Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635)

Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635) Read Online Free PDF

Book: Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635) Read Online Free PDF
Author: Frank Leslie
silhouette in a tan kepi aiming a pistol at him, the moonlight gleaming on the bluing. Colter depressed the Remington’s hammer and set the gun down on the bench abutting the shack’s front wall beside him.
    â€œWhat’s this about?” Colter asked.
    The man in front of him, whose pale face he could not make out beneath the square bill of a dark blue forage cap but whose voice Colter recognized as belonging to Lieutenant Damian Hobart, one of Lieutenant Belden’s cronies, said, “The pleasure of your company has been requested behind the corral.”
    Colter curled his upper lip though he had to admit to feeling relieved that it was merely Belden calling and not a passel of greasy bounty hunters ready to take his head back to Sapinero, Colorado, where the mangled Bill Rondo was holed up in a rooming house, his craggy face sporting the same brand as the one he’d given Colter. “Belden wanna dance with me now, too?”
    â€œSomethin’ like that,” said the man behind him, whose voice he thought he recognized as that of Lieutenant A. J. McKnight. The three could often be seen together drinking and playing cards in the saloon off the fort sutler’s store at night, or heading off to Tucson during weekend furloughs.
    Colter stepped down off the gallery steps. As the two men moved to flank him, he began walking toward the corrals ahead and on his left. A breeze came up to churn some dust, straw, and horse manure, and Colter blinked against it. The windmill blades gave a little squeal. Then the breeze died, and Colter walked around the far corral to the back, where he could see a dark figure sitting on the open tailgate of a hay wagon.
    The three California broncs didn’t move other than to switch their tails, annoyed at being disturbed at this late hour.
    Colter rounded the corral’s rear corner and approached the hay wagon. Belden sat on the tailgate with his legs dangling, ankles crossed. He had a bottle cradled in his lap the way a woman would hold a sleeping child, and a long black cheroot smoldered in his right, black-gloved hand.
    He looked at Colter, dark blue eyes looking white in the moonlight. He didn’t say anything and neither did Colter. Another slight breeze rose, blowing Colter’s long hair out in front of him, brushing it against his cheeks. McKnight and Hobart stood silently behind Colter. He could sense them grinning, and he could smell the alcohol and tobacco smoke on all of them.
    â€œYou know,” Belden said finally, cocking his head to one side and blowing out two smoke plumes through his nostrils, “a kid like you, as scarred up and dumb and ugly as you are, really oughta just stay back here with the horses.”
    Colter shrugged. “Your girl just wouldn’t have it, I guess.”
    Behind Colter, Hobart sighed deeply.
    Belden stared at Colter from beneath the brim of his dark blue cavalry kepi with the gold braid encircling the crown. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
    â€œI’m just sayin’ she invited me to the dance,” Colter said, putting some steel into his voice. “I didn’t invite her. So I danced with her.”
    â€œYou know why she danced with you—don’t you?”
    â€œI guess she thinks I’m pretty.”
    â€œNo. She thinks you’re ugly. But, see, she’s always trying to save stray cats and stray dogs. The uglier the better. Even had her a crippled coyote for a time. That’s just what she does. Everybody knows that.”
    â€œThen what are we doin’ here?”
    â€œEverybody knows that, it seems, except you.”
    â€œWhat if I said I know that?”
    â€œKnowing that isn’t gonna keep you from starin’ at her all dog-eyed, next time she comes around to watch you bust your broncs. Or keep you from accepting her invitation to the next dance.” Belden set the bottle aside and gained his feet, balling his fists at his sides.
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Basic Training

Kurt Vonnegut

Vampires 3

J. R. Rain