Jubal and Kane brought their horses to a halt when they came up to Grimm who had been riding on a little ahead of them, following the unmistakable trail of Harrison's Raiders. The three mounted men were on a small wooded rise from which they could see in the distance the town of Derrick.

"What are we stopping for?" Jeremy Kane asked.

"Listen," Grimm quietly ordered.

Although almost fall, the late summer sun was hotter than a hooker with a twenty dollar itch. There was no breeze to speak of and the only sounds that Jubal and Kane could hear were insects and birds--and damn few of them.

"Nothing," Jeremy shrugged.

"It's the middle of the day," Grimm said in his low, rough voice, "and the town's near enough, the air still enough that we should hear something. A horse. A wagon. Someone working. Something."

"A lazy little town," shrugged Jeremy.

"So lazy no one is moving about? Look. See anyone?"

Kane leaned forward in his saddle as if to lessen the distance between himself and Derrick as he stared hard into the town.

"No one."

"Not exactly," said Grimm.

"Ah sees it," Jubal said. "Over there by the livery. Bottom of the far wall."

"What?" Kane asked, narrowing his eyes to see what Grimm and Jubal obviously saw. "The man taking a nap?"

"Only thing that'll be wakin' that man will be Gabriel's trumpet on Judgment Day."

Jeremy Kane looked at the black man.

"Dead?"

"Ah wouldn't be takin' a nap there, in the dust, in the sun."

"Harrison passed through there," Grimm said, "so it stands to reason there won't be much left alive in the town."

"So why are we just sittin' here?"

"Ah suspect," Jubal said, answering for Grimm, "it's because not everythin' in that town is dead."

"You saw it?" Grimm asked.

"Glint of midday sun on steel in that second floor window?" the negro replied. "Ah saw it jest after the dead man."

"You two saying that we were about to ride into an ambush?"

"Ah sees that your daddy, the good Reverend Kane, done raised hisself a real thinker!"

Kane merely scowled at the black man then freed up his Remington.

"So what do we do?"

"We walk into the trap."

"That's crazy!" Kane said to Grimm.

The dark rider looked over the terrain, taking note of the line of trees that curved towards the town to the right and the drop of the land to the left.

"I didn't say we go in through the front door."

"What the hell are we waitin' for? This is crazy."

Reese, along with Don Doggens, Long Tom and Mick, had been chosen to stick around in Derrick with Pitts and Burly Bob, and Reese, a man nearly as big as Grant, was not very happy about it. While Willy sat at the window to one side, rifle in hand, Reese paced back and forth in the second floor room above the small saloon. The town did not have a proper hotel, had no need for one, but there were a few rooms to let above the ruins of the drinking establishment.

"Goddamnit! Will you sit down!"

"Look, whelp," said Reese angrily, "I'll sit when I feel like sittin'!"

Willy Pitts, a good deal younger than Reese, but considerably more steady, gave the bigger man an evil look and cocked his rifle.

Reese took a seat, a scowl upon his face.

Mick, a redheaded Irishman who seldom had anything to say, waited near the swinging doors of the saloon, inside, just out of sight, like the others, watching the eastern end of the dirt road that ran through Derrick.

Don Doggens, whose long, stringy dirty brown hair hung out from under his beaten hat to well beyond his shoulders, waited, in the barber shop on the other side of the street, while Burly Bob, paying little attention to anything, sat inside the general store, which was next to the saloon, his feet propped up on a pickle barrel.

Long Tom was a tall drink of water who fancied himself a gunman and since his arms were so long he wore his holster ridiculously low, and of course tied down. He was stationed at the constable's office towards the west end of town, on the same side of the street as the livery stable and the barber shop.

"How long we gotta hang around here?" Reese asked with irritation.

"You heard the captain. Few days, maybe less. Burly Bob was right. Captain's instincts are pretty good. If he says someone's shadowing us, someone's probably shadowing us."

"Yeah. Sure. The damn injun's demon!"

A chill ran down Willy's spine as an image flashed through his mind--the image of a man viewed over the barrel of his rifle; a man hanging at the end of a rope.

Grimm made his way through the trees on foot, following the arc that they created to the north of the town. As he crept up to the rear of the saloon, Jubal and Kane had moved low through the curving drop-off to the south of Derrick. Kane moved on ahead of Jubal to come at the town from the west end of the dirt road that passed through its centre.

Putting his back against the saloon's rear wall, Grimm stood in silence to get the feel of the situation. He knew that there was at least one man upstairs, probably with a rifle, but there might also be someone in the saloon itself. Quietly he pulled the iron alloy knife from its sheath, then very carefully slipped into the building through the back door that every "respectable" drinking establishment had.

Meanwhile, Jubal was creeping around the livery stable with Grimm's Henry in his strong black hands. He came across the man leaning against the plank wall and nudged him with the barrel of the rifle just to be sure. The man fell forward in the dust, a bullet hole between his eyes. The flies were already swarming, so the black man moved on all the more quickly for it.

Jeremy Kane's fresh face was creased with worry lines in his forehead. He was sweating more from nervousness than from the heat that was already becoming oppressive. Although he fancied himself handy with his Remington, he had really had little opportunity to test himself in situations like this. Nervously, he made his way around the town to a position somewhat behind and to the west of the last building on that side of the street--the constable's office. He clutched his pistol tightly in his hand.

As Grimm stealthily made his way through the backroom of the saloon where the kegs and bottles of alcohol and water to stretch it out were stored, he felt sure that he would not be endangering the lives of innocent townspeople. The bodies of the barkeep and another in the storeroom reinforced his feeling that there had been few people in the town of Derrick to begin with and that the only ones left alive were some of the ones who had done the killing and least deserved to live.

He wondered if anyone would remember the town and its inhabitants, or if they, like his village and its people, would simply be forgotten entirely in the course of time.

Jubal froze behind the small barber shop when he heard a slight sound inside. Very carefully he made his way around the side of the building to peer into the window. If Burly Bob had been paying attention in the general store across the street he would have seen the black man. Inside the barber shop, Don Doggens was idly looking into a wall mirror, trimming his six-days' growth of beard with a shiny pair of silver sissors as if it were improving his less than sophisticated appearance. Jubal noted that he was the only one inside and moved back away from the window, putting his back as firmly against the wall as possible, the Henry already cocked and ready to go.

Kane, first wiping the perspiration away from his eyes, came around the western wall of the constable's office, and carefully stepped upon the floorboards in front. Gently he pulled the hammer of his single-action Remington back, cocking it. Although the sound was very slight, in the silence of that dead town it was loud enough for Long Tom to hear.

The dark rider, knife in hand, peered around the doorjamb to look into the bar. He saw the redheaded Irishman, gun still holstered, studying the street from the side of the swinging doors, certain that riders would unsuspectingly come in from the east. Grimm took a step forward to stand in the doorway to one side of the bar. He was in full view--if Mick had been looking in the right direction. Taking another step forward, trying to be quiet, Grimm inadvertantly tread upon a small piece of glass--there was broken glass everywhere from bottles, a mirror and windows--and crunched it under foot. The sound startled Mick and he turned quickly to look behind him, but did not reach fast enough for his iron.

The dagger went sailing through the air and in the blink of an eye drove through the Irishman's neck, pinning him to the wall in a standing position. For a few moments he struggled, making only gurgling sounds as the blood oozed out of his mouth, and then his eyes went glassy and he hung there, limp. Dead.

Very carefully, Grimm stepped over the corpse, avoiding the broken glass all over the floor as much as possible, and with a little difficulty, pulled his knife from the wall and the man's throat, gently easing the body to the floor so as not to make the slightest sound.

Jeremy Kane put his left hand on the doorknob of the constable's office and with his Remington in his right, slowly turned it to open the door. Inside, Long Tom stood, feet apart, as if it were high noon on the main street, waiting for the other man to become visible. Any sensible man would have already filled his hand with iron, but Long Tom chose to hold his near the butt of his six-shooter, tensely waiting to see the man on the other side of the door.

Kane suddenly pushed the door open, although not with great force, then turned sideways, gun held before him. His move kept him from getting killed by Long Tom's first shot. As soon as the would-be gunman saw his opponent, he drew and fired, but instead of hitting Kane in the chest, his bullet passed through the young man's right shoulder.

The loud report brought everyone to attention.

Kane fired automatically, wildly, missing Long Tom. The badman fired again, missing Kane as he fell to one knee, taking his pistol in his left hand to fire again, and miss.

Kane's third shot hit the mark, throwing Long Tom against the back wall, gut shot, but the Raider fired twice more, each shot hitting the young man square in the chest and throwing him from the front deck and into the dusty street.

Jeremy Kane was dead before the dust settled about his body, and Long Tom followed him out of this world not long after.

When the first shot was fired, Burly Bob Oakland leaped to his big feet so quickly that he knocked both chair and pickle barrel over, spilling the contents of the barrel. Army Colt in hand, he looked out the front window, peering between the lettering on the glass, and saw Jubal at the side of the barber shop. Burly Bob stood back and fired through the glass once, twice, three times. The first bullet whizzed past Jubal's face so close that he fancied he saw the grey blur of speeding lead. The other two kicked up wood splinters at the corner of the building, striking far too close to the black man for his comfort.

In a sudden and unthoughtout instinctual move, Jubal stepped away from the wall, exposing himself more clearly for a moment, then flew through the closed window and into the barber shop. Doggens, looking out the front window, was taken completely by surprise. The black man flew into the room along with a shower of glass. Doggens turned about, rifle in hand, eyes wide, mouth agape, not even thinking to raise the Henry that he carried. Jubal Freeman hit the floor, rolled, came up on one knee, and firing from the hip, drilled a hole straight through Don Doggens' head where his nose used to be before the shot was fired. The lead went through the man's brain, blew out the back of Doggens' skull, and made one hell of a mess before the outlaw finally realized he was dead and dropped face forward on to the broken glass strewn all over the floor.

Two more shots rang out, passing through and shattering the barber shop's front window, as Burly Bob fired from the general store across the street.

While all of this was going on, Grimm found himself, Colt in hand, outside the door of the last of the few rooms upstairs that he was carefully checking. The others had proven to be empty, as he had expected, so he was sure that the rifleman would be in that last room. Grimm kicked the door in, dropping to one knee, and fired. His shot took out Reese immediately, drilling him through the chest, but not before he too managed to get off a shot that went wild, but still came dangerously close to Grimm's head.

For a moment that seemed to last forever, Willy Pitts and Grimm stared at one another.

Willy Pitts could not believe his eyes. He was staring at a dead man. A man he had not only seen hanged, but whom he had himself shot in the heart. Any man shot left of centre in the chest, Pitts thought, does not come after you later--unless he is some kind of a ghost or demon!

During Pitts' moment of confusion, Grimm cocked his .44 and fired. The shot would have taken Willy out if he had remained frozen a split second longer, but at the same instant he raised his rifle to shoot and the slug from Grimm's gun hit the barrel of the weapon and kicked it out of Pitts' hands. Had it not been for the rifle, the bullet would have gone right through the Raider's black heart.

Grimm rolled to the right as Pitts reached for his sidearm, but at the last moment the outlaw decided instead to go out the open window rather than to try and shoot it out with a ghost.

By the time Grimm raised his head and aimed his revolver, ready to finish the job, Pitts was out the window and just getting over the edge of the roof of the two-story building. Fortunately for him this was one saloon that did not have a false façade to give the building an appearance of greater height. He would have dropped to the street instead, but there seemed to be too much gun play going on down there between Burly Bob and someone in the barber shop. He did not want to get caught in the crossfire.

Burly Bob, in the general store, picked up a loaded repeater he had had leaning against the wall, and growling like an animal he stood square in the now shattered front window and fired all fifteen rounds at the barber shop. Lead cut through wood, shattered glass, and nicked the black man in at least three places, but fortunately for him they were all flesh wounds.

Again doing the unexpected, having reloaded Grimm's Henry, Jubal Freeman propelled himself through the remains of the barber shop's front window, rolled then fired at the man still standing in the window across the street. One of the five shots the negro fired hit the big man in the chest, just above his right lung. Bob fell back with a grunt as if he had been hit in the chest with a two-by-four.

Jubal, crouching low, moved forwards, towards the store, firing five more rounds--three at the window and two through the window in the front door. Once he set foot on the wooden planks of the walkway, Jubal hit the door with his right shoulder, it flew in and he swung the barrel of the carbine around to aim it at Burly Bob as the outlaw scrambled about on the floor desperately reaching for his revolver.

The black man recognized Oakland immediately as the man whom he held responsible for the fate of Christine and Christabelle. He stood there with the Henry repeater trained on the badman, his dark eyes burning with a hatred he had not felt since the day he shot his slavemaster in South Carolina.

Burly Bob picked up his pistol, aimed it, and squeezed the trigger. Click. The hammer fell on a spent cartridge. He squeezed the trigger again, and again. The gun was empty. A nasty grin spread over the black man's ebony face.

"You done made your last play," Jubal said. "Now Ah owes you for what you done to Mister O'Connor and his daughters."

Jubal Freeman raised the rifle and put the sights on Burly Bob's chest, then he suddenly lowered the barrel and squeezed off a round. The slug hit the mark, small as it was, and completely destroyed the man's groin.

Burly Bob howled in pain and anguish.

Then Jubal fired again, and again, planting lead in both of Oakland's meaty thighs. Again the black man pulled the Henry's trigger, driving hot lead through the Raider's stomach so that it lodged in his spinal column.

Burly Bob Oakland sat on the floor, back against the counter, bleeding from his groin, thighs and gut as well as his chest, unable to move. His eyes rolled in his head and he pleaded with the black man not to fire again.

Jubal Freeman stood over the man who had taken the best people he had ever known out of the world, the man who had ruined his life just when he had finally found peace, and he spit in his eyes.

The black man pressed the barrel of the rifle against Burly Bob Oakland's forehead and fired the last round in the Henry.

Grimm carefully stuck his head out the window, then went out, up and over to follow Willy Pitts. Just as he was rising to his feet on the roof of the saloon, Pitts was leaping to the lower roof of the general store. Grimm fired once, but missed. Pitts leaped from the roof of the store and rolled in the dusty street.

Jubal came out, raised the Henry to shoot, but the weapon was empty.

Willy Pitts looked up at the black man and laughed, then he started to run down the street, heading due east.

Suddenly a shot rang out and dust was kicked up just behind the fleeing man. Pitts turned and saw Grimm standing on the roof of the saloon, his wide-brimmed black hat shading his face, making his grey eyes, which caught the light of the sun, seem almost to burn within a kind of no-face darkness. Grimm's long black coat caught by an unexpected breeze billowed out around him like the wings of some great bird of prey and Pitts remembered the hawk that had attacked Black Hand.

The outlaw accurately judged the distance between them and laughed again as Grimm fired once more, the bullet falling far short of its target.

Then the image of the hanging man flashed once more in front of Willy's mind. It swayed on the tree limb and turned slowly on the rope. When the image of the hanging man turned about to confront his mind's eye, Willy did not see the expected face, but saw instead his own.

Grimm's eyes flashed like the fascinating eyes of a serpent as he lifted his .44, resting it on his left forearm, aiming high.

Under his breath, the dark man uttered an ancient chant as he sighted along the barrel of his revolver and there was a sudden shift in the atmosphere causing the breeze to strengthen and blow in the opposite direction, towards the outlaw.

Pitts looked up and saw the flash in Grimm's grey eyes, or at least fancied that he had, and he stood there as if he were hanging at the end of a rope, unable to move. Transfixed.

Grimm squeezed the trigger of the Colt. The cocked hammer was released, hit the percussion cap, exploded the gunpower in the shell and sent the lead spiralling through the eight inch barrel. The lead slug cut through the hot air, its trajectory an almost visible arc. At first it looked as though the shot had been fired too high, then the bullet dropped down until it came to a sudden stop in the chest of Willy Pitts, planting itself in the centre of his pounding heart.

For a moment the man hung there as if suspended by a rope, and then his lifeless body crumpled in the dust with no hope of resurrection.