Borger was on his feet, catlike. Somehow, he had always known this moment would come. A dozen times he had told himself he should kill Caradec, but the man was a seaman, a first-class, able-bodied seaman, and in the lot of shanghaied crews there were few. So he had delayed.
He lunged at the drawer for his brass knuckles.
Rafe had been waiting for that, poised on the balls of his feet. His left hand dropped to the captain’s wrist in a grip like steel, and his right hand sank to the wrist in the captain’s middle. It stopped Borger, that punch did, stopped him flat-footed for only an instant, but that instant was enough. Rafe’s head darted forward, butting the bigger man in the face, and Rafe felt the bones crunch under his hard skull.
Yet the agony gave Borger a burst of strength, and he tore the hand with the knucks loose and got his fingers through their holes. He lunged, swinging a roundhouse blow that would have dropped a bull elephant. Rafe went under the swing, his movements timed perfectly, his actions almost negligent. He smashed left and right to the wind. The punches drove wind from Borger’s stomach, and he doubled up, gasping.
Rafe dropped a palm to the back of the man’s head and shoved down hard. At the same instant, his knee came up, smashing Borger’s face into a gory pulp.
Bully Borger, the dirtiest fighter on many a waterfront, staggered back, moaning with pain. His face expressionless, Rafe Caradec stepped in and threw punches with both hands, driving, wicked punches that had the power of those broad shoulders behind them, and timed with the rolling of the ship. Left, right, left, right, blows that cut and chopped like meat cleavers. Borger tottered and fell back across the settee.
Rafe wheeled to see Penn’s blond head in the doorway. Roy Penn stared at the bloody hulk and then at Rafe.
“Better come on. The cape’s showing off the starboard bow.”
When they had the boat in the water, they slid down the rope one after the other. Then Rafe slashed it with his belt knife, and the boat dropped back. The black bulk of the ship swept by them. Her stern lifted and then sank. Rafe, at the tiller, turned the bow of the boat toward the monstrous blackness of the cape.
____________
MULLANEY AND PENN got the sail up when the mast was stepped, and then Penn looked around at Rafe.
“That was mutiny, you know.”
“It was,” Rafe said calmly. “I didn’t ask to go aboard, and knockout drops in a Barbary Coast dive ain’t my way of askin’ for a year’s job!”
“A year?” Penn swore. “Two years and more, for me. For Tex, too.”
“You know this coast?” Mullaney asked.
Rafe nodded. “Not well, but there’s a place just north of the cape where we can run in. To the south the sunken ledges and rocks might tear our bottom out, but I think we can make this other place. Can you all swim?”
The mountainous headland loomed black against the gray-turning sky of the hours before daybreak. The seaward face of the cape was rocky and waterworn along the shoreline. Rafe, studying the currents and the rocks, brought the boat neatly in among them and headed for a boulder-strewn gray beach where water curled and left a white ruffle of surf.
They scrambled out of the boat and threw their gear on the narrow beach.
“How about the boat?” Tex demanded. “Do we leave it?”
“Shove her off, cut a hole in the bottom, and let her sink,” Rafe said.
When the hole had been cut, they let the sea take the boat offshore a little, watching it fill and sink. Then they picked up their gear. Rafe Caradec led them inland, working along the shoulder of the mountain. The northern slope was covered with brush and trees, and afforded some concealment. Fog was rolling in from the sea, and soon the gray, cottony shroud of it had settled over the countryside.
When they had several miles behind them, Rafe drew to a halt. Penn opened the sack he was carrying and got out some bread, figs, coffee, and a pot.
“Stole ’em out of the captain’s stores,” he said. “Figured we might as well eat.”
“Got anything to drink?” Mullaney rubbed the dark stubble on his wide jaws.
“Uh-huh. Two bottles of rum. Good stuff from Jamaica.”
“You’ll do to ride the river with,” Tex said, squatting on his heels. He glanced up at Rafe. “What comes now?”
“Wyomin’, for me.” Rafe broke some sticks and put them into the fire Rock was kindling. “I made my promise to Rodney, and I’ll keep it.”
“He trusted you.” Tex studied him thoughtfully.
“Yes. I’m not goin’ to let him down. Anyway,” he added, smiling, “Wyomin’s a long way from here, and we should be as far away as we can. They may try to find us. Mutiny’s a hangin’ offense.”
“Ever run any cattle?” Tex wanted to know.
“Not since I was a kid. I was born in New Orleans, grew up near San Antone. Rodney tried to tell me all he could.”
“I been over the trail to Dodge twice,” Tex said, “and to Wyomin’ once. I’ll be needin’ a job.”
“You’re hired,” Rafe said, “if I ever get the money to pay you.”
“I’ll chance it,” Tex Brisco agreed. “I like the way you do things.”
“Me for the goldfields in Nevada,” Rock said.
“That’s good for me,” Penn said. “If me and Rock don’t strike it rich we may come huntin’ a feed.”
____________
THERE WAS NO trail through the tall grass but the one the mind could make, or the instinct of the cattle moving toward water. Yet as the long-legged zebra dun moved along the flank of the little herd, Rafe Caradec thought he was coming home.
This was a land for a man to love, a long, beautiful land of rolling grass and trees, of towering mountains pushing their dark peaks against the sky, and the straight, slim beauty of lodgepole pines.
He sat easy in the saddle, more at home than in many months, for almost half his life had been lived astride a horse. He liked the dun, which had an easy, space-eating stride. He had won the horse in a poker game in Ogden, and won the saddle and bridle in the same game. The new Winchester ’73, newest and finest gun on the market, he had bought in San Francisco.
____________
ABREEZE WHISPERED in the grass, turning it to green and shifting silver as the wind stirred along the bottomland. Rafe heard the gallop of a horse behind him and reined in, turning. Tex Brisco rode up alongside.
“We should be about there, Rafe,” he said, digging in his pocket for the makings. “Tell me about that business again, will you?”
Rafe nodded. “Rodney’s brand was one he bought from an hombre named Shafter Mason. It was the Bar M. He had two thousand acres in Long Valley that he bought from Red Cloud, paid him good for it, and he was runnin’ cattle on that, and some four thousand acres outside the valley. His cabin was built in the entrance to Crazy Man Canyon.
“He borrowed money from, and mortgaged the land to, a man named Bruce Barkow. Barkow’s a big cattleman down here, tied in with three or four others. He has several gunmen workin’ for him, and Rodney never trusted him, but he was the only man around who could loan him the money he needed.”
“What’s your plan?” Brisco asked, his eyes following the cattle.
“Tex, I haven’t got one. I couldn’t plan until I saw the lay of the land. The first thing will be to find Mrs. Rodney and her daughter, and from them, learn what the situation is. Then we can go to work. In the meantime, I aim to sell these cattle and hunt up Red Cloud.”
“That’ll be tough,” Tex suggested. “There’s been some Injun trouble, and he’s a Sioux. Mostly, they’re on the prod right now.”
“I can’t help it, Tex,” Rafe said. “I’ve got to see him, tell him I have the deed, and explain so’s he’ll understand. He might turn out to be a good friend, and he would certainly make a bad enemy.”
“There may be some question about these cattle,” Tex suggested drily.
“What of it?” Rafe shrugged. “They are all strays. We culled them out of canyons wh
ere no white man has been in years, and slapped our own brand on ’em. We’ve driven them two hundred miles, so nobody here has any claim on them. Whoever started cattle where we found these left the country a long time ago. You remember what that old trapper told us?”
“Yeah,” Tex agreed. “Our claim’s good enough.” He glanced again at the brand and then looked curiously at Rafe. “Man, why didn’t you tell me your old man owned the C Bar? My uncle rode for ’em a while! I heard a lot about ’em! When you said to put the C Bar on these cattle you could have knocked me down with an ax! Why, Uncle Joe used to tell me all about the C Bar outfit! The old man had a son who was a ringtailed terror as a kid. Slick with a gun…. Say!” Tex Brisco stared at Rafe. “You wouldn’t be the same one, would you?”
“I’m afraid I am,” Rafe said. “For a kid I was too slick with a gun. Had a run-in with some old enemies of Dad’s, and when it was over, I hightailed for Mexico.”
“Heard about it.”
Tex turned his sorrel out in a tight circle to cut a steer back into the herd, and they moved on.
Rafe Caradec rode warily, with an eye on the country. This was all Indian country, and the Sioux and Cheyennes had been hunting trouble ever since Custer had ridden into the Black Hills, which was the heart of the Indian country and almost sacred to the plains tribes. This was the near end of Long Valley, where Rodney’s range had begun. It could be no more than a few miles to Crazy Man Canyon and his cabin.
Rafe touched a spur to the dun and cantered toward the head of the drive. There were three hundred head of cattle in this bunch, and when the old trapper had told him about them, curiosity had impelled him to have a look. In the green bottom of several adjoining canyons these cattle, remnants of a herd brought into the country several years before, had looked fat and fine.
It had been brutal, bitter work, but he and Tex had rounded up and branded the cattle. Then they had hired two drifting cowhands to help them with the drive.
He passed the man riding point and headed for the strip of trees where Crazy Man Creek curved out of the canyon and turned in a long sweeping semicircle out to the middle of the valley and then down its center, irrigating some of the finest grassland he had ever seen. Much of it, he noted, was subirrigated from the mountains that lifted on both sides of the valley.
The air was fresh and cool after the long, hot drive over the mountains and desert. The heavy fragrance of the pines and the smell of the long grass shimmering with dew lifted to his nostrils. He moved the dun down to the stream and sat his saddle while the horse dipped its muzzle into the clear, cold water of the Crazy Man.
When the gelding lifted his head, Rafe waded him across the stream and climbed the opposite bank. Then he turned upstream toward the canyon.
CHAPTER III
Ann Rodney
The bench beside the stream, backed by its stand of lodgepole pines, looked just as Rodney had described it. Yet as the cabin came into sight, Rafe’s lips tightened with apprehension, for there was no sign of life. The dun, feeling his anxiety, broke into a canter.
One glance sufficed. The cabin was empty and evidently had been so for a long time.
Rafe was standing in the door when Tex rode up. Brisco glanced around and then at Rafe.
“Well,” he said, “looks like we’ve had a long ride for nothin’.”
The other two hands rode up—Johnny Gill and Bo Marsh, both Texans. With restless saddles, they had finished a drive in the Wyoming country, then headed west, and had ridden clear to Salt Lake. On their return they had run into Rafe and Tex, and hired on to work the herd east to Long Valley.
Gill, a short, leather-faced man of thirty, stared around.
“I know this place,” he said. “Used to be the Rodney ranch. Feller name of Dan Shute took over. Rancher.”
“Shute, eh?” Tex glanced at Caradec. “Not Barkow?”
Gill shook his head. “Barkow made out to be helpin’ Rodney’s womenfolks, but he didn’t do much good. Personal, I never figgered he cut no great swath a-tryin’. Anyway, this here Dan Shute is a bad hombre.”
“Well,” Rafe said casually, “maybe we’ll find out how bad. I aim to settle right here.”
Gill looked at him thoughtfully. “You’re buyin’ yourself a piece of trouble, mister,” he said. “But I never cottoned to Dan Shute, myself. You got any rightful claim to this range? This is where you was headed, ain’t it?”
“That’s right,” Rafe said, “and I have a claim.”
“Well, Bo,” Gill said, hooking a leg over the saddle horn, “want to drift on, or do we stay and see how this gent stacks up with Dan Shute?”
Marsh grinned. He had a reckless, infectious grin. “Sure, Johnny,” he said. “I’m for stayin’ on. Shute’s got him a big red-headed hand ridin’ for him that I never liked, no ways.”
“Thanks, boys,” Rafe said. “Looks like I’ve got an outfit. Keep the cattle in pretty close the next few days. I’m ridin’ in to Painted Rock.”
“That town belongs to Barkow,” Gill advised. “Might pay you to kind of check up on Barkow and Shute. Some of the boys talkin’ around the chuckwagon sort of figgered there was more to that than met the eye. That Bruce Barkow is a right important gent around here, but when you read his sign, it don’t always add up.”
“Maybe,” Rafe suggested thoughtfully, “you’d better come along. Let Tex and Marsh worry with the cattle.”
Rafe Caradec turned the dun toward Painted Rock. Despite himself, he was worried. His liking for the little cattleman Rodney had been very real, and he had come to know and respect the man while aboard the Mary S. In the weeks that had followed the flight from the ship, he had been considering the problem of Rodney’s ranch so much that it had become much his own problem.
Now, Rodney’s worst fears seemed to have been realized. The family had evidently been run off their ranch, and Dan Shute had taken possession. Whether there was any connection between Shute and Barkow remained to be seen, but Caradec knew that chuckwagon gossip can often come close to the truth and that cowhands could many times see men more clearly than people who saw them only on their good behavior or when in town.
As he rode through the country toward Painted Rock, he studied it curiously and listened to Johnny Gill’s comments. The little Texan had punched cattle in here two seasons and knew the area better than most.
Painted Rock was the usual cow town. A double row of weather-beaten, false-fronted buildings, most of which had never been painted, and a few scattered dwellings, some of logs, most of stone. There was a two-story hotel and a stone building, squat and solid, whose sign identified it as the Painted Rock Bank.
____________
TWO BUCKBOARDS AND a spring wagon stood on the street, and a dozen saddle horses stood three-footed at hitching rails. A sign ahead of them and cater-cornered across from the stage station told them that here was the National Saloon.
Gill swung his horse in toward the hitching rail and dropped to the ground. He glanced across his saddle at Caradec.
“The big hombre lookin’ us over is the redhead Bo didn’t like,” he said in a low voice.
Rafe did not look around until he had tied his own horse with a slipknot. Then he hitched his guns into place on his hips. He was wearing two walnut-stocked pistols, purchased in Frisco. He wore jeans, star boots, and a buckskin jacket.
Stepping up on the boardwalk, Rafe glanced at the burly redhead. The man was studying them with frank curiosity.
“Howdy, Gill,” he said. “Long time no see.”
“Is that bad?” Gill said, and shoved through the doors into the dim, cool interior of the National.
At the bar, Rafe glanced around. Two men stood nearby drinking. Several others were scattered around at tables.
“Red-eye,” Gill said, and then in a lower tone, “Bruce Barkow is the big man with the black mustache, wearin’ black and playin’ poker. The Mexican-lookin’ hombre across from him is Dan Shute’s gunslingin’ segundo, Gee Bonaro.”
“To Charles Rodney!” he said clearly.
Barkow jerked sharply and looked up, his face a shade paler. Bonaro turned his head slowly, like a lizard watching a fly.
Gill and Rafe both tossed off their drinks, and ignored the stares.
“Man,” Gill said, grinning, his eyes dancing, “you don’t waste no time, do you?”
Rafe Caradec turned. “By the way, Barkow,” he said, “where can I find Mrs. Rodney and her daughter?”
Bruce Barkow put down his cards. “If you’ve got any business,” he said smoothly, “I’ll handle it for ’em!”
“Thanks,” Rafe said. “My business is personal, and with them.”
“Then,” Barkow said, his eyes hardening, “you’ll have trouble! Mrs. Rodney is dead. Died three months ago.”
Rafe’s lips tightened. “And her daughter?”
“Ann Rodney,” Barkow said carefully, “is here in town. She is to be my wife soon. If you’ve got any business—”
“I’ll transact it with her!” Rafe said sharply.
Turning abruptly, he walked out the door, Gill following. The little cowhand grinned, his leathery face folding into wrinkles that belied his thirty-odd years.
“Like I say, Boss,” he chuckled, “you sure throw the hooks into ’em!” He nodded toward a building across the street. “Let’s try the Emporium. Rodney used to trade there, and Gene Baker, who runs it, was a friend of his.”
The Emporium smelled of leather, dry goods, and all the other varied and exciting smells of a general store. Rafe rounded a bale of jeans and walked back to the long counter backed by shelves holding everything from pepper to rifle shells.
“Where can I find Ann Rodney?” he asked.
The white-haired proprietor gave him a quick glance and then nodded to his right. Rafe turned and found himself looking into the large, soft, dark eyes of a slender, yet beautifully shaped girl in a print dress. Her lips were delicately lovely. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose knot at the nape of her neck. She was so lovely that it left him a little breathless.
She smiled, and her eyes were questioning. “I’m Ann Rodney,” she said. “What is it you want?”
Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) Page 2