"Let's kill that bastard!"

Ronnie Raymond looked over at his partner, Big Bill Jenkins. His face was screwed up into a mask of pure anger. And he had his finger on the trigger of his Winchester rifle.

"Do you know who that is?" asked Raymond. "That's Jonah Hex!"

"Damn straight," said Big Bill. "And I'm going to take him down. We don't need any other bounty hunters cashing their chips in on our stake."

Jonah Hex, having rode his mount down through the snowy hills, pulled up on his reins. He studied the forestry lined up on the nearby cliff.

Overhead, vultures circled.

That's when Hex pulled his .44 Colt revolver. He could see Big Bill poking out from behind the snow drift. And he could see that Winchester rifle aimed his way.

The bullet tore off the top of Big Bill's head. Brains, bone, and blood flew off into the cold weather. They stained the pure white snow as his corpse fell over.

Ronnie quickly came out from hiding. He dropped his rife and put his hands in the air. He wasn't ashamed to be surrendering to a mean son of a bitch like Jonah Hex.

"Don't shoot me," said Ronnie. "I'm giving up. No more bounty hunting for me. Please, don't shoot me, Jonah Hex!"

Jonah stared at Ronnie. Then he blared out two more blazing bullets. Each one of them blew off Ronnie's thumbs.

"You bastard!" screamed Ronnie. "You've crippled my hands!"

Hex just stared at him. He didn't have much to say, allowing his six-guns to do the talking for him.

Ronnie tried to pick up his pistol. But without his thumbs, he couldn't shoot the damned thing, anyway.

Suddenly, another shot rang out. It blew a hole through Ronnie's chest. Gore splattered out his back as the bullet tore open his chest cavity. Ronnie, dead, fell over in the snow.

"You just wasted a good shot," said Artimus Jones. "The man couldn't shoot without his thumbs."

Brian Tag looked at him. He holstered his pistol and followed Artimus down the snowy hill until they came to face Jonah Hex.

"Thanks for helping out with those bounty hunters," said Artimus. "They've kept us prisoners in this damned snow for too long."

Hex pulled out a cigar from his breast pocket. He stared at Artimus with his disfigured eye. Then he struck a match on his saddle and lit up.

"What makes you think I won't kill you for the bounty?" asked Hex.

"We're not worth anything," said Artimus. "That's why."

"Then why are you holed up in these hills?" asked Jonah. "Why aren't you living in town?"

"There's a bounty hunter there by the name of El Loco," said Artimus. "He's too fast for either one of us."

"Yeah," agreed Brian. He feigned a smile. "But I bet you could take care of him."

"I've heard of El Loco," said Hex. "They say he's a mean bastard." He blew out a smoke ring. "But I'm meaner."

"There's no doubt about that," said Artimus. "You think you could help us out? We're too blamed scared to go back into town."

"And it is Christmas," said Brian. "I want to see my family."

"You'd be gunned down in a heartbeat," said Artimus. "Don't be a fool."

Brian looked down at the snowy ground. He let his gaze follow over to the two dead bounty hunters. Their blood was staining the ground.

"I just can't take it anymore," said Brian. He handed his rifle over to Artimus. "I'm going home."

"You're a walking dead man," Jonah Hex told him. "But I admire your bravery."

Brian simply looked at Jonah Hex. The sun was melting into the snowy landscape. And Hex looked like the Devil himself sitting there aboard his horse.

He didn't say anything as he began to make his way back to the small town of Snow Hill.

Artimus turned back to Hex. "Can you help me? Even if you don't gun down El Loco, I'd sure appreciate some good food."

"I'll see what I can do," said Hex. And he kicked his spurs into his mount. He looked back at Artimus and puffed out an icy breath of cigar smoke. "But there's no promise."

The front door exploded inward as Brian arrived home. He saw his wife and children huddled back around the kitchen table. His wife, Maria, immediately jumped up and ran to him. She embraced him in her arms.

"It's so good to see you," she said as she nestled her face into Brian's scraggly beard. "I love you."

"I love you, too," said Brian, holding her.

"All of this is nice and Jim Dandy," said El Loco. "But I have to admit it's making me kind of sick to my stomach."

Brian pushed away from his wife. And he stared across the kitchen. El Loco was standing there with his .44 Colt aimed at him.

"I'm not worth anything," said Brian. "Please, leave my family alone."

"You're worth $200 to me," El Loco told him. "And that's more than I have now."

Brian was about to make a move for his pistol when El Loco shot him dead. The bullet tore off the top of Brian's skull. Grey brain matter splattered the kitchen wall. And blood pumped furiously from the wound as Brian tore into the Christmas tree, taking it down with his corpse as he slumped to the floor.

As El Loco holstered his pistol and started towards Brian's corpse, Maria burst into fitful tears.

"You bastard," she said. "Couldn't you have left him alone? It's Christmas!"

El Loco ignored her as he dragged Brian's dead body out to his waiting horse. He tied Brian to his saddle horn as he mounted his horse. Slowly, he began to drag the corpse behind him.

"Damn you," said Maria. She was standing outside, freezing, as she watched El Loco ride away. "I hope you rot in Hell!"

El Loco shook his head. "I'm just doing my job," he said to himself. And then he looked backwards at Brian's corpse. "What's this world coming to?" he said, "when a black man is as worth as a white man?"

Jonah Hex saw the bloody trail in the snow.

He reined up his horse at Brian's house and dismounted. He went to the front door, knocking on it. Slowly, it opened and revealed Maria standing behind it, crying.

"I take it your husband is dead?" asked Jonah.

"Yes," said Maria. "El Loco killed him."

Maria stepped away from the door. She allowed Jonah Hex to come inside her house.

"Can I offer you coffee?" she asked.

"That'd be mighty fine, ma'am," said Jonah. He walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. Behind the far wall, he saw two kids peeking out at him. He stared back at them with his disfigured eye and quickly they disappeared.

Maria brought him the coffee. Jonah took a sip and shook his head. Snow melted away from his hat and shoulders.

"That's mighty fine coffee," he said, "just what I needed after being out in the cold for so long."

Maria sat down beside Hex. She put her arms on the table and positioned herself closer to him. She thought about his awful scars, and what he must have been through, but it didn't matter to her. She forgot about his disfigurement. This was a man she wanted & in more ways than one.

"I want you to kill El Loco," she whispered.

Jonah took another drink of coffee. Then he said: "That's the second time I've heard that today."

"Will you do it?"

"What do you have to pay me with?" said Jonah. He looked around the sparse farmhouse. "It doesn't look like you have much money."

"I don't," she said. Then Maria looked at her children peeking out from the shadows. "You two get to bed. I have business to discuss with this gentleman."

The little boy and girl shrugged their shoulders. And then they disappeared into their bedroom. It wasn't long before you could hear both of them cutely snoring.

Maria turned back to Hex. She did her best to avoid his burning glare. His lips were pulled back, and yellow teeth were exposed through the jagged flaps of his jaw. And his eye- oh Lord his eye- ran viscous fluid.

Still, Maria knew what she had to do.

She shrugged out of her shirt. Large breasts pushed themselves free of their bondage. Nipples the size of quarters immediately hardened in the cold air.

Hex leaned forward, taking one of the nipples in his mouth. And then he let his hand run up beneath Maria's skirt. He found her honey pot, glistening wet, and shoved fingers inside her. Maria moaned.

Then she slumped down onto her knees. She undid the buttons of Hex's denims and sprang him free. Quickly, she took him into her mouth.

"Looks like I have two guns to shoot," breathed Hex, putting his hand on Maria's head and pushing her further down on his knob. He grinned as she gagged. "There'll be one for El Loco"- he gasped as Maria took him completely into her mouth- "and one for you."

"You're a bounty hunter, aren't you?"

Jonah Hex looked at Snow Hill's sheriff. He shrugged. "I've been known to in the past," he replied.

Sheriff Wolf nodded. He took out his knife and pared away at an apple. He stuck one of the bits into his mouth. His cheeks billowed out as he ate.

"You're here for El Loco, aren't you?"

"I've been paid to do a job, sheriff," said Hex. "And I plan on seeing it through."

Wolf shrugged. "I don't have any plans to stand in your way. Somebody needs to put that bastard six feet down, and it might as well be you." Wolf scrutinized Hex's disfigured features. "Looks like you've been to hell and back, son."

"I ain't your son," spat Hex.

"Yeah," said Wolf. He put another apple bit into his mouth. "You just do what you've got to do."

"I'll be by the jail, later, for the bounty money."

"Blood money," replied Wolf. "That's all it is."

Hex hitched his horse towards the saloon. A smile cracked open his ugly face. "It all spends the same way."

As Jonah Hex walked up the wooden plank steps towards the saloon, he stopped outside the blood red batwing doors.

Horror reeled through his tortured mind &

He saw himself gunned down in the street by El Loco. He knew the hombre was going to be a tough son-of-a-bitch to kill, but he hadn't expected this.

The two of them were squared off in the snowy street. And El Loc was faster. Hex imagined the first bullet that would tear through his body. The slug was hot as it drilled into his gut. He slumped down onto the street, doing his best to keep his innards from falling out. That's when the second shot rang out, busting open his skull. Brains, bones, and blood splattered out of his head.

And Jonah Hex was dead.

But he promised himself that that wouldn't happen.

Instead, he put a cigar into his mouth. He struck a Lucifer against the guard railing and lit the smoke. Then he strode inside.

El Loco was seated along with four other men at a poker table. Hex quickly recognized the quartet. They were the Boone Brothers. And yes, they had a bounty on their head, too.

Hex walked up to the table. He looked down at El Loco. And then he put his spent match into El Loco's bourbon. The match sizzled as it hit the liquor.

"What do you think you're doing, friend?"

Hex stared down at El Loco. The man sported a blonde bowl haircut, and had eyes the color of melted Scandinavian ice. His lips twitched, and Hex saw his right hand drip down to the ivory butt of his pistol.

"I ain't your friend."

Quickly, before the Boone Brothers could react, Hex pulled down on them. His four bullets blasted in the silence of the saloon. The first slug tore through Jesse Boone's neck. Blood shot out in a geyser onto the sawdust floor. The second bullet hit straight between Custis Boone's eyes, knocking him over in his chair. The third and fourth bullets killed James and Dick Boone where they were sitting.

El Loco threw back his head and laughed. He glanced at Hex. "If you wanted to get acquainted, there was far better ways to do it."

And El Loco threw himself from his seat. He leveled a shoulder into Hex's gut, knocking him to the floor. Quickly, El Loco was atop him. He smashed fists into Hex's face, opening up fresh wounds to mingle with the old ones.

Hex brought his knee up and into El Loco's crotch. The blow stymied the bandit. He crawled off Hex and began to crawl away on the sawdust floor.

Jonah stumbled back onto his feet. He grabbed El Loco by the hair and pulled him up. Then he landed a right fist on the El Loco's chin that sent the outlaw crashing through the batwings and out into the snow.

He walked across the bloody saloon floor. Outside, El Loco was regaining his feet. Hex had his .44 Colt drawn and ready.

"Draw," he said.

El Loco laughed. Then he pulled his pistol.

But Jonah was faster. His bullet smashed through El Loco's mouth, busting teeth and scorching tongue, before crashing out the back of his head.

There was still an insane look on El Loco's face as he fell over, dead.

Sheriff Wolf, leaning against the hitching post, shook his head. And then he plopped another slice of apple into his mouth.

"That was easier than I thought," said Wolf.

"It's never easy," said Jonah. He motioned with his pistol for a bite of the apple. He took it from the sheriff and put it into his mouth.

"Tastes sweet, don't it?" asked Wolf.

Hex nodded.

But he was thinking of something sweeter. He knew he still had another encounter with Maria's honey pot coming up. He felt a stirring in his groin as he holstered his pistol. He pulled himself back aboard his horse.

"I'll be back to collect the bounty," said Hex.

Wolf nodded his head. "Lots of work for the undertaker," he said. "But they'll keep in the snow." He took another bit of his apple. "Going back to see Maria, are you?"

Hex didn't ask how he knew about the girl. He simply nodded his head.

"Fine woman," said Wolf.

Hex grinned. "Well, you know what they say," he told the sheriff. "Once you go black you always go back."