Miles Stanson fired his gun twice. Two dustmen dropped with a dry crunch onto squat shrubs only to be trampled into the dirt as more shambled forward. Stanson did not waste time with showmanship like other gunslingers; he did not need theatrics to advertise his skill, nor were the dustmen intimidated by flair. They were uninterested in anything but the fresh meat before them as their own rotten flesh cracked and peeled under the desert sun.

The gun boomed again, a body dropped, and he switched to a new target.

His shot went wide and slammed into the shoulder of a dustman wearing a poncho. The dustman jerked, but didn’t slow. A swear fell from the gunslinger’s lips like a fumbled cigarillo. He aimed again, fired, and dropped the target.

“This is why you fuckin’ bury the dead,” Stanson grumbled.

The wheezing of the remaining dustmen was loud, now. Dustmen tended to gather in groups as they wandered, and, if ignored too long, could overrun entire towns. Like hot days in summer, you simply dealt with them as they came. Stringing up the fools who didn’t clean up after they killed could only do so much.

Stanson checked his flank, then planted himself in the dirt, drew his second weapon, and laid into the rasping group. Four shots laid four dustmen down. The echos of the guns quieted and the desert stilled.

The gunslinger hung his head with a sigh, then tipped the spent shells from his guns’ chambers into the sand—first from his father’s gun, then his own—reloaded, and thrust the weapons back into their holsters.

A quick, squinting glance at the sun told him he’d been asleep for at least two hours. The horde must have been clustered behind some low hill or masked by the shimmer of the horizon. It was a miracle he’d woken to their plodding, shuffling tread instead of their teeth.

He toed at one of the corpses. They’d been wandering for a while, judging from the bleaching at their shoulders. None of them had shoes, let alone knives or guns, so someone else had already looted them. They’d likely be up again in a few hours, but Stanson didn’t have time to properly bury six corpses.

“Nup,” he resolved, and spat into the dirt. Someone else’s problem now, he figured. And on it went.

He strode back to the tree where he’d been napping and plucked his wide-brimmed hat from the dirt. He beat it twice against his thigh, replaced it on his head, then crouched down to shake out the blanket he’d been occupying. The nap hadn’t done him much good, deep as it was. Long-buried memories of his father and old mercenary crew has rose as if from the roots of the oak he rested against.

Much easier to forget dreams like that when you awoke to a gang of dustmen shambling about your bed.

Stanson sucked his teeth, glancing back at the corpses. The dustmen must have deteriorated more than he’d thought, or that dream would’ve done him in. If the one hadn’t tripped on his boot as it passed…

Stanson grunted. He tied the blanket back to his gunny sack, shouldered the lot, and continued west. For now, getting to town was priority one. He was out of supplies, and nearly out of funds. Vengeance was costly when your target had a ten-year head start.

~*~

Miles grins up at George Stanson, the boy’s pistol still smoking.

George cuffs him. “You’re cocky. Don’t be. You’re a Sight-hunter.”

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The weapon slips as Miles’ grip slackens. “Yes, sir.”

He holsters the revolver and trudges to the fallen body. A white Glare glints from the slain criminal, flickering like silent flame. The man’d been a sinner, and so he lights up like a bonfire on a cloudy night to Miles’ eyes. The brighter the Glare, the shadier the life.

Miles squints down at the wanted man, picking out the blurred features within the glow.

“Mother wastes this gift,” Miles thinks. The words come in his father’s voice.

“I’ll do better. I’ll make father proud. No criminal will be able to hide from me.”

~*~

Road’s End did not have an official name. Technically, there was no road to be a part of. To say the settlement looked like any other dying frontier town implied it was at least as civilized as those towns, though. Road’s End hadn’t even separated the sexhouse from the saloon.

Still, Stanson had seen a hundred towns like it. Frontiersmen from the Inner Baronies seemed to build nothing else. Road’s End was too insignificant, remote, or both to boast a bank. Shanties, hovels, and shacks aside, there was little infrastructure beyond a saloon, a church at the far end of the street, and a sheriff’s office with a nag of a horse tethered outside. Spiked fences poked from the dirt here and there like jagged teeth, as likely to deter dustmen as flatter them.

Stanson made his way to the saloon. A few men and women dawdled on patios or in shaded alleys, all of them watching him with bored frowns. Stanson didn’t see any children.

Inside the dim tavern, the smell of tobacco and whiskey mingled with the sour musk of sweat. Three middle-aged women played cards in a corner, their bawdy laughter and jeers hammering at the otherwise still air of the alehouse. A pair of topless young adults, a boy and a girl, sprawled lazily on stools at one end of the bar, looking for work. The boy’s ribs cast shadows on his hairless skin, the girl’s breasts peeked from the thin fabric of her bra, and both flickered in the gloom with Glare. They smiled at Stanson, more predatory than inviting.

Stanson ignored them, picked a seat at the bar near an old, leather-skinned man nursing his drink, and waited for the absent bartender. He had the stink of an unwashed alcoholic, but he seemed friendly enough.

The man with the beer waited until Stanson made himself comfortable. “You from th’ east?”

“Roughly,” Stanson grunted. “Who isn’t?”

The man took a slow sip from his beer. “Everyone comin’ here’s rough. Gotta be rough to cut it this far west.”

Stanson wasn’t here to make a new life. Gods, no. He was hunting. His quarry had given civilization the slip and vanished into the Western Wastes years ago, but Stanson was keen enough to sniff out a trail. More importantly, he was close.

Stanson lifted his chin toward the man’s drink. “Can I buy you another?”

The man chuckled. “Shit, first one wasn’t bought neither.” He pushed himself to his feet and eased around the stools, then ambled behind the counter to pull a fresh beer for himself. “Whatcha havin’?”

Stanson gestured at the filling pint in the man’s quivering, sun-scarred hand.

The barkeep deposited the drinks on the pitted counter and made his way back to the stool. When the man sat, Stanson lifted his glass with a curt nod and took a swig. One of the women playing cards cackled loudly, and Stanson heard the shuffle of cards as they dealt out a new hand. A door slammed outside.

“Lotta people coming’ through?” Stanson asked.

“No sir, just abou’ none.” His words were slurred, thick. Whether from age or drink, Stanson couldn’t exactly tell.

He continued. “Ain’t nobody comin’ through here but you. Trappers ‘n’ them sell to the Westlings now—” he stopped to spit disdainfully on the splintering floorboards, “—so they live rough. Fine by us that stayed put. Don’t need no people consortin’ with them damn devils what ain’t even bury their dead! Not in this town. No wonder there’s so many dustmen shamblin’ about.”

Stanson opened his mouth to speak, but the old man kept going. “No, sir, not many but the dustmen comin’ here. Lots of ‘em. More e’ry day.”

“Like bad times and taxes, eh?”

“No taxes here, thank th’ Reverend and light bless ‘im.” He took a moment to knock on the bar top, which he followed with a noisy slurp from his drink. “Reverend Father Guinevere, now, tha’s a good man. Takes real good care o’ this town. Real good. An’ he’s smart, too. Knows how t’ speak t’ people.”

“He live up in that church, or does he keep a house somewhere?” Stanson asked.

“Nah, got a place out back th’ church. Just fer sleepin’, near as I can tell.”

“He like visitors much?”

The withered bartender grinned with teeth stained from chew and grayweed. “Only if yer blood’s from the Baronies.”