The Day the Stranger Came to Town

Limbo, a dusty, west-Texas border town, was first an Indian village. But the white man took the land by force, killing many of the Indians and chasing away the rest of them. The Indians buried their dead on the outskirts of Limbo, fled to the mountains, but later returned and massacred everyone and left the town in ashes. A Comanche spell, cast upon Limbo, prevented the souls of those who died there to be released into the spirit world and established a boundary to hold them there forever. The citizens of Limbo resurrected. They picked up where they’d left off, unaware how their lives had changed, but after certain suspicious events took place they realized that there were two sides to life – the one they lived in now and the one they all wanted to return to. The townsfolk believed it was God who brought them back to life and that he would provide a sign that would show them how to return to their former lives. Given a second chance, they vowed against violence and all other sins in hopes they would be forgiven and released from their captivity. Those who had risen became the regulars and those who wandered into Limbo were called outsiders. Regulars had no trouble spotting outsiders, but they soon found that outsiders could neither see nor hear them so it was impossible to communicate. Not many passed through Limbo, and those who did, didn’t stay long. But those wanderers, who were unfortunate enough to die of dehydration, malnutrition, heat stroke, or gunshot wounds, while inside the city limits, were surprised when they were rewarded with new life. It didn’t happen often, but whenever it did, the regulars would vote whether to accept the outsider, and allow him to become a regular or banish him from town and send him across the boundary where he would cease to exist completely. In the course of time, a few good people had been accepted, but others who had been less desirable, had not. Josh Duncan’s fate was yet to be determined the day he rode into town, and fell from his horse, dead from extreme dehydration and heat exhaustion. As were the fates of his father and brother, members of the Duncan Gang, who were headed there in order to cross over into Mexico to escape capture, and that of the U.S. Marshal who was right on their tail to avenge the deaths of his wife and daughter. Josh needed to give his father a message and his father needed refuge from the marshal who wanted to kill him for what he’d done. Coming back to life in Limbo had its complications for Josh, who learned he could not speak nor give messages to the living, and by falling in love with a young local woman whose husband had been killed during the same Indian uprising as the rest of the town and resurrected as they had, but had been hung later by the residents for abusive behavior. The man’s age at the time he and Josh met and the time that had passed since the town had hung him, and the fact that no one had any comprehension of time, did not make sense to Josh. He figured out the secrets behind Limbo, how the people could return to life, and convinced the townsfolk that if they listened to him that he could send them back. But his wife-to-be did not want to return, so Josh was at a crossroads. When the marshal arrived in Limbo, and was ambushed by the Duncan Gang and sent to the afterlife, Josh put together a plan that would work for them all. This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Reviews

News