Crossfire Trail (1953)

by L'amour, Louis

  "Your Honor," he began, "and Gentlemen of the Jury. You all know none of us here are lawyers. This court is bein' held only so's we can keep law and order in this community, and that's the way it will be till the country is organized. This prisoner was in a gunfight with Lemuel Boyne, known as Trigger. Boyne challenged him--some of you know the reason for that--and Caradec accepted. In the fight out in the street, Caradec shot Boyne and killed him.

  "In almost the same instant, he lifted his gun and shot Gee Bonaro, who was innocently watchin' the battle from his window. If a thing like this isn't punished, any gunfighter is apt to shoot anybody he don't like at any time, and nothin' done about it. We've all heard that Caradec claims Bonaro had a rifle and was about to shoot at him, which was a plumb good excuse, but a right weak one. We know this Caradec had words with Bonaro at the Emporium, and almost got into a fight then and there. I say Caradec is guilty of murder in the first degree, and should be hung."

  Barkow turned his head and motioned to Red Blazer.

  "Red, you get up there and tell the jury what you know."

  Red strode up to the chair that was doing duty for a witness stand and slouched down in the seat. He was unshaven, and his hair was uncombed. He sprawled his legs out and stuck his thumbs in his belt. He rolled his quid in his jaws, and spat.

  "I seen this here Caradec shoot Boyne," he said, "then he ups with his pistol and cut down on Bonaro, who was a standin' in the window, just a-lookin'."

  "Did Bonaro make any threatening moves toward Caradec?"

  "Him?" Red's eyes opened wide. "Shucks, no. Gee was just a standin' there. Caradec was afeerd of him, an' seen a chance to kill him and get plumb away."

  Rafe looked thoughtfully at Barkow. "Is the fact that the witness was not sworn in the regular way in this court? Or is his conscience delicate on the subject of perjury?"

  "Huh?" Blazer sat up. "What'd he say?"

  Barkow flushed. "It hasn't usually been the way here, but--"

  "Swear him in," Caradec said calmly, "and have him say under oath what he just said."

  He waited until this was done, and then as Red started to get up Rafe motioned him back.

  "I've got a few questions," he said.

  "Huh?" Red demanded belligerently. "I don't have to answer no more questions."

  "Yes, you do." Rafe's voice was quiet. "Get back on that witness stand!"

  "Do I have to?" Blazer demanded of Barkow, who nodded.

  If there had been any easy way out, he would have taken it, but there was none. He was beginning to look at Rafe Caradec with new eyes.

  Rafe got up and walked over to the jury.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "none of you know me well. None of us, as Barkow said, know much about how court business should be handled. All we want to do is get at the truth. I know that all of you here are busy men. You're willin' and anxious to help along justice and the beginnin's of law hereabouts, and all of you are honest men. You want to do the right thing. Red Blazer has just testified that I shot a man who was makin' no threatenin' moves, that Bonaro was standing in a window, just watching."

  Caradec turned around and looked at Blazer thoughtfully. He walked over to him, squatted on his haunches and peered into his eyes, shifting first to one side, then the other. Red Blazer's face flamed.

  "What's the matter?" he blared. "You gone crazy?"

  "No," Caradec said. "Just lookin' at your eyes. I was just curious to see what kind of eyes a man had who could see through a shingle roof and a ceilin'."

  "Huh?" Blazer glared.

  The jury sat up, and Barkow's eyes narrowed. The courtroom crowd leaned forward.

  "Why, Red, you must have forgot," Rafe said. "You were in the National when I killed Boyne. You were standin' behind Joe Benson. You were the first person I saw when I looked around. You could see me, and you could see Boyne--but you couldn't see the second-story window across the street!"

  Somebody whooped, and Pat Higley grinned.

  "I reckon he's right," Pat said coolly. "I was standin' right alongside of Red."

  "That's right!" somebody from back in the courtroom shouted. "Blazer tried to duck out without payin' for his drink and Joe Benson stopped him!"

  Everybody laughed, and Blazer turned fiery red, glaring back into the room to see who the speaker was, and not finding him.

  Rafe turned to Barkow and smiled.

  "Have you got another witness?"

  Despite herself, Ann Rodney found herself admiring Rafe Caradec's composure, his easy manner. Her curiosity was stirred. What manner of man was he? Where was he from? What background had he? Was he only a wanderer, or was he something more, something different? His language, aside from his characteristic Texas drawl, his manner, spoke of refinement, yet she knew of his gun skill as exhibited in the Boyne fight.

  "Tom Blazer's my next witness," Barkow said. "Swear him in."

  Tom Blazer, a hulking redhead even bigger than Red, took the stand. Animosity glared from his eyes.

  "Did you see the shootin'?" Barkow asked.

  "You're darned right I did!" Tom declared, staring at Rafe. "I seen it, and I wasn't inside no saloon! I was right out in the street!"

  "Was Bonaro where you could see him?"

  "He sure was!"

  "Did he make any threatening moves?"

  "Not any!"

  "Did he lift a gun?"

  "He sure didn't!"

  "Did he make any move that would give an idea he was goin' to shoot?"

  "Nope. Not any." As Tom Blazer answered each question he glared triumphantly at Caradec.

  Barkow turned to the jury. "Well, there you are. I think that's enough evidence. I think ..."

  "Let's hear Caradec ask his questions," Pat Higley said. "I want both sides of this yarn."

  Rafe got up and walked over to Tom Blazer, then looked at the judge. "Your Honor, I'd like permission to ask one question of a man in the audience. He can be sworn in or not, just as you say."

  Gargan hesitated uncertainly. Always before, things had gone smoothly. Trials had been railroaded through, objections swept aside, and the wordless little ranchers or other objectors to the rule of Barkow and Shute had been helpless. This time preparations should have been more complete. He didn't know what to do.

  "All right," he said, his misgivings showing in his expression and tone.

  Caradec turned and looked at a short, stocky man with a brown mustache streaked with gray. "Grant," he said, "what kind of a curtain have you got over that window above your harness and saddle shop?"

  Grant looked up. "Why, it ain't rightly no curtain," he said frankly. "It's a blanket."

  "You keep it down all the time? The window covered?"

  "Uh-huh. Sure do. Sun gets in there otherwise, and makes the floor hot and she heats up the store thataway. Keepin' that window covered keeps her cooler."

  "It was covered the day of the shootin'?"

  "Shore was."

  "Where did you find the blanket after the shootin'?"

  "Well, she laid over the sill, partly inside, partly outside."

  Rafe turned to the jury. "Miss Rodney and gentlemen, I believe the evidence is clear. The window was covered by a blanket. When Bonaro fell after I shot him, he tumbled across the sill, tearin' down the blanket. Do you agree?"

  "Shore!" Gene Baker found his voice. The whole case was only too obviously a frameup to get Caradec. It was like Bonaro to try to sneak killing, anyway. "If that blanket hadn't been over the window, then he couldn't have fallen against it and carried part out with him!"

  "That's right." Rafe turned on Tom Blazer. "Your eyes seem to be as amazin' as your brother's. You can see through a wool blanket!"

  Blazer sat up with a jerk, his face dark with sullen rage. "Listen!" he said, "I'll tell you--"

  "Wait a minute!" Rafe whirled on him, and thrust a finger in his face. "You're not only a perjurer but a thief! What did you do with that Winchester Bonaro dropped out of the window?"

  "It wasn't no Winches
ter!" Blazer blared furiously. "It was a Henry!"

  Then, seeing the expression on Barkow's face, and hearing the low murmur that swept the court, he realized what he had said. He started to get up, then sank back, angry and confused.

  Rafe Caradec turned toward the jury.

  "The witness swore that Bonaro had no gun, yet he just testified that the rifle Bonaro dropped was a Henry. Gentlemen and Miss Rodney, I'm goin' to ask that you recommend the case be dismissed, and also that Red and Tom Blazer be held in jail to answer charges of perjury!"

  "What?" Tom Blazer came out of the witness chair with a lunge. "Jail? Me? Why, you--"

  He leaped, hurling a huge red-haired fist in a roundhouse swing. Rafe Caradec stepped in with a left that smashed Blazer's lips, then a solid right that sent him crashing to the floor.

  Rafe glanced at the judge. "And that, I think," he said quietly, "is contempt of court!"

  Pat Higley got up abruptly. "Gargan, I reckon you better dismiss this case. You haven't got any evidence or anything that sounds like evidence, and I guess everybody here heard about Caradec facin' Bonaro down in the store. If he wanted to shoot him, there was his chance."

  Gargan swallowed. "Case dismissed," he said.

  He looked up at Bruce Barkow, but the rancher was walking toward Ann Rodney. She glanced at him, then her eyes lifted and beyond him she saw Rafe Caradec. How fine his face was! It was a rugged, strong face. There was character in it, and sincerity...

  She came down with a start. Bruce was speaking to her. "Gomer told me he had a case or I'd never have been a party to this. He's guilty as he can be, but he's smooth."

  Ann looked down at Bruce Barkow, and suddenly his eyes looked different to her than ever before. "He may be guilty of a lot of things," she said tartly, "but if ever there was a cooked-up, dishonest case, it was this one. And everyone in town knew it! If I were you, Bruce Barkow, I'd be ashamed of myself!"

  Abruptly she turned her back on him and started for the door, yet as she went she glanced up. For a brief instant her eyes met those of Rafe Caradec and something within her leaped. Her throat seemed to catch. Head high, she hurried past him into the street. The store seemed a long distance away.

  Chapter VIII

  WHEN BRUCE BARKOW walked into Pod Gomer's office, the sheriff was sitting in his swivel chair. In the big leather armchair across the room Dan Shute was waiting. He was a big man, with massive shoulders, powerfully muscled arms, and great hands. A shock of dusky blond hair covered the top of his head, and his eyebrows were the color of corn silk. He looked up as Barkow came in, and when he spoke his voice was rough. "You shore played hob!"

  "The man's smart, that's all!" Barkow said. "Next time we'll have a better case."

  "Next time?" Dan Shute lounged back in the big chair, the contempt in his eyes unconcealed. "There ain't goin' to be a next time. You're through, Barkow. From now on this is my show, and we run it my way. Caradec needs killin', and we'll kill him. Also, you're goin' to foreclose that mortgage on the Rodney place."

  "No,"--he held up a hand as Barkow started to speak--"you wait. You was all for pullin' this slick stuff. Winnin' the girl, gettin' your property the easy way, the legal way. To blazes with that! This Caradec is makin' a monkey of you! You're not slick! You're just a country boy playin' with a real smooth lad!

  "To blazes with that smooth stuff! You foreclose on that mortgage and do it plumb quick! I'll take care of Mr. Rafe Caradec! With my own hands or guns if necessary. We'll clean that country down there so slick of his hands and cattle they won't know what happened!"

  "That won't get it," Barkow protested. "You let me handle this. I'll take care of things!"

  Dan Shute looked up at Barkow, his eyes sardonic. "I'll run this show. You're takin' the back seat, Barkow, from now on. All you've done is make us out fumblin' fools! Also," he added calmly, "I'm takin' over that girl."

  "What?" Barkow whirled, his face livid. In his wildest doubts of Shute, and he had had many of them, this was one thing that had never entered his mind.

  "You heard me," Shute replied. "She's a neat little lady, and I can make a place for her out to my ranch. You messed up all around, so I'm takin' over."

  Barkow laughed, but his laugh was hollow, with something of fear in it. Always before Dan Shute had been big, silent and surly, saying little, but letting Barkow plan and plot and take the lead, Bruce Barkow had always thought of the man as a sort of strong-arm squad to use in a pinch. Suddenly he was shockingly aware that this big man was completely sure of himself, that he held him, Barkow, in contempt. He would ride roughshod over everything.

  "Dan," Barkow protested, trying to keep his thoughts ordered, "you can't play with a girl's affections. She's in love with me! You can't do anything about that! You think she'd fall out of love with one man, and--"

  Dan Shute grinned. "Who said anything about love? You talk about that all you want. Talk to yourself. I want the girl, and I'm goin' to have her. It doesn't make any difference who says no, and that goes for Gene Baker, her, or you."

  Bruce Barkow stood flat-footed and pale. Suddenly he felt sick and empty. Here it was then. He was through. Dan Shute had told him off, in front of Pod Gomer. Out of the tail of his eye he could see the calm, yet cynical expression on Gomer's face.

  He looked up and felt small under the flat, ironic gaze of Shute's eyes. "All right, Dan, if that's the way you feel. I expect we'd better part company."

  Shute chuckled. His voice was rough when he spoke.

  "No," he said, "we don't part company. You sit tight. You're holdin' that mortgage, and I want that land. You had a good idea there, Barkow, but you're too weak-kneed to swing it. I'll swing it. Mebbe if you're quiet and obey orders, I'll see you get some of it."

  Bruce Barkow glared at Shute. For the first time he knew what hatred was. Here, in a few minutes, he had been destroyed. This story would go the rounds. Before nightfall everyone in town would know it.

  Crushed, Barkow stared at Shute with hatred livid in his eyes. "You'll go too far!" he said viciously.

  Shute shrugged. "You can live, an' come out of this with a few dollars," he said calmly, "or you can die. I'd just as soon kill you, Barkow." He picked up his hat. "We had a nice thing. That shanghaiin' idea was yours. Why you didn't shoot him, I'll never know. If you had, this Caradec would never have run into him at all, and would never have come in here, stirrin' things up. You could have foreclosed that mortgage, and we could be makin' a deal on that oil now."

  "Caradec don't know anything about that," Barkow protested.

  "Like sin he don't!" Dan Shute sneered. "Caradec's been watched by my men for days. He's been wise there was somethin' in the wind and he's scouted all over that place. Well, he was down to the knob the other day, and he took a long look at that oil seepage. He's no fool, Barkow."

  Bruce Barkow looked up. "No," he replied suddenly, "he's not, and he's a hand with a gun, too. Dan! He's a hand with a gun! He took Boyne!"

  Shute shrugged. "Boyne was nothin'! I could have spanked him with his own gun. I'll kill Caradec some day, but first I want to beat him. To beat him with my own hands!"

  He heaved himself out of the chair and stalked outside. For an instant, Barkow stared after him, then his gaze shifted to Pod Gomer.

  The sheriff was absently whittling a small stick. "Well," he said, "he told you."

  Hard and grim, Barkow's mouth tightened. So Gomer was in it, too. He started to speak, then hesitated. Like Caradec, Gomer was no fool, and he, too, was a good hand with a gun. Barkow shrugged. "Dan sees things wrong," he said. "I've still got an ace in the hole." He looked at Gomer. "I'd like it better if you were on my side."

  Pod Gomer shrugged. "I'm with the winner. My health is good. All I need is more money."

  "You think Shute's the winner?"

  "Don't you?" Gomer asked. "He told you plenty, and you took it."

  "Yes, I did, because I know I'm no match for him with a gun. Nor for you." He studied the sheriff thoughtfully.
"This is goin' to be a nice thing, Pod. It would split well, two ways."

  Gomer got up and snapped his knife shut. "You show me the color of some money," he said, "and Dan Shute out, and we might talk. Also," he added, "if you mention this to Dan, I'll call you a liar in the street or in the National. I'll make you use that gun.

  "I won't talk," Barkow said. "Only, I've been learnin' a few things. When we get answers to some of the messages you sent, and some I sent, we should know more. Borger wouldn't let Caradec off that ship willingly after he knew Rodney. I think he deserted. I think we can get something on him for mutiny, and that means hangin'!"

  "Mebbe you can," Gomer agreed. "You show me you're holdin' good cards, and I'll back you to the limit."

  Bruce Barkow walked out on the street and watched Pod Gomer's retreating back. Gomer, at least, he understood. He knew the man had no use for him, but if he could show evidence that he was to win, then Gomer would be a powerful ally. Judge Gargan would go as Gomer went, and would always adopt the less violent means.

  The cards were on the table now. Dan Shute was running things. What he would do, Barkow was not sure. He realized suddenly, with no little trepidation, that after all his association with Shute he knew little of what went on behind the hard brutality of the rancher's face. Yet he was not a man to lag or linger. What he did would be sudden, brutal, and thorough, but it would make a perfect shield under which he, Barkow, could operate and carry to fulfillment his own plans.

  Dan Shute's abrupt statement of his purpose in regard to Ann Rodney had jolted Barkow. Somehow, he had taken Ann for granted. He had always planned a marriage. That he wanted her land was true. Perhaps better than Shute he knew what oil might mean in the future, for Barkow was a farsighted man. But Ann Rodney was lovely and interesting. She would be a good wife for him. There was one way he could defeat Dan Shute on that score. To marry Ann at once.

  True, it might precipitate a killing, but already Bruce Barkow was getting ideas on that score. He was suddenly less disturbed about Rafe Caradec than Dan Shute. The rancher loomed large and formidable in his mind. He knew the brutality of the man, had seen him kill, and knew with what coldness he regarded people or animals.