Crossfire Trail (1953) (3 page)

"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, 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 shore 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 varied and exciting smells of the 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, 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?"

"My name is Rafe Caradec," he said gently. "Your father sent me."

Her face went white to the lips and she stepped back suddenly, dropping one hand to the counter as though for support.

"You come--from my father? Why, I..."

Bruce Barkow, who had apparently followed them from the saloon, stepped in front of Rafe, his face flushed with anger.

"You've scared her to death!" he snapped. "What do you mean, comin' in here with such a story? Charles Rodney has been dead for almost a year!"

Rafe's eyes measured Barkow, his thoughts racing. "He has? How did he die?"

"He was killed," Barkow said, "for the money he was carryin', it looked like." Barkow's eyes turned. "Did you kill him?"

Rafe was suddenly aware that Johnny Gill was staring at him, his brows drawn together, puzzled and wondering. Gill, he realized, knew him but slightly, and might easily become suspicious of his motives.

Gene Baker also was studying him coldly, his eyes alive with suspicion. Ann Rodney stared at him, as if stunned by what he had said, and somehow uncertain.

"No," Rafe said coolly. "I didn't kill him, but I'd be plumb interested to know what made yuh believe he was dead."

"Believe he was dead?" Barkow laughed harshly. "I was with him when he died! We found him beside the trail, shot through the body by bandits. I brought back his belongings to Miss Rodney."

"Miss Rodney," Rafe began, "if I could talk to you a few minutes . . ."

"No!" she whispered. "I don't want to talk to you! What can you be thinking of? Coming to me with such a story? What is it you want from me?"

"Somehow," Rafe said quietly, "you've got hold of some false information. Your father has been dead for no more than two months."

"Get out of here!" Barkow ordered, his hands on his gun. "Get out, I say! I don't know what scheme you've cooked up, but it won't work! If you know what's good for you, you'll leave this town while the goin' is good!"

Ann Rodney turned sharply around and ran from the store, heading for the storekeeper's living quarters.

"You'd better get out, mister," Gene Baker said harshly. "We know how Rodney died. You can't work no underhanded schemes on that young lady. Her pa died, and he talked before he died. Three men heard him."

Rafe Caradec turned and walked outside, standing on the boardwalk, frowning at the skyline. He was aware that Gill had moved up beside him.

"Boss," Gill said, "I ain't no lily, but neither am I takin' part in no deal to skin a young lady out of what is hers by rights. You'd better throw a leg over your saddle and get!"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Gill," Rafe advised, "and before you make any change in your plans, suppose you talk to Tex about this? He was with me, an' he knows all about Rodney's death as well as I do. If they brought any belongings off his back here, there's somethin' more to this than we believed."

Gill kicked his boot-toe against a loose board. "Tex was with you? Durn it, man! What of that yarn of theirs? It don't make sense!"

"That's right," Caradec replied, "and before it will we've got to do some diggin'. Johnny," he added, "suppose I told you that Barkow back there held a mortgage on the Rodney ranch, and Rodney went to Frisco, got the money, and paid it in Frisco--then never got home?"

Gill stared at Rafe, his mouth tightening. "Then nobody here would know he ever paid that mortgage but Barkow? The man he paid it to?"

"That's right."

"Then I'd say this Barkow was a sneakin' polecat!" Gill said harshly. "Let's brace him!"

"Not yet, Johnny. Not yet!"

He had anticipated no such trouble, yet if he explained the circumstances of Rodney's death, and was compelled to prove them, he would be arrested for mutiny on the high seas--a hanging offense!

Not only his own life depended on silence, but the lives of Brisco, Penn, and Mullaney.

Yet there must be a way out. There had to be.

Chapter
III

As RAFE CARADEC stood there in the bright sunlight he began to understand a let of things, and wonder about them. If some of the possessions of Charles Rodney had been returned to Painted Rock, it implied that those who returned them knew something of the shanghaiing of Rodney. How else could they have come by his belongings?

Bully Borger had shanghaied his own crew with the connivance of Hongkong Bohl. Had the man been marked for him? Certainly, it would not be the first time somebody had got rid of a man in such a manner. If that was the true story, it would account for some of Borger's animosity when he had beaten Rodney.

No doubt they had all been part of a plan to make sure that Charles Rodney never returned to San Francisco alive, nor to Painted Rock. Yet believing such a thing and proving it were two vastly different things. Also, it presented a problem of motive. Land was not scarce in the West, and much of it could be had for the taking. Why then, people would ask, would Barkow go to such efforts to get one piece of land?

Rafe had Barkow's signature on the receipt, but that could be claimed to be a forgery. First, a motive beyond the mere value of two thousand acres of land and the money paid on the debt must be established. That might be all, and certainly men had been killed for less, but Bruce Barkow was no fool, nor was he a man who played for small stakes.

Rafe Caradec lighted a cigarette and stared down the street. He must face another fact. Barkow was warned. Whatever he was gambling for, including the girl, was in danger now, and would remain in peril as long as Rafe Caradec remained alive or in the country. That fact stood out cold and clear. Barkow knew by now that he must kill Rafe Caradec.

Rafe understood the situation perfectly. His life had been lived among men who played ruthlessly for the highest stakes. It was no shock to him that men would stoop to killing, or a dozen killings, if they could gain a desired end. From now on he must ride, always aware, and always ready.

Sending Gill to find and buy two pack-horses, Rafe turned on his heel and went into the store. Barkow was gone, and Ann Rodney was still out of sight.

Baker looked up and his eyes held no welcome.

"If you've got any business here," he said, "state it and get out. Charles Rodney was a friend of mine."

"He needed some smarter friends," Rafe replied shortly. "I came here to buy supplies, but if you want to, start askin' yourself some questions. Who profits by Rodney's death? What evidence have you got besides a few of his belongin's that might have been stolen, that he was killed a year ago? How reliable were the three men who were with him? If he went to San Francisco for the money, what were Barkow and the others doin' on the trail?"

"That's neither here nor there," Baker said roughly. "What do you want? I'll refuse no man food."

Coolly, Caradec ordered what he wanted, aware that Baker was studying him. The man seemed puzzled.

"Where you livin'?" Baker asked suddenly. Some of the animosity seemed to have gone from his voice.

"At the Rodney cabin on the Crazy Woman," Caradec said. "I'm stayin', too, till I get the straight of this. If Ann Rodney is wise she won't get married or get rid of any rights to her property till this is cleared up."

"Shute won't let you stay there."

"I'll stay." Rafe gathered up the box of shells and stowed them in his pocket. "I'll be right there. While you're askin' yourself questions, ask Barkow who holds a mortgage that he claims is unpaid on the Rodney place, lets Dan Shute take over?"

"He didn't want trouble because of Ann," Baker said defensively. "He was right nice about it. He wouldn't foreclose. Givin' her a chance to pay up."

"As long as he's goin' to marry her, why should he foreclose?" Rafe turned away from the counter. "If Ann Rodney wants to see me, I'll tell her all about it, any time. I promised her father I'd take care of her, and I will, whether she likes it or not! Also," he added, "any man who says he talked to Rodney as he was dyin', lies!"

The door closed at the front of the store, and Rafe Caradec turned to see the dark, Mexican-looking gunman Gill had indicated in the National Saloon. The man known as Gee Bonaro.

Bonaro came toward him, smiling and showing even white teeth under a thread of mustache.

"Would you repeat that to me, senor?" he asked pleasantly, a thumb hooked in his belt.

"Why not?" Rafe said sharply. He let his eyes, their contempt unveiled, go over the man slowly from head to foot, then back. "If you was one of 'em that said that, you're a liar! And if you touch that gun I'll kill you!"

Gee Bonaro's fingers hovered over the gun butt, and he stood flatfooted, an uncomfortable realization breaking over him. This big stranger was not frightened. In the green eyes was a coldness that turned Bonaro a little sick inside. He was uncomfortably aware that he stood, perilously, on the brink of death.

"Were you one of 'em?" Rafe demanded.

"Si, senor," Bonaro's tongue touched his lips.

"Where was this supposed to be?"

"Where he died, near Pilot Peak, on the trail."

"You're a white-livered liar, Bonaro. Rodney never got back to Pilot Peak. You're bein' trapped for somebody else's gain, and if I were you I'd back up and look the trail over again." Rafe's eyes held the man. "You say you saw him. How was he dressed?"

"Dressed?" Bonaro was confused. Nobody had asked such a thing. He had no idea what to say. Suppose the same question was answered in a different way by one of the others? He wavered and was lost. "I-I don't know. I..."

He looked from Baker to Caradec and took a step back, his tongue at his lips, his eyes like those of a trapped animal. The big man facing him somehow robbed him of his sureness, his poise. And he had come here to kill him.

"Rodney talked to me only a few weeks ago, Bonaro," Rafe said coolly. "How many others did he talk to? You're bein' mixed up in a cold-blooded killin', Bonaro! Now turn around and get out! And get out fast!"

Bonaro backed up, and Rafe took a forward step. Wheeling, the man scrambled for the door.

Rafe turned and glanced at Baker. "Think that over," he said coolly. "You'll take the word of a coyote like that about an honest man! Somebody's tryin' to rob Miss Rodney, and because you're believin' that cock and bull story you're helpin' it along."

Gene Baker stood stock-still, his hands still flat on the counter. What he had seen, he would not have believed. Gee Bonaro had slain two men since coming to Painted Rock, and here a stranger had backed him down without lifting a hand or moving toward a gun. Baker rubbed his ear thoughtfully.

Johnny Gill met Rafe in front of the store with two packhorses. A glance told Caradec that the little cowhand had bought well. Gill glanced questioningly at Rafe.

"Did I miss somethin'? I seen that gunhand segundo of Shute's come out of that store like he was chased by the devil. You and him have a run-in?"

"I called him and he backed down," Rafe told Gill. "He said he was one of the three who heard Rodney's last words. I told him he was a liar."

Johnny drew the rope tighter. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Rafe. This man had come into town and put himself on record for what he was and what he planned faster than anybody he had ever seen.