Redskin Dead.

Tyler Hogue had been the sheriff in the town of Virtue for nearly fourteen years.
For most of that time the most dangerous thing he’d encountered was a runaway packhorse down what passed as main-street.

The town lay on a north eastern meridian, forty miles above Santa Fe.

The town of Virtue had started life as a frontier post, once holding a small garrison of Army troops.
The army had long since moved on, now what remained was a ramshackle array of one story buildings that seemed to struggle to remain vertical under the intense gaze of the New Mexico sun.

Most of the three hundred or so residents lived a peaceable existence.
They didn’t care much for newcomers; many of which were of German or Dutch heritage (which they often un-kindly referred to as ‘Hoople Heads’due to their European scarf style hats).
The town was quiet though; many of the surrounding towns had it much worse.
Many of the trails-men and cattle herders told horror stories of life in Texas.
Both Mexican Bandidos and Indians run amok down there it seemed…Stealing and scalping for all their worth.

No, Tyler Hogue was happy to be up in Virtue all right.

That was until an Indian renegade breezed into town and started to tear up a storm.
It seems his name was Mal Mal. Also known as Mal Orizaba.
It was said that he was named by a Mexican Priest at birth…Mal being Latin for BAD.
The child was so ugly he named him twice!
Orizaba was the dustbowl village that he’d been born into, a real Mexican armpit of a town at that.

Mal Mal had been born mean and ugly and a near fatal disagreement with a cougar when he was sixteen hadn't done much to improve his looks!
Most of the left side of his face was etched with angry red scars, ripped deep into his already mis-shapen head by the afore said mountian lion.

Mal Mal had also had a real nasty reputation for killing cowboys and pilfering anything he could lay his hands on.

Rest assured, as soon as it was known that he was in the vicinity, the people of Virtue were demanding Tyler ‘go get him!’

As already stated Tyler Hogue was all for the quiet life as well and by the time he’d decided to start and get a posse together, Mal Mal had shown up in the Twisted Spur Saloon.

Within fifteen minutes, Morris Garner, a worker in Jessup’s mercantile store lay dead on the floorboards, a single gunshot wound now decorating his face where his nose used to sit.
Tyler had no idea what had caused the outburst, but as he entered the saloon, Remington pistol in hand, he took in the picture…

Mal Mal stood over the corpse of the bespectacled shelf stacker and was now pissing on the dead man with great ceremony.

“Get your hands up right now!” ordered Hogue. Tyler was no hero, but the sight of this desecration enraged him.