PAGE Award winner for Action/Adventure -- 

A Confederate Officer rides a hard trail alone when the shocking brutality of a black family found slaughtered forces him to confront an unimaginable future and unspeakable evil.

A mystery with deadly consequences and a very modern horror will transform frontier justice into a maelstrom of violence and blood-soaked retribution.

http://shadowlandonline.net/Forsaken.htm

SYNOPSIS:

In an open and rough landscape without visible human impact, the sun glares, picking out colors and textures in sharp and vivid detail. It could be California or New Mexico or Morocco. It is the American West of myth. A Rider lopes along on a horse, with long empty miles behind and before him. He wears a Confederate officer’s coat with the braid removed beneath his long duster, an officer’s broad-brimmed hat with the insignia torn off. His dark eyes hint that he has seen his share of terrible things. He is riding the trail hard, not as if being pursued, but as though he has somewhere to be and a long distance to cover. He pushes his horse during the day, and sits secluded by a lonely campfire at night. One evening he glimpses something off the trail and finds a black family slaughtered around their buckboard. The children have been tortured and arranged in disturbing ways, the father tied to watch and scalped. The Rider hears a noise further off and finds the mother still alive, her features slashed and her clothes in disarray. He sits with her through the night, and when she becomes semi-conscious and begins whimpering, he comforts her softly as he would a hurt child. These are the first words we hear in the course of the film. She dies in the dawning light. He scouts the area and sees prints leaving the site, obviously not taking the little bit of trail he’d been following before. He takes a shovel out of the wagon and digs graves. As he finishes the last, he is plainly torn by the decision he will have to make. He looks down the trail he has been following for days, and then off in the direction of the tracks. Finally, he almost disgustedly throws the shovel back into the wagon, mounts his horse, and wheels out of the clearing towards his new goal. Early the second night he crests a low rise and looks down into a small settlement. It lies in spotty patches across the basin and clings unevenly to its edges, waiting to thrive or fail. The Rider descends into town and stops at the small jail, where he informs the Sheriff and Deputy about the slaughter. He will soon realize that they and the others he meets here are involved in an elaborate and ugly conspiracy blurring the line between man and monster. The settlement comes in force to watch as the beaten and bloodied Rider is marched out into the desert just after dawn. His captors tie him to a wagon wheel and leave him spread-eagled and straining, as a message to anyone else who might think of disturbing the status quo. The day drags on interminably and the vultures circle, but even they will play their part in his new plans. -- He tried the law, but now will finish this himself. There are affairs to settle with the Deputy and the Sheriff, and something especially awful for one Other, and they all involve blood. And then there’s the dynamite from that mine. He will earn his longed-for destination, but the mystery will be only partially revealed. We are creating an Icon as much as a man, a character potent and mysterious and honorable enough that he can drive sequels in a beautiful and ferocious reimagining of the Spaghetti Western for the 21st Century.