After a frontispiece with the title spelled out in empty bottles, this one opens with a silent two-page recap of Hex's life, up to his wife Mei Ling leaving him in the middle of the night and taking their son with her. Jonah appears to hit the sauce pretty hard after that.
Meanwhile, desperado Lucky Dave and his crew hijack a train to the town of Desperation. Lucky has it all planned out: steal the train, check. The town only had six people, but had a safe and a stable: blow the safe, hit the stable, ride off free and clear. Except...the stable wasn't there anymore. There were maybe two horses in the whole town, one of them belonging to a mean drunk...I foresee problems. Even drunk as a lemur, Jonah still kills the hell out of the first goon sent looking for him with a convenient broken bottle. Lucky Dave tries to blow the safe, with upwards of forty-some sticks of dynamite: two of his crew try to gently discourage from using that much, to no avail. They are then shot for laughing at Lucky launching the safe into orbit, and setting the train on fire.
After Hex kills another of the gang, it's down to Lucky and his girl Belle. They make for the horses, and only find one. One dead one. One extremely dead one. Enraged, Lucky kicks it, and gets stuck up to his knee.
Jonah shows up for the sight of Lucky still stuck in the horse, curious "what backwards fool named ya lucky?" All bluster, Lucky then asks his name, and doesn't have the good sense to be terrified. Belle and the locals are terrified enough for him: there's poking the bear, and then there's this. But the story ends abruptly--could Lucky survive for another day? I doubt it, but...
Lucky at least kept all the fingers on his right hand unlike his mentor, but he more than likely didn't keep his life after his duel with Hex.
ReplyDelete