Hot Iron and Cold Blood

"Each short story is unique, carefully crafted, and memorable. A fun read from cover to cover." – MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW Desperados and yellow-bellies be warned: These ain't your typical westerns... Herein find legendary masters of anomalous Western and Horror stories—along with a posse of budding word-slingers—who all bring you an electrifying and frightening collection of extraordinary tales set in the Old West and beyond... Within these pages, the improbable is made real: cowboys encounter a chimeric critter of the night; dinosaurs return as massive poltergeists; Chinese railroad workers are haunted by invisible frights; outlaws experience Cronenbergian body-horror; fallen-light stalks mother and daughter upon a wintry prairie; a headless horseman roams the badlands; otherworldly creatures hunt within our domain; screaming spectral birds nest within the damned; and gunslinging women with murderous skills annihilate foolish notions of a man's world. These are just a handful of the offerings in this body of macabre lore. So, mount your saddle-horse and join this gang of rogue authors for a ride down dark trails of terror and unsettling thoroughfares that lead deep into strange, nightmarish territory. Here you gallop through places where law has no dominion and Death constantly deals a grim hand—and where the iron is red-hot and the blood drips ice-cold. Featuring stories by Joe R. Lansdale, Edward Lee, David J. Schow, Jill Girardi, R.J. Jackson, Vivian Kasley, Owl Goinback, Kenzie Jennings, Jeff Strand, Wile E. Young, and more. Edited by Patrick R. McDonough with an introduction by R.J. Joseph