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.”