Chris Bunton is a writer, poet and blogger from Southern Illinois. He is the publishing editor, true crime writer and art creator for The Yard: Crime Blog. He also creates art for Yellow Mama and Black Petals.
Chris has been published in White Cat Publications, The Roanoke Review, Stygian Lepus, Yellow Mama, and several up coming locations.
He is the author of 5 self-published books, available everywhere except Amazon.
Thank you White Cat Publishing for publishing my Flash Fiction western story "Stranger In The Camp"
After the Civil War, Jesse James and others turned to crime. The Pinkerton Detective Agency were often hired to hunt them down, and behaved as badly as the criminals they hunted. That is the setting for Stranger in the Camp.
Those mines ruled my world— the coal mines of Southern Illinois. My family came from the Tennessee mountains to dig in those mines. They fought the Civil war and died. They farmed and mined. They sang, fought and prayed. Working men breathing that dust, killing themselves every day, and drinking it away at night. Union men from Lewis day, beating scabs to death. Living in coal mine camps, those little towns today. Every morning, down the hole, every evening drink some more. The barbecues and parades, the strikes and bar fights. Threats on the phone, “We’ll kill your wife,” Now, there’s a gun by the bed. Every business bowed to coal, every man worked it somehow ‘til the day coal died, and those mines closed down— Spelling the death of the little town, and the life they knew.