Low, In The Valley

A dark fantasy western of one woman's journey across a haunted American landscape in her search for a man she knew for only one night and Hell is always right behind her.

In the old name of Low The Kind, she will obey.

Conley Mahren did something she knew damned well not to do. She spoke with a fiddler of songs. A teller-of-tales. A good, goddamned liar. It was a single night that changed Conley's life forever. Hardly for the better.

But, that was seventeen years ago.

The year is 1887.

In Charleston, West Virginia there's a dark and hollowed out place known to locals as the Cairns. Venturing inside that place means you're either foolish or looking to die. Some would call Conley a fool, a devil even, but not one for easy dying. It's never that easy. Nonetheless, Conley had been inside the Cairns, several times, in search of the fiddler she can't seem to forget. Because for her, the Cairns were the very thing that took Pynes Oak from her arms seventeen years ago. Then his name is whispered in her ear that he's still alive. Haunted by the memories of that one night with Pynes, Conley begins her waggish journey across a tormented American landscape to find him. Pynes may be the only one that knows the truth to what terrible thing lies sealed in the center of the Cairns, but more importantly, she just wants him to answer for leaving her behind.

Everything goes to hell when a murder is committed by a figure wearing a mask she knows all too well. A mask Conley once wore.

From West Virginia through the bygone lands of Vermont and beyond, Conley is joined by a reluctant troupe of companions. A retired bareknuckle pugilist with fists that once broke chains, a Bearmaiden du jour of the South, a sullied savior of the Holy Light, and a handful of former drovers with no cattle and nothing better to do wander over hills and woods as they search for the man Pynes Oak.

Forces shrouded in secret are set in motion that also want Pynes to answer for venturing deep inside the Cairns and they'll do what is necessary to stop Conley from finding him first.

"Behold a white horse, and he who sat on it was given a crown."