Continued from Chapter 4: An Unwelcome Return

Chapter 5

It was early in the morning, during the black darkness right before sunrise, and Edge hadn’t slept well at all. Something had kept him up all night. Running through scenarios. Trying to envision how things would go down.

He felt something outside. A low rumble. Walking out of the mercantile, the Rider stood on the edge of the wooden walkway and looked toward the rising sun.

In the far-off distance were small dots of lights. Headlights of bikes and what appeared to be three flatbeds. And they were headed toward town.

This was it.

The sound from the approaching vehicles grew, waking the people of Pine Bluff to the low growl of raw horsepower and grinding gears. Edge had already issued instructions for most of the people to take cover and stay out of the town square.

If any killing was to happen, this is where it would take place.

Edge double-checked his revolver. It was loaded, and he had plenty of ammunition. It’s just too bad he no longer had his other gun, but he’d make do.

The first two rigs, each driven by a man in a long coat, rolled into the town square and pulled up to a stop next to the Pine Bluff Trust and Savings Bank. Five Hollow Men followed close behind on motorcycles. One of them with a sidecar.

In the sidecar, the Rider noticed the greasy outlaw from the Randolph Ranch. Edge found it to be equally amusing and annoying. Behind the bikes followed one last pickup with two men in the cab. The cargo in the back of the vehicle was covered with a tarp. The driver pulled up under a huge Pine in the square between the bank and Edge’s location.

Each truck parked near the bank was loaded to nearly overflowing with boxes sporting a huge MMS logo on the side. Edge knew the logo belonged to The Midlands Mining Services Corporation. The company – one of the few multi-regional enterprises in the Wasted Lands – was owned by Cyrus Vanderbilt, a ruthless entrepreneur and one of the last remaining rail barons.

Edge recalled that Jim Murphy, one of the men who had gone missing just a few weeks ago, worked for the Midlands Corporation managing lumber operations outside of Pine Bluff. He would have had control over the company’s explosives.

Edge now held a pair of interesting clues that provided insight into the entire situation. A grin crossed his face as he guessed how old Cyrus Vanderbilt might react if he found out what had happened to his munitions. The old man would not be happy.

So that was their plan? To draw out Edge with a simple bank robbery? It was a little disappointing, but Edge knew he’d have to oblige them if things would end in a way that kept Pine Bluff in one piece. So, Edge opened the store door and walked out onto the porch and down the street.

Alone.

The Rider called out to the assembled mob: “Just what do you boys think you’re doing here at this hour of the morning?” he shouted over the dying motorcycle engines. The Hollow Men, who were making their way to the loaded flatbeds, stopped at the sound of Edge’s voice, their heads craning around and mouths open.

Their handlers turned to see what was happening. The one from the ranch recognized Edge immediately and tried to slink down inside the sidecar, making a poor attempt to disappear.

“You boys aren’t welcome here,” Edge continued. “My name is Edgar Wallace. I’m a deputy marshal with the Riders of the Outland Plains, and I’m authorized by the Governing Council to take you boys in.”

One of the men leaned out of the window of a truck and laughed a weak, wheezy laugh. “Yeah, you and what army?”

Edge gave a little whistle, and two men with shotguns walked around the corner of the mercantile. They were the town councilmen Edge had met at Gunderson’s store the day before. The Rider looked back at them with a bit of surprise. Gunderson was supposed to be with them. Edge thought Eli was a little shifty but never would have considered him to be a coward.

Oh well, he’d have to make do with this turn of events, too.

At least the two men who were left were well-armed. Edge had told them that shotguns would be their best hope against a charging Hollow Man. “Aim for the head and make every shot count,” he instructed. “And once they’re down, give them one more shell for good luck.”

Edge didn’t go into details about how Hollow Men have a bad habit of not staying down after they’ve been shot. A safety shot to the skull seemed to be the only thing that really made sure their departure was permanent.

“Ed and Lenny, here are the Pine Bluff Militia,” Edge said to the man in the vehicle.

The threat was underwhelming. The handler’s smile turned into a toothy grin. His over-confidence didn’t worry the Rider; it was the beasts near the bank that concerned Edge more. They just kept getting more and more restless. Tongues flashing and flicking as if in reaction to the palpable fear in the air.

Edge made a quick glance to his left and caught the glint of gunmetal off the roof of the sheriff’s office. He had his own card up his sleeve. Albert was in position. Once Edge had learned that Pine Bluff’s last remaining deputy was also a crack shot with a large-bore hunting rifle, he knew exactly what kind of role the boy would play for the morning’s inevitable standoff.

All the cards were on the table. Now was the time to see what Lady Luck had in store for him. But sometimes the unexpected happens.

Not everybody plays fair.

Edge couldn’t remember the last time he was truly surprised by someone or something – but it happened just then. One of the two overseers in the flatbed parked under the Pine climbed out of his vehicle and approached the Rider with a self-important sense of authority. In his hand was a rope with a poorly tied noose at its end that he unconsciously moved through his hand as if it were some kind of pet snake.

The Boss smiled coyly.

“Mr. Wallace,” he started, looking directly into Edge’s eyes. “Seems we have a little misunderstanding here. We don’t much care if we’re welcome here or not – you see, we agree with you that we’ve spent far too much time and effort on this hellhole of a backwater.”

Ed, the larger of the two town council members, cleared his throat as if to raise an objection, but Lenny put his hand on the man’s arm in a gesture meant to silence him. Neither of them seemed ready for a conflict – especially one that would probably involve gunplay.

The Boss ignored the bluff and continued without missing a beat.

“We’re here to take what we need and to celebrate a little anniversary of sorts,” he sneered. He let the end of the rope drop; the noose dangled by his side.

“I hear this town has a history of hanging uppity Riders. We figured it’s time for another Rider to swing in Pine Bluff.”

And with that, the two other drivers rousted the Hollow Men back to unloading the boxes off the vehicles and setting them against the bank wall. The chicken-necked outlaw came out of hiding in the sidecar and climbed on top of one of the trucks, yelling at Hollow Men and avoiding any actual work in the process.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” Edge said through clenched teeth. “What makes you think I will come along with this?”

The Boss chuckled a bit. “Oh, you’ll come along all right, Mr. Wallace. Because if you don’t, we’ll hang the mayor of Pine Bluff.” And with that, he pulled the tarp away, revealing a hog-tied and gagged Eli Gunderson in the truck bed.

“Seems he thought he could meet with us as we came into town,” he continued. As if he was showing off his handiwork, the Boss motioned to the remaining Hollow Men and their managers behind him. “He tried to reason us out of all this.”

The other man in the vehicle was out now and pulled Gunderson to his feet on the truck. He pulled his pistol and held it to Gunderson’s head.

“Better put down those shotguns, boys,” the Boss said to Ed and Lenny. They complied. Edge grimaced. The Pine Bluff militia had folded and turned on him faster than a bad hand at Murphy’s Saloon back in Bordertown.

The Boss stepped forward with confidence. When he was close to the Rider, he reached forward and put his hand on the handle of Edge’s revolver. Edge flinched as if he’d been shocked.

The outlaw smiled and pulled the gun out of its holster. He told Edge to turn around to bind the Rider’s hands behind his back where he couldn’t deal any more damage. The Boss leaned into Edge’s ear and spoke in a low, threatening tone: “You’re gonna get on the flatbed, and we’re gonna throw the rope over the lowest branch of this tree. Now you swap places with the mayor so we can finish this thing.”

Edge had very few options.

With a little help from the outlaw, he climbed onto the truck bed. The rope was over a low, gray branch that, while thick, looked dead. Edge put his head through the noose. The man holding Gunderson let the mayor go and tightened the noose around the Rider’s neck while the Boss pulled the rope taut and tied it off to the tree.

Gunderson scurried away to stand beside the disarmed town council members who stood by resolutely. He seemed relieved to be spared.

Next, the Rider looked in the opposite direction and saw the Hollow Men had nearly emptied the first rig by taking the boxes of explosives and placing them near the south side of the bank. On the other side of the wall were the safe and safety deposit boxes. By blowing a hole in the bank wall, they would have unrestricted access to money, jewels, important documents, and family heirlooms.

Edge thought for a moment and then recalled a small piece of information about M.A. Stephens – the assistant to the bank manager. Gunderson had told Edge that Stephens was among those feared abducted by the Hollow Men like Big Murph and the Ashe girl. Stephens would know what was in the vault.

The beasts and their operators had shown their hand. Now it was Edge’s turn to play.

When the Boss was finally satisfied that everything was in place for the impromptu lynching of the lawman, he gave a shout for the greasy dirtbag to come and take the wheel of the pickup. “Weasel,” he yelled. “Get over here and drive the wagon. It’s time to hang us a high-and-mighty lawman.”

“Weasel – an appropriate nickname if there ever was one,” Edge said. The Boss heard him and laughed in response. And, true to his name, he had an excuse for not helping.

“Be there in a minute,” replied Weasel. He was leaning against the second truck, which was still packed with boxes of munitions and explosives. Hollow Men were standing nearby, pulling boxes off the trailer. Weasel seemed unaware, expending much more interest and effort with the lighter he held in one hand and the thin smoke he had just rolled in the other.

The sun had steadily grown during the morning, and it now seemed to burn off the haze not just on the horizon but in Edge’s mind as well.

He had called their bet. Now it was time for Edge to play his hand.

He took two giant steps forward and jumped off the flatbed. In mid-air, Edge felt a familiar sensation. Everything came into focus, and the passage of time seemed to slow down.

A shot rang out, and a bullet ripped through the morning air, shattering the pine branch at its base. “Albert’s not a bad shot,” Edge thought to himself as he landed on the ground and rolled to his right, pulling his arms around his backside and past his feet, bringing his hands in front of him.

Springing to his feet in an instant, the Rider pulled the gun from the Boss’s holster and, in three shots, dropped the man who had been standing next to him on the truck and killed the Boss. The final look on his face was an unmistakable surprise.

Another shot rang out from Albert’s perch atop the sheriff’s office, and a third overseer dropped to the ground. The Hollow Men were confused, many of them still holding boxes they were tasked with moving just moments before.

That’s when Edge saw Weasel. The buck-toothed dirt bag still held the lighter in one hand and his smoke in the other – but he was looking Edge’s direction and yelling something, the Rider couldn’t make it out. He emptied the Boss’s gun in Weasel’s direction.

The first bullet hit Weasel’s lighter, shattering it and sending lighter fluid all over the remaining boxes in the bed of the truck. The second and third bullets hit the outlaw sending his body into a twist and making the lit smoke fly from his hand and onto the fuel-soaked boxes behind him.

Edge reacted in a moment – diving under the nearest truck in an attempt to avoid the unavoidable. A few seconds later, the dynamite went off in a massive explosion that flattened everything nearby. The Rider could feel the heat of the blast, and then suddenly, everything went pitch black.

To be continued in chapter 6: Picking Up the Pieces (stay tuned)

Continued from Chapter 3: Randolph Ranch

Chapter 4

By the time Edge and the girl had arrived back in Pine Bluff, the word was circulating that Hollow Men had been seen nearby. People were afraid. Edge could feel it in the air.

They walked into Gunderson’s store. The shop owner was standing in the middle of the mercantile, talking to three members of the town council. Together, they met the Rider with frowns and a foul mood. With his reinforcements at his back, Gunderson strode up to Edge, and poked his finger into the lawman’s chest.

“When we called for you, Mr. Wallace,” Gunderson sputtered, “we expected you to handle this situation with a little more professionalism. Instead, we get even more destruction, dead bodies, and those unholy nightmares terrorizing our town. There are questions, sir, and you need to have answers.” He was clearly angry at Edge, blaming him for the mass murder at the Randolph Ranch and the town’s most recent unsettling visitors.

“Now wait just one second, Eli,” Edge objected. Using the mayor’s familiar name caught him off guard and gave Edge the opportunity he needed to complete his rebuttal.

“What gives you the idea that the Hollow Men were with me? They were here before I ever arrived.

“Those beasts and their operators appear to be part of an authorized search and seizure action – but I have my doubts. Nobody uses monsters like that to do legal reclamation work. The question we should be asking is ‘Why are they here?’ and ‘What are they looking for?’”

Gunderson didn’t say anything. His pointed finger had curled back into his fist. He just stood there; his anger had turned to stony silence.

“What does this farm family have in common with Purdy Wilson or that girl that went missing or that lumber foreman … what’s his name?”

“Jim Murphy – everyone knows him as Big Murphy,” Gunderson interjected.

“Yeah, that’s it. Whatever happened to Big Murphy, and how are he and that girl connected to all this?” Edge asked. “And what about those bodies? Or the vagrants? We don’t actually know how many people are missing or what’s behind it all.

“There are quite a few unanswered questions, and we need to keep asking them if we want to find any answers and make sense of all this.”

“Are you sure they’re all connected?” Gunderson’s voice had taken on a curious pitch as he looked over the top of his spectacles.

Edge could sense Gunderson’s consternation and tried to explain: “Look, these Hollow Men don’t act on their own. They’re killing machines, that’s about all. Nobody really knows what drives them, who controls them, or why they even exist. It’s a mystery I’ve been working on for years.”

Of all the Riders of the Outland Plain, Edge probably had the most experience in dealing with the unexplained – and that included the Hollow Men. Assessing their current situation, though, he shared a theory that caught Gunderson by surprise.

“Quite frankly, this bunch of overseers didn’t impress me as criminal masterminds in the slightest. I think there must be someone else controlling them. Directing them.”

“If we can determine who’s behind what these savages are doing in Pine Bluff and what they hope to achieve, we’ll be able to confront them and bring this to an end.”

Edge’s reasoning seemed to break the tension and offer some hope to the community elders. They looked at each other with a sense of relief. Even though it was just the slightest sliver, Gunderson and his cronies could breathe again.

The mayor looked at the little girl. She was in shock – which would be understandable. “Come with me, Sarah, let’s have Mrs. Gunderson look at you,” he said to her. Taking her by the hand, the pair walked to the back of the store.

Before the two of them left the room, Edge mentioned one last thing: “Eli, it’s important to know that if these Hollow Men and their masters haven’t found what they’ve come looking for, they’re going to keep terrorizing parts of Pine Bluff and the surrounding area. It’s likely they’ll be here again tonight to keep searching – and that means more people will go missing or get killed.

“I’m here to help put an end to this problem, but we’re stronger if we work together.”

Gunderson locked his gaze on the Rider.

“Understood.”

He had no choice in the matter. Eli Gunderson had worked too hard to lose it all now. It appeared there was only one way to stop the killing and to get the Rider back on his bike and out of town.

To be continued in Chapter 5: Dawn before Death

Continued from Chapter 2: The Riders Return

Chapter 3

Randolph Ranch was a sprawling estate – built by an enterprising young cattleman with long-term designs for his family. The home itself had four bedrooms and two guest rooms, a full kitchen, and a formal dining room. The bunkhouse next to the corral out back had just been completed and was being made ready for its first occupants – young men William Randolph was planning to hire on his next trip into Paradise, the region’s capital and largest city.

But none of that was going to happen now.

As Edge approached the Randolph place, he saw the problem immediately. The sheriff’s vehicle was torn in half. On the ground beside it lay the top half of the other deputy. Where the bottom half had gone, Edge had a hunch, but the grisly reality of it didn’t bear repeating.

It was clear to Edge now that Pine Bluff was under siege. And the adversary wasn’t just your usual gang of thugs or gunslingers-for-hire employed by someone who fancied himself a “rail baron.”

No. This time it was a crew of Hollow Men. How many? He wasn’t sure. They usually worked in small gangs and had a “superintendent” who kept an eye on where they were and whom they terrorized. They were feared – and rightly so – throughout the Outlands and in the Midlands, too, although Edge had heard that attacks in the Midlands had come to an end. How or why was anyone’s guess.

Today. Right here. It was Edge’s job to stop these monsters by any means necessary.

Hollow Men were part man, part something not even remotely like a man. Nobody understood where they came from – but Edge knew from first-hand experience that killing one wasn’t as easy as you might initially think.

Edge climbed off his bike and pulled down the bandanna. He was met with a stench he’d smelled before. Even when you had experienced it, the smell verged on, overpowering even the toughest Rider.

Hollow Men stank of decay, and when they fed, the odor grew more intense. Edge knew it was the sense of smell that the revenants relied on the most – and if they were in the middle of a euphoric feast, it was unlikely they’d sense him coming.

He heard a high-pitched scream. Edge felt a cold shiver run up his back, and a pit started to form in his gut. It was time to act.

He pulled his guns from his holster and walked onto the porch of the house. He hesitated. Something just didn’t feel right. He had done this job long enough to know he should trust his gut instincts at times like this, so he held off.

Edge started toward the corner of the house when, suddenly, the front door flew open. A hulking beast staggered through, pulling a woman behind him by her hair. She was still alive, although from what Edge could make out in the tangle of hair, blood, and torn clothes, she didn’t look to be that way for long.

She was no longer struggling. Blood had clotted her hair over her face, and there were dozens of other wounds on her body. It was clear to Edge that her blood loss and the struggle against her captor had exhausted her.

Similarly, the freak who had a hold of her was covered in blood. Her blood, Edge guessed.

He’d seen enough.

Without saying a word, Edge raised one of his revolvers and fired. The blast echoed down the plains surrounding the farmhouse. And even though the shot hit the Hollow Man squarely in the back, the shell only buried itself in the thick muscle and tendons under the canvas duster, causing the beast to stagger forward just a step or two.

The horror turned to face Edge, opening its maw – the space where most men might have a mouth. Like something from a fever-induced nightmare, Edge found himself staring at the rows and rows of gnashing, needle-sharp teeth. While it looked like the beast was smiling at him, Edge knew it was the beast using his keen sense of taste to get his bearings.

People use their eyes and their sense of sight to quickly understand where they are and, more importantly, where their foes might be. For Hollow Men, since they have no eyes to speak of, they make their way through their sense of taste. Edge had learned that lesson many years ago.

He had also learned that if a beast took the time to show you his teeth, you didn’t have long to take advantage of the opportunity. Edge leveled both revolvers at the Hollow Man and fired. Two rounds ripped into the beast’s mouth and exited through its skull, blasting its brains onto the wall behind it.

The hulking mass of muscle, scaly skin, and teeth dropped to the porch next to the injured woman. Edge wanted to go to her but hesitated for just a moment longer.

Something still wasn’t right.

He heard footsteps from inside the house. Running.

Edge ducked around the corner, keeping out of sight.

A man burst through the door and flew past where Edge was standing, then nearly tripped over the woman and the body of the abomination. The sight stopped him cold for a moment. He looked at the woman and then again at the beast. “Oh no, no, no, no …” he murmured. He was visibly troubled.

The man wore a long, tan duster and dungarees, just like the dead brute. He was thin and wiry, with long, greasy, jet-black hair, buck teeth, and a thin neck that featured a prominent Adam’s apple.

His hair hung next to his face, obscuring his vision – allowing Edge to step up and clock him with the butt of his gun. The cretin went down with a single blow.

There was another scream. This time the scream was more intense and clearly that of a child.

Edge moved to the entrance of the house, giving the unconscious man on the porch a kick for good measure on the way. The Rider approached the parlor window and cautiously peeked through it to see what was happening inside.

Edgar “Edge” Wallace takes on two more Hollow Men at the Randolph Ranch.

There were two more Hollow Men in the room near a bookcase, and above them, cowering on a high shelf in a built-in was a young girl. Edge guessed she could be no more than seven or eight.

Another man stood behind them, apparently amused by the situation. He carried a shotgun and had it resting on his shoulder and would occasionally look toward the kitchen area where there were frequent crashes of dishes breaking as someone – presumably more “search party” rummaged through the pantry and cupboards.

Wrapping his coat around his elbow, Edge broke through the parlor window and stuck his gun through the hole. “Stop what you’re doing and put down your weapons,” he shouted. “Come out with your hands up.”

The freaks barely noticed; they were in a frenzy about the young girl. The man who was with them, though, recognized trouble when he saw it – or, more precisely, when it broke out a window and pointed a gun at him. He turned and brought his shotgun to bear just as Edge fired his pistol.

The shot hit the man in the chest and sent him backward. The shotgun went off, hitting the chandelier and bringing it crashing to the floor right behind the Hollow Men.

That got their attention.

They turned toward the commotion, and Edge took aim. He emptied his first revolver with shots to their head, neck, and chest. They were as dead as they could be when he heard more noise coming from the kitchen.

He motioned to the girl to stay where she was – out of reach – and put his finger to his lips to remain calm and quiet. She seemed to understand and nodded in compliance. Setting his jaw, Edge moved farther down the porch until he was outside the kitchen door.

Inside were three more Hollow Men busily rooting around the kitchen of the Randolph place, feverishly searching the room – tearing apart cupboards, ripping holes in walls, and digging through the pantry. Edge burst through the back door of the house and into the kitchen, his guns blazing.

Edge wondered to himself: “What could be at the farm that would be of any value to these freaks and their handlers?”

But this wasn’t a time for contemplation.

Edge’s pistols found their first two targets easily enough, dropping them quickly. But the third managed to avoid getting shot and came after Edge with a meat cleaver. It was big, strong, and fast. Anyone facing it for the first time would not likely survive the encounter. Unfortunately, Edge knew better than to try and out-punch a Hollow Man – they had unnatural strength and, by all accounts, couldn’t feel pain.

Edge’s rule was to deal death to Hollow Men from a distance whenever possible, but it just wasn’t possible this time.

The monster grabbed Edge by the collar of his duster and brought the meat cleaver down fast. The Rider dropped his empty revolver and used his free hand to grab the brute by the neck. He attempted to block the descending cleaver with his gun hand.

Metal hit metal. The gun blocked the cleaver, but between the Hollow Man’s strength and the hard metal edge of the cleaver, the gun was ruined.

Man and beast tried desperately to throw the other off balance and gain the advantage. The brute grinned just inches away from Edge, and from its mouth swelled an odor of death and decayed flesh. Its tongue reached out to Edge’s face to sense a weakness in the Rider.

Edge’s stomach churned. The smell was overwhelming. He had to think of something else and take his mind off the madness.

He heard the girl’s scream again. Whether it was real or imagined, he wasn’t sure – but the fear it evoked went through him like a shock.

Edge used his free hand to grab the beast’s riding coat by the lapel. Then, in a move that called back to years of wrestling with his older brothers while he was growing up, Edge fell to his back, planted his foot into the waist of the Hollow Man, and launched him overhead and onto the large, potbellied stove in the corner of the kitchen.

There was a clatter of pots and pans, and broken dishware followed immediately by the satisfying shriek of the fiend as he burned on the glowing stove top.

Edge rolled to his feet and picked up a cast iron skillet from the kitchen table. He swung it at the head of the Hollow Man, catching the monstrosity in the forehead with the edge of the pan. The blow sent the creature reeling backward one more time, the skillet still lodged in his storm cloud-grey skull – but this time, he didn’t get up again.

Edge picked up the empty revolver and re-loaded it. He looked at the other gun. It was ruined. Both guns had been with him since he mustered out of the High Plains Militia following the Iron Wars. Losing one here was like losing an old friend.

He put two quick shots into the skull of the monster he had subdued with the skillet served as insurance.

Losing one gun left him a little light on firepower should there be more of the savage creatures to face down. Edge listened. He could hear something, but it wasn’t a sound you’d find coming from a Hollow Man.

It was crying.

He went back into the parlor. The girl was still cowering in the bookcase. Edge looked at her. She looked back through blood and tears and snot. Her small features and upturned nose were common for young girls in the Outlands, but there was something about this one that reminded the Rider of the stories he used to hear as a child about the fey and the good witches of the North.

She had stopped crying and was staring intently at Edge. Maybe there was something about his face and the look in his eyes that seemed to reassure her.

“Everything will be okay,” he told her. “Promise.”

She sniffled a reply.

“You stay here right now, okay? I’m going to finish looking around.”

She nodded this time. That was good. It wasn’t much progress, but it was progress.

The lawman walked over to the body of the man with the shotgun. Edge looked more intently for clues as to who he was and what he was doing with a crew of Hollow Men.

Edge searched the pockets of the man’s duster, pants, and finally, his shirt, which held a paper authorizing a search and seizure action at the Randolph Ranch. The order had been signed by a district judge back in Paradise, but the Rider didn’t recognize the name.

Edge had been a Rider for a long time. Long enough to know most of the judges in Paradise. Some were friends – or at least friendly. Others weren’t. As in most matters of the law, personal relationships mattered greatly whether they were supposed to or not.

He folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. He’d never heard of a reclamation agent using Hollow Men to do his dirty work. This entire thing seemed queer. He needed more information before any sense could be made of it.

Edge continued his search through the house and found the sheriff’s body in the stairway leading to the second floor. In one of the bedrooms were the bodies of a man and his teenage daughter. From the upstairs window, he could see there weren’t any more Hollow Men on the grounds of the ranch. And he’d personally made sure there weren’t any more in the house.

He’d seen enough.

There was still one last, best source of information about all of this – the Hollow Men, the abductions, the carnage – Edge holstered his gun and walked downstairs and back out onto the porch to roust the man he’d subdued earlier.

But to the Rider’s surprise, the man was gone.

“How is that possible?” Edge wondered. He’d hit that scrawny bastard with everything he had and knocked him cold, but now he was in the wind.

The man’s disappearance was a loose end – and loose ends almost always lead to trouble.

He thought again about the girl. All alone and now in more danger than before.

Edge walked back into the parlor of the home. She was still in her safe place in the bookcase. The house was a mess filled with carnage and destruction. It was no place for a child.

Edge looked at her and smiled. He tried as hard as he could to be reassuring and kind.

“Why don’t you come back to town with me?” he asked her.

She shook her head side-to-side “No.”

“You should see a doctor.”

She still refused.

Edge was uncertain of where to go from here. How do you tell a child that her family is gone and that everything she had known to this point in her life would be different now? How do you convince a child they must leave their home to be safe?

Then it dawned on him. Edge brushed back her hair, revealing a sweet face behind the tears, dirt, scrapes, and bloodshot eyes.

“Do you want to go for a motorcycle ride?”

Continued in Chapter 4: An Unwelcome Return

Continued from Chapter 1: The Prelude

Chapter 2

The sound of rolling thunder and a plume of dust and dirt announced his arrival. The long canvas coat he wore was typical for men of this chosen profession, going back for generations. His goggles were covered with the red dust that had been kicked into his face from hours spent on the dirt roads of the Outlands.

Edgar Wallace was a third-generation Rider. Instead of traveling the highways and plains of the Outland by horse as his father and grandfather had done, he rode a stallion of steel, rubber, and leather. Powered by a heavy-duty, alcohol-injected engine, Edge’s bike was faster and more powerful than anything on the Plains.

He was known among both the law-abiding and the outlaws by one name: “Edge.”

When he came riding into Pine Bluff, nobody stopped him. He blew into town on a wave of noise and dust. The local freefolk took notice, stopping their daily activities to acknowledge the new arrival.

Not unlike most frontier towns in the Outlands, the welcome was equal parts hospitality and curiosity. With maybe a bit of apprehension thrown in for good measure.

These people had seen more than their share of Riders come and go. In their own inauspicious way, the little town claimed a dark corner of the early history of the Riders of the Outland Plains – for it was in Pine Bluff that served as the location for the infamous murder of Tierran McCaffrey.

It was a place with a checkered past. And while some tried to move on, others were drawn to the “romance” of the darkness and mysteries of Pine Bluff’s past. But none of that mattered to Edge. He had come to town to address a much more immediate concern.

People were disappearing from Pine Bluff. Imaginations ran wild with excuses: demons from beyond the Stone Range, Shadow Walkers, rustlers, train robbers – you name it. Word had already leaked out to nearby communities, and Edge had heard all sorts of rumors and theories that tried to explain the disappearances.

It was clear; the people of Pine Bluff needed help, and not just any Rider would do.

Edge parked his bike and removed his goggles and bandanna. From the looks on the faces of the young mother and two kids who watched him pull up, his arrival was anticipated. He just hoped he could help. Sometimes people expected too much – doing the impossible wasn’t always enough for some folks.

Edge’s reputation had preceded him, and many were counting on him and his uncanny ability to get to the bottom of just about anything. He wasn’t just a peacekeeper, he was a detective of the first order. If anyone could, Edge would be the one to solve the mystery that had been plaguing the community for the past month.

As for Edge, he never got used to being a minor celebrity – even in remote places like the towns he served in the plains. He’d rather keep to himself, but as time wore on, more and more people were beginning to expect bigger and bigger things out of him.

He pulled up to the Sheriff’s Office on Pine Street. Across the street was the store owned and operated by Eli Gunderson, who also served as mayor of Pine Bluff. Gunderson sent the original cable that brought Edge, but as a Rider, it was common courtesy to check in with the local law when you arrived in town.

Edge had found those initial meetings often provided valuable insights and helped direct his investigations. He could wait, but Gunderson had sent the message as a cable. That meant it was urgent.

Edge proceeded through the front door of the mercantile, ringing the bell that alerted anyone in the back of a new customer’s arrival. Gunderson’s head poked out from around the corner of the back storeroom. It was round and ruddy. Two scowling eyes peered out from behind wire-rimmed glasses.

“Mr. Gunderson,” Edge called out to the head.

Gunderson’s face lit up. He’d been waiting for help to arrive, and here it was in the form of the best lawman on two wheels. “Mr. Wallace, I presume?” His voice was slightly high-pitched, not exactly what Edge expected when he appeared. Gunderson walked past the back counter and met the lawman halfway, shaking his hand profusely. “Am I glad to see you. Can I get you something to drink? You must be parched.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” Edge pried his hand loose from Gunderson’s. For a politician, the man had a crippling, vice-like grip. He was full of surprises.

Moving to the general merchandise counter, Edge surveyed the array of trinkets and souvenirs from throughout The Wasted Lands, including sweet candies typically found in only the best boutiques in Mortal City. It was unusual for a store to carry such items so far away from a major city. Clearly, Mr. Gunderson had some interests outside of Pine Bluff.

Oblivious to Edge’s observations, the Gunderson quickly recapped the situation for the lanky Rider: People were leaving Pine Bluff. That, in itself, wasn’t all that unusual. The freefolk of the Outlands were known to pick up and move on when it suited them. That was an understood right in these parts.

But this was different.

According to Gunderson, people had literally “disappeared.” They were in town one day and gone the next – with no explanation.

“Almost a month ago, I noticed Purdy Wilson wasn’t hanging around like he used to,” he explained. A scowl took over Gunderson’s face as he started to recall the details.

“Who’s Purdy Wilson?” Edge asked.

The question seemed to annoy Gunderson, but he explained: “He’s lived here for years. He’ll do a few odd jobs – when he’s sober enough, at least – and then he’ll cash it all in at Tiller’s Pub. He usually sleeps it off in the barn around back.

“But he hasn’t been around.” Gunderson looked straight into the lawman’s eyes. Edge could see the man was afraid of something.

Edge met his stare and countered. “Maybe he moved on? Vagabonds tend to float.”

“Not Purdy. He’s Preacher William’s kin. They don’t talk to each other much, but the Preacher keeps an eye on Purdy to make sure he stays out of trouble. It’s been that way for years.”

“A missing drunk wasn’t much of a crime spree,” Edge thought. There must be more behind Gunderson’s request that a Rider be dispatched to Pine Bluff.

As if hearing his skepticism, Gunderson continued. His eyes darted around the store as if to make sure no one could hear what he was to say next.

“But that wasn’t the whole of it.”

Gunderson was starting to open up and the information flow went from a trickle too much, much more.

“Once I realized Purdy was gone, I started to realize we hadn’t seen a vagrant in Pine Bluff of months. We always get someone riding into town on the train or coming overland. They stay for a while before they leave. Sometimes the cause a minor ruckus, sometimes not. But they’re always here.”

“And now?” Edge asked, sensing the answer to come.

“Nothing.”

Nothing was about the size of it as far as Edge was concerned. He hadn’t expected to come in and break up a vagrant kidnapping ring. Maybe Gunderson was just being a little over-dramatic.

Gunderson could sense his dismissiveness. He was sure that would change as more details emerged.

“Then about ten days ago, the Ashe girl went missing.”

“The Ashe girl?” Edge inquired.

“Yeah,” Gunderson went on. “Her name is Mollyanna Ashe. Her father is the undertaker for Pine Bluff and the surrounding area. Her father and fiancée found her horse tied up outside the graveyard at Sunset Ridge. No sign of the girl.”

“What was she doing out at the graveyard?” Edge’s curiosity was stoked.

“That’s the disturbing part,” Gunderson continued without missing a beat. “Ashe tells me someone has been digging up graves at the cemetery for the past month or so. Bodies are disappearing almost as fast as he’s planting them. Interesting thing, though, is that it’s only the dead men who seem to be missing.

“Mollyanna went up there one night – against her father’s wishes, I might add – and now she’s gone, too.”

Drunks, dead bodies, undesirables. It all sounded familiar to Edge. But the abduction of the undertaker’s daughter was an interesting twist.

When Gunderson had finished retelling his story to the Rider, the total number of unexplained disappearances totaled seven, including Big Jim Murphy, supervisor of the Unity Rail Corporation’s lumber operation, and M.A. Stephens, an assistant to the bank manager in Pine Bluff as well as an unknown number of vagrants and cadavers. If this was what Edge suspected, Pine Bluff hadn’t seen half the trouble that was bound to rain down on the town.

“Mr. Gunderson,” Edge began, “I think it’s best we get everyone we can into town where it will be easier to protect them.”

“Protect them from what?”

Edge looked grim. Just how do you tell the mayor of a small town that his friends and neighbors are under siege by what might as well be an army of the undead?

The mayor didn’t need any more of an explanation than the dour look on Edge’s face. He seemed to understand. “We’ve already started contacting the outlying farm families to have them come in so we can talk. I suppose we can put them up until things blow over – but they’re not likely to appreciate it unless we can tell them what’s going on.”

Just then, a young man came running into the store. He was in uniform and wore a deputy’s badge on his sweat-soaked shirt. His clothes were dirty and torn.

“Mr. Gunderson,” the young man yelled as he came into the store in what appeared to be a cloud of orange dust and hot air. “Sheriff Morrow needs backup.”

Gunderson flinched a bit as he turned to the deputy, who was now standing in the store, trying to catch his breath. For a moment, all Edge could hear was the young man’s wheezing.

Making his way to him, Gunderson put his hands on the deputy’s shoulders. “It’s all right, Albert. What’s happened? You look frightful.”

“I had to run through the grasslands from the Randolph place.” Albert huffed. “The tracker is destroyed, so the Chief had me run back here on foot. There’s not much time. Sheriff Morrow is pinned down, and Bertie is …” he broke down.

Gunderson took a step back. The deputy continued sobbing. Clearly, something was going horribly awry at the Randolph’s ranch. The mayor looked at the Rider. Without saying a word, Edge pulled his goggles back onto his head and tightened the bandanna around the lower part of his face. He was going to have to fly to the Randolph ranch if Morrow was going to have any chance of surviving.

“The entrance to the Randolph place is just past Mill Creek down the main road. Go until you reach the large, twisted rock and make a right. You can’t miss it. You’ll see the ranch house from there. Better hurry …”

By the time Gunderson’s final instructions were uttered, all anyone in Pine could hear was the roar of Edge’s bike.

Continued in Chapter 3: Randolph Ranch

Chapter 1

“Your time here is through, lawman.”

The tall, balding outlaw with the copper-green eyes spat the words out as he put the noose around McCaffrey’s neck and cinched it into place. He stared deep into the eyes of the lawman who, once again, didn’t flinch.

That was McCaffrey’s deal – no fear. No panic. Just resolute silence. It had unnerved more than just a few criminals.

McCaffrey was an enigma. Always in the shadows – ever a step ahead. He had an “inconvenient” knack for being in the right place in the nick of time. That he’d been captured at all was unexpected. The fact he was taken alive – without a fight – even more so.

Unfortunately for McCaffrey, the unexpected had become a hallmark of this outlaw’s reign of terror on the Grasslands. In a very short stretch of time, had earned a reputation as one of the most cruel the Outlands had ever seen.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” he asked his captive – almost as if seeking validation in the eyes of the lawman.

McCaffrey nodded. “Of course, I know who you are.” Then returning the deep stare back into the inquiring eyes, the lawman added. “You’re the sick sonofabitch terrorizing freemen and townsfolk. These are fine folk. They’re farmers and ranchers. They work hard and make an honest living. And yet you ride into town taking what you want and killing those who stand in your way.”

McCaffrey sneered. “The problem is you think you’re entitled.”

Then throwing one last barb – this one from a place of nearly total helplessness: “I don’t think you’re all that special.”

McCaffrey had no idea who he really was. He had no right to pass judgment.

“Special enough, I suppose,” he retorted. “After all, I managed to capture Tierran McCaffrey and all the other members of the Original 6, wasn’t I?”

McCaffrey was a founding member of a group of lawmen from throughout the Outland known officially as “Riders.” They were formed to carry out a specific mission: chase down the worst criminals on the frontier and bring them to justice.

These were tough men, hardened by severe winters, hot summers and months in the Stone Range. They had a hard-earned reputation for both fairness and fierceness. It was said that a Rider could single-handedly subdue a gang of cattle rustlers without so much as a hair on a steer out of place.

No one had ever doubted that. Until Nomad.

This one, the one who called himself Nomad, was unlike anyone who came before him. Physically intimidating (he stood nearly a head taller than other men), he was quick to draw, could shoot the eyes out of a dove in mid-flight and whip-smart when it came to out-thinking his enemies.

He appeared to be a match for the Riders. He had taken them out one by one, making them look foolish in the process. In the end, Nomad showed they were just as vulnerable as the regular freefolk they were charged to protect. The outlaw had captured and killed the other five in short order and McCaffrey would prove to be the penultimate lesson.

McCaffrey had proven himself to be the hardest to capture, but in the end, his well-earned reputation wasn’t enough.

Capturing Tierran McCaffrey required Nomad to take an entire town hostage. Pine Bluff was McCaffrey’s adopted home and once his little ceremony in the pine grove outside of town was finished, things would never be the same again.

The outlaw had heard enough. He tossed the coil over an outstretched limb overhead and secured the free end of the rope to his saddle horn. Nomad drew back on the reins of his horse and backed away from McCaffrey. The rope grew taut and the noose on its end tightened.

Here they were, adrift in a sea of grass and farmland baking in the afternoon sun. With only a large, spiraling tower of black rock in the distance serving as a silent witness, there was no one else around as far as the eye could see.

It was just McCaffrey and Nomad. And it was a perfect day for a hanging.

Nomad cinched the rope around the tree – tying it off so when McCaffrey’s body started to swing by its neck, it would stay off the ground. The knot for the noose was tied poorly so the Rider would choke to death slowly rather than have his neck snap when it stretched. Nomad smiled to himself. It was the little details that made his work so … pleasurable.

A cool wind blew in from the north as the outlaw asked the lawman if he had any last words.

McCaffrey felt this time would really be the end. There was an unusual void in his gut. He felt nothing – just a blank numbness. He knew his train had come into the station and this would be the end of the line.

A calmness passed over him. It was time to go.

He looked at Nomad sitting on this black stallion. He could see the flies buzzing around the two of them. Together, they made a picture of death on the plains. He seemed invincible – but McCaffrey knew that was exactly what the Nomad intended. Whether the outlaw would listen to his last words or not, the lawman needed to say them.

“Ain’t no one lived forever, Nomad. No one.”

The outlaw scoffed quietly to himself.

He was sure there was no way McCaffrey could ever guess the magnitude of the situation he faced. To Nomad, the lawman was just another insignificant casualty in a war for the fate of the world. His grand plans extended far beyond the edges of the Outland Plains – and McCaffrey’s posse was a minor obstacle to be hurdled if he were to move on to bigger, more important things.

Nomad knew McCaffrey had no idea who he really was, and the outlaw wasn’t about to share his secret with a dead man. Instead, he rode his horse behind McCaffrey’s and struck its hindquarter with a switch. The horse started and moved away.

The noose tightened around the lawman’s neck and the rope pulled him off his saddle and then completely off the horse. He dangled at the end of the rope, kicking at first and then twitching. His eyes bulged and his tongue swelled.

Nomad watched as life left McCaffrey’s body and his corpse swung in the breeze. He hadn’t found what he was looking for, but killing the Original 6 – and this Rider in particular – was fine consolation.

Leaving McCaffrey to swing from the pine branch as a message to anyone with a notion to try and catch him, Nomad took McCaffrey’s horse’s reins and rode south, following the Unity River and left the Outlands forever.

Continued in Chapter 2: The Riders Return