The Feeding

Part 1: Bait

Jeb Walker was the first to see the stranger as he came into town that dry, sunny afternoon, when the blazing Texas sun was high in the blue sky and the air was hot enough to deep-fry a rattlesnake, though why anyone would want to deep-fry a rattlesnake, Jeb had absolutely no idea; they were very stringy and tough on the teeth, with an unpleasant oily flavor to boot. It made sense that Jeb would be the first to greet the stranger; his general store was one of the first buildings one saw on the very edge of town. Assorted colorful candies crammed its windows in wicker baskets, and beyond them his store was aglow with the golden radiance of an overhead gaslamp. It shed its soft light upon a wide variety of furs, pelts, guns (though it really wasn't his business to sell them), tobacco, and pipes. A good general store, one that he had inherited from his father. Across the dirt street so heavily scarred with wagon-wheel tracks, Goldman's postal service stood empty and silent like a watchful skull in the sunshine. It was a lazy sunday afternoon, and Goldman would be over at the saloon instead of stopping to greet the stranger alongside Jeb. Jeb didn't mind it; it was easier to lure these people in when you were alone and unassuming. Jeb came to stand in the general store's doorway, and watched with mild interest as the stranger came up to him.

Heralded by the lazy chime of his silver spurs as he sauntered into town, the newcomer made for a grand enough entrance with his woven brown poncho draped over his broad shoulders and chest like a cape of royalty. Or a shroud. Jeb had to shield his eyes for a moment as the stranger's big golden belt buckle caught the sunlight, a well-crafted product of metalwork inlaid with some design he could not see from that distance. Jeb's eyes moved instinctively back to that buckle, where two cowskin holsters criss-crossed over its shiny surface. The polished handles of twin silver pistols poked out shyly from their leather depths. This is going to be an interesting one, thought Jeb.

He tipped his hat to the stranger as he passed the general store. The gesture was not returned, but the stranger stopped and turned to him, slowly and deliberately. His face was a mask of unshaven stubble that ended beneath the brim of his own hat, the front of which was pulled down over his eyes. Jeb was used to the cold greeting from men like him, and it didn't bother him at all. Few things did, nowadays, and besides, the job ahead was too delicate to be ruined by petty squabbles over politeness. Jeb briefly considered extending his hand, but thought better of it after another look at the sixguns lodged at the stranger's waist.

"Where you coming from, boy?" Jeb asked the question without truly caring for an answer; he knew where the stranger hailed from. Every settlement beyond theirs was the same, full to bursting with fur traders and whiskey and chilling stories about a town on the other side of the horizon that killed thrillseekers and heroes alike with a passion. Over the decades, the town had grown and shrunk with the times, but its roots had never changed. It gobbled up outsiders as greedily as children coming after school for Jeb's candy, and spit out the bones for the rest of the fools to see. This town, Jeb was proud to say, was his very own.

"Springton," the stranger replied, "next settlement over." Ah, yeah, Jeb thought, good place. Good business, good people, good way to get stories around. "I was drifting through there when I heard about your little settlement all the way out here. Y'all are a bit famous with the rustlers and ranchers, or so I've heard. I heard talk about a town that folks keep away from, because they don't take too kindly to strangers."

In fact," he raised his head and looked into Jeb's eyes for the first time then, with a gaze as black and probing as a shark's, "I heard that the last drifter to make it out of here was twenty years ago, in 1857. Rambling like a lunatic, and twice as dangerous. Now, what's a town like that doing all the way out here, anyway?"

Jeb looked the stranger up and down. He wasn't one of the rustlers he'd mentioned; no criminal would wear something so flashy as those pretty little guns hanging from their waist. And he certainly wasn't a rancher, not dressed like that, anyway. A stranger is a stranger, Jeb decided, and he didn't care to know any more than that. But he didn't like the man's curiosity, nor his intuition or depth of research he had evidently done. Not one bit.