CHAPTER 21CAPPY AYERS found Bruce Powell in the rooms over Milliard’s store where Powell had gone to change clothes. “You’d better come down,” he said. “Sandson has cut loose. He’s ridden out to burn the Layton place.”
Powell had just been drawing on his boots. He stood up and fastened the gun belt around his narrow hips. “Burn the Layton place? Is he crazy?”
“It depends on how you look at it,” the fat printer said. “From Sandson’s angle, it’s a logical move. The Laytons are the leaders of the grangers, and if their house goes up in smoke it will be a warning to all the farmers that they stand to lose whatever they have. But with the deacon it goes deeper than that. It was at the Layton house that Jenny Paraine’s boy was held and I suspect that in some twisted manner Sandson feels that b
