STEELE: Badge In The Dust (Adam Steele Series Book 9) by George G. Gilman

Author:George G. Gilman [Gilman, George G.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Lobo Publications
Published: 2014-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

THE sliver of new moon shed a brighter light as the dark hours grew colder. Beyond the houses at the eastern end of Division Street - smaller, less well cared-for and obviously occupied by poorer families than those on Main - Steele’s searching eyes picked up the signs left by the galloping horse. He followed the tracks to the trail and then lost them. But a hunch pointed him eastwards as unequivocally as the signpost arm lettered with the name of the next town along the trail.

It took longer to come in sight of the Spring farm than it had earlier in the day. For he never entirely trusted a hunch - no matter how strong it was - until it had been proved correct. So he held the horse to a steady walk, conserving the animal’s strength in the event that a longer, harder ride was necessary.

He could not see the farm clearly until he was well beyond the point where the stream cut across the trail, for the mesa cast deep moon-shadow over the buildings, fields and citrus grove. The buildings stood four hundred feet back from the trail, behind a wheat field crossed by an approach track in one direction and the stream in another. There was no fencing, but a sign at the start of the approach track proclaimed SPRING FARM - PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSERS.

As he reined the gelding to a halt at the sign, he could see a light in one of the windows of the single-storey frame farmhouse. It had been obscured by the barn until he reached this point.

He waited for a few moments, sitting easily in the saddle. But his eyes were intently alert as they raked the farm property from one side to the other. His mind was a blank, fully receptive to the merest hint of danger. And his sixth sense warned him to beware. He clucked to the horse and turned him on to the track. Fear was added to the cold bite of the night air and reached into his very bone-marrow. He experienced no shame at this. It had been no sop to Bulman’s feelings when he had told the sheriff he did not trust a man unable to experience fear.

For such an emotion - if it could be controlled - keyed a man up and honed his reflexes to a fine degree of sharpness. Another lesson of the bitter war put to good use during the violent peace. And fear of sudden death was best of all. For, beyond all else, a man had to stay alive or lose everything. If life were everything, so much the better.

Steele halved the distance to the lighted window of the house. His posture astride the horse remained nonchalant and unaggressive. His eyes scanned the buildings. Fear was like a coil of high-tensile wire in the pit of his belly. Should the unknown danger smash into the open, the coil would be instantly released. The strength and the will to counter-attack would speed to every muscle in his body.

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