Turkel, one of the most feared gunhawks in the territory, looked the situation over through field glasses. “That there’s Preacher,” he said, pointing. “That’un over yonder is the Frenchman, Dupre. That one ridin’ a mule is Greybull. That little bitty shithead is the midget, Audie. Boys, I don’t want no truck with them old men. I’m tellin’ you all flat-out.”
The old men began waving with their rifles.
“What are they tryin’ to tell us?” Reese asked.
“That Smoke is waiting in the direction they’re pointing,” Richards said. “They’re telling us to tangle with him— if we’ve got the sand in us to do so.”
Potter did some fast counting. Out of what was once a hundred and fifty men, only nineteen remained, including himself. “Hell, boys! He’s only one man. There’s nineteen of us!”
“There was about this many over at that minin’ camp, too,” Britt said. “They couldn’t stop him.”
“Well,” Kelly said. “Way I see it is this: we either fight ten of them ringtailed-tooters, or we fight Smoke.”
“I’ll take Smoke,” Howard said. But he wasn’t all that thrilled with the choices offered him.
The mountain men began moving, closing the circle. The gunhands turned their horses and moved out, allowing themselves to be pushed toward the west.
“They’re pushing us toward Slate,” Williams said. “The ghost town.”
Richards smiled at Smoke’s choice of a showdown spot.
As the old ghost town appeared on the horizon, located on the flats between the Lemhi River and the Beaverhead Range, Turkel’s buddy, Harris, reined up and pointed. “Goddamn place is full of people!”
“Miners,” Brown said. “They come to see the show. Drinking and betting. Them old mountain men spread the word.”
“Just like it was at the camp on the Uncompahgre,” Richards said with a grunt.* “Check your weapons. Stuff your pockets full of extra shells. I’m going back to talk with Preacher. I want to see how this deal is going down.”
Richards rode back to the mountain men, riding with one hand in the air.
“That there’s far enuff,” Lobo said. “Speak your piece.”
“We win this fight, do we have to fight you men too?”
“No,” Preacher said quickly. “My boy Smoke done laid down the rules.”
His
“If’n you win,” Preacher said, “you leave with what you got on your backs. If’n you win, we pass the word, and here ’tis: if’n you or any of your people ever come west of Kansas, you dead meat. That clear?”
“You’re a hard old man, Preacher.”
“You wanna see jist how hard?” Preacher challenged.
“No,” Richards said, shaking his head. “We’ll take our chances with Smoke.”
“You would be better off taking your chances with us,” Audie suggested.
Richards looked at Nighthawk. “What do you have to say about it?”
“Ummm.”
Richards looked pained.
“That means haul your ass back to your friends,” Phew said.
Richards trotted his horse back to what was left of his band. He told them the rules.
Britt looked up the hill toward an old falling-down store. “There he is.”
Smoke stood alone on the old curled-up and rotted boardwalk. The men could see his twin .44s belted around his waist. He held a Henry repeating rifle in his right hand, a double-barreled express gun in his left hand. Smoke ducked into the building, leaving only a slight bit of dust to signal where he once stood.
“Two groups of six,” Richards said, “one group of three, one group of four. Britt, take your group in from the rear. Turkel, take your boys in from the east. Reese, take your people in from the west. I’ll take my people in from this direction. Move out.”
Smoke had removed his spurs, hanging them on the saddlehorn of Drifter. As soon as he ducked out of sight, he had run from the store down the hill, staying in the alley. He stashed the express gun on one side of the street in an old store, his rifle across the street. He met Skinny Davis first, in the gloom of what had once been a saloon.
“Draw!” Davis hissed.
Smoke put two holes in his chest before Davis could cock his .44s.
“In Pat’s Saloon!” someone shouted.
Williams jumped through an open glassless window of the saloon. Just as his boots hit the old warped floor, Smoke shot him, the .44 slug knocking the gunslick back out the window to the boardwalk. Williams was hurt, but not out of it yet. He crawled along the side of the building, one arm broken and dangling, useless.
“Smoke Jensen!” Cross called. “You ain’t got the sand to face me!”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Smoke muttered, taking careful aim and shooting the outlaw. The lead struck him in the stomach, doubling him over and dropping him to the weed-grown and dusty street.
