Bat said, “he did have a good idea about that dynamite, though. Why couldn’t we use it to spook the cattle the other direction? Away from town.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Hell, no. It’s a good idea. Why waste it? We should have thought of it ourselves.” Bat held up his hand, which trembled visibly. “I need a drink, and if that’s not happening until those cattle are back where they belong and the distilleries can be salvaged and rebuilt, then damn it all, I’ll rig the dynamite myself.”

Wyatt didn’t answer, and Bat felt the mood darken as they walked along in silence.

“You owe me, Bartholomew,” Wyatt said morosely. “I needed the money I’d have made, selling that whiskey stash. It was the first sure way to make a fortune I’ve found down here.”

“I am sorry, Wyatt.” Bat’s thoughts drifted to Alan Bensinger, wondering if the lawyer would be reassigned back to New Bodie , or if he would be resurrected wherever Sally Lockett, his opera-singing girlfriend, was caterwauling these days. Did love hold any sway in hell? The thought made him study Wyatt’s solemn profile. He sighed. “Wyatt, you think you really stand a chance of reuniting with Josephine?”

“If I can’t believe in that one hope…”

“You know, hanging onto that one hope also perpetuates your torment.”

“It’s worth it.”

Bat sighed again, loudly. “Oh, damn it all, Wyatt, you know I’ll help, you old bastard.”

The hint of a smile touched Wyatt’s lips. “Thanks.”

“But you owe Ernie an apology. He didn’t lie.”

Wyatt raised an eyebrow and frowned. “‘Wyatt Earp, he makes me burp?’”

“That’s not a lie,” Bat protested. “You do make him burp. Now come on, let’s go get that dynamite and see if we can’t scare those cattle back where they belong.”