“Over here,” Smoke called.
The outlaw spun and Smoke pulled both triggers of a shotgun he removed from under the counter of a tent saloon. The blast lifted the man off his feet, almost cutting him in half.
Smoke reloaded the sawed-off as he ducked down an alley, behind a shack, and up that alley. He came face to face with an ugly bounty hunter. The bounty hunter fired, the lead creasing Smoke’s left arm, drawing blood. Smoke pulled the triggers of the sawed-off and blew the man’s head from his shoulders.
He stepped into an open door just as a man ran toward him, his fists full of .45s. Splinters from the door frame jabbed painfully into Smoke’s cheek as he dropped the shotgun and grabbed his .44s. He shot the man in the chest and belly, the bounty hunter falling into a water trough. He tried to lift a .45 and Smoke shot him between the eyes at a distance no more than five feet. The trough became colored with red and gray.
The street erupted in black powder, whining lead, and wild cursing. Horses broke from their hitch-rails and charged wild-eyed up and down the street, clouding the air with dust, rearing and screaming in fear.
Smoke felt a hot sear of pain in his right leg. The leg buckled. He flung himself out of the doorway and to the protection of the trough as Canning hobbled painfully into the street, his hands full of guns, belching smoke and flame, his eyes wild with hate.
One of Canning’s slugs hit Smoke in the left side, passing through the fleshy part and exiting out the back as he knelt on his knees, firing. The shock spun him around and knocked him down. Smoke raised up on one elbow and leveled a .44, taking careful aim. He shot Canning in the right eye, taking off part of his face. Canning’s legs jerked out from under him and he fell on his back, his left eye open and staring in disbelief.
Smoke jerked pistols from the headless outlaw’s belt and hand just as Sam and another man ran into the smoky, dusty street, trying to find a target through the din and the haze. Smoke fired at them just as they found him and began shooting. A slug ricocheted off a rock in the street, part of the lead hitting Smoke in the chest, bringing blood and a grunt of pain.
Smoke dragged himself into an alleyway and quickly reloaded all four .44s. He was bleeding from wounds in his side, his leg, his face, and his chest, but he was also mad as hell. He looked around for a target, shoving the fully loaded spare .44s behind his belt.
Sam was on his knees in the middle of the street, one arm broken by a .44 slug. The outlaw screamed curses at Smoke and lifted a pistol, the hammer back. Smoke shot him in the chest. Sam jerked but refused to die. He pulled the trigger of his pistol, the lead plowing up the street and enveloping the man in dust. Smoke shot him again, in the belly. Sam doubled over, dropping his pistol. He died in the center of the street, in a bowing position, his head resting on the dirt, his hat blowing away as a gust of wind whipped between the tents and shacks.
Lead began whining down the alley, and Smoke limped and ran behind a building, pausing to reload and to catch his breath. It has been said that it’s hard to stop a man who knows he’s in the right and just keeps on coming. Smoke knew he was right — and he kept on coming.
Another of Felter’s men ran across the street and down the dirt walkway and into the open alleyway just as Smoke stepped away from the building.
Smoke shot him twice in the belly and kept on coming.
The miners were shouting and cheering and betting on who would be the last man on his feet when the fight was over. Bets against Smoke were getting hard to place.
Sam’s partner stepped out and called to Smoke, firing as he yelled. One slug spun Smoke around as it struck the handle of a .44 stuck behind his belt. Pain doubled him over for a second. He lifted his Remingtons and dropped the man to the dirt.
The sounds of a horse galloping hard away came to Smoke as Felter’s last man still on his feet ran out of a shack behind Smoke. Smoke coolly lifted a .44 and shot him six times, duckwalking the man across the street, the slugs sending dust popping from the man’s shirt front with each impact.
It was almost over.
Smoke reloaded his Remingtons, dropped the spare .44s to the dirt, and took a deep breath, feeling a twinge of pain from at least one broken rib, maybe two.
Felter had sat behind kegs of beer in the tent saloon and watched it all. He had had a dozen or more opportunities to shoot Smoke from ambush — but he could not bring himself to do it. Jensen was just too much of a man for that. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and shook his head.
What he had seen was the stuff legends are made of; it was rare — but it was not unknown to the West for one man to take on impossible odds and win.
He stood up. “I believe I can take you now, Smoke,” he muttered. “You got to be runnin’ out of steam.”
“Felter!” Smoke called. “Step out here and face me.” Blood dripped from his wounds to plop in the dust. His face was bloody and blood and sweat stained his clothing.
Smoke carefully wiped his hands free of sweat just as Felter stepped out of the tent saloon. Both men’s guns were in leather. Felter held a shot glass full of whiskey in his left hand. Smoke’s right thumb was hooked behind his gun-belt, just over the buckle. Twenty-five feet separated them when Felter stopped. The miners were silent, almost breathless on the hillside, watching this last showdown — for one of the men.
“I seen it, but it’s tough for me to believe. You played hell with my men.”
Smoke said nothing.
“You and me, now, huh, kid?”
“That’s it, and then I take out your bosses.”
Felter laughed at him and sipped his whiskey. “I just don’t think you can beat me, kid.”
“One way to find out.”
“I think you’re scared, Smoke.”
“I’m not afraid of you or of any other man on the face of this earth.”
His words chilled the outlaw. He mentally shook away that damnable edge of fear that touched him.
Felter drained the shot glass. Whiskey and blood would be the last thing he would taste on this earth. “Your wife sure looked pretty neked.”
Smoke’s grin was ugly. “I’m glad you think so, Felter — ’cause you’ll never see another woman.”
Felter flushed. Damn the man’s eyes! he thought. I can’t make him mad. “You ready, Smoke?”
“Any time.”
Felter braced himself. “Now!”
The air blurred in front of Felter, then filled with the thunderous roar of gunfire and black smoke. The bounty hunter was on his feet, but something was very wrong. There was something pressing against his back. He felt with his hands. A hitch-rail.
Empty hands! Empty?
My hands can’t be empty, he thought. “What …?” he managed to say. Then the shock of his wounds hit him hard.
Why … I didn’t even clear leather, he thought. The damn kid pulled a cross-draw and beat me! Me!
Felter steadied his eyes to see if he could be wrong. Smoke’s left hand holster was empty. He watched the kid shove the .44 back into leather.
“No way!” Felter said. He reached for his Colt and lifted it. His movements seemed so slow. He jacked back the hammer and something blurred in front of him.
Then the sound reached his ears and the fury of the slug in his stomach brought a scream from his lips. Felter again lifted his Colt and a booming blow struck him on the breastbone, somersaulting him over the hitch-rail, to land on his backside under the striped pole of a tent barber shop.
But Felter was a tough, barrel-chested man, and would not die easily. Unable to rise, he struggled to pull his left-hand Colt. He managed to get the pistol up, hammer back, and pointed. Then Smoke’s .44 roared one more time, the slug hitting Felter in the jaw, taking off most of the outlaw’s face. The slug whined off bone and hit the striped barber pole, spinning it.