Showdown With Fear Read Online Free PDF Page A

Dan had changed so suddenly, lost his nerve. She decided to ask her father for an opinion.
    ‘Pop... this Dan Mullen. You used to like him.’ Her father grunted.
    ‘Well, he’s been keeping clean and sober. He’s been training - running, getting muscular. He’s no pride. The kids laugh at him, but he’s a changed man. Can a man redeem himself? Would you forgive?’
    ‘What? Forgive a man who allows innocent people to be shot down while he cowers in a room someplace? Never. And no daughter of mine would, neither... I sincerely hope?’
    There was no chance of him talking any sense. Helen took the pots to wash, and then walked out in the cool evening air. There was just a slight smile of red as the sun peeped out before slipping into the night. She loved the night air, and she sat on the porch to think a little. It had been a lonely time. She should have been wed now, to a man respected and loved by all. She should have borne him children. The place needed a man - it was nothing more than a woodworker’s place now, and it used to be a saddlery. But if she had been a lawman’s wife, she would have lived in town, walked to church with her head high, lived in a good-sized home.
    ‘Helen... you’ll get yer death, get in here an’ read to me... my eyes is dead tired, girl!’
    She thought the night was going to be the same, routine quiet night of reading and hot drinks. But a rider came from the darkness as she was about to go in. It was old Micky from the stagecoach station.
    ‘Hey... thought I’d better come and tell yer Helen.... your Dan’s gone chasing the McVie boys!’
    She got the whole story as she gave him beer and bread. By bedtime, when her father had dozed off on the settee and Micky had ridden home, her head was swimming with questions, all beginning with the words, ‘Should I?’
    Early the next morning, after she had settled down to some mending with her father in his chair opposite, trying to read a paper and not listen to her, she broached the subject of Dan Mullen and the trouble brewing.
    ‘Pa... remember when you and me went riding... in the Badlands...’
    ‘They weren’t Badlands then, girl. You could do some proper surveying and not be pestered with runaways and thieves!’
    ‘Well, pa... thing is, Dan’s son is caught up in all this trouble... I, I should be there...’
    ‘Give me one good reason why, daughter!’
    She had been aiming to avoid all this, as no-one knew her real feelings for Dan. But the fact was that they had been growing closer since they started talking again, at first politely, but then re-discovering their former attraction. Maybe there was a chance he could win back some respect. Maybe she could help him. The story was told to her father. She told him what she would dread Ned Pearce ever hearing how she was so attracted to a man of feeling. She explained that maybe Dan Mullen was sensitive, a changed man, or a misunderstood man...
    ‘Dammit, you love him, child! I kin tell. You love the coward.’
    ‘Pa... stop calling him that . He’s a thinker... a man with a mind and a sensitive side to him. He lost his wife, remember... Mary...and he’s tried to turn into what the folk here want.’
    ‘A reader huh? You mean he’s given up guns and he’s took to book-learning? He sounds like me...’
    ‘Exactly... in some ways he is like you, see?’
    ‘But he’s got that flaw, girl... I mean people died in Red Ridge ... down to him. I can’t ever forget that, sensitive or not!’
    Helen saw that there was no point in trying to change his mind. His opinions were set and his mind made up when it came to Dan Mullen. But somehow, she felt that she would have to act, to be with him. The more she thought about what might be going on, the more she realised that her feelings were confused when it came to these two men. She had got to like Ned Pearce’s company. He offered her a future, and she knew that he was ready to ask her to marry him. She could feel the moment coming.