There’s a reason the cannibals didn’t come a-looking at the sound of gunfire in the valley. An awful reason. Directly, we spotted the cave Boone Friedricks and his men had been using as a hideout. It was a gaping maw in the rock wall, and bits of bone and clothing–cast offs from their victims–littered the ground leading up to the cave. The horrid odor of decay came from within, but I didn’t see sign of a sentry or lookout. The...

Ezra cried out in the dark. “I don’t speak lightly of miracles, friends! Miracles are too few and far between, and to treat them with an air of triviality … why, that’s a fool’s business!” I’d heard those words-well-rehearsed to part rubes from their money-a thousand times in a thousand mud-hole towns. But hearing them at that moment, after all that had happened, reminded me of happier times, back when a bunch of rickety wagons...

It didn’t take me long to find one of them murderous bastards. I had a good notion as to where Friedricks and his band might be hiding out. Up there in the hills not too terribly far from camp, there was a series of tunnels. Jessie and I went exploring up there when the weather was warmer, and on more than one occasion I’d stolen away with one of the camp girls for a kiss and a hug up in the shadows of those caves. The snow had hit hard and...

A couple of years ago, I wrote a Christmas story featuring one of Drake Sinclair’s adventures before the events of The Sixth Gun. To firmly root the tale in the comic book tradition, Brian Hurtt and I also put together a bookend comic, and Brian supplied some stellar artwork to spruce up the story along the way. So, in honor of the holiday, I’m posting the story’s four chapters here over the next few days. If you haven’t...