Category: A Trilogy.
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THREE NIGHTS AT THE END OF THE ROAD, Part 3: Last Rites
[Note to the Reader]This is the final chapter connecting The Blonde in Room #3 and A Stranger This Way Comes. If you haven’t read Chapters One and Two of Three Nights at the End of the Road, go do that first. The truth is in the ledgers, but the resolution’s in the ride. The dust…
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THREE NIGHTS AT THE END OF THE ROAD, PART 2: Unholy Alliances
[Note to the Reader] If you’re just now tuning in, you’re late—but not hopeless. This is the second chapter tying up the mysteries of The Blonde in Room #3 and A Stranger This Way Comes. If you skipped Chapter One, go read “Receipt of Sins” before the trail gets any colder or more twisted. The…
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THREE NIGHTS AT THE END OF THE ROAD, PART 1: Receipt of Sins
[Note to the Reader] This story threads together the final loose ends of The Blonde in Room #3 and A Stranger This Way Comes. If you haven’t read those, you’ll want to—if only to know who died, who lied, and what exactly got dumped in the stock tank off Highway 285. If you have read…
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A STRANGER THIS WAY COMES, Part III
It wasn’t the first time something strange turned up in a stock tank outside Fort Stockton, but it was the first time it had chrome step rails and a mural of a scantily dressed devil riding a diesel piston. The yellow Ford F-650—Santo Mendez’s garish, God-help-us-all pickup—was found half-submerged in muddy water, cab tilted like…
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A STRANGER THIS WAY COMES, Part II
By the time the sun dipped low over Fort Stockton on Friday, you could already hear the gossip getting its boots laced up. Santo Mendez had been in town less than a week, and already he was rewriting the rules, the roads, and the unspoken dress code of the Scuttlebutt Gentleman’s Club. And then came…
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A STRANGER THIS WAY COMES, Part I
Fort Stockton, Texas. Population: Not ready. It was just past nine when the stranger walked into the Grounds for Divorce. Not strutted, not shuffled—walked, like he had no need to prove a damn thing to anyone, and if you didn’t like that, you could go find a quieter part of Texas to misunderstand him in.…
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WU BE UNTO YOU, Part III: And on the 7th day, they returned
The first thing Wu saw of Fort Stockton was a jackrabbit the size of a border collie hopping across the two-lane as they crested the ridge near the welcome sign. The second thing was the 1969 Plymouth Satellite sedan they were now riding in, which had been borrowed—unofficially—from a retired reenactor who had once portrayed…
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WU BE UNTO YOU, Part II: Wu Tangled Up in Amarillo
By dawn, the school bus had developed a new noise—a chirping rattle that only surfaced while accelerating and reciting the Rosary. Angus said it was the transmission. Thelma said it was probably a demon. Either way, they limped the final few miles into Amarillo and parked behind a Cracker Barrel, where the Chariot of Fire…
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WU BE UNTO YOU, Part I: And Lo, There Was a Mix-Up
It began, as these things often do, with an unexpected call and a cup of lukewarm Sanka. Sister Thelma had just finished leading morning devotions in the parish hall of Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern, where the air always smelled like Lemon Pledge and a crisis waiting to happen. She was stacking leftover donut holes…
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TWO DeSOTOS, Part III
The car rolled into Fort Stockton like it had something to prove. A 1968 Chrysler 300 Convertible, Scorch Red and humming like temptation on a warm breeze. White vinyl top, rear window flapping slightly, like it was winking at the world. Lucinda stepped out of the Grounds for Divorce diner with a pitcher of iced…