“Before I kill you, mister, you want to tell me who you are?” Harley asked.
“The name is Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”
Smoke’s name arced through the crowd, from man to man, like an electric spark jumping between the telegraph key and the sounder.
“Smoke Jensen!”
“Jensen!”
“If there is anyone who could face Harley even up, it would be Jensen.”
“I hope he kills Harley. I haven’t liked that son of a bitch since he got here.”
“Hell, I wish they would just kill each other.”
Laughter greeted the last comment.
“Folks! Folks, let me have your attention!” Judge Webb shouted, stepping into the street between Smoke and Harley. He held his arms up in the air. “Your attention, please!”
“You got our attention, Judge. Say whatever it is you are a’plannin’ on sayin’,” someone from the crowd called back.
“Mr. Jensen came to me a little while ago. He has assured me he is not here in pursuit of bounty, nor does he want to arrest anyone. Oddly enough, his fight is not with Harley, but with Dinkins, and Frank and Travis Slater, they being the men who shot his wife. But, I pointed out that I do not think he can get to them without going through Mr. Harley, thus bringing about the confrontation we are all about to witness.
“I’m going to say now that if anyone in the crowd violates the integrity of this duel, I will see to it that you join Mr. Marlow in hanging from the tree.”
“So,” Harley said. “You are the famous Mr. Smoke Jensen. Yes, sir, killing you is going to be quite a feather in my cap.”
Smoke said nothing.
“You have nothing to say to me, Mr. Jensen?” Harley came down hard on the word
“I’m not here to have a conversation with you, Harley. I’m here to kill you,” Smoke said calmly.
Because of the way Harley was standing, presenting his left side to Smoke, his gun hand was hidden. Smoke couldn’t be sure when Harley started his draw. When he saw Harley twist around toward him, he realized Harley had already pulled his gun, getting it out stealthily as they were talking.
Harley fired even as Smoke was drawing, but the bullet missed, flying past his ear with a loud pop. Smoke returned fire and didn’t miss.
Harley went down on his back, his arms extended on either side, his gun sliding out several inches from his hand.
Smoke held the smoking pistol in his hand for a moment longer. When he was convinced Wes Harley was dead, he holstered his pistol.
Several of the crowd gathered around Harley, looking down at him with morbid curiosity, thus leaving Smoke standing alone, several feet away.
“Mr. Jensen?” The woman who called out to him was short, fat, and aging.
“Yes?”
“You don’t remember me, Mr. Jensen, but my name is Wanda. I met you once many years ago when you were playing cards in a saloon where I was working.”
Smoke smiled, and touched the brim of his hat. “Well, it’s nice to see you again, Wanda.”
“Thank you, but I’m not trying to call back old memories or anything. I understand you are looking for Dinkins and his men?”
“Yes, I am. Do you know where they are?”
“They rode out of town about fifteen minutes ago, soon as they heard your name.”
It wasn’t hard to pick up the trail of three horses moving quickly. Smoke was too far back, and they were moving too fast for him to catch a glimpse of them, but he didn’t need to see them to know where they were going. The trail was leading into a canyon. Black Canyon.
One of the steepest, darkest, and most rugged of all canyons, Black Canyon was formed by the Gunnison River as it flowed through hard ancient rocks at the western edge of the Rocky Mountains on its way to joining the Colorado River at Grand Junction. Smoke had been there before. He knew the canyon walls, composed of volcanic schist, were predominantly black in color, and because the gorge reached a depth of over 2,000 feet and because it was no more than 1,500 feet across, the walls seldom received any direct sunlight. For that reason it was called Black Canyon.
Smoke was a little leery as he approached the canyon. He knew it would be an ideal place for the outlaws to set up an ambush. He stopped for a moment and listened hard, trying to hear anything from ahead ... the whicker of a horse, a voice, even the scratch of iron-shod hooves on stone. If there had been any sound, it should have carried to him quite easily, as the canyon walls had the effect of a megaphone.
But, listen though he did, he could hear nothing.
He reached down and patted his horse on the neck. “What do you think, Seven? You up to going in there?”
Seven whickered, as if he understood what Smoke was saying. The horse was exceptionally intelligent with an innate awareness of things. Smoke knew that Seven sensed danger, but he also knew the horse wouldn’t falter.
