THAT DAMNED COYOTE HILL by Heath Lowrance

“That Damned Coyote Hill” is the first of Heath Lowrance’s Hawthorne short stories featuring a bounty hunter (I think, though that’s more hinted at than definite). In this first story, he’s out looking for personal vengeance, though.

To me, Hawthorne seems more like Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane character, a wandering soldier of fortune who’s fated to cross paths with evil and hellish things, and to put an end to them.

In this one, Hawthorne tracks down three killers to a town that’s hiding secrets of its own. The action is straight-forward and carries along at a good clip, plowing through a bare knuckles fistfight and into a chase, then into a knockdown drag out fight.

The story is meant to be read in a single sitting and propels the reader along. Lowrance has a knack for pulp style narrative, and it’s obvious he loves what he’s doing. I’m waiting to see more of Hawthorne and where that mysterious cross-shaped scar on his forehead came from.