A Promise of Thunder Read Free

instant Grady Stryker ceased to exist and Thunder was reborn, swift, keen, perceptive—deadly.
    Sensing trouble, people on the streets scattered like leaves before the wind. Women screamed, clutching their children as they hustled them out of harm’s way, and men, placing themselves behind protection, watched with perverse fascination as the two men prepared to outdraw one another.
    Across the street, Storm Kennedy noticed nothing but Buddy approaching in the wagon.Expelling a sigh of relief, she stepped out into the street. Buddy stopped the wagon beside her, preparing to jump down and boost Storm into the seat beside him.
    “I found us a place to stay!” Buddy shouted, excited that he had obtained lodging in a city so obviously overcrowded. “We can sleep in a real bed tonight. Mrs. Luke over at the boarding house just threw out a guest because he couldn’t pay, so she let us have his room. I knew luck was with us.”
    “How wonderful,” Storm cried. Buddy’s boyish enthusiasm for this venture had fired her own, and she was as eager as he to claim their 160 acres of land and become landowners.
    Grady knew the odds were against him, but giving up wasn’t his style. He’d faced tougher competition than this during the past months. If he’d killed the man’s brother, it was because the brother had recklessly challenged him. He recalled that day in Dodge City, even remembered what the brother looked like. And as had happened so many times in the past, that face took on the characteristics of the men who had killed Summer Sky. The man had accused him of cheating at cards, drew, and lost. Grady felt no remorse over the death of another nameless white drifter.
    Gathering his wits, Grady turned and dropped to one knee, at the same time drawing and aiming. He knew from the sound of his voice exactly where the man stood—itwas an uncanny ability, knowing where the enemy was—and fired off a shot, all in the space of a heartbeat. The man squeezed the trigger an instant later. Already wounded by Grady’s bullet, his arm flew up and the shot went wild. It found its mark in the body of Buddy Kennedy.
    A high-pitched screech was the first indication to Grady that something was amiss, something that had nothing to do with the man lying wounded in the dusty street. Once the danger was past, people began streaming into the open, seeming to converge on one place. Before the crowd cut off his view, Grady had a brief glimpse of a golden head bent over a still figure lying in the street beside a wagon.
    Noting that his friends were already helping the wounded gunman to his feet, Grady gave him no more than a passing glance, holstered his gun, and rose to his full six feet three inches. He had no idea what dire mishap had taken place across the street, but something compelled him to investigate. Stretching his long legs, he strode briskly across the teeming thoroughfare and plowed into the crowd milling around the two figures who appeared to be the center of attention. When people saw who it was they opened up a path for him, allowing Grady a clear view of the scene.
    A young man, younger even than Grady, lay stretched out on the ground. He was so white Grady knew instinctively that he was dead. Blood seeped from a neat round holein his head, staining the ground beneath him. The blond beauty Grady had noticed earlier was bent over him, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, her heartrending sobs piercing the air.
    Shock and disbelief nearly paralyzed Storm. One minute she was talking to Buddy and the next he lay dead on the ground. Even in her grief she didn’t need a doctor to tell her that her childhood friend and companion was dead. It was all so senseless, so utterly wrong, that Buddy should die because two vicious men carried their grudge into the streets where innocent passersby could be hurt. Why Buddy? she raged in silent protest. He had so much to live for—so much enthusiasm for life and this new venture they had