Along Come Evening — Steven L. Shrewsbury

In 1933, a survivor of the massacre at Lawrence, Kansas in the Civil War seeks revenge on the last member of the Missouri Raiders. Matthew Bishop, 72, gathers a motley crew of killers to aide him in destroying Joel Stuart, 93, outside Joplin, Missouri. When the one armed Stuart is acknowledged as the oldest living Confederate in the Midwest, Bishop learns the whereabouts of his nemesis. Dying and maddened the advancement of leprosy, Bishop will stop at nothing to taste revenge before he breathes his last.Bishop drafts an eccentric WW1 killer; a bootlegger/qualified man for the Chicago outfit; a Voodoo priestess; a dim muscle bound pugilist; and his own granddaughter among others.As Bishop & his crew get closer to Stuart, a tavern owner warns them away from the aging Rebel, that he isn’t the octogenarian sweetheart he pretends to be in the press or the dime novels.Unafraid, the group oozes confidence as they approach the home of Stuart’s grandchildren, situated on the edge of a great wilderness. When they stage their attack, they find the family gone, but Joel Stuart alone with his twelve-year-old great grandson Jack, visiting from Illinois, slip in to the wilds, and the hunt is on. As Joel and his grandson use the land and various tricks of rural folk to survive, Bishop starts to wonder if the earth itself hasn’t rose up to aid the old killer.Ultimately, Jack examines the nature of revenge, sees what it takes to be a killer, and that he cannot escape his own destiny.Along Come Evening…an action packed tale rife with horror, twisted villains, dark heroes and uncomfortable realities about the human condition.