The Twilight Order had Crusaders, Templars and men capable of calling upon powers that most people would prefer not to know existed, but Matthias Kane quickly learned that America also required a more familiar sort of specialist. The three gunfighters travelling with his posse have taken no vows and claim no place among the Order’s ancient brotherhood. They have nevertheless encountered the darkness for themselves and chosen to fight it. Kane values them because they understand the frontier, its people and its violence in ways that even the most experienced European Crusader cannot easily learn.

Johnny Mozingo

Johnny Mozingo was born into a Southern family that moved west while he was still young, carrying with them the pride, resentments and fierce attachment to family that had survived the war. Johnny grew up in a world where disputes between families could last for generations and where a man’s choice of friends might prove every bit as dangerous as his choice of enemies. Intelligent and surprisingly well read, he might have made something quite different of himself had he not possessed a dark temperament and an almost self destructive determination never to retreat from an insult.

As a young man he became involved with cattlemen, gamblers and gunfighters during a bitter range dispute. What began as loyalty to friends gradually became a feud in which Johnny found himself opposed by lawmen, rival cattle interests and men every bit as willing to settle disagreements with a pistol as he was. His reputation soon travelled considerably faster than he did, with every confrontation adding another story and every story adding another victim. Johnny rarely bothered correcting the exaggerations. A dangerous reputation could sometimes prevent a gunfight, although his temperament ensured that it caused almost as many.

Beneath the reputation was a complicated man who preferred books, cards and good whiskey to killing. He could disappear into himself for days at a time, emerging only when somebody disturbed him or a friend required assistance. His loyalty was absolute once earned, but betrayal was something he neither understood nor forgave. Those characteristics eventually led him towards the Twilight Order when several former companions were murdered and Johnny decided that somebody was settling accounts from the old feud.

What he found was something considerably worse. The killer was not human, and Johnny discovered that ordinary bullets did little more than make it angry. Matthias Kane’s posse was pursuing the same creature and encountered Mozingo after he had already survived two confrontations with it. Kane recognised courage, stubbornness and considerable ability with a pistol and offered him a place among his gunfighters. Father Alasdair MacLeod remains uncertain whether Johnny has joined a righteous crusade or merely discovered enemies sufficiently unpleasant to justify his particular talents.

Kane has never attempted to reform him. He simply gives Johnny Mozingo better enemies.

Doc Harriday

Doc Harriday came from a respectable Southern family and received the sort of education intended to produce a professional gentleman. Intelligent, articulate and possessed of exceptionally steady hands, he studied dentistry and enough medicine to make himself useful when a qualified doctor was unavailable. For a time he appeared destined for a conventional career until persistent coughing developed into an illness that threatened to make that career remarkably short. Advised that a warmer and drier climate might prolong his life, Harriday abandoned his practice and travelled west.

The West did nothing for his respectability. Dentistry provided occasional money, but gambling provided considerably more excitement, and Doc discovered that he possessed both the mathematical mind and cold temperament required to make a living from cards. His education and careful speech made him an unusual figure among frontier gamblers, while his sharp tongue ensured that disagreements were frequent. Harriday therefore became almost as accomplished with a pistol as he was with a deck of cards.

His illness shaped his attitude towards danger. Doc was not fearless, but death held less terror for a man who already woke each morning wondering how much time remained. The result was an unnerving calm whenever weapons appeared. He might cough violently while sitting at a card table and struggle for breath after climbing a flight of stairs, yet when another man reached for a pistol his hands became steady and his manner almost relaxed. Behind the cynicism was an equally fierce loyalty to the small number of people whom Doc regarded as friends.

One of those friendships eventually introduced him to the supernatural. A fellow gambler was discovered dead with injuries Harriday could not reconcile with any weapon or disease he understood. The body had lost an extraordinary quantity of blood, although almost none could be found at the scene. Doc’s investigation brought him into contact with Father Alasdair MacLeod and ultimately with the creature responsible. Seeing a supposedly dead man rise again ended Harriday’s scepticism rather efficiently.

Doc now accompanies Kane’s posse as both gunfighter and unofficial medical man. His friendship with Alasdair consists largely of disagreements about whiskey, gambling, religion and Doc’s insistence that a medicinal drink before surgery is beneficial to everyone involved. Harriday knows that disease may eventually accomplish what bullets and monsters have so far failed to do. Until then there are cards to play, friends worth protecting and supernatural creatures requiring attention.

Bat Maddison

Bat Maddison began his frontier life as a buffalo hunter, spending long periods on the plains where patience, observation and accurate shooting mattered considerably more than bravado. He subsequently worked as a scout and occasional guide before drifting towards settlements where his ability to remain calm during trouble attracted the attention of local authorities. Maddison eventually accepted a badge, first as a deputy and later as a town lawman, discovering that maintaining order suited him rather better than he had expected.

Bat developed a reputation quite different from Johnny Mozingo’s. He dressed carefully whenever circumstances permitted, spoke politely and understood that the reputation of a lawman could sometimes accomplish more than his pistol. Maddison preferred talking an armed drunk into surrendering rather than killing him and learned that remaining quiet while everyone else shouted frequently gave him control of a dangerous situation. None of this represented reluctance to use violence. When conversation failed, Bat was exceptionally capable of ending matters quickly.

Years wearing a badge also made him a careful observer of people. Maddison learned to recognise lies, fear and the subtle change in a man’s posture that indicated he was considering reaching for a weapon. Those instincts eventually told him that some of the crimes occurring in his jurisdiction could not be explained by ordinary human behaviour. Prisoners disappeared from locked cells, corpses vanished from graves and reliable witnesses described attackers capable of things no living man should have survived.

Rather than dismiss these stories, Bat began recording them privately. His notebooks eventually contained accounts of unexplained killings, missing bodies and incidents that his official reports carefully attributed to considerably more conventional causes. Matthias Kane learned of the notebooks and sought him out, expecting to find a useful local contact. Instead he discovered a lawman who had already assembled much of the evidence for a supernatural world without possessing the knowledge necessary to make sense of it.

Kane supplied that missing knowledge. Maddison listened, asked sensible questions and eventually placed his badge in a drawer before joining the Twilight Order’s campaign. Within the posse he remains a lawman at heart and frequently reminds the Crusaders that destroying a monster is only part of their problem when the fight takes place in the middle of a town full of witnesses. Kane has increasingly come to value his judgement as highly as his pistol.

Johnny Mozingo, Doc Harriday and Bat Maddison remain outsiders within an organisation whose traditions stretch back centuries. Johnny brings dangerous loyalty and a willingness to face almost anything once he has chosen his side. Doc brings education, medical knowledge and the fatalistic courage of a man who has already spent years contemplating his own mortality. Bat provides the measured judgement of a frontier lawman who understands that knowing when not to draw a pistol can be just as important as knowing how to use one.

None of them has any ambition to become a Crusader.

Matthias Kane does not need them to be.

They are his gunfighters.