Bloody Chester (review)

Chester Kates is not any kind of name to have if you want to keep a low profile in a Western frontier town. Young "Lady Kate" gets regularly knocked around by the local toughs, but his luck may change when Mr. Croghan plucks him out of jail, cleans him up, and offers him a well-paid mission—to burn down a nearby town that needs to be cleared out for the railroad to come through. Chester saddles right up, but when he reaches Whale, there are only three residents and one outlier: a drunken boy; his secluded father; a young woman, Caroline, who keeps to her cabin; and her father, who lives in a mine on the outskirts of the town. One man claims to be dying of a plague known as Coyote Waiting, an illness that eats its victims from inside out and that has killed off the rest of the town residents. The miner claims to have caused the plague—maybe—but then again, he also claims to have a treasure—maybe. By the time Chester untangles the conflicting stories, he's only certain of two things: he loves Caroline, and Caroline's father is a raging bigot who has preyed on Indians in the region. This has the enjoyably twisty weirdness and compact punch of a Twilight Zone episode or an Ambrose Bierce short story, and the savagely dramatic climax is a compelling moment indeed. The prosaic visuals of this graphic novel don't make the most of the eerie, atmospheric ghost-town setting, though, and the book starts slowly, with characters largely undifferentiated until Chester gets to Whale. Nonetheless, Chester does his anti-hero thing to perfection, doling out grim justice and breaking Caroline's heart, and patient readers may find the saga's eventual blossoming worth the wait.