Open Stories — Short Fiction by Hank Redding

In 1871, a small western town is destroyed in a sudden act of violence. What follows is not justice or revenge, but the slow work of survival—burying the dead, choosing whether to stay, and learning what it means to live inside a place that remembers. The Day the Cottonwoods Bled is a five-part Western about loss, endurance, and what remains after the noise.

In Montana Territory, 1889, a rail worker remains on a winter contract while letters arrive from home. By the time he rides down-valley, the future he imagined has already passed. Down in Smoke is a restrained Western novella about delay, self-justification, and the cost of finishing what should have been left unfinished.

In the quiet town of Dry Haven, a newly arrived sheriff investigates the disappearance of a man who was expected to leave. As he encounters careful corrections rather than answers, the mystery deepens without resolving. Dry Haven is a restrained Western mystery about order, silence, and what a town agrees not to say.

In 1888, the Western town of Breachwater restores order through absolute clarity. Records are kept. Deadlines enforced. The town stabilizes—and thrives. Held to Account is a novel-length Western about responsibility without mercy, the cost of precision, and what survives when a system works too well.