A mile had never seemed so far away, even on horseback. Jim was grateful for Tequila's intimate knowledge of the area – he couldn't have found in the dark the trails leading up to the caldera nearly as quickly as she did. But in his haste to save his friend, Jim had overlooked one major fact: the fastest route for him and his escort to get up the volcano was also the fastest, most obvious route for Hector el Tigre to take back down. The Tiger and the select pair of followers he'd brought with him on this deadly errand were doing just that as Jim and Tequila rounded a blind curve so fast that the horses of both parties started to buck and shy. It was a narrow path they were on, with no fencing, no margin to prevent anyone or anything from going over the edge. Small pebbles and gravel skittered under the horses' hooves, making the danger even more real. But that wasn't the danger Jim worried most about right now. His heart sank as he saw Hector and his men leading back a fourth, riderless horse.

He was too late.

A spear of grief he had not felt since his partner's seeming death at the hands of the Pistoleros ran him through for a second time. As did the same imperative that had motivated him back then:

Someone had murdered Artemus Gordon – and that someone was going to pay!

In spite of the darkness, el Tigre's men could see the look on Jim's face and had sense enough to try backing their horses up, away from the dangerous stranger blocking their path. Hector el Tigre made no such maneuver. The big man with the hated face of a different enemy drew his own horse closer and sneered at the impertinent beggar in his way.

"Aside, fool," the Tiger commanded.

"No."

"Jim . . . ." Tequila whispered, using his first name once more. He ignored her and sat rigid where he was as his horse hoofed the ground nervously.

"You are eager to die, eh?" el Tigre grumbled. "Eager for a quick death or a slow one? Now is not a good time to annoy me."

Jim narrowed his eyes and stood his ground in stony silence.

"Perhaps you have not heard," Hector said. "I have many ways to kill a man, and little patience for fools."

Behind el Tigre, one of his helpers attempted to draw a gun. Jim drew his pistol and shot the weapon out of the man's hand so fast that the henchman didn't even realize what had happened, and made a trigger pulling motion in empty air. Then the unfortunate looked down at the hole going clear through his hand and slid from his horse as he fainted dead away.

"So, you are a fast fool at least!" Hector laughed. "And now I think I recognize you from the photo I have seen! You are the one they call West!"

Jim gave a single nod of his head.

"Well, you are lively for a dead man, Señor West," Hector grinned.

"So are you."

Hector stopped grinning.

"Evidently you have not heard enough about me, Señor West." Hector dismounted from his horse and glared back at the man before him. "It is easy for a man to be brave when he is holding a gun-"

Jim heard a startled gasp from Tequila and spared a glance behind him. A third hench-person they had not seen or heard had leapt from behind a rock on the steep slope onto Tequila's horse and was now holding a knife at her throat.

"- but it is not so easy to face a man in hand-to-hand combat! Not so easy without the guns, eh?" Hector removed his own gun belt and tossed it aside. He signaled for the henchman behind him to discard his. As long as one of his assistants held a hostage, it was plain he wasn't worried about Jim's gun either. The strongman took off his shirt to reveal a scarred, hairy and muscular chest. He gestured for Jim to do the same.

Less than a minute later, the two men, now bare-chested, disarmed and grim-faced stood opposite one another, poised for hand-to-hand combat along the narrow mountain road. Hector's wounded henchman, along with his companion, had already been sent back down the path toward Santa Bonita. Only four horses, plus Tequila and her knife-wielding captor remained to watch the martial arts duel that was about to take place.

"Now this – this! – will be a fair combat, Señor West!" Hector crowed, advancing on his intended victim.

Hector could talk big – he was big. He was a giant compared to the smaller man, and no honest person seeing the two warriors together would have considered it a fair fight. That didn't matter to James West. He had taken on bullies, braggarts, boxers and other men bigger than himself and licked every one of them. He had an icy cold fury steeling him inside. Here was his best friend's killer. Here was the criminal who had murdered his partner. The man who deserved death. If Hector could have seen the determination that lurked behind those handsome, rigid features, he would have been as eager to escape back to Santa Bonita as his men. But Hector el Tigre was nothing if not confident. He crab-walked sideways to come up on West, since the path didn't give either of them room to circle.

"You will wish you had known better, Señor West! You have not heard what I am capable of doing to a man with my bare hands! How I have torn my opponents limb from limb!"

Jim felt the scratchy rock wall of the volcano against his back.

"What I have heard," he said, "is that Hector el Tigre is a disinherited, yellow-bellied, thieving coward who doesn't have the honor of a dead tree sloth."

Jim's words had the effect he desired. If Hector hadn't yet been seeing red before, his eyes were blazing pure crimson back at him now. Without thinking, he threw a fast punch that Jim ducked, so that el Tigre's fist pounded itself into the rock instead of the Secret Service agent's head. The big man howled, but only briefly, and Jim got a flying kick into his midriff before Hector could recover. It wasn't enough to bring his opponent down, or even come close, but it was clear that in this fight Jim West had landed the first blow. The Tiger knew it, and gave Jim a stare of pure hatred that was a match for Jim's own.

"What's the matter?" Jim taunted. "Can't handle anyone bigger than a midget?"

Again, Hector let his temper get the better of him. He lunged forward again so fast that when Jim leaped out of his way, the Tiger's momentum nearly carried him over the side of the cliff. Only deliberately dropping to the ground and clutching against the edge saved him from a possibly fatal fall. Jim, not averse to kicking a man while he was down, got in another two blows. But now Jim's own confidence and equipment betrayed him. As he attempted another flying kick, Hector was fast enough to grab him by the bootheel – and the bootheel popped off in the Tiger's hand. Jim tried to regain his balance but couldn't with his footwear now so uneven and took a fall onto the path himself. Hector, tossing aside the bootheel, did not even bother to see the object it concealed, but Tequila and the knifeman did when a small orb popped out of it and smacked against the ground, producing a thick white cloud of smoke. Tequila's horse bucked in panic and the two riders in its saddle began wrestling for the knife.

Jim, more distracted by this than his opponent, didn't see Hector's fist coming at him in time. He managed to roll with the glancing punch as he'd been trained, but even so, the blow sent him flying. He staggered back groggily and Hector managed to punch him in the gut. Again, Jim's war-and-Denver-conditioned reflexes saved him from the worst, with his rock-hard abs protecting him, but his momentum was his undoing. He crashed up against the volcano wall and barely managed to avoid a third impact from those fists. Temporarily stunned, he had no countering move as Hector grabbed Jim's upper arms in melon-sized hands and squeezed hard in preparation of tearing Jim limb-from-limb just as he'd promised.

"And now, Señor West," el Tigre gloated, "it is I, Hector, and not my miserable little excuse of a cousin who will be the one to kill you! And once I have ripped off your head, I will bring it to him and to your sneaky compadre so they can see it and despair more before they die!"

The words stunned Jim even more than Hector el Tigre's punches had.

"They're . . . still alive?"

He began to feel a different sort of determination flooding into him stronger than the one that had filled him only moments ago. He braced his legs for the next move he was about to attempt, and that was when Hector el Tigre made the most serious mistake of all.

He laughed at Jim West.

That hated face. The face that had laughed at Jim West so many times before in such infuriating circumstances. The tone of the laugh was deeper, but the look, the manner, the chortled smugness was exactly the same. Only, Hector el Tigre was no fragile midget that Jim had to hold himself back from hurting.

A fair fight, Hector had called it.

He didn't know how right he was!

In some of his darkest moments, James West had fantasized about smashing that same face into a bloody pulp. Now it was time to live the dream.

With a flexibility that only contortionists or professional gymnasts could match, Jim drove both of his knees up into el Tigre's chuckling chin. Before the big man could rebound, Jim latched his lower arms onto the one clamped on him and followed the knee strike up with a full, hard, booted kick to the jaw that sent blood and a couple of Hector's teeth flying. The larger man's hands lost their grip and the Tiger learned that the most dangerous part of riding a Jim West is trying to get back off. The Secret Service agent's fists flew rapid fire like steam-driven pistons into el Tigre's nose, eyes and mouth. The same berserker fury that had allowed Jim to lick six other men at a time by himself was concentrated on a single foe who had the features of his worst enemy. Facial bones broke, more teeth flew as Hector stumbled back from an onslaught like none he had experienced before. The punches were followed up with another flying kick that sent Hector el Tigre perilously close to the edge overlooking the precipice. Bleeding, swollen eyes tried to open wide as the big man realized his danger, loose gravel causing his feet to slip. In spite of Jim's rage, Hector might have saved himself even then with a plea for mercy. But that was not the Tiger's way. Instead, he spat out more blood, glaring with a rage of his own as he started to fall and shouting out a single word filled with unimaginable hate:

"YOU!"

His long reach allowed him to grab at Jim's leg by the ankle, pulling the agent toward the edge with him. Rather than try to stop his own death, he meant to take his enemy to the grave with him. With nothing to grab onto for support, Jim could only try to pry el Tigre's iron-strong fingers loose. It was as futile as prying at a vise. Jim tried to dig into the trail with his heels, but just one of his boots still had one, and he began to slide closer to the fatal brink along with Hector.

All at once, el Tigre cried out in pain and the hand clutching at Jim's leg popped open. Jim, scrambling back fast and saw the reason – the knife handle vibrating in Hector's bicep, the blade sticking deep in muscle tissue. With one last gasp of effort, Hector el Tigre tried to gain a firm grip on the cliff edge and prevent his plunge, but his grasp was too strong for the weak soil. The edge crumbled in his fingers and he went down with one last defiant howl in the dark. The fight was over.

Jim didn't need to guess where the thrown knife had come from. As he got up and turned around, Tequila was standing there, wide-eyed and shaking, right arm still held out from where she had released the blade and let it fly. The man who had temporarily taken her hostage was already scampering down the path to the village, defeated by Señorita Ruiseñor. Acting purely on instinct, Jim took her in his arms and pulled her close to comfort her and ease her shaking.

"You saved my life," he whispered. "Thank you."

Then he remembered Arte's putrid potion and how it had disgusted her. He released her at once, horrified at having forced her into contact with him and that stench. To his surprise, she pulled him closer again and gratefully returned his embrace.

"You do not smell bad anymore, Señ . . . Jim."

Astonished, Jim sniffed the air deeply. There was sulfur in it from the volcano, that was for sure. But on his own skin he smelled nothing except the usual sweat of exertion.

"Well what do you know . . . ." he mumbled.

"And now we must save your friend Señor Gordon and the little man, yes?" she asked.

"Yes!" Jim almost shouted as he jerked back a second time.

Together they remounted their horses and continued the ascent up the trail, only to have the horses balk and come to an intractable halt still short of the summit. Jim noticed that the dirt and sand was much finer up here, and the trail showed no horse hoof marks past this point, only the footprints of el Tigre and his men. If Jim had been riding Blackjack, he'd have bet money he could get his loyal stallion to carry him even beyond this barrier where other steeds feared to tread. But Blackjack was still back on board the Wanderer. He and Tequila had no choice but to dismount too and follow the other tracks on foot. The air was hot at these heights and more and more foul with the scent of the volcano's exhalations. But Artemus and Dr. Loveless were still alive somewhere up here. They had to be. And Jim had to find them. He felt like swearing as the ground became harder and sharper this close to the top, and little eddies of air erased the footprints he'd been following.

"ARTE!" Jim called out, praying that his partner was capable of responding. "ARTE!"

"Jim!" Tequila cried, discovering a gap in between two huge lumps of lava where dust had pooled and footprints were still visible. "This way!"

As they made their way through the gap and Jim called out again, he thought he heard Artemus answer in response. He glanced at Tequila nodding – she'd heard the sound too. They raced ahead in mists and darkness only to almost go over another cliff edge. Pulling up short barely in time to prevent the fall, they gazed out on a nightmarish scene. Artemus and Dr. Loveless, tied back to back in one neat bundle, were dangling way out over the boundary of the precipice, suspended from a great wooden beam like a couple of fish strung up over a smoking fire. As the rope twisted around slowly, Jim saw his sweat-drenched partner look up at him and smile weakly.

"What kept you?" Arte asked.