Folks don't stumble into Hangman's Gulch by accident. Stagecoaches rarely roll into town—there aren't any roads—and the railroad barons refused to run tracks anywhere near the lawless desert outpost. If a cowboy asks the good people of Austin for directions, he'll receive a suspicious glare in response, followed by raised eyebrows, a shrug, and finally, a finger pointed west. "Two hundred miles that way." Two hundred miles of dry, desolate wasteland—that was all that separated the civilized world of the ranchers and shopkeepers from the marauding desperados of Hangman's Gulch.

It was often said there were only two types of men that lived there—those that made the nooses and those that swung by them. It was a morbid saying, and the thought chilled O'Keefe. The western wasteland was nothing like the rolling Irish hills he'd left behind. He closed his eyes and gave himself a few seconds to once again stretch out on the cool green grass of Ireland before returning to the scorching outskirts of Hangman's Gulch and the rows of swinging corpses that danced in its town square. Instinctively, he reached for his own throat. As far as he could tell, it was free of the rope—for now.

LeBlanc was an older and more experienced highwayman, and he was no longer prone to restlessness. The same could not be said for his younger companion, who had been fidgeting ever since the stakeout began that morning. O'Keefe's pale Irish skin was red and blistered from the blazing Texas sun, and although a gentle breeze had started to roll in as dusk approached, the fading rays of the sinking yellow disk beat their backs mercilessly.

"What's the matter, boy?" the bandit growled, noticing O'Keefe's fingers twitching near his own sweaty neck. "You ain't afraid of Tall John, are you?" LeBlanc's eyes gleamed as he taunted the younger highwayman.

O'Keefe quickly removed his hands from his collar and glanced at LeBlanc. He forced a weak grin. "Hell no. If anything, he ought to be scared of us." It was a lie, of course. There wasn't an outlaw alive in Hangman's Gulch—other than LeBlanc, and maybe the Fish brothers—that didn't fear the strange mountain dweller that had begun wandering into town. He was freakishly large, towering at six-and-a-half feet, and his knotted hair and unwashed beard curled down his back and his torso, both adorned with colorful braids and other Indian trinkets. Black and brown pelts clung to his body, and his foul odor was masked only by the tobacco smoke that swirled from his long-stemmed pipe. Nobody knew his name or from where he had come. His monstrous, hirsute frame resembled that of a bison, and some claimed he'd descended from an unholy Indian buffalo-god. Ultimately, the folks of Hangman's Gulch figured him to be another John the Baptist—the only other fur-covered, desert-wandering wild man they knew—and from then on, he'd been known only as "Tall John".

LeBlanc grunted and stared back out toward the darkening emptiness that stretched out before him. Twilight was setting in, and painted shadows shimmered across the desert floor—brushstrokes of the Sun setting behind the pair.

O'Keefe's sunburned skin grew redder as he looked away, embarrassed. He wanted to seem tough in front of the fearless bandit, and he knew so far, he had been unconvincing. He furrowed his brow and squinted his eyes in a pitiful attempt to look older before adding casually, "You think he's got the treasure with him?"

A throng of flies swarmed LeBlanc's face. He'd grown accustomed to the heat, the sand, and the long waits, but the bugs were irritating, and the kid's overzealous bravado was tiresome. "Use your head, boy!" the grizzled LeBlanc snapped before sighing and sticking out a finger. "Think about it—Oxley runs off to fight with those filthy Yanks, so he sure as hell ain't welcome back in Mississippi after the war." He extended another finger. "He falls in with Tall John for some Indian fighting until he drops dead with a gut full of arrows in some Comanche raid." LeBlanc raised a third finger. "Not a day later, Tall John is galloping toward Jackson like a bat out of hell. Everybody knows Peter Oxley was one of the richest men in Mississippi. Ain't nobody going to touch that Yankee-lover's blood treasure—except Tall John. He's off to collect the traitor's gold—and then he'll be riding back toward Hangman's Gulch. And when he does," LeBlanc grinned, his smile toothy and tobacco-stained, "we'll be ready to meet him."

As if by the divine providence of a malevolent outlaw deity, it was at that moment that something moved just out of the corner of O'Keefe's eye—a brown dot bobbing up and down beyond the eastern horizon through the shadowy haze. It almost looked like a grazing buffalo, but the movement was the unmistakable trot of a man on a horse.

"Well, well," LeBlanc muttered, noticing the approaching phantom in the distance. "Speak of the Devil." LeBlanc placed his finger across his lips in a demand for silence, and the two highwaymen crouched low. They'd strategically chosen this hiding place—an overturned wagon, the remains of one of the few stagecoaches that dared to make the ill-fated journey to Hangman's Gulch—for their ambush.

O'Keefe shut his eyes and counted. He was sweating profusely, even though the Sun had nearly set and its scorching rays had dwindled. They had to stay invisible until the last moment to spring upon their prey. It took a behemoth of a horse to hold Tall John and its massive hooves echoed resoundingly in the desert stillness. It wasn't until the terrible, thunderous step of the brute drew alongside the crumbling debris that LeBlanc nodded to his companion, and with O'Keefe's shaky swallow and nod in return, the two leaped from their hiding place.

O'Keefe had seen Tall John before at the Jackrabbit Saloon, but he'd never been as close to the mountain recluse as he was now. Very little of the giant's face was visible beneath his beard—dirty, but marvelously adorned—and his black eyes were unafraid beneath his dark, weathered skin. His gaze pierced the young bandit, who shuddered fearfully despite being protected by his revolver, which was aimed at Tall John's heart. The colossal hermit appeared to be more monster than man.

LeBlanc, however, noticed none of these things. Instead, he gleefully focused on the intricately carved wooden chest slung over the side of the humongous steed. His mouth salivated at the glittering riches and lost Confederate gold locked inside, his lust for treasure soon to be satiated.

"Easy there, big fella," the older outlaw sneered, the cocking of his gun pronounced in the quiet of the Texas twilight. The big horse had gotten jumpy at the sight of the two strangers emerging from behind the waylaid stagecoach, but its rider patted its neck gently; the beast snorted and relaxed beneath its master's reassuring touch. Tall John still didn't look anxious or surprised—in fact, he seemed entirely emotionless. With a couple of highwaymen aiming their revolvers directly at his chest, O'Keefe thought before shifting uncomfortably, why isn't he afraid? If LeBlanc was nervous, he wasn't showing it. He simply smirked at his prisoner.

"Well, we're a long way from town, ain't we, Mister?" LeBlanc's gravelly voice dripped with contemptuous mockery for the mountain dweller. "Now, where would we be riding from? It couldn't be Jackson, Mississippi, could it?" LeBlanc had hoped to frighten his captive—to see the giant that towered over him sweat or falter—but Tall John sat in calm silence.

LeBlanc frowned, disappointed at the lack of reaction, and motioned his gun toward the ground. "Why don't we just step off that old horse now?"

Tall John didn't say a word. The graying traveler simply swung an enormous leg over the side of the enormous horse and jumped down. The ground shook beneath the mountain man's boots, a cloud of sand swirling in the last remaining sunbeams and billowing through the Texas air as Tall John made contact with the ground. O'Keefe coughed and watched the animal sway under the force of its rider disembarking, the wooden chest thumping softly—almost rhythmically—against the side of the horse.

LeBlanc's revolver remained locked on his captive, but his eyes darted greedily toward the hypnotic sway of the box. "That's it, ain't it? Oxley's treasure chest?" Tall John had leaped toward the other side of the horse, and he quietly stood there, his hands raised but his face unchanging. A weird, unhinged cackle suddenly erupted from LeBlanc's lips; it was unnerving to O'Keefe, as was the black-pupiled stare of the mountain man as he turned to face O'Keefe.

"How about that, boy?" the older outlaw gasped through his guffawing laughter. "Didn't think it'd be that easy, did you? Bet you didn't really believe we'd end up with that Yankee-lover's treasure—or John the Baptist's head on a platter! Head on a platter! Ain't that rich!" O'Keefe, mesmerized by the gaze of the prisoner, didn't utter a sound. LeBlanc frowned again.

"Head on a platter, O'Keefe." LeBlanc looked back toward his companion. "Get it, boy? Come on, ain't you got any church learnin'?"

It was three seconds—three short seconds that the bandit took his eyes off the giant buffalo-man.

That was all Tall John needed.

With a swing unnaturally quick for a man of his size, Tall John struck the already nervous beast with his humongous paw. The startled horse brayed and lunged, the animal rushing headfirst into the distracted outlaw. The bandit saw the half-crazed steed less than an instant before it collided with him, LeBlanc yelling and flailing, his gun firing wildly in the chaos. Clouds of sand shot up around him in the skirmish and O'Keefe, terrified, tried to find Tall John through the opaque sand-wall and his coughing fit, his own weapon lost in the mayhem. The madness was momentary, and the fearless LeBlanc didn't have time to register the lightning-speed draw or the flash of fire or the billowing puffs of smoke before he dropped dead onto the sunset-drenched desert floor.

LeBlanc's body had collapsed mere feet from O'Keefe. The Irishman's eyes grew wide as terror overwhelmed him, his head swinging wildly, back and forth, between his partner's corpse and the glistening gun of the still-expressionless mountain man, the Indian braids in his beard lightly splattered with blood.

He dropped to his knees and began to tearfully beg. Most of the words he uttered were incoherent, the only sentence whispered clearly being: "Please, don't shoot." He blacked out from shock, only rousing into consciousness when he heard Tall John speak.

"Open it."

O'Keefe's forehead was soaked with sweat. He opened his horrified eyes and found himself staring straight into the barrel of the wild man's gun. He forced his attention up to Tall John's face. O'Keefe was frightened, but bizarrely fascinated. These were the first words O'Keefe heard the traveler utter, and they were guttural and raw, the big man's voice unwavering in its demand.

"W . . . what?" the outlaw stammered.

The buffalo-man slowly motioned the gun toward the box that still hung to the side of the massive horse—the glittering gold that had cost LeBlanc his life.

"The treasure chest. Open it."

Shaking, O'Keefe rose from his knees, the revolver trained on his head, and he limped fearfully toward the side of the horse. The chest was carved from magnolia wood, intricate and beautiful. To O'Keefe's amazement, it was not locked. He untied it from the now-relaxed brute and set it on the ground. He knew Tall John would put a bullet in his head any moment—that the lustful quest for Oxley's riches had been doomed—but he couldn't help but tremble in anticipation as he opened the chest and stuck his hand inside.

His jaw dropped as it sifted through his fingertips. He stared dumbfounded and looked up at Tall John, bewildered at the hideous joke. Doubloons and rubies did not trickle through the outlaw's fingers back into the chest. It was just dirt—brown, filthy, ordinary dirt.

The last bit of sunlight caught Tall John's dark, wrinkled face beneath his wide-brimmed hat. It was most likely a trick of the dying red rays of dusk, but O'Keefe would have sworn the mountain man's face softened.

"Oxley was my friend. He used to talk to me about the war—about the things he'd seen, and the things he'd done, and about Mississippi—the choir of mockingbirds, the jasmine wafting through the air like incense. That was the funeral he always wanted, kid. A quiet burial with the mockingbirds chirping 'Amazing Grace', a grove of magnolias as his tomb and his final resting place underneath six feet of Mississippi dirt."

O'Keefe's twitching evolved into wild convulsing as the big man drew nearer, the gun still pointed at the Irishman's head. Suddenly, he felt a cold piece of metal pressed against his temple, and the convulsions stopped.

"Oxley never went back to Jackson. He knew he wasn't welcome. He reckoned he would never get the mockingbird choir or the perfume of a sycamore tree or that grove he loved so much. Well, I reckon he was right. But I'll be damned if my friend ain't going to be buried in Mississippi dirt."

The cocking of the gun echoed in the twilight as Tall John pulled the hammer back.

"You can pray now, kid."

The quivering O'Keefe began to weep and beg God for mercy, desperately trying to remember the old prayers his mother had taught him back in Ireland. He hoped he remembered his rosary prayers—and he did, for the most part—and he was still crying out to God and St. Patrick as Tall John mounted his horse and rode off into the darkness toward Hangman's Gulch, the beloved treasure of Peter Oxley slung alongside the monstrous steed.