All-Star Western Vol 3 #9 - Night of the Owls: Vengeance in the Big Easy

Still tied up in a boat full of explosives, Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham are rowed toward the ship the Sea Queen. It is intended that they will blow up along with the ship and its hundreds of inhabitants. However, Hex had prepared for this, having taken Nighthawk's amulet. He breaks through his ropes with enhanced strength, and then skewers their captor with a harpoon. Hex had planned all of this. He had planted Arkham in order to bring the August 7 out of hiding, and once they had captured he and Hex, the bounty hunter would be in a position to stop the sinking of the immigrant ship while Nighthawk and Cinnamon took the terrorists head-on. Nighthawk and Cinnamon's efforts prove successful, and Hex and Arkham arrive in time to see the whole gang tied up for the police to collect. Hex returns the amulet to Nighthawk, and asks for information on the whereabouts of Thurston Moody - the man he came to New Orleans to collect. Hours later, Thurston Moody finds himself hunted by a Talon of the Court of Owls. As the assassin bears down on him, he pleads for his life, explaining that he had kept silent and left Gotham City in order to protect the Court's interests. The Talon responds that Moody poses a risk. His decisions have led to Amadeus Arkham and Jonah Hex getting involved, and they are getting ever closer to uncovering the Court. The Talon is suddenly distracted by a shot from Hex's pistol. Hex commands the Talon to let Moody go, but instead, the assassin slits Moody's throat. Acrobatically, she dodges his bullets and escapes. Hex comments that he has seen people move like that at the circus, and likewise, he once had a Chinese wife who could perform an acrobatic form of martial arts called Shaolin Kung-Fu. Arkham is taken aback by the idea that Hex apparently had a wife, but he is diverted by by the ornate knives the Talon had used. They bear the mark of an owl on the hilt. Arkham wonders what an acrobat of potentially chinese descent and dressed as an owl would want with the former head of Gotham Sanitation. He recalls that there were, in fact, a number of owl-themed decorations in the Moody household. Hex begs some respite from Arkham's theories, but the doctor can't resist another question about the elusive wife Hex mentioned. Hex's response is to break Arkham's nose. Three weeks later in Gotham, Alan Wayne attends a poker game at his casino with a Mr. Martin and a Mr. Bennett in attendance. Bennett considers land the most important commodity, and as such, he believes that the area north of the reservoir would be better repurposed as housing for immigrants than as the botanical gardens that Wayne plans. Mr. Martin favours Wayne's plan, not wanting to fill Gotham with "old world congestion." Bennett suggests that it would be best to purchase the land, so that by owning the land, one can own the people who live on it. Alan Wayne comments that he has no desire to own people, as he shows his pair of aces, and wins the hand. The gentlemen are interrupted by the appearance of a haggard young woman in the garb of a frontiersman. She accuses Bennett of having killed those who lived on land he wanted, and then claiming that land as his own. She introduces herself as Tallulah Black, whose family was murdered by men hired by Bennett. She prepares to shoot him dead, but suddenly a masked man, whom Bennett has hired as personal security, crashes through the skylight and throws her from a second story window to the street below. Outside, Jonah Hex recognizes Tallulah, and wonders what she's got herself into now.