Lanternlight Bleeds at Dawn · Part 1: The Man in the Dust

Dawn came in crooked over Brimstone Edge, thin and mean through a sky the color of bruised tin. The town woke slow. A door thumped, a horse snorted, somebody coughed hard enough to shake their lungs loose.

Out past the last sagging fencepost, the storm walked in.

It was not a big storm. Not the kind that eats whole herds and re-writes fences. This one was narrow. Intent. A column of dust rolling straight up the road like it had somewhere to be. Folks who saw it from their windows stepped back and watched from behind thin curtains.

The dust leaned inward, folded on itself, and a shape stepped out of it.

The man wore a long coat the color of road grime and bad memory. His hat drooped under the grit. At his side, in a scarred hand, he held a lantern that should not have been burning in daylight.

The flame inside had no business being that bright.

The stranger walked like his boots already knew this street. The lantern swung at his side with each step, throwing a gold smear across the packed earth, across the hooves at the hitching rail, across the boots of the first man dumb enough to stand in his way.

Old Hank, who ran the livery, squinted at the lantern. His eyes were red from whisky and poor sleep.

“You know sun’s already up, stranger,” Hank rasped. “Lantern’s wasted.”

The lantern’s light slid over Hank’s face and flared. Just once. Sharp and quick, like a single breath drawn in surprise.

The stranger’s gaze tracked that flare. His jaw tightened.

“Not wasted,” he said. Voice low, gravel-soft. “Just doing its job.”

Hank did not ask what job that was.

The lantern’s flame bled brighter for a heartbeat, then settled back to its steady, watching glow. Across the street, a widow in a gray shawl closed her curtain carefully, like she was afraid the light might look at her next.

The stranger stepped past Hank and kept walking, deeper into Brimstone Edge, carrying the kind of trouble that made dogs whine and church bells stay quiet.

The lantern swung once, slow and deliberate, as if it were sniffing the town.