The Hollow Herd, Part 2

2. The Preacher’s Secret

The old mission crouched at the edge of the Deadwind Plains like a wounded beast, its stone walls cracked and sagging under the weight of years. Mercy Vane dismounted at the shattered gate, her boots crunching over brittle bones — rabbit, coyote, things too small and twisted to name.

Inside the mission's crumbling courtyard, a figure knelt before a broken cross, whispering fevered prayers into the dirt. His coat was threadbare, once white but now stained with dust and blood, and a tarnished collar hung loose around his neck.

"Ezra Cole," Mercy called, hand never straying far from her revolver. "Town says you know something about hollow cattle."

The man flinched but did not rise. For a moment, Mercy thought he hadn't heard — then he lifted his head, revealing hollowed cheeks, wild eyes, and a mouth full of muttered scripture.

"You can't fight what ain't got flesh," he rasped, voice dry as dead grass. "Ain't bullets that turn 'em back."

Mercy took a slow step closer. "What does?"

Ezra laughed — a brittle, broken sound that made the horses outside snort nervously. He staggered to his feet, swaying as if drunk on fear itself.

"They ain't cattle. Not no more," he said. "The well out on Deadwind — the Old One’s Well. It poisons 'em. Twists 'em inside out. Men too, if they stay too long. If they drink."

Mercy frowned. "The well's cursed?"

Ezra nodded so hard his teeth clicked. "A thing was buried there. Before the tribes, before the settlers. Something with a hunger deeper than drought and older than prayer. Some fool stirred it up, and now it's walking the land in hide and horn."

He stumbled closer, clutching her sleeve with bony fingers. "You can't just shoot it, Miss Vane. You gotta end it at the root."

"And where do I find this root?" she asked.

Ezra's eyes gleamed with something between dread and hope. "I’ll show you. God help us both, but I'll show you."

For a long moment, Mercy weighed the madness in his gaze. But madness was nothing new on the frontier — and sometimes, it was the only honest thing left.

"Get your gear," she said. "We ride before sundown."

Ezra smiled thin and sharp, like a man heading for the gallows — and set about gathering what little remained of his life.

Outside, the sun bled lower, and the Deadwind Plains shivered under a rising, unnatural mist. Ezra and Mercy rode out and made camp.

As they sat around the dying campfire, the wind shifted across the Deadwind Plains, carrying with it the familiar scent of dust and old bones. Mercy Vane and Ezra Cole were quiet, the kind of quiet that only comes from knowing the land was as much a predator as a companion. The fire flickered low, casting long shadows against the jagged rocks around them.

"Look," Ezra said, his voice low and uneasy.

Mercy followed his gaze upward, squinting against the vast emptiness of the sky. The moon hung high, a sliver of pale light cutting through the dark like a thin knife. But there was something wrong about it. Something unnatural.

A dark shape marred the moon’s surface—an unmistakable brand, scorched and jagged. It was as though a cattle prod had pierced the sky itself, leaving a deep scar in the shape of a twisted, jagged “H” that marked the moon like a beast branded for slaughter.

Ezra’s breath caught in his throat. His pale, haunted eyes fixed on it with the same reverence one might give a vengeful god.

“It's him,” he whispered, barely audible over the wind’s mournful howl. "The Man of Bone."

Mercy didn’t say anything at first, not wanting to voice the fear that crept up her spine. She could feel the weight of the omen in her bones—heavy and suffocating. That brand wasn’t just a scar on the sky; it was a mark of something far older, far darker.

“The Man of Bone," Ezra repeated, as though he was saying it to himself. "He’s near. The well is awake, and it’s calling to him."

Mercy frowned, trying to shake the unease that gripped her chest. She knew there were stories of men who could turn to ghosts and cattle who walked without a soul, but none of it seemed real—not until now. The brand, the moon’s scar, wasn’t something the world could explain away. The land itself was marking its territory, pulling them into its cursed grip.

“You think that thing up there is connected to him?” Mercy’s voice was steady, but even she could feel the edge of panic creeping into her words.

Ezra nodded slowly, his hand clutching his old, worn Bible. “In the old stories, they say that when a man’s sins grow too great, when he becomes more beast than man, the sky will bear the mark of his actions. A cattle brand... the land itself remembers. And when it remembers, it calls for him.”

He looked up again, as if pleading with the sky, his eyes burning with a kind of desperation. “The well has opened, and the curse has already begun. That brand—it’s a warning. We’re not just chasing ghosts out here, Mercy. We’re fighting something that cannot die.”

The wind howled again, as if in agreement, carrying a distant sound—a low, echoing cry that seemed to rise from the land itself.

Mercy’s grip tightened on her revolver, and for the first time since she'd ridden out into the plains, she felt the true weight of the fight she’d stepped into. The brand was no longer just a mark in the sky. It was a promise—a dark, inevitable promise.

And there was no turning back now.