Colt Redhawk — Spirit of Mercy

The moon hung heavy in the desert sky, casting long, skeletal shadows across the barren earth. Colt Redhawk rode alone through the night, his steed, Shadowspur, moving with a silent grace that belied its size. The wind was still, like the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for something. Colt’s gaze, cold and distant, scanned the horizon, his sharp, Navajo instincts picking up on the faint stirrings of the unseen.

The road led him to a small, nearly forgotten town — a place so desolate even the wind had no memory of it. The buildings were leaning, crooked, their wood worn and cracked from years of neglect. A few distant lanterns flickered in the windows, casting ghostly lights across the town’s crumbling façade. And then there was the church — unfinished, half its stone walls jutting up like the ribs of some long-dead beast. The steeple, still just a frame of skeletal beams, clawed at the starry sky, reaching for something lost to time.

Colt dismounted from Shadowspur, the horse snorting softly as it lowered its head to nibble at the dusty ground. Colt’s boots hit the ground with a soft thud, the sound echoing in the empty night. His fingers brushed the worn grip of his Colt revolver — silver inlaid, smooth with age but deadly as the day it was forged. The weight of the weapon in his hand was familiar, comforting, and yet it held the faintest trace of something darker, something unsettled.

He wasn’t here for the town. He wasn’t even here for the church. But something drew him, something in the…