Showdown in Pine Bluff: The Prelude

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