Gunsmoke Smith watched over the old Sante Fe trail. Had he missed his quarry. Would it be too late? The setting sun reminded him that he had not slept for three days. He stared out across the plain, was that thunder in the sky? A coming storm perhaps! Storms high in the Rockies were not unknown. He waited patiently. There was no expression on his face. No sign of the horror he had witnessed. 

Women run down, stripped naked and burnt alive after suffering barbaric mutilation. Men strapped to the wagon wheels as the horses were whipped into a frenzy of speed. Children chopped down as they ran, just for sport ! He was powerless to stop the carnage. 

Returning to the small wagon train he had been shepherding west, he had seen it all from the small bluff above the trail. And he knew his quarry. Renegades, white and red, they were now a crazed bunch and the terror of the trail. He thought he heard drumming hoof beats, he looked down the trail, was that a whisper of dust? He had anticipated they would head for Crow canyon. He climbed up into the saddle and made off down the canyon. He would be the hammer and the lightening of the storm.

He  had ridden hard to gain the advantage and was now above the neck of the canyon where it opened out into a bowl. He lay and waited, his trusty Winchester loaded and ready, two six-guns beside him. High over the Rockies thunder heads rose up and spilled down across the plain, their black contours illuminated from the inside as the storm gathered apace! High on an opposite crag a black Raven waited, its beady eyes seeming to watch the trail. Suddenly it lifted off with a flap of its wings and Gunsmoke knew that fate awaited some dark souls tonight.

There they came, moving slowly. Gunsmoke waited. There was an ominous sound in the sky, a growl, a wail of many tongues. Gunsmoke felt an involuntary shiver through his body. He knew that sound of old. Before he could take aim lightening struck the canyon wall, illuminating the darkening night. He rose up and took aim. Their upturned eyes saw him, raising their hands in horror, he felt a cold draught, that rose into a mighty wind, and he knew their fate was sealed. A boiling thunder head released a bolt of fire and their skin melted from their bodies. As Gunsmoke watched he heard the cold laugh of the Preacherman.

Damn you, growled Gunsmoke, this was my task, it changes nothing!