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handles hanging low on his right side. Or on the Bowie knife sheathed on his left side. Or on the .44 derringer in his boot. Or anything else he could get his hands on. If it just had to be, the old mountain man would pick up a porcupine to use as a weapon and damn the needles.
    Micky had a bottle of sarsaparilla and was sitting on a bench in front of the store. Coming to town was quite an outing for the boy.
    Alice and Doreen were oohhing and aahhing over some new dress material in the store.
    Two farmers were sitting at a table, nursing mugs of beer, talking quietly. They finished their drinks and left. A fat man, a drummer from the looks of him, was sitting alone at a table next to a window. He kept shifting his eyes to Smoke, stealing fast sly glances.
    “Say!” he finally spoke. “Aren’t you Smoke Jensen, the gunfighter?”
    Smoke cut his eyes. “I’m Smoke Jensen.”
    “Well, I’ll just be hornswoggled! I just read a big article on you in the Gazette. The writer said you’ve killed more’un five hundred men.”
    “Not quite that many,” Smoke corrected.
    “Kilt two right in here a few days back,” the barkeep said with a grin. “This is my place. I’m Bendel.” He pointed. “Kilt ’em right over yonder. They’s buried out back.”
    “You don’t say!” the drummer bobbed his head up and down. “I’m from St. Louis myself. I got the finest line of women’s underthings and unmentionables on the market today, I do.”
    “How kin you sell ’urn if you cain’t mention um?” Cheyenne asked him.
    The drummer looked startled for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that.” He stared at the old mountain man. “Are you somebody famous?”
    “I have been a time or two,” Cheyenne grumbled.
    “That’s Cheyenne O’Malley,” Smoke informed the drummer.
    “No kidding! You once fought off a hundred hostile savages.”
    “More like fifteen,” Cheyenne told him. “And they wasn’t savages or hostile. They was just mad at me ’cause I bedded down with the chief’s oldest daughter. She was due to marry the war chief who led the band who come after me. Never could make no sense out of that. I enjoyed it and so did she. I went back about ten years later and looked her up. Sorry I did that. She was about the size of a tipi. Hit me up side the head with a rock and called me all sorts of vile names. Damned if I didn’t have to fight the same bunch all over again. But this time that war chief was mad ’cause I hadn’t toted her off ten years back. I don’t think they got along too well.”
    “That’s incredible!” the drummer said.
    Cheyenne belched. “Damn squaw follered me from the Sun River all the way over to the Bitterroot. Hollerin’ and cussin’ and raisin’ hell. I finally lost her around Lolo Pass. Things like that tend to take some of the joy out of messin’ with wimmin.”
    “What stories I’ll have to tell when I get back to St. Louis!” He looked out the window. “Bunch of riders coming.”
    Smoke walked to the batwings and looked out. “Gunhands,” he said.
    “Is there going to be a Wild West shoot-out?” the drummer questioned.
    “I hope not.”
    “Oh, that would be so exhilarating!”
    “Not for them that gits shot,” Cheyenne said, slipping the hammer thong from his pistol. “All they git is plugged.”
    Half a dozen Bar V hands began crowding into the barroom. They pulled up short and fell silent when they saw Smoke.
    Smoke knew two of them. Blackjack Morgan and Gus Fall. The others might well be hell on wheels with a short gun, but they just hadn’t made a name for themselves as yet. And if they decided to brace Smoke Jensen and Cheyenne O’Malley, the only name they were going to get would be carved on their gravestones.
    “Jensen,” Blackjack said, walking past him, his spurs jingling.
    Smoke nodded his head.
    Gus stopped by the bar and stared at Smoke. He shifted his chew around in his mouth and spat