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toward a spittoon near Smoke’s boot. He missed the cuspidor, the tobacco juice striking Smoke’s boot.
    Gus grinned at him. “You can get the boy out front to come lick it off.”
    His grin was wiped off his face in a bloody smear as Smoke swung the beer mug, hitting Gus’s jaw and knocking a couple of teeth slap out of his mouth. Gus was propelled backward, his boots slipping on the fresh-mopped floor. He slammed through the batwings, tearing one off, and fell into the dusty street, on his back, out cold.
    Micky sat on the bench and stared, mouth open, eyes wide.
    Smoke tossed the handle of the mug onto the plank. “Another beer, please.”
    “There wasn’t no call to do that,” one of the young so-called gunslicks told Smoke. “’Sides, Gus is my friend. I feel obliged to take up for him.”
    Cheyenne laid the barrel of his Colt against the young man’s head and he dropped to the floor like a rock.
    One of the young man’s buddies thought it was a dandy time to grab for iron. He changed his mind as Cheyenne eared back the hammer on his Colt and put those cold old eyes on the kid.
    “Boy,” Cheyenne warned him, “I’ll blow a hole in your gawddamn belly a horse could ride through.”
    “That’s Cheyenne O’Malley!” the drummer blurted out as warning.
    The young man’s face turned gray and shiny with sweat. He let his eyes slide away from the eyes of death staring at him from the face of the mountain man. Slowly, very slowly, he let his hands drop to his sides, as far away from the butts of his guns as humanly possible. He would have grabbed the boards on the floor if his reach had been long enough.
    Cheyenne eased the hammer down and holstered the Colt. He turned his attentions back to his shot glass.
    “See about Gus,” Blackjack told one of the men. He cut his eyes to Smoke. “You’re right touchy today, Smoke. Who twisted your tail?”
    “Two-bit gunhands have a tendency to annoy me.” Smoke lifted his fresh mug of beer with his left hand and took a sip.
    “When Gus gets up from the dirt, he’s gonna kill you, Smoke.”
    “He’ll try.” Smoke turned his back to the gunfighter and sipped his beer.
    Blackjack moved to a table and sat down, ordering a bottle.
    The drummer was scribbling frantically in a notebook; he wanted to be sure to get all this down. He might write a book about this.
    Gus was helped back into the barroom, his mouth bloody and his eyes wild with hate and fury. Smoke turnedto watch him, his right hand by his side.
    Gus shook himself away from the men on each side of him and faced Smoke. He was so mad he was trembling.
    “Gus,” Blackjack warned. ”Back off, son. This is not the time.”
    “Go to hell!” Gus said, without taking his eyes off of Smoke.
    “You better do what he says, boy,” Cheyenne told him. “You’re just about to step off into where the waters is deep . and dark.”
    “You go to hell, too, old man!”
    Cheyenne shrugged his shoulders. “Nobody can ever say I didn’t try to warn you about the currents.”
    “You ready, Jensen?” Gus asked.
    “I’m not finished with my beer, Gus. I would suggest you get you a cool one and calm down some.”
    “You, by God, don’t tell me what to do, Smoke.”
    “I’m just trying to save your life, Gus.”
    Gus cussed him. "Here or in the street, Jensen?”
    “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me, Gus.” Smoke sat his beer mug down on the plank.
    Gus reached for his guns.

5
    Smoke’s left-hand Colt roared and bucked as his cross-draw flashed.
    The slugs hit Gus in the chest and belly, doubling him over. He stumbled back and grabbed onto a table’s edge for support. He finally managed to drag iron just as Smoke fired again, the .44 slug slamming into his chest. The light began to fade around him as the men in the barroom took on a ghostly appearance, drifting into double images as the sounds of the pale rider grew louder in his ears.
    Gus looked down at his hands. What had happened to his