Spoilers
This is, without a doubt, the best single issue released in 2009.
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray are as on-point as ever with the tone and dialogue of the various characters portrayed, and Darwyn Cooke's art is immaculate. It's interesting to note that he used a pen as opposed to a brush to ink this issue, which just adds to the depth and sharpness of the art; the cross-hatching is just gritty enough to suit the darkness of the tale.
All in all, this is a surefire pick up.
***
The book opens with Jonah Hex and Tallulah Black taking out a huge party of runaway crooks, with maximum force and extreme prejudice. Cut to a saloon across the street from a sheriff's office, where a tired-looking undertaker is supplying coffins for Jonah and Tallulah's multiple targets. Jonah and Tallulah enter. Everyone else runs out, terrified. The bartender is bribed by Tallulah to "Come back in the mornin'... Not too early." Jonah and Tallulah proceed to get drunk and have sex. Jonah awakes the next morning to find out that Tallulah "snuck off at dawn" and "rode west." Slightly bitter and on his way out of town, Jonah then encounters a representative of a rich oil baron who wants fifty men, responsible for extortion, property damage, and murder, dead. Jonah is incredulous at the idea of taking on fifty bounties, but he takes the dossier and rides off. We are soon treated to many hilarious scenarios in which Jonah takes down various members of this wanted gang. Meanwhile, Tallulah makes her way to the town of Silver Springs, looking for a dress shop. She makes it clear to the kind and witty sheriff that she is looking to start no trouble, only a new life. The remnants of the large gang that Jonah has been tracking decide to ride into Silver Springs to take the small, new township over and hole up in wait for Hex, on whom they desire a violent revenge. Time has passed and Tallulah is revealed to be QUITE pregnant with Jonah's baby. While chatting with kindly Sheriff Stroman in downtown Silver Springs, a strange, religious zealot named Abigail mumbles something to Tallulah and Stroman about how "the lord told [her] about this child." She soon runs off, leaving us to a nice, four-panel page depicting the year-long project of building a house, taken on by Tallulah and Stroman. More time has passed, and Jonah gets word about the remnants of the gang's plan to take over Silver Springs. Cut to Silver Springs, where Tallulah is in labor with Jonah's child, just as the malevolent gang ride into town and shoot Sheriff Stroman dead. This leaves Tallulah with the utterly insane Abigail, who attacks Tallulah with a hammer and with scissors. She then escapes with Tallulah's baby. Tallulah then-in a golden dreamscape-encounters a young girl, only to awake from her dream when she realizes that Jonah is carrying her to her cabin. Jonah claims to be "soured on" his relationship with Tallulah due to the recent turn of events, but agrees to pursue Abigail and rescue his and Tallulah's child. More time passes, but eventually, Jonah finds Abigail locked up in the jail of a small town. The sheriff there is goodhearted, and notifies Jonah that Abigail is going to be hanged from the neck until dead. Abigail cries out that she knows that both Jonah and Tallulah were in league with the devil, and that their child was destined to be "a horseman of the apocalypse." Jonah pulls out his gun to shoot her, but the sheriff stands in his way, drawing his own gun. Abigail tells the sheriff not to worry, as she is "the lord's flaming sword." Jonah shoves the man out of the way and opens fire on Abigail, only to have his bullet ricochet off of one of the bars of her prison cell. Jonah finds out that the child was female, and the sheriff leaves to do his rounds, claiming that they take him "the better part of an hour" and that he expects that Jonah would "be long gone" by the time he returns to the office. Abigail crouches in her cell, praying fearfully, whispering "Dear Lord..." to which Jonah menacingly replies, "The Lord ain't here. Just the devil." Later on, we return to Silver Springs, where Jonah quickly and violently dispatches of the remnants of the gang he was hunting at the beginning of the issue. Someone knocks at Tallulah Black's door. She goes to see who it is, but only sees a retreating horse and a tiny coffin at her feet.