I am currently five titles away from reformatting all of my non-fiction for print. This editing task has kept me from finishing Hurt Stoker and Poet, which will not run again until just after Thanksgiving. Both of those serials should still be complete before Christmas as I only have a week's worth of writing to finish each novella length story. In the meantime I will continue the occasional Hemavore and RetroGenesis episode. Winter, Out of Time and The Spiral Case will not resume until after the New Year.

This serial follows the adventures and misadventures of Jay Bracken and Eddie ‘Scientific’ across the novels Beyond the Ember Star, Comes the Six Winter Night and Thunder-boy. In the character rotation for the Sunset Saga these characters serve as plot drivers. Like many adventurers in the historic past and now they engage actively in world shaping events with little appreciation of cause and effect and not much of a grasp on the big picture.

Since the plot elements revealed in these three novels through more introspective characters—particularly Three-Rivers, who is the primary protagonist in the Saga—could serve as spoilers if revealed here there view will be omitted, as will plot revelations seen through the eyes of Eddie and Jay. If you would like the whole story it is available online at our e-store, and is coming into print as I write. If that is not in the budget then you will get to experience the time-hunting story from the perspective of the type of impulsive personalities who tend to be the first boots on the ground in any harrowing endeavor.

Mister Edison’s interview was conducted according to the Sympathetic Oral Protocol.

Mister Bracken’s interview was involuntary, and utilized the Broad Spectrum Invasive Protocol. The tragic death of Doctor Benson and the assault on Nurse Gonzales has resulted in the recall of this Protocol as per Doctor Wyeth. Mister Bracken is currently held in Sedation Omega.

-Calvin Wiley, intern, Psycho-Criminology Dept., Life Science Ministries, 2334 A.D.

The smoldering embers of the campfire barely illuminated the wounded land. Not a star, nor the barest sliver of the moon, shone in the night sky. The world was cast in shadow—the battlefield thankfully obscured. The last groans of the dying yet held absolute death at bay. They lay heaped and scattered, once brave, once afraid. Some he had led faithfully, some he had betrayed. Regardless, they were here by his hand, this blood-drenched mountainside a grave to them all in their suffering hundreds.

Don Andre sat dead by his side, still holding his hand against the cold night that had long since come. King Philip appeared above the embers, his long head and majestic mane hung low; his once blazing eyes watery and white, fixing him with a haunting gaze. His voice was clear, as if marble spoke on a cold winter morning.

“Huntsmen, we knew you as friend, not knowing it was we you hunted. My master loved you and we trusted you. You ate, drank and bathed with us. A man like us we thought—such a runner we agreed... Is this why?”

He could not pull his eyes away from King Phillip’s, and feebly choked on his unformed reply.

King Phillip’s voice tolled more deeply, “So this is why; because we alone you could not out-pace? It is God’s will that we are the faster. This and our strength and loyalty are all he has given us. The rest has been left for you, for your fortunate kind. But still, you betray us and our masters: cutting us down like autumn grass and leading your screamers among us…for jealousy?

“How mean are you? I pity you your loneliness and envy Huntsmen—but I shall not forgive! You tore the entrails from my beautiful mare. You took my fine-socked forelegs with your cruel stroke. You did not even pause to give us grace, just let us writhe as you betrayed our kind master—your loyal friend!”

As King Phillip paused for emphasis Jay began struggling for breath. He could not breathe the cold air, it shunned his lungs.

The majestic stallion continued in a whisper that sounded like grass brushing a fence post, “When you, Huntsmen, struggle along on those two puny legs, remember that God above decreed that we alone would rake the earth with hooves of thunder and pour dread into the hearts of men with our every stride. When those pathetic legs finally fail you—and they will man—my spirit will rest no more soundly, that the jealous man who wished he were a horse finally failed to outpace his foe. I have already savored your pain…I want it not forever Huntsmen.”

As the faces of six slain mares crowded around King Phillip Don Andre’s corpse squeezed his hand and began to cry, “Maria, Maria!”

Jay woke drenched in cold sweat in the brisk predawn mountain air. He was looking through the glowing embers of the campfire at the blued forks of Randy’s Sportster. He was afraid to go back to sleep; afraid of facing King Phillip and his mares again.

He was rumbling east across Kentucky on Route 64 above the Licking River. It was just past daybreak on a Sunday morning, and fine riding! He had not had a single bad dream or night terror since Amble had made the painting. He felt though, as if he had a big beast coiled up inside. He wanted to let it free. He had felt drawn to the fine horses grazing on the spruce colored grass on the large farms off the highway since coming into Kentucky. He wanted to make peace with them but couldn’t bring himself to roll up a rich man’s driveway looking like this, and uninvited to boot. He was a proud hillbilly for God’s sake.

But now he spotted a modest looking hillside farm where a handful of working horses grazed, and one just happened to be watching him thunder by.

He had been lost in thought and had not heard the small Nissan pickup that wound up beside him. There were three college age kids in the cab, drinking beer.

The driver—a fat kid—beeped the horn, and the passenger on the right—a tall lanky kid—half rose through the passenger side window and tossed a can of Coors Light at Jay, which missed, spraying him with suds as the can twirled over his head.

The beast inside tensed and snarled and he became white hot angry—like Randy more than himself. His feelings were particular though—or were they thoughts?

His rage expressed itself through the bike. He opened her up and was clicking along at 140 MPH within seconds, leaving them far behind. The road rushed by as he skated along the carved ridgeline of concrete. Something felt wrong though. It tasted bad, like defeat.

You ran hillbilly.

He slowed as quickly as possible and turned the Sportster around. He was no longer angry, no longer anxious or nervous. He was at peace as he rumbled back at 70 MPH on the wrong side of the highway. He soaked his harmony up from the road through the internal combustion between his legs as he picked up speed and roared toward the enemy.

The Nissan came into view. He could not see their faces, but the passenger was hanging out the window waving him on. How this game of chicken was playing with the driver and the middle passenger he could not tell; could not have cared less, as he let her ride and opened up to about ninety.

He opened her all the way up and screamed like a bloodthirsty Irq and the wind whipped the tears of joy from his eyes as he hurdled toward Hell—then the fat kid took it over the guardrail.

He eased up on the throttle and slowly walked her around, before cruising over onto the shoulder. As he looked over the guardrail with her idling he could taste the blood and gasoline in the air; could even smell the hot metal and paint on the scorched guardrail. The Nissan was on its back, half wrapped around a tree, about a hundred and fifty yards down the mountainside. The skinny kid was laying at an odd angle between two saplings. His legs were nowhere to be seen. The fat kid and the other passenger must have been beneath the wreck.

He reached into his saddlebag and drew a heavy piece of old fashioned beef jerky he had bought at a farm store back in Oklahoma. When he placed it between his teeth and bit down he could hear her open up, and he was off down the road. The jerky tasted like blood and iron and he could feel the singing of women coming up from his groans.

As he roared off he looked back left to the Northwest—to the place Three-Rivers would call Winter-by-Sunset—into the eyes of the old workhorse he had spotted earlier. The old boy seized a bunch of grass and shook his head in approval, his mares beginning to gather around.

That’s it Old Boy, stay with them fine girls. Graze that sweet grass. I wish I had.