New Providence sparkled like fool’s gold in the distance, all gleaming spires and whirring clockwork, nothing like the two-bit townships I usually rode through. My Halfie tensed beneath me, his wolf-hackles rising at the stink of machine oil and steam that drifted our way. I dug my spurs in gentle-like, just enough to remind him who was boss without drawing blood. Been doing that less lately—seemed like we were finally reaching an understanding, him and me.

“Easy now,” I muttered, running one of my right hands through his coarse mane while keeping my other hands ready near my guns. “Ain’t nothing here we ain’t seen before, just dressed up prettier.”

A mechanical carriage chugged past us on the road, belching black smoke and steering well clear. The rich folk inside gaped at me through brass-rimmed windows—at my six arms, at my wolf-ears, at my brown skin. Their own faces were powdered ghost-white, like they were trying to hide something. Reminded me of that undertaker back in Dead Gulch, before I put his town out of its misery.

The cubs stirred in my saddlebags, mewling soft in their sleep. They were getting bigger now, starting to need more space than those bags could give. Soon I’d have to figure out something else, but for now, they were safer close to me. This world ain’t kind to little ones, especially not the mixed kind. I ought to know, having been one myself.

Main Street was wider than most, paved with interlocking metal plates instead of plain dirt. Steam vents hissed between the seams, making my mount dance sideways. Took all six of my hands on the reins to keep him from bolting. Folks scattered out of our way, ladies in fancy dresses lifting their skirts like they might catch something from my shadow falling across them.

Back in the old country, where I grew up, a shadow-cursed untouchable like me would’ve been flogged to death just for letting her shadow touch the hem of a high-caste lady’s sari. Way I figured it, that made this here New Providence downright progressive.

Up ahead, a stable sign creaked in the hot wind: “Morton’s Enhanced Equine Services.” Below that, in smaller letters: “All Purebred Stock.” I snorted. Way my purse was feeling, they’d take my Halfie’s custom or go hungry. Those mechanical nags in their fancy stalls couldn’t earn them enough to turn down honest coin, purebred or not.

Time was, a town like this would’ve run me out on sight, or tried to. But times change. Even the fanciest folks have learned that sometimes they need someone who ain’t afraid to get their hands dirty. All six of them.

I just hoped they needed it enough to pay well. Those cubs weren’t getting any smaller, and my money wasn’t getting any bigger.

The stable master came out to meet me, wiping his mechanical hands on a greasy rag. Both arms were brass from the elbows down, pistons hissing as he moved. His eyes went straight to my Halfie, professional-like, barely registering my extra appendages. Now there was a man who knew what it was like to be different.

“That’s some unique stock you got there, ma’am,” he said, ducking under my mount’s head to check his teeth. My Halfie’s lips curled back, showing chompers that could snap those brass fingers clean off. “Easy now, both of you. I’ve handled worse.”

“Doubt that,” I said, but I kept my tone friendly. “How much to shoe him and stable him for the night? And I mean actual feeding, not just them steam-powered nutrient tubes you got rigged up for your mechanical nags.”

He straightened up, brass fingers clicking as he did the arithmetic in his head. “Ten silver for the lot. That’s with real feed, proper shoeing, and a clean stall away from the steam-horses. They make some of the flesh-and-blood ones nervous.”

I had maybe seven silver to my name, and that was counting the bent one that might not pass inspection. But my Halfie needed seeing to, and those mechanical shoes he was wearing were worn near through.

“Three silver now, three when I come back,” I offered. “And I’ll throw in a piece of advice worth double that: Don’t try to shortchange me on the feed. He gets hungry, he might mistake them brass arms of yours for dinner bones.”

The stable master’s laugh was as mechanical as his arms, but there was real humor in it. “Lady, I’ve seen what a hungry wolf-horse can do. Lost these arms to one, matter of fact. Four now, four later, and your word you’ll keep him from sampling my replacements.”

“Deal,” I said, counting out the coins. “Though I reckon them brass arms would give him indigestion anyway. Might even cure him of his taste for human flesh.” I winked with my wolf-eye, the yellow one. “But no promises.”

I was halfway to the door when I turned back. “One other thing,” I said, casual-like. “Got some waifs in my saddlebag need feeding. They ain’t particular about fine dining or gourmet cuseen, if you get my drift. Any scraps in your slop bucket would do them just fine.”

He peered into the saddlebag and jerked back like he’d been scalded by steam. The cubs blinked up at him with their mama’s jade-gold eyes. “Holy hell,” he whispered. “Those are—”

“Hungry,” I cut in. “That’s all they are. Hungry little ones needin’ a meal.”

His brass fingers clicked rapidly, a nervous tic. “That’ll cost you extra. Way extra. Cats and machines don’t mix well, and those ain’t exactly regular cats.”

“One more silver,” I offered.

He snorted. “Three more. And that’s being charitable.”

“One now, one when I return,” I said. “And I’ll oil them joints of yours. Can hear them squeaking from here.”

“Two now, two when you return, and you oil both arms. That’s a total of six silver now, six later, just in case you ain’t a counter.”

“I can count just fine,” I sighed and doled out the coins. One pitiful silver piece left to my name, and that one had a bite mark that might get it rejected by any half-decent establishment. The cubs mewed softly as I scratched behind their ears with three different hands.

“You best be worth it,” I told them, not meaning it one bit. Then to the stable master: “I’ll be back tomorrow to tend to them arms.”

Walking out into the street, I patted my nearly empty purse. One silver between me and starving, and I still owed six more for the Halfie and the cubs. Time to find me some paying work in this fancy town, and quick.

The Golden Spur Saloon looked like it had been birthed by one of them mechanical monstrosities rich folks called locomotives. All brass and copper and steam vents, with them newfangled electric lights casting yellow pools on the sidewalk despite it being midday. A mechanical piano tinkled inside, playing itself with skeleton-finger keys that moved without being touched.

Two gents in fancy dusters were coming out as I approached. The first un took one look at me and went white as chalk. The other’s hand dropped to his gun, then froze when he saw all six of mine already hovering near my holsters.

“Afternoon, boys,” I said sweet as cream gone sour. They scattered like chickens before a wolf.

Inside, the air was thick with cigar smoke and money. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, their light bouncing off mirrors and brass fixtures till the whole place sparkled like a jewelry box. The bar itself was real mahogany, not the cheap pine you usually saw out here in the territories. Behind it, rows of bottles gleamed like liquid gold.

The mechanical piano sat in the corner, its ghost-fingers dancing over yellowed keys. Next to it, a cleaning automaton swept the floor with whirring brass brushes, gathering up sawdust and spilled whiskey into its belly-bin.

The usual hush fell as I walked in. Conversation died quicker than a rattler under a boot heel. A few folks near the door found urgent business elsewhere. Others just stared, frozen with their drinks halfway to their mouths.

Behind the bar, a fat man in a fancy vest watched me approach. His mustache was waxed to sharp points, and a brass monocle whirred and clicked as it adjusted to my presence.

“We don’t serve—” he began, but I cut him off by slapping my last silver on the bar.

“Whiskey,” I said. “And some information about work for someone of my particular talents.”

The bartender’s monocle clicked rapidly as it scanned me. “Your coin’s bent,” he said, not touching it. “And we don’t serve your kind here. This is a respectable establishment.”

I leaned forward, letting him get a good look at my wolf-eye. “Way I see it, friend, you got two choices. You can serve me a drink and we can talk business civilized-like, or we can discuss the meaning of ‘respectable’ after I’ve redecorated your fine establishment with a few new holes for ventilation.”

A chair scraped behind me. Heavy boots crossed the floor. I didn’t need to turn around; the mirrors showed me everything. A big fellow, dressed city-style but with trail dust on his boots. Gun on his hip, tin star on his chest.

“Now, Marshal,” the bartender said, suddenly nervous. “No need for—”

“Shut it, Henry,” the lawman said. His voice was quiet, educated. Not what I expected. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We maintain certain standards in New Providence.”

I kept my eyes on the mirror, watching him. He hadn’t drawn his gun. Interesting.

“Certain standards,” I repeated, taking my time with the words. “Like serving drinks to any human who walks in, no matter how much dirt they got on their soul, but turning away honest paying customers who happen to have a few extra hands?”

“The law’s the law,” he said. “City ordinance prohibits—”

“Show me,” I said, turning to face him. “Show me this law. ’Cause last I checked, prejudice ain’t spelled the same as law.”

The saloon had gone dead quiet. Even the mechanical piano had stopped its tinkling, like it was holding its breath. The Marshal’s face was lined, weathered, but his eyes were sharp. He studied my hands, all six of them hanging loose near my guns, then met my gaze.

“You’ve got nerve,” he said. “But nerve doesn’t change—”

The sound of my guns clearing leather was like silk tearing. All six Colts pointed at him before he could blink. “Way I see it,” I said, “you got three choices. Show me the law that says I can’t drink here. Show me your gun, if you’re feeling lucky. Or show me to a table and let me spend my coin in peace.”

His hand hadn’t moved toward his gun. Smart man. “You’d be dead before sunup,” he said quietly.

“Probably,” I agreed. “But you’d be dead before I hit the floor, and I’m guessing at least half these fine folks who’re pretending not to watch would go with you. Now, about that drink . . .”

A new voice cut through the tension. “Sheriff Hayes, I believe I can resolve this situation to everyone’s satisfaction.”

I kept my guns trained on the lawman, but my wolf-eye caught the speaker’s movement in the mirror. Tall fellow, dressed eastern-style, with one of them newfangled clockwork eyes whirring in his skull.

The Sheriff’s spine stiffened like someone had replaced it with a steel rod. “Mr. Beauchamp,” he said, touching his hat. “I was just explaining to this . . . lady about our local ordinances.”

“Indeed.” The clockwork eye whirred as it focused on me. “Perhaps we can discuss such matters over dinner. My treat, of course.”

The Sheriff holstered his pride along with his attitude. “Just so you know,” he said to me as he backed away, “it’s not about prejudice. I was saying it for your own good.”

I snorted. “Yeah, and I got these extra hands from helping little old ladies across the street.”

The clockwork-eye man’s laugh was as cultured as his clothes. “Permit me to introduce myself. Thaddeus Beauchamp III, Esquire, of Beauchamp, Whitworth, and Associates. I serve as banker, lawyer, and circuit judge for these parts.” His mechanical eye clicked as it adjusted. “My primary client is Jonathan McGraw of the Brass Eagle Ranch. The largest spread west of the Mississippi, I might add.”

I slowly lowered my guns but kept them out. Rich folks making friendly offers always made my hackles rise. “That’s a whole lot of fancy titles just to buy a lady a drink.”

He smiled. “I assure you, the food here is excellent as well. The steaks are real beef, not that vat-grown stuff they serve in lesser establishments.” He gestured to a private booth. “Shall we?”

My empty purse felt mighty light, and my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten proper since two towns back. Still, there was something in his clockwork eye that reminded me of a rattler’s gaze—cold, calculating, patient.

But a free meal was a free meal. And if there were teeth attached to this offer, well, I had plenty of hands to deal with that when it came.

Beauchamp led me to a private booth in the back, where the electric lights cast shadows like dancing ghosts on the wall. A mechanical waiter rolled up, all brass and whirring gears, its phonograph voice crackling out the daily specials.

“The finest cut of beef for the lady,” Beauchamp told it, his clockwork eye clicking as he studied me. “And a bottle of the sixty-eight whiskey.”

I kept three hands under the table, close to my guns. Rich men’s charity usually came with strings attached, and those strings had a way of turning into nooses if you weren’t careful.

“You’re wondering why I intervened,” he said, that mechanical eye whirring as it adjusted. “Why a man of my . . . position would interest himself in someone like you.”

“Thought crossed my mind,” I admitted, watching him in the mirror behind the bar. “Along with wondering what’s wrong with the sixty-nine whiskey.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his flesh eye. The clockwork one just kept spinning. “Sixty-nine was a bad year for everything. The Brass Plague hit the distilleries hard. But that’s not what we’re here to discuss.”

The mechanical waiter returned with our drinks. The whiskey was the color of sunset through smoke, and probably cost more than I’d made in the last month. I took a sip with my left hand, kept my right hands ready. All of them.

“Jonathan McGraw,” Beauchamp said, watching me over his own glass. “Name mean anything to you?”

I shook my head. “Should it?”

“Largest rancher in three territories. Breeds mechanical-organic hybrid cattle. Very successful man.” He paused, that eye whirring again. “Until three nights ago, when his sister’s family was murdered and his niece taken.”

The whiskey turned bitter in my mouth. “Indies?”

“So it would appear. The house was burned, but they left their marks. Tribal symbols. A warning to settlers.” He leaned forward. “Mr. McGraw is offering a substantial reward for the return of his niece and a hard line on the perpetrators, dead or alive.”

“Alive,” I said. “Or not at all.”

His clockwork eye spun faster. “You have principles, then?”

“I have experience.” I set my glass down with one hand, gestured at myself with another. “You think I don’t know about being different? Being hunted? Those Indies, they’re fighting for survival. If they took the girl alive, there’s a reason.”

“The reason is irrelevant. The reward is five hundred in gold.”

The number hit me like a kick from my Halfie. That kind of money could buy a lot of feed for the cubs, maybe even a proper place to raise them. But . . .

“Why me?” I asked. “Plenty of trackers in these parts. Ones without my . . . complications.”

Beauchamp’s smile turned cold. “Because, my dear, you’re one of them. Or were, before your tribe cast you out. Oh yes,” he added, seeing my hands tighten on my guns, “we know all about your history. The shadow-cursed untouchable, born with too many arms and eyes that marked you as different. You may be from a different land across the ocean but you’re still more akin to these savages than any bounty hunter for hire. Who better to track them?”

“And if I refuse?”

His clockwork eye stopped spinning. “Then I suppose the sheriff might finally locate that ordinance he was looking for. The one about your kind not being welcome in New Providence.”

I laughed, and it wasn’t a nice sound. “Blackmail? That’s a dangerous game, friend. Especially with someone who has this many trigger fingers.”

“Not blackmail. An opportunity. Think of it as . . . professional courtesy. You help us, we help you. This town could use someone with your particular talents. Permanently. Maybe even a homestead not too far west of here. I’d toss that in as a sweetener if you pull off the job.”

The mechanical waiter arrived with the steak. It smelled like heaven and probably cost more than my last several meals combined. I picked up my knife and fork with two different hands, kept the others where they were.

“I’ll need to see where it happened,” I said. “And I choose how this plays out. No soldiers, no posse. Just me.”

“Of course. I’ll tell you everything we know. The location, the tribal marks they left, descriptions of the girl. Her name is Sarah. She’s twelve.”

Twelve. About the age I was when my tribe decided I was too different to live among them. I took another sip of the expensive whiskey, thinking about the cubs in my saddlebags, about the price of survival in a world that wasn’t built for critters like us.

“I’ll find her,” I said. “But not for you, not for McGraw, and not for the money. For her.”

Beauchamp’s smile widened. “I knew we could do business.” He raised his glass. “To a profitable partnership.”

I didn’t raise mine back. “Don’t push your luck, friend. And don’t forget—I work alone.”

• • • •

Dawn painted the sky the color of dull copper as I rode out of New Providence. My Halfie’s mechanical shoes clicked against the metal road plates until we hit blessed dirt, then silence swallowed us whole. The cubs were quiet in their bags, well fed and watered for once. The same went for me.

The McGraw homestead lay twenty miles east, where the settled lands bled into tribal territory. As we rode, the landscape shifted from steam-powered civilization to something older, stranger. Mechanical sunflowers tracked our movement, their brass petals creaking as they turned. In the distance, a herd of half-chrome buffalo grazed on copper grass, their steam vents hissing in the morning air.

A clockwork vulture wheeled overhead, more scrap than flesh. Watching. Always watching. I kept three hands near my guns and used the others to guide my mount through the weird country. Out here, the border between machine and meat got awful thin.

The homestead appeared on the horizon like a wound in the earth. Black smoke still curled from the ruins, though Beauchamp said the attack happened three nights ago. Not natural smoke, that. Had a greenish tinge that spoke of chemical fire, the kind that burned even metal.

My Halfie’s hackles rose as we approached. He smelled it too—death and burning and something else. Something that made his wolf-blood run cold. I dismounted fifty yards out, tied him to a twisted metal tree that might once have been a windmill.

The ground crunched under my feet—not ash, but thousands of tiny brass gears, scattered like fallen leaves. They seemed to whisper as I walked through them, telling stories I couldn’t quite hear. The house itself was mostly gone, its walls reduced to slag and shadow. But the destruction wasn’t random.

I knelt, using three hands to sift through the debris while the others stayed ready on my guns. The burn pattern spread out from the center like a bloom of black roses. The Indies hadn’t just burned this place—they’d performed a ritual. Each char mark was a letter in a language older than the metal roads, older than the steam engines and clockwork hearts.

“You reading something interesting?”

I had all six guns drawn before the voice finished echoing. A figure stood in the doorway of the ruined house—tall, lean, with skin the color of weathered copper and eyes that glowed like forge fire. Indian, but not like any I’d seen before. His left arm was pure machine, etched with tribal patterns that shifted and changed as I watched.

“Mighty jumpy for someone tracking Indians,” he said, not moving. His mechanical arm hummed softly, but I noticed it wasn’t pointed at me. Yet.

“Mighty quiet for someone supposedly not here,” I replied, keeping him in my sights. “This is a crime scene.”

He laughed, and it sounded like grinding gears. “Crime? That what they tell you in New Providence?” His living hand gestured at the destruction. “This wasn’t a crime. This was a reclaiming.”

“Tell that to the dead family. Tell that to the girl they took.”

“That what they told you too?” He stepped forward, and I saw he walked with a slight limp, his right leg moving just a fraction slower than natural. “That we’re savages who burn and kidnap? That we hate their precious civilization?” His mechanical arm whirred. “Look closer, Six-Gun. You’ve got the eyes for it—all three of them.”

I kept my guns steady. “How do you know my handle?”

“Same way I know you’re shadow-cursed. Same way I know your tribe cast you out.” He tapped his mechanical arm. “We all carry our stories on our skin. Even when that skin is steel.”

One of the cubs mewled, and his eyes flickered toward the sound. I shifted, blocking his view. “You got a name, storyteller?”

“They call me Rattlesnake,” he said. “On account of my winning personality.” His mechanical arm opened, revealing a complex array of gears and pistons. Not a weapon—a storage compartment. He reached in with his flesh hand and pulled out a scrap of cloth.

“Here’s a story for you,” he said, letting the cloth fall. “Read it with those special eyes of yours. Then decide who the real savages are.”

The cloth fluttered to the ground between us. I kept my guns trained on him, but spared a glance down. It was a piece of a child’s dress, embroidered with mechanical flowers. And on it, in dried brown blood, was a symbol I recognized from my childhood. A symbol that made my wolf-eye burn.

When I looked up, Rattlesnake was gone. Only the whisper of brass gears in the wind suggested he’d been there at all.

I holstered my guns and picked up the cloth. The symbol was one used by my old tribe, marking those deemed unclean, unworthy. Those who needed to be cleansed.

Like me.

The dead homestead suddenly felt a lot more alive. And a lot more dangerous.

I studied that mechanical arm of his again in my mind as I worked the scene. No pureblood would wear metal that way—they’d rather go to their graves whole or wanting than mix flesh with machine. Made him a half-breed like me, or maybe quarter-blood trying to prove something. Explains why he knew about shadow-cursed folk. Folks like us learn to spot our own kind.

My wolf-eye had its uses at times like this. Where my human eyes saw ash and ruin, it picked out the story written in blood and brass. I crouched lower, letting that yellow sight take over, using all six hands to steady myself as the world shifted into sharper focus.

The chemical fire had started in three places, not one. Traditional tribal pattern, but the accelerant wasn’t traditional at all—had that greenish tinge that spoke of settler science. Someone wanting to make this look like Indian work, but not quite getting the details right.

“What else you trying to tell me?” I muttered, scanning the ground. Five sets of tracks led away from the house. Four were booted—settler boots, not moccasins—and one was barefoot. Small. Child-sized. They hadn’t dragged her; she’d walked out on her own.

My other hands found more evidence as I worked—a brass button from a settler’s coat, snagged on a thornbush. Empty cartridge cases from a Winchester, not a tribal weapon. And there, half-buried in the mud, something that made my wolf-eye throb: a mechanical eye, much like Beauchamp’s, but smaller. Meant for a child.

The picture it painted wasn’t pretty. I’d seen false-flag raids before, back when I still rode with the tribe. Settlers trying to stir up trouble, give themselves an excuse for taking more land. But this was different. More personal.

I moved to the back of the house, where the fire had burned hottest. The slag here had run like tears, forming patterns that caught the morning light. Most folks would’ve seen random shapes, but my wolf-eye picked out what they really were: coordinates. Numbers worked into the destruction like a signature, pointing west. Into unclaimed territory, where even the half-breeds feared to ride.

A scrap of paper caught my attention, protected from the flames by a fallen beam. I picked it up with my third right hand, held it to the light. It was a letter, half-burned, but I could make out enough:

“. . . must understand, the procedure requires a young subject. The mechanical integration only works with . . .”

The rest was ash, but it was enough. This wasn’t about land or tribal grudges. Someone had wanted that girl specifically. Someone who knew about mixing flesh and steel.

The cubs stirred in their bags, reminding me that darkness wasn’t far off. Out here, when the sun set, things woke up that made men and machines both look tame. I had my direction now, and enough questions to choke a mechanical horse.

I whistled for my Halfie, watching as his hackles rose when he caught the scent of the scene. He knew what I knew—this trail was going to lead us somewhere ugly. But ugly was what they paid me for, and right now, somewhere ugly was where Sarah McGraw was waiting.

Time to ride.

The land changed as we rode west, civilization’s mechanical touches growing scarcer, stranger. Settler territory ended at a line of telegraph poles that looked like mechanical scarecrows, their copper wires humming songs no human ear could hear. My wolf-eye caught the glint of brass in their shadows—old shell casings, pieces of broken machines, bones both metal and meat. Frontier markers, showing where settled law ended and older rules took hold.

My Halfie picked his way careful through the debris, his mechanical shoes striking sparks off chunks of ancient tech half-buried in the dirt. The tracks we followed weren’t trying to hide—four sets of settler boots and one barefoot child, heading straight into the red waste where even tribal raiders feared to tread. Too straight. Too obvious. Like they wanted someone to follow.

The sun crawled across the sky like a wounded thing, casting shadows that twisted metal and flesh into shapes that made no sense. To our right, a field of rust-flowers bloomed, their petals razor-sharp and hungry. To our left, the bones of some ancient mechanical beast rose from the earth like a mountain range. Its skull alone was big as a house, empty eye sockets filled with gleaming copper nests where things that weren’t quite birds laid eggs that ticked.

“Ain’t natural,” I muttered, more to keep myself company than anything else. The cubs had gone quiet in their bags, and even my Halfie’s usual snuffling had ceased. Out here, sound carried strange. Echoed when it shouldn’t, died when it should carry.

Movement caught my wolf-eye—a flicker of brass in the distance. I reined in, all six hands going to my guns as I studied the horizon. There. A dust cloud, but wrong somehow. Too regular. Too mechanical.

I nudged my mount behind a twisted wreck of metal and flesh that might once have been a wagon, or might have been something else entirely. The cubs stirred in their bags, sensing my tension. “Hush now,” I whispered, my yellow eye fixed on that approaching cloud.

It resolved itself into a patrol of mechanical horses, their brass hides catching the sun like signal mirrors. Steam vented from their nostrils as they picked their way through the waste. Their riders wore settler clothes, but something was off about them. They sat too straight, moved too smooth. Like they were trying to remember how humans should move.

I counted six riders. More than I’d want to tangle with, even with my extra hands. But they weren’t following the same tracks I was. They were riding parallel, like they were herding something. Or someone.

My wolf-eye caught a flicker of movement in their wake—something low to the ground, moving fast and quiet. Not mechanical, not entirely flesh neither. Another half-breed, maybe. Or something worse.

The patrol passed without spotting us, their mechanical mounts leaving strange three-toed tracks in the red dirt. Once they were gone, I studied those tracks closer. The metal was settler-made, but the design . . . that was tribal work. The kind of thing that’d get you cast out of any pure-blood camp.

“Getting mighty crowded out here in the middle of nowhere,” I told my Halfie as we resumed our trail. He snorted agreement, his wolf-ears swiveling to track sounds I couldn’t hear.

The girl’s tracks were still clear, but now I noticed something else. Every so often, her bare feet would drag, like she was getting tired. Or getting dragged. And there were spots of darkness in the sand that my wolf-eye told me wasn’t oil or water.

Blood. Just a few drops, but fresh enough to make my hackles rise. Somewhere ahead, a twelve-year-old girl was bleeding, surrounded by men who moved like machines, being herded west by forces that didn’t want to be seen.

I checked my guns with all six hands, making sure each cylinder was full. Sun was getting low, and out here, darkness didn’t play favorites between settler, Indian, or whatever the hell I was.

Time was running out. For all of us.

• • • •

I smelled McGraw’s mining operation before I saw it—acrid smoke and machine oil cutting through the clean desert air. Then I heard it: the rhythmic thunder of steam-powered drills eating into the earth’s bones. The valley opened up before us like a wound, all torn earth and belching smokestacks, more industrial than anything I’d seen since leaving the old country.

“Easy now,” I muttered to my Halfie as his wolf-ears laid flat against his skull. Three of my hands stroked his neck while the others stayed near my guns. Way he was tensing, you’d think we were riding into hell itself. Looking at the scale of it all, maybe we were.

Hybrid workers swarmed over the site like metal-grafted ants. Some had mechanical arms that could lift tons of ore, others wore brass-rimmed filter masks that merged with their faces, making them look more machine than man. Steam hissed from vents in their modified bodies as they worked, their movements precise as clockwork. Made my extra arms look almost natural by comparison.

A foreman spotted us watching. His mechanical eye whirred as it focused, probably sending our description straight back to the main house through some copper-wire network. That’s how these operations worked—everything connected, everything watched, everything controlled. The pure-blood Indies were right about one thing—metal had a way of working its way into your soul.

The main road wound past processing plants where huge machines crushed earth into powder, separating precious metals from worthless rock. The air sparkled with dust that caught in my throat despite the bandana I’d pulled up. My wolf-eye picked out flecks of gold in that dust, wasted wealth that could’ve fed a family for a year, just drifting away on the wind. McGraw probably didn’t even notice the loss.

We passed a line of workers heading into a mine shaft, each fitted with identical brass limbs and breathing apparatus. One turned to look at me, and something in his eyes made my skin crawl. There was a blankness there, like the machines had hollowed him out from the inside.

“That what passes for progress these days?” I asked my Halfie. He snorted, shaking his mane. At least his mechanical parts were just shoes—nothing that got under his skin or into his head.

The mining operation seemed endless, but eventually the tortured earth gave way to ranch land. The change wasn’t gradual. One moment we were surrounded by industrial hell, the next we were looking at rolling grassland dotted with McGraw’s famous hybrid cattle. The beasts were beautiful in their own strange way—organic flesh merged with mechanical improvements, steam venting from their nostrils as they grazed on grass that had a metallic sheen to it. Their eyes glowed faintly in the shadows of their broad-brimmed heads, and their movements had a precision that no pure-flesh creature could match.

This was McGraw’s real pride, not the mines. Anyone with enough machines and workers could tear wealth from the earth. But these cattle . . . this was art. Science. The future, if you believed the papers. Looking at them with my wolf-eye, I saw the price of that future—the way the metal had worked its way into their bones, changing them generation by generation until they weren’t truly animal anymore. Wasn’t so different from what settlers had done to this whole territory. To all of us.

Fences stretched to the horizon, because of course McGraw believed he could own the sky itself if he just built his fences tall enough. They hummed with electricity, another show of power and wealth. Rider patrols moved along them with mechanical precision, men and mounts both more metal than meat. Everything ordered, everything controlled, everything watched.

The ranch house rose up from the landscape like something from a fever dream—part mansion, part machine. Three stories of worked stone and gleaming metal, with windows that tracked the sun like mechanical flowers. Steam pulsed from articulated chimneys in steady beats, like the house itself was some great brass heart pumping life into McGraw’s empire. My wolf-eye caught the gleam of hidden gun ports and electric eyes. Beautiful and deadly, just like everything else here.

I’d seen wealth before, back in the old country where the high-caste families lived in palaces and thought they owned the gods themselves. But this was different. This was the future eating the past, the new devouring the old, metal consuming flesh one bite at a time. And somewhere in the middle of it all was a twelve-year-old girl who’d supposedly been taken by Indians.

But in fact had been taken by something much more dangerous.

A gang of cowboys lounged near the stables, the kind who wore their guns low and their opinions lower. My wolf-eye picked out more metal than met the regular eye—brass knuckles built right into flesh, copper wire threading through veins, mechanical augments hidden under denim and leather. Not pure settler stock, these boys, for all their sneering at difference.

Their whispers carried to my ears clear as gunshots.

“Will you look at that thing . . .”

“Six arms? Like some kind of metal-cursed spider . . .”

“Darker than the devil’s coffee . . .”

“Heard she’s shadow-cursed. Better not let her shadow touch you . . .”

My Halfie’s hackles rose, picking up on my tension. I kept all six hands loose, ready. Three of them brushed gun butts while the others held the reins, gentle-like. No sense starting trouble, but no sense backing down neither.

“Hey, freak!” One of them straightened up, all shiny buttons and polished boots. His right eye whirred as it focused on me, trying to calculate just how much target I presented with all these arms. “We don’t want your kind here.”

I reined in, slow and easy. “Funny thing about want,” I said. “Ain’t got no effect on what the other person does.”

He took a step forward, hand dropping to his gun. The others spread out, trying to flank me. Amateur work—they were leaving shadows I could track with my wolf-eye, telegraphing their moves like freshly branded cattle.

“Maybe you need a lesson in—” he started, but a voice cut through the air like a steel blade through butter.

“Looks to me like you boys need a lesson in hospitality.”

The voice belonged to a man standing on the ranch house porch—tall, broad-shouldered, with silver threading his beard, and wisdom lines around his eyes. The cowboys scattered like mice when the cat comes home, their faces going blank as fresh paper.

Jonathan McGraw moved like a man who owned everything he could see, and probably most of what he couldn’t. His clothes were eastern-cut but practical, and unlike his men, his only visible augmentation was a small brass medallion at his throat that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Old money trying to look new, or new money trying to look old—hard to tell which.

“Miss Six-Gun,” he said, coming down the steps. “A pleasure to finally meet you. I see you’ve had the misfortune of meeting some of my less civilized employees.” His smile was practiced but not entirely false. “They’re useful with cattle but somewhat lacking in social graces. Tom!” This last was barked at the lead cowboy. “Take the lady’s mount to the stable. Treat him proper, mind you. I hear he’s got a taste for folks who don’t show respect.”

Tom’s mechanical eye whirred in distress as he approached my Halfie. Smart of him—my mount had a way of sensing fear, and those wolf-teeth of his could crush brass as easy as bone. I swung down, keeping three hands on weapon butts while using the others to gentle my horse.

“He won’t bite,” I told Tom. “Unless I tell him to.”

The cowboy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he took the reins. Halfway to the stable, my Halfie snapped his teeth just to see the man jump. Sometimes my mount’s sense of humor matched my own.

“Please,” McGraw gestured toward the house. “Come inside. We have much to discuss.”

I followed him up the steps, feeling the electric eyes of the house scanning me, cataloging my weapons, my arms, my heritage. The cowboys watched too, their hatred mixing with fear now. They’d remember me, mark my words. Men like that always remembered what made them feel small.

The house’s brass door swung open silent as a snake, breathing out air that smelled of money and machine oil. I followed McGraw inside, my boot heels clicking against metal floor plates that hummed with hidden machinery.

Inside, the ranch house made most frontier banks look like pigpens. Crystal chandeliers ran on electricity instead of flame, casting light that never flickered. The carpets came from somewhere east of the old country, thick enough to swallow boot prints. Mechanical servants moved like liquid brass between rooms, carrying silver trays and adjusting furniture that probably cost more than most men made in a year.

McGraw led me to his study. The room was walled with leather-bound books and brass-framed maps big as bedsheets. A mechanical globe spun slow in one corner, marking territory changes in real time as copper wires fed it information from somewhere I couldn’t see. But what caught my wolf-eye was different—old daguerreotypes in silver frames, showing a younger McGraw with a woman who had his same stern mouth but gentler eyes. His sister Katherine.

He poured two glasses of whiskey from a crystal decanter. The liquid caught the light like amber holding fire. “Please,” he said, gesturing to a chair that adjusted itself as I approached. “Sit.”

I kept three hands near my guns, used another to take the offered drink. The others I rested on the chair’s arms, which were just warm enough to feel alive.

“We came over on a coffin ship,” McGraw said, settling behind his desk. His voice changed, grew distant. “Katherine and me. I was fifteen, she was twelve. Steerage class—hundreds of us packed in the hold like cattle.” He breathed deep, and my wolf-eye caught the shadow of that memory passing over his face. “Air so thick you could taste everyone’s fear. The sound of coughing, always coughing.”

The whiskey in my glass was older than most towns out here. I took a sip, let it burn, remembering my own crossing. Different ship, same stories.

“Parents lasted three weeks. Fever took Father first. Mother . . .” His fingers brushed one of the daguerreotypes. “She made us promise to look after each other. Katherine held her hand till the end. They wrapped them in canvas, dropped them in the sea. We didn’t even have a proper ceremony.”

My wolf-eye picked up things my human ones missed—the way his brass medallion’s pulse quickened, how the mechanical globe slowed its spinning like it was listening too. The room felt smaller suddenly, filled with ghosts.

“Katherine was the strong one,” McGraw continued, lost in memory. “When we landed, she’s the one who got us work. Cleaned houses, learned to cook settler food. I loaded wagons, saved every penny. Took us two years to afford the journey west.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “She learned to shoot, too. Said she wouldn’t be helpless again.”

The study’s brass fixtures gleamed like dying sunlight on water. Outside, I heard his hybrid cattle lowing, their steam vents hissing in harmony.

“Lost eight people crossing the plains. Indians, cholera, accidents. Had a wheel break crossing a river—watched a whole family get swept away.” His voice grew quiet. “But Katherine kept our group’s spirits up. Sang songs from the old country, told stories around the fire. Even the Indians who traded with us liked her. Said she had good medicine in her heart.”

My wolf-eye caught movement—his hand, trembling slightly as he refilled our glasses. “We made it through somehow. Built all this.” He gestured at the empire around us. “But Katherine . . . she wanted a real home. Children. Met Matthew at a cattle auction. He was different—understood machines, but respected the old ways too. Had dreams about breeding better stock, ones that could survive out here.”

He stood, walked to a smaller photograph. A young girl with Katherine’s eyes and a smile bright as new copper smiled out at us. “Sarah came along a year later. You ever seen a child who could talk to machines, Six-Gun? Not just work them—understand them? She’d sit with the hybrid calves for hours, listening to their steam vents, telling us what was wrong with their mechanisms. John said she had a gift.”

The air in the room felt heavy with more than just memory now. My extra hands twitched, wanting to reach for something I couldn’t grasp. In my mind, I saw another young girl, marked different, special. Saw how that story ended.

“The night before it happened,” McGraw’s voice caught. “She was telling me about a new kind of mechanical heart she wanted to design. Something that would let the cattle survive longer drives. She had drawings . . .” He stopped, staring at nothing.

The door whispered open. Beauchamp glided in, his clockwork eye whirring as it adjusted to the room’s light. “Ah,” he said, smile sharp as a new blade. “I trust you’re sharing what you found at the scene?”

McGraw leaned forward, hope and grief wrestling in his eyes. The crystal glass creaked in my hand.

McGraw’s grief hung in the air like gunsmoke after a firefight. His clockwork medallion ticked slower now, matching the rhythm of a heart too heavy with loss. Behind him, the mechanical globe clicked through its endless dance of changing territories, mapping a world that kept spinning whether we wanted it to or not.

“You examined the scene,” Beauchamp said, moving to stand behind McGraw’s chair. His brass fingers drummed against the leather, click-click-click. “Tell us what you found.”

I used three different hands to set my glass down, gentle-like, while the others stayed ready. The truth sat bitter on my tongue, like that shadow-cursed medicine the tribal healers used to force down my throat. Telling it now would get the girl killed sure as sunrise.

“Mr. McGraw,” I started, watching his face. Man had suffered enough loss for ten lifetimes. “About your niece—”

“She’s alive.” His voice cracked on the words. “She has to be. Katherine’s girl . . .”

Beauchamp’s clockwork eye whirred faster, focusing on my hands. All six of them. Calculating odds, measuring distances. His smile hadn’t changed, but something in it had grown colder.

“I’m afraid,” I said, choosing each word like I was picking up rattlesnakes, “that I won’t be taking this job.”

The hope in McGraw’s eyes guttered like a candle in strong wind. “But surely, with your abilities—”

“A job like this needs doing proper,” I cut in. “Your man here, he’s got his own ideas about how that should go.” I nodded toward Beauchamp. “Best find someone who sees eye to eye with him. All of his eyes.”

Beauchamp’s smile widened a fraction. His mechanical eye had stopped spinning entirely, fixed on me like a gun sight. “As I explained to Mr. McGraw, efficiency requires coordination. Structure. A proper chain of command.”

The mechanical servants had stopped their endless circling of the room. The air felt thicker, weighted with more than just grief now. My wolf-eye caught the gleam of gun metal under Beauchamp’s coat.

I stood, using all six hands to make it look casual. “Way I work, there ain’t no chains. Of any kind.”

McGraw’s shoulders slumped. The medallion at his throat ticked slower still, like a clock winding down. “I understand,” he said, though he didn’t. Not yet. “If it’s the money—”

“Ain’t about money.” I tipped my hat to him. “Sorry about your niece, Mr. McGraw. Truly am.”

I turned to leave, keeping my back straight despite the weight of Beauchamp’s gaze. My boot heels clicked against the metal floor plates, counting down the steps until I reached the door. The brass handle was warm under my touch, like something alive.

“Miss Six-Gun.” Beauchamp’s voice slithered after me. “Do be careful on your ride back to town. The roads can be so dangerous after dark.”

I didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. We both knew what was coming.

Outside, the sun was sinking toward the horizon, painting McGraw’s mechanical empire in shades of blood and brass. My Halfie waited by the hitching post, his wolf-ears swiveling to track movement in the shadows. The cowboys were gone, but their hatred lingered like poison in a well.

Time to ride. And ride fast.

[Continued in Part 2]