Quiet Thunder by Al Lacy

Author:Al Lacy [Lacy, Al]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-78053-9
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Quiet Thunder saw his uncle stiffen and his mouth curl into a wolfish snarl. He started to ask what was wrong, but Curly silenced him with a hand signal.

Each trapper carried an armload of pelts inside the trading post and the lone soldier followed them through the door. Curly looked around; there was no one else in sight.

“Curly, do you know those men?” Quiet Thunder asked.

“I know one of them.” Curly headed toward Dolan’s horse and slipped the musket from Dolan’s saddleboot. “Come on,” he said, hurrying to the side of the building while checking to see if the gun was loaded.

Curly slipped up to one of the side windows and carefully peered in. Quiet Thunder waited patiently, eyeing the musket in his uncle’s hands.

Curly watched as Dolan and the other trappers discussed prices with the proprietor. Soon a deal was struck, the pelts were piled on the counter, and everyone turned jovial.

After a few moments, Dolan told the others he needed to go to the privy out back. He would return in a few minutes.

Curly glanced at the open area in front of the trading post. Still no one had shown up. “Quiet Thunder, go get the pinto. Bring him to the side of the building. Wait right back here at the rear corner, but keep out of sight from the privy.”

“What is the privy?”

“It is a very small building out in the back. Do as I tell you, and wait for me.”

While Quiet Thunder did as his uncle said, Curly eased to the corner of the building. He heard the back door open and slam shut, then peered around the corner. The man he had hated for a third of his life was walking to the small structure with the steep roof and the half-moon cut in its door.

Curly looked around again to make sure no one was watching. He cocked the hammer of the musket and hastened across the open area, halting some ten feet from the privy door.

His heart pounded in his breast. Finally, the day of reckoning had come. He would shoot Dolan only if he was forced to do so. His plan was to kill the man as he had always dreamed—with his bare hands.

When the ex-lieutenant stepped out, he found himself looking down the menacing bore of his own musket. He raised his palms. “Hey, hey, hey there, young fella! What’s this all about?”

“It is about what you did seven years ago. You killed helpless old people, and you shot my mother.”

Dolan wanted to call for help, but he knew it would put a bullet in his heart. Tears filled his eyes as he kept his hands at shoulder level and said with quivering lips, “What do you want?”

“I want you dead, Lieutenant Dolan … like you made those poor old people of my village, and like you meant to make my mother.”

Dolan remembered the Indian woman who had thrown the rock and hit him in the head. One of his men had shot her.

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