Around the time I was starting to loosely draft the Western I had been brainstorming, I had an idea for a new story. This wasn’t uncommon — a lot of times ideas are coming to me most frequently while I’m already working on one.
The idea was also for a Western, and it hit me when I woke up in the middle of the night. I don’t think I had a dream per se that carried over once I woke up. But there it was, waiting for me all the same.
The concept was just so vivid to me, even though the idea itself was just a couple of sentences — it definitely wasn’t a story at that point, but held the promise of one.
The idea was this — there’s an outlaw that’s known throughout the frontier territories by name alone because of the terror he’s wreaked, the heists he’s pulled off, and the bodies he’s left behind. The price on his head is constantly being raised.
One day, a corpse is brought in, and a bounty hunter collects the small fortune for bringing down the most wanted outlaw. The news spreads, until its well known that the rogue is dead in every corner of the country, that its safe to venture out West again.
But long after his reported death, more than enough time for the word to get out, stories emerge, from multiple frontier towns, of their run in with a man claiming to be the slain outlaw, and the heinous acts that followed.
And the idea ended by posing a question: Who’s lying?
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