Dark Angel Riding by Paul Lederer

Author:Paul Lederer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480488458
Publisher: Open Road Media

SIX

Dancer kicked free of his stirrups. Astonished, angered at this turn of events he rolled to the rocky ground, bruising his shoulder and knee. He drew his Colt, knowing that he had no chance against the half-dozen men riding down on him. But why were they! There was no second shot from the ranks of the cowboys. Perhaps they believed that the single shot from Charley Spikes’s repeater had found its mark.

Before the horsemen had reached him, Dancer had risen to one knee and with his hair hanging in his eyes he leveled his Colt in their direction. He did not wish to shoot another man, but neither did he wish to be ridden over and gunned down by the boiling mass of riders. Above the storm of sound produced by the onrushing hoofs, the whoops of the cowhands, an authoritative voice boomed out.

‘Hold up there! What in hell are you doing, Charley! Hold up, men!’

Dancer glanced over his shoulder to see a rider arriving from the opposite direction. It was Jared Fine, sitting a lathered black stallion. He must have been riding hard after the first shot exploded in the silence of the bright morning. Dancer rose unsteadily to his feet as the oncoming riders slowed their mounts and began to mill and circle. He lowered his Colt to his side, easing the hammer down. Jared Fine was still furious with Charley Spikes, still blustering as he tried to shout at Spikes and calm his stallion at the same time.

‘Are you out of your mind, Charley! You know this man,’ he said inclining his head toward Dancer who stood unsteadily beside Washoe.

‘Yeah, I know him now,’ the bearded man replied in surly agreement. He shoved his rifle into its scabbard roughly and complained, ‘How the hell was I to know who he was a mile off? He was riding in from the direction of Pinetree. We got no men over in that direction.’

‘You know my horse,’ Dancer said, forcing himself to still his anger. He picked up his hat and replaced it. ‘You’ve seen it plenty of times.’

‘Country’s full of gray horses,’ Spikes shot back defensively; that was a feeble excuse, Dancer knew. A Western man doesn’t mistake one horse for another, nor the way a man sits his saddle.

‘Besides,’ Spikes went on, ‘the sun’s still low. We couldn’t see nothin’ but a lone rider coming in where none should have been.’

Jared Fine was still furious, but a second thought crossed his mind and he asked Dancer, ‘John, why are you alone? What’s happened to Billy Dent?’

The cowhands, at a rough gesture from Fine, had started to drift back toward the herd to work. Charley Spikes lingered, still looking as if he were the aggrieved victim of circumstances.

Dancer swung aboard Washoe once more, Dancer told the two men about the previous day’s shooting, about spending the night in the line camp with Chapin. Jared Fine listened thoughtfully, his anger not subsiding as he learned that another of his men had been killed on the range.

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