LITMIR.BIZ

      To my friend who answers my endless questions concerning weapons

       of the old west: Hollis Erwin

      Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew. And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

      —Robert W. Service

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      1

      The man called Smoke looked at the new wanted poster tacked to a tree. This one had his likeness on it. He smiled as he looked at the shoulder-length hair and the clean-shaven face on the poster. The artist had done a dandy job.

      But it in no way resembled the man who now called himself Buck West.

      Kirby Jensen had been sixteen years old when the old mountain man called Preacher hung the nickname Smoke on him. Preacher had predicted that Smoke would turn out to be a very famous man. And he had. As one of the most feared gunfighters in all the west.

      It was not a reputation Smoke had wanted or sought.

      Smoke now wore his hair short-cropped. A neat, well-trimmed beard covered his face. He no longer wore one pistol in cross-draw fashion, butt-forward. He now wore his twin .44s butt back and the holsters tied down low. He was just as fast as before. And that was akin to lightning.

      He had turned his Appaloosa, Seven, loose in a valley several hundred miles to the east. A valley so lovely it was nearly impossible to describe.

      Nicole would have loved it.

      Seven had gone dancing and prancing off, once more running wild and free.

      Nicole.

      He shook his head and pushed the face of his dead wife from his mind. He turned his unreadable, cold, emotionless brown eyes to the west. The midnight-black stallion he now rode stood steady under his weight. The man now called Buck stood six feet, two inches, barefooted. He weighed one eighty: all hard-packed muscle and bone. His waist was lean and his short hair ash-blond.

      The stallion shook his head. Buck patted him on the neck. The stallion quieted immediately. The animal’s eyes were a curious yellow/green, a vicious combination that vaguely resembled a wolf’s eyes. The stallion had killed its previous owner when the man had tried to beat him with a board. Smoke had bought the horse from the man’s widow, gentled him, and learned to respect the animal’s feelings and moods.

      The stallion’s name was Drifter.

      Smoke had carefully hidden his buckskins, caching them with his saddle and other meager possessions in the valley where the Appaloosa, Seven, now grazed and ran free with his brood of mares.

      Smoke had very carefully pushed all thoughts of the past behind him. He had spent months mentally conditioning himself not to think of himself as the gunfighter Smoke. His name was now Buck. Last names were not terribly important in the newly opened western frontier, and it had been with a smile that Buck chose West as his last name.

      Buck West. Smoke was gone—for a time.

      Buck laughed. But it was more a dark bark, totally void of humor.

      Drifter swung his head around, looking at the man through cold killer eyes. Buck’s packhorses continued to graze.

      High above, an eagle soared, pushing and gliding toward the west. Buck could have sworn that it was the same eagle he had seen months back, after the terrible shoot-out at the silver camp not far from the Uncompahgre. At least fourteen men had died under his guns that smoky, bloody day. And he had taken more than his share of lead, as well. It had taken him months to fully recover.

      Many months back, in the southwestern corner of Wyoming, he had seen the first wanted poster.