“It’s time,” Dancer said.
“Time for what?” Bailey said.
“It’s time for you to dance with the demon.”
“Dance with the demon?” Ford said. He laughed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Still laughing, he looked over at Bailey, but the expression on her face was one of horror, and that, he could recognize.
“No,” Bailey said quietly, pleadingly. She held her hands out in front of her. “Ethan, no, listen, I was just frustrated by events. I wasn’t really going to cut you out. I didn’t mean—”
Dancer drew and fired, his bullet punching through Bailey’s left breast. Ford watched the black hole appear then pump blood as she fell. He was so mesmerized by it that he never even saw the shot that killed him.
“The sheriff isn’t here, Jake,” Aaron Peabody said, coming back in to the saloon. “So I brought the deputy.”
Deputy Wells came in behind Peabody. A young man, until Hagen was killed he’d been one of the wagon drivers for the Gold Nugget Haulers.
Deputy Wells looked down at Rob Dealy’s body, covered now by a sheet.
“Who done it?” he asked.
“Ethan Dancer.”
Wells nodded, and licked his lips. He continued to stare down at the body, but had not yet removed the sheet.
“Was it a fair fight?” he asked.
“What do you mean was it fair?”
“Who drew first?”
“Take the sheet off and look at him, then ask that question,” Jake said.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Take the sheet off and look at him,” Jake said again.
Looking around nervously, Wells squatted down beside the body and pulled the sheet back. He saw the bullet hole in Rob’s chest.
“He was shot dead center from the front. That looks fair to me,” Wells said.
“Look at his ears,” Jake ordered.
Wells looked at the ears and noticed, for the first time, Rob’s shredded earlobes.
“What the hell?” he said. “How did that happen?”
“Dancer shot both of his earlobes off, forcing him to draw.”
“So, uh…this fella did draw first?” Wells asked.
“You dumb shit! Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Dancer forced him to draw.”
“I see. Where is Dancer now?”
“I seen him when he left,” one of the patrons said. “He went into Bailey McPherson’s office.”
“Is he still there?” Wells asked.
“I ain’t seen him leave.”
Wells stood there for a moment, then took the star off his shirt and lay it on the bar.
“What are you doing?” Jake asked.
“Look, I’m a wagon driver,” Wells said. “I just took this job after Hagen got hisself killed ’cause, what with there bein’ no gold, they didn’t need wagon drivers no more.”
“Yes, but you did take the job. You are the deputy.”
“Not no more I ain’t,” he said. “I ain’t goin’ up against Dancer. If any of you boys want to do it, well, there’s the badge.”
Nobody moved toward it.
“I didn’t think so,” Wells said. He sighed. “I need a drink.”
“I think somebody needs to ride out to Northumbria and get Hawke,” Jake said.
When Luke Rawlings and Percy Sheridan went into the Sweetwater Railroad office, they saw Dancer standing over the bodies of Bailey McPherson and Addison Ford.
“Holy shit!” Luke said.
“Did you do this?” Perry asked.
“What are you doing here?” Dancer asked.
“Uh, we was just down to the saloon,” Luke said. “They’re all up in the air ’bout Dealy gettin’ kilt, and they’ve sent someone out to Northumbria to get Hawke.”
“Yeah, on account of the sheriff ain’t in town, and the deputy don’t want nothin’ to do with you,” Percy added.
“Only he ain’t the deputy no more. He quit.”
Dancer reached down into the carpetbag and took out two packets of paper currency.
“There’s one thousand dollars in each of these packets,” Dancer said.
“A thousand dollars?” Perry said. “I’ve never seen that much money in one place in my life.”
“U. S. Marshals are coming into town tomorrow,” Dancer said. “We need to get out of town.”
“Why we?” Luke asked. “After all this, you’ll be the one they’ll be looking for.”
“You want this money or not?”
Luke hesitated.
“Damn, Luke, a thousand dollars,” Percy said, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth.
“What good is a thousand dollars if you’re dead?” Luke asked.
“Have it your way,” Dancer said. He started to return the money to the carpetbag.
“No, wait,” Luke said. “All right, I’ll go.”
“My horse is in the stable,” Dancer said. “Get him saddled and meet me down behind the Chinese laundry.”
Luke lay on top of a flat rock, looking back along the trail over which they had just come. He saw the single rider following them.
“Is he still there?” Dancer asked.
“Yeah,” Luke growled. “I believe that son of a bitch could track a fish through water.”
“I’ll say this for that son of a bitch,” Percy said. “Once he gets his teeth into you, he don’t give up easy, does he? We’ve tried ever’ trick in the book to shake him off our tail and he’s still there.”
“We’ll lose him,” Dancer said. “Or kill him, one or the other.”
“Dancer, why don’t you just go down there and brace that son of a bitch? Hell, I know you’re faster’n he is,” Luke said.
“How do you know that?” Dancer asked.
“Well, ’cause you are. Ain’t you?”
“I might be,” Dancer said. “But who is to say that if I went down there to challenge him, he would give me a fair fight? Hell, if I got out in the open he could kill me with a long gun, long before I ever even got close to him.”
“Yeah, I reckon you’re right,” Luke said. “Well, as steady as he stays on our tail, let’s get to movin’. I don’t mind tellin’ you, I don’t like havin’ him that close.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea,” Dancer said. “I’ve got an idea that, for all the good he is at tracking, he doesn’t know this country. And if he stays on our tail for another five miles, we’ll have him right where we want him.”
Hawke had never been here before, but he’d been in dozens of places just like this. And if he had to make a guess, he would say that this was a dead end canyon. He stopped at the mouth of the canyon and took a drink from his canteen while he studied it.
Maybe it wasn’t a dead end, he thought. Maybe there was a way out. Or maybe they knew it was dead end and wanted to go into it anyway. Why would they do that? he asked himself. Then he answered his own question. They figured they would set up an ambush then draw him in.
Pulling his long gun out of the saddle holster, Hawke started walking into the canyon, leading his horse. The horse’s hooves fell sharply on the stone floor and echoed loudly back from the canyon walls. The canyon made a forty-five degree turn to the left just in front of him, so he stopped. Just before he got to the turn, he slapped his horse on the rump and sent it on through.
