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block away, walking at a deliberate pace and talking among themselves as they passed in and out of blocks of light coming from the windows of the buildings they passed.
    He used his thumb to cock both of the scattergun’s hammers. The Riordan brothers had told him he didn’t really have to shoot. They would take care of that, they claimed.
    But he wasn’t going to let them do everything, he vowed. He wasn’t going to threaten the Jensens and spew a lot of bravado. No, he was just going to throw down on them and feed them a double load of buckshot. Maybe if he did that, he could forget about everything that had happened back in Espantosa. . . .
    He swallowed hard, glanced across the street to where Chuck and Nate were hidden behind a parked wagon, and tightened his grip on the shotgun. The Jensens were close enough he could hear them talking. He took a deep breath and steeled himself to step out and start the ball.
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    â€œAre you sure you’re in good enough shape to be hunting up outlaws?” Smoke asked.
    â€œI’m fine,” Luke insisted. “I’ll be back up to my fighting weight before you know it.”
    â€œSally won’t be too happy if you don’t come back with us,” Smoke warned him. “She knew we were going off to give you a helping hand, and when I wired her after that whole business was over that you were all right, she replied that I should bring you home with me. She said she’d fatten you up in no time.”
    Preacher added, “And Miss Sally’s bear sign ’ll sure do it, too.”
    â€œMy mouth’s watering just thinking about it,” Matt put in.
    Luke said, “I appreciate all that, but I still think it’s time for me to go my own way again. No offense, but I’m used to being by myself—”
    He didn’t have a chance to say any more. At that moment, a figure scuttled out of the alley mouth ahead of them and swung the menacing twin barrels of a Greener in their direction.

Chapter 7
    Instinct took over for all four men. Hands blurred to gun butts. Weapons sprang free of their holsters and roared together in a deafening crash of gun-thunder. Tongues of flame leaped from the muzzles pointed at the shotgun-wielding hombre.
    Whoever he was, the fella never had a chance. At least six slugs smashed into his chest, all of them within inches of each other. The bullets tore through his body and burst out his back. He wound up with a hole all the way through him that a man could have almost put a fist through.
    The impact of that many bullets tossed him backwards like a rag doll. The Greener’s twin barrels were pointed almost straight up when his finger jerked the triggers and touched off the loads. The blast lit up the street for a split second.
    Man and shotgun alike thudded to the dirt street next to each other. Barely three heartbeats had gone by since he had lunged out of the alley to threaten Smoke and the others.
    Echoes from the pistol volley and the shotgun’s double discharge still filled the air, but Smoke heard fresh gunfire anyway and was aware of the wind-rip of a bullet as it whipped past his ear. From the corner of his eye he spotted a muzzle flash and whirled in that direction.
    The shots were coming from behind a wagon parked across the street. It looked like a bushwhacker was crouched at each end of the vehicle, firing over the sideboards.
    Acting out of instinct again, the four men scattered as bullets whined through the air around them. As they split up, they returned the shots, sending a storm of lead at the wagon.
    Smoke drifted to his right. Something began striking lightly against his hat and shoulders as he moved, feeling like big drops of rain or small hailstones. After a second, he realized it was the buckshot fired from the Greener, falling back to earth as gravity claimed it.
    The buckshot didn’t pose a real threat. It was more of an annoyance than anything else. The real