Sundance 30 by Peter McCurtin

Author:Peter McCurtin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: elmore leonard, zane grey, louis lamour, western ebooks, cheyenne indians, piccadilly publishing westerns, william m johnstone, death dance, ralph crompton
Publisher: Piccadilly

Chapter Thirteen

DRAWING HIS COLT, Sundance ducked back inside, brushing Melody aside. The blonde girl, descending the stairs, began to scream.

“Sundance!” Melody Baird cried, but he was rushing across the veranda, meeting head on five men who were dashing up the porch steps. His Colt barrel caught one of them on the jaw, cracked the collarbone of another. His left fist sank into a solar plexus, causing the victim to vomit and tumble down the steps with the other two. The other pair ran into the street, joined by those who had been at the rear of the building.

The man with the rope was shouting, “Bring him to the livery barn! We’ll hang him to a rafter!”

Sundance emitted a shrill whistle. Heads turned, looking back up the street, as there was a sudden trumpeting from a horse. Then Eagle came at a gallop down the street, bowling over those who got in his way. A rifle crashed.

Sundance shouted, “The man who shoots my horse is dead!”

A drunk aimed a shotgun at Sundance on the porch, but a bystander knocked the twin barrels up, shouting, “You damn fool! You’ll kill Melody.”

Both barrels erupted, spraying the upper story with buckshot. A window crashed. Melody, at Sundance’s elbow, was screaming at them.

The crowd began to quiet down, but the bartender shouted, “We been watchin’ for him to ride in.”

“He’s a goddam half-breed!” another voice added.

Melody waved her hands at them. “He’s not like Rupe Sage. He’s going after the man who nearly killed Ruby.”

“We lost his trail,” a man muttered, peering up at the man and woman on the veranda. “How can Sundance find him if we couldn’t?”

“He’ll find him,” Melody said, and turned to Sundance, her smile shaky. “I know you will.”

Sundance thanked her with his eyes. If she hadn’t spoken up for him there would by now be dead men in the street.

Holstering his Colt, he mounted the nervous Eagle, lifted his hand to Melody and rode away.

Before leaving Banjo, Sundance purchased a chunk of beef which would tide him over until he could take time to hunt. From here on out he would have to be doubly vigilant; Rupe Sage was only a day ahead of him. With Eagle’s long stride eating up the miles that separated them, the chance for ambush was tenfold.

The earlier pursuers of Rupe Sage had foolishly obliterated his sign. But at the point where they had lost his trail, Sundance spent minutes scanning the ground with keen eyes before picking up the trail again. He recalled an old Cheyenne saying: a skilled tracker could trail an enemy even if he walked on air.

As he reached lower elevations, sheets of rain swept in from the north, wiping out all sign of Sage. Instinct told Sundance to press on toward one of the great passes he remembered from a previous trip through this rough country. At last he made camp on a ledge, sheltered from the weather by a rocky overhang. He roasted meat, ate his fill, then, at sunup, took the rest with him.

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