The Vengeance Seeker 4 Page 14
“You mean Pete’s been having trouble keeping the peace?” he asked, smiling.
“That’s not what she means at all,” said Pete. “You know what she means, Wolf.”
Yes, Wolf did. He took a deep breath and turned to Pete. “Looks like this is going to be your job from here on in, Pete,” Wolf told him. “I’m resigning. As of now.”
“You’re quitting?”
Wolf nodded. “I can’t give you my badge. I don’t have it with me. I left it ... back along the trail.”
Pete was puzzled. But Wolf could see that he was pleased as well. He had evidently handled himself well enough during Wolf’s absence to give him the confidence he needed.
“What are your plans, Wolf?” Kate asked.
Wolf looked at her and hesitated, hoping the words would not hurt her but aware that it no longer made that much difference to him if they did. “I’ll be riding south, Kate.”
Greenup had finished counting the bonds. He looked up at Wolf. “All here, Wolf!”
Wolf smiled. “I’m glad, Greenup.” Then he looked back at Kate. She was still smiling at him, but the warmth had drained from her eyes. “If you still want that story,” he told her, “we can go to your office.”
“No,” she said, decisively poking her pencil back into the chestnut hair piled on top of her head. “Never mind about Johnny Reno. The real story is right here on this desk, Marshal. You brought the bank’s money back. That’s enough of a story.”
He nodded to her. In that instant they both understood everything. Even if Kate O’Neil had forgiven Wolf his past, she could never forget it—and neither could he.
It was morning when Wolf topped the gentle, sun baked rise and looked down at Antonio Lopez de Santa Rosa’s hacienda. There were few vaqueros in sight and the corrals, he noticed, needed some repairs. And though there should have been more—many more—longhorns grazing in the lush pastureland that extended to the Sierras beyond, Wolf was not discouraged.
The gold dust in his saddlebags would take care of that.
He touched his spurs to the flanks of his black and rode down the gentle slope toward the hacienda’s compound. As he trotted through the gates not long after, he noticed the girl striding off the low porch, and smiled.
She was dressed in a tan split skirt, a blue blouse and the same wide sombrero she had worn months before in the Wyoming Territory. It was the proud set to her shoulders and the way she swung into the saddle of her mount that erased all doubt from Wolf’s mind. Juanita had made it back to her father’s ranch.
A sturdy old man, his dark face weathered from many Mexican suns, appeared in the doorway of the hacienda and called out to Juanita, pointing to Wolf as he did so. Juanita swung her mount around; and then he heard her cry out his name as she bent suddenly over the neck of her horse and urged it to a gallop.
Wolf was smiling broadly when the two of them swung from their horses a few moments later and embraced. For a while there would be no more Johnny Renos for him to hunt, no more past for either of them to forget or to forgive. Until he could no longer ignore the call of his trade, all he wanted now was what he could find with Juanita, and from the tears on her cheeks Wolf knew she felt the same way.
About the Author
William Cecil Knott was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 7 1927. Following a stint in the US Air Force, he became a junior high school teacher and went on to continue his academic career in Connecticut, West Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Between 1967 and 1983, Knott was Assistant Professor (later Associate Professor) of English at the State University of New York. In his free time, he also carved out an impressive body of fiction, most of it in the western field. In addition to creating his own series, The Vengeance Seeker and Golden Hawk, he also contributed to the Stagecoach Station series (as Hank Mitchum), Slocum (as Jake Logan), Longarm (as Tabor Evans) and The Trailsman (as Jon Sharpe). Under the names Bill Knott and Bill Carol he wrote several children’s books, and also contributed to the WWII adventure series Mac Wingate, which is also being republished by Piccadilly Publishing.
Mr. Knott passed away in 2008.
But the adventure doesn’t end here …
Join us for more first-class, action-packed books.
Regular updates feature on our website and blog
The Adventures continue…
Issuing new and classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!