The desert stretched out like the back of God's own hand—scarred, dry, and mean. Heat rippled in the air, making the distant ridges dance like ghosts, and the sun bled into the horizon in a slow, lazy death. Zeke Graves squinted against the glare, his hat pulled low, one hand resting lazy-like on the worn walnut grip of his Colt .45.
He wasn't in a hurry. Not yet.
Somewhere ahead, a man worth two hundred dollars alive, a hundred dead, was dragging his sorry hide through the sand. The bounty poster in Zeke's saddlebag named him Silas Creed—a rustler, a liar, and, if the sheriff was to be believed, a killer twice over. Zeke didn't much care about the charges. He just cared about the way Creed ran without looking back, like a man running from more than a rope.
Zeke's horse, Dust, snorted under him, her hide glistening with sweat. The mare was all bone and sinew, a plains-bred survivor that could outlast most men. She carried them over the cracked earth like she had the Devil chasing her hooves.
Up ahead, between the dunes, a flicker of movement.
Zeke tightened his knees. Dust responded without needing a word. They angled toward the figure, closing the gap, the rhythmic thunk of hooves matching the beat of Zeke's heart.
Creed stumbled into view. His boots were half-sunk in the soft sand, his coat torn, and his hat gone. He glanced back over his shoulder, saw Zeke, and cursed loud enough for the wind to carry it.
"Silas Creed!" Zeke called out, his voice carrying a calm steel. "We can do this easy, or we can do it the way you're headed now—bloody and dumb."
Creed didn't answer. He just kept running, weaving between dunes like a coyote in a snare. Zeke sighed, shook his head, and slid down from the saddle.
The sand was hot under his boots as he planted himself, drew his Colt, and fired. The shot hit a dune just ahead of Creed, kicking up a spray of sand in his path. Creed froze, chest heaving.
"That's my one warning," Zeke said.
Creed turned slowly, hands half-raised. But his eyes weren't on Zeke. They were on the horizon behind him, wide and fixed.
Zeke frowned. "You're done, Creed. Toss the iron and walk."
Creed's voice cracked. "You… you don't see it?"
"See what?"
The wind shifted. It came in low and strange, carrying with it a smell that didn't belong to the desert—ozone, sharp and biting, like air after a lightning strike.
Zeke glanced over his shoulder.
A wall of dust was rolling toward them, but this wasn't any dust storm he'd ever seen. The sky behind it churned black and green, lit from within by veins of pale light. The storm didn't howl; it growled. Deep, like the belly of some great animal.
"What in hell…" Zeke muttered.
Creed backed away, his boots dragging furrows in the sand. "It's coming for you too!" he shouted, his voice breaking high.
Before Zeke could answer, the storm was on them.
The wind hit first—hot and cold all at once, slamming into him like a freight train. Sand tore at his face, ripped at his coat. Dust screamed somewhere behind him, but her cry was snatched away by the gale. Zeke fought to keep his footing, one hand on his hat, the other gripping his Colt.
Lightning flared, but it wasn't the clean white of a storm—it was sickly, twisted green. Each flash lit the swirling wall around them, shapes moving inside it. Things with too many eyes and not enough faces.
Then the ground dropped away.
Zeke's boots left the earth as the wind pulled him upward. Creed was already in the air, spinning like a rag doll, his screams lost in the roar. Zeke tried to aim for something solid, anything, but his fingers closed on nothing but air.
The world twisted. His stomach turned inside out. The heat of the desert was gone, replaced by a chill that clawed through his clothes and into his bones.
The storm swallowed him whole.
---
Zeke hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. He rolled, sand turning to damp soil beneath him. The air smelled different—green, wet, alive.
For a long moment, he lay there, coughing. The sound of the wind was gone. Instead, he heard the drip of water, the rustle of leaves.
Leaves.
He pushed himself up on his elbows. Around him rose trees thicker than any redwood he'd ever seen, their bark black and slick, their leaves a deep, unnatural blue. The light filtering through them was soft and gold, but wrong somehow—as if the sun wasn't quite the same.
Creed was gone. So was Dust.
Zeke stood slowly, brushing dirt from his coat. His Colt was still in his hand, the cylinder warm against his palm. He checked it—six bullets, same as before. Somehow, that was a comfort.
A low growl rolled through the underbrush.
Zeke turned toward the sound. Between the trees, something moved—four-legged, low to the ground, with eyes like burning coals. It stepped into view, and Zeke's mouth went dry.
It looked like a coyote, but bigger—its shoulders level with his chest, its fur bristling in silver spikes. Antlers curled from its skull like those of an elk, and its teeth… its teeth were too many for its mouth.
The beast sniffed the air, lips pulling back.
"Well," Zeke muttered, "you ain't from around here."
The thing lunged.
Zeke sidestepped, raising the Colt. He fired once—the crack of the shot echoing unnaturally in the strange forest. The bullet struck the beast in the shoulder, but instead of tearing through, it sparked, like hitting stone. The creature stumbled, then righted itself, snarling.
It didn't die.
Zeke's gut tightened. That was new.
The beast came at him again, faster. Zeke dropped to one knee, aimed for the head, and squeezed the trigger. This time, the shot punched clean through an eye. The creature collapsed, legs twitching, then went still.
Zeke stood over it, breathing hard.
Up close, the thing's blood was thick and black, already seeping into the dirt.
Before he could take another step, a voice called out behind him.
"By the light of the Mother, it's true," the voice said. "The Fang of Thunder walks again."
Zeke turned, and there they were—half a dozen figures in chain and leather, spears leveled at his chest. At their head stood an old man in a deep green cloak, eyes sharp as flint.
They didn't look like lawmen.
The old man nodded toward the Colt. "We've been waiting for you, stranger."
Zeke's grip on his gun tightened. "I think you got the wrong man."
The man smiled thinly. "Oh no, cowboy. You're exactly who we think you are."
The spears lowered, circling in.
A glint of steel, the hiss of drawn blades — and Zeke's world was about to get even stranger.