Hell Come Sundown Read Free

her dread.
    â€œLike I told your boy—there’s no killing such critters,” Hell said flatly, letting go of Hiram’s shotgun. “You might as well try and murder a stone or stab the sea. Best you can do is make sure it can’t do you harm.”
    Pretty Woman removed a leather bag from her belt and emptied its contents, mostly dried herbs and other less identifiable artifacts, onto the floor. She glanced up her partner with eyes as dark and bright as a raven’s, and he nodded in return.
    â€œCome along, folks,” Hell said, motioning for the others to leave the room. “We better leave Pretty to finish her ghost-breaking in peace. Something tells me y’all could do with a cup of coffee right about now.”

Chapter Two
    Hiram McKinney sat in his favorite chair, his shotgun resting across his knees, while Mrs. McKinney busied herself with making coffee. He stared at the pale-skinned stranger who called himself Hell, who was sitting opposite him in his wife’s rocking chair. At first Hiram had thought the stranger was an albino, but now that he was able to get a closer look, he could see that Hell’s complexion was more like that of the consumptives who had come out west for the Cure. Uncertain of how to proceed in such an unusual situation, he finally decided there was no wrong way to go about it, so he opted to grab the bull by the horns.
    â€œJake said something about him writing you—?”
    â€œYes, sir. That he did.”
    â€œHere, Pa—this is what I was talking about.” Jake handed his father a copy of Pickman’s Illustrated Serials , which was tightly rolled in order to fit in the boy’s back pocket.
    Hiram took the periodical and flattened it out as best he could across his knee. He frowned at the lurid illustration that adorned the front cover, which showed a band of outlaws shooting up a town, each of whom had swooning damsels and bags of loot clutched in whichever hand that did not hold a smoking six-shooter. Floating over the desperadoes’ heads was the title of the lead story, in ornately engraved script: The Tortuga Hill Gang Rides Again .
    â€œYou been wasting good money on penny dreadfuls?” Hiram said sternly, glowering at his son in disapproval.
    â€œFar be it from me to step in between a father and his son,” Hell said. “But don’t you reckon you’re being a tad harsh on the boy, considering the situation?”
    Hiram opened his mouth, as if to argue to point, then realized the foolishness of it. “I reckon you’re right on that point, mister.”
    â€œHere, Pa—here’s where I saw his advertisement.” Jake pointed to a quarter-page ad, located just below the one for Dr. Mirablis’s Amazing Electric Truss. Unlike the other advertisements, it did not boast steel-engraved pictures or florid script, even though what it claimed to be selling was far more arcane than the patent medicines and seed catalogs that surrounded it.
    Troubled by Specters, Ghosts and Phantoms? Fear No More! There Is Help! Call For The Dark Ranger: Ghost Breaking A Specialty! No Spook Too Small, No Fiend Too Fierce! Write Care of: Box 1, Golgotha, Texas. Our Motto: ‘One Wraith, One Ranger.’
    â€œDark Ranger?” Hiram rubbed his forehead, baffled by what he was reading. He glanced over at the man seated across from him with something akin to awe. “You a Texas Ranger, mister?”
    A look of profound sorrow flickered across Hell’s face and was quickly gone, like a cloud scudding across the moon. “I was. Back before the troubles.”
    Hiram raised an eyebrow. “Cortina?”
    Hell took a deep breath and nodded, as if the very memory caused him pain. “Yep. I was at Rio Grande City. Now that the Rangers have been replaced with those carpetbaggin’ State Police, I break ghosts and scare off things that go bump in the night.”
    â€œAny man who rode with Captain