Sunset Trail Read Online Free PDF Page B

chance I have to take, Colonel. If Barstow fails to catch the train, or runs into some Pawnees, there would be nothing
     to stop the delivery of the guns. If I’m there, I’ll find some way to stop them.”

    When Lieutenant Barstow returned, he could report nothing better than failure. “We stopped the train the other side of Blue
     Camp. Flint wasn’t with it. Glover was hostile, but he didn’t try to keep us from going through the wagons. Just the usual
     stuff . . . flour, bacon, peas, corn, and the regular merchandise they’ve hauled over the trail for years.”
    Bruce gave Kearny a tight-lipped grin. “You were right, but Flint can’t hide four thousand guns and the powder and shot they’ve
     got in his pocket.”
    “No,” Kearny agreed. “Chances are it’s some place between Independence and Santa Fé. Flint’s a strange man, Shane. Well educated.
     Has a fortune that would give him a comfortable living, but he’s got notions about being a Santa Fé Cæsar. He’ll give us more
     trouble than Armijo could.”
    “I’ll put out in the morning,” Bruce said. “I’ll catch the train the other side of the Oregon Junction.”
    “Better stay and go with Barstow,” Kearny urged again.
    Bruce shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
    But Glover’s train had moved faster than Bruce had expected. He reached the trail, passed the forks with the signpost reading Road to Oregon, and kept on straight ahead into the land of the peaceful tribes.
    He did not catch the train that day. He made camp at dusk, cooked supper, and, spreading his buffalo robe, went to sleep.
     He was on the trail again with the first hint of golden dawn in the east, keeping Blue Thunder at a steady mile-eating clip,
     and gave thought to his meeting with Mick Cather-wood. With her auburn hair done up and wearing a dress, instead of buckskins,
     she’d find that she did something to men.
    He thought, then, of Curt Glover. He remembered the girl had told him Glover knew her identity.
    Anger stirred in him, for the man’s intentions were plain to read. If he had killed Catherwood, and everything Bruce had learned
     pointed that way, he was spinning a web of his own scheming, working with Flint because it paid him. The Cather-wood girl
     would be handled in his own way when the time was right.
    The anger had not died when he sighted the dust cloud ahead. He had more respect for Wade Flint, or even Armadillo Dunn than
     he did for Curt Glover.
    Bruce caught the train as it was making camp. Glover rode toward him, his usually smooth face lined by the pressure of his
     anger.
    “So you want to go to Santa Fé, do you?” Glover raged. “Well, you sure as hell can ride alone. When I hire a man, he obeys
     orders. I told you we were pulling out the next morning.”
    “I had business to attend to. I told Purdy to give you a hand. Didn’t he?”
    “Yeah, but. . . .”
    “Then you’ve got no holler coming, Glover.”
    “What business was big enough to take you out of Independence?”
    “My business is my business,” Bruce said curtly.
    Glover motioned on down the trail. “Keep riding.”
    “We’ll keep our word, Glover, whether Shane keeps his or not.” It was Mick Catherwood.
    She had ridden around a wagon, and she sat her saddle with no sign of trail weariness upon her. She did not look at Bruce.
     He knew she had her own reason for interfering, the suspicion of him still an overpowering motive in her.
    “I’ll run this train,” Glover said violently.
    “Dad was a little lax about you,” Mick said, palming a gun. “I aim to change that. I’ve been over the trail enough times to
     know that a man of Bruce Shane’s caliber is worth twenty of the desert rats you hired.”
    “Purdy can guide us,” Glover said thickly. “Damn it, Mick, I didn’t want this man in the first place.”
    “Purdy will quit if Shane rides on,” Mick pointed out.
    “Shane set the Dragoons onto us!” Glover exploded. “He’s been to Fort