Blake clipped out an oath when he heard the buckboard moving off. He called to Sundown and the horse trotted over. He swung into the saddle and turned Sundown with a smooth pull on the reins. The big black lunged into a run and tore into the passage through the hills.
Within a mile Blake ran the buckboard down. Getting to the head of the lead horse, he grabbed the reins and drew back. Angela Grant reached for the driving whip. But the buckboard lurched to a halt and Blake walked Sundown back to her, catching the stock of the whip as she took it back to lash at him. He hurled the whip aside and said:
“Seems some of the bitterness has rubbed off on you, ma’am.”
Angela glared, then a plea entered her eyes. “Please let me go, Mr. Durant. I need this gold.”
“Take it and you’ll end your days in jail,” Blake said. “Too many people have been killed for it now, and the rightful owners don’t care an owl hoot whether a thief is a man or a woman.”
“Nobody knows who the rightful owners are, do they? Gold is just gold. It has no names stamped on it.”
“It’s bullion, pressed out in a certain way. And the rightful owner is the Wells Fargo Company, a powerful group who like a rake-off for their toil. You won’t get away with it, Angela.”
She just looked at him for a moment. “Would you really shoot me if I went on?”
Blake shrugged. “Don’t reckon I would, ma’am.”
“Then come with me. We can share it, marry, settle down. Nobody will ever know.”
“I’ll know.”
Her stare went hard and her mouth tightened. She picked up the reins again. “I’ll do it alone. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but I can’t give all this up. Will you put the sheriff onto my trail?”
Blake pointed to the deep ruts in the ground behind the buckboard. “I won’t have to. He can’t be far behind now and he didn’t strike me as a man who’d be sympathetic to a thief, woman or not. Sheriff Lasting is one of the old breed, teethed on honesty and fair play, but as hard as they come.”
Angela looked towards the freedom only a few miles away. Blake edged Sundown closer.
“Six men have died over that gold and I want no part of it,” Blake said. “But if you’re so set on getting money, why not do it properly?”
Angela frowned at him. “How?”
“Turn back and give up the gold. The rest of your story will hold up, and then you’ll collect the reward.”
“Reward?” Excitement sparked in her blue eyes.
“The Wells Fargo Company always pays ten per cent reward for the return of stolen money. It’s the way they have of getting honest people to work for them in rubbing out crime in these parts. Ten per cent of forty thousand dollars, Angela, is four thousand. That ought to set your brother up properly and leave something over for yourself.”
“Four thousand dollars,” she breathed.
Blake nodded and let Sundown turn away. But his look remained fixed on her. “Is that what you really want—to help your brother?”
Anger showed in Angela’s face. “Of course it is!” she snapped. “How dare you suggest it might be otherwise?”
Blake gave her a wry smile. He pointed to the gold bullion scattered over the floor of the buckboard. “It’s a lot of money.”
He put Sundown into a walk and made his way back down the passage between the lava hills. But as he rode his ears were tuned for the sound of the buckboard moving again. When it came he concentrated hard, and when the sound became more distinct as the buckboard got closer, he smiled again.
He rode into the harsh sunlight and drew rein near the body of Ringo Nyall. Angela brought the buckboard beside him.
“What will we do with him?” she asked. “I—I can’t look at him.”
“We’ll keep him,” Blake said. “There’s a price on his head.”
Angela studied him grimly. He was like everybody else, she thought. For all his high and mighty ways, it came down to a matter of money finally. She watched him heft the body from the ground and lift it into the back of the buckboard. A shudder ran through her at the thought of the dead man so close to her. Then Blake Durant led the way back across the open country and Angela let the tired horses walk in his wake.
It was an hour short of evening when Sheriff Curly Lasting showed up in the distance. Angela and Blake stopped the horses and Lasting came thundering on, his posse strung out in a line behind him. Drawing up beside the buckboard minutes later, Lasting looked keenly at Durant and then at Angela.
Blake said, “In the back, Sheriff.”
Lasting’s face registered surprise at the sight of the scattered bullion and Ringo Nyall’s body. He swung back to face Durant.
“How’d it happen?”
Blake nodded towards Angela. “Miss Grant worked Nyall into a corner, then she called a warning to me and gave me the chance to gun him down. She wanted only to bring the bullion back and hand it over to the rightful owners.”
Lasting’s eyebrows rose in an arch. “That so, Miss Grant? Guess I owe you an apology. I figured you were in this mess up to your eye-teeth. Well, I was wrong, and I’m damn glad of it.”
Lasting couldn’t hide his relief and gratitude. As for Angela, she gave the lawman a shy smile and wondered what kind of a man he was. He was certainly handsome, she decided, and nicely built. And had a way of looking at her that suggested she appealed to him.
“Mr. Durant mentioned there was a reward for bringing the gold back,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Damn tootin’ it’s true. And I’ll see you get it, Miss Grant, every cent that’s comin’ your way.” He swung on Durant again. “You claimin’ for Nyall’s carcass, Durant? Guess you got a right to.”
Blake shook his head. “I’ll make out without it, Lasting. Anything else you want with me?”
“Only some story-tellin’, mister. All we done since we left Glory Creek was come on either graves or dead men. Five in all, counting Nyall there.”
Blake removed his hat and refitted it to his head. “Miss Grant can tell you as much as I can, Sheriff, and she might be better at the telling than I am, since she was closer to the action most of the time. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just drift. All right?”
Angela turned to face Blake. “You aren’t coming back to Glory Creek, Mr. Durant?”
“The town doesn’t hold much for me, ma’am. Might have in different circumstances, but that’s not how it turned out.”
Angela rose from the seat and smoothed down her skirt as Curly Lasting eyed her appreciatively. She said, “If you don’t mind, Sheriff, I’d like to talk to Mr. Durant in private.”
Lasting nodded. “Just as you like, Miss Grant. I reckon that after what you’ve done out here, it ain’t for me to tell you what to do or when.”
Angela smiled. The sheriff would be easy to handle, she decided. She waited until the posse and Lasting had withdrawn before she turned to Durant. She looked directly into his eyes and said, quietly, “Do you have to go on, Blake? With the money we’ve got, we could make out real well.”
Blake shook his head. “We’re on different trails, Angela. You want certain things and I want others.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
His face clouded and his mouth tightened a little. He let his look sweep over her lush body and Angela felt no embarrassment. It was almost as if Durant had a right to look at her any way he pleased. She leaned forward, placed her hands on his shoulders and pulled his mouth towards hers. She lingered on the kiss, and his response sent waves of need through her. But when she drew back she saw that his face was expressionless.
“Who is she, Blake?” she asked softly.
But he moved Sundown back without a word. The black shifted impatiently under him, then Blake gave a sudden dig of his knees that put Sundown into a run. Angela dropped back to the seat and picked up the reins. When Curly Lasting came to her, she said:
“I’m so exhausted, Sheriff. I don’t think I can drive this buckboard an
other mile. Perhaps you could get one of the men to sit here and drive for me?”
Lasting licked at his lips and his eyes gleamed. “Why, hell, I should have thought of it myself. Sorry. Sule,” he called to one of the posse members as he swung out of the saddle. A rider walked his horse forward. “Take ’em home, Sule. I’ll see that Miss Grant gets back all right.”
Sule Mitchener looked on curiously as Lasting hitched his mount to the buckboard, then turned his horse and shouted for the posse to pull out.
Angela shifted to make room for Lasting. When he was settled in beside her, she turned and watched the diminishing figure of Blake Durant atop his blue-black stallion. A sad look came into her eyes, but then she drew in her breath and smiled at Lasting.
“Are you married, Sheriff?”
Lasting shook his head. “Nope. I don’t reckon I’m the kind that gets hogtied to a woman’s apron. I need plenty of room to move, plenty of time to make my own decisions. I don’t like bein’ badgered and told what to do.”
Angela worked a hand under his forearm and leaned closer. Lasting frowned, conscious of the softness of her body against him.
“Take it slowly, please, Sheriff. I’m so worn out.”
“Sure, sure,” he said. “I’ll walk ’em real slow.”
Angela nestled against him and thought of Ringo Nyall and Blake Durant. Then she erased them from her mind completely and concentrated on Curly Lasting, unmarried and with a responsible job.
He’d make a good husband, she decided.
About the Author
Sheldon B. Cole was one of many pseudonyms used by prolific Australian writer Desmond Robert Dunn (6 November 1929-5 May 2003). In addition to four crime novels published under his own name, Des was a tireless western writer whose career spanned more than fifty years and well in excess of 400 oaters. These quick-moving, vivid and always compelling stories appeared under such pen-names as Shad Denver, Gunn Halliday, Adam Brady, Brett Iverson, Matt Cregan, Walt Renwick and Morgan Culp. He is also said to have written a number of the ever-popular Larry Kent P.I. novels, but at this late date author attribution is almost impossible. He married and divorced twice, and had three children. He died at the age of 73 in Brisbane, Queensland.
The Loner Series by Sheldon B. Cole
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