Desert walker finds journey’s end at Armadillo saloon
By Jose Chavez
A curious traveler set out to cross New Austin on his own two legs recently, refusing for reasons known only to himself the considerable advantage of a horse and choosing instead to make his way through the desert by moonlight. The man apparently reckoned that traveling after sundown would spare him the murderous daytime heat, though in doing so he traded the sun for darkness enough to conceal every cougar, snake, and other hungry thing liable to regard a lone pedestrian as supper. Whatever grand purpose inspired the undertaking, it did not survive contact with Armadillo. Upon reaching town, the traveler wandered into the saloon and became sufficiently sidetracked by drink that his great crossing went no farther. Thus ended, at least for the evening, a journey across New Austin. Not from exhaustion, injury, or wild beast, but from the formidable obstacle of a drinking establishment with an open door.

Gunmen steal train only to abandon it with cargo untouched
By Jane Duran
A train entering Ambarino was subjected to a most peculiar robbery when three armed men seized the locomotive without firing a shot, drove it some distance through the mountains, and then abandoned the train without touching its cargo. The train’s conductor reported seeing an obstruction laid across the track ahead and slowed the locomotive sufficiently to bring it safely to a halt. “I thought at the time it was fortune to have seen it early enough to stop,” the conductor said, “but I realized soon it was by design.” When workers descended to remove the obstruction, three gunmen emerged from concealment and took possession of the train. Faced with armed men and seeing little profit in heroics, passengers and crew offered no resistance, and consequently not a single firearm was discharged.

The train was discovered farther along the line sometime later, abandoned but otherwise apparently unharmed. More strangely still, its cargo remained untouched, and there was no immediate indication that the gunmen had searched the passengers’ belongings or attempted to remove anything of value. Their purpose may have been considerably simpler than robbery. “One of the fellas said they just needed to drive the train for a bit,” one witness recalled. An explanation investigators cannot, well, explain.

Bounty trade brings noise and money back to Blackwater
By Daisy Fairman
Several weeks have now passed since the Blackwater Trick Shooter met his bloody end upon these streets, and although the strange gunman responsible remains a subject of uneasy conversation, Blackwater has gradually returned to the ordinary business of being Blackwater. Which presently means a great many bounty hunters coming and going. The controversial trade has resumed at a vigorous pace, with residents reporting wanted men delivered into town at nearly every hour imaginable, sometimes upright and cooperative but quite often hogtied across the back of a horse, kicking, shouting, and loudly declaring that an extraordinary miscarriage of justice has occurred. “You know how hard it is to sleep when a man is brought in hogtied and screaming of their innocence?” one resident remarked, describing nighttime deliveries as particularly tiresome.

Yet irritation has not been enough to turn Blackwater against the hunters altogether. They purchase ammunition, provisions, horse feed, meals, liquor, lodging, and whatever else a person requires before departing after another fugitive, and that steady patronage puts welcome dollars into local pockets. Shopkeepers therefore tolerate the mud tracked across their floors, stablemen accept exhausted horses at unpleasant hours, and residents pull pillows over their ears whenever another protesting outlaw arrives under guard.

Cowpoke struck down by train witnesses swear appeared from nowhere
By Donna Deshner
A cowpoke met a sudden and grisly end beneath a passing train in open country, under circumstances witnesses insist were stranger than any ordinary railroad calamity. The rider had been traveling near the tracks with nothing but broad country around her when, according to one shaken observer, the locomotive seemed simply to materialize upon the line. “Came out of nowhere, I didn’t hear nothing until I heard the splat,” the witness told this reporter, still plainly disturbed by the sight. Another person nearby could offer little certainty. “I didn’t notice it, but I wasn’t paying much attention either,” they admitted. Neither could explain how a locomotive, with all its smoke, iron clatter, and shrieking machinery, might approach across wide-open ground without attracting notice until the fatal instant.

The train’s conductor dismissed any suggestion of unnatural happenings along the rails. “Trains don’t just appear like that,” the conductor said, “that poor soul wasn’t paying attention and I can’t very well stop a train for every fool that suddenly decides to jump on the tracks!” Whatever the truth, the peculiar testimony has already lent an unsettling character to what might otherwise be counted among the railroad’s grim and growing tally of accidents.

The Eccentric Gunman kills fleeing man atop train entering Saint Denis
By Emeline Vickroy
Residents awaiting an arriving train in Saint Denis were treated to an astonishing and exceedingly dangerous spectacle when two armed men were observed upon the roof of the fast moving locomotive as it entered the city. Witnesses said one man appeared to be fleeing for his life, scrambling atop the cars in a desperate attempt to escape a pursuer who will already be familiar to readers of the Herald: the unidentified, brightly dressed gunman distinguished by his peculiar half-mustache and previously connected with fatal shootings in Blackwater and Armadillo. As the locomotive began reducing its speed for Saint Denis, the fleeing man ceased his retreat and turned to face his pursuer. Those watching from near the station reported seeing the two men square themselves upon the roof before a single pistol shot cracked above the thunder of the wheels.

The eccentric gunman remained standing. His opponent did not. Witnesses saw the wounded man tumble lifelessly from the train while his killer leapt from one of the slowing cars and disappeared into the city before authorities could seize him. Saint Denis lawmen searched the surrounding streets but found no trace of the conspicuously dressed fugitive, whose appearance ought seemingly to make concealment difficult. Authorities have not disclosed the identity of the dead man, nor what quarrel caused him to be pursued aboard the train. The incident marks another bloody appearance by the mysterious gunman, already sought in connection with the killing of the Blackwater Trick Shooter.

Previous Issue