PIN-DL1 Fistful O Dead Guys-Txt 1-50.Indd

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FOREWORD BY MIKE STACKPOLE

Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Inc. P.O. Box 10908 Blacksburg, VA 24062-0908 [email protected] (800) 214-5645 (orders only)

Deadlands, Weird West, Dime Novel, the Great Rail Wars, the Deadlands logo, and the Pinnacle logo are Trademarks of Pinnacle Entertainment Group, lnc. Sample© 1999 Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Inc . All Rights Reserved. file Printed in the USA. CONTENT,S

FOREWORD ...... 3 by Mike Stackpole WELCOME TO THE WEIRD WES-r ...... 6 HATE: PART ONE ...... 8 by Shane Lacy Hensley REBORN ON THE BAYOU ...... 23 by Matt Forbeck HOMECOMING ...... 40 John R. Hopler THE HEX FILES ...... 58 by Don DeBrandt THE TASTE ...... 70 by Clay & Susan Griffith A RESURRECTION, THREE HANGINGS, AND AN APACHE ARROW ...... 88 by Kevin Ross THE DRiVE ...... 108 by T.G. Shepherd LET THE RIVER OF DEATH WASH OVER ME ...... 125 by Richard E. Dansky BEHIND ENEMY LINES ...... 149 bySample Jeff Mariotte file COMES THE STORM ...... 164 by Ree Soesbee THE PARKER PANiC ...... 179 by Mike Stackpole AUTHOR BIOS ...... 204 by Mike Stackpole

You have in your hands a wonderful collection of short stories set in one of the most imaginative universes to be developed in a long time. I still recall the first time I laid eyes on Deadlands. The concept of a horror western game hit me as perfect, a wonderful synthesis of genres that had a life anQ strength to it. Even before I cracked the rulebook, I knew this was a place where I wanted to play. Role playing games are an American invention, and Deadlands is one that combines with two other American inventions to create a milieu that is uniquely American, yet curiously universal in appeal. Before Deadlands, the RPGs that tried to deal with American subjects were weakly historical. They might cover gangsters or western action, but their being mired in history undercut imagination. Al Capone would never die in a shoot-out. President Grant would not be assassinated. Technology would always remain the same, archaic by the standards of the players. What could have been fantastic was made mundane because the world would not be changed by the interactions of characters. The games became sterile and died because of lack of interest by the players. Players crave the fantastic and Deadlands brings it to them by layering in one of America's most enduring literary inventions: Horror. Edgar Allen Poe is rightly acknowledged as both the father of horror and mystery fiction, and was a fervent defender of all things American when it came to literature. His works showed European dabblers in the Gothic tradition how it could really be done. Heart-pounding horror begins with Poe, flows strongly into the works of Lovecraft and on today with Stephen King. Horror is an American playground. No one does it better, understands it better or can revel in it better than Americans. SampleSmarter folks than I can posit literary reasons forfile this American supremacy, but I have my own theory about our love for horror that goes beyond just the adrenaline rush of having the bejesus scared out of us. Deep down I think Americans

3 FOREWORD have been raised with a strong sense of the heroic. The monster may win in horror, but I think most readers and viewers corne away with the secret conviction that if they had been there, the monster would have gotten his comeuppance. In horror evil wins over good; and to Americans that's just not the way the world works. This is especially true when it comes to that other great American invention: the West. Our frontier has always been a goal where good-hearted, strong-working, decent and dedicated folks could escape their past and start anew. The frontier was the land where good defeated evil, true love won out, the American dream of success tnrough hard effort reigned supreme. Western stories are thinly disguised morality plays that we all revel in. Certainly they resemble tales of Robin Hood, or samurai stories from Japan, but even these two milieux fail in one essential American aspect. Robin Hood bowed to a king, the samurai obey their Emperor; but an American hero is beholden only to himself, his family and his God. As the saying goes: God made man, Colonel Colt made him equal. No room in there for feudal fealty. It's justice and all else be damned. In Deadlands we get this great synthesis, then; a cycle of evil beating good, and good beating evil. Neither side wins all the time. There's always a new evil to deal with, and a hero can always reload or return from the grave. And the fantastic way in which history has been rewritten means that the imagination knows no bounds. The world is different from the one we know from school-and the differences make it that much more intriguing. A huge chunk of the fun of roleplaying games-and speculative fiction for that matter-js discovering the world. Deadlands provides a world that is, in and of itself, a shapechanger. As Stephen King pointed out in Danse Macabre, the shapechanger is one of the most enduring and terrifying motifsSample in fiction because it's something that looks file benign one moment and turns lethal in the next. So it is in the world of Deadlands, the town of Tombstone could be a normal town full of wonderful folks, or it could easily be a ghost town peopled with the undead. Corning over the rise, riding on into town,

4 FOREWORD there's no way to know which it will be. The tension of discovering the world and figuring out how it works can be palpable; providing more than enough motivation for playing. And for reading. In the stories in this book you'll discover all manner of windows into this world. Each author brings a unique viewpoint into the amalgam of magic and rawhide, Halloween and horseplay; gunfire and ghouls. These are the western adventures that Louis L'Amour couldn't have written; that Lovecraft would have blanched at writing. These are stories Poe would have loved, both for the spine-tingling nature of them, and because they have a distinctly American brand on them. The best part about these stories is that they are really an invitation. Consider them highlight films from sporting events. They're lots of fun to watch, but the only thing that is better is playing. Each of these stories represents the sort of adventures in which you can sink yourself by playing Deadlands. Horace Greeley's advice is well taken here: Go west. young man, go west. Go west. into a truly wild west.

Mike Stackpole Scottsdale, Arizona June 25, 1999 Sample file

5 WEI CoY\E TO T 1+-£ 'N'Et~D ~T .

A cold corpse stalks the High Plains, a six-gun in his hand. Far in the distance, a woIf howls at the Jull moon. But this is no ordinary animal. It is a thing oJ legend. And the undead gunslinger knows only he can stop it.

Welcome to the world of Deadlands: the Weird West. It's a world of high adventure and campy horror. Where brave buffalo gals fight alongside preachers serving up fire & brimstone with a hickory stick. Where hexslinging hucksters cast spells with the aid of dark spirits. Where mad scientists build infernal devices such as flamethrowers, Gatling pistols, and magical elixirs. And death is only the beginning, for not even death can stop the heroes of the Weird West. The history of Deadlands is our own up until Independence Day, 1863-the day the Reckoning began. At that time, a vengeful Indian shaman named Raven freed the manito us from their long imprisonment in the spiritual Hunting Grounds. The manitous are like bees, gathering bits of fear from humanity and carrying it back to their dark and ancient masters, the Reckoners. These sinister beings take little bits of fear and create horrors born of humanity's worst nightmares, thus creating even more fear in a growing cycle of terror. Their purpose? To one day saturate the world in fear until it becomes a Deadland and they can walk upon it in the flesh. Even heroes know little of this grand scheme. They know only that things lurk in the hollows of Texas or the canyons of Arizona. As they fight the forces of darkness, the heroes of the Weird West slowly learn the horrible truth. Many die trying. The greatest of those become un living hosts for the manitous-the Harrowed. These undead gunslingers are the most powerful heroes of the Weird West, but they are also the most dangerous,Sample for the malicious manitous inside sometimes file take charge of their hosts and force them to commit dark and unspeakable deeds.