Investors eye a new future for New Austin
By Jose Chavez
A delegation of private investors has been riding the breadth of New Austin these past days, surveying the sun-scoured land with an eye not for cattle or ore, but for opportunity. Though many still regard this desert territory as too harsh for anything but hardy ranchers and drifters, the visiting financiers insist it could become a destination in its own right. Among their proposals are historical reenactments meant to draw eastern tourists hungry for frontier lore, as well as the construction of a preserved “western town” designed to showcase what they call the “way of the West” before modernity sweeps it aside. One particularly bold visitor even suggested that Armadillo, plagued for so long by drought, disease, and misfortune, could be revitalized to serve as a centerpiece of their vision.

Such ambitions, however, would require vast acquisitions of land from private holders and no small degree of cooperation from both state and federal authorities. New Austin’s broad expanses are not easily bought, nor are its people quick to part with their claims, however rugged the soil. Yet the investors speak with the confident air of men convinced the future can be shaped by capital alone. Whether these plans amount to genuine promise or eastern fancy remains to be seen, but their presence has stirred no shortage of conversation from Tumbleweed to Armadillo — conversations about who truly owns the story of the West, and who stands to profit from telling it.

The gun of Isabella Lake
By Delphia Atwood
Word of the bodies pulled from the frozen Lake Isabella has rattled even the seasoned mountaineers who make their living along its frigid banks. At first, the handful of corpses — men and women alike — were taken for victims of some knife-handed killer using the lake as a graveyard, as has been whispered about in winters past. But those suspicions dissolved as quickly as breath on a cold morning when investigators found not a mark on any of the dead. Nothing but the blue pallor of cold and the stiff posture of those who misjudged just how merciless Isabella’s waters can be. Speaking with trappers and travelers, I heard the same refrain echoed again and again: each of the deceased had gone out searching for the so-called gun of Isabella Lake, a fabled weapon said to lie trapped beneath the ice, more potent and more perfect than any firearm forged by man.

Most folks laugh off the tale, an old frontier yarn meant to scare children away from thin ice, but the deaths now piled upon the legend give it a darker weight. Friends of the lost swear their companions believed the weapon real and close at hand, if only they could break through or dive deep enough. Authorities, lacking any signs of foul play, have posted stern warnings along the shoreline, urging treasure-seekers to leave the eternally frozen over lake be. Yet even as their words carry on the cold wind, I have seen fresh tracks leading out onto the brittle surface, made by the sort of dream-chaser who believes that fortune favors the foolish. If there truly is a gun under Isabella, it has claimed more souls than bullets ever could.

Blackwater burdened by bounty mix-ups
By Nick McCrary
Chief Oswald Dunbar of the Blackwater Police Department has voiced a grievance that many lawmen across West Elizabeth have quietly nursed for years: the bounty program, as presently run, is costing the town money it does not have to spare. Under the law, bounties are issued through the courts, bearing full legal weight. Yet those warrants are often signed by state judges, whose authority extends only within their own borders. The hitch, as Chief Dunbar describes it, arises the moment a bounty hunter drags an outlaw across state lines. “They say the bounty was issued in New Hanover and so the reimbursement only applies in that state,” the chief explained, “never mind that the bounty hunters are bringing them to West Elizabeth!” In practice, Blackwater officers must process these wanted men and women, feed them, guard them, and hold them for transfer in addition to pay out the bounty. All without seeing a cent returned.

The trouble spreads further than bookkeeping. Town coffers, already strained by patrol costs and prison upkeep, slump further with each unreimbursed capture. Chief Dunbar stresses that local lawmen are obligated by statute and oath to accept any lawful bounty delivery, regardless of origin. But while the law defines their duty, it provides no remedy for the financial burden. As the chief put it, the current arrangement “asks towns like ours to pay the price for another state’s business,” creating tensions that ripple between jurisdictions.

For now, Chief Dunbar and his deputies urge a practical, if imperfect, solution: bounty hunters should return fugitives to the state that wants them, not simply the nearest jailhouse. The department has begun quietly advising freelance hunters to ride east or north before turning in their captives, lest Blackwater be left footing the bill yet again.

Man dies from an explosion within his own body!
By Donna Deshner
Annesburg has seen its fair share of gruesome ends, but even the miners hardened by years of coal dust and calamity stood stunned at the sight of a man erupting into flame from the inside out. Witnesses say a shift worker who often passed through the market row struck a match, lit a cigarette, and walked as calmly as any other soul in town. Then, without warning, a burst of fire bloomed from his midsection like some hellish lantern. His screams echoed against the slag piles as townsfolk rushed forward, but no bucket nor blanket could snatch him back from the blaze. By the time the flames guttered out, nothing remained to be saved from the massive hole in his body.

Investigators pore over what little evidence the fire left behind, but no simple answer fits the horror. Some locals claim the man’s habit of drinking rotgut by the quart may have turned his insides flammable, though even the drunkest coalhand knows liquor alone won’t make a man explode. Others whisper of tampering, some malicious powder slipped into his food or flask, yet no one can fathom a substance that could wait quietly for a single spark to unleash such ruin. In a town already marked by danger, this death has spread a fresh and uneasy fear, the kind that lingers in every lit match and every breath drawn near a flame.

Mystery killings at Hill Haven Ranch
By Mathilde Orry
Old Squears of Hill Haven Ranch has raised more cattle than most folks in Lemoyne have ever seen in one place, but lately he’s taken to riding into Rhodes red-faced with fury, filing complaint after complaint with Sheriff Leigh Gray. His grievance is as strange as it is troubling: unknown cowpokes have been slipping onto his land and killing his oxen — only the oxen — without taking hide, horn, or meat. “I hate rustlers but I understand ’em, they just trying to make money, right?” Squears told me as he stood over a fresh carcass. “But these folks just killing my oxen for no damn reason is beyond my understanding!” Investigators combed the property but found neither tracks nor tools, and the sheriff’s men privately admit they are baffled.

If Squears is to be believed, and he swore on every inch of his ranch that he should be, the perpetrators are many, not one or two. “I would bring home a new ox and find it dead just an hour later, if you can believe it!” he said, shaking with something that looked equal parts anger and dread. Locals chalk it up to vandals, pranksters, or some manner of roving mischief, yet none of those explanations account for the sheer number of animals slain or the apparent lack of motive. Sheriff Gray has urged patience while he “gathers clearer facts,” but Hill Haven’s owner insists patience is a luxury he’s fresh out of, especially with every new sunrise threatening one fewer ox in his fields.

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