Howard Kane's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Howard Kane crouched low in the dry grass and listened. Six months he had tracked the witch. Six months of ash circles and silent towns. He owed his men that much. But now something owed him back, and it was close. He found the skull pressed into the dirt at the edge of the wash. Sun-bleached, jaw wide, set there on purpose. One of his old riders had left it as a marker. The thing wanted him to know. He saw it then, cresting the rise. It walked like a man and didn't. Hat brim low. Skin gone gray and split. It had been Tom once. Now it dragged a long shadow across the open land and came on without hurry. Kane braced the big shotgun against his shoulder and waited until it was close enough to miss its own face. He fired once. The shape dropped and did not rise. Kane reloaded with shaking hands. One of his men was gone for good now, and the witch was still out there, and the trail he'd been following was about to go cold in the noise.