Comes a Horseman by Paul Lederer

Author:Paul Lederer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480487369
Publisher: Open Road Media

SIX

Jack Doyle had a hungry look in his eyes. He was panting as if he’d run a mile. His Winchester was to his shoulder, its sights fixed on Dancer. When he spoke his voice was hoarse and harsh.

‘Drop those weapons, mister. You might be good with your pistols but I’ve already drawn a bead on you and I guarantee I can pull this trigger before you can bring those guns into action.’ Dancer’s fingers opened and he let his twin Colts drop to the dusty earth, leaving him feeling half-naked.

‘All right,’ Dancer said. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I just want to get away,’ Jack said. ‘Will you let me, or do I have to kill you?’ Dancer stood facing the man. The sun was hot, the breeze from the river intermittent. One of the colts in the pen nickered loudly. Dancer had started tucking in his shirt nervously with his thumbs. He started above his belt buckle and worked around toward the back.

‘Are you alone?’ Jack demanded, lowering his Winchester bare inches so that he was no longer sighting the rifle.

‘Not quite,’ Dancer replied as he drew his third revolver and swung it ground. He fired a fraction of a second before Mad Jack’s rifle went off, the bullet digging a furrow in the white earth. Dancer’s bullet was quicker and more accurate. Mad Jack opened his mouth wide in surprise. Blood was already rising to his lips. Then the bank robber, the killer, sat down hard on the bare earth and toppled over on to his side, quite dead.

A woman screamed behind Dancer as he was collecting his pistols. He jerked around to see Dottie Lang rushing toward them, half-restrained by her husband.

She glared at Dancer and screamed, ‘You didn’t have to kill him!’

Tom Lang’s response was muted. ‘Yes he did,’ Tom said as Dottie hurried to bend over her fallen brother. He added almost to himself: ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. Jack would have been hanged sooner or later. He was just no good.’

Leaving the woman to sob over her brother, Dancer inclined his head and led Tom Lang aside. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ Dancer said.

‘I can’t see where you had any choice.’

‘I didn’t. She knows that too,’ Dancer said, glancing toward Dottie, her face tear-stained and dusty. ‘I imagine she’s been grieving over Jack Doyle for years.’ Dancer removed his hat, wiped at his perspiring forehead with his sleeve and went on. ‘Now let’s see about that money.’

‘Money?’ a dazed Dottie Lang said, joining them.

‘They robbed the bank in Matchstick, took the money and killed the teller,’ Dancer told her. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘I sent for Jack,’ Dottie told Dancer. ‘I thought he had come to help me,’ she said. ‘Stolen bank money? I have no idea about that.’ Her arm swept toward her house. ‘Look for it if you like. Tear the place apart if you have to.’

It didn’t come to that. Under the bed Jack had been given in the back room, Dancer found the leather-handled canvas sack with the bank’s name stenciled on it.

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