Luke Jensen was in Bent Creek, Wyoming, on business. He didn't want to waste time — or bullets — killing some obnoxious young fool who didn't know any better than to prod him.

Unfortunately, it looked like he might not have a choice.

Luke stood at the bar of the Three of a Kind Saloon and toyed with a glass of exceptionally mediocre whiskey. The liquor wasn't quite bad enough to convince him that the proprietor had brewed it out back in a washtub and thrown a few rattlesnake heads into the mix for flavoring, but it came close.

Some decent cognac would have been more fortifying after the long ride Luke had made today, but since this was Bent Creek, Wyoming — a squalid, muddy, vermin-infested hamlet if ever there was one — and not San Francisco or Denver, Luke supposed he would just have to make do with what was available. Any port in the proverbial storm.

He threw back the rest of the rotgut in the glass, grimaced slightly, and tried to ignore the young hardcase sitting at a table behind him with some friends.

"Don't he look dangerous, dressed all in black that way?" the would-be troublemaker was saying. "And them fancy guns, well, it makes me scared just to look at 'em, boys."

The youngster's mocking tone grated on Luke's nerves. He wasn't an overly vain man, although the black hat, shirt, trousers, and boots he wore were well cared for and he had slapped some of the trail dust off of them before he walked into the saloon.

Nor were the revolvers riding in the cross-draw rig he wore as fancy as the hardcase made them out to be. They were long-barreled, .44 caliber Remingtons, nickel-plated, to be sure, with ivory grips, but they weren't adorned with any elaborate engraving. To Luke they were simply the well-used tools of his trade.

None of that mattered. The kid was on the prod, and if it hadn't been Luke's clothes or guns, the harasser would have found something else to make fun of. Luke was a stranger in Bent Creek, and the young man, who probably considered himself the big he-wolf around here, had decided to goad him into a fight.

The short, fat bartender looked nervous, as if he had seen similar scenes played out in the Three of a Kind before. Most likely, he had. He picked up the bottle and gave Luke an inquiring look. Luke shook his head and said, "I believe I've had enough."

"Next one's on the house, mister," the bartender said. The words made his three chins wobble.

"Obliged, but I'll pass." The bartender clearly didn't want a shooting, so he was trying to stall for time hoping the kid would get bored and forget about starting a fight, Luke figured.

That was all well and good. The man didn't want bullets flying around his business. Luke could understand that.

But he was tired and not in the mood to be charitable. Besides, he might be able to use this to his advantage.

"I should probably be moving on ..." Luke began. He saw hope leap to life in the bartender's eyes, the hope that Luke would leave before any gunplay broke out. "But I need to ask you one question first."

"Sure, mister. What is it?"

"I'm looking for a friend of mine who might have come this way," Luke lied — about the friend part, anyway. "Medium height, brown hair, just a little on the slender side."

"That could be a lot of men. He got a name?"

"Judd Tyler."

The bartender shook his head slowly and, Luke thought, sincerely.

"Sorry, mister. Don't know the name. Anything else you can tell me about him?"

"Well, he was riding a paint pony a while back, but I don't know if he still is."

"What you should do, then," the bartender said, "is go on over to Crandall's Livery. It's the only one in town. If anybody rode in lately on a paint, Fred Crandall will know about it."

"And once again, I'm obliged to you," Luke said. The young hardcase had fallen silent, and Luke thought maybe he had lost interest.

That wasn't the case. Luke glanced in the mirror behind the bar and saw the kid watching him. The intent expression on the young man's face told him all he needed to know.

Luke caught a glimpse of his own face, too: tanned, weathered, too craggy to be called handsome, dominated by a slightly larger than normal nose with a neatly trimmed black mustache underneath it. It was a tired face, weary from the years he had lived, the miles he had traveled, and the gunpowder he had burned. To be honest, the face of a man not to trifle with.

The hardcase, though, was blinded by youth and arrogance, and as Luke turned away from the bar, the young man scraped his chair back and stood up.

"Where you goin', stranger?" he asked. A simple question, but it had an air of challenge about it.

"Over to the livery stable," Luke said, his voice deceptively mild. "As late in the day as it is, I believe I'll spend the night, so I'll need to arrange to leave my horse there."

"Well, maybe we don't want fellas like you spendin' the night in Bent Creek."

Luke smiled at the bluster and said, "Fellas like me? Just what sort of fella do you think I am?"

"The kind who thinks he's better'n everybody else. You can't fool me, mister. I was watchin' in the mirror and saw the face you made when you took your drink. You think Johnny's whiskey ain't no good."

The bartender cleared his throat and said, "I, uh, didn't notice anything like that, Tate."

"He wouldn't take a second drink, would he? Even when you told him it was on the house! Where I come from, by God, that's a damn insult."

"Where do you come from, Tate?" Luke asked.

The young hardcase frowned in confusion, the question clearly catching him by surprise. He said, "Why, right here in Bent Creek, of course. Born and raised on a spread a few miles outta town."

"Well, if you're actually in the place you come from, then you shouldn't be saying where I come from, because that implies it's somewhere else, other than where you are."

Tate's confusion was growing. He gave a little shake of his head and moved a step closer to Luke. Behind him at the table, his two friends had stood up as well and spread out a little. Typical tactics, Luke thought. They were ready to back Tate's play, whatever it turned out to be.

Tate scowled and said, "You're tryin' to get me all mixed up —"

"Just pointing out a slight logical flaw in your manner of speaking —"

"You high-toned son of a bitch!"

From behind the bar, fat Johnny said, "Please, Tate, if there's any more trouble in here, Marshal Donovan's liable to shut me down —"

The tense way Tate held himself told Luke that Johnny's plea wasn't going to do any good. Tate had screwed his nerves so tight inside that there was only one way to let off the pressure.

"Look, maybe I'll have that second drink after all," Luke said, turning back slightly to the bar but not taking his eyes off Tate. The move made Tate frown and keep his hand from stabbing toward his holstered gun, as it had been about to do.

Johnny had set the bottle of whiskey on the bar. Luke's left hand closed around the neck of it, and what happened next was so swift it was hard for the eye to follow. Luke twisted, whipped his arm out, and flung the half-full bottle at Tate. The bottom of it struck him in the center of the forehead with a solid thump but didn't break. The impact knocked Tate back a step. His feet tangled with a...