A lone wolf is an easy target.

Joe Noose considered this as he raised his Winchester rifle to his shoulder, settling the crosshairs of his gunsight on the distant figure standing by a horse near the Hoback River two hundred yards away.

Adjusting his aim an inch up and to the right of the figure's shoulder for trajectory in the northwesterly wind, he calculated for windage, elevation, and bullet drop as he felt the cold metal of the trigger resistance against his forefinger.

No mistaking his target even from this distance — nor the missing nose on his face from the wanted posters for Jim Henry Barrow that offered a thousand dollars reward for his capture, dead or alive.

Noose's gloved finger was tight on the trigger and his quarry in his rifle crosshairs had not spotted him yet.

The bounty hunter would try to take him in peacefully, picking his moment to call out the man's name and order him to put his hands behind his head.

If he resisted, Noose would put one in his shoulder, which usually subdued even the most uncooperative type.

He meant to take his target in alive like he always did.

Noose heard something. His finger loosened infinitesimally on the trigger, senses alert.

There it was again — a near-imperceptible disturbance in the distant woods like horses' hooves stepping on fallen leaves and twigs, but slow and quiet like the horses were being ridden with stealth.

It wasn't the first time the bounty hunter had heard the horses; he had heard them on and off all day throughout the full twelve miles he had ridden chasing down his latest meal ticket.

A twig snapped to the east a few hundred feet out.

Who they were and why they were following him, Noose didn't know, not yet at least, but he was aware of their presence. Being alert and ready was the most important part of avoiding an ambush. He doubted the unseen riders were part of any gang Barrow belonged to because Barrow, as far as he knew, rode alone. The thug was too stupid, drunk, and violent for even the most low-life gangs to claim as a member. Yet anything was possible.

These riders moved like ghosts. They were good. He had to give them that.

It had taken Joe Noose less than a week to catch up with Jim Henry Barrow.

While pulling a stickup, the bank robber had shot a guard in the Victor bank and fled across the Wyoming landscape up into the rugged and treacherous Hoback Canyon. He'd gotten away with a hundred and twenty three dollars and in the escape lost the handkerchief on his face so several customers had been able to identify him by his distinctive bullet scar that had taken his nose years before. Barrow had an hour head start on the local Victor lawmen who had been forced to turn back when one of their horses broke a leg. Noose happened to be dropping off a prisoner to the jail when he heard about the robbery and the killing. The sheriff had wired the U.S. Marshal's office in Jackson Hole and gotten the reward authorized and Noose had gone after it.

It had been a long hard ride across twelve miles of sheer forest and steep mountain range that was as hard going down as up. The trek had nearly killed his horse and he had to walk the animal half the time, but the outlaw's trail had been fresh. Noose expected, rightly so, that once Barrow made Jackson Hole, the big valley on the other side of the pass, he would get a boat and make off down the Snake River. Which was exactly what the man Noose was aiming at was doing this very second.

It was the tracks of the other horses that unnerved Noose. He made them out to number twelve, riding together.

In the last two days, he had crossed the fresh hoofprints twice while doubling back after a wrong turn. The bounty hunter figured it must be a gang. Who they were Noose didn't know but he wondered why all those men and horses had fetched up in the remote wilderness with him and Barrow. What worried him was whether Barrow had a gang Noose didn't know about and planned to meet up with them. It could be the presence of these others was sheer happenstance: a group of settlers or hunters passing through. But Noose didn't believe in coincidence; his belly tightened because he knew if it was a gang and they were with Barrow, it was going to get bloody, very bloody, very fast.

Another broken twig on a pine tree. A little piece of torn duster. More tracks. The riders' sign had caught his attention repeatedly during his pursuit of Barrow. Noose hadn't seen them because he had been staying out of sight, keeping downwind, not wanting to get made if whoever this gang was, was with the man with the thousand-dollar reward on his head. As far as Noose could tell, they had not noticed him, either. But who were they? he kept wondering.

Now, here, by the river, his man was alone and Noose had him in his gunsights — it was time to make his move.

"Barrow!" he shouted from his safe cover.

The outlaw suddenly straightened and made a quick break for his saddle and the rifle stock that jutted out. Quickly adjusting aim, Noose squeezed the trigger — the gun bucked, and an explosion of stones flew up at Barrow's feet, stopping him dead in his tracks. He winced, put his hands behind his head, and shouted up onto the ridge where Noose was dug in. "Don't shoot! I'm unarmed, dammit!"

"Throw down!" yelled the bounty hunter, leaping out of his cover and side-skidding his boots down the ridge, scattering pebbles and rocks, keeping his rifle leveled with one arm as he kept balance on the hill with the other. "Kiss the ground!"

The criminal lowered to his knees. "You the law?"

"Close enough," replied Noose, who had crossed the bank of the river in three long strides and produced a set of steel cuffs.

"Bounty hunter?"

"That's right."

"You son of a bitch." The man flattened.

"Shut up." Noose patted him for weapons, confiscated a Colt Peacemaker, and cuffed him. In one swift move, the bounty hunter pulled the rifle from the man's saddle and quickly rummaged through the saddlebags for firearms or knives but found nothing but a ratty bedroll and some week-old jerky. Tossing the other rifle back toward the ridge, Noose grabbed the glum man by the scruff of the neck, heaving him to his feet and shoving him up into his saddle on his horse. The bounty hunter moved with practiced professionalism, like a well-oiled machine. "I'm taking you back to Idaho," he said. "We can do it the easy way or the hard way."

Boom!

A big red flower bloomed in Jim Henry Barrow's chest, blossoming out his back, and he was catapulted clean out of the saddle, landing flat on his back on the ground, stone dead with his torso blown out. Blood pooled in a huge lake beneath the blasted corpse and ran into the river, in a spreading red discoloration.

Noose whirled, clenching his rifle with both hands, looking wildly around him for whoever shot the man.

Then the riders appeared. There were twelve. They rode down the ridge, across the river, and out of the trees.

Twelve rifles. Twelve Stetsons. Twelve dusters. Twelve killers blocking out the sun.

"He's ours," said the leader.

Noose gazed up at a tall, skeletal man with gaunt features and a handlebar mustache. He was looking down the barrel of a smoking Sharps rifle at him. The killer had black bullet eyes. "I would drop the gun," he advised.

So Noose did. Slow.

"You murdered him," Noose said coldly,...