The itinerant gun show draws together many subcultures from the margins of society: survivalists, Aryan brotherhoods, and the team of Rita Whitelaw and Jimmy Roy Guy, dealers in collectible arms. Rita has made Jimmy an exception to her general disdain for whites, for Jimmy’s got a storytelling ability that borders on mystic vision, which he delights in applying to the weapons he acquires. When Jimmy makes an agreement with the widow of white supremacist martyr Bob Champion to broker her husband’s infamous Colt .45, the widow stipulates that he keep it out of the hands of Champion’s disciple, who considers it a powerful talisman for his racist agenda. Jimmy and Rita run afoul of “the Major,” but aren’t intimidated by his veiled threats. The gun has launched a story, and when Jimmy begins a story, one way or another, he’s bound to see it through.

Lucius Shepard explores the after-effects of trauma in this haunting story.

Bobby is a Columbia grad student studying philosophy who has taken a year off from school to help with the meticulous clean-up at ground zero after 9/11. Each day, he enters a nightmarish otherworld of smoke and ash, where pieces of broken lives emerge from the rubble like lost soul fragments. Haunted by what he has seen, he finds himself collecting pieces from the wreckage. Yet he is unable to talk about his experience—until he finds himself drawn to an enigmatic older woman at the bar he frequents after work. Every evening she sits there alone, fending off men who approach, seeking some kind of solace or resolution. Inexplicably, Bobby feels compelled to share stories with her. In a changed world where no one is quite whole, they may offer each other a missing piece.