Storm in the Saddle (An Ash Colter Western) by Bridges Ben

Author:Bridges, Ben [Bridges, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Bookends
Published: 2012-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

I left town quickly after that, badly shaken and in need of solitude, but I was not so much affected by the gunfight as I was by the thought of never seeing Jane again.

I tried to tell myself that Dawes had been right, that I was no good for his daughter. But still I ached to see her, and feel again that calming influence of hers working to hush my tortured soul.

Eventually my regret turned to anger, but I was not angry with Dawes, I was angry with myself for behaving so foolishly, and taking too much for granted. There was no future for me with Jane. How could there be? I had only known her for a day, if that. And yet, now that I came to think on it, it was almost as if I had known her before, perhaps in some earlier existence, that we were not so much beginning a new relationship as picking up from where we had previously left off.

To make my sense of loss more acute, I felt that Jane had also experienced pretty much the same feeling.

In bleak mood, I headed for Franklin’s place, what was left of it. I had nowhere else to go. When it finally came into view, I tried to put everything that had happened in town from my mind, but it wasn’t easy.

I saw that Franklin’s wife—I did not know her first name—had not been idle during my absence. She had salvaged as much as she could from the wreckage of the house and rigged up a blanket shelter further back in the trees. I rode in slowly, so that she would see me coming and have plenty of time to identify me. As I reined down and dismounted before the makeshift camp, she came to meet me with her husband’s Winchester held athwart her chest. The sun was already slanting westward, spreading saffron rays down through the twisted branches to give the glade a smoky look.

I asked after her husband. She told me that he had been sleeping peacefully all afternoon. I nodded at that. ‘Good. The doctor will be coming out to see him later on.’

I off-saddled, hobbled the mustang, watered him and then turned him loose to graze. Mrs. Franklin watched me for a long time, then shoved a strand of fair hair back from her pale face and said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Colter. You’ve been very kind.’ She said it awkwardly, the way people do when they’re not used to being shown a little generosity.

I turned back to her. She looked worn out. I told her to go and get some rest, but she shook her head emphatically. ‘No. I can’t. They...they might come back.’

‘The Association men?’

‘Yes.’

I stowed my gear up against a tree, the older Franklin children watching my every move, the baby crawling around as if in a world of his own, fascinated by the feel of dirt, needled leaves and cones against his soft palms. ‘If they come again,’ I told the woman, ‘I’ll be here.

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