Crossfire Trail (1953)

by L'amour, Louis

  Rafe opened the door of the Emporium and strode inside. Gene Baker looked up, frowning when he saw him. He was not glad to see Rafe, for the man's words on his previous visit had been responsible for some doubts and speculations.

  "Is Ann Rodney in?"

  Baker hesitated. "Yes," he said finally. "She's back there."

  Rafe went around the counter toward the door, hat in his left hand.

  "I don't think she wants to see you," Baker advised.

  "All right," Rafe said, "we'll see."

  He pushed past the screen and stepped into the living room beyond.

  Ann Rodney was sewing, and when the quick step sounded, she glanced up. Her eyes changed. Something inside her seemed to turn over slowly. This big man who had brought such disturbing news affected her as no man ever had. Considering her engagement to Bruce Barkow, she didn't like to feel that way about any man. Since he had last been here she had worried a good deal about what he had said and her reaction to it. Why would he come with such a tale? Shouldn't she have heard him out?

  Bruce said that the man was an impostor and someone who hoped to get money from her. Yet she knew something of Johnny Gill and she had danced with Bo Marsh, and knew that these men were honest. They had been liked and respected in Painted Rock. "Oh," she said, rising. "It's you?"

  Rafe stopped in the center of the room, a tall picturesque figure in his buckskin coat and with his waving black hair. He was, she thought, a handsome man. He wore his guns low and tied down, and she knew what that meant.

  "I was goin' to wait," he said abruptly, "and let you come to me and ask qusstions, if you ever did, but when I thought it over, rememberin' what I'd promised your father, I decided I must come back now, lay all my cards on the table, and tell you what happened."

  She started to speak, and he lifted his hand. "Wait. I'm goin' to talk quick, because in a few minutes I have an appointment outside that I must keep. Your father did not die on the trail back from California. He was shanghaied in San Francisco, taken aboard a ship while unconscious and forced to work as a seaman. I was shanghaied at the same time and place. Your father and I in the months that followed were together a lot. He asked me to come here, to take care of you and his wife, and to protect you. He died of beatin's he got aboard ship, just before the rest of us got away from the ship. I was with him when he died, settin' beside his bed. Almost his last words were about you."

  Ann Rodney stood very still, staring at him. There was a ring of truth in the rapidly spoken words, yet how could she believe this? Three men had told her they saw her father die, and one of them was the man she was to marry, the man who had befriended her, who had refused to foreclose on the mortgage he held and take from her the last thing she possessed in the world.

  "What was my father like?" she asked.

  "Like?" Rafe's brow furrowed. "How can anybody weigh what any man is like. I'd say he was about five feet eight or nine. When he died his hair was almost white, but when I first saw him he had only a few gray hairs. His face was a heap like yours. So were his eyes, except they weren't so large nor so beautiful. He was a kind man who wasn't used to violence and he didn't like it. He planned well, and thought well, but the West was not the country for him, yet. Ten years from now when it has settled more, he'd have been a leadin' citizen. He was a good man, and a sincere man."

  "It sounds like him," Ann said hesitantly, "but there is nothing you could not have learned here, or from someone who knew him."

  "No," he said frankly. "That's so. But there's somethin' else you should know. The mortgage your father had against his place was paid."

  "What?" Ann stiffened. "Paid? How can you say that?"

  "He borrowed the money in Frisco and paid Barkow with it. He got a receipt for it."

  "Oh, I can't believe that! Why, Bruce would have . . ."

  "Would he?" Rafe asked gently. "You sure?"

  She looked at him. "What was the other thing?"

  "I have a deed," he said, "to the ranch, made out to you and to me."

  Her eyes widened, then hardened with suspicion. "So? Now things become clearer. A deed to my father's ranch made out to you and to me! In other words, you are laying claim to half of my ranch?"

  "Please ..." Rafe said. "I..."

  She smiled. "You needn't say anything more, Mr. Caradec. I admit I was almost coming to believe there was something in your story. At least, I was wondering about it, for I couldn't understand how you hoped to profit from any such tale. Now it becomes clear. You are trying to get half my ranch. You have even moved into my house without asking permission."

  She stepped to one side of the door.

  "I'm sorry, but I must ask you to leave! I must also ask you to vacate the house on Crazy Woman at once! I must ask you to refrain from calling on me again, or from approaching me."

  "You're jumping to conclusions. I never aimed to claim any part of the ranch! I came here only because your father asked me to."

  "Good day, Mr. Caradec!" Ann still held the curtain.

  He looked at her, and for an instant their eyes held. She was first to look away. He turned abruptly and stepped through the curtain, and as he did the door opened and he saw Bo Marsh.

  Marsh's eyes were excited and anxious. "Rate," he said, "that Boyne hombre's in front of the National. He wants you!"

  "Why shore," Rafe said quietly. "I'm ready."

  He walked to the front door, hitching his guns into place. Behind him, he heard Ann Rodney asking Baker:

  "What did he mean? That Boyne was waiting for him?"

  Baker's reply came to Rafe as he stepped out into the morning light.

  "Trigger Boyne's goin' to kill him, Ann. You'd better go back inside!"

  Rafe smiled slightly. Kill him? Would that be it? No man knew better than he the tricks that Destiny plays on a man, or how often the right man dies at the wrong time and place. A man never wore a gun without inviting trouble, he never stepped into a street and began the gunman's walk without the full knowledge that he might be a shade too slow, that some small thing might disturb him just long enough!

  Chapter VI

  MORNING SUN was bright and the street lay empty of horses or vehicles. A few idlers loafed in front of the stage station, but all of them were on their feet.

  Rafe Caradec saw his black horse switch his tail at a fly, and he stepped down in the street. Trigger Boyne stepped off the boardwalk to face him, some distance off. Rafe did not walk slowly, he made no measured, quiet approach. He started to walk toward Boyne, going fast.

  Trigger stepped down into the street easily, casually. He was smiling. Inside, his heart was throbbing and there was a wild reckless eagerness within him. This one he would finish off fast. This would be simple, easy.

  He squared in the street, and suddenly the smile was wiped from his face. Caradec was coming toward him, shortening the distance at a fast walk. That rapid approach did something to the calm on Boyne's face and in his mind. It was wrong. Caradec should have come slowly, he should have come poised and ready to draw.

  Knowing his own deadly marksmanship, Boyne felt sure he could kill this man at any distance. But as soon as he saw that walk, he knew that Caradec was going to be so close in a few more steps that he himself would be killed.

  It is one thing to know you are to kill another man, quite a different thing to know you are to die yourself. If Caradec walked that way he would be so close he couldn't miss!

  Boyne's legs spread and the wolf sprang into his eyes, but there was panic there, too. He had to stop his man, get him now. His hand swept down for his gun.

  Yet something was wrong. For all his speed he seemed incredibly slow, because that other man, that tall, moving figure in the buckskin coat and black hat, was already shooting.

  Trigger's own hand moved first, his own hand gripped the gun butt first, and then he was staring into a smashing, blossoming rose of flame that seemed to bloom beyond the muzzle of that big black gun in the hands of Rafe Caradec. Something stabbed
at his stomach, and he went numb to his toes.

  Stupidly he swung his gun up, staring over it. The gun seemed awfully heavy. He must get a smaller one. That gun opposite him blossomed with rose again and something struck him again in the stomach. He started to speak, half turning toward the men in front of the stage station, his mouth opening and closing.

  Something was wrong with him, he tried to say. Why, everyone knew he was the fastest man in Wyoming, unless it was Shute! Everyone knew that! The heavy gun in his hand bucked and he saw the flame stab at the ground. He dropped the gun, swayed, then fell flat on his face.

  He would have to get up. He was going to kill that stranger, that Rafe Caradec. He would have to get up.

  The numbness from his stomach climbed higher and he suddenly felt himself in the saddle of a bucking horse, a monstrous and awful horse that leaped and plunged and it was going up! Up! Up!

  Then it came down hard, and he felt himself leave the saddle, all sprawled out. The horse had thrown him. Bucked off into the dust. He closed his hands spasmodically.

  Rafe Caradec stood tall in the middle of the gunman's walk, the black, walnut-stocked pistol in his right hand. He glanced once at the still figure sprawled in the street, then his eyes lifted, sweeping the walks in swift, accurate appraisal. Only then, some instinct prodded his subconscoius and warned him. The merest flicker of a curtain, and in the space between the curtain and the edge of the window, the black muzzle of a rifle!

  His .44 lifted and the heavy gun bucked in his hand just as flame leaped from the rifle barrel and he felt quick urgent fingers pluck at his sleeve. The .44 jolted again, and a rifle rattled on the shingled porch roof. The curtain made a tearing sound, and the head and shoulders of a man fell through, toppling over the sill. Overbalanced, the heels came up and the man's body rolled over slowly, seemed to hesitate, then rolled over again, poised an instant on the edge of the roof and dropped soddenly into the dust.

  Dust lifted from around the body, settled back. Gee Bonaro thrust hard with one leg, and his face twisted a little.

  In the quiet street there was no sound, no movement.

  For the space of a full half-minute, the watchers held themselves, shocked by the sudden climax, stunned with unbelief. Gee Bonaro had made his try, and died. Rafe Caradec turned slowly and walked back to his horse. Without a word he swung into saddle. He turned the horse and, sitting tall in the saddle, swept the street with a cold, hard eye that seemed to stare at each man there. Then, as if by his own wish, the black horse turned. Walking slowly, his head held proudly, he carried his rider down the street and out of town.

  Behind him, coolly and without smiles, Bo Marsh and Tex Brisco followed. Like him, they rode slowly, like him they rode proudly. Something in their bearing seemed to say, "We were challenged, we came. You see the result."

  In the window of the National, Joe Benson chewed his mustache. He stared at the figure of Trigger Boyne with vague disquiet, then irritation.

  "Damn it!" he muttered under his breath. "You was supposed to be a gunman? What in thunder was wrong with you?"

  A bullet from Boyne's gun, or from Bonaro's for that matter, could have ended it all. A bullet now could settle the whole thing, quiet the gossip, remove the doubts, and leave Barkow free to marry Ann, and the whole business could go forward. Instead, they had failed.

  It would be a long time now, Benson knew, before it was all over. A long time. Barkow was slipping. The man had better think fast and get something done. Rafe Caradec must die.

  The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had forbidden white men to enter the Powder River country, yet gold discoveries brought prospectors north in increasing numbers. Small villages and mining camps had come into existence. Following them, cattlemen discovered the rich grasses of northern Wyoming and a few herds came over what later was to be known as the Texas Trail.

  Indian attacks and general hostility caused many of these pioneers to retreat to more stable localities, but a few of the more courageous had stayed on. Prospectors had entered the Black Hills following the Custer expedition in 1874, and the Sioux always resentful of any incursion upon their hunting grounds or any flaunting of their rights, were preparing to do something more than talk.

  The names of such chiefs as Red Cloud, Dull Knife, Crazy Horse and the medicine man, Sitting Bull, came more and more into frontier gossip. A steamboat was reported to be en route up the turbulent Yellowstone and river traffic on the upper Missouri was an accepted fact. There were increasing reports of gatherings of Indians in the hills, and white men rode warily, never without arms.

  Cut off from contact with the few scattered ranchers, Rafe Caradec and his riders heard little of the gossip except what they gleaned from an occasional prospector or wandering hunter. Yet no gossip was needed to tell them how the land lay.

  Twice they heard sounds of rifle fire, and once the Sioux ran off a number of cattle from Shute's ranch, taking them from a herd kept not far from Long Valley. Two of Shute's riders were killed. None of Caradec's cattle were molested. He was left strictly alone. Indians avoided his place, no matter what their mission.

  Twice, riders from the ranch went to Painted Rock. Each time they returned they brought stories of an impending Indian outbreak. A few of the less courageous ranchers sold out and left the country. In all this time, Rafe Caradec lived in the saddle, riding often from dawn until dusk, avoiding the tangled brakes, but studying the lay of the land with care.

  There was, he knew, some particular reason for Bruce Barkow's interest in the ranch that belonged to Ann Rodney. What the reason was, he must know. Without it, he knew he could offer no real reason why Barkow would go to the lengths he had gone to get a ranch that was, on the face of tilings, of no more value than any piece of land in the country, most of which could be had for the taking.

  Ann spent much of her time alone. Business at the store was thriving and Gene Baker and his wife, and often Ann as well, were busy. In her spare time the thought kept returning to her that Rafe Caradec might be honest.

  Yet she dismissed the thought as unworthy. If she admitted even for an instant that he was honest, she must also admit that Bruce Barkow was dishonest. A thief, and possibly a killer. Yet somehow the picture of her father kept returning to her mind. It was present there on one of the occasions when Bruce Barkow came to call.

  A handsome man, Barkow understood how to appeal to a woman. He carried himself well, and his clothes were always the best in Painted Rock. He called this evening looking even better than he had on the last occasion, his black suit neatly pressed, his mustache carefully trimmed.

  They had been talking for some time when Ann mentioned Rafe Caradec.

  "His story sounded so sincere!" she said, after a minute. "He said he had been shanghaied in San Francisco with Father, and that they had become acquainted on the ship."

  "He's a careful man," Barkow commented, "and a dangerous one. He showed that when he killed Trigger Boyne and Bonaro. He met Boyne out on the range, and they had some trouble over an Indian girl."

  "An Indian girl?" Ann looked at him questioningly.

  "Yes," Barkow frowned as if the subject was distasteful to him. "You know how some of the cowhands are--always running after some squaw. They have stolen squaws, kept them for a while, then turned them loose or killed them. Caradec had a young squaw and Boyne tried to argue with him to let her go. They had words, and there'd have been a shooting then if one of Caradec's other men hadn't come up with a rifle, and Shute's boys went away."

  Ann was shocked. She had heard of such things happening, and was well aware of how much trouble they caused. That Rafe Caradec would be a man like that was hard to believe. Yet, what did she know of the man?

  He disturbed her more than she allowed herself to believe. Despite the fact that he seemed to be trying to work some scheme to get all or part of her ranch, and despite all she had heard of him at one time or another from Bruce, she couldn't make herself believe that all she heard was true.

 
That he appealed to her, she refused to admit. Yet when with him, she felt drawn to him. She liked his rugged masculinity, his looks, his voice, and was impressed with his sincerity. Yet the killing of Boyne and Bonaro was the talk of the town.

  The Bonaro phase of the incident she could understand from the previous episode in the store. But no one had any idea of why Boyne should be looking for Caradec. The solution now offered by Barkow was the only one. A fight over a squaw! Without understanding why, Ann felt vaguely resentful.

  For days a dozen of Shute's riders hung around town. There was talk of lynching Caradec, but nothing came of it. Ann heard the talk, and asked Baker about it.

  The old storekeeper looked up, nodding.

  "There's talk, but it'll come to nothin'. None of these boys aim to ride out there to Crazy Woman and tackle that crowd. You know what Gill and Marsh are like. They'll fight, and they can. Well, Caradec showed what he could do with a gun when he killed those two in the street. I don't know whether you saw that other feller with Caradec or not. The one from Texas. Well, if he ain't tougher than either Marsh or Gill, I'll pay off! Notice how he wore his guns? Nope, nobody'll go looking for them. If they got their hands on Caradec that would be somethin' else."

  Baker rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Unless they are powerful lucky, they won't last long, anyway. That's Injun country, and Red Cloud or Man Afraid of His Hoss won't take kindly to white men livin' there. They liked your pa, and he was friendly to 'em."

  As a result of his conversations with Barkow, Sheriff Pod Gomer had sent messages south by stage to Cheyenne and the telegraph. Rafe Caradec had come from San Francisco, and Bruce Barkow wanted to know who and what he was. More than that, he wanted to find out how he had been allowed to escape the Mary S. With that in mind he wrote to Bully Borger.

  Borger had agreed to take Charles Rodney to sea and let him die there, silencing the truth forever. Allowing Rafe Caradec to come ashore with his story was not keeping the terms of his bargain. If Caradec had actually been aboard the ship, and left it, there might be something in that to make him liable to the law.