Smoke Dawson, dressed in a tailored black broadcloth suit, carried a new Colt Peacemaker in a black leather holster on his hip. He wore a flat-top "gambler's" hat, and a shirt starched so white it glowed in the evening's gloom.

With a practiced hand, he built a cigarette mechanically in the dark. He struck a match on his Mexican silver belt buckle, sparking a flame that flared for an instant, revealing dark, steady eyes, a straight nose and a thin, trimmed mustache.

Mottled moonlight illuminated the small ranch spread out before him in the thick, settled darkness. Smoke had studied the ranch earlier in the daylight from a distance, noting its low-slung ranch house and barn with a corral were well sited.

He made a mental note of the layout for when he built his horse ranch in Mexico.

Only blooded horses on my ranch and I'll charge top dollar.

He flicked his cigarette butt away. The ember traced an arc in the night air.

Smoke reckoned having reached the backside of thirty years of age, now would be a good time to get land in Mexico and build something. He removed his hat and ran a hand along the hatband to wipe off the sweat.

Time to get to work.

He untied three pitch pine torches from his silver-studded saddle and walked his black gelding toward the dark ranch house. A dog barked.

It's a shame to burn this ranch down.

He fished another match out of his vest pocket and ignited it by snapping the head on his belt buckle. The match flared with a stench of sulfur.

Touching the match to the torches made them sputter and hiss. Smoke let the torches catch and then lofted the torches one after another, scribing vast flaming arcs in the night sky. The torches landed like falling stars on the ranch house's roof. After a moment's pause, the roof blazed and crackled with flames.

Smoke slid out of his saddle and glanced back at the handful of Flying B Ranch hands Barnes sent with him to help rid the area of "nesters." The nesters—small farmers—had built their farms on well-watered range land and needed to be removed. Barnes wanted the water and grass to expand his cattle business.

The ranch house door flew open and a man in his nightshirt holding a double-barrel shotgun stumbled outside and looked open-mouthed with horror at the burning roof. A woman in a long nightgown scooted out behind him with three children.

The hungry, raging flames splashed shadows across Smoke's face, highlighting its cheekbones and giving his face a ghoulish appearance with eyes like two holes in a sheet.

It's always the same.

"What the hell?" yelled the man as he slew the shotgun toward Smoke. "Get off my property!"

Smoke palmed his Colt in a blur and cocked the pistol in one smooth motion.

The woman shouted "No!" and ran to her husband, pushing the shotgun down and shielding him from Smoke.

The acrid smell of burning timber and charred wood scorched Smoke's nostrils. Flames created a lurid light and an oven-like heat, sending bits of ash and embers up to the heavens. Smoke half-turned and saw the Flying B Ranch hands huddled together, their eyes like saucers reflecting the flames.

"Burn the barn and roundup the livestock," ordered Smoke. His voice, flat and hard. He holstered his Colt.

"You are the Devil! Satan!" screamed the woman, pointing at Smoke. "Shame on all of you!"

The flames sizzled and popped, engulfing the ranch house and silhouetting Smoke against the hellish light. Waves of heat seared the night air.

He stepped into the saddle of his black gelding and heard one of the ranch hands say, "He's gunned down twenty-two men. I don't want to be number twenty-three. Let's get doing something."

Smoke tilted his head back and looked at the stars. He pulled out a pocket watch from his vest and angled the watch to see it better by the light of the burning ranch.

Half-past one in the morning.

They were ahead of schedule.

Smoke Dawson ground his third cigarette into the ashtray resting on the graceful mahogany side table. It annoyed Smoke to wait for Barnes, the cattleman. Barnes' sprawling home exuded a smell of furniture polish and soap and had a large staff of Chinese servants in starched white jackets and cloth slippers scurrying about.

Smoke sank five inches into the cushion of the overstuffed upholstered chair. The chair's red and gold striped fabric matched the curtains on the windows in the hallway outside Barnes' study. He'd get his money for running the nesters off the range and then put Barnes and his cattle ranch behind him.

Smoke rose to his feet, stretched his back and wandered down the hall, his polished black boots noiseless on the oriental rug. He stopped at a gilded gold leaf mirror decorated with stylized flowers.

Time and care had deepened the hollows and hardened the edges of the freshly shaved face that looked back at him from the mirror. Lines like chickens' feet sprouted from the corners of each eye. His close cropped coal black hair showed a few gray strands poking up. He blew out cigarette smoke toward his image in the mirror, hoping to alter it or remove it somehow.

He picked lint off his black broadcloth suit jacket, straightened his vest and adjusted the silver medallion on his bolo tie. Muffled laughter escaped from Barnes' study as the door swung open and a ranch hand poked his head out, smiling as if from a private joke.

"Come on in, Mr. Dawson."

Barnes sat behind an enormous carved walnut desk opposite the door, displaying a big grin that didn't reach his eyes. Barnes was younger than Smoke with sandy colored hair, a long face and the tanned, leathery skin of someone who spends time in the saddle.

"Smoke Dawson! How about a drink to celebrate a job well done?" Barnes nodded to one of the five ranch hands in the room. The ranch hand sauntered over to a sidebar and popped the cork on a champagne bottle. The cork produced a loud "pop", bounced off the ceiling and rolled under the desk.

It irritated Smoke to be forced to drink with the cattlemen. He wanted his fee, and he wanted to leave.

Smoke touched the champagne glass to his lips and put in down on the desk.

"The job's done."

Barnes hesitated a moment and then relaxed his shoulders. Smoke took a small half step backwards so no one could slide behind him.

Barnes opened the top right-hand drawer of the desk and pulled out a thick envelope.

"It's all there," said Barnes. He dropped it on his desk and leaned back in his chair and added, "My boys tell me the nesters ran away after they heard I hired you, except Jonas Johnson. You dealt with him last night, I was told."

Smoke reached over the desk and picked up the envelope with his left hand. He kept his right near his holstered Colt.

He counted out the money in the envelope of ten and twenty-dollar bills. Smoke slid the envelope into his inside coat pocket.

"I had ten dollars in expenses."

Without a word, Barnes reached into the same drawer, pulled out a ten-dollar greenback, and handed it to Smoke.

"Where to next?" said Barnes, standing up quickly, his eyes flitting to the door. Barnes was the same height as Smoke, at an inch under six feet. Both men had hard, compact frames topped with wide shoulders.

"I'll be riding out."

Smoke desired two things tonight as the stars winked alive in the darkening sky: a soft bed and to be left alone.

Smoke Dawson liked to be alone. He discovered early in life that one of the best places to be alone was a saloon. He lost himself in the crowd and tobacco smoke. One could be physically in the place, but not part of it.

He tucked himself and his gelding into a shadow in an alley across the street from a saloon overflowing with people, bustling with laughter, and the sounds of hard, sharp piano notes and clinking glasses.

Light spilled from the colored glass of its front window, seeming to birth sparkling jewels on the dusty street. He wasn't hungry and didn't drink or gamble, so he headed for the hotel in this trail town and the quiet of a room.

He flicked a cigarette butt away and built another. In the growing darkness, the lit end of the cigarette glowed like a disembodied eye. They'd been so many hotels over the years and so many miles that everything blended into a vast sea of faces, towns, saloons, hotels, flames, and dead men.

A lantern down the street sparked to life like a beacon, cutting through the thick, black night. He walked his horse toward the light, past the shops and businesses, all with false fronts, trying to appear bigger than they were, as they jockeyed for space along Main Street.

The hotel clerk's eyes scanned Smoke, resting for a moment on the pistol on his hip.

"Put up my horse in the stable."

"Very good, sir," said the clerk as he slid a key across the counter.

Smoke nodded to the clerk and trudged up the carpeted stairs to his room, carrying a leather warbag.

The warbag hit the floor, and Smoke checked the loads in his Colts. Then he stretched out on the bed and rolled himself a cigarette. Soon, a smokey haze illuminated by the room's lantern eddied over the iron bed, nightstand and wardrobe. Leaning back on the bed, he crossed his feet and called up images of his as yet to be built horse ranch. He mentally reviewed the ranch house design, where the corrals would be located, the layout of the barn and, as always, the beautiful horses.

He'd live a quiet life on his ranch. No more gunfights. No more working for fools like Barnes.

Later, Smoke folded down the corner of a page to mark his place in a dime novel. He turned down the lantern and rolled over on his side, drew his knees up, and closed his eyes.

Before the sun rimmed the horizon, he'd traveled four hours, guided by the stars. The air kept its nighttime coolness and carried a faint earthy scent. The distant Guadalupe Mountains turned from purple to gray against a dark sky.

Smoke swung down from his sleek black gelding with three white stockings. The gelding boasted a racehorse pedigree with lots of bottom. Smoke named the horse Bucephalus after Alexander the Great's warhorse.

Bucephalus was favoring his left foreleg for the last mile. Smoke squatted and gently ran his hands around the fetlock. It was warm and swollen. The gelding quivered at his touch.

Half-a-day from nowhere.

"You need rest and doctoring."

He searched inside his saddlebags for a blue liniment bottle. It was Smoke's own concoction, combining whiskey with various herbs and flowers to create a cooling solution to reduce swelling and dull pain. He rubbed liniment into the horse's sore leg while it rolled its big, dark, wet eyes.

He poured water from a canteen into his hat for Bucephalus to lap up and then stepped into the saddle. High desert spread out and undulated all around him to the horizon. Arroyos laced a landscape studded with small hills and covered in tough grass, mesquite and catclaw.

Smoke gazed at the emptiness and felt like the last man on earth. Distant heat lightning flashed with an eerie glow and snapped Smoke out of his mediation.

Two hours of switching every hour between riding and walking to ease Bucephalus' nagging pain passed quickly. He nudged the gelding forward and topped out on a small hill that fell away to a shallow bowl of land dotted with clumps of bright green vegetation wherever seeps bubbled to the surface. A well-designed ranch house and barn in an "L" shape sat in the middle of the bowl like a lonely lighthouse in a vast sea of grass. A recent grave was near the barn.

Care and skill went into this ranch.

Smoke counted a dozen horses prancing in the corral as he scanned the ranch for any sign of movement.

The front door of the ranch opened and a young girl skipped out and started when she spotted Smoke setting the big black gelding on the hilltop silhouetted against the sky.

The girl raised her hand and waved. Smoke didn't return the wave. He guided his horse down the slope. The girl ran into the barn.

Smoke walked the gelding into the ranch yard as a lanky man walked out of the barn. He wore suspenders and a straw hat. He carried a mucking shovel. His forehead was broad and his face was round, smooth and guileless. A nervous smile played across his features. Smoke observed he wasn't carrying a gun.

"Coffee's on and hot," said the man. Up close, he appeared to be made of rough, durable material intended for rugged use.

"Nice horses." Smoke swung down and gestured to the corral with his chin.

"You have a good eye, Mister . . . ?"

"Smoke Dawson."

"Ben Turner." They shook hands, and Smoke noted the thick calluses on the man's hand. The earthy scent of horses and hay wafted off Turner's clothes.

The little girl stepped out from the barn into the sunlight and Smoke figured her for ten or eleven years of age. She had short hair and was small and looked quick.

"Just you two?" said Smoke.

"When I can afford it, I hire help," Turner swallowed and Smoke watched his Adam's apple bob up and down. "Came out with my wife. She died three months ago. God rest her soul." He flashed a glance at the grave.

"Condolences."

Turner cleared his throat. "And this is my daughter, Jody Lee."

Smoke tipped his cap and relaxed his jaw into a thin, incomplete smile.

The brown-haired girl didn't respond.

"Fine stock. You breed?"

Turner's face erupted into a beaming smile. "Yes sir! Best horseflesh around. Got some nice quarter horses with Morgan and Arabian blood. I'm considering crossing with wild mustangs."

Smoke's eyebrows shot up. "That would be a tough horse." He made a mental note to remember this idea for his own horse ranch.

"You know horses? I'm crossing breeds to develop a smart horse with a good gait, lots of bottom, and that won't get sick too much," said Turner. Then he jabbed a thumb at Bucephalus. "Your horse looks like a thoroughbred." Frowning, he added, "Seems to favor the left leg."

Smoke accepted an invitation to lunch and spent the hour talking about horses with Turner. Turner was a Quaker and had built this small, impressive herd on a shoestring with sharp bargaining and luck. He figured he was a couple hundred dollars away from having all the horses he needed to begin breeding.

Turner agreed that the gelding needed rest and suggested Smoke stay a few days at the ranch and help. The gelding would get care and rest and Turner would get an extra pair of hands.

However, Quakers were against the use of firearms, and Turner requested Smoke stash his pistols in his saddlebags. Smoke also bagged his Winchester rifle and tucked the sack behind the barn door.

The next few days flew by with Jody Lee, carrying her old worn out rag doll, following Smoke around like a shadow. She was a chatterbox and didn't seem to mind that Smoke didn't always respond to her questions on an ever-changing variety of topics.

Horses filled the days and the evenings passed peacefully on the porch filled with conversations about horses. He'd smoke his cigarettes and listen to Turner's training and breeding tips.

One morning, Turner announced he and Jody Lee were going to make the ten-mile trip into the town of New Covenant for supplies. This gave Smoke the chance to spend a quiet, happy day alone caring for the animals, repairing fences and watching the horses frolic in the pasture under a cloudless pale blue sky. Bucephalus healed well under Turner's care and was getting restless to move.

At dinner time, he spied sky lined on the hill Turner and Jody Lee bouncing home on the rattling buckboard. Before the wagon rolled to a stop, Jody Lee leaped off and ran up to Smoke, swinging a small paper sack.

"Candy!" said Jody Lee. "Have some!" Jody Lee extended the brown paper bag to Smoke. He peered in at the jumble of candy and picked a butter scotch flavored hard candy.

"Any problems with the horses?" asked Turner.

"Nope," said Smoke.

Smoke squinted, scanning the wagon's back trail etched into the hillside and added. "This might be trouble."

He crunched the candy in his mouth and inclined his head toward the hill.

Four horsemen were walking tired mounts down toward the ranch, following the wagon ruts.

"Looks like we have company," said Turner. He looked around, surprised Smoke was gone. "Jody Lee, go in the barn and stay out of sight."

The setting sun slanted into Turner's eyes as he watched the four riders spread out and saunter into the ranch yard. Threadbare range clothes hung around them like rags on sticks and stubble sprouted on their gaunt faces, giving them a lethal leanness.

Their scruffy horses plodded forward with heads hanging down. The men had worn their boot heels to the nub, and their saddle leather was cracked and ripped.

Turner put his shoulders back and stretched himself to his full height and braced his legs shoulder width apart.

A smile creased the blonde-haired rider's narrow face as he nudged his horse toward Turner.

"Howdy!" said Turner, holding his straw hat in one hand.

The blonde-haired rider brought his horse close to Turner and looked down at his round, upturned face.

"We came to trade horses," said the man, his greasy hair spilled over his collar. He gazed at the corral with its dozen horses. "You got some to trade."

"Sorry to disappoint, sir, but I'm not trading right now. Still building up my stock."

The blonde-hair man ignored Turner's comment.

"We'll trade our four horses for four of yours. Even up."

The other riders remained mute. With tattered hats pulled low, they looked like eyeless creatures.

Smoke cut Turner's response short, stepping around a corner of the ranch house, placing him at an angle to the blond-haired rider. The metallic click of Smoke's two Colts cocking echoed across the ranch year.

The riders started at the sound. The blonde-haired man's fevered eyes swept over Smoke, and the shiny Peacemaker Colts pointed at his belly.

Smoke stared at the riders without saying a word.

The blonde man pursed his lips.

He's figuring the odds.

Smoke watched as the barrel of his rifle slid out the barn door. Shadow concealed the person holding the rifle.

The riders caught the movement too.

"We can do business next time," said the blonde-haired man with a grim smile on his bony face.

The riders turned and lumbered away on their haggard horses back the way they came.

"Lord have mercy," said Turner. "Please forgive them."

Smoke watched the riders walk away and vanish in a fold of the rolling hills.

Turner swallowed and raised himself to his full height. "Thank you for stepping in, but I'm against the use of guns. Guns are evil."

"Guns have no souls. The trigger pullers are evil."

"This is my ranch, and I forbid the use of guns to threaten or take a human life. Who lives by the sword; dies by the sword."

"They'll be back."

"You can't know that."

"Did you see the shape of their horses and gear? They are running from something and need fresh horses. This is the only ranch around for miles."

Turner's eyes grew wide and then narrowed. "What do you suggest?"

"Do you have a place to hide the stock?"

"No."

"You have horses. They need horses. We take turns on watch tonight. I'm going to protect my horse," said Smoke. "I'll take the first watch,"

Smoke sat on a stool in the barn and loaded his rifle as Jody Lee floated in. She stayed in the outer circle of lantern light, holding her shabby rag doll.

Jody Lee watched Smoke's practiced hands dance over the pistols and rifle. Shadows buried half his face in darkness.

He wiped down his guns and double-checked the loads. Then he paused and reached into his warbag and pulled out an old Remington double derringer he took from a man he'd killed.

"Thanks for backing my play today." He handed her the derringer and showed her how its two barrels swung upwards for loading and gave her two bullets.

"Hide the derringer. Keep it quiet. May come in handy."

She held the derringer in two hands and stared at it with shining eyes. Then inserted the derringer and bullets into a rip in the back of her rag doll and hurried out of the barn into the night where the stars were emerging one by one like scattered pinpricks of light in the darkening sky.

The crisp, moonless night spread its black blanket over the ranch. Smoke fought the urge for a cigarette. Its glow would reveal his position on the barn roof.

He listened, becoming familiar with insects buzzing, the sound of the night breezes and the subtle creaks of the barn. Smoke was sure the riders would be back tonight to steal horses. They had nothing to lose, and Smoke would be damned if he'd lose Bucephalus.

No reasoning with Turner.

He dozed off and on until suddenly his eyes snapped open. It wasn't what he heard, but what he didn't hear that jolted him awake. All was silent. Waiting.

Then he heard boots scuff the ground and caught the whisper of a voice. Smoke gauged the location of the corral gate, raised his Winchester and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle's muzzle flash stabbed the night, followed by a rider's pistol retort. Smoke levered three rounds in a triangle pattern around the pistol flash. He was rewarded with a sharp cry of pain and the sound of horses galloping away.

The door slammed open, and Turner tumbled outside. "What's going on? Stay inside Jody Lee!"

"Oh, dear God," said Turner, staring down at a dark lump on the ground.

Smoke joined him at the gate and turned the body over, revealing a rider from the afternoon. Turner bowed his head and clasped his hands together in silent prayer. Jody Lee stood on the front door's threshold, watching.

"You are a violent man."

"They wanted your horses," said Smoke.

"You killed a man."

Turner walked into the barn. The rising sun ignited the landscape, turning the sky blood red. Smoke reloaded his rifle and watched Turner lead a horse out of the barn and hitch it to the buckboard.

"Help me load him into the wagon," said Turner, without looking at Smoke.

Together, they heaved the body into the buckboard and covered it with a blanket.

"Jody Lee! Get dressed!"

Seconds later, Jody Lee rocketed out of the house so fast her feet didn't seem to touch the ground. She plopped herself down on the buckboard seat next to Turner.

Turner looked at Smoke standing alone in the flat, open ranch yard that appeared to squirm and gyrate in the red light of dawn.

"There's been a killing. I'm reporting it to the sheriff."

Turner slapped the reins onto the horse's rump and started trotting away. Jody Lee turned in her seat and gave a slight wave. Smoke didn't return the wave.

The afternoon sun was sliding toward dusk when Turner pulled the buckboard to a stop at the ranch. Jody Lee jumped down and ran into the house. Reporting the death and answering the sheriff's questions had taken hours. Turner dropped to the ground and stretched.

"Dad! Come here!"

Turner strode to the house, ducking his head through the front door. Jody Lee was standing next to the table, her eyes wide. A coffee pot rested on top of a pile of cash.

"Lord have mercy," whispered Turner. "There must be two hundred dollars in cash!"

Smoke Dawson sat the black gelding at the top of a hill that fell away to a shallow bowl dotted with bright green vegetation wherever water bubbled to the surface. He made a cigarette and smoked it, staring down at the ranch.

A ranch house, two barns, and outbuildings scattered around the yard spread out below him. One grave with a headstone was on the left. Three corrals contained thirty spirited horses romping in the fresh air under a pale blue sky.

Smoke watched men working in the corrals. Thought and care went into the construction of the efficient and tidy ranch. The corrals intersected with each other, allowing for easy movement of the horses. He made a mental note of the layout for use on his horse ranch.

The ranch's front door opened, and a young woman came out. She started when she spied Smoke setting the big black gelding on the hilltop silhouetted against the sky.

She raised her hand and waved. Smoke didn't return the wave. He nudged his horse down the slope toward the ranch.

As Smoke walked the gelding into the ranch yard, a lanky man wearing jeans and a white Stetson joined the young women. She looked about sixteen, was willowy and wore jeans. She had braided her brown hair into a ponytail that hung down her back.

The lanky man looked up with his tanned, round face and broke the silence.

"Hello Smoke."

"Hello Ben." Tipping his black flat crown hat to Jody Lee, he added, "Jody Lee."

"The prodigal son returns, eh?"

"Did the money help with the ranch?"

Turner's jaw went taut. "You tempted me with your blood money and I am weak. Yes, it helped."

Smoke pulled out the makings and sprinkled tobacco into a wrapper before twisting the ends.

"The sheriff told me who and what you are," said Turner.

Smoke blew out a stream of tobacco smoke. "Then you know why I'm here."

"The cattlemen want our land and water, so they hired you," said Turner.

Jody Lee's clear blue eyes shifted from one man to the other.

"You have three days," said Smoke, guiding his horse back the way he came.

Turner and Jody Lee watched Smoke trot away. Turner shuffled over to the grave and bowed his head. Jody Lee ran into the house, slamming the door.

Smoke woke up dressed in the hotel bed. His pocket watch on the nightstand read two am. He swung his feet to the floor and his knees cracked when he stood up to check the loads in his Colts. The cattlemen said the nesters were organizing and to hit them soon, before they coordinated their actions.

He told Turner three days, but he planned to strike hard this morning. Destroying Turner's horse ranch would send a message and scare the smaller ranchers away. Others had already left after they heard that Smoke Dawson was hired.

Five ranch hands, provided by the cattlemen, met Smoke in the hotel lobby and, without discussion, they rode out of town. Each man carried pistols with torches strapped to their saddles.

Dawn was still hours away as they cut through the clotted nighttime air, which had a weight and a blackness all its own. The only sounds were horse's hooves and the creak of saddle leather.

Smoke raised his hand to stop the ragged line of men strung out on horseback behind him. Ahead, a faint fire's glow caressed the edge of an endless oil-black sky.

Turner is up early.

Smoke built himself a cigarette, twisted and wet the ends, then lit it.

"Wait here," said Smoke, without turning around. The black gelding started forward toward the distant glow.

Smoke walked his horse into the ranch yard, stopping ten feet away from a struggling fire next to the grave. He stared at Turner's lined face in the flickering firelight.

"We'll take care of the horses."

"Who'll take care of us?" replied Turner, staring into the fire. "I wanted to burn this place down before you got here. I couldn't do it."

Smoke threw his cigarette away with a sharp movement.

"Will you still build a horse ranch in Mexico?"

The back of Smoke's neck was wet.

Turner dragged a Colt out from under his leg.

"A neighbor gave me this. I considered using it, but it goes against everything I believe in." He placed the gun on the ground. "Live by the sword; die by the sword."

The metallic click of Smoke's revolver exploded like a cannon shot in the night air, echoing off the darkened ranch house and barns. He stepped down from his horse and stood over Turner.

"It's time," said Smoke.

Smoke felt a punch in his back, followed by a pistol's quick, sharp retort. He turned and his knees buckled.

Jody Lee stood a few feet away from Smoke, gripping the derringer in her right hand and the rag doll in the left.

"Nooo!" screamed Turner, unfolding his body and leaping up.

Jody Lee leveled the pistol inches from Smoke. Smoke saw a flash, then felt a kick in the chest, followed by searing heat.

Suddenly, Smoke was on his back, looking up at a red-stained dawn sky.

It's not supposed to happen like this! What about my ranch?

He watched Turner hug his sobbing daughter. Smoke turned his head and saw dancing flames reflected in his horse's large almond-shaped eyes. The Colt slipped from Smoke's lifeless fingers and his sightless eyes stared up at the heavens.