A Promise of Thunder Read Online Free PDF

to listen for the slightest change in the air around him, he recognized the distinctive click of metal against cold metal. He should have known that a man like Fork would have another gun stashed away somewhere.
    Reacting instinctively, Grady ducked. Thus it was that the bullet meant for vital organs slammed into his shoulder. But Fork assumed the shot was fatal and didn’t stick around long enough to find out. Once the shot left his gun he spurred his mount and rode hell for leather back to town. Since the land was already staked he could claim it any time. He just didn’t want to be around when the body was found.
    Storm heard the shot and lifted her head from her back-breaking task, recognizing the sound immediately. She shaded her eyes with her hand as she scanned the surrounding land. She saw nothing suspicious, only other racers flying by to claim what was left of the land. Nor was there another shot. Still, she couldn’t shake off the premonition that something was amiss.
    Unable to pinpoint the cause of her distress, Storm took another stake from the wagon and drove it into the ground. She’d been at it for quite a while and still had a ways to go before she’d reach the place from which she started. When she finished she’d have the full 160 allotted acres staked out. Then all she had to do was erect a crude shelter and file her claim in Guthrie.
    Who said a woman wasn’t as capable as a man! She couldn’t wait to prove to that opinionated half-breed that she had done exactly what he said she couldn’t.
    It was dusk when Storm arrived back at the place where she had started and prepared to erect her crude dwelling according to the rules. It didn’t need to be fancy, just something to prove the land was occupied. She glanced over at the adjacent land, noting that Grady hadn’t yet erected his tent. Then she saw something that froze the blood in her veins.
    Through the settling dusk she saw the figure of a man rise unsteadily from the ground, stagger clumsily, then fall. Common sense told her not to interfere with something that was none of her business, but her conscience demanded that she take a closer look. What if the “Sooner” had arrived on the scene and Grady Stryker had shot him? What if the man she saw was Grady himself? What if—There was no sense speculating, Storm decided as she climbed aboard the wagon, picked up the reins, and set the horses into motion. Placing her shotgun—the one Buddy had insisted she always keep nearby—beside her on the seat, she crossed the short distance to Grady’s land.
    She heard him groan before she stopped the wagon. She knew instantly that it was Grady by the size of the long, lean frame sprawled on the ground. She was out of the wagon in a flash, stepping over the boundary markers and falling to her knees beside him. There wasblood everywhere. On his clothes and soaking the ground beneath him. Panic-stricken, Storm felt as if she had leaped backward four days to the nightmarish moment when she had knelt beside a dying Buddy.
    “Can you stop the bleeding?”
    Grady’s voice brought her abruptly back to reality. She couldn’t think of one reason why she should help a man like Grady Stryker. He had brought her more pain than she had ever known and disrupted her life from the first moment she set eyes on him in Guthrie. He might not have pulled the trigger of the gun that had killed Buddy, but she held him fully responsible for the accident.
    “Storm, snap out of it. I asked if you can stop the bleeding.” His voice was harsh with pain.
    “I—I don’t know. How serious is it?”
    “How in the hell do I know! You tell me.”
    Gingerly Storm turned him over, looking for the point of entry. She spotted it immediately, high on his left shoulder. The bullet appeared to have cut cleanly through the flesh, exiting on the opposite side.
    “It doesn’t look too bad, if we can stop the bleeding. The bullet went clear through.” When she continued to stare at