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

stepped, and then Penn looked around at Rafe.
    “That was mutiny, you know.”
    “It was,” Rafe said calmly. “I didn’t ask to go aboard, and knockout drops in a Barbary Coast dive ain’t my way of askin’ for a year’s job!”
    “A year?” Penn swore. “Two years and more, for me. For Tex, too.”
    “You know this coast?” Mullaney asked.
    Rafe nodded. “Not well, but there’s a place just north of the cape where we can run in. To the south the sunken ledges and rocks might tear our bottom out, but I think we can make this other place. Can you all swim?”
    The mountainous headland loomed black against the gray-turning sky of the hours before daybreak. The seaward face of the cape was rocky and waterworn along the shoreline. Rafe, studying the currents and the rocks, brought the boat neatly in among them and headed for a boulder-strewn gray beach where water curled and left a white ruffle of surf.
    They scrambled out of the boat and threw their gear on the narrow beach.
    “How about the boat?” Tex demanded. “Do we leave it?”
    “Shove her off, cut a hole in the bottom, and let her sink,” Rafe said.
    When the hole had been cut, they let the sea take the boat offshore a little, watching it fill and sink. Then they picked up their gear. Rafe Caradec led them inland, working along the shoulder of the mountain. The northern slope was covered with brush and trees, and afforded some concealment. Fog was rolling in from the sea, and soon the gray, cottony shroud of it had settled over the countryside.
    When they had several miles behind them, Rafe drew to a halt. Penn opened the sack he was carrying and got out some bread, figs, coffee, and a pot.
    “Stole ’em out of the captain’s stores,” he said. “Figured we might as well eat.”
    “Got anything to drink?” Mullaney rubbed the dark stubble on his wide jaws.
    “Uh-huh. Two bottles of rum. Good stuff from Jamaica.”
    “You’ll do to ride the river with,” Tex said, squatting on his heels. He glanced up at Rafe. “What comes now?”
    “Wyomin’, for me.” Rafe broke some sticks and put them into the fire Rock was kindling. “I made my promise to Rodney, and I’ll keep it.”
    “He trusted you.” Tex studied him thoughtfully.
    “Yes. I’m not goin’ to let him down. Anyway,” he added, smiling, “Wyomin’s a long way from here, and we should be as far away as we can. They may try to find us. Mutiny’s a hangin’ offense.”
    “Ever run any cattle?” Tex wanted to know.
    “Not since I was a kid. I was born in New Orleans, grew up near San Antone. Rodney tried to tell me all he could.”
    “I been over the trail to Dodge twice,” Tex said, “and to Wyomin’ once. I’ll be needin’ a job.”
    “You’re hired,” Rafe said, “if I ever get the money to pay you.”
    “I’ll chance it,” Tex Brisco agreed. “I like the way you do things.”
    “Me for the goldfields in Nevada,” Rock said.
    “That’s good for me,” Penn said. “If me and Rock don’t strike it rich we may come huntin’ a feed.”
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    T HERE WAS NO trail through the tall grass but the one the mind could make, or the instinct of the cattle moving toward water. Yet as the long-legged zebra dun moved along the flank of the little herd, Rafe Caradec thought he was coming home.
    This was a land for a man to love, a long, beautiful land of rolling grass and trees, of towering mountains pushing their dark peaks against the sky, and the straight, slim beauty of lodgepole pines.
    He sat easy in the saddle, more at home than in many months, for almost half his life had been lived astride a horse. He liked the dun, which had an easy, space-eating stride. He had won the horse in a poker game in Ogden, and won the saddle and bridle in the same game. The new Winchester ’73, newest and finest gun on the market, he had bought in San Francisco.
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    A BREEZE WHISPERED in the grass, turning it to green and shifting silver as the wind stirred