Showdown at Dead End Canyon (19 page)

“Look, let me buy you a drink and let’s call it even.”

“Uh-uh,” Dancer said, shaking his head. “I don’t think we can do that now. I think it’s time for you to dance with the demon.”

“No,” Rob said, holding up his left hand, palm out, as a signal to stop. “No, I’ve heard about you, how ever’ time you invite someone to dance with the demon, they die. Well, I ain’t goin’ to dance with the demon.”

“I think you will,” Dancer said.

“No, I ain’t, I tell you.”

Dancer drew and fired, doing it so quickly that it caught everyone in the saloon by surprise. By the time they realized what had happened, Dancer’s gun was already back in his holster.

His bullet had had hit Rob’s left earlobe. With a shout of pain, Rob slapped his left hand over his ear. When he pulled it back, he saw little pieces of his earlobe in the palm of his hand.

“You son of a bitch!” he shouted angrily. “You shot my ear!”

“Are you ready to dance with the demon?” Dancer asked.

“No!”

Dancer shot again, this time taking off the lobe of his right ear.

“I’m just going to keep carving off pieces of your ears until you draw,” Dancer said.

With a scream of fury, fear, and pain, Rob made a frantic grab for his pistol.

Dancer drew and shot him in the heart. By the time Rob hit the floor, dead, Dancer had already reholstered his pistol.

DANCER LEFT THE SALOON, UNCHALLENGED, AND
started toward the boardinghouse where he had a room. As he walked by the office of the Sweetwater Railroad, he was surprised to see a lantern burning inside.

Pulling his pistol, he pushed the door open and stepped into the building. The front room was dark, except for a bar of light that splashed through a partially open door leading into the back room.

Dancer moved quietly toward the door, wondering who was here. He stopped when he heard voices.

“How do you know this?” The voice belonged to Addison Ford.

“I pay the Western Union operator generously, to bring me copies of any telegram he thinks might interest me.” This voice belonged to Bailey McPherson. “And according to one he just brought me, U. S. Marshals will be here by tomorrow to arrest the perpetrators of the Sweetwater Railroad Company scheme.”

“The perpetrators?”

“Yes. You and me.”

“Wait a minute,” Addison said. “I’m not the perpetrator here. You are!”

“Try telling that to the U. S. Marshals when they get here tomorrow,” Bailey said. “At any rate, you’ll be on your own. I’m heading for California on the very next train.”

Surprised to hear that Bailey was leaving, Dancer pushed the door open and stepped into the room. His sudden appearance surprised both Bailey and Addison Ford.

“Ethan! What are you doing here?” Bailey asked.

“I just killed Dorchester’s foreman,” Dancer blurted out.

“What? You killed Hawke?”

“No, I told you, I killed Dorchester’s foreman. His name was Rob Dealey.”

“You ignorant baboon, Dealey isn’t Dorchester’s foreman. Hawke is.”

“I’m getting tired of you calling me a baboon,” Dancer said, his eyes snapping angrily.

“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” Bailey said, backing down. She knew she couldn’t afford to get crosswise with him now. “It doesn’t make any difference anyway. None of it does.”

Dancer looked around the room and saw that the safe was open. In addition, he saw that she had been putting bound stacks of money into a carpetbag.

“What are you doing?” Dancer asked. “Why are you going to California?”

“If you heard me say that I’m going to California, then you also know why. Our scheme has been found out. The government has taken back the land.”

“How did they find out?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t plan to stay around long enough to find out.” Bailey took a packet of money from the carpetbag and handed it to him. “I won’t be needing your services any longer. I don’t owe this to you, but you can consider it a tip for a job well done.”

“That’s it?” Dancer said, his voice dripping with venom. “You are just going to give me one single stack of money and think that squares us?”

Bailey looked up at Dancer, surprised by his reaction. “That’s one thousand dollars.”

“And I’m supposed to be satisfied with one thousand dollars?”

“Mr. Dancer, what did you think, that you were my partner?”

Dancer nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”

Bailey began laughing hysterically.

“You actually expected that I could be partners with someone like you? Why, you are barely human, you grotesque creature. Now, get out of here, take the money I offered you while it is still on the table. And don’t come back.”

Addison laughed.

“Why, look at you,” he said. “She practically has you quaking in your boots. I can’t believe that I have been frightened of you all this time.”

To the degree that Dancer’s distorted face could even show expression, it registered shock and confusion, then cold, calculated anger. But neither Bailey nor Addison were astute enough observers to notice the subtle change in Dancer’s demeanor. And that was too bad for them, because if they had noticed, it might have saved their lives.

“It’s time,” Dancer said.

“Time for what?” Bailey said.

“It’s time for you to dance with the demon.”

“Dance with the demon?” Ford said. He laughed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Still laughing, he looked over at Bailey, but the expression on her face was one of horror, and that, he could recognize.

“No,” Bailey said quietly, pleadingly. She held her hands
out in front of her. “Ethan, no, listen, I was just frustrated by events. I wasn’t really going to cut you out. I didn’t mean—”

Dancer drew and fired, his bullet punching through Bailey’s left breast. Ford watched the black hole appear then pump blood as she fell. He was so mesmerized by it that he never even saw the shot that killed him.

“The sheriff isn’t here, Jake,” Aaron Peabody said, coming back in to the saloon. “So I brought the deputy.”

Deputy Wells came in behind Peabody. A young man, until Hagen was killed he’d been one of the wagon drivers for the Gold Nugget Haulers.

Deputy Wells looked down at Rob Dealy’s body, covered now by a sheet.

“Who done it?” he asked.

“Ethan Dancer.”

Wells nodded, and licked his lips. He continued to stare down at the body, but had not yet removed the sheet.

“Was it a fair fight?” he asked.

“What do you mean was it fair?”

“Who drew first?”

“Take the sheet off and look at him, then ask that question,” Jake said.

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Take the sheet off and look at him,” Jake said again.

Looking around nervously, Wells squatted down beside the body and pulled the sheet back. He saw the bullet hole in Rob’s chest.

“He was shot dead center from the front. That looks fair to me,” Wells said.

“Look at his ears,” Jake ordered.

Wells looked at the ears and noticed, for the first time, Rob’s shredded earlobes.

“What the hell?” he said. “How did that happen?”

“Dancer shot both of his earlobes off, forcing him to draw.”

“So, uh…this fella did draw first?” Wells asked.

“You dumb shit! Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Dancer forced him to draw.”

“I see. Where is Dancer now?”

“I seen him when he left,” one of the patrons said. “He went into Bailey McPherson’s office.”

“Is he still there?” Wells asked.

“I ain’t seen him leave.”

Wells stood there for a moment, then took the star off his shirt and lay it on the bar.

“What are you doing?” Jake asked.

“Look, I’m a wagon driver,” Wells said. “I just took this job after Hagen got hisself killed ’cause, what with there bein’ no gold, they didn’t need wagon drivers no more.”

“Yes, but you did take the job. You are the deputy.”

“Not no more I ain’t,” he said. “I ain’t goin’ up against Dancer. If any of you boys want to do it, well, there’s the badge.”

Nobody moved toward it.

“I didn’t think so,” Wells said. He sighed. “I need a drink.”

“I think somebody needs to ride out to Northumbria and get Hawke,” Jake said.

When Luke Rawlings and Percy Sheridan went into the Sweetwater Railroad office, they saw Dancer standing over the bodies of Bailey McPherson and Addison Ford.

“Holy shit!” Luke said.

“Did you do this?” Perry asked.

“What are you doing here?” Dancer asked.

“Uh, we was just down to the saloon,” Luke said. “They’re all up in the air ’bout Dealy gettin’ kilt, and they’ve sent someone out to Northumbria to get Hawke.”

“Yeah, on account of the sheriff ain’t in town, and the deputy don’t want nothin’ to do with you,” Percy added.

“Only he ain’t the deputy no more. He quit.”

Dancer reached down into the carpetbag and took out two packets of paper currency.

“There’s one thousand dollars in each of these packets,” Dancer said.

“A thousand dollars?” Perry said. “I’ve never seen that much money in one place in my life.”

“U. S. Marshals are coming into town tomorrow,” Dancer said. “We need to get out of town.”

“Why we?” Luke asked. “After all this, you’ll be the one they’ll be looking for.”

“You want this money or not?”

Luke hesitated.

“Damn, Luke, a thousand dollars,” Percy said, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth.

“What good is a thousand dollars if you’re dead?” Luke asked.

“Have it your way,” Dancer said. He started to return the money to the carpetbag.

“No, wait,” Luke said. “All right, I’ll go.”

“My horse is in the stable,” Dancer said. “Get him saddled and meet me down behind the Chinese laundry.”

Luke lay on top of a flat rock, looking back along the trail over which they had just come. He saw the single rider following them.

“Is he still there?” Dancer asked.

“Yeah,” Luke growled. “I believe that son of a bitch could track a fish through water.”

“I’ll say this for that son of a bitch,” Percy said. “Once he gets his teeth into you, he don’t give up easy, does he? We’ve
tried ever’ trick in the book to shake him off our tail and he’s still there.”

“We’ll lose him,” Dancer said. “Or kill him, one or the other.”

“Dancer, why don’t you just go down there and brace that son of a bitch? Hell, I know you’re faster’n he is,” Luke said.

“How do you know that?” Dancer asked.

“Well, ’cause you are. Ain’t you?”

“I might be,” Dancer said. “But who is to say that if I went down there to challenge him, he would give me a fair fight? Hell, if I got out in the open he could kill me with a long gun, long before I ever even got close to him.”

“Yeah, I reckon you’re right,” Luke said. “Well, as steady as he stays on our tail, let’s get to movin’. I don’t mind tellin’ you, I don’t like havin’ him that close.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea,” Dancer said. “I’ve got an idea that, for all the good he is at tracking, he doesn’t know this country. And if he stays on our tail for another five miles, we’ll have him right where we want him.”

Hawke had never been here before, but he’d been in dozens of places just like this. And if he had to make a guess, he would say that this was a dead end canyon. He stopped at the mouth of the canyon and took a drink from his canteen while he studied it.

Maybe it wasn’t a dead end, he thought. Maybe there was a way out. Or maybe they knew it was dead end and wanted to go into it anyway. Why would they do that? he asked himself. Then he answered his own question. They figured they would set up an ambush then draw him in.

Pulling his long gun out of the saddle holster, Hawke started walking into the canyon, leading his horse. The horse’s hooves fell sharply on the stone floor and echoed loudly back from the canyon walls. The canyon made a
forty-five degree turn to the left just in front of him, so he stopped. Just before he got to the turn, he slapped his horse on the rump and sent it on through.

The canyon exploded with the sound of gunfire as the three men he was trailing opened up on what they thought would be their pursuer. Instead, their bullets whizzed harmlessly over the empty saddle of the riderless horse, raised sparks as they hit the rocky ground, then whined off into empty space, echoing and reechoing in a cacophony of whines and shrieks.

From his position just around the corner from the turn, Hawke located two of his ambushers. They were about a third of the way up the north wall of the canyon, squeezed in between the wall itself and a rock outcropping that provided them with cover. Or so they thought.

The firing stopped and, after a few seconds of dying echoes, the canyon grew silent.

“Where the hell is he?” one of the ambushers yelled, and Hawke could hear the last two words repeated in echo down through the canyon.
“…is he, is he, is he?”

He studied the rock face of the wall behind the spot where he had located two of them, then began firing. His rifle boomed loudly, the thunder of the detonating cartridges picking up resonance through the canyon and doubling and redoubling in intensity. He wasn’t trying to aim at the two men, but instead was taking advantage of the position they’d chosen. He fired several rounds, knowing that the bullets were splattering against the rock wall behind them, fragmenting into deadly, whizzing, flying missles of death. He emptied his rifle, and, as the echoes thundered back through the canyon, began reloading.

“Dancer!” a strained voice called. “Dancer!”

“What is it?” another voice answered, this one from the other side of the narrow draw, halfway up the opposite wall.

“Dancer, we’re both killed.”

“What?”

There was no answer.

“Luke!”

Silence.

“Percy!”

More silence.

“Percy, Luke, are you all right?”

There was no answer.

Hawke changed positions and searched the opposite canyon wall. There was silence for a long time, and then, as Hawke knew he would, Dancer began to get anxious. He popped up to have a look around.

“Dancer!” Hawke shouted, and the echo repeated the name.
“Dancer, Dancer, Dancer.”

“What do you want?…
want, want, want?
”

“We’re playing my game now, Dancer,” Hawke said. “Have you ever heard of a place called Devil’s Den at Gettysburg?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Dancer called back, his words echoing and reechoing. “What about it?”

“I killed twenty-one men there, Dancer. In a place just like this.”

In fact, Hawke wasn’t sure how many he had killed at Devil’s Den, but he’d said twenty-one because he knew it would rattle Dancer.

Dancer fired. Hawke smiled. He could tell by the sound of the report that it was a pistol. Dancer had been so sure of the effect of the three-on-one ambush that he hadn’t even taken his rifle with him.

Hawke raised his rifle and shot at the wall just behind Dancer, creating the same effect he had with Percy and Luke. He fired several rounds—not to kill, but merely to give a demonstration of what he could do. The shots echoed
and reechoed through the canyon, sounding almost as if a full army was firing.

“Son of a bitch!” Dancer shouted.

“I can take you out of there just the way I did Luke and Percy,” Hawke said. “Or I can let you wait up there until you run out of water. You didn’t take your canteens with you, did you?”

Hawke was running a bluff. He couldn’t see well enough to determine whether Dancer had his canteen. He would bet, however, that if Dancer had thought he could ambush and kill him quickly, then he hadn’t taken his canteen with him. It was actually a double bluff, because when Hawke sent his own horse through he had not removed his canteen and taken it with him either.