Sundance by David Fuller Read Free Book Online

up a plan and get out there and fuckin’ get into all of it, otherwise we wasted all this time. We got to
do
something.”
    â€œMaybe you’ll think of it.” Longbaugh stepped backward into the sun and turned without another word and walked quickly to the front. They stood dumbfounded and unarmed, and he figured it would be a few seconds before they caught on that he was leaving, a few seconds more to run inside and grab their weapons, and he was counting on their horses being unsaddled. It would give him a small head start, and he wanted all he could get.
    He put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up and turned the horse and headed down the trail. He stowed the haversack in his saddlebag as he rode. Their voices started up behind him. A few minutes later, he glanced up and saw they were following. He kept a deliberate pace, knowing it was unwise to push his horse.
    He reached the bottom of the face of the canyon where the land went flat. He figured them eight minutes back. They could catch him if they sprinted, but then their horses would be tired and he’d have the advantage. By now they were thinking, and even imposters would know to follow at a safe distance. He was, after all, notorious. They would be forming some off-the-cuff plan, and as they were less than professional, their plan would be unpredictable. By now, John would understand that Longbaugh had insulted him, and he would be looking to prove his manhood, and maybe lay sole claim to the name in the process.
    Longbaugh rode through the passage, leaving the inner canyon behind, then rode out in the open flat of the valley, eventually fording the Green River as he made for a trailhead that would take him up into the Uinta Mountains. He saw them ford the river in a shallower spot downstream. They knew the land and had made up time.
    He rode into the mountains and they followed. He listened for them, and every time he thought they had given up, he heard them again. He knew the way, but it had been years, and he encountered natural changes in the landscape that forced him to make quickdecisions and, in one instance, to backtrack. Clearly, the cook Sandy was more familiar with this terrain. He stayed on the trail that ran between steep sandstone cliffs, and then he was at the top and began his way down the far side. He eventually came to a road he had remembered as nothing more than a trail, and he turned to follow it, still working his way down. Not long after, he encountered a small camp just off the road, a woman with her daughter of around twelve. He thought they were Cheyenne, although they wore the clothes of white women. A few niceties kept them comfortable, a picnic basket, a blanket to sit on, a white sheet draped between branches to protect them from the sun.
    He slowed, wondering about this pleasant scene in the midst of such unwelcome country. The young girl of twelve smiled but her mother stepped in front of her with a protective frown.
    â€œTwo men coming,” said Longbaugh. “They’re not exactly friendly. I’d stay out of sight.”
    The older woman put her arm around the girl’s shoulder but did not answer.
    â€œAre you alone out here? Is someone taking care of you?”
    The older woman turned her daughter away and the daughter now looked at him with alarm, as if realizing she had just tempted a feral beast with a taste for sunny young females.
    He watched them pull down the white sheet and stow it behind the tree, and while he still wondered how they had come to be there, he was satisfied they would stay out of sight. He continued on.
    He stopped after a short ride, thinking about why the old trail had come to be expanded. While there was no one else on the road, clearly it was in frequent use. He listened for his pursuers and did not hear them. Previously he might have welcomed that fact, but now he thought of the Cheyenne mother and her daughter. He stared back over the road he had just traveled,