Straight Outta Tombstone
Page 1
Table of Contents
FOREWORD by David Boop
BUBBA SHACKLEFORD’S PROFESSIONAL MONSTER KILLERS by Larry Correia
TROUBLE IN AN HOURGLASS by Jody Lynn Nye
THE BUFFALO HUNTERS by Sam Knight
THE SIXTH WORLD by Robert E. Vardeman
EASY MONEY by Phil Foglio
THE WICKED WILD by Nicole Givens Kurtz
CHANCE CORRIGAN AND THE LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD by Michael A. Stackpole
THE GREATEST GUNS IN THE GALAXY by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Ken Scholes
DANCE OF BONES by Maurice Broaddus
DRY GULCH DRAGON by Sarah A. Hoyt
THE TREEFOLD PROBLEM by Alan Dean Foster
FOUNTAINS OF BLOOD by David Lee Summers
HIGH MIDNIGHT by Kevin J. Anderson
COYOTE by Naomi Brett Rourke
THE KEY by Peter J. Wacks
A FISTFUL OF WARLOCKS by Jim Butcher
BIOGRAPHIES
STRAIGHT
OUTTA
TOMBSTONE
Edited By
DAVID BOOP
Straight Outta Tombstone
edited by David Boop
Tales of the Weird Wild West. Top authors take on the classic western, with a weird twist. Includes new stories by Larry Correia and Jim Butcher!
Come visit the Old West, the land where gang initiations, ride-by shootings and territory disputes got their start. But these tales aren’t the ones your grandpappy spun around a campfire, unless he spoke of soul-sucking ghosts, steam-powered demons and wayward aliens.
Here then are seventeen stories that breathe new life in the Old West. Among them: Larry Correia explores the roots of his best-selling Monster Hunter International series in "Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers." Jim Butcher reveals the origin of one of the Dresden Files' most popular characters in "Fistful of Warlock." And Kevin J. Anderson's Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I., finds himself in a showdown in "High Midnight." Plus stories from Alan Dean Foster, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Michael A. Stackpole, and many more.
This is a new Old West and you’ll be lucky to get outta town alive!
Contributors:
David Boop
Larry Correia
Jody Lynn Nye
Sam Knight
Robert E. Vardeman
Phil Foglio
Nicole Kurtz
Michael A. Stackpole
Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Ken Scholes
Maurice Broaddus
Sarah A. Hoyt
Alan Dean Foster
David Lee Summers
Kevin J. Anderson
Naomi Brett Rourke
Peter J. Wacks
Jim Butcher
BAEN BOOKS edited by DAVID BOOP
Straight Outta Tombstone
STRAIGHT OUTTA TOMBSTONE
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Straight Outta Tombstone copyright © 2017 by David Boop
Additional Copyright information:
Foreword copyright © 2017 by David Boop; “Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers” copyright © 2017 by Larry Correia; “Trouble in an Hourglass” copyright © 2017 by Jody Lynn Nye; “The Buffalo Hunters” copyright © 2017 by Sam Knight; “The Sixth World” copyright © 2017 by Robert E. Vardeman; “Easy Money” copyright © 2017 by Phil Foglio; “The Wicked Wild” copyright © 2017 by Nicole Kurtz; “Chance Corrigan and the Lord of the Underworld” copyright © 2017 by Michael A. Stackpole; “The Greatest Guns in the Galaxy” copyright © 2017 by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Ken Scholes; “Dance of Bones” copyright © 2017 by Maurice Broaddus; “Dry Gulch Dragon” copyright © 2017 by Sarah A. Hoyt; “The Treefold Problem” copyright © 2017 by Alan Dean Foster; “Fountains of Blood” copyright © 2017 by David Lee Summers; “High Midnight” copyright © 2017 by Kevin J. Anderson; “Coyote” copyright © 2017 by Naomi Brett Rourke; “The Key” copyright © 2017 by Peter J. Wacks; “A Fistful of Warlocks” copyright © 2017 by Jim Butcher.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8269-1
eISBN: 978-1-62579-599-1
Cover art by Dominic Harman
First printing, July 2017
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America
Electronic Version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
“To Tony Hillerman, the first person
I ever wrote a weird western for.
You and your words are missed.”
DB 04/12/17
FOREWORD
DAVID BOOP
Collected here are stories from my idols, my mentors, my peers and my friends. When I sent out invitations, I asked each author to give me their favorite and/or most famous characters in all-new stories set in the Old West. They did not disappoint.
From Warden Luccio to Bubba Shackleford, they came. We get a visit from Mad Amos, and Dan Shamble shambles by. A barmaid lives up to her name “Trouble,” and a dragon named Pete wants to court the sacrificial girl, not kill her. Chance Corrigan, Hummingbird and Inazuma, Bose Roberds. Never before have these characters shared the stage like this. Cowboys and Dinosaurs. Adventurers and Aliens. Time-Traveling Samurai and Clockwork Gunslingers. Vampires. Zombies. They’re all in here.
Why weird Westerns, though?
Well, because unbeknownst to many, the genre has a long, proud history these creators all wanted to be a part of.
Do you remember the Wild, Wild West TV series? Maybe you read Jonah Hex, the Two-Gun Kid or other cowboy comics. Did you, like me, watch old B-movies and serials such as Valley of the Gwangi and The Phantom Empire on Saturday afternoon TV? How many of you snuck to the living room once your parents were asleep to see Billy the Kid Versus Dracula during a late-night movie monster marathon on Halloween? I certainly did. Seriously, there are far more weird Westerns out there than you can imagine. So much so, somebody filled an entire encyclopedia of them.
The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns by Paul Green [McFarland; 2nd ed. February 25, 2016] explores a whole cottage (cabin?) industry that stretches back to the earliest days of the American West. Did you know one of the first dime novels published in the U.S. would be considered steampunk by today’s standards? The Steam Man of the Prairies is a fictional account of a man crossing the West in a carriage pulled by a thirty-foot steam-driven robot.
Researching the titles listed in Green’s encyclopedia, I met many new characters cut from the same piece of rawhide as two of my favorite protagonists: Indiana Jones and Brisco County Jr.
And now, thanks to the authors represented here, you are about to meet a few of them yourself.
So, find a comfy chair, kick up your spur-heeled boots, and relax as we return to the dust-covered land of ancient magics, mysterious creatures and pioneers hell-bent on survival.
Welcome back to the Old West.
DB 12/16
BUBBA SHACKLEFORD’S PROFESSIONAL MONSTER KILLERS
LARRY CORREIA
Bubba Shackleford got off the train in Wyoming, eager to find some cannibals to shoot. He loved his job.
The town was bigger than he’d expected. With the hard scrabble frontier behind them, Cheyenne had turned into another bus
tling center of American commerce. The platform was crowded with folks coming and going, giving the place an industrious feel. It took a hardy people, tough as nails, to civilize this rugged a land, but they’d still be scared to death if they knew what manner of evil was breathing down their necks.
Then Bubba noticed the signs. Weary eyes from staying up all night keeping watch. Nervous glances sent in the direction of every stranger. No children running about. And an unusual number of cheap wooden coffins stacked in front of the undertaker’s. Yes, sir, Cheyenne had itself a monster problem.
This was his company’s first monster killing contract in the West, and the furthest he’d ever been from home. He was a southern man, born and bred, so he didn’t care for the way the air here was dry and sharp enough to make his nose bleed, or the way everything as far as the eye could see was so unrelentingly brown. It was March, and there was still dirty snow piled in the shade. Wyoming struck him as a harsh and unforgiving land, nothing like his blessed green home in Alabama. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to live in such a godforsaken waste.
“Wyoming sure is pretty!” Mortimer McKillington exclaimed as he lumbered down the train’s metal steps.
“You say so, Skirmish.” He’d hired the big Irish strongman because he’d figured anyone tough enough to be a New York bare-knuckle fighting champ might be hard enough to be a good monster hunter. He was, and then some. Over the last year Skirmish—as his friends called the freckled giant—had proven not only to be good with monster killing, but also an obnoxiously optimistic traveling companion.
“I do.” Skirmish took a deep breath, expanding his barrel chest. “Ah, smell that fresh air.”
It smelled like horseshit and coal smoke to him. “Have the boys unload the animals and wagons. I’ll look for our client.”
“Cheer up, boss. This is an adventure.”
“I’ll be cheery once we put these man-eating bastards in the ground.”
“And we get paid.”
“And we get paid.” Because battling the forces of evil was rewarding and all, but on its own paid for shit. Now having a big company like the Union Pacific give them a sack full of gold coins to kill the monsters damaging their tracks? That was much nicer.
He didn’t have to search for long, because his new clients immediately sought him out. They’d known which train he was on, and Bubba Shackleford did tend to stand out in a crowd. They must have been given his description, which was usually some variation of tall, broad shoulders, narrow waist, long mustache, probably looks like he’s ready to shoot somebody. The words short-tempered and pragmatic often made it in there too, but Bubba didn’t mind. Establishing a proper reputation went a long way in the monster killing business.
Two men were pushing through the crowd, heading his way, one fat, one thin, both in tailored suits remarkably free of grime. The round fellow in the bowler hat had the look of a businessman. He pegged the one that looked like a tubercular rat as a government man. They all tended to have that same disapproving air about them.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you the monster killer, Bubba Shackleford?” the plump one asked. Before Bubba could so much as nod, he was already getting his hand vigorously shaken. The businessman’s hand was very soft. “I can’t believe an actual monster killer, here!”
“Keep it down about the monster business, Reginald,” the thin one hissed as he glanced around.
“I’m Reginald Landon of the Union Pacific. Welcome to Wyoming, Mr. Shackleford. We’re so glad you made it on time! This is Mr. Percival from the governor’s office.”
Whenever a hunter got this warm of a welcome in civilized society, it meant things had gotten desperate. “From your harried demeanor, gentlemen, I assume there’s been another event since our last telegram?”
The company man gave him a grave nod. “People have been disappearing after dark. They hit one of our depots west of town last night. Four men dead, ripped limb from limb and their flesh consumed by the ice-hearted beasts.”
“Perhaps we should retire to someplace more private to discuss the matter,” Mr. Percival stated, as he watched Bubba’s men unloading crates of ammunition from the train. “Washington was very specific that this needs to be dealt with discreetly.”
“Discretion is the general rule for this sort of affair,” Bubba agreed.
The McKinley administration was adamant that monster problems be kept from the general public’s knowledge. Good thing too, because otherwise the quiet handlers of said problems, such as himself, would be out of business.
“The Army sent a patrol from Fort Russell in reprisal, but the soldiers never returned.” Landon looked around at the crowd, then leaned in conspiratorially, presumably so as to not cause a panic. “The Indians are saying the poison woman has come back from the dead to curse us. This is the handiwork of Plague of Crows.”
He’d heard that name. A legendary evil back from the grave? Bubba pondered on that new fact for a moment. “Gentlemen, we may need to revisit the amount of my fee.”
* * *
Whenever some foul abomination started eating folks the common response was to gather up a bunch of brave men to track the beast down. That often worked, but killing monsters was dangerous work and too many of those brave men didn’t come home. A vigilante mob could usually get the job done, but often at a terrible cost. That was how Bubba Shackleford had first been exposed to the supernatural, and it was only through luck and pluck that it hadn’t culminated in a massacre.
The more civilized a place was, the more likely monsters became the law’s problem to deal with. Only there was a heap of difference between dispensing justice to some run of the mill murdering outlaw and something like a foul nosferatu, or a flying murderer bat, or a tentacle bear. There were a handful of sheriffs and marshals of his acquaintance who were worth a damn against the hell spawn forces of evil, but most were sadly lacking.
The Army? They had the bravery and the guns, but they were the most hidebound and hamstrung bunch of all. Every monster was different, and if you wanted to beat them, you needed to learn fast and adapt faster. Soldiers were always useful, but best when led by an officer with the wit to grasp the inconceivable, and the freedom to get the job done. Good luck with that!
The first time Bubba had killed a monster, he’d made a bit of a name for himself, and strangely enough job offers had begun to arrive. It turned out there was always some critter causing trouble somewhere. The work suited him, not to mention it was far better money than farming. It was a fine job, provided you didn’t mind extreme violence, physical discomfort, and the constant looming threat of death. Those early years had been more miss than hit, but he’d survived while the things he was chasing usually didn’t.
In time he had joined forces with other men uniquely suited to the monster killing arts. Bubba had never aspired to leadership, but they all looked to him for guidance. Until one day he’d found himself the official boss and owner of a real company.
It was purely by accident that Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers had become the most successful—albeit possibly only—company of its kind. His operation was above the rest because of knowledge, dedication, and preparation, but above all else, it was because they possessed an adaptability of the mind. The supernatural could neither surprise nor confound them. They could not be shaken.
Their attention was undivided.
Killing was their business.
* * *
Rooms had been provided at a hotel near the station, but most of his men were at the local saloons, and would probably drag themselves in sometime before dawn. There would be drinking, gambling, whoring, and possibly some fighting, but hopefully no hanging offenses committed because he couldn’t spare the manpower.
Bubba Shackleford sat alone at the hotel bar, in front of the same glass of whiskey that had been sitting untouched for the last hour. In his hands were the telegrams that had been waiting for him at the Western Union office. They were
all from his secret weapon, the Scholar.
He still didn’t know the Scholar’s identity, just where to send messages to reach him. Hell, the name Scholar had come about because the only signature on the letters he had received had been the letter S, and the name fit. The notes had arrived shortly after Bubba’s reputation as a monster killer had spread among those in the know. Whoever S was, he wanted to keep his identity secret, and he seemed to know damn near everything there was to know about certain kinds of monsters. Bubba figured that S was probably an employee of the government who would be jailed if word got out he was telling secrets. One of McKinley’s agents had confided in him that the reason they kept monsters secret was something about how the more folks believed, the stronger monsters got. Bubba didn’t know about that. It sounded like horseshit to him, but as long as the government contracts paid on time, he didn’t care.
Repeatedly he had tried to pay for the information provided, but Scholar would have none of it. His reasons for helping remained his own. Regardless of his mysterious motivations, Scholar was right more often than not, and some of his clues had proven vitally helpful in the past.
The first telegram had been sent a couple of days into their train ride.
DESCRIPTION MATCHES INDIAN LEGEND OF CHENOO ONCE HUMAN CURSED HEART SLOWLY TURNS TO ICE CAUSING MADNESS CANNIBALISM AND MUTATION WILL RESEARCH AND REPORT —S
Chenoo was a new term for him, but Bubba wasn’t familiar with the legends of this region. He’d need to remedy that. There was nothing quite as unpleasant as coming across a new beastie and having it suddenly squirt flaming blood out its eyes at you, or discover that bullets just bounced off its hide. Though Scholar seemed to know a lot, many critters still remained complete unknowns.