Sundance by David Fuller

Author:David Fuller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

10

Longbaugh had a new appreciation for roofs. In the West he’d been leery of them, even of the bank roof with Etta, as a roof was an elevated dead end offering limited escape, and in a chase could end only in a shoot-out or step-off-the-edge-and-drop. Western buildings rarely stood above two stories, so off-the-edge-and-drop was an acceptable option, although with four outdoor walls, any smart posse should have been able to surround him. But seeing Siringo confined to a neighbor roof with no way to reach him had brought unexpected pleasure. And here, in the tenement heat of summer, where whole families abandoned their steaming rooms and carried sheets and pillows up to the roof to sleep under stars, he had stayed long enough to become part of the landscape and now blended in with the masonry.

He took his place, a corner he had made his own, and scanned the street below. Streetlamps glowed and gradually took over from the setting sun. He had been watching the front entrance to the Tall Boot Saloon. Every day he spent watching, he felt his side hurt a little less.

He had become more patient. The time spent recuperating had retrained him to accept the value of waiting. It helped that Lillian had told him he likely had lost no time. “You were learning new information,” she had said, “so it seemed urgent, but it was fresh information only for you. Wherever she is, she’s far enough ahead that Giuseppe and anyone else looking can’t see her. She doesn’t know you’re trying to catch up, she’s just moving and hiding.”

Moving and hiding. Rather than reassuring him, it made him question how actively Moretti and his men were hunting. The presence of a newly discovered husband may have spurred them to intensify their search. At times he doubted his patience, fearing he was employing it as an excuse to be cautious. But, coming back around, he decided that caution was warranted, it would be devastating to blunder into a situation he had not anticipated and accidentally give her away.

And there was the problem. He was no longer certain of the edge delineating action from prudence. His hesitation unnerved him. He knew he was not the same since the stabbing. He pressed himself to heal mentally as well as physically. He caught himself reviewing his responses, comparing them to the past to see if his actions were consistent with those of the man he had been. His timing was off. He was thinking rather than reacting, and that was making him slow. While the one who draws second often wins, what if you fail to react? What if you fail to draw at all?

He thought about courage. It was a topic that had never before occurred to him, but then, he had never had cause to distrust it. With his courage in doubt, he began to question its source. These days courage seemed to come from a thing or a state of mind, a bottle or a full belly, for example, or maybe a good night’s sleep when he didn’t remember his dreams.

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