Sundance 11
Page 15
Since shooting while riding at a gallop didn’t make for accuracy, the vaqueros were merely trusting to luck to bring their quarry down. Some of their slugs did come close to Sundance, but none found him. Soon he was out of reach of handguns, and then of long guns. Their mounts, tough range broncs though they were, couldn’t match the Appaloosa’s speed and endurance. Sundance lengthened his lead, and then, as dusk thickened into darkness, he drew so far ahead that when he looked back he could no longer see any of them.
He rode on through the night, at an easy lope. He traveled north now, intending to swing wide of Comanche country when he eventually turned back toward Texas.
~*~
Sundance took it easy during the days that followed. He loafed along like a saddle tramp, feeding himself by shooting small game when riding through uninhabited country and otherwise getting himself invited to meals at a sheepherder’s camp, at a cavalry detail’s bivouac, at the trail camp of an outfit driving a beef herd to the railroad in Kansas, at a Cherokee village in Indian Territory. Finally, following the Dodge City Trail southward, he came to Dolan’s, a combination store and saloon, on the Red River. This isolated business establishment owed its existence and prosperity to the trail outfits. At it Sundance bought enough provisions to see him through the remainder of his leisurely journey.
When he rode up to Snake-in-the-Hole headquarters, it was the afternoon of the fifteenth day after he had sent Virginia riding off toward Fort Sumner with Phil Markham. He had no feeling that he would find her here. He rather expected that she would have decided to return to her own safe, comfortable world. He thought too that Phil Markham would have gotten over being a damn fool and made her reconsider her having broken off with him. To Sundance, it seemed that any man would overlook what had happened to her in Comanche country and keep her for himself. After all, Virginia Stevens was a very special sort of young woman. But it was she who came to the door of the house as he rode into the ranch yard. She had stood firm in her decision.
The sight of her caused his heart to give a lurch, and he again experienced that familiar ache of desire for her. He decided that instant to collect what was owed him, from Sam Owens, and go his way at once. He couldn’t be near her without wanting her. Her smile was radiant as he reined in and doffed his hat, and there was too a shyness in her manner.
“I’ve been watching for you every day, Jim. I was so worried—afraid you hadn’t escaped with your life.”
“I had to kill Montoya to get away, I’m sorry to say. Like Broken Nose, he wouldn’t call it quits. You’ve decided to stay on here, have you?”
She nodded. “And a good decision it was. Marriage for Phil and me wouldn’t have worked out. As for Mother, she would have been mortified to have me back home. It’s not that she doesn’t love me. It’s simply that she would always have had it on her mind that I must have been a Comanche’s squaw. I didn’t admit to her that I had been, but neither did I deny it. She and Phil left for the East four days ago. Both pretended to be brokenhearted, but I’m sure they were secretly relieved that I was staying on here.”
She paused, and her lovely green eyes seemed to take on a sudden sparkle.
“It was a good decision in another way too. Uncle Sam has hired a new foreman. A very nice young man named Al Kirby. He’s one-fourth Tonkawa. And you know how partial I am to Indian blood.”
Sundance felt a little hurt deep inside himself, and knew it for an ache of jealousy. “So you and this Al Kirby are already good friends, are you?”
She shook her head, smiling but in a sober way. “No, we’re not. And we’re not going to be that sort of friends. Al doesn’t know it yet, but sooner or later he’s going to marry me.”
“Lucky Al.”
“Are you angry, Jim?”
“If I am, I’ve not right to be. We can’t follow the same trail, you and I. Do you feel safe here, though?”
“Oh, it’s safe enough now. The Rangers rounded up the Barton gang of outlaws. They’ve also set up a camp only a few miles from here, to keep watch for Comanche war parties. But get down, Jim, and come inside. I’m being a poor hostess, for heaven’s sake.”
“I won’t be staying. Once I get my money from your uncle, I’ll mosey along. Is he out on the range?”
“Yes, he is—with Al and the other new hands he hired. He’s gathering some Snake-in-the-Hole steers to put into a pool herd that some of the ranchers will drive to Dodge City. They’re working the range east of here today.”
“I’ll ride out and find him.”
“You do that,” Virginia said. “Since you don’t like my company anymore.”
He turned away without responding to that except with a grin.
He met Sam Owens after riding only a short distance. The rancher was on his way to headquarters to rest for a couple of hours. His leg was on the mend but it still ached if he spent too long a time in the saddle. As they rode together, Sundance pumped him about his new foreman. Owens was quick to catch on.
“Virginia told you she aims to marry Al, eh? Well, you needn’t worry none. Al is ten times the man Phil Markham is, and he’s not a damn fool like Matt Boland was. He’ll make that girl a good husband. He’ll tame her without breaking her spirit.”
“I want her to be happy.”
“She is that, believe me.”
Virginia was not in sight when they arrived at the ranch house and went into the room that Owens used as his office. She did put in an appearance when Sundance, having been paid the thousand dollars the rancher owed him, was about to leave. Earlier she had been in a blue gingham dress and an apron. Now she wore her riding habit.
“I’ll ride a little way with you, Jim,” she said. “I haven’t been on a horse since the night Phil and I rode into Fort Sumner. It’s time I got used to the saddle again.”
Sam Owens chuckled as though guessing what she had in mind. “Just don’t go far. I don’t want you carried off again.”
“Oh, there are no Comanches within a hundred miles,” Virginia told him. Then she added, “I’ll go saddle a horse, Jim.”
Sundance shook hands with the rancher, then followed her from the house and across the yard to the corral. He roped and saddled a mount for her. As they rode from Snake-in-the-Hole, he was reminded of those days and nights they had spent at the cave in the rock field and on the trail out of the Llano Estacado. He was sure that she too was remembering how it had been.
“I’m glad it all happened to me,” she told him. “It was a case of ‘all’s well that ends well.’ I found my true self out there in the land of the Comanches and Kiowas.”
“Sam told me you’re happy now. I believe he’s right.”
“He is,” she said. “Let’s go this way.”
She led him to a tree-shaded grassy spot along a creek.
Dismounting, she said, “We must say goodbye properly, since we’ll be parting forever. Come to me, darling.”
Under her spell, and willing to be, Sundance obediently swung down from the Appaloosa—to take her in his arms for the very last time.
You’ve reached the last page.
But the adventure doesn’t end here …
Join us for more first-class, action-packed books.
Regular updates feature on our website and blog
The Adventures continue…
Issuing new and classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!
More on John Benteen