Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    “Shucks,” Johnny said, grinning at the horse, “why go back to Texas? There’ll be ruckus enough here, ridin’ for that hombre!”
    The town of Painted Rock numbered exactly eighty-nine inhabitants, and by sundown the arrival of Rafe Caradec and his challenge to Gee Bonaro was the talk of all of them. It was a behind-the-hand talking, but the story was going the rounds, as was the story that Charles Rodney was alive—or had been alive until recently.
    By nightfall Dan Shute heard that Caradec had moved into the Rodney house on Crazy Man, and an hour later he stormed furiously into his bunkhouse and gave Bonaro a tongue-lashing that turned the gunman livid with anger.
    Bruce Barkow was worried, and he made no pretense of not being so in his conference with Shute. The only hopeful note was that Caradec had said that Rodney was dead.
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    G ENE BAKER, SITTING in his easy chair in his living quarters behind the store, was uneasy. He was aware that his silence was worrying his wife. He was also aware that Ann was silent herself, an unusual thing, for the girl was usually gay and full of fun and laughter.
    The idea that there could have been anything wrong about the story told by Barkow and Bonaro had never entered the storekeeper’s head. He had accepted the story as others had, for many men had been killed along the trails or had died in fights with Indians. It was another tragedy of the westward march, and he had done what he could—he and his wife had taken Ann Rodney into their home and loved her as their own child.
    Now this stranger had come with his questions. Despite Baker’s irritation that the matter had come up at all, and despite his outward denials of truth in what Caradec had said, he was aware of an inner doubt that gnawed at the walls of his confidence in Bruce Barkow.
    Whatever else he might be, Gene Baker was a fair man. He was forced to admit that Bonaro was not a man in whom reliance could be placed. He was a known gunman and a suspected outlaw. That Shute had hired him was bad enough in itself, yet when he thought of Shute, Baker was again uneasy. The twin ranches of Barkow and Shute surrounded the town on three sides. Their purchases represented no less than fifty percent of the storekeeper’s business, and that did not include what the hands bought on their own.
    The drinking of the hands from the ranches supported the National Saloon, too, and Gene Baker, who for all his willingness to live and let live was a good citizen, or believed himself to be, found himself examining a situation he did not like. It was not a new situation in Painted Rock, and he had been unconsciously aware of it for some time, yet while aware of it he had tacitly accepted it. Now there seemed to be a larger rat in the woodpile, or several of them.
    As Baker smoked his pipe, he found himself realizing with some discomfort and growing doubt that Painted Rock was completely subservient to Barkow and Shute. Pod Gomer, who was town marshal, had been nominated for the job by Barkow at the council meeting. Joe Benson of the National had seconded the motion, and Dan Shute had calmly suggested that the nomination be closed, and Gomer was voted in.
    Gene Baker had never liked Gomer, but the man was a good gunhand and certainly unafraid. Baker had voted with the others, as had Pat Higley, another responsible citizen of the town.
    In the same manner, Benson had been elected mayor of the town, and Roy Gargan had been made judge.
    Remembering that the town was actually in the hands of Barkow and Shute, Baker also recalled that at first the tactics of the two big ranchers had caused grumbling among the smaller holders of land. Nothing had ever been done, largely because one of them. Stu Martin, who talked the loudest, had been killed in a fall from a