Bloody Ocotillo

A Final Reckoning in the Unforgiving West

Once an outlaw, Jorah Kepssel now lives as a bounty hunter and guardian in the quiet town of Drayton. Scarred by age, violence, and the crimes committed under his former name, he seeks redemption by protecting the innocent and becoming a father figure to those in his care.

But the past refuses to stay buried. As old enemies close in and guilt drives him toward isolation, Jorah must confront the man he once was—and the terrible consequences of the brutality he still carries. With time running out, one final act may offer him the peace he has spent a lifetime searching for.

Bloody Ocotillo by Matthew D. Bala is a powerful Western fiction tale of guilt, mortality, sacrifice, and redemption, bringing Jorah Kepssel’s tragic journey to its unforgettable conclusion.

Discover Bloody Ocotillo and follow Jorah into his final battle.

Excerpt from the book

No more can I recognize this evolved form of mine—the holed hands pass in the flying lights, and spindly digits curl and string for some latent material, for there is a world between the air and gold in ways which I can never observe. Offloaded here in Drayton, the few cut-frame structures hover about dead wells and sluggard provisioners, and the vultures from Cherun no longer circle my trail, and I now rest after anguished years. Clamber from the roof deck and pass the inlaid tiling and coal-fired boiler and back to the porch so I may find a semblance of Cain in the townsfolk, which number in the handfuls; Wheatie be the only mother to overlook a settlement of bastards and runaways. Adoptive guardian am I to fasten into telescoping eyes and fanned ears with the skittering of coyotes and the howls of lobos long lost to their natural land. Few traders come through, and the few that do are often peaceful and offer whatever war refuse or secondhand throwaways.

Dunbar manages the passersby with the eldest of the lanky children, and the wiry fellow speaks as the remaining youth linger and cower along building posts or fence openings, where the only stock left is a single sheep they seem to keep only for mats and coats; often there is lulling at night, and melodies catch my breath, and in the pen I gaze on one of those girls singing to that sheep, and the beast leans into the fence so that it may focus no more on standing and only on the voice before him. Damn mystical, the starlight shines across all that is brown and red, and those small ones rest as this virtuoso makes with her voice what some can only do in their fumbling creativities, and Wheatie comes to the front of the barracks to gauge what the disturbance is, and still that girl harmonizes with the bleats and bellows of that sheep and her own deep hums. A crick catches in my throat, and this is to know that the visage before me is the most beautiful thing I will ever find, and tears give way with the plicking of my throbbing eardrums, and rings of tinnitus come through; the pinnae of my ears funnel in the wondrous honey-music, and no more do I recognize the jilting of my liver from its stem or the shriveling of my kidneys, but the joy and power of purity singing in the dirt for everyone to hear. Black night and sun-baked wood flow fresh with cool wind. Back to my reality of lousy furniture and irregular furnishings, I toss bottles that refuse to stay a dead habit, and strums of fiery whiskey nick and cut the insides with hellish burns.