Bullet Catcher: Shadows of the North

By Joaquin Lowe

One year after the showdown in the West, Imma has come into her own as a bullet catcher. But she does have one major regret: not saving her brother, Nikko, from the insidious influence of the gunslingers. Despite how deeply his previous betrayal wounded her, Imma believes that she can reunite her family?Çöboth chosen and blood?Çöand forge a bond stronger than ever before.

 

Which is why Imma, along with Lobo and Cass, risk their lives to travel from the water-starved South to rescue Nikko in the Northlands, where technological wonders abound. But when disaster strikes on the journey, Imma must rely on her bullet catcher training to survive. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Realm
• Release date: Mar 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781682108451

Book preview

Table of Contents

Bullet Catcher Shadows of the North

Table of Contents

1. Beyond Damnation

2. House of the Moon

3. Northward Bound

4. The Price of Conscience

5. The Golden City

6. The Irregulars

7. The Rookery

8. Again

9. Opening Night

10. The Way In

11. Wolves and Lambs

12. A Long Time Coming

13. The Wolves Come Home

14. The Way Out

15. Close to Home

16. Carry the Burden

Bullet Catcher

Shadows of the North

Joaquin Lowe

Table of Contents

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

Episode 10

Episode 11

Episode 12

Episode 13

Episode 14

Copyright Page

1. Beyond Damnation

Oh, here you are! Your dear weariness and ugliness as beautiful as light!

—Marilynne Robinson, Lila

I’m playing with a ragdoll on the porch of my parents’ homestead. Green paint curls off the siding like snail shells oozing down the side of the house. The porch boards are sharp with splinters. Nails crook upward at bent angles. The sun blisters, but under the awning is strangely cool. My mother rocks in her chair, humming a lullaby, her face turned away, so all I can see is the curtain of gray hair falling down around her shoulders. In the distance a scream rings out. I turn towards the sound and see a line of people carrying torches, marching on the house. My mother stands and walks inside. I watch her go but can’t follow.

The line of people draws closer, near enough where I should be able to make out their features, but their faces are disfigured by shadow. They halt: a perfect line between my home and the rest of the world. Then one of the men hurls their torch at the house. It clangs against the tin and thatch roof and suddenly everything is on fire, and I’m encircled in flames. The tiny hairs on my arms singe, making little popping noises like insects diving into a campfire. I’m crying. Suddenly, someone grabs my arm. When I look up, there’s Nikko. His face is young and old and kind and angry and flushed with heat. His eyes are mine, reflected back. He pulls me into his arms and carries me through the front door, into the house.

• • •

Get up, Cub! Lobo’s voice rings in my ears.

My face is buried in the soft sand, sticking with sweat to my cheeks and forehead. What happened? There were gunslingers. I was on my horse. We were riding fast through a town––who knows the name. And then suddenly I was back home with Nikko. And the fire. Now here I am on the ground, my lungs shuddering trying to take in air.

Get up, now! Lobo’s voice again, and then his hands, hauling me off the ground like I was no heavier than a feather, and leading me through the open doors into a building, and pulling me down behind an upended table. Gunfire pops through the air. Splinters shower like sparks overhead and rain down on our heads. Lobo stands, catches a bullet as easy as a boy catching a ball, and hurls it back at the shooter. And for a few moments the gunfire stops.

Look at me, Cub. For some reason I have a hard time doing what he says. He’s right here and sounds a million miles away. My gaze wanders around the saloon, the bottles lining the wall behind the bar, the frightened drinkers, huddling under the tables. He holds my chin and plants himself in front of me, so I have no choice but to look him in the eye.

You took a hit to the head, he says after examining my eyes.

What happened?

They shot your horse.

Where’s Cass?

She’s not here. She’s gone ahead. The gunslingers have screwed up their nerve and the bullets start flying again. Stay down. You’ll be fine in a bit. And if you have to vomit, for heaven’s sake do it away from me. And it’s almost like his words remind me that I need to puke, because a moment later I’m doubled over, puking up water and curdled oatmeal and whatever little else I’ve eaten, while Lobo leaps over the top of the overturned table and charges the shooters. From my position near the floor, all I hear are the thuds of the gunslingers slumping to the ground and the suddenness of the guns going quiet. And then Lobo’s helping me to my feet again.

Let’s go, Cub. There’s a long way still before we rest.

• • •

The wagon rattles over brush and stones. A dull lamp casts the cabin in low yellow light.

Lobo’s tobacco-roughened voice penetrates the gloom. Nearly there.

Out the window, I watch the wagon wheels trundle along at the edge of the cliff. Beyond, where the lantern light can’t penetrate, the darkness masks the drop down the cliff edge.

It was two days ago that we stood at the base of the plateau. We had arrived two days after our shootout in that small no-name town and by then my head was finally starting to clear. The town had been so small that there hadn’t been a single horse that wasn’t too old or bent to ride, and the gunslingers’ horses had taken off when their riders fell. It had been a long trudge through the desert, made longer still ‘cause of how my head was spinning after my fall.

It was early morning, with the sun breaking over the east. I shielded my eyes and searched for the summit, but it was lost in clouds. A waterfall cascaded down one side, collecting in a shallow pond at the bottom, framed with large, water-smoothed rocks, through which a narrow stream zigzagged into the desert. Beside the stream, in the shade of a wilting tree, sat an old man in torn overalls, his mouth hidden behind a bushy yellow-gray beard.

He smiled up at us and said, Take you to the top if yer willing to pay. He pointed to his carriage, harnessed to a skeletal donkey, which grazed on the thin grass sprouting along the bank of the creek.

• • •

The carriage rocks over a stone in the road and veers dangerously close to the edge. It’ll still be dark when we get into town, says Lobo. Do you remember the plan?

"If there’s only three steps can we rightly call it a plan?"

Good to see you’re back to your normal self, he says without irony.

Find Cass. Don’t be seen. Acquire the papers.

He stares at me from under the wide brim of his hat. This was your idea.

I know. I still remember the argument. It was after we watched the gunslingers haul Nikko away. We went back to Cass’s place in the oasis to fix things up and bury the dead after the gunslinger attack.

I want to save him. I said it just like that. I waited until Lobo had a bunch of nails clamped between his lips, halfway through nailing up a new bit of siding on the bullet-riddled house, so he couldn’t just shoot me down.

Cass gave me a look with her one good eye and said, Really?

Lobo spat the nails. Out of the question.

Why?

He tried to kill us, for one, Cass said.

He also saved us.

After everything he’s done, Lobo said, you still think he’s worth saving?

He’s my brother. And once upon time he was like a son to you. Worth it or not, he needs saving.

Lobo’s face flushed red like few times I’d seen. He picked up the nails and took his tools inside the house. I started to follow him, but Cass caught me. Give him time, she said.

The next morning when I woke, there was Lobo packing his gear and Cass was nowhere to be seen.

She’s gone ahead, he said, anticipating my question. We’ll meet her on the trail.

Where are we going?

He threw me my pack, already loaded. North. To get your brother. And then he tied up his bag and opened the door into the brisk dark of early morning.

• • •

The carriage grinds to a halt. The suddenness sends a jolt through the cabin. Lobo peers out the window into the pitch black.

Stand and deliver! an unseen voice calls out. The door flies open and a pair of hands reaches in, grabs Lobo by his shirt, and pulls him out into the dark. Before I have time to move, a second pair grabs me and hauls me after him. I land on the ground with a thud. I try to scramble to my feet but a gun, pressed to my temple, freezes me in my tracks.

Not so fast, miss, comes the voice behind the gun. Slowly, I turn my head to look at the man. His face is hidden behind a hat, pulled low over his brow, and a bandanna, wrapped around his jaw. Two sharp black eyes smile down at me. The masked face reminds me of Cloak. Imagining the dead man’s toothy grin behind the bandanna is enough to send a shiver down my spine.

Behind the man, an orb of pale yellow light wobbles, suspended in the darkness. As it comes nearer, it illuminates the man standing over me with the gun, then his partner, going through Lobo’s coat pockets, and finally the man holding the lantern himself: the coach driver. The wizened man smiles through his unkempt beard.

Rat! The word comes out in a growl I learned from Lobo, and I spit on his weather-beaten boots. The man’s smile widens and he spits back at me. Lobo’s eyes flash, but he stays where he is, hands up, calm.

Abner? Lee? Y’all hear what she called me?

We heard ’er Pa, they echo.

The coachman smirks, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a slip of creased, waxed paper. He unfolds it deliberately, examines it, and then turns the paper around to show me. An unflattering ink sketch of me stares out from the page. He produces another with Lobo’s face. Wanted, it reads. Dead or Alive. One Thousand Gold Pieces a Head.

He taps the word gold with his bony finger and says, Y’all must’ve done something mighty bad to warrant such a big prize.

Damn. Lobo’s voice is so low and quiet it’s startling.

What’s that, old man? says the one called Abner.

The wanted poster. If not for that, we wouldn’t have had to kill you.

You got a toucha the heat, old timer? Abner can hardly contain his laughter. Y’all aren’t even carrying guns.

Wait, you really don’t know who we are, do you? I look up at the coachman with astonishment, and maybe it’s the genuine surprise in my voice, or maybe it’s the look on Lobo’s face—that sullen expression he sometimes gets when he sees no option but violence—but the three men’s faces drop, replaced by three pairs of waxen eyes pinched with fear.

And when it happens, it happens fast. Lobo’s hands snap at Abner’s wrist, turning and moving the end of his gun to face Lee, the man holding me hostage. The gun goes off in Abner’s hand. Sparks and blood erupt as the bullet blows the gun from Lee’s hand. Blood sprays across my face as I spin to my feet. The coachman looks like he’s moving in slow motion. The look of shock and anger and fear is frozen on his face.

He reaches for his gun and I charge full steam at him. Lobo pulls the gun away from Abner and lays him out with a punch to the side of the head. I get to the coachman right as he’s leveling his gun at Lobo. I lower my shoulder into his stomach, and I feel all the air go out of him as he crumples. The gun goes off, sending the bullet singing into the night air. The old man lies curled in the dust, like an armadillo trying to protect itself from dogs.

I pick up his shooter and fling it off the side of the cliff. Lobo collects the other guns and tosses them, too, save one. He grips the dull steel in his hand like a hammer as we gather up the three injured men and order them to sit with their backs against the rock wall.

Who the hell are you? asks the coachman. His sons are sullen and close to tears beside him. They know what’s about to happen.

Lobo is angry, the kind of quiet anger only outlaws and pastors can muster––the kind of anger that’ll put the fear of god in you. He leans down close to the coachman, and the old man winces like he’s expecting a punch.

"You and your boys have had a pretty good run of things, I reckon. You ride people out here, into this trap, and you take them for a few gold, enough to go into town and get drunk and do it all over again.

Only this time when you checked the traps you found wolves. Bad luck.

Three shots pierce the night air. Then all is quiet, and the coach rumbles on. I sit in the back while Lobo steers up top. It’ll be hours still before morning peeks over the horizon and illuminates the dusky plain below. The desert is its most beautiful at first light, when the air is crimson and gold. Three more dead, and I find myself asking, for who knows what time, how much a single life is worth. I still don’t have an answer, but I can’t shake the numbness that has begun to replace the pain of killing.

• • •

The ground flattens out and the hard trail softens to loam and grass. The air is heavy, cold, and thick with dew. I pull aside the curtain and the cabin fills with dull electric light, radiating from the city on the other side of a wide river, which flows to the dam, crenellating the side of the plateau, letting the water down in a trickle, so that from the basin, looking up, you’d never know how much water there was up here. Southlanders like me grow up never knowing there’s this much water anywhere. Even now, the sight of it leaves me breathless.

The city on the far bank is called Damnation. Lobo tells me it’s had that name since forever, since long before the Northlanders built the dam. The farthest north Southland town. Lobo steers us away from it, into the cover of a grove of trees.

The door to the cabin swings open. Lobo’s silhouette stands in the doorway, darkened by the glow of the city behind him. I must have startled at his appearance because he leans in and the shadows on his face coalesce into his dark brown eyes, his sharp nose, his dark, scar-lined jaw.

You okay, Cub? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.

I climb past him, out of the cabin, and jump to the ground. I’m fine. Just tired, is all.

It’s been a long journey, he says, closing the door. But there’s a long way to go before the end.

From the grove, we charge across a loamy field to the edge of the river. We pack our clothes in a waterproof leather satchel and dive in. In the near-lightless early morning, the water is black and ice cold, but all those freezing baths after countless mornings training up on Lobo’s mountain have toughened my skin, and after the initial shock, I swim easily across the river. I even manage to keep up with Lobo. On the swim, he turns to check my progress, and looks almost surprised to see me nipping at his heels.

On the far side, we emerge from the water and dry and dress quickly. A bright morning threatens to break over the top of the plateau. The incident with the highwaymen set us back longer than I’d thought. Lobo doesn’t have to say anything; we have to go quickly, now.

Moving along the river, we enter town by the market row: a line of small shops, lying dark and shuttered under colorful awnings. A narrow lane separates the shops from the river, where the fishermen have only just pulled their small crafts down from their moorings on the sloped bank into the water. Up on shore they move around quickly, hauling nets and gear to and from their boats, and don’t give a second thought to the two strangers weaving among them.

From there we cut into the city. There are a few people out early: the children delivering the morning editions, a few shopkeepers readying their wares and sandwich boards, but we stick mostly to the side alleys and unlighted streets, and get by without so much as a second look from most people.

We move quickly through a quiet area of the city, where closed food stalls line the wide, empty street. I imagine what this place is like in the middle of the day: the stalls with their shutters opened wide, the sellers calling out their specials, the fishermen hauling their morning catch in barrows full of ice, and the street packed with families out on day trips and businessmen on their breaks, looking for something cheap and warm to fill their stomachs before going back to work. For now, the street is silent and dark, and we move through it unnoticed.

From there, we pass through an area of densely packed apartments. The street numbers change from whole numbers to fractions: 1382 ½ Little Grande Ave, 1382 ¾, 1382 ¾B, and so on. Clotheslines, like spiderwebs, crisscross the street, hung with clothes like house banners: stripes and plaids and polka dots. The early morning sounds of crying babies, whistling kettles, and banging pots and pans carry from the shuttered windows into the street, narrow and cluttered with locked-up wagons and sheds, watched over by roving packs of fat, mean-looking dogs.

And then the neighborhood shifts again. At first, the change is subtle, evident only in the burned-out streetlights. Gutters stopped up with wet newspapers and garbage. Even the gravel between the stones of the street has turned from gray to black, stained with muck. Then I notice the makeshift tents, where pairs of boots or damp socks stick out from the flaps, here and there. The roofs are caved with pooled water. In some, a single candle burns, casting the shadow of the occupant onto the tent walls, hunched over, cooking or reading, or just lying there in near silence.

We turn off the street and make our way