The Dane

By Clint Westgard

Nels Sletkolem is having a red letter day. The Dane, as he is called, has just sold his cattle and has a bumper crop ready to harvest. This year is shaping up to be his best yet since he came to Sunnynook to homestead.

But as he brags of his success to anyone who will listen in the Sunnynook Hotel, someone from his past is lurking. They will be coming to see his debts are paid.

And they will only accept payment in blood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lost Quarter Books
• Release date: Jun 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781928035237

Clint Westgard

Clint Westgard is the author of The Shadow Men Trilogy and the science fiction epic The Sojourner Cycle, the first volume of which, The Forgotten, was published in 2015. In addition, he has published a work of historical fantasy set in colonial Peru, The Masks of Honor, and a retelling of the Minotaur legend, The Trials of the Minotaur. Clint Westgard lives in Calgary, Alberta.

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THE DANE

CLINT WESTGARD

The Dane

Published by Lost Quarter Books

June, 2017

The Dane by Clint Westgard is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  

ISBN: 978-1-928035-23-7

Cover image from the Provincial Archives of Alberta 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE DANE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1

2

3

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6

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY CLINT WESTGARD

1

Nels bellied up to the bar, pushing past two young bucks. He shouted to Harold for a beer, slapping his hand on the table. Goddamn Harry. Goddamn.

You’re hot as a poker, Harold said, grinning as he filled a mug with lager. He handed it across the counter to Nels. What’s got you fired up anyway?

Today is a red letter day, my friend. My wallet is full and I am going to drink my fill. That I guarantee. He spoke with the faintest of Nordic accents, that the few Swedes in the area found unplaceable. They had never met a Dane from Slesvig, as he was quick to say.

Good for you, Nels, Harry said, reaching across to give him a slap on the shoulder.

Nels nodded his thanks and took a long pull on his beer, wiping the suds from his mustache. He was well known in Sunnynook, but then everyone was. It was a homesteaders town of about a couple hundred, bigger than most of the others in the area because it was on the railway and had a station house and an elevator. Farmers from thirty miles or more would bring their grain and cattle here to ship and sell.

That was what Nels had been doing as well, selling his cattle, to somebody down near Hanna. For a hell of