The hills above Paradise were burning the day the man with no heart came to town.

Some reckoned it was dry lightning; the rains hadn’t come yet even though the clouds built over the mountains every afternoon. Some reckoned it was ranchers, trying to burn off the scrub so’s good grass would grow when the rains came. And some reckoned there was still a few Apache up in the hills, and they was trying to burn the white man out.

But whatever started it, the hills were burning, and the smoke rolled down, and you couldn’t see from one end of town to the other, and it was hotter than hell.

 

You tell us about the man 'with no heart' and the burning hills, then you go on to give three potential reasons for the fires. These reasons no doubt help with setting, but they fizzle out. I guess I was expecting the three reasons others thought followed by the narrators best guess/knowledge. It seems like you are lacking a natural progression in the narration, e.g.

Some thought he was good, some thought he was bad, but everyone feared him. I, however, knew he was the devil incarnate.

My point is I can see why as an author you have those three guesses, but it doesn't compute in terms of the narration. The three guesses need to be followed by at least by the narrators opinion/actual retrospective knowledge. You dismiss the guesses making it feel like a waste of time having read them.

Also for first person (isn't it? 'So's'), I feel a distinct lack of the word 'I' to establish it.

To be honest, a fire doesn't really interest me; the man with no heart does. I have forgotten about him by the end of the intro as he is never mentioned again after the briefest of mentions in the first line. I think you hooked me, but lost me by the end of the intro by talking about how the fire could have started.

I would recommend mentioning him again to re-hook. Perhaps ditch the line 'But whatever started it...' and replace with a reference to the man himself.

Edited to add: I probably would read on because of the flawless prose, but not because of how the story unfolds so far.

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited February 13, 2010).]
 

I would have to agree that the story seems to be abandoning the man without a heart. I was just wondering if it was an emotional, issue, a physical one, or both.
 

[The hills above Paradise were burning] and [the day the man with no heart came to town].

to be

The day the man with no heart came to town, the hills above Paradise were burning.

First, it more obviously sets the object of the sentence to the man, which is what made it clunky to me (I assume The Man With No Heart is important to the story). Secondly, it sets the end of the paragraph at burning, which ends it with a bang and makes it that much more memorable.

(The same could work for ...hills were burning above Paradise, depending on which is more important)

Of course, since I have no clue what comes next, all this may be completely inappropriate

Inevitably, the next line DOES get back to the man with no heart. The fire and smoke and heat are all important which is why I wanted to establish them up front, but I probably don't need quite so much uncertainty established right up front.

More comments still welcome; it may be a little while before I get back to this as I've got a couple of other rewrites that need attention first.
 

Not bad at all, I just think it could be spiced up a bit.
 

Overall it has that eerie feel of the start of "The Gunslinger", and if that's what you intended, you got it.
 

And I agree with dee_boncci that the dialect felt off. To me it seems a little forced, like it was tacked on to define the setting.

Just my thoughts.