runner

"Her face was emaciated and skeletal, dry eyes bulged out of their sockets and teeth bared in a horrible rictus grin. Her body was stiff and brittle like and old corn husk left out in the sun. The front of her torso was covered in spider webs"... This was Hawthornes first encounter with The Iktomi..."ancient. Some believe they are the bastard offspring of the Spider Woman, who wove the world out of silk in the dawn of time. The wretched offspring of a brutal rape.But they rose from the earth in times when blood soaks the Black Hills. And now, White Man, there is more blood here than ever before" Don't we all just love a hero and there is no better setting for good versus evil
than the lonely and often brutal imagery of the wild wild west...and through this rides Hawthorne mysterious gunslinger, a man of principle who despises evil and is prepared to meet and destroy it in all forms..how can we not love him :) The Iktomi or Spider Tribe feed on the fear and hate in man's brain and, accompanied by the fighting skill of Anpao (whose grandfather previously defeated the Spider Tribe) Hawthorne must search his inner soul for strength in the coming battle!"Hawthorne said, "So they can be defeated." Anpao looked him hard in the eyes "Yes. Perhaps, But it would take a special human being. And the bow of my great-grandfather" The bow must be held by a
very..particular sort of warrior. The kind driven nearly to the point of madness by a hatred of evil." I love the descriptive prose and sharp imagery that Heath Lowrance brings to the short western novella, no words are wasted and the story stays long in the mind.."The rotting stench rolled across the cave. The flickering orange light played across a blank, pale mask of flesh, as smooth and featureless as an eggshell. Where there should have been eyes, where there should have been a nose and mouth and some semblance of human features, there was only a smooth nothingness"..."He felt the spider's legs scrambling on his gums, felt it shift at the very back of his throat, felt his fingers,slick with sweat, slipping. And he felt it move another half inch..not down this throat, but up, up trying to push through his sinus cavity...It was trying to get to his brain".....now that is descriptive horror, I can see and feel that spider and it's going to keep me awake tonight :)) This is a wonderful series of short stories and long may they continue, and long my Hawthorne wonder the mountains and plains of the wild untamed west..." "My name is Hawthorne. Use it".....