Comanche Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

offered. “But I didn’t think I stood a chance. I guess maybe that God of yours heard you hollering and decided to help me out.”
    “She didn’t seem to register the words. Swift sighed and fixed his gaze on the distant ranch, wondering if she lived there. Whether she did or not, it was the closest house, and time was playing out. He had to get out of here. Though he had never met them, he knew Chink had two brothers who wouldn’t take his passing lightly. Once Rodriguez got to thinking things over, he’d be back. If he let Chink’s death go unavenged, the Gabriel brothers would kill him.
    Swift carried the trembling girl to his horse. She seemed to come around a bit when he settled her onto the saddle. He mounted up behind her, taking care not to get his hand close to her breasts when he looped an arm around her.
    “Thank you,” she whispered in a quavery voice. “Th-thank you. . . .”
    “No thanks needed. I was hankerin’ for a little excitement.”
    They rode in silence for a couple of miles, the girl finally relaxing against him. After several more minutes she took a long, ragged breath. “You saved me. You could’ve just rode off. Yet you didn’t. Why?”
    Swift swallowed and fixed his gaze on the house ahead of them. He wanted to say “Why not?” but he didn’t. A girl her age would never understand how pointless life could become for a man who drifted from one town to the next, his people gone, his loved ones gone, his dreams gone.
    “I’ve never seen anybody shoot that fast.”
    Swift nudged his black into a trot, making no reply.
    “There’s only one man who can handle a gun that way.” She twisted her neck to look up at him, her eyes wide with a curious blend of awe and fear. “My daddy’s talked about you. You’re Swift Lopez. He has a scar on his cheek, and so do you! Now that I think on it, you even look like him!”
    Swift struggled to keep his tone matter-of-fact. “I’m just a drifter who got lucky, that’s all.”
    “But I heard one of those men call you Lopez.”
    Swift fought down a vehement denial. “Gomez, not Lopez.”
    “You are Swift Lopez.” She turned slightly to study him. “I saw a photograph of you once. You’re dressed all in black, and you’re handsome, just like in that picture. Is it true you’ve killed over a hundred men?”
    Feeling trapped, Swift dragged his gaze from hers. By this time tomorrow, everyone for fifty miles would have heard about this gunfight, and the number of dead would multiply in the retelling. And somewhere out there, a greenhorn kid who hankered for fame would hear the story and strap on his guns. Sooner or later Swift would find himself standing on some dusty street, facing that kid and having to decide whether he was going to draw or die. And, as always before, in that last split second, reflex would take over and his hand would slap leather.
    The scenario never changed, and it never ended. Swift cursed the day he had first touched a revolver.
    Turning his face westward, he contemplated the horizon. Oregon. These last few months he had been thinking of his lifelong friend Hunter more and more frequently. Swift was no longer sure if he really believed in the ancient Comanche prophecy that had led Hunter west. It didn’t seem possible that Comanches and white people could live in harmony anywhere, at least not in this life. Hunter had probably settled in Oregon to find himself surrounded by nothing but more hatred. But that really didn’t matter. To Swift, the thought of being among friends again, even if their number was few, had a powerful pull.
    Hunter’s tosi wife, Loretta, had sent a letter to the Indian reservation years back, welcoming any of the People who cared to join them in the west lands. Swift hadn’t been present to hear the letter read aloud by the minister’s wife, but he’d heard others talk about it, whispering the word Oh-rhee-gon and gazing with longing at the horizon. At that time Swift had given up on