Close Call
Page 15
“Dane!” It was Frank’s unsteady voice calling from the nervous horses, and Lassiter jerked himself back to
awareness and went across to where the two men were tied to their saddles.
“Frank, are you okay? What about you, Charlie?” Lassiter holstered his gun and began to untie them.
“You better check Milton is dead before you turn your back on him, Dane,” Charlie Logan said weakly.
“Don’t worry about him. When I shoot from that range I don’t miss, and I put three slugs at least through him,” Lassiter retorted.
He heard voices coming from town then, and turned quickly, dropping his hand to his gun. Half a dozen men were coming towards the horses, and their voices were raised in query.
“Hold it right there,” Lassiter called. “Who are you men?”
“We’re from town. Is that you, Lassiter?”
“I’m Dane Lassiter. What do you want?”
“The Doc sent us. We got the truth about what’s been happening. Can we come over?”
“It’s all right, Dane,” Paula’s voice declared, and the next instant the girl was running towards him. She almost sprawled over Buck Milton’s body, and Lassiter reached out and grasped her arm.
As he hugged her, the townsmen came across, cautiously at first, and then with eagerness. Lassiter stood with his arm around Paula’s waist, watching his brother and Charlie Logan being helped gently from their saddles, and other men slung the bodies of Milton and Yancey Clark across horses and began to lead them into town.
“It’s all over, Dane,” the girl said thankfully, and buried her face into his right shoulder. He put his arm about her slim shoulders and held her tightly. There was gunsmoke in his nostrils, but he caught the tang of her perfume, and it seemed to cut through all the tension and the hardness in his mind.
“It’s over, but too late for some,” he retorted harshly, and for a moment he was tense and grim again. But weariness struck through him and he sighed as he relaxed. “But it’s good to know I’m not still outside the law, Paula. I’ve got you to thank for talking your father into considering my innocence before I got to court. With Milton as the sheriff I would never have made it as far as the courtroom. Perhaps now HI be able to settle down and learn to forget what’s happened. I’ve been wild in my time, but I figure that’s been driven out of me by what’s happened.”
She smiled up at him as they began to walk towards the town, and Lassiter found his mind beginning to clear of what had been a nightmare. The bad side of the situation was dead, he realized, and that left only the good side. He glanced at the girl, indistinct in the night, and he knew she was the good side, and she was his. The balance had suddenly swung in his favour.
He gripped the butt of his gun as he continued towards Pommel, with the girl on his left, but he figured he didn’t need his gun any more. It had been wild and was tamed, and that was exactly how he felt!
If you enjoyed Close Call why not check out another Clinton Spurr western?
The Loner
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