by Adam Brady
“More’n likely,” Halliday said, and the liveryman decided this was not the time for talk.
“How much?” Halliday asked when the man returned with the horse.
“It’s on the house, Mr. Halliday,” the man said nervously.
“No need for that,” Halliday said as he flipped the man a silver dollar.
“Thanks, mister,” the man said behind him as Halliday rode out into the light.
Nathan Dean was waiting in the street.
“What the hell happened, Halliday?” Dean demanded. “I thought you two were—”
“You thought wrong,” Halliday cut in, and then his gaze swept over the faces in the gathering crowd.
He rode his horse through the press of townspeople, and he was about to give the sorrel its head when Nathan Dean called out to him again.
“There was a bounty on Sam Rushton’s head, you know, and on top of that, this whole town owes you for—”
Buck Halliday was once again the drifter, the stranger nobody knew a thing about. He silenced Dean with a long, cold look, and then he straightened in the saddle and took a last glance at a town he would never see again.
It looked dead to him now, a lifeless jumble of lumber and iron.
“Use the bounty to bury Donna Heller,” he said.
Nathan Dean hurried after the slow-moving horseman, saying;
“But it’s close to a thousand dollars, Halliday! With money like that, you could do damn near anything you want. You earned it, Halliday. It’d give you a fresh start ...”
Halliday slapped the sorrel with the reins and put it into a run.
He could still hear Nathan Dean calling to him, and he was thinking that the man was right, in a strange way.
He did deserve a fresh start ... but not in Donna Heller’s town ... and not with Donna’s money.
The sorrel seemed to understand. It lengthened stride and Halliday gave it its head.
“That’s the way, feller,” Halliday said. “Take us someplace we’ve never been before ...”
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 Halliday Series by Adam Brady
Halliday
Fury of the .44
Ride For the Devil
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