Malice of crows

This is a Weird Western that puts a mixed-race monster hunter at the center of a story about genocide's lingering wounds. The paranormal Wild West is gritty and well-realized, the monsters are genuinely gruesome, and the themes of self-worth, identity, and inherited guilt are handled with frankness rather than lecture. Readers who love dark fantasy with a moral spine, fans of weird westerns, and anyone drawn to stories where killing the monster means confronting what made it will find plenty here.

1. 1

   Act 1

   Bones in a Sack

   Rhett Walker rides through the Durango desert with a sack of bones behind his saddle. They belong to Sam Hennessy, the friend he believes a necromancer killed, and Rhett intends to bring him back. His only company is Ragdoll, an ugly paint mare he talks to constantly because she's the one creature that never leaves. In Burlesville, a girl named Cora stops him with a vision: 'You're looking for a man who ain't a man. He's got your friend's soul in a jar.' A talking coyote claiming to be a spirit guide complicates the trail, telling Rhett, 'You're chasing the wrong tail, Walker. The necromancer ain't your enemy. He's just a tool.' Rhett doesn't want to hear it. He wants someone to blame. In a cave hung with jars of preserved body parts, he finds the necromancer, a gaunt white man named Dr. Orin Hays, who admits he sold Sam's soul to something called the Malice. The Malice answers Rhett's rage in person: a massive crow of shadow and smoke speaking in a chorus of voices. 'You cannot kill what is already dead, little hunter. But you can join us.' Cora helps Rhett escape the cave, and on the run she reveals she can shapeshift into a crow. She explains the Malice is an ancient spirit of vengeance that feeds on pain.

2. 2

   Act 2

   Gloomy Creek

   Rhett and Cora reach Gloomy Creek and fall in with Earl, a one-armed gunslinger who lost his arm to a chupacabra and now hunts monsters for bounty. The town gives them the first real proof of what the Malice does: it possesses townsfolk and turns them into violent puppets. A possessed blacksmith attacks Rhett, screaming, 'The crows see you, Walker! The crows always see!' Cora gives Rhett the history no one wanted him to know. The Malice was born when a Comanche shaman cursed a group of settlers who massacred his village, binding their souls into a single entity of endless hunger. The trail leads to an abandoned mission, where a mural depicts that massacre, crows pecking at the eyes of the dead. Then the Malice strikes close. It possesses Earl and forces him to attack Rhett, who has to shoot his new ally in the leg to subdue him. Cora shifts into crow form and drives the Malice out of Earl's body.

3. 3

   Act 3

   The Unmaking

   That night Rhett dreams of Sam's ghost, and it is not the reunion he wanted. 'Don't bring me back, Rhett. I'm where I belong. But you got to stop the Malice before it eats the whole territory.' A band of Comanche warriors recognizes Rhett's heritage, and their leader, Chief Red Owl, names the truth plainly: 'The Malice is our shame. We made it. You must unmake it.' He gives Rhett a sacred obsidian knife used in the original curse, with instructions: 'Cut the heart of the Malice, and the crows will scatter.' The three ride to the Malice's lair, a dead cottonwood in the center of a salt flat, its branches crowded with hundreds of living crows watching in silence. The Malice emerges as a giant crow with human eyes and speaks with Sam's voice: 'You left me to die, Rhett. Now you'll join me.' Rhett's bullets pass straight through it. Cora shifts into a crow and attacks its eyes, buying Rhett the opening to climb the tree. Inside the hollow, he finds a beating human heart suspended in a web of shadows. He stabs it with the obsidian knife, and the Malice screams as its form unravels.

4. 4

   Act 4

   Into the Dying Light

   The curse breaks visibly. Crows fall from the sky, dead, across the salt flat. Cora collapses, human again, and whispers, 'It's done. The curse is broken.' Rhett buries Sam's bones under the dead cottonwood, saying, 'Rest now, brother. You earned it,' while Earl and Cora stand with him in silence. The three go their separate ways. Cora stays with the Comanche to learn more about her shapeshifting, telling Rhett, 'You gave me back my soul. Now I got to figure out what to do with it.' Earl heads east to hunt a wendigo, offering parting words: 'You ever need a one-armed fool with a grudge, you know where to find me.' Rhett rides out alone on Ragdoll, heading west. The final line: 'The desert stretched out before him, empty and full of promise, and Rhett Walker rode on, into the dying light.'

• RRhett WalkerA half-black, half-Comanche monster hunter carrying his dead friend's bones, hoping to resurrect him. He learns to let Sam go and to unmake a curse his ancestors helped create.
• CCoraA young girl with prophetic visions who can shapeshift into a crow. She becomes Rhett's ally, helps kill the Malice, and stays with the Comanche to learn her powers.
• EEarlA one-armed gunslinger who lost his arm to a chupacabra and hunts monsters for bounty. The Malice possesses him and forces Rhett to shoot him in the leg; he survives and rides east after a wendigo.
• DDr. Orin HaysA gaunt white necromancer found in a cave of preserved body parts. He sold Sam's soul to the Malice, revealing himself as a tool rather than the true enemy.
• CChief Red OwlLeader of the Comanche warriors who claim the Malice as their people's shame. He gives Rhett the sacred obsidian knife needed to cut out the curse's heart.
• SSam HennessyRhett's dead friend, carried as bones and spoken to as a companion. His ghost asks Rhett to stop the Malice instead of bringing him back.
• RRagdollRhett's loyal, ugly paint mare and his only companion on the trail. He talks to her constantly, and she carries him out of the story's final page.

The crows

Sam's bones

The obsidian knife

The dead cottonwood on the salt flat

Ragdoll

The ending refuses both triumph and tragedy. Rhett kills the Malice, but the victory costs him the quest that defined him: Sam's ghost told him not to resurrect his friend, and the burial under the cottonwood closes the errand that opened the book. What's left is a man who has unmade a curse born of a massacre and must now decide what a monster hunter is when the hunt is the only thing that makes him feel whole. Cora staying with the Comanche and Earl riding east strip Rhett down to Ragdoll and open desert, so the final image, riding into the dying light, reads two ways. It is an ending, the light literally dying, and a beginning, the desert 'full of promise.' The line lands because it holds both: a man at peace with being both black and Comanche, still riding toward whatever needs killing next.

1. 1.The Malice is born from a massacre and is called the Comanche's shame as well as the settlers' crime. Does the book fairly distribute guilt for the curse, or does it ask the victims' descendants to clean up violence done to them?

Readers who want their Westerns haunted, not just dusty, and who care about a mixed-race hero carrying grief in a sack behind his saddle. If you like monster hunting with real teeth, found-family gunslingers, and an ending that earns its peace, saddle up.

FAQ