As the early morning sun broke across the canyon wall a reflected glint of
light betrayed the marksman's intent. Gunsmoke slid from the saddle in one
smooth movement taking the Winchester from the saddle stock as the hot
metal hit the rock by his head. He turned in one roll bringing his rifle to bear
on the unseen sniper. 

His unflinching black eyes sighted the target as steel
fingers drew down on the trigger and squeezed for effect. The hammer
struck on the empty chamber and hard lips drew back in a mirthless grin.

A black raven swung across the canyon, it’s beady eye seeking out a place to
land overlooking the trail. And so it watched and waited.

 

The desert town of Santa Rosa was a wasted miners camp with a dingy bar
and rundown hotel. But it was the last watering hole before the start of the El 
Paso trail to the Sacramento mountains. It attracted the no—good gunslihgers
and wasters on the move from the law, and hard bitten miners searching
forever for El Dorado.

 

A blowzy blond ran the bar but she granted no favours, and was backed by

a silent giant negro made of solid muscle. The ones who had tried to back

him down where silent in the windswept graveyard.

 

Gunsmoke swung through the saloon doors , his black eyes swept across the
room marking out the hardmen and the wasters. They hung for a moment on
a gunslinger at the end of the bar. And then checked the thin man ruffling
through a deck of cards. The gambler looked up,” Howdy stranger” he said, flicking a

card across the table.

 

Gunsmoke smiled his thin smile but made no recognition. He hitched his
chaps higher and made to the bar, his spurs ringing out against the hard flag
floor.

 

“What’ll be” asked the blond behind the bar, her heavy bosoms
making her presence felt as she faced Gunsmoke. 

“Whiskey mam” he replied holding her stare with cool indifference.

 

The gunslinger turned towards Gunsmoke with a sneer on his face.

“Madam's nearer the mark”.

The lean frame of Gunsmoke stiffened and sinews in his gun-hand tightened
around the whiskey glass.

 

'How come a stinking cowpoke like you rides
without armory — you chicken or something”?

 

A chair scraped the floor, the hand ruffling the card deck froze, and a deathly

silence hung in the dusty air. The dry taste of mortal fear vibrated in the dry

heat of the desert afternoon.

 

Gunsmoke lifted his whiskey up to his lips. 

 “Howdy Snake”, he said, knocking his drink back in one gulp and hooked his fingers
on the belt that held his bullwhip. 

 “Wanna try your luck”?

 

The gunslingers yellow eyes fingered recognition with a tinge of fear. 

He turned away from the bar and swung his hand in a practiced draw.

Before the Peacemaker exploded the bullwhip cracked out in the the sultry air

slicing the guhslinger‘s fingers, whirling the gun away across the bar.

 

Faster than could be sensed the whip snaked out again cutting the cardsharp's

wrist to the bone as a sleeved derringer barked out its message of death.

 

A sense of wondered shock held the bar in silence until it was rent aside
by the screams of the mutilated. The blond turned along the bar to signal
her negro minder to cut down Gunsmoke , but he stood transfixed by the sorcery,
the whites of his eyes popping in the gloom of the bar.

 

She swung back , unclipping a sawn-off shotgun from under the bar pointing it

across the seared top.

 

Gunsmoke was no where to be seen! As she peered through the bar window slats a

raven's shadow was cast across their uneven surface!

 

The heavy bullock cart pulled out onto the El Paso trail. It was early
morning and no one was abroad in Santa Rosa. A curtain fluttered at the
hotel upstairs room, and Gunsmoke peered down at the departing miners.

He turned back and looked down at the blond still asleep in the unkempt
bed.

 

Her warm allure of the night before had evaporated and now she lay
slack mouthed with one hand stretched across the bed in supplication, as if
asking for forgiveness. Gunsmoke touched the hand for a moment, his hard
eyes softened and a thin smile crossed his lips as if recalling a long lost
memory.

 

 As he reached for his gun belt the sound of a distant rifle shot
drifted down from the high mountains. The bleakness returned to his eyes,
and with his face set he turned and left the dingy bordello.

 

High in the mountain pass a black raven watched and waited.

 

The El Paso trail winds up to the foothills of the Sacramento mountains
through scrub desert, hot as hell during the day and as cold as gun barrel
steel at night; a primal place for the godless.  

Gunsmoke Smith knew its ways: so he rode through the early morn and late

evening reserving his strength and victuals for the long climb up the

Dark Trail to the Devils Pass.

 

From a distance the Sacramento mountons look a scenic paradise but as the
pass is approached they rear up with a forbidding air, and the canyon walls
cut out the sunlight making a dark and dismal trail.

 

Gunsmoke stood on a bluff overlooking the trail down below. He had passed
the miners camp during the night, eaten his chow before dawn: and now
awaited their arrival.

 

The Sierra Blanca towered above him, and dawn had brought a cold wind

that cut into the canyon below making the ascent more arduous.
The first rays of the desert sun fingered the canyon walls as

Gunsmoke settled down, cradling his Winchester in his arms he watched
and waited.

 

The miners had discarded their bullock cart and were making the ascent on
foot. They were bent double under their heavy loads. And the cold wind cut
them to the bone. The dark canyon walls dripped with water making the trail
wet underfgot, and so  they stumbled around each outcrop.

 

The wind howled as it cut through the narrow pass and a dark foreboding settled
in their souls. The opening out to the Devils Pass around the foot of the
Sierra Blanca lay ahead and as the lead minor saw it he turned to urge the others on,
but as his mouth opened a rifle bullet cut into the back of his head, shattering the bone
and driving him forward onto his knees.

 

The others drove forward to help when a second bullet hit home taking the next
one clear in the chest. Belatedly recognizing what was happening they scattered to
the shelter of the rock outcrops where the murderous sniper held them down.

 

A howling cry echoed across the canyon walls and a black raven swooped
down to an outlying ledge high on the canyon wall, at that moment a shaft of
the early morning sun swept across it, reflecting the stock of a rifle.
 
Gunsmoke Smith came alive in an instant as he simultaneously heard the
shots and saw the flight of the raven. He drew a bead on the reflection and
loosed of three shots in quick succession. He then heard the bark of a Peacemaker at
close quarters and looked down to see the saloon gunslinger bearing down
on the miners.

 

Gunsmiths first shot tore into the gunslingers shoulder
spinning him round, the second smashed his knee and he let a chilling
scream, and lay twitching against the body of the first miner.
 
A thick flurry of wind driven snow swirled down from the Devils Pass and
as it swirled passed them as the forbidding figure of Gunsmoke Smith appeared
out of the gloom.

 

His compassionless dark eyes swept the scene of carnage. 
He took one last look at Snake and muttered "Hard luck pardner", and rode
on without stopping.

 

High on the Sierra Blanca a black raven circled waiting to pick the bones!