[Continued from Part 1]

The sun was sinking toward the horizon like a brass penny dropped in muddy water by the time I rode back into New Providence. My Halfie’s mechanical shoes struck sparks off the metal road plates, each impact sending little jolts of pain through my spine. Those hours of riding and tracking had taken their toll, but it wasn’t the kind of tired that sleep could fix. The kind of weary that comes from knowing too much, seeing too clear.

Morton was out front of his stable when I rode up, those brass arms of his clicking nervously as he worked a rag over already gleaming pistons. His eyes didn’t quite meet mine as I dismounted, which was the first warning sign. Morton wasn’t the shy type.

“You need your Halfie fed and watered, I’ll do it. Cubs too. But no board for the night,” he said, voice low enough that I had to prick up my wolf-ears to catch it. “Might want to settle your account and move on, if you’re taking my meaning.”

I handed him the reins, keeping three hands ready near my guns while using the others to work out the stiffness in my shoulders. “Town’s got itself all wound up about something?”

His mechanical fingers clicked faster, that nervous tic of his working overtime. “Talk’s been going ’round since you left. Folks saying all sorts of things about what you found out there. About who you might be working for.” He glanced up and down the street. “Or against.”

I snorted. “Since when does this town care about anything except its own business?”

“Since Mr. Beauchamp started making it everyone’s business.” Morton’s brass fingers stopped their clicking. “Man’s been in and out all day, talking to folk. Sheriff Hayes got called away sudden-like on some emergency down south. Left his deputies in charge.” He spat in the dust. “Those boys ain’t exactly what you’d call independent thinkers, if you catch my drift.”

“I can handle a few badge-heavy deputies,” I said, though something in my gut was starting to curl up like a rattler spotting an eagle’s shadow. “And Beauchamp’s just a fancy lawyer with a clockwork eye.”

Morton’s laugh was as mechanical as his arms. “Lady, in this town, that’s like saying a rattlesnake’s just a rope with an attitude. Man’s got his coils wrapped around everything that matters.” He took a step closer, voice dropping even lower. “Word is, he’s got plans. Big plans. And folks who get in his way tend to have accidents.”

I checked my guns with all six hands, making sure each cylinder turned smooth. “Good thing I don’t believe in accidents, then.”

“Your funeral,” Morton sighed, leading my Halfie toward the stable. He paused at the door. “Just . . . watch your back in there.”

I tipped my hat and headed for the sheriff’s office, my boot heels clicking against the metal plates like a clock counting down. Should have listened to that cold feeling in my gut. Should have noticed how the streets had emptied out, how the shadows seemed longer than they ought to be.

But I’d always been better at shooting straight than thinking straight. And sometimes, that’s all it takes to get yourself into the kind of trouble that six guns can’t shoot you out of.

The sheriff’s office smelled wrong. My wolf-nose picked it up the moment I pushed through those brass-bound doors—gun oil and leather, sure, but underneath that was something else. Fear-sweat and satisfaction, like predators who think they’ve got their prey cornered.

Two deputies lounged behind the desk where Sheriff Hayes usually sat. The older one had a mechanical arm that whirred too loud, like it needed oiling. The younger wore his badge crooked and had eyes that reminded me of a coyote—always looking for something weak to kill.

“Well, if it ain’t the six-handed freak,” the younger one drawled, not bothering to stand. “Heard you been poking around where you ain’t wanted.”

I kept three hands near my guns, used another to tip my hat back. The other two I kept ready, because sometimes six guns ain’t enough. “Sheriff Hayes around? Got some information he might want to hear about.”

The older deputy’s arm whirred faster. “Sheriff got called south. Some kind of Indian trouble down by the border. Left us in charge.” He smiled, showing teeth that had been filed to points. “But we’d be happy to take your . . . information.”

“I bet you would.” I studied the office. “Interesting timing, him being called away just when things are getting . . . interesting.”

The younger one’s hand dropped to his gun. “Suggesting something, freak?”

“Just that Beauchamp’s got mighty convenient timing.” I let that hang in the air a moment, watching their faces. “Same way it was mighty convenient how that Indian raid on McGraw’s family happened just when tensions were running high. Same way it’s convenient how the only lawman in town who might ask questions gets called away right when—”

“You watch your mouth,” the older deputy snarled, his mechanical arm clanking as he stood. “Mr. Beauchamp’s a respected citizen. He’s done more for this town than any ten men.”

“Done more to this town, you mean.” I leaned forward, planting my hands on the desk. All six of them. “Let me tell you what I found out at that homestead. Found signs that weren’t Indian work at all. Found evidence of settler boots, not moccasins. Found a mechanical eye sized for a child, just like the ones Beauchamp’s company makes. And I found—”

“Found yourself about to get run out of town,” the younger one cut in, standing now too. “Or worse. We don’t need your kind here, stirring up trouble. Making accusations against good men.”

I straightened up, slow and deliberate. “Hayes would want to hear this. He’s got a sense for truth, that man. Maybe because he knows what it’s like to be different.” I smiled, letting them see my wolf-teeth. “That third ear of his picks up all sorts of interesting things, don’t it? Things some folks might prefer stayed quiet?”

That hit home. They both went still, the way men do right before they reach for iron. The older one’s mechanical arm stopped whirring completely.

“Sheriff Hayes ain’t here,” the younger one said finally. “And when he gets back, if he gets back, maybe he won’t be so . . . understanding of differences anymore. Times are changing. Mr. Beauchamp’s got plans for New Providence. Plans that don’t include freaks and half-breeds.”

“We’ll look into your . . . concerns,” the older one added, not even trying to hide his smile now. “You can be sure of that. Real thorough-like.”

I knew then that Hayes wasn’t coming back. Man like him, with that extra ear that could hear lies in a heartbeat—he’d probably never made it past the town limits. Beauchamp was cleaning house, and I’d just walked into the middle of his spring cleaning.

“You do that,” I said, turning to go. “You look real careful. And when you’re done looking, you tell Beauchamp something from me.” I paused at the door. “Tell him I know what he did to that family. What he’s planning for the tribes. And tell him Six-Gun Vixen’s coming for him.”

Their laughter followed me out into the street. They thought they had the upper hand, thought they had everything under control. Just like Beauchamp, with his clockwork eye and his plans within plans.

The Golden Spur was packed tighter than a steam engine’s combustion chamber. Seemed like half the town had decided they needed a drink at the same time. The mechanical piano tinkled in the corner, playing something that might’ve been a hymn or a funeral march, hard to tell with those brass keys.

I shouldered my way to the bar, keeping all six hands where they could reach iron quick. The bartender had changed since morning—this one had a brass plate where his left eye should’ve been, and hands that moved too smooth as he poured drinks. Reminded me of a snake-oil merchant I’d once seen in Dodge, all brass and smile with poison underneath.

“Whiskey,” I said. “The good stuff.”

He set out a glass and filled it with amber liquid that caught the electric lights like liquid gold. “On Mr. Beauchamp’s account,” he said, that brass eye whirring as it focused on me. “Least we can do for someone who’s helping keep the peace.”

I sniffed the whiskey. Smelled right enough, but something in the bartender’s voice made my wolf-ears twitch. Same tone I’d heard from a thousand men before they tried to put me in the ground. Still, I was tired and thirsty, and sometimes a suspicious nature can make you miss out on the simple pleasures. Way I figured it, even if it was poisoned, my wolf-blood could handle most anything these town folk could cook up.

The whiskey burned going down, but not the way it should. More like ice than fire, spreading cold fingers through my gut. Reminded me of the shadow-cursed medicine the tribal healers used to force down my throat, except this wasn’t meant to cure anything.

A group of roughnecks at the end of the bar had been watching me since I walked in. Big fellows, trail dust still on their boots but rifles too clean for real cowboys. One of them, ugly as a mechanical mule’s backside, spat on the floor. I’d seen his type before—the kind that’d shoot a woman for wearing pants or string up a half-breed just to pass the time.

“Hear they let all sorts in here now,” he said, loud enough to carry. “Even six-armed freaks.”

I set my glass down with two hands, kept the others ready. Or tried to—they felt slow, like they were moving through molasses. Like that time in Kansas when a rattler bit me and my whole body went numb. “Hear they let all sorts talk too,” I said. “Even men too stupid to know when to shut up.”

He pushed off from the bar. Had to be six-and-a-half feet tall, with shoulders wide as a door. A brass-knuckled fist the size of a ham clicked as he clenched it. The sound reminded me of a coffin lid closing.

“Maybe somebody needs to teach you some manners,” he growled. “Show you your place.”

I went to stand and the room tilted sideways. My hands felt like they were wrapped in wool, and my guns might as well have been miles away for all the good they’d do me. Whatever they’d put in that whiskey was stronger than regular poison—had to be something cooked up special for half-breeds like me.

The roughneck grinned, showing teeth capped with steel. “Something wrong, freak? You ain’t looking so good.”

I tried to focus, but there were two of him now, both coming at me with those brass knuckles raised. I swung with my right hands, or tried to—they tangled with each other, weak as a newborn’s grip. First time in my life having six arms was more curse than blessing.

His fist caught me in the ribs, and it felt like being kicked by a mechanical horse. I staggered, tried to draw a gun, but my fingers wouldn’t close right. The metal felt cold and dead in my hands, like it knew I couldn’t use it.

“Not so tough without your shooting irons, are you?” Another blow, this one to my jaw. The floor came up to meet me, hard as McGraw’s conscience.

Boots surrounded me, started kicking. I curled up, trying to protect my vital parts, but with six arms and not enough control to use them, I was tangled up in my own limbs. Each impact felt distant, like it was happening to someone else, but I knew when I woke up—if I woke up—I’d be feeling every single one.

The last thing I saw was the bartender watching, that brass eye whirring as it recorded everything. Then something hit me hard in the temple, and darkness swallowed me whole.

• • • •

First thing I noticed when I came to was the taste of copper in my mouth, and not the good kind neither. Blood, mixed with whatever poison they’d slipped in that whiskey. My head felt like it was stuffed with sand and rusty gears, every thought grinding painful against the next.

Couldn’t move my hands. Any of them. Took me a moment to realize why—they’d strapped me down with strips of leather to some kind of metal table. Good leather too, the kind that costs more than most men make in a month. The kind Beauchamp would use.

The room stank of machine oil and antiseptic, sharp enough to make my wolf-nose twitch. Somewhere nearby, steam hissed through pipes and gears clicked like angry insects. A mechanical heart monitor ticked out my pulse, each beat echoing off metal walls.

“Ah, you’re awake.” Beauchamp’s voice slithered out of the shadows. “I was beginning to worry they’d been a touch . . . overzealous.”

His clockwork eye whirred as he stepped into view. He’d changed his fancy eastern suit for a surgeon’s apron, dark stains spattered across the front. Some looked fresh.

“Most impressive constitution you have,” he said, checking something on the monitor. “That dose would have killed three normal men. But then, you’re not exactly normal, are you?”

I tried to speak, but my tongue felt thick as saddle leather. He noticed and smiled, that mechanical eye spinning faster.

“Oh, don’t worry about conversation. I find most patients more . . . cooperative when they can’t talk back. Gives us a chance to focus on the work at hand.” He picked up something that gleamed like a dentist’s nightmare. “And we have so much work to do.”

The door opened and more figures shuffled in. Men in white coats, their own brass eyes whirring in sync with Beauchamp’s. The roughnecks from the saloon stood guard by the door, brass knuckles still spotted with my blood.

“You see,” Beauchamp said, leaning close enough that I could smell mint on his breath, “I’ve always wondered about specimens like you. How does that extra musculature attach? What allows your nervous system to control so many limbs?” The tool in his hand hummed to life. “I think it’s time we found out, don’t you?”

He pressed the humming tool against my forearm, and pain shot through me like lightning through copper wire. My wolf-blood burned hot at the violation, but whatever they’d dosed me with kept my muscles slack as old rope.

“Fascinating,” Beauchamp murmured. “The nerve responses are entirely normal, yet the branching structure . . .” He made a note on a brass tablet with his free hand. “Bring me the saw. The small one.”

One of his white-coated assistants shuffled forward, mechanical eyes whirring in time with the boss man’s. The saw he handed over looked like something you’d use to cut through bone, except it had teeth made of blue-tinted steel and a motor that purred like an angry cat.

“You know,” Beauchamp said conversationally as he tested the saw’s edge, “I’ve done this procedure seventeen times now. Started with circus freaks, drifters—people no one would miss. But none of them had your . . . unique attributes.” His clockwork eye spun faster. “The girl was a disappointment. Too young, too fragile to likely survive the procedure. But you . . . you’re perfect.”

My mind caught on that like a cactus spine. The girl. Sarah. Somewhere in this building, assuming she was still alive. The thought sent fresh fire through my veins, but my limbs might as well have been carved from wood.

“Of course,” he continued, “the tribal specimens were educational too. Their connection to the old technologies, the way their bodies accept mechanical augmentation—it’s remarkable. But messy. Unpredictable.” He positioned the saw just below my left shoulder, where my third arm joined. “You’re different. Natural. Pure.”

The saw whined to life. I could feel its teeth tickling my skin through the drugs, like ice-cold needles. The roughnecks by the door grinned, probably remembering how those arms had felt hitting their faces in the saloon. Back when I could still move.

“The settlers are sheep,” Beauchamp said, his voice taking on the rhythm of a preacher at revival. “They see the tribes as savages, the half-breeds as abominations. They don’t understand that every revolution requires . . . refinement. The weak must be culled so the strong can evolve.”

The saw bit deeper. I smelled my own blood, copper-sweet and wolf-wild.

“When I’m done,” he went on, “there won’t be any more natural mutations. No more tribal magic. Everything will be controlled, measured, manufactured. Progress, pure and clean as steel.” His clockwork eye glowed fever-bright. “And you, my dear, are going to help me understand exactly how.”

Through the drug haze, I heard a sound that didn’t belong—a low growl that vibrated through the metal floor plates. Beauchamp was too caught up in his sermon to notice, but I knew that sound. Knew it like I knew my own heartbeat.

“The fascinating thing about hybrid physiology,” Beauchamp was saying as he worked the saw deeper, “is how it integrates seemingly incompatible elements. Your nervous system, for instance—”

The growl came again, louder. The roughnecks at the door shifted uneasily, hands dropping to their guns. Even their brass-capped teeth couldn’t hide the fear starting to show.

“Sir,” one of them started, but Beauchamp waved him quiet with the bloody saw. “Don’t interrupt. This is delicate work.” His clockwork eye whirred as he bent closer to my arm. “Now, if we follow this nerve cluster, we should find—”

The wall exploded inward in a shower of brass and steel. Through the gap came my Halfie, steam venting from his mechanical shoes, wolf-fangs gleaming in the electric light. And riding on his back, fur bristling and jade-gold eyes blazing, were my cubs.

The little female launched herself straight at Beauchamp’s face, claws extended. Her brother went for the nearest roughneck’s throat, moving like liquid shadow. They might be small, but they had their mama’s instincts and my training.

“Impossible!” Beauchamp staggered back, trying to pry the cub from his face. “The stable—”

“Guess Morton ain’t as afraid of you as you thought,” I managed through numb lips. The drugs were starting to fade, pushed back by wolf-blood and rage. I could feel my fingers again, all thirty of them.

My Halfie’s jaws closed around one of the roughnecks, shaking him like a rat. The others tried to shoot, but they were too busy dealing with forty pounds of angry catbreed cub attached to their faces and throats. The white-coated men huddled in corners, their mechanical eyes spinning in terror as death came for them on four legs—and two smaller sets of paws.

Beauchamp finally tore the female cub free, throwing her aside. She landed on her feet, hissing. Blood streamed from deep scratches across his face, his clockwork eye sparking and stuttering.

“Kill them!” he screamed. “Kill them all!”

Three hands worth of claws raked through the leather straps holding me down. I rolled off the table just as more guards burst through the door, these ones carrying rifles with brass bayonets.

“Time to go,” I told my family. The cubs disengaged, bounding back to my Halfie. I stumbled, still weak from the drugs, but managed to grab onto his mane as he wheeled around.

“You can’t escape!” Beauchamp’s voice was shrill with rage and fear. “I’ll find you! I’ll find all of you!”

“Looking forward to it,” I said, and dug my spurs into my Halfie’s flanks. He crashed through another wall, cubs clinging to his back, me hanging on with what strength I had left. Behind us, rifles cracked and bullets whined, but we were already gone, racing into the night.

Beauchamp could wait. Right now, I needed to heal, needed to think. Needed to figure out how to stop him before he did to others what he’d tried to do to me.

But next time, I wouldn’t be the one strapped to that table.

• • • •

My Halfie galloped through the darkness, each stride eating up ground between us and our pursuers. The sound of mechanical horses grew closer—their steam-driven legs might run forever, but they couldn’t match our speed over broken ground. Still, we needed something more than just distance to shake them.

The canyon opened up ahead of us like a wound in the earth. My Halfie balked at the entrance, steam venting from his shoes in nervous bursts. The cubs pressed closer against his flanks, their fur bristling. They knew what lived in these shadows. My wolf-nose picked up the scent before we saw them—PeyoCoyos, dozens of them, their fur glowing faintly from the hallucinogenic peyote cactus they fed on. A bite from them was a one way ticket to a mescaline fever dream—and death.

A mechanical horse’s whistle pierced the night. No choice now.

I dug my spurs in, and we plunged into the canyon. PeyoCoyos scattered at our approach, their eyes gleaming like burning copper in the darkness. They were bigger than regular coyotes, with extra joints in their legs and jaws that could unhinge like a snake’s. The peyote they ate had changed them over generations, made them something else entirely.

The first bite caught me in the calf. Felt like lightning struck my leg, sent colors shooting through my head that had no business existing. A second PeyoCoyo leaped, fastened onto one of my left arms. My Halfie kicked it away, but not before its venom hit my bloodstream.

The world started to twist. The canyon walls breathed like living flesh, their rock faces rippling with veins of molten brass. My vision fractured, split into six different versions of reality, one for each of my eyes that didn’t exist.

Gunshots echoed behind us. Beauchamp’s men had followed us in, despite the warnings. I heard their screams as the PeyoCoyos found them, heard their mechanical mounts shrieking as fangs pierced steam pipes and poison-hot blood.

The venom turned my blood to liquid moonlight. I slid from my Halfie’s back, told him and the cubs to run ahead. My hands—all six of them, trailing colors like comets—found my guns. The metal sang to me, whispered secrets about death and dreams.

First gunman I found was shooting at shadows that danced like mechanical spiders. I put three bullets through him before he knew I was there. His blood fell upward, turned to stars where it hit the canyon walls.

The second one was already down, wrestling with PeyoCoyos that might have been real or might have been hallucinations. Didn’t matter—my bullets killed him just the same.

I stalked through the canyon like a ghost. The venom made me see truth beneath the flesh—showed me the mechanical hearts beating in human shells, the brass souls trying to replace meat with metal. I killed three more, or maybe the same one three times. Reality had stopped making the kind of sense that could be counted.

The last thing I remember was a PeyoCoyo pack taking down a mechanical horse, their venom-rich saliva melting through its brass hide like acid. The rider’s screams turned to music, then to colors, then to darkness.

I fell into that darkness like falling into a deep well. The canyon walls danced, the moon shattered into a thousand clockwork pieces, and somewhere far away I heard my cubs calling.

Then nothing at all.

The PeyoCoyo venom turned my blood to starlight and my bones to brass. I fell through memories like falling through broken glass, each shard cutting deep enough to bleed. The canyon walls breathed around me, their rock faces rippling like silk in wind. Somewhere far away, I heard my cubs calling, but their cries twisted into temple bells, ringing across the Ganges at dawn.

Mother was combing my hair, all six of my hands folded in my lap like good little girls should sit. I was five, maybe six. Old enough to know I was different, young enough to still believe different might be special.

“Such beautiful hands,” she whispered, working sweet-smelling oil through my dark strands. “The goddess Durga herself blessed you with them.” Her own fingers, just two hands’ worth, moved with practiced grace. “You know the story, yes? How she needed all her arms to fight the demon Mahishasura?”

I nodded, though the movement made the temple bells ring louder. They weren’t bells anymore but mechanical chimes, steam-driven and precise, counting down to something I couldn’t quite remember.

“Then why do they hate me, Ma?” My voice was small, bird-bone fragile. “The Brahmin children, they say I’m cursed. Shadow-touched.”

The comb stopped moving. In the mirror—was it a mirror or a pool of quicksilver?—I saw tears in her eyes. “They fear what they don’t understand, little one. Fear makes people cruel.”

The memory fractured, reformed. Now I was seven, hiding behind Father as the village elders pronounced their judgment. Their words fell like hammer blows: Unclean. Untouchable. Abomination.

Father’s voice rose in protest, “She’s just a child! The gods made her this way—”

“The gods?” The head priest spat. “Look at her! Six arms like some demon-spawn. And those wolf-eyes . . . No, this is no divine blessing. This is karma, punishment for sins in past lives.”

Mother tried to shield me, but I saw how the other women drew back from her touch, as if misfortune could spread like fever. Even the lowest castes, the sweepers and tanners, turned away. To them, we were less than nothing. Shadow-cursed.

The venom sang in my veins, turning the memory to liquid fire. The priest’s face melted into Beauchamp’s clockwork eye, spinning, calculating the price of flesh and soul. I tried to reach for my guns but my hands were small again, child hands, useless against the weight of tradition and hate.

Starvation came next, slow and cruel as winter. The village gates were closed to us. No one would trade with shadow-cursed. Father sold everything we owned—Mother’s wedding jewelry, his grandfather’s sword, even the small brass idol of Durga that had watched over our home. Still, it wasn’t enough.

I watched Mother grow thin, her beautiful face hollow with hunger. But she never stopped smiling when she looked at me. “My special girl,” she’d say, using all six of my hands to warm her own. “The world isn’t ready for you yet. But it will be.”

The memory-poison burned hotter. I saw Mother’s last days, when typhoid took her. The missionary doctor refused to treat her—couldn’t risk contamination, he said. Couldn’t touch the shadow-cursed. I held her with all six hands as she burned with fever, as if I could keep her soul from slipping away by sheer force of grip.

“Remember,” she whispered, her cracked lips barely moving. “Remember that what makes you different makes you strong.”

But I wasn’t strong enough to save her.

Father changed after that. The proud Brahmin scholar became a hollow man, his eyes fixed on some distant horizon where pride didn’t matter, where caste was just a word. He signed the Girmitya papers in a fever of grief—the Agreement that would take us across the black water to the Promised Land.

“Better to be slaves in a new world,” he said, “than ghosts in the old one.”

The ship . . . God, the ship. The venom made me smell it again—hundreds of bodies packed into the hold, the stench of fear and dysentery, the endless rocking that made even the strongest men weep. Children died every night, their small bodies wrapped in canvas and dropped into waves black as ink.

Father held me as we watched another burial at sea. “You see?” he whispered. “Death doesn’t care about caste. Doesn’t care about how many arms or eyes you have. In the end, we’re all just meat for the waves.”

The memory twisted, writhed. Now I was fifteen, watching Father die in a settler’s field, his back broken from years of labor. The Agreement had promised freedom after five years, but there were always new debts, new contracts, new ways to keep us bound.

“Listen,” he rasped, gripping my hand—just one of them, though I wanted to hold him with all six. “The things they hate you for . . . they can be your ruin—”

“Or your salvation,” I finished, tasting blood that might have been real or just another trick of the venom.

He smiled, touched my wolf-eye with a trembling finger. “You were born to fight demons, just like Durga. But first you have to stop seeing yourself through their eyes.”

The venom burned brighter, turning his face to light, then shadow, then nothing at all. I fell through darkness that sang with temple bells and steam whistles, with children’s cruel laughter and priests’ curses, with Mother’s lullabies and Father’s last words.

• • • •

When I surfaced, gasping, the first thing I saw was my guns—all six of them, laid out neat as prayer beads on a blanket beside me. I wasn’t in the canyon anymore, but in a small hut that smelled of sage and machine oil. My hands moved without thinking, reaching for the familiar weight of steel.

“Easy there, Six-Gun.” Rattlesnake’s voice came from somewhere behind me. “Those PeyoCoyos hit you pretty hard. Been three days.”

I tried to sit up, but the world swam like water in monsoon season. “My cubs—”

“Safe. Fed. Your Halfie too, though he tried to take my other arm first couple times I brought him water.” Metal clinked as he moved closer. “You were talking in your sleep. Different language. Sounded like prayers.”

I touched my face, felt dried tears. “Not prayers. Memories.”

He was quiet for a moment, his mechanical arm whirring soft as cricket song. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Venom has a way of making you face things you’ve been running from.”

I looked at my hands—all six of them, marked with scars and calluses, strong enough now to hold my own destiny. Mother was right: The world hadn’t been ready for me then.

But I was ready for it now.

Six-Gun Vixen, I’d named myself, turning curse into blessing, weakness into strength. Just like Father said. The things they hated me for had become my salvation after all.

“Three days, you said?” I reached for my guns, letting each hand remember its purpose. “Time to ride. Got some demons that need fighting.”

Rattlesnake’s mechanical eye glowed in the dim light. “Thought you might say that.” He paused. “Thing about demons though—sometimes better to hunt them together.”

I thought about all the hands it takes to fight a demon. Thought about Mother’s stories of Durga, who needed every one of her arms to win her battle. Thought about Father’s words about seeing yourself through different eyes.

“Maybe,” I said, checking my guns one by one. “But first, tell me what you know about Beauchamp and his plans for the tribes. All of it.”

The venom’s last whispers faded like temple bells at dusk, leaving behind a clarity sharp as new-forged steel. Time to show them what six hands and two wolf-eyes could really do.

I studied that mechanical arm of his again in my mind. 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.

“Beauchamp calls them ‘improvements,’” Rattlesnake said, catching my gaze on his arm. The brass clicked as he flexed it, tribal patterns shifting like living things. “Says he’s bringing civilization to the savages, one piece at a time.”

“Starting with you?”

His laugh was bitter as desert wind. “Chief’s son makes a good example, they figured. Show the tribes what happens when you resist progress.” The mechanical eye whirred as he looked away. “By the time they finished, my own people wouldn’t look at me. Called me ghost-touched. Cursed.”

Shadow-cursed. Ghost-touched. Different words, same old fear.

“McGraw’s family,” I said. “That wasn’t Indies’ work.”

“Beauchamp’s men. Made it look tribal—the markings, the fire pattern. But it was settler work through and through.” He pulled something from his mechanical arm’s storage compartment—a brass button with the Beauchamp Company mark. “Found this at the scene. Along with other things that didn’t belong.”

“Why Sarah?”

“Girl’s got a gift with machines. Natural talent for mixing flesh and metal. Beauchamp’s been watching her for years, waiting. McGraw’s wealth, his hybrid cattle operation—all of it was built on Beauchamp’s loans. Man’s got his hooks in deep.”

I thought about McGraw’s grief, genuine as sunrise. “He doesn’t know.”

“Men like Beauchamp, they’re the real power out here. Kings rise and fall, but the bankers, the lawyers, the men who control the money and the laws—they’re constant as the stars.” Rattlesnake’s mechanical arm whirred. “They’re building a new world, piece by piece. And folks like us, we’re just raw material.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Seen it happen before. Beauchamp finds someone useful, someone different. Offers them a choice that ain’t really a choice. Then when he’s done with them . . .” He gestured at his arm. “Well, let’s just say there’s a reason they call his kind ‘recyclers.’’”

My hands checked my guns by habit, all six of them moving in familiar patterns. “Man needs killing.”

“You’d be dead before you got within a mile of him. He’s got an army of augmented men, mechanical hunters that never sleep. And those are just the obvious defenses.”

“So what’s your stake in this? Why help me?”

His mechanical eye focused on me, glowing like ember light. “Same as you. Sarah’s just a kid. Doesn’t deserve what Beauchamp’s got planned for her.” He paused. “Besides, enemy of my enemy and all that.”

“I work alone,” I said, but the words felt hollow as a broken promise.

“Like hell you do.” He nodded toward where my Halfie’s snores rumbled outside, mixed with the cubs’ softer breathing. “What do you call them? And who pulled you out of that canyon before the PeyoCoyos turned you into dinner, same as they did those cowboys who followed you in?”

I started to argue, but he cut me off.

“Face it, Six-Gun. You’ve already got partners. You just don’t want to admit it because letting folks close means risking loss. Believe me, I know something about that.”

The cubs stirred in their sleep outside, their little bellies full of whatever Rattlesnake had been feeding them these past three days. My Halfie’s contented grumble followed, reminding me how he’d charged through that saloon window without hesitation, saving more than just my life.

“Fine,” I said finally. “But just until we get Sarah back to McGraw. After that, we go our separate ways.”

His mechanical arm clicked in what might have been agreement. “After that,” he said, “we’ll see what the world has planned for folks like us.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but I had other concerns. “Tell me everything you know about Beauchamp’s operation. Where he’s keeping Sarah, what kind of resistance we’re looking at.”

“You’re not going to like it,” he said, but started talking anyway.

Outside, a dawn wind carried the smell of sage and machine oil, mixing them together like everything else in this broken world. Maybe that’s all any of us were—pieces that didn’t quite fit, trying to make something new from the wreckage of the old.

• • • •

Doom Valley earned its name fair and square. My Halfie’s hackles rose the moment we crested the ridge, and even the cubs huddled deeper in their saddlebags, their usual mewling silenced by the weight of ancient grief that hung over the place. The valley floor stretched out below us like a wound that wouldn’t heal, all red rock and twisted metal, with steam vents hissing from cracks in the earth.

“Valley of the People,” Rattlesnake said, his mechanical eye whirring as it adjusted to the dying light. “Or was, before Beauchamp’s kind came. Every rock, every ridge—they’re all grave markers. Whole tribes buried their dead here for generations.”

I studied the landscape through my wolf-eye. Where my human eyes saw only desolation, the yellow one picked out patterns—pictographs carved into cliff faces, spirit totems worked into the very bones of the earth. And among them, like maggots in a corpse, Beauchamp’s machines: steam-powered drills boring into sacred ground, mechanical cranes lifting ore from open pits.

“Your people won’t come here anymore?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. Place stank of desecration.

“Would you build a factory in your mother’s grave?” His mechanical arm clicked as he gestured toward the sprawling complex below. “That’s what Beauchamp counted on. No tribes to resist, no settlers to ask questions. Perfect place to do the kind of work decent folks don’t want to think about.”

The factory itself squatted in the valley’s heart like some great brass spider. Smoke belched from a dozen chimneys, and the ground trembled with the rhythm of massive machines. Railroad tracks snaked in from the west, bringing ore from McGraw’s mines. But it was what I saw leaving by the eastern track that made my blood run cold.

“Those ain’t regular cargo cars,” I said, watching a train pull away. Each car was sealed tight, with small, barred windows and steam vents along the sides. “They’re carrying something alive.”

“Flesh and metal both,” Rattlesnake confirmed. “Raw material for his ‘improvements.’ Sometimes whole families disappear from settler towns, or tribal camps go quiet in the night. This is where they end up.”

My hands tightened on my guns—all six of them. “Sarah’s in there?”

“Lower levels. Where he keeps his think tank.” Rattlesnake’s voice turned bitter as poison. “Saw them when I was . . . recovering. Brilliant minds from back East, tribal medicine men, even a Chinese railroad engineer who designed some newfangled steam engine. All of them ‘improved’ until they’re more machine than man.”

One of the cubs stirred in its saddlebag, letting out a small sound that might have been fear or fury. My Halfie answered with a low growl of his own. They could smell it too—the wrongness of this place, the way it twisted everything natural into something else.

“How do we get in?” I asked.

Rattlesnake’s mechanical eye glowed brighter as darkness crept into the valley. “That’s the easy part. Getting out again—that’s what you ought to be asking about.”

The factory’s bowels were a maze of pipes and pistons, everything moving in a rhythm that felt almost alive. Steam hissed through copper veins, and gears turned like mechanical hearts. My wolf-eye picked out patterns in the chaos—the way flesh and metal merged, how living tissue wrapped around brass and steel like ivy climbing a wall.

The think tank level hit me like a punch to the gut. These weren’t just people with mechanical parts grafted on, like Rattlesnake. These were souls bound to their machines, merged so deep you couldn’t tell where flesh ended and metal began.

The Chinese engineer, Zhang, had been a railroad genius before Beauchamp got hold of him. Now his torso sprouted directly from a steam engine’s control panel, his arms replaced with brass levers that controlled pressure valves. But his eyes—those were still human, and they watched us with a hunger that had nothing to do with flesh.

“Six arms,” he said, his voice wheezing like a tired bellows. “Natural ones. And wolf-eyes too. You’re one of the blessed ones.”

“Ain’t nothing blessed about being different,” I said, keeping my hands near my guns. “Just makes folks want to change you, make you fit their world.”

A laugh came from deeper in the shadows—more mechanical grinding than human sound. “Oh, she understands, doesn’t she, Zhang?” A woman’s face emerged from a nest of brass tubes and copper wires. “I’m Dr. Elizabeth Carter. Was, anyway. Before I made the mistake of showing Beauchamp my designs for mechanical limb replacements.”

“Your own designs,” I said, seeing the cruel irony of it. “He used them on you.”

“On all of us,” said another voice—this one belonging to a tribal medicine man whose lower body had been replaced with a calculating engine, brass gears clicking where his legs should be. “He takes what makes us special and turns it against us. Makes us part of his machine.”

The cubs pressed against my legs, sensing my tension. My Halfie’s hackles were up, but he wasn’t growling. These folk weren’t threats—they were victims, same as Sarah would be if we didn’t move fast.

“The girl,” I said. “Where is she?”

“Prep room,” Elizabeth said, her voice catching. “He’s starting the procedure tonight. Wants to make her his masterpiece—young enough that the integration will be perfect. She’ll be his proof that flesh and metal can become one.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” All six of my hands checked my guns. “How do we get there?”

“We can help,” Zhang said, his levers moving in complex patterns. “Control the steam flows, override security systems. But you have to promise us something.”

“What’s that?”

“When you’re done . . .” Elizabeth’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Burn it all down. Free us from these machines. Better dead than living like this.”

I looked at Rattlesnake. His mechanical eye whirred as he nodded slowly.

“Dying ain’t always the worst thing that can happen to a person,” he said.

I thought about Mother’s last days, about Father broken in that settler’s field. About all the ways people can be bound, trapped, changed against their will.

“I promise,” I said. “But first, tell me everything about this place. Every pipe, every valve, every way in and out. And most importantly—where Beauchamp keeps his guards.”

The think tank came alive then, each trapped soul contributing their piece of the puzzle. They knew every inch of this hell factory because they were part of it. Had been for years, feeling it pulse and grow like a cancer in sacred ground.

Time to cut it out.

• • • •

We found them in what Beauchamp called his “integration chamber.” Place stank of blood and machine oil, brass instruments laid out neat as Sunday silverware on a tray beside the operating table. Sarah was strapped down, still conscious, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on her face. But her eyes—they had steel in them, same as her mama’s.

Beauchamp stood over her in a leather apron dark with old stains. His clockwork eye whirred as it tracked our entrance, mechanical servos adjusting to the change in light. But he didn’t look surprised. That should have warned me.

“You’re right on schedule,” he said, and snapped his fingers.

The door slammed shut behind us. Steam hissed from vents in the ceiling, and I heard the distinctive click of a dozen rifles being cocked. My wolf-eye picked them out in the shadows—guards with brass-grafted limbs and mechanical eyes, all trained on us.

“Six-arms and a renegade,” Beauchamp said, clicking his tongue. “Did you really think I wouldn’t be prepared? That my own think tank wouldn’t warn me of your coming? They’re part of my machine, after all. Every thought, every whisper, feeds back to me.”

He gestured, and one of his guards fired. The bullet took me in the shoulder—my third right arm went limp, useless. Another shot, and Rattlesnake’s mechanical arm sparked and seized up.

“Progress demands sacrifice,” Beauchamp continued, picking up something that looked like a cross between a saw and a steam drill. “But it also demands control. Order. Your mutations, fascinating as they are, happened by chance. What I create here is purposeful. Directed. The next step in human evolution.”

“Ain’t nothing evolutionary about torture,” I said, trying to keep him talking while my good hands inched toward my guns. But the guards were watching every move.

He laughed. “Torture? This is transformation. Look at Sarah here—such potential. The ability to understand machines, to speak their language. But it’s raw, undisciplined. I’ll make her perfect. Just like I made them perfect.”

He gestured at his guards. “Former tribals, settlers, even a few railroad workers. All of them fighting progress at first. Now they’re part of something greater. A new order for a new world.”

“The only order you care about is the kind that keeps you on top,” Rattlesnake spat. His mechanical eye was sparking, but his human one blazed with fury.

“Ah, the chief’s son speaks.” Beauchamp smiled. “My first successful integration of tribal blood with modern machinery. Though I’ve refined the process considerably since then. The neural bonding alone—”

A low growl cut through his words. The guards shifted nervously, looking for its source. That was their mistake. They were looking for something big, but my cubs had learned to move quiet as shadows. They struck from beneath grates in the floor, tiny claws finding flesh behind mechanical knees. Two guards went down howling.

I didn’t waste the distraction. Five guns cleared leather while my wounded arm hung limp. Rattlesnake’s mechanical arm might be damaged, but the gun hidden inside still worked. We laid down enough lead to give us breathing room, but more guards were pouring in through hidden doors.

“You see?” Beauchamp shouted over the gunfire. “This is why the old ways must be overcome! Animals, instincts, chaos—all must be controlled!”

A bullet caught me in the leg. Another grazed my cheek. We were pinned down behind an operating table, and I could hear more guards coming. The cubs had retreated into the ventilation system, but they couldn’t help us now.

That’s when I heard it—a different kind of mechanical sound. Not the hiss of steam or the click of gears, but something deeper. A rumble coming from the walls themselves.

“Sir!” One of the guards shouted. “The pressure gauges—”

“What?” Beauchamp’s clockwork eye whirred frantically. “That’s impossible. The think tank can’t override my—”

“Can’t we?” Elizabeth’s voice came through every speaking tube at once. And this time, she didn’t sound afraid. “You made us part of your machine, Beauchamp. Made us feel every piston stroke, every valve release. Made us learn to think in steam and steel.”

Metal screamed against metal. Pipes burst, releasing scalding jets that drove the guards back. Mechanical arms emerged from panels in the walls—dozens of them, brass and copper and steel, reaching with surgical precision.

“No!” Beauchamp turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. “I created you! I control you!”

“You bound us to your machines,” Zhang’s voice hissed through steam vents. “Made us learn their language. But you never wondered what we might be telling them.”

The mechanical arms moved like snakes, wrapping around guards, dismantling their augmentations with terrible precision. I used the chaos to get to Sarah, my five working hands making quick work of her restraints while my sixth hung useless.

Beauchamp raised a pistol, his clockwork eye spinning wild. “I won’t let you ruin everything—”

Rattlesnake’s shot took him in the hand, sending the gun spinning. My own bullets ensured he wouldn’t reach for another.

“What are you going to do to me?” he asked, voice cracking as the mechanical arms wrapped around him. His clockwork eye sparked and stuttered, like it was finally showing the fear behind the machine.

I holstered my guns, breathing hard against the pain in my shoulder and leg. “Me? Nothing. But they’ve got some ideas they’d like to share with you. About progress. About improvement. About what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself.”

The last I saw of Beauchamp, he was being drawn into the walls of his own creation, mechanical arms cradling him like a mother spider welcoming home her young. His screams echoed through the factory’s brass arteries, but not for long.

Progress comes for everyone, sooner or later. Even the men who think they control it.

• • • •

McGraw was waiting at his ranch house, pacing the porch like a caged animal. When he saw Sarah riding double with me on my Halfie, something broke in his face—all that wealthy rancher pride washing away in a flood of relief.

“Uncle John!” Sarah leaped from the saddle before we fully stopped, running to him. He caught her in his arms, holding her like she might disappear if he let go. For a moment, they were just family again, not part of Beauchamp’s grand schemes.

“You found her,” McGraw said finally, voice rough. He reached into his vest, pulled out a leather pouch heavy with gold. “As promised. Five hundred.”

I took the pouch with one hand, checked the weight with another, while my other hands stayed ready—old habits die hard. “Might want to keep a closer eye on your business partners in the future,” I said. “Some of them ain’t as civilized as they pretend.”

His face darkened. “Beauchamp?”

“Won’t be troubling anyone again.” I didn’t mention how. Some things are better left to imagination. “But he had plans for your mines. Your cattle operation. Might want to have your lawyers look into that.”

McGraw nodded slowly. “Stay,” he said suddenly. “There’s good land west of here, untouched. Could use someone like you nearby. Someone who sees clear.”

I thought about it. Thought about having a real home again, somewhere to raise the cubs proper. Somewhere to rest.

But the wind was picking up, carrying the smell of sage and open country. My Halfie’s ears twitched, and Rattlesnake’s mechanical mount—a strange cross between a mountain lion and a steam engine he called a SteamCat—growled low in its brass throat.

“Appreciate the offer,” I said. “But the horizon keeps calling.”

He understood. Men like him always did. Built empires by staying put but never stopped respecting those who couldn’t.

Morton was working on his brass arms when I rode into town, oil can balanced between his mechanical fingers. His eyes widened at the sight of me—seems word of what happened in Doom Valley had already spread.

“Heard you did some spring cleaning,” he said, trying to sound casual.

I flipped him a gold piece, watched him catch it smooth as silk with those brass fingers. “Promised to oil those arms for you,” I said. “A deal’s a deal.”

He smiled, actually smiled. “Could use a good mechanic in town. Sheriff Hayes was saying just yesterday how things might be different now. Real progress, not just machines pretending to be progress.”

The Sheriff himself appeared then, that third ear of his twitching like it could hear the future coming. “Town’s changing,” he said. “Might be room for all sorts here now. All kinds.”

I finished with Morton’s arms, each joint moving silent as a hunting cat. The cubs watched from their saddlebags, bigger now, stronger. Ready for whatever came next. My Halfie stamped impatiently, and Rattlesnake’s SteamCat let out a sound halfway between a purr and a steam whistle.

“Changes are coming,” I agreed. “But they’ll have to catch up to us somewhere down the trail.”

The Sheriff nodded, touched the brim of his hat. Morton flexed his freshly oiled arms. And somewhere in the distance, a train whistle cried like a lonely wolf.

Time to ride.

We took the east road out of town, four strange creatures and their stranger riders. My Halfie and Rattlesnake’s SteamCat, the cubs growing stronger every day, and two people who’d learned that being different wasn’t a curse—it was just another way of being alive.

The horizon stretched out before us, endless as possibility. Somewhere out there, Mother’s spirit was smiling, and Father’s words echoed on the wind: The things they hate you for can be your salvation.

Six hands reached for reins, adjusted guns, scratched the cubs behind their ears. Two wolf-eyes watched the sun rising on a new day. And the future, like always, waited just over the next ridge.

All we had to do was ride to meet it.