Crossfire Trail (1953) (19 page)

The voice startled Gomer so that he jerked, and he glanced over his shoulder, his face white. Then the front door pushed open and Higley came in with Baker. Pod Gomer touched his lips with his tongue and shot a sidelong glance at Benson. The saloon-keeper looked unhappy.

Carefully, Dan Shute reached for his belt buckle and unbuckled the twin belts, laying the big guns on the bar, butts toward him. At the opposite end of the bar, Rafe Caradec did the same. Then, as one man, they shed their coats.

Lithe and broad-shouldered, Rafe was an inch shorter and forty pounds lighter than the other man. Narrow-hipped and lean as a greyhound, he was built for speed, but the powerful shoulders and powerful hands and arms spoke of years of training as well as hard work with a doublejack, ax, or heaving at the heavy, wet lines of a ship.

Dan Shute's neck was thick, his chest broad and massive. His stomach was flat and hard. His hands were big, and he reeked of sheer animal strength and power. Licking his lips like a hungry wolf, he started forward. He was grinning and the light was dancing in his hard gray-white eyes.

He did not rush or leap. He walked right up to Rafe, with that grin on his lips, and Caradec stood flat-footed, waiting for him. But as Shute stepped in close, Rafe suddenly whipped up a left to the wind that beat the man to the punch. Shute winced at the blow and his eyes narrowed. Then he smashed forward with his hard skull, trying for a butt.

Rafe clipped him with an elbow and swung away, keeping out of the corner.

Still grinning, Dan Shute moved in. The big man was deceptively fast. As he moved in, suddenly he jumped and hurled himself feet foremost at Rafe.

Caradec sprang back but too slowly. The legs jack-knifed around his, and Rafe went to the floor! He hit hard, and Dan was the first to move. Throwing himself over he caught his weight on his left hand and swung with his right. It was a wicked, half-arm blow, and it caught Rafe on the chin. Lights exploded in his brain and he felt himself go down.

Rafe rolled his head more by insinct than knowledge and the blow clipped his ear. He threw his feet high, and tipped Dan over on his head and off his body. Both men came to their feet and hurled themselves at each other with an impact that shook the room.

Rafe's head was roaring. He felt the smashing blows rocking his head from side to side. He smashed an inside right to the face, and saw a thin streak of blood on Shute's cheek. He fired his right down the same groove, and it might as well have been on a track. The split in the skin widened and a trickle of blood started.

Shute took it coming in and never lost stride. He ducked, knocking Rafe off-balance with his shoulder, swinging an overhand punch that caught Rafe on the cheekbone. Rafe tried to sidestep and failed, slipping in a wet spot on the floor. As he went down, Dan Shute aimed a terrific kick at his head that would have ended the fight right there, but Rafe hurled himself at the pivot leg and knocked Dan sprawling.

Both men came up and walked into each other, slugging.

All reason gone, the two men fought like animals, yet worse than animals for in each man was the experience of years of accumulated brawling and slugging in the hard, tough, wild places of the world. They lived by their strength and their hands and the fierce animal drive that was within them, the drive of the fight for survival.

Rafe stepped in, punching Shute with a wicked cutting, stabbing left. And then his right went down the line again and blood streamed from the cut cheek. He shoved Dan back and smashed both hands into the big man's body, then rolled aside and spilled him with a rolling hiplock.

Dan Shute came up, and Rafe walked in. He stabbed a left to the face and Shute's teeth showed through his lip, broken and ugly. Rafe set himself and whipped up an uppercut that stood Shute on his toes.

Tottering and punchdrunk, the light of battle still flamed in Shute's eyes. He grabbed a bottle and lunged at Rafe, smashing it down on his shoulder. Rafe rolled with the blow and felt the bottle shatter over the end of his shoulder, then he hooked a left with that same numb arm, and felt the fist sink into Shute's body.

Dan Shute hit the table beside which Gene Baker was standing and both went down in a heap. Suddenly, Shute rolled over and came to his knees, his eyes blazing. Blood streamed from the gash in his cheek, open now from mouth to ear, his lips were shreds and a huge blue lump concealed one eye. His face was scarcely human, yet in the remaining eye gleamed a wild, killing, insane light. And in his hands he held Gene Baker's double-barreled shotgun!

He did not speak-just swept the gun up and squeezed down on both triggers!

Yet at the very instant that he squeezed those triggers, Rafe's left hand had dropped to the table near him and with one terrific heave he spun it toward the kneeling man. The gun belched flame and thunder as Rafe hit the floor flat on his stomach and rolled over.

Joe Benson, crouched over the bar, took the full blast of buckshot in the face and went over backward with a queer, choking scream.

Rafe heaved himself erect. Suddenly the room was deathly still. Pod Gomer's face was a blank sheet of white horror as he stared at the spot where Benson had vanished.

Staggering, Caradec walked toward Dan Shute. The man lay on his back, arms outflung, head lying at a queer angle.

Mullaney pointed. "The table!" he said. "It busted his neck!"

Rafe turned and staggered toward the door. Johnny Gill caught him there. He slid an arm under Rafe's shoulders and strapped his guns to his waist.

"What about Gomer?" he asked.

Caradec shook his head. Pod Gomer was getting up to face him, and he lifted a hand.

"Don't start anything. I've had enough. I'll go."

Somebody brought a bucket of water. Rate fell on his knees and began splashing the ice-cold water over his head and face. When he had dried himself on a towel someone handed him, he started for a coat. Baker had come in with a clean shirt from the store.

"I'm sorry about that shotgun," he said. "It happened so fast I didn't know."

Rafe tried to smile and couldn't. His face was stiff and swollen.

"Forget it," he said. "Let's get out of here."

"You ain't goin' to leave, are you?" Baker asked. "Ann said that she--"

"Leave? Shucks, no! We've got an oil business here, and there's a ranch. While I was at the Fort I had a wire sent to the C Bar down in Texas for some more cattle."

Ann was waiting for him wide-eyed. He walked past her toward the bed and fell across it. "Don't let it get you, honey," he said. "We'll talk about it when I wake up next week!"

She stared at him, started to speak, and a snore sounded in the room.

Ma Baker smiled. "When a man wants to sleep, let him sleep. I'd say he'd earned it!"