Crossfire Trail by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-07-24T14:35:05+00:00

Chapter IX

Gene Baker was sweeping bis store and the stoop in front of it when he saw a tight little cavalcade of horsemen trot around the corner into the street. It was the morning after the fiasco of the trial. He had been worried and irritated while wondering what the reaction would be from Barkow and Shute. Then word had come to him of the break between the two at Gomer's office.

Dan Shute, riding a powerful gray, was in the van of the bunch of horsemen. He rode up to the stoop of Baker's store and reined in. Behind him were Red and Tom Blazer, Joe Gorman, Fritz Handl, "Fats" McCabe and others of the hard bunch that trailed with Shute.

"Gene," Shute said abruptly, resting his big hands on the pommel of the saddle, "don't sell any more supplies to Caradec or any of his crowd." He added harshly, "I'm not askin' you. I'm tellin' you. If you do, I'll put you out of business and run you out of the country. You know I don't make threats. The chances are Caradec won't be alive by daybreak anyway--but just in case, you've been told!"

Without giving Baker a chance to reply, Dan Shute touched spurs to his horse and led off down the south trail toward the Crazy Woman.

The door slammed behind Baker. "Where are they going?" Ann wanted to know. "What are they going to do?"

Gene stared after them bleakly. This was the end of something. "They are goin' after Caradec and his crowd, Ann."

"What will they do to him?"

Something inside her went sick and frightened. She had always been afraid of Dan Shute. The way he looked at her made her shrink. He was the only human being of whom she had ever been afraid. He seemed without feeling, without decency, without regard for anything but his own immediate desires.

"Kill him," Baker said "They'll kill him. Shute's a hard man, and that's a mighty wicked gang."

"But can't someone warn him?" Ann protested.

Baker glanced at her. "So far as we know, Caradec is a crook and mebbe a killer, Ann. You ain't gettin' soft on him, are you?"

"No!" she exclaimed, startled. "Of course not! What an idea! Why, I've scarcely talked to him!" Yet there was a heavy, sinking feeling in her heart as she watched the riders disappear in the dust along the southward trail. If there was only something she could do! If she could warn them!

Suddenly she remembered the bay horse her father had given her. Because of the Indians, she had not been riding in a long time, but if she took the mountain trail...

Hurrying through the door she swiftly saddled the bay. There was no thought in her mind. She was acting strictly on impulse, prompted by some memory of the way the hair swept back from Rafe's brow, and the look in his eyes when he met her gaze. She told herself she wanted to see no man killed, that Bo Marsh and Johnny Gill were her friends.

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