“Hellooo, the posse!” the call came echoing down the long, narrow canyon. It was clearly audible, so Davidson and his men were not that far away.
Monte waved the two men back and shouted, “We hear you. Give yourselves up. You haven’t got a chance.”
“Oh, I think not, Sheriff. I think it’s going to be a very interesting confrontation.”
“Rex Davidson,” Smoke said. “I will never forget that voice.”
Monte turned to one of his deputies. “Harry, you and Bob ride down yonder about half a mile. There’s a way up to the skyline. You’ll be able to shoot right down on top of them. Take off.”
“This is tricky country,” Beaconfield said. “Man can get hisself into a box here ’fore he knows. Took me several years to learn this country and damned if I still don’t end up in a blind canyon ever now and then.”
They all knew what he meant, for they all had, at one time or the other, done the same them.
“Hellooo, the posse!” the call came again.
“We hear you! What do you want?” Monte yelled, his voice bouncing around the steep canyon walls.
“We seem to have boxed ourselves in. Perhaps we could behave as gentlemen and negotiate some sort of settlement. What do you say about that?”
“Bastard’s crazy!” Monte said.
“You noticed,” Smoke replied.
Raising his voice, Monte called, “Toss your guns to the ground and ride on out. One hand on the reins, the other hand in the air.”
“That offer is totally unacceptable!”
“Then you’re going to get lead or a rope. Take your choice!”
“Come on and get us then!” Dagget yelled, laying down the challenge.
“We got three choices,” Garrett said, a grimness to his voice. “We can starve them out; but that’d take days. We could try to set this place on fire and burn them out; but I don’t want no harm to come to their horses. Or we can go in and dig them out.”
Smoke dismounted and led Horse back to a safe pocket at the mouth of the canyon. He stuffed his pockets with .44s and pulled his rifle from the boot.
The others followed suit, taking their horses out of the line of fire and any possible ricocheting bullet. Monte waved the men to his side.
“The only way any of us is gonna take lead this day is if we’re stupid or downright unlucky. What we’re gonna do is wait until Bob and Harry get into position and start layin’ down some lead. Then we can start movin’ in. So lets have us a smoke and a drink of water and relax. Relaxin’ is something them ol’ boys in that box canyon ain’t liable to be doin’.”
The men squatted down and rolled and licked and shaped and lit. Beaconfield brought out a coffee pot, and Smoke made a small circle of rocks and started a hat-sized fire. The men waited for the coffee to boil.
With a smile on his lips, Smoke walked to the curve of the canyon and shouted, “We’re gonna have us some coffee and food, Davidson. We’ll be thinking about you boys all hunkered up there in the rocks doing without.”
A rifle slug whined wickedly off the rock wall, tearing through the air to thud against the ground.
“This is the Jester, King Rex, Your Majesty!” Smoke shouted. “How about just you and me, your royal pain in the ass?”
“Swine!” Davidson screamed. “You traitor! You turned your back to me after all I’d done for you. I made you welcome in my town and you turned on me like a rattlesnake.”
He is insane, Smoke thought. But crazy like that much-talked-about fox.
“That doesn’t answer my question, Davidson. How about it? You and me in a face-off?”
“You trust that crud, Smoke?” Johnny North asked, edging close to Smoke.
“No, I just want to see what he’ll do.”
They all got that answer quickly. All the hemmed-in outlaws began pumping lead in Smoke’s direction. But all they managed to do was waste a lot of lead and powder and hit a lot of air.
“So much for that,” Smoke said, after the hard gunfire had ceased.
He had no sooner gotten the words out of his mouth when Harry and Bob opened up from the west side of the canyon wall. Several screams and howls of pain told the posse members the marksmanship of the men on the rim was true.
“That got their attention,” Monte said with a grim smile.
They heard the clatter of a falling rifle and knew that at least one of the outlaws had been hard hit and probably killed.
“You have no honor, Jester!” Davidson screamed. “You’re a foul person. You’re trash, Jester.”
“And you’re a coward, Davidson!” Smoke called.
“How dare you call me a coward!”
“You hide behind the guns of a child rapist. You’re afraid to fight your own battles.”
“You talkin’ about Dagget?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah.”
Johnny grimaced and spat on the ground, as if trying to clear his mouth of a bad taste. “Them kind of people is pure filth. I want him, Smoke.”
“He’s all mine, Johnny. Personal reasons.”
“You got him.”
“Dagget!” Smoke yelled. “Do you have any bigger bolas than your cowardly boss?”
There was a long moment of silence. Dagget called out, “Name your poison, Jensen!”
“Face me, Dagget. One on one. I don’t think you’ve got the guts to do it.”
Another moment of silence. “How do we work it out, Jensen?”
“You call it, Dagget.”
Another period of silence. Longer than the others. Smoke felt that Dagget was talking with Davidson and he soon found that his guess was correct.
“I reckon you boys got ropes already noosed and knotted for us, right, Jensen?” another voice called.
“I reckon.”
“Who’s that?” Monte asked.
“I think it’s Paul Rycroft.”
“I ain’t lookin’ to get hung!” Rycroft yelled.
Smoke said nothing.
“Jensen? Slim Bothwell here. Your snipers got us pegged out and pinned down. Cain’t none of us move more’un two/three inches either way without gettin’ drilled. It ain’t no fittin’ way for a man to go out. I got me an idea. You interested?”
“Keep talking, Slim.”
“I step out down to the canyon floor. One of your men steps out. One of us, one of you. We do that until we’re all facin’ each other. Anybody tries anything funny, your men on the ridge can drop them already out. And since I’ll be the first one out…well, you get the pitcher, don’t you?”
Smoke looked back at the posse members. “They’re asking for a showdown. But a lot of you men aren’t gunslicks. I can’t ask you to put your life on the line.”
“A lot of them ol’ boys in there ain’t gunslicks, neither,” Beaconfield said. “They’re just trash. Let’s go for it.”
Every member of the posse concurred without hesitation. The minister, Ralph Morrow, was the second to agree.
“All right, Bothwell. You and Rycroft step out with me and Pearlie.”
“That’s a deal. Let’s do ’er.”
Each taking a deep breath, Smoke and Pearlie stepped out to face the two outlaws. Several hundred feet separated the men. The others on both sides quickly followed, the outlaws fully aware that if just one of them screwed up, the riflemen on the skyline of the canyon would take a terrible toll.
Davidson and Dagget were the last two down from the rocks. Davidson was giggling as he minced down to the canyon floor.
And Davidson and Dagget positioned themselves so they both were facing Smoke.
“And now we find out something I have always known,” Davidson called to Smoke.
“What’s that, stupid?” Smoke deliberately needled the man.
“Who’s the better man, of course!” Davidson called.
“Hell, Davidson. I’ve known that since the first time I laid eyes on you. You couldn’t shine my boots.”
Davidson flushed and waved his hand. “Forward, troops!” he shouted. “Advance and wipe out the mongrels!”