Read Online Sundance by David Fuller - Free Book Online Page A

like. Go tell them I’m here.”
    â€œYou want me to tell them? Won’t they catch you?”
    â€œNo, they won’t. I’ll find her, Mina. I don’t think you’ll be bothered again. Go on now, tell the posse.”
    She snorted, amused.
    â€œI can see why she loved you. I suppose I always could. But you’re a bad man, Harry Longbaugh. You don’t mean to be, but you’re a bad man. Maybe for the first time I’m actually glad of that. Whatever she’s gotten herself into, I’d wager that that’s what she needs right now.”
    She opened the front door to the fresh night breeze, stood on her porch, and called out to LeFors’s men and told them her brother-in-law was there. Every one of the posse members did the opposite of what he had been told and came bumbling out of the bushes and trees and scrambled to get close to the house to be the one to grab him in case he really was the notorious outlaw he was rumored to be. In the commotion, Longbaugh slipped out the same window he had used to get in and was past them, walking into the stand of trees along the edge of the property and out to where he had tied his horse, by their parked vehicles.
    He stopped to listen to the disturbance back at the house, then turned, and was face-to-face with the lawman Joe LeFors.
    LeFors stared at him but did not draw his gun.
    Longbaugh realized LeFors did not recognize him. He had only ever seen Longbaugh from a distance, and in between Longbaugh had aged and shaved his mustache. He was also making no effort to run.
    LeFors prided himself on his looks and on his clothing, a fussy little dandy, tailoring his wardrobe to simulate the brilliant lawman he thought he was. But LeFors’s reputation, like his wardrobe, was self-promotion. If he knew the other lawmen did not respect him, he did not show it. LeFors had chased Cassidy’s gang after they had engaged in a bit of cattle rustling, and had bragged to anyone who would listen that he had put a stop to it. In reality all he had done was ride around in circles while Butch laughed at him.
    â€œThey got him surrounded at the house.”
    â€œSo where
you
going?” said LeFors.
    â€œI was coming for you, Joe. Didn’t think you’d care to miss it. Heard you’d gone to town.”
    LeFors nodded and looked over his shoulder at the sound of the commotion. “So they got him. So now he’s mine. Siringo thinks he’s the one, but when I bring him in, they’ll know it was me all along.”
    At the sound of Siringo’s name, Longbaugh went cold. He knew Charlie Siringo, had even, at one time, considered him a friend. Unlike LeFors, Siringo was a damn good lawman and a dangerous adversary. Siringo had been a Pinkerton, but unlike most Pinkertons, he worked alone and on his own timetable. He loved the chase and had been known to spend months on individual fugitives. Someone must have forced Siringo to include LeFors and his posse, which was a lucky break for Longbaugh—if Siringo had been at the house instead of LeFors, Longbaugh could never have slipped through so easily.
    â€œWhere is Siringo?”
    â€œHe’s the one went to town.” LeFors laughed, merrily, complacently, arrogantly, exultantly. “He misjudged our boy. Said he wouldn’t show up here for another day or two. And now
I’ve
got him!”
    â€œI’ll ride in and find him. By the time he gets here, you’ll have your prisoner.”
    He looked at Longbaugh, and for a moment he thought it was all over, that LeFors had identified him. Longbaugh’s hand moved closer to his holster.
    â€œDid you see him?” said LeFors. “Is it really him?”
    â€œProbably not.”
    â€œNo. You’re right, probably not. Guess I got excited. I didn’t really believe he was still alive. Couldn’t be that lucky. By the way, what’s your name?”
    Longbaugh simply could not help himself. He