The Debt: Part 1 - Damn Horse

The DEBT is a 4 part novella series based on Cowboy, ex-soldier Matt Stone.
This part includes part 1, with the complete set in volume 2.

Matt Stone rode into Markleeville one hot dusk, with a wind at his back that promised summer thunder. He was tall and lean, with a narrow, clean-shaven face above the collar of his oilskin duster. His eyes were a hard pale blue, like chips of ice, and his black hair was long like an Apache's and held back with a strip of leather. The coat was open, revealing a buckskin vest and the pair of silver Colts at his hips.
He rode a huge, sleek black horse with a bullet scar showing in white hairs across one flank. Its name was Lucky. That horse had carried him through Gettysburg alive, and then taken him west, where he'd spent three years wandering, trying to get the echoes of battle out of his head.
Lucky had a mind of his own, which could be good or bad. Good when Matt needed help getting his drunk-self back to camp. Bad when the damn horse figured out how to untie his lead and took off wandering somewhere.

* Mature audience *