Story: "A Tale of Times Past, 1899. The Scalphunter Years: His Death and the Dying of It" (22 Pages)

Credits:

James Robinson (plot, script)
Russ Heath (pencils, inks)
Bill Oakley (letters)
Jason Wright (colors)
Jamison (color seperations)
Peter Tomasi (edits)

Guest Stars:

Scalphunter (dies; next as a spirit in issue #14)
Shade (in flashback to 1899)

Villains:

John Melville
Mr Arbuthnot
The Tuesday Club (first appearance of all; all die)

Other Characters:

Carny O'Dare
Smitty Joe
Lark
Tunny
Mordecai (members of the Opal City police force)

Synopsis:

The Shade remembers the first time that his friend Matt O'Dare died, back when he was the Scalphunter:

1899, and Opal was still relatively young. Brian Savage, the sheriff, also known as Scalphunter, was preparing to retire, hand the job on to one of his men. At the same time, John Melville, a vain and wealthy man, joined the Tuesday Club, an Opal secret society. A society which Savage is soon investigating due to three shop owners who are threatened by the Club to try and force them out of their stores. When the Tuesday Club ascertains, through Mr Arbuthnot, one of their number, that Savage cannot be bribed, the three store owners are soon found dead.

Savage wants to mobilise the entire Opal police, but on his way to the jail with Carny O'Dare, he is set upon and attacked. The two of them are able to avoid being killed, and arrive in the vicinity of the jail just in time to see it blown up, with all of their colleagues on the site. Knowing this is bound to be the work of the Tuesday club, trying to get him killed, Savage swears vengeance on them all; he and O'Dare spend a terrible night which ends in 57 deaths including several thought-to-be upstanding citizens who were a part of the Tuesday club.

Waiting in a saloon to hear what his superiors might say to his actions, Savage is in the process of handing over his badge to O'Dare when he is shot from behind by Melville and promptly avenged by O'Dare. The Shade wishes it was he who had revenged Savage, and remembers how he arrived just as his friend was dying, to hear him say that he would be coming back, to once more be a hero of Opal.