A Fist Full O' Dead Guys Read online

  FOREWARD

  by Mike Stackpole

  You have in your hands a wonderful collection of short stories set in one of the most imaginative universes to be developed in a long time. I still recall the first time I laid eyes on Deadlands. The concept of a horror western game hit me as perfect, a wonderful synthesis of genres that had a life and strength to it. Even before I cracked the rulebook, I knew this was a place where I wanted to play.

  Role playing games are an American invention, and Deadlands is one that combines with two other American inventions to create a milieu that is uniquely American, yet curiously universal in appeal. Before Deadlands, the RPGs that tried to deal with American subjects were weakly historical. They might cover gangsters or western action, but their being mired in history undercut imagination. Al Capone would never die in a shoot-out. President Grant would not be assassinated. Technology would always remain the same, archaic by the standards of the players. What could have been fantastic was made mundane because the world would not be changed by the interactions of characters.

  The games became sterile and died because of lack of interest by the players.

  Players crave the fantastic and Deadlands brings it to them by layering in one of America's most enduring literary inventions: Horror. Edgar Allen Poe is rightly acknowledged as both the father of horror and mystery fiction, and was a fervent defender of all things American when it came to literature. His works showed European dabblers in the Gothic tradition how it could really be done. Heart-pounding horror begins with Poe, flows strongly into the works of Lovecraft and on today with Stephen King. Horror is an American playground. No one does it better, understands it better or can revel in it better than Americans.

  Smarter folks than I can posit literary reasons for this American supremacy, but I have my own theory about our love for horror that goes beyond just the adrenaline rush of having the bejesus scared out of us. Deep down I think Americans have been raised with a strong sense of the heroic. The monster may win in horror, but I think most readers and viewers come away with the secret conviction that if they had been there, the monster would have gotten his comeuppance. In horror evil wins over good; and to Americans that's just not the way the world works.

  This is especially true when it comes to that other great American invention: the West. Our frontier has always been a goal where good-hearted, strong-working, decent and dedicated folks could escape their past and start anew The frontier was the land where good defeated evil, true love won out, the American dream of success through hard effort reigned supreme. Western stories are thinly disguised morality plays that we all revel in. Certainly they resemble tales of Robin Hood, or samurai stories from Japan, but even these two milieux fail in one essential American aspect. Robin Hood bowed to a king, the samurai obey their Emperor; but an American hero is beholden only to himself, his family and his God. As the saying goes: God made man, Colonel Colt made him equal. No room in there for feudal fealty. It's justice and all else be damned.

  In Deadlands we get this great synthesis, then; a cycle of evil beating good, and good beating evil. Neither side wins all the time. There's always a new evil to deal with, and a hero can always reload or return from the grave. And the fantastic way in which history has been rewritten means that the imagination knows no bounds. The world is different from the one we know from school-and the differences make it that much more intriguing.

  A huge chunk of the fun of roleplaying games—and speculative fiction for that matter-is discovering the world. Deadlands provides a world that is, in and of itself, a shapechanger. As Stephen King pointed out in Danse Macabre, the shapechanger is one of the most enduring and terrifying motifs in fiction because it's something that looks benign one moment and turns lethal in the next. So it is in the world of Deadlands, the town of Tombstone could be a normal town full of wonderful folks, or it could easily be a ghost town peopled with the undead. Coming over the rise, riding on into town, there's no way to know which it will be. The tension of discovering the world and figuring out how it works can be palpable; providing more than enough motivation for playing.

  And for reading. In the stories in this book you'll discover all manner of windows into this world. Each author brings a unique viewpoint into the amalgam of magic and rawhide, Halloween and horseplay; gunfire and ghouls. These are the western adventures that Louis L'Amour couldn't have written; that Lovecraft would have blanched at writing. These are stories Poe would have loved, both for the spine-tingling nature of them, and because they have a distinctly American brand on them.

  The best part about these stories is that they are really an invitation. Consider them highlight films from sporting events. They're lots of fun to watch, but the only thing that is better is playing. Each of these stories represents the sort of adventures in which you can sink yourself by playing Deadlands. Horace Greeley's advice is well taken here: Go west, young man, go west.

  Go west, into a truly wild west.

  Mike Stackpole Scottsdale, Arizona June 25, 1999

  WELCOME TO THE WEIRD WEST

  A cold corpse stalks the High Plains, a six-gun in his hand Far in the distance, a wolf howls at the full moon. But this is no ordinary animal. It is a thing of legend. And the undead gunslinger knows only he can stop it.

  Welcome to the world of Deadlands: the Weird West. It's a world of high adventure and campy horror. Where brave buffalo gals fight alongside preachers serving up fire & brimstone with a hickory stick. Where hexslinging hucksters cast spells with the aid of dark spirits. Where mad scientists build infernal devices such as flamethrowers, Gatling pistols, and magical elixirs. And death is only the beginning, for not even death can stop the heroes of the Weird West.

  The history of Deadlands is our own up until Independence Day, 1863-the day the Reckoning began. At that time, a vengeful Indian shaman named Raven freed the manitous from their long imprisonment in the spiritual Hunting Grounds. The manitous are like bees, gathering bits of fear from humanity and carrying it back to their dark and ancient masters, the Reckoners. These sinister beings take little bits of fear and create horrors born of humanity's worst nightmares, thus creating even more fear in a growing cycle of terror. Their purpose? To one day saturate the world in fear until it becomes a Deadland and they can walk upon it in the flesh.

  Even heroes know little of this grand scheme. They know only that things lurk in the hollows of Texas or the canyons of Arizona. As they fight the forces of darkness, the heroes of the Weird West slowly learn the horrible truth. Many die trying. The greatest of those become unliving hosts for the manitous—the Harrowed. These undead gunslingers are the most powerful heroes of the Weird West, but they are also the most dangerous, for the malicious manitous inside sometimes take charge of their hosts and force them to commit dark and unspeakable deeds.

  Now the influence of the Reckoners has caused a number of changes to the West we once knew The terrors that arise during violent battles has prolonged the Civil War until the present, 1876. Now it is mostly a cold war, fought with spies and insidious plots. When offensives do arise, usually around election time, they are fought with repeating rifles, flamethrowers, airships, autogyros, and steam tanks. But such violence attracts the manitous, and the horrors of the battlefields make any campaign short and bloody.

  In California, the "Great Quake" revealed a new superfuel called "ghost rock," so-named because it howls like the souls of the damned when burned. More valuable than gold, the race to feed the East's insatiable demand for ghost rock has caused the "Great Rail Wars," a deadly race by six cunning and devious Rail Barons to complete the first transcontinental railroad.

  In the Dakotas, the Sioux reclaimed their ancient magic, and with it, t
heir homeland. Even they are not immune to the ravages of the Reckoning, however, for the People are split over a movement called the "Old Ways," which demands they forsake modern weapons and other tools for handmade devices.

  Such events have caused the Northern government to form a shadowy network of agents to control and contain terror—the Agency. Across the border, this job is handled by the famed Texas Rangers, whose motto is "shoot it or recruit it." These government agents fight alongside independent heroes to battle evil. The agents hide the truth from the public to keep fear from spreading-the heroes tell their tales to such tabloid papers as the Tombstone Epitaph in hopes of destroying fear by inspiring others with their great deeds.

  This is the world of Deadlands. Welcome to the Weird West.

  HATE: PART ONE

  by Shane Lacy Hensley

  The wooden splinters had hurt bad enough when they'd run up under his nails. Now the hard scrabble rocks lying above his coffin battered his torn fingertips and the bleeding blisters forming beneath.

  But Heck Ramsey couldn't give up. They'd buried him alive, and there was no way in Hell he was going like that. So he clawed and scratched and kicked while thick blood oozed down his hands and knees.

  He had already picked apart the cheap pine box they'd buried him in. Dirt had fallen through after that, the dust filling his lungs and threatening to suffocate him with every movement of his flailing arms. But Heck just held his breathe and prayed he could bust through to daylight before he drowned in dirt.

  The former cavalryman could feel the earth giving above him, so he knew they hadn't buried him too deep. So it was a race—his bloody, jagged fingertips against the suffocating weight of the earth.

  It was maddening. He could feel his nails ripping painfully free of the flesh as he dug. He could feel the weight of the ground pushing dirt through the holes in his coffin to his knees and head. But Heck had never given up. And he wouldn't quit now. He didn't think he could if he wanted to. Panic had taken over. He had to calm down. Had to keep his mind-else he'd emerge from this grave a stark raving lunatic. If he emerged at all.

  He fought past the pain and horror of his situation and tried to think of something-anything-else. What came to him was how he'd wound up in this hole in the first place.

  ***

  Heck Ramsey's tale started in Carbondale, Illinois, 1864.

  He was a tall, lanky kid with short, dusty-blonde hair that hung like a mop around his head. Beneath his wooly bangs was a pair of deep blue eyes. They had an intelligent look to them, but they didn't yet have the hardened stare and piercing gaze Heck would soon develop.

  He slung the mop of hair back out of his eyes as he stared up at the US Army outpost. It was time to be a man. No more farm work for him. Heck pulled up his britches, tightened his belt one more notch to hide his thin hips, made sure his best white shirt was tucked in all around, then stepped inside.

  The recruitment officer was a heavy man, used to working the rear while other boys in blue fought the long Civil War on the front. He was overweight and balding and sweated hard in the late August heat. His name was Sergeant McCarthy. Folks said he was no fighter, but he was an insightful man. He could look over new recruits and tell which would run the first time they saw battle, and which would stand in front of the Devil himself if he came roaring across the battlefield.

  McCarthy sized up the young man but said nothing. Finally, Heck stammered, "I'd like to volunteer for the Illinois Cavalry, sir."

  McCarthy shook his head. "I can put you in the infantry," he told the young man. "Our cavalry needs a different sort, right now. The Rebs have had the better of it 'til Custer and Sheridan took over. Now they only want big men who can cut their way through Lee's entire army"

  "But we raised horses before we were run out of Kansas by border ruffians, sir," Heck pleaded. "I've broken more broncos than anyone in Illinois. Ask anyone around here. I'm the best rider in the county."

  McCarthy sighed. "Kid, I've seen a lot of boys go into the Army, and I know your type. You want in the cavalry 'cause you think it's gallant and noble. I have no doubt you can sit a horse like my granny sits her rocker, but the first time you see a friend of yours blown in half, the only place you're gonna ride is home."

  Heck started to say something, then stopped.

  "It's the infantry or nothin'."

  "My momma's gonna kill me if I join the infantry She don't want me to join up anyway. She finds out I'm a straight-leg she'll have a heart attack!"

  "Then go home, son. You're gonna be drafted soon enough anyway. They say the Rebs are buildin' up to attack North again. Maybe even Washington itself. President Grant'll be callin' for volunteers when they do, but he ain't gonna get what he needs. The country's already tapped. Me and every other recruiter in the country knows he's gonna have to call another draft to get enough men to fight a proper war once it kicks up again."

  Heck rotated his hat in his hands and kicked at the wooden floor. He was eighteen now. If he didn't get out of Carbondale soon, he'd wind up working another season on his father's farm. But he knew what the infantry was like. He'd seen enough of them along the watch towers along the Mississippi to know he wanted none of that.

  "Thanks for nothin'" he pouted as he walked out the door of the recruitment center.

  "You oughta thank me for everything," the sergeant mumbled.

  ***

  Heck stood in the street and watched with envious eyes as two cavalrymen raced Hell-for-leather toward the Army station. One of the dusty veterans ran into the depot with a satchel of mail-likely official dispatches from Back East. The other soldier hitched the horses and helped the thirsty animals get to the trough.

  Heck couldn't help but admire the sleek black stallions. He walked close and ran a hand over its sweating flank. "This boy's seen some action," he said as he noticed an old bullet hole high on its rear.

  The veteran nodded and smiled. "Seventeenth Illinois. We patrol Missouri. Chasin' raiders. Never any shortage of action."

  Heck nodded and felt his heart sink. The Seventeenth was the unit he'd hoped to join. They and the Missouri militia were the only defense against the hundreds of guerillas ravaging the midwest. Raiders like Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson had massacred over a hundred Union prisoners in Lawrence, Heck's former home. They had also shot up a number of civilians-one of which was Heck's older brother, Tom. He died from his wounds two months later, suffering greatly the whole while. Heck felt the familiar surge of hate and bile rise in his gut, but managed to push it down when he heard heavy footsteps on the depot boardwalk. It was Sgt. McCarthy and the other cavalryman. "There you are," McCarthy said. "I was hopin' you were gone, boy."

  Heck stood tall, ready to be shooed away like a brat interfering with his father's business.

  "I was hoping you'd gone on home. But since you haven't, I reckon we got a job for you. You say you come from Kansas?"

  Heck nodded tentatively. Kansans weren't always welcomed in Illinois.

  McCarthy chewed a wet cigar and stared out over Heck. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his pudgy brow. "You still wanna ride for the Union?" His voice was low, as if he'd said something he was ashamed of.

  "Yes, sir!" Heck could feel hope rise in his chest.

  The recruiting sergeant looked at the trooper beside him. The soldier nodded grimly. McCarthy shook his head then looked sadly at Heck. "Then come on in, son. We have work for you."

  ***

  The showdown with his mother wasn't pleasant. Ms. Eliza Ramsey was a strong woman and it was no secret she ran the farm. Cecil Ramsey, his father, was also strong, but his quiet nature gave Eliza the run of the place in most matters.

  Eliza talked Heck blue in the face. The army wanted him to infiltrate Confederate raiders? It was nonsense. They'd spot him and hang him in an instant. It was much too dangerous. She'd rather he joined the infantry. "I'm not losing another son," she finished through grinding teeth.

&
nbsp; But as happened on important decisions, it was Cecil whose quiet nod settled the matter. "We ain't the only ones who've suffered from these raiders, mother," he said to his wife. "Many of 'em suffered worse than we did, if that's possible. I reckon the boy's old enough to make his own decisions. And someone's got to stop these murderers and thieves." Cecil looked over at his son. "Our boy's capable enough."

  It was the most affectionate thing Cecil had ever told his son.

  Eliza started to fight-the pain of losing Tom burned deeper within her than anyone. But she saw the pain in her husband's eyes too, and as much as sending her last remaining child into the hands of the murderous Missourians scared her, she realized others would suffer until someone put a stop to their depredations. Eliza would never give her permission, but gave one last pleading look to Cecil, failed to penetrate his stern defenses, and gave up. Eliza fixed her son the last dinner he'd ever share with her.

  Heck didn't tell either of his parents that the band he had been asked to infiltrate was none other than "Bloody" Bill Anderson's—the very demon who had put a .44 caliber slug into his brother.

  ***

  Lieutenant Harrison of the Seventeenth was in charge of Heck's operation. He gave him a US Army horse, complete with a brand.

  "Are you crazy?" Heck asked the lieutenant when he noticed the "US" stamped plainly on the horse's flank.

  Harrison smiled. "Who do you think you're joining up with? Jeb Stuart? All these damn raiders use US horses. Wear our uniforms, too. Though the latter usually have a few holes in 'em."

  Heck sighed. It wasn't what he had wanted. The tales of Custer and Stuart leading gallant charges Back East was the image he had in his head. Dressing in the uniform of a dead man and raiding civilians was even more of a disappointment than it was frightening.

  Harrison could read the frown on the new recruit's face. "You only gotta ride with them long enough to set a trap, son. Get yourself in first. Tell 'em you're a raider from Kansas who had to leave 'cause the law was looking for you. Once you get their trust, find out where Anderson is gonna strike and find a way to get word to us. It'll take a while. You'll likely have to do what they do for a few months. Just be patient and let's try to take the whole bunch. We want Anderson alive."