We are delighted to welcome back authors Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall to Omnimystery News.
Earlier this week we had a conversation with the authors about the fourth and final book in their "Cowboy and Vampire" series, The Last Sunset (Pumpjack Press; June 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats), and today we are so pleased that they have provided us with an excerpt from it to share with you.
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THINK HE'LL BE ALL RIGHT IN there?" Lenny asked.
They were sitting in the breakfast nook of the Vacation Inn poking at paper plates mounded with a folded strata of scrambled eggs and warehouse biscuits drowning under industrial-strength sausage gravy.
Tucker took a sip of all-night coffee from the Styrofoam cup and grimaced. "There's a Twilight Zone marathon on, and we already dropped off a double order of pancakes," he said. "Travis won't leave that room unless someone pulls the fire alarm."
"I just hate the thought of leaving him around all them gun-toting vampire minders," Lenny said.
"He won't leave Lizzie's side," Tucker said. "Right now, there may be no safer place in LonePine. Seems like they're willing to do whatever it takes to protect their bosses. Besides, Rex is with him, and I told Doreen to call me if he tries to leave. You couldn't sneak a Gideon's Bible out of that front door, much less an agitated, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man, without that woman catching you."
As if she heard them talking about her, Doreen glared at them from across the lobby. "I had to rent an extra room just to cover the cost of this breakfast," Tucker said mournfully.
"It's a long time until sundown," Lenny said. "Are we just going to sit here all day?"
"You got any other ideas?"
"We could run out to the gun range and make sure you remember how that Casull feels, maybe try out a couple of them fancy sunstone rounds."
"Probably not a bad idea," Tucker said, patting the heavy gun under his jacket. "Been a couple years since I was kicked by this particular mule. Let's get a couple of to-go cups of coffee to take with us," he said, standing.
"To-go coffee's extra," Doreen called from across the lobby, as if reading his mind.
"Maybe we'll just grab a cup at the Java the Hut on the way through town," he muttered.
With a sunny, beautiful spring day unfolding around them and steaming cups of coffee in hand, they left LonePine and drove out toward the gun range.
Ostensibly managed by the local Eagles club, Aerie 1126, the range was ten miles west of town, which gave them plenty of time to enjoy the sun streaming in the windows of the truck and hypnotic hum of the tires on the pavement.
"Lizzie looks good," Lenny said, absently. "A little, I don't know, angrier or sadder or something."
"She just looks mean and distant to me," Tucker said, jaw set. "And she's nearly bald."
"Maybe that's an homage to your own appearance," Lenny said.
"I ain't bald — not even close," Tucker said, as he pulled his cowboy hat a bit farther down on his head.
"How you handling all this?" Lenny asked. "This must be a little, you know, weird."
"That's the understatement of the century," Tucker said. "Could have knocked me over with a feather when I seen her standing there at the carnival. And not a big feather either, like a humming-bird feather."
"Did you feel anything else … like, I don't know, love or the old spark?"
"Nope," Tucker said. "She made her choices when she rode off into the sunset with that damn Russian."
"I think about that sometimes when I can't sleep," Lenny said. "Which is pretty often. I still can't quite figure that out. It seemed so unlike her, so out of character."
"She's a vampire, Lenny," Tucker said. "Ain't nothing out of character for a creature of the night."
"She was actually a creature of New York first," Lenny said.
"Same difference," Tucker said. He held up his hand. "I don't want to talk about this. Not my rodeo anymore, so it's not my bullshit to clean up."
"Fair enough," Lenny said. He watched the fence posts and barbed wire and the occasional suspended tumbleweed blurring past the truck windows for several minutes. "So what's going on with you and Crystal?"
"Jesus H. Christ, Lenny," Tucker said. "New rule. Anything having to do with my godforsaken love life is off limits as a topic of conversation." He turned off the highway onto the dirt road leading up to the gun range. "Can we agree to that?"
"That really narrows things down quite a bit," Lenny said. "What should we talk about?"
"How about the fact we ain't the only ones who decided to spend this fine morning shooting holes in tin cans," Tucker said, tipping his head toward the parking lot bulldozed into the hillside. There were several vehicles parked there — two VW vans and a rusted four-door sedan.
"I think I've seen that LeBaron out at DeLongs DeCars," Lenny said. "I don't recognize the vans."
"That's because they're from California," Tucker said, pointing at the license plates.
Tucker killed the engine and they stepped out, surprised to hear automatic weapons chattering angrily behind the crest of the hill, the booming shots rattling off the hillsides and echoing down the little valley.
"Those don't sound like plinkers," Tucker said.
"More like Kalashnikovs," Lenny said. "And maybe a TEC-9 if I'm not mistaken.
"You're usually not," Tucker said.
Lenny grabbed hearing protectors and the grocery bag with the .454 ammo and they walked up the path, both stopping — mouths hanging open — when they topped the rise and could see the shooting range.
"I'll be goddamned," Tucker said.
A dozen yellow-robed men and women were directing vast amounts of automatic rifle fire at the dusty hillside two hundred yards across the valley. And singing joyfully.
"That's a hell of a sight," Lenny said.
"I thought religious types were peace-loving hippies," Tucker said.
"Please," Lenny said. "Extremist cults and heavy weapons go hand in hand. Think about the Rajneeshees out in Oregon, the Church Universal and Triumphant up in Montana, the Branch Davidians down in Texas, the …"
"Okay, okay, I stand corrected," Tucker said. "I guess the exact opposite is true."
"It takes some serious firepower to stand up to the slings and arrows, and tactical rifles, of nonbelievers," Lenny said.
"Am I picking up just a trace of admiration?" Tucker asked.
"The fervent religious types are all crazy, no matter their god," Lenny said, "but you have to respect their commitment."
"Should we respect it from afar? I'm not exactly anxious to get shot to shit by the golden brothers and sisters of hot lead."
Lenny shrugged. "I mean, we pay our dues. I don't necessarily want to be chased off of our own range by a bunch of granola-eating Californians. Not that I have anything against granola. Or California, really. Just a saying, I guess."
"What's the worst that can happen?" Tucker asked.
"I hate it when you say that," Lenny said.
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About the books: First published in 1999, The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection is genre mash-up that helped blaze the trail leading to a re-imagining of the vampire metaphor for a modern audience and the resulting undead pop-cultural explosion. Witty, sexy and authentically western, the four books deftly navigate the darkest sides of human nature while celebrating the power of love; it's been called everything from a campy cult horror classic to a trailblazer in its own new genre: Western Gothic.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
Clark Hays was raised on a ranch in Montana and spent his formative years branding cows, riding horses and writing. His poetry, creative fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many journals, magazines and newspapers. Most recently, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for a short story appearing in Opium magazine.
Kathleen McFall was born and raised in the heart of Washington, D.C. She has worked as a journalist and has published hundreds of articles about natural resources, environmental issues, biomedical research, energy and health care. Previously, she was awarded a fellowship for fiction writing from Oregon Literary Arts.
The authors live in Portland, Oregon.
For more information about the author, please visit their website at CowboyAndVampire.com and their author pages on Goodreads (Clark Hays/Kathleen McFall), or find them on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Last Sunset by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
The Cowboy and the Vampire Series
Publisher: Pumpjack Press
Take one long, last look at LonePine, Wyoming, population 438. It's been two years since the vampires quit the quirky little town and things are mostly back to normal — broken dreams and never enough whiskey. But that's about to go to hell.
Hold on tight for a midnight showdown when a psychotic religious order takes the entire town hostage — including Tucker's long-lost brother — to lure Lizzie from her frozen exile in Russia. The mad monks know Lizzie's murder will strand the ruling vampire elite in a disembodied afterlife so the cult can impose their twisted beliefs on the living and undead alike. It's a rip-roarin' stampede as a cowboy and a vampire try to round up the shattered pieces of their unusual romance.
With the fate of the world on the line yet again, can Tucker and Lizzie put aside their broken hearts to face one last sunset together?
Slap leather or reach for the sky.
— The Last Sunset by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall. Click here to take a Look Inside the book.
