“What was my father like?” she asked.
“Like?” Rafe’s brow furrowed. “How can anybody say what any man is like? I’d say he was about five feet eight or nine. When he died his hair was almost white, but when I first saw him he had only a few gray hairs. His face was a heap like yours. So were his eyes, except they wasn’t so large nor so beautiful. He was a kind man who wasn’t used to violence, I think, and he didn’t like it. He planned well and thought well, but the West was not the country for him, yet. Ten years from now, when it has settled more, he’d have been a leadin’ citizen. He was a good man and a sincere man. his “It sounds like him,” Ann said hesitantly, “but there is nothing you could not have learned here or from someone who knew him.” “No,” he said frankly. “That’s so. But there’s somethin’ else you should know. The mortgage your father had against his place was paid.” “What?” Ann stiffened. “Paid? How can you say that?” “He borrowed the money in Frisco and paid Barkow with it. He got a receipt for it.” “Oh, I can’t believe that! Why, Bruce would have-was “Would he?” Rafe asked gently. “You sure?” She looked at him. “What was the other thing?” “I have a deed,” he said, “to the ranch, made out to you and to me.” Her eyes widened and then hardened with suspicion. “So? Now things become clearer. A deed to my father’s ranch made out to you and to mel In other words, you are laying claim to half of my ranch?” “Please-was Rafe said. was I- She smiled. “You needn’t say anything more, Mr. Caradec. I admit I was almost coming to believe there was something in your story. At least, I was wondering about it, for I couldn’t understand how you hoped to profit from any such tale. Now it becomes clear.
You are trying to get half my ranch. You have even moved into my house without asking permission.” She stepped to one side of the door.
“I’m sorry, but I must ask you to leave! I must also ask you to vacate the house on Crazy Man, at once! I must ask you to refrain from calling on me again or from approaching me.” “Please!” Rafe said. “You’re jumpin’ to conclusions. I never aimed to claim any part of the ranch! I came here only because your father asked me to.” “Good day, Mr. Caradec!” Ann still held the curtain. He looked at her, and for an instant their eyes held. She was first to look away. He turned abruptly and stepp ed through the curtain, and as he did the door opened and he saw Bo Marsh.
Marsh’s eyes were excited and anxious.
“Rafe,” he said, “that Boyne hombre’s in front of the National. He wants you!” “Why, sure,” Rafe said quietly. “I’m ready.” He walked to the front door, hitching his guns into place. Behind him, he heard Ann Rodney asking Baker: “What did he mean that Boyne was waiting for him?” Baker’s reply came to Rafe as he stepped out into the morning light. “Trigger Boyne’s goin’ to kill him, Ann. You’d better go back inside!” Rafe smiled slightly. Kill him?
Would that be it? No man knew better than he the tricks that destiny plays on a man or how often the right man dies at the wrong time and place. A man never wore a gun without inviting trouble, he never stepped into a street and began the gunman’s walk without the full knowledge that he might be a shade too slow, that some small thing might disturb him just long enough!
Morning sun was bright, and the street lay empty of horses and vehicles. A few idlers loafed in front of the stage station, but all of them were on their feet.
Rafe Caradec saw his black horse switch his tail at a fly, and he stepped down in the street. Trigger Boyne stepped off the boardwalk to face him, some distance off. Rafe did not walk slowly, he made no measured, quiet approach.
He started to walk toward Boyne, going fast.
Trigger stepped down into the street easily, casually. He was smiling. Inside, his heart was throbbing, and there was a wild reckless eagerness within him. This one he would finish off fast. This would be simple, easy. He squared in the street, and suddenly the smile was wiped from his face. Caradec was coming toward him, shortening the distance at a fast walk. That rapid approach did something to the calm on Boyne’s face and in his mind. It was wrong.
Caradec should have come slowly. He should have come poised and ready to draw.
Knowing his own deadly marksmanship, Boyne felt sure he could kill this man at any distance.
But as soon as he saw that walk, he knew that Caradec was going to be so close in a few more steps that he himself would be killed. It is one thing to know you are to kill another man, quite a different thing to know you are to die yourself. Why, if Caradec walked that way he would be so close he couldn’t miss!
Boyne’s legs spread and the wolf sprang into his eyes, but there was panic there, too. He had to stop his man, get him now. His hand swept down for his gun.
Yet something was wrong. For all his speed he seemed incredibly slow, because that other man, that tall, moving figure in the buckskin coat and black hat, was already shooting.
Trigger’s own hand moved first, his own hand gripped the gun butt first, and then he was staring into a smashing, blossoming rose of flame that seemed to bloom beyond the muzzle of that big black gun in the hands of Rafe Caradec. Something stabbed at his stomach, and he went numb to his toes.
Stupidly he swung his gun up, staring over it. The gun seemed awfully heavy. He must get a smaller one. That gun opposite him blossomed with rose again, and something struck him again in the stomach. He started to speak, half turning toward the men in front of the stage station, his mouth opening and closing.
Something was wrong with him, he tried to say. Why, everyone knew he was the fastest man in Wyoming, unless it was Shute! Everyone knew that! The heavy gun in his hand bucked and he saw the flame stab at the ground. He dropped the gun, swayed, and then fell flat on his face. He would have to get up.
He was going to kill that stranger, that Rafe Caradec. He would have to get up.
The numbness from his stomach climbed higher, and he suddenly felt himself in the saddle of a bucking horse, a monstrous and awful horse that leaped and plunged, and it was going up! Up! Up!
Then it came down hard, and he felt himself leave the saddle, all sprawled out. The horse had thrown him, bucked him off into the dust. He closed his hands spasmodically.
Rafe Caradec stood tall in the middle of the gunman’s walk, the black, walnut-stocked pistol in his right hand. He glanced once at the still figure sprawled in the street, and then his eyes lifted, sweeping the walks in swift, accurate appraisal. Only then, some instinct prodded his subconscious and warned him. There was the merest flicker of a curtain, and in the space between the curtain and the edge of the window, the black muzzle of a rifle!
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, and 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 and then 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. Trigger Boyne had been beaten to the draw and killed. Gee Bonaro had made his try and died. Rafe Caradec turned slowly and walked back to his horse. Without a word he swung into the 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.