Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) (15 page)

“Tried to get away with her, did you? I knew you had coyote in you, Barkow.”

His hand came up, and in the gloved hand was a pistol. In a sort of shocked disbelief, Bruce Barkow saw the gun lift. His own gun was under his short, thick coat.

“No!” he gasped hoarsely. “Not that!
Dan!
”

The last word was a scream, cut sharply off by the sharp, hard bark of the gun. Bruce Barkow folded slowly and, clutching his stomach, toppled across the black seepage, staining it with a slow shading of red.

For a minute, Dan Shute sat his horse, staring down. Then he turned the horse and moved on. He had an idea of his own. Before the storm began, from a mountain ridge he picked out the moving patrol. Behind it were two figures. He had a hunch about those two riders, striving to overtake the patrol.

He would see.

CHAPTER XVIII

Hunters in the Snow

Pushing rapidly ahead through the falling snow, the patrol came up to the ruins of the cabin on the Crazy Man on the morning of the second day out from the Fort. Steam rose from the horses, and the breath of horses and men fogged the air.

There was no sign of life. Rafe swung down and stared about. The smooth surface of the snow was unbroken, yet he could see that much had happened since he had started his trek to the fort for help. The lean-to, not quite complete, was abandoned.

Lieutenant Bryson surveyed the scene thoughtfully.

“Are we too late?” he asked.

Caradec hesitated, staring around. There was no hope in what he saw.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Johnny Gill was a smart hand. He would figger out somethin’, and besides, I don’t see any bodies.”

In his mind, he surveyed the canyon. Certainly, Gill could not have gone far with the wounded man. Also, it would have to be in the direction of possible shelter. The grove of lodgepoles offered the best chance. Turning, he walked toward them. Bryson dismounted his men and they started fires.

Milton Waitt, the surgeon, stared after Rafe and then walked in his tracks. When he came up with him, he suggested:

“Any caves around?”

Caradec paused, considering that. “There may be. None that I know of, though. Still, Johnny prowled in these rocks a lot and may have found one. Let’s have a look.” Then a thought occurred to him. “They’d have to have water, Doc. Let’s go to the spring.”

There was ice over it, but the ice had been broken and had frozen again. Rafe indicated it.

“Somebody drank here since the cold set in.”

He knelt and felt of the snow with his fingers, working his way slowly around the spring. Suddenly he stopped.

“Found something?” Waitt watched curiously. This made no sense to him.

“Yes. Whoever got water from the spring splashed some on this side. It froze. I can feel the ice it made. That’s a fair indication that whoever got water came from that side of the spring.”

Moving around, he kept feeling of the snow.

“Here.” He felt again. “There’s an icy ring where he set the bucket for a minute. Water left on the bottom froze.” He straightened, studying the mountainside. “He’s up there somewheres. He’s got a bucket, and he’s able to come down here for water, but findin’ him’ll be the devil’s own job. He’ll need fuel, though. Somewhere he’s been breakin’ sticks and collectin’ wood, but wherever he does it won’t be close to his shelter. Gill’s too smart for that.”

Studying the hillside, Rafe indicated the nearest clump of trees.

“He wouldn’t want to be out in the open on this snow any longer than he had to,” he said thoughtfully, “and the chances are he’d head for the shelter of those trees. When he got there, he would probably set the bucket down while he studied the back trail and made sure he hadn’t been seen.”

Waitt nodded, his interest aroused.

“Good reasoning, man. Let’s see.”

They walked to the clump of trees, and after a few minutes of search, Waitt found the same kind of icy frozen place just under the thin skimming of snow.

“Where do we go from here?” he asked.

Rafe hesitated, studying the trees. A man would automatically follow the line of easiest travel, and there was an opening between the trees. He started on and then stopped.

“This is right. See? There’s not so much snow on this branch. There’s a good chance he brushed it off in passin’.”

It was mostly guesswork, he knew. Yet after they had gone three hundred yards Rafe looked up and saw the cliff pushing its rocky shoulder in among the trees. At its base was a tumbled cluster of gigantic boulders and broken slabs.

He led off for the rocks, and almost the first thing he saw was a fragment of loose bark lying on the snow and a few crumbs of dust such as is sometimes found between bark and tree. He pointed it out to Waitt.

“He carried wood this way.”

____________

T
HEY PAUSED THERE, and Rafe sniffed the air. There was no smell of woodsmoke. Were they dead? Had cold done what rifle bullets couldn’t do? No, he decided, Johnny Gill knew too well how to take care of himself.

Rafe walked between the rocks, turning where it felt natural to turn. Suddenly, he saw a tipped-up slab of granite leaning against a larger boulder. It looked dry underneath. He stooped and glanced in. It was dark and silent, yet some instinct seemed to tell him it was not so empty as it appeared.

He crouched in the opening, leaving light from outside to come in first along one wall, then another. His keen eyes picked out a damp spot on the leaves. There was no place for a leak, and the wind had been in the wrong direction to blow in here.

“Snow,” he said. “Probably fell off a boot.”

They moved into the cave, bending over to walk. Yet it was not really a cave at first, merely a slab of rock offering partial shelter.

About fifteen feet further along, the slab ended under a thick growth of pine boughs and brush that formed a canopy overhead, which offered almost as solid shelter as the stone itself. Then, in the rock face of the cliff, they saw a cave, a place gouged by wind and water long since, and completely obscured behind the boulders and brush from any view but where they stood.

They walked up to the entrance. The overhang of the cliff offered a shelter that was all of fifty feet deep, running along one wall of a diagonal gash in the cliff that was invisible from outside. They stepped in on the dry sand and had taken only a step when they smelled wood smoke. At almost the same instant, Johnny Gill spoke.

“Hi, Rafe!” He stepped down from behind a heap of debris against one wall of the rock fissure. “I couldn’t see who you were till now. I had my rifle ready so’s if you was the wrong one I could plumb discourage you.” His face looked drawn and tired. “He’s over here, Doc,” Gill continued, “and he’s been delirious all night.”

While Waitt was busy over the wounded man, Gill walked back up the cave with Rafe.

“What’s happened?” Gill asked. “I thought they’d got you.”

“No, they haven’t, but I don’t know much of what’s been goin’ on. Ann’s at the fort with Barkow. Says she’s goin’ to marry him.”

“What about Tex?” Gill asked quickly.

Rafe shook his head, scowling. “No sign of him. I don’t know what’s come off at Painted Rock. I’m leavin’ for there as soon as I’ve told the Lieutenant and his patrol where Doc is. You’ll have to stick here because the Doc has to get back to the fort.”

“You goin’ to Painted Rock?”

“Yes. I’m goin’ to kill Dan Shute.”

“I’d like to see that,” Gill said grimly, “but watch yourself!” The little cowhand looked at him seriously. “Boss, what about that girl?”

Rafe’s lips tightened, and he stared at the bare wall of the cave.

“I don’t know,” he said grimly. “I tried to talk her out of it, but I guess I wasn’t what you’d call tactful.”

Gill stuck his thumbs in his belt. “Tell her you’re in love with her yourself?”

Caradec stared at him. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“Readin’ sign. You ain’t been the same since you ran into her the first time. She’s your kind of people, Boss.”

“Maybe. But looks like she reckoned she wasn’t. Never would listen to me give the straight story on her father. Both of us flew off the handle this time.”

“Well, I ain’t no hand at ridin’ herd on womenfolks, but I’ve seen a thing or two, Boss. The chances are if you’d have told her you’re in love with her, she’d never have gone with Bruce Barkow.”

Rafe was remembering those words when he rode down the trail toward Painted Rock. What lay ahead of him could not be planned. He had no idea when or where he would encounter Dan Shute. He knew only that he must find him.

After reporting to Bryson so he wouldn’t worry about the doctor, Rafe had hit the trail for Painted Rock alone. By now he knew that mountain trail well, and even the steady fall of snow failed to make him change his mind about making the ride.

____________

H
E WAS BURNING up inside. The old, driving recklessness was in him, the urge to be in and shooting. His enemies were in the clear, and all the cards were on the table in plain sight.

Barkow he discounted. Dan Shute was the man to get, and Pod Gomer the man to watch. What he intended to do was high-handed, as high-handed in its way as what Shute and Barkow had attempted, but in Rafe’s case the cause was just….

Mullaney had stopped in a wooden draw short of the hills. He stopped for a short rest just before daybreak on that fatal second morning. The single rider had turned off from the trail and was no longer with the patrol. Both he and the girl needed rest, aside from the horses.

He kicked snow away from the grass and then swept some of it clear with a branch. In most places it was already much too thick for that. After he made coffee and they had eaten, he got up.

“Get ready,” he said, “and I’ll get the horses.”

All night he had been thinking of what he would do when he found Barkow. He had seen the man draw on Penn, and he was not fast. That made it an even break, for Mullaney knew that he was not fast himself.

When he found the horses missing, he stopped. Evidently they had pulled their picket pins and wandered off. He started on, keeping in their tracks. He did not see the big man in the heavy coat who stood in the brush and watched him go.

Dan Shute threaded his way down to the campfire. When Ann looked up at his approach, she thought it was Mullaney, and then she saw Shute.

Eyes wide, she came to her feet. “Why, hello! What are you doing here?”

He smiled at her, his eyes sleepy and yet wary. “Huntin’ you. Reckoned this was you. When I seen Barkow I reckoned somethin’ had gone wrong.”

“You saw Bruce? Where?”

“North a ways. He won’t bother you none.” Shute smiled. “Barkow was spineless. Thought he was smart. He never was half as smart as that Caradec, nor as tough as me.”

“What happened?” Ann’s heart was pounding. Mullaney should be coming now. He would hear their voices and be warned.

“I killed him.” Shute was grinning cynically. “He wasn’t much good.” Shute smiled. “Don’t be wonderin’ about that hombre with you. I led his horses off and turned ’em adrift. He’ll be hours catchin’ ’em, if he ever does. However, he might come back, so we’d better drift.”

“No,” Ann said. “I’ll wait.”

He smiled again. “Better come quiet. If he came back, I’d have to kill him. You don’t want him killed, do you?”

She hesitated only a moment. This man would stop at nothing. He was going to take her if he had to knock her out and tie her. Better anything than that. If she appeared to play along, she might have a chance.

“I’ll go,” she said simply. “You have a horse?”

“I kept yours,” he said. “Mount up.”

CHAPTER XIX

Trail of a Lobo

By the time Rafe Caradec was en route to Painted Rock, Dan Shute was riding with his prisoner into the ranch yard of his place near Painted Rock. Far to the south and west, Rock Mullaney long since had come up to the place where Shute had finally turned his horse loose and ridden on, leading the other. Mullaney kept on the trail of the lone horse and came up with it almost a mile further.

Lost and alone in the thickly falling snow, the animal hesitated at his call and then waited for him to catch up. When he was mounted once more, he turned back to his camp, and the tracks, nearly covered, told him little. The girl, accompanied by another rider, had ridden away. She would never have gone willingly.

Mullaney was worried. During their travel they had talked little, yet Ann had supplied a few of the details, and he knew vaguely about Dan Shute and about Bruce Barkow. He also knew, having learned all about that long before reaching the fort, that an Indian outbreak was feared.

Mullaney knew something about Indians and doubted any trouble until spring or summer. There might be occasional shootings, but Indians were not, as a rule, cold-weather fighters. For that he didn’t blame them. Yet any wandering hunting or foraging parties must be avoided, and it was probable that any warrior or group of them coming along a fresh trail would follow it and count coup on an enemy if possible.

He knew roughly the direction of Painted Rock, yet instinct told him he had better stick to the tangible and near, so he swung back to the trail of the Army patrol and headed for the pass into Long Valley….

Painted Rock lay still under the falling snow when Rafe Caradec drifted down the street on the big black. He swung down in front of the Emporium and went in.

Baker looked up, and his eyes grew alert when he saw Rafe. At Caradec’s question, he told him of what had happened to Tex Brisco so far as he knew, of the killing of Blazer, McCabe, and Gorman, and of Brisco’s escape while apparently wounded.

He also told him of Dan Shute’s arrival and threat to Ann and her subsequent escape with Barkow. Baker was relieved to know they were at the fort.

A wind was beginning to moan around the eaves, and they listened a minute.

“Won’t be good to be out in that,” the storekeeper said gravely. “Sounds like a blizzard comin’. If Brisco’s found shelter, he might be all right.”

“Not in this cold,” Caradec said, scowling. “No man with his resistance lowered by a wound is going to last in this. And it’s going to be worse before it’s better.”