Crossfire Trail (1953)

by L'amour, Louis

  Bruce Barkow made up his mind. Come what may, he was going to marry Ann Rodney.

  He could, he realized, marry her and get her clear away from here. His mind leaped ahead. Flight to the northwest to the gold camps would be foolhardy. To the Utah country would be as bad. In either case, Shute might and probably would overtake him. There remained another way out, and one that Shute probably would never suspect--he could strike for Fort Phil Kearney not far distant. Then, with or without a scouting party for escort, they could head across country and reach the Yellowstone. Or he might even try the nearer Powder River.

  A steamer had ascended the Yellowstone earlier that year, and there was every chance that another would come. If not, with a canoe or barge they could head downstream until they encountered such a boat and buy passage to St. Louis.

  Ann and full title to the land would be in his hands then. He could negotiate a sale or the leasing of the land from a safe distance. The more he thought of this, the more he was positive it remained the only solution for him.

  Let Gomer think what he would. Let Dan Shute believe him content with a minor role. He would go ahead with his plans, then strike suddenly and swiftly and be well on his way before Shute realized what had happened. Once he made the Fort, he would be in the clear. Knowing the officers as well as he did, he was sure he could get an escort to the river.

  He had never seen the Yellowstone, nor did he know very much about either that river or Powder River. But they had been used by many men as a high road to the West. He would use a river as an escape to the East.

  Carefully he considered the plan. There were preparations to be made. Every angle must be considered. At his ranch were enough horses. He would borrow Baker's buckboard to take Ann for a ride, then at his ranch, they would mount and be off. With luck they would be well on their way before anyone so much as guessed what had happened.

  Stopping by the store, he bought ammunition from Baker. He glanced up to find the storekeeper's eyes studying him, and he didn't like the expression.

  "Is Ann in?" he asked.

  Baker nodded, and jerked a thumb toward the curtain. Turning, Baker walked behind the curtain and looked at Ann, who arose as he entered. Quickly he sensed a coolness that had not been there before. This was no time to talk of marriage. First things first.

  He shrugged shamefacedly. "I suppose you're thinkm' pretty bad of me," he suggested ruefully. "I know now I shouldn't have listened to Dan Shute or to Gomer. Pod swore he had a case, and Shute claims Caradec is a crook and a rustler. If I had known I wouldn't have had any hand in it."

  "It was pretty bad," Ann agreed as she sat down and began knitting. "What will happen now?"

  "I don't know," he admitted, "but I wish I could spare you all this. Before it's over I'm afraid there'll be more killin's and trouble. Dan Shute is plenty roused up. He'll kill Caradec."

  She looked at him. "You think that will be easy?"

  Surprised, he nodded. "Yes. Dan's a dangerous man, cruel and brutal. He's fast with a gun, too."

  "I thought you were a friend of Dan Shute?" she asked, looking at him hard. "What's changed you, Bruce?"

  He shrugged. "Oh, little things. He showed himself up today. He's brutal, unfeelin'. He'll stop at nothin' to gain his ends."

  "I think he will," Ann said composedly. "I think he'll stop at Rafe Caradec."

  Barkow stared at her. "Caradec seems to have impressed you. What makes you think that?"

  "I never really saw him until today, Bruce," she admitted. "Whatever his motives, he is shrewd and capable. I think he is much more dangerous than Dan Shute. There's something behind him, too. He has background. I could see it in his manner more than his words. I wish I knew more about him."

  Nettled at her defense of the man, and her apparent respect for him, Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "Don't forget, he probably killed your father."

  She looked up. "Did he, Bruce?"

  Her question struck fear from him. Veiling his eyes, he shrugged again. "You never know." He got up. "I'm worried about you, Ann. This country is going to be flamin' within a little while. If it ain't the fight here, it'll be the Indians. I wish I could get you out of it."

  "But this is my home!" Ann protested. "It is all I have!"

  "Not quite all." Her eyes fell before his gaze. "Ann, how would you like to go to St. Louis?"

  She looked up, startled. "To St. Louis? But how--"

  "Not so loud!" He glanced apprehensively at the door. There was no telling who might be listening. "I don't want anybody to know about it unless you decide and until we're gone. But, Ann, we could go. I've always wanted to marry you. There's no time better than now."

  She got up and walked to the window. St. Louis. It was another world. She hadn't seen a city in six years. After all, they had been engaged for several months now.

  "How would we get there?" she asked, turning to face him.

  "That's a secret!" He laughed. "Don't tell anybody about it, but I've got a wonderful trip planned for you. I always wanted to do things for you, Ann. We could go away and be married within a few hours."

  "Where?"

  "By the chaplain at the Fort. One of the officers would stand up with me. There are a couple of officers' wives there, too."

  "I don't know, Bruce," she said hesitantly. "I'll have to think about it."

  He smiled and kissed her lightly. "Then think fast, honey. I want to get you away from all this trouble--and quick."

  When he got outside in the street, he paused, smiling with satisfaction. "I'll show that Dan Shute a thing or two!" he told himself grimly. Abruptly, he turned toward the cabin where he lived.

  Dan Shute, who had been leaning against the door of the building next door, straightened thoughtfully and snapped his cigarette into the dust. He had seen the satisfied smile on Barkow's face and knew he had been inside for some time. Shute stood on the boardwalk, staring into the dust. Big hands on his hips above the heavy guns, his gray hat pulled low, a stubble of corn-white beard along his hard jaws. "I think," he said to himself, looking up, "that I'll kill Bruce Barkow!" He added, "And I'm goin' to like the doin' of it!"

  Chapter IX

  GENE BAKER was sweeping bis store and the stoop in front of it when he saw a tight little cavalcade of horsemen trot around the corner into the street. It was the morning after the fiasco of the trial. He had been worried and irritated while wondering what the reaction would be from Barkow and Shute. Then word had come to him of the break between the two at Gomer's office.

  Dan Shute, riding a powerful gray, was in the van of the bunch of horsemen. He rode up to the stoop of Baker's store and reined in. Behind him were Red and Tom Blazer, Joe Gorman, Fritz Handl, "Fats" McCabe and others of the hard bunch that trailed with Shute.

  "Gene," Shute said abruptly, resting his big hands on the pommel of the saddle, "don't sell any more supplies to Caradec or any of his crowd." He added harshly, "I'm not askin' you. I'm tellin' you. If you do, I'll put you out of business and run you out of the country. You know I don't make threats. The chances are Caradec won't be alive by daybreak anyway--but just in case, you've been told!"

  Without giving Baker a chance to reply, Dan Shute touched spurs to his horse and led off down the south trail toward the Crazy Woman.

  The door slammed behind Baker. "Where are they going?" Ann wanted to know. "What are they going to do?"

  Gene stared after them bleakly. This was the end of something. "They are goin' after Caradec and his crowd, Ann."

  "What will they do to him?"

  Something inside her went sick and frightened. She had always been afraid of Dan Shute. The way he looked at her made her shrink. He was the only human being of whom she had ever been afraid. He seemed without feeling, without decency, without regard for anything but his own immediate desires.

  "Kill him," Baker said "They'll kill him. Shute's a hard man, and that's a mighty wicked gang."

  "But can't someone warn him?" Ann protested.

  Baker glan
ced at her. "So far as we know, Caradec is a crook and mebbe a killer, Ann. You ain't gettin' soft on him, are you?"

  "No!" she exclaimed, startled. "Of course not! What an idea! Why, I've scarcely talked to him!" Yet there was a heavy, sinking feeling in her heart as she watched the riders disappear in the dust along the southward trail. If there was only something she could do! If she could warn them!

  Suddenly she remembered the bay horse her father had given her. Because of the Indians, she had not been riding in a long time, but if she took the mountain trail...

  Hurrying through the door she swiftly saddled the bay. There was no thought in her mind. She was acting strictly on impulse, prompted by some memory of the way the hair swept back from Rafe's brow, and the look in his eyes when he met her gaze. She told herself she wanted to see no man killed, that Bo Marsh and Johnny Gill were her friends. Yet even in her heart she knew the excuse would not do. She was thinking of Rafe, and only of Rafe.

  The bay was in fine shape and impatient after his long restraint in the corral. He started for the trail, eagerly, and his ears pricked up at every sound. The leaves had turned to red and gold now and the air held a hint of frost. Winter was coming. Soon the country would be blanketed, inches deep, under a thick covering of snow.

  Hastily Ann's mind leaped ahead. The prairie trail, which the Shute riders had taken, swept wide into the valley, then crossed the Crazy Woman and turned to follow the stream up the canyon. By cutting across over the mountain trail there was every chance she could beat them to the ranch. In any case, her lead would be slight due to the start the bunch had.

  The trail crossed the mountainside through a long grove of quaking aspens, their leaves shimmering in the cool wind, dark green above, gray below. Now, with oncoming autumn most of the leaves had turned to bright yellow intermixed with crimson. Here and there among the forest of mounting color were the darker arrowheads of spruce and lodgepole pine.

  Once, coming out in a small clearing, she got a view of the valley below. She had gained a little, but only a little. Frightened, she touched spurs to the bay and the little horse leaped ahead and swept down through the woods at a rapid gallop.

  Ahead, there was a ledge. It was a good six miles off yet, but from there she could see the canyon of the Crazy Woman and the upper canyon. A rider had told her that Caradec had been putting up hay in the wind-sheltered upper canyon and was obviously planning on feeding his stock there by the warm spring.

  She recalled it because she remembered it was something her father had spoken of doing. There was room in the upper valley for many cattle. If there was hay enough for them, the warm water would be a help, and with only a little such the cattle could survive even the coldest winter.

  Fording the stream where Caradec had encountered the young squaw, she rode higher on the mountain, angling across the slope under a magnificent stand of lodgepole pine. It was a splendid avenue of trees, all seemingly of the same size and shape, as though cast from a mold.

  Once she glimpsed a deer, and another time in the distance in a small, branching valley she saw a small bunch of elk. This was her country. No wonder her father had loved it, wanted it, worked to get and to keep it.

  Had he paid the mortgage? But why wouldn't Bruce have told her if he had? She could not believe him dishonest and deceitful. Certainly he had made no effort to foreclose, but had been most patient and thoughtful with her.

  What would he think of this ride to warn a man he regarded as an enemy? She could not sit idly by and know men were about to be killed. She would never forgive herself if she had made no effort to avert it.

  Too often she had listened to her father discourse on the necessity for peace and consideration of others. She believed in that policy wholeheartedly. The fact that occasionally violence was necessary did not alter her convictions one whit. No system of philosophy or ethics, no growth of government, no improvement in living came without trial and struggle. Struggle, she had often heard her father say, was the law of growth.

  Without giving too much thought to it, she understood that such men as Rate Caradec, Trigger Boyne, Tex Brisco and others of their ilk were needed. For all their violence, their occasional heedlessness and their desire to go their own way, they were men building a new world in a rough and violent land where everything tended to extremes. Mountains were high, the prairies wide, the streams roaring, the buffalo by the thousand and tens of thousand. It was a land where nothing was small, nothing was simple. Everything, the lives of men and the stories they told, ran to extremes.

  The bay pony trotted down the trail, then around a stand of lodgepole. Ann brought him up sharply on the lip of the ledge that had been her first goal.

  Below her, a vast and magnificent panorama, lay the ranch her father had pioneered. The silver curve of the Crazy Woman lay below and east of her, and opposite her ledge was the mighty wall of the canyon. From below, a faint thread of smoke among the trees marked the cabin.

  Turning her head she looked west and south into the upper canyon. Far away, she seemed to see a horseman moving and the black dot of a herd. Turning the bay she started west, riding fast. If they were working the upper canyon she still had a chance.

  An hour later, the little bay showing signs of his rough traveling, she came down to the floor of the canyon. Not far away, she could see Rafe Caradec moving a bunch of cattle into the trees.

  He looked around at her approach, and the black, flat-crowned hat came off his head. His dark wavy hair was plastered to his brow with sweat, and his eyes were gray and curious.

  "Good mornin'!" he said. "This is a surprise!"

  "Please!" she burst out. "This isn't a social call! Dan Shute's riding this way with twenty men or more. He's going to wipe you out!"

  Rafe's eyes sharpened. "You sure?" She could see the quick wonder in his eyes at her warning, then he wheeled his horse and yelled, "Johnny! Johnny Gill! Come a-runnin'!"

  Jerking his rifle from his boot, he looked at her again. He put his hand over hers suddenly, and she started at his touch.

  "Thanks, Ann," he said simply. "You're regular!"

  Then he was gone, and Johnny Gill was streaking after him. As Gill swept by, he lifted a hand and waved.

  There they went. Below were twenty men, all armed.

  Would they come through alive? She turned the bay and, letting the pony take his own time, started him back over the mountain trail.

  Rafe Caradec gave no thought to Ann's reason for warning him. There was no time for that. Tex Brisco and Bo Marsh were at the cabin. They were probably working outside, and their rifles would probably be in the cabin and beyond them. If they were cut off from their guns, the Shute riders would mow them down and kill them one by one at long range with rifle fire.

  Rafe heard Gill coming up, and slacked off a little to let the little cowhand draw alongside. "Shute!" he said. "And about twenty men. I guess this is the payoff!"

  "Yeah!" Gill yelled.

  Rifle fire came to them suddenly. A burst of shots, then a shot that might have been from a pistol. Their horses rounded the entrance and raced down the main canyon toward the cabin on the Crazy Woman, running neck and neck. A column of smoke greeted them, and they could see riders circling and firing.

  "The trees on the slope!" Rafe yelled and raced for them.

  He reached the trees with the black at a dead run and hit the ground before the animal had ceased to move. He raced to the rocks at the edge of the trees. His rifle lifted, settled, his breath steadied, and the rifle spoke.

  A man shouted and waved an arm, and at the same moment, Gill fired. A horse went down. Two men, or possibly three, lay sprawled in the clearing before the cabin.

  Were Tex and Bo already down? Rafe steadied himself and squeezed off another shot. A saddle emptied He saw the fallen man lunge to his feet, then spill over on his face. Coolly then, taking their time, he and Gill began to fire. Another man went down, and rifle began to smoke in their direction. A bullet clipped the leaves overhead
but too high.

  Rafe knocked the. hat from a man's head. As the fellow sprinted for shelter, he dropped him. Suddenly the attack broke. He saw the horses sweeping away from them in a ragged line. Mounting, Rafe and Gill rode cautiously toward the cabin.

  There was no cabin. There was only a roaring inferno of flames. There were five sprawled bodies, and Rafe ran toward them. A Shute rider--another. Then he saw Bo.

  The boy was lying on his face with a dark, spreading stain on the back of his shirt. There was no sign of Tex.

  Rafe dropped to his knees and put a hand over the young cowhand's heart. It was still beating!

  Gently, with Johnny lending a hand, he turned the boy over. Then, working with the crude but efficient skill picked up in war and struggle in a half-dozen countries, he examined the wounds.

  "Four times!" he said grimly. Suddenly, he felt something mount and swell within him, a tide of fierce, uncontrollable anger!

  Around one bullet hole in the stomach the cloth of the cowhand's shirt was smoldering!

  "I seen that!" It was Tex Brisco, his face haggard and smoke grimed. "I seen it! I know who done it! He walked up while the kid was layin' there and stuck a gun against his stomach and shot! He didn't want the kid to go quick; he wanted him to die slow and hard!"

  "Who done it?" Gill demanded fiercely. "I'll git him now! Right now!"

  Brisco's eyes were red and inflamed. "Nobody gets him but me. This kid was your pard, but I seen it!" He turned abruptly on Rafe. "Boss, let me go to town. I want to kill me a man!"

  "It won't do, Tex," Caradec said quietly. "I know how you feel, but the town will be full of 'em. They'll be celebratin'. They burned our cabin, ran off some cattle, and they got Bo. It wouldn't do!"

  "Yeah," Tex spat. "I know. But they won't be expectin' any trouble now. If you don't let me go, I'll quit!"