Marshall Brown scanned the barren-dry canyon from atop a cliff. Dead bushes, dead grass, dead skeletons. Pores slicked perspiration on his skin, drenching his attire. The crevices doglegged across the cracked ground and gutted towards an empty hell. Nah. He perched his empty eyes on the precipice of the empty, blue horizon. Lost in the vast scenery, lost in the lumbering sensation. One hand holding the Himmelsfeuer magic revolver loosely aimed behind him, the other pinching the cigarette. He took a deep drag. Billowed smoke out of his lips before tossing the wrapper to its bottomless demise. The sweet smell of no man's land tinted with tobacco wafted through the contorted air, and he deeply inhaled through his nose.

"Darn."

A shadow loomed over him as his vision ominously darkened, and his facade returned to their expressionless countenance. The low growls of thunder gently rumbled in his ears, and a grey mist resembling the head of a Dingo trailed into his view, its cerulean, glowing eyes illuminating its curiosity at him. Roving grey apparition-like strands of fur cut off at the neck.

"Well, milord?" The dog said, its feminine layered voice transmitted through its bared teeth. The storm mired within its intangible oblong blanket obscuring the sun's flare stirred.

"The boy does not seem to possess any recollection of you, yes?"

Marshall's eyes flitted to the dog's three eyes before they narrowed, and he doffed his hat at it with his free hand.

"Nah."

The dog's eyes slyly beckoned its gaze ahead, and Marshall followed as he spun along. His arm aiming his revolver returned to its intrinsic torque.

"Son?" he said.

Jasper didn't respond. His wavering eyes were deadpan, its reflection returning with a desolate shell of his former self. Didn't matter if he was dead or not. He was already dead, just like him. Marshall lowered his Himmelsfeuer and tucked it in his holster, rubbing his fingers together to relish that sexy slide and touch of its handguard. It was one of the Dark Elves' finest inventions, hell with their twisted ideology in the Oseanarith Empire, modernization, ironic technology, and fuck trees. They were considered Mother Nature's biggest mistake, unlike their nature and magic, white, kind counterpart...

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

'Nuff of that, now.

"Oh?" the dog said as it sniggered. "Thought you kill the boy then yourself?"

"Yeah, nah, well... The hell happened to him?"

"The overwhelming stress seems to get to him. He couldn't handle the corpses, death and corpses. Poor child."

Marshall sighed.

Wasn't that darn obvious.

"Reckon that he's just ain't cut for it, then."

Pa had let him down. Marshall stared down at his gloved palm and tightly clenched it into a fist. He had his share when he was a young chap, and his Pa gave him a fair taste of the Golden Ages of the Eagle Federation. At one point in his life, his Pa had isolated himself from his life when he grew up with his Ma till a bunch of funny-looking bastards showed up and kidnapped her. Then, Pa showed up, and they Yeehawed all over the place. Towns? Sacked. Government? Sacked. Bounty hunters? Dead.

All. Fucking. Dead.

Ma was never found. Long gone from the world, perhaps. Good, hell, since the world was now approaching a state of hell. Until Pa died to another gunslinger, Marshall would live on without him. Great Bastards of the West. A funny name for funny folks lookin' to kill each other. Now, he wasn't so sure if it was the Eagle Federation's Golden Ages anymore. Following in his Pa's footsteps, never being in his son's life till now, taking him on a necessary adventure so they can live in the thrift of the gambles in life before they die together.

As Papa and Son.

Reuniting with the family in the afterlife.

So, what the hell did he do wrong?

His son...

Chloe...

Marshall mouthed the name of his beloved wife. Rage embellished his cheeks crimson as he thought of the bastard who made her severely depressed, so she put the knife to her throat and killed herself. Left the innocent Jasper to himself and in the dark. Now look at him.

I oughta be the worst father in the West.

"I'm a dead man, Coco, I'm a dead man." Marshall wiped his teary eyes with the ball of his hands. Sniffed out of it. Emptiness, devoid of any sympathy, replaced his pupils.

Coco, the ghost Dingo, playfully flew around him overhead and stilled beside Jasper. Jasper only robotically stared ahead, not bothering to stroke its passthrough fur.

The dog amusingly brushed its glance past him and yawned, the jarring, dissonant cry of a canine humming from its non-existent vocal cords piercing Summer's silence and the sky. Its three eyes hungrily stared at Marshall's delicious soul.

"What shall you do now, milord?"

Marshall snapped his fingers, hunching out of his hangdog spine.

Dead ahead, it is.

"Lend me your legs."

"Oh?" Coco narrowed its eyes with an inimitable leer.

"I'll oughta find Jasper a new home."

"Then?"

"Head straight to the Dragon Horse Empire."

Coco's eyes paused at the top before rolling back at Marshall as crescents, sadistically smiling.

"The cultivator who raped your wife?"

"Yeah." Marshall coldly narrowed his eyes. "I'll fuckin' kill 'em all."