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Informationen zum Autor John Shirley Klappentext In this exciting new Ralph Compton western, a man without a memory meets an unforgettable ally: the one and only Bat Masterson. Riding into the town of Smoky River on a mangy mule, Dane looks as broken down as his old mount. His Stetson is ragged, his boots are tied together with leather thongs, and he wears a Colt Army revolver with exactly three bullets. He wouldn't know what to say if you asked him where he got the gun, or how he learned to shoot it so well. He doesn't know if Dane is his first name or his last. Something happened that cost him much of his memory, and he can't remember what that something was. For three years he's been traveling the West as a cowboy, a buffalo hunter, a farmhand. Smoky River looks to be a fine place to settle down. If only his past didn't decide to catch up to him here. . . Leseprobe CHAPTER ONE 1876. The Smoky Hills. Kansas. When he first rode up, Dane did not know the town's name. He'd seen no city-limits sign. But after all the dusty trailing he'd done from Abilene, the greenness of the place appealed to him. In the October dusk the place looked pleasantly sleepy and well shaded. Its few streets were laid out to either side of a tree-lined river. This time of year, the river was awash with silt from the thunderstorms in the hills, so it seemed the color of saddle leather. The rolling hills to the west of the town were yet green for rich grazing. Most of the birches and cottonwoods hugging the river still had a passel of green leaves, though the oaks were going golden red. A soft breeze ruffled the treetops, a sight Dane found soothing. There was little enough comfort in the world, and this place might offer him a spoonful or two before it urged him on. The town didn't seem large; nor was it too small. Large towns made him nervous. Small towns made him feel overly conspicuous. He couldn't remember why he felt that way any more than he could remember what his full name was, or how old he was-or even where he had been born. He was almost a stranger to himself. Dane was the only name he could recall, though it seemed to him he'd had more than one, sometime in the curtained-off past. He thought he might be from Missouri, because folks sometimes remarked that he had an Eastern Missouri accent. All that really mattered, most times, was where he'd just been and where he was going. For a while he'd cowboyed for a big spread in Kansas. Lately he'd been working on a small ranch a half day's ride from Abilene, Kansas, just a hired hand fixing fences, digging irrigation, taking care of the small herd, even hoeing the vegetable garden. They'd paid him scantly, but they'd given him two meals a day along with a bunk in a lean-to, and they'd put up his mule, Gravy, even giving her grain. Still, eight months on that dusty, unfriendly High Plains spread had been enough. He was not a talkative man, but working for German folk who knew just enough English to boss him-who made their own beer and never offered him any-had been even lonelier than he was used to. Dane had saved a small poke of silver, and six days ago, he'd climbed on Gravy and ridden out with his few possessions: the clothes on his back, the old Colt Army revolver-Dane couldn't recall how he'd come to have it-exactly three bullets, one lariat, a harmonica, a saddle and saddlebags, a comb made of elk horn, a tin pan for cooking, a tin coffee cup, an iron saucepan he used for boiling coffee, a tinder box, an Army canteen with a bullet hole halfway up it, and a skinning knife. He'd stopped in Abilene for coffee and bacon, hardtack and dried apples, and a handful of matches. He had finally bought a new canteen, too, because the bullet hole-he had no idea how it had come to be there-meant his old canteen could be filled only halfway. Dane had fifty-five dollars left. He n...
