That the town of Rafter Crossing did not like Ray Hollister, Mike Shevlin could understand.
He himself had never liked the man, for Hollister was a man with a burr under his saddle, a small rancher who wanted to be big, who strode hard-heeled around the town, wanting to be considered one of the big cattlemen who ruled the destinies of the Rafter country. Nothing in Hollister’s character nor in the breadth of his acres entitled him to the respect he wanted so desperately, and his envy and irritation became a bitter, gnawing thing within him.
Mike Shevlin turned in his saddle, looking along the wet street. Three blocks long when he had left it, with two saloons, it was seven blocks long now, with at least six saloons on the one street. The old Hooker House had become the Nevada House, and had a fresh coat of paint. There was an assay office where the harness shop had been, and a new general store across from the one Eli Patterson had owned.
Windows threw rectangles of light across the muddy street, and the sound of a tin-panny piano came from the direction of the Nevada House.
Thunder rumbled in the mountains. Shevlin started his horse, staring morosely at the lights as he rode on.
His mind went to the past. Everything here had changed, and not even the memory of the way it had been was left to him. It was indeed a mining town now; not a vestige of the old cow town remained.
His thoughts reverted to Eli Patterson. They said Gib Gentry had killed him, but not for an instant did he believe that. The fact that Mason was a witness proved nothing, for Mason had been a liar as well as a petty thief.
Gib Gentry and Shevlin had been friends.
or what passed as such. They had worked together, ridden into town together, been in trouble together.
Despite that, there had been no real affection between them; they had simply been thrown together as two people are, held together by work and mutual associations, and considered by everyone to be friends. And both had done foolish things.
“You should have had your ears slapped down,” Shevlin told himself.
The trouble was that nobody around Rafter had wanted to tackle that job, not even then.
Now he was thirty years old and the veteran of more gun trouble than he cared to remember.
In the old days Gentry and Shevlin had seemed to be two of a kind, reckless and wild, full of ginger, and homeless as a pair of tumbleweeds. Ready to fight at the drop of a hat, and to drop the hat themselves if need be. And Gentry had been good with a gun.
He had been better with a gun than Shevlin in those days. He was eight years older, and had owned a gun that much longer and had had that much more practice. But a lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then, and a lot had happened to Mike Shevlin that could never happen to Gib Gentry in Rafter Crossing. In the words of the cow country, Mike Shevlin had been up the creek and over the mountain since then.
The rain lashed his face, driven by the rising wind. This was the story of his life, he thought bitterly–hunting a place to hole up for a while. Thirty years old, and nothing to show for it but a horse, a saddle, and a couple of guns.
He was riding past the last of the town’s buildings when he remembered the old mill in Brush Canyon. It might have been torn down for the lumber, or burned in some brush fire, but if it was still there it would be shelter from the storm and from observation. The mill had been old, even in his time, mute evidence of a dream that dried up when the water did. It was unlikely that newcomers would know of its existence.
With no better place to go, he turned into the trail around the livery barn and started up the slant of the hill in the driving rain. Brush whipped at his slicker and at his face, but he bowed his head and kept on.
From the crest of the ridge he looked back upon the town’s lights. If he had been a smart man, he thought, he would now own a ranch or a business of some kind, but he had never known any way of doing what had to be done than to bull in and start swinging.
At the bottom of Brush Canyon he detected a subtle alteration in the manner of his horse, and like any western rider in wild country he had learned to depend on the instincts as well as on the sight and hearing of his horse, to know its moods, to be aware of every change of muscle or movement. Stepping down now from the saddle, Shevlin explored the muddy trail with careful fingers.
What he found was the indentation of a hoof track so recent as to be easily discernible in spite of the rain. That track had probably been made within the last few minutes.
Wiping the mud from his hand on the horse’s mane, he walked the horse past the dark bulk of the old mill and dismounted at the stable. Here he led the horse inside, closed the door behind him, and struck a match.
On each side of the barn there were a dozen stalls, for it was here they had kept the big Clydesdales used to haul logs to the mill, and to haul away the planks. There were four horses in the stable now, and they rolled their eyes around to look at him.
He led his mount to a vacant stall, touching each horse as he passed. Two were dry, one was slightly damp, and the fourth was as wet as his own.
Two riders, then, had been here most of the day, the others arriving since the rain began, and one of them only minutes before.
Stripping the rig from his black, he wiped the horse down with a dry sack he found hanging over the side of the stall. Come what might, he was through traveling for tonight. Then he checked the other horses.
The first was a cowhorse, the sort to be found in any remuda, and it wore a Turkeytrack brand, the old Moorman outfit. The fine dapple-gray mare was a Three Sevens.
Obviously this was a woman’s horse, for few cattlemen would ride anything but a gelding. The two geldings in the stable were both branded Open AV, a brand unfamiliar to Shevlin.
He struck a match and checked the droppings on the floor. The cowhorse and one of the geldings had been standing here since the previous day, but there was no evidence that prior to that a horse had been here in months. So this was a meeting place, and not a permanent setup.
He stepped outside, moving quietly as was his usual way, and closed the door softly behind him.
His attention was immediately riveted on a strange glisten of reflected light outside the mill’s boarded window. With one hand resting on the corner of the barn, he carefully unfastened his slicker with the other.
What he saw was the shine of light on a rain-wet slicker like his own. Somebody was standing in the darkness near the mill door, waiting.
Drawing his gun, Shevlin waited for a flash of lightning. Poised as he was, the slight advantage was his when the shadows were suddenly broken by the lightning’s glare. The other man shot too quickly, the bullet tearing the wood at the barn’s corner within inches of Shevlin’s hand.
Instantly, at the flash of the other man’s gun, Shevlin fired in return.
The man fell hard against the side of the building, and his pistol splashed in the water; then he straightened with a grunt and ran, staggering, into the woods. A moment later Shevlin heard the pound of hoofs, and after that all was darkness and silence, with only the sound of the falling rain.
Shevlin walked to where the gun had fallen, and after a minute or two of groping he found it.
The tiny slit of light that had warned him of the watcher’s presence was gone, but the door was open a crack and a rifle muzzle covered him.
“Hold it right there, mister,” a voice said, “and holster that gun.” Shevlin tucked the .45 behind his belt, trying to place the voice, which seemed familiar. He walked toward the door, saying conversationally, “We had better talk this over in the light, amigo.
There was a time when I knew, Turkeytrack mighty well.” “Hold up there!” No stranger to the tone of a voice behind a gun, Mike Shevlin stopped.
“Who’d you ever know at Turkeytrack?” came the question from the darkness.