‘In that case,’ said McAllister, ‘I’ll go back to horse ranching for a few days. My business is all to hell.’
‘You do that, McAllister, with the clearest of consciences. You have done more than your duty and the bank is grateful to you. I, personally, am grateful to you. Joe sings your praises every time I talk with him.’
McAllister gave a good impression of a man glowing and said: ‘That’s really nice to hear, Lindholm. I sure do appreciate that.’
He rode back to his place and ate a second breakfast. He had been deprived of Bella Copley’s cooking long enough.
‘Bella,’ he said, ‘those two men of yours sure don’t appreciate you. How about moving in with me?’
She laughed and said: ‘Landsakes, Miz McAllister, we is scandal enough already.’
Mose glowered and said: ‘Some fellers don’t naturally know when they is best off.’
When McAllister was through eating, he jerked his head at Mose as a signal he wanted a quiet word with him out of Bella’s hearing. Mose joined him in the barn. So far, the blacksmith did not know more than he had heard in town about the problem of Joe’s gold. Now McAllister told him, and Mose did not like what he heard.
‘The way you tell it,’ he said, ‘tells me you think this is going to turn into an ugly business, boss.’
‘That’s the way she looks. I hate to pull you in on this, Mose, but could you watch Joe’s place tomorrow night. Maybe Charlie or me can’t make it back in time.’
‘Sure. But how about Bella? She’ll raise hell.’
‘She always raises hell.’
‘That’s a fact.’
McAllister enjoyed a good night’s sleep, rose a couple of hours before dawn and saddled Oscar, his powerful gelding. He caught up his mare, Sally, and put her on a hackamore and a hair rope as a lead line. Lige appeared from out of the dark, like a somber thin ghost.
‘Boss, I can see by the looks of you, you ain’t up to no good.’
McAllister smiled. ‘Just lawing a piece, Lige.’
‘You want me along?’
‘Mose’ll be out for me. You stay here and watch the store.’
‘Hell, I ain’t never nothing but horse-holder and storekeeper. Don’t I never get into the action?’
‘Before we’re through, Lige,’ McAllister told him earnestly, ‘there’ll be more than enough action to go around. Believe me.’
Lige watched him solemnly and said: ‘I believe you.’
McAllister mounted Oscar and rode out. When he had crossed Howard Creek, he rode straight across the valley for the foothills and was well on his way by daylight. He was in position above the place where the first hold-up had taken place. From there, a short while after, he saw a lone horseman coming from town and recognized him as Charlie. Satisfied, he now rode on, travelling at a good speed, knowing now that he did not have a great deal of time to spare.
Chapter Twelve
When Charlie rode into high timber at the station he was to take up, he saw the hoofprints left by McAllister’s horses in the still damp ground. It had not rained since the night before last, but the rain then had been heavy and there was still an amount of moisture in the ground under the trees. Charlie hoped there would be a better than usual chance of following tracks. He dismounted and led his horse well back into the trees, not wanting the animal to betray his presence.
When he had returned to his position above the road, he was startled to see two horsemen below him, between him and the road. It was alarming for him to know they could arrive there without his either seeing or hearing them. He looked around uneasily. He checked the position of the pale sun and saw that more than an hour would pass before the stage was due. He peered into the trees, shrub and boulders on the far side of the road. His sharp eyes at once picked out the dark shape of a hat. Then the sun hit the barrel of a carbine. He knew that he was lucky to have arrived so early. He could so easily have ridden right into the muzzles of those guns down there.
The bandits seemed to settle down then. He saw the blue smoke of their cigarettes. Once or twice, the soft murmur of voices reached him. It was no more than a few minutes, however, before he grew alarmed, for one of the men on his side of the road rose abruptly to his feet and started up the steep slope towards Charlie. He could see from the man’s manner that he was looking for somebody or something. His companion was on his feet, scanning the slope.
Charlie hastily started to make his way backwards, then, once he was in deep shelter, turned and hurried on, going over the brow of the hill and down towards his horse.
At first, when he could not see his horse, he looked around, thinking that he was mistaken in the spot. Then he thought maybe the animal had gotten free and strayed off.
There came a shrill whistle from the top of the hill and an answering one from below him and he thought: I'm caught plumb in between the two of them. They made a damn fool out of me.
That scared him. But scared or not, Charlie Stellino was not a man to be beaten. He got in among the thickets and started to beat his way west as quietly as he could. Pretty soon, he ran out of thicket and was forced into the open. He wondered if the men would risk shooting. The shots might be heard. But maybe they were sure that there was nobody near.
He knew the answer to that one in the next second.
He heard a shot to his right. It passed so close to him that he jumped a foot. It ripped its way through the leaves and, almost at once, there came a shot from another direction. He was in a crossfire. He was, in fact, as good as dead. That was not enough, however, to make him give up the fight. He jacked a round into the breech of his Spencer and fired as he saw a branch move. At once there was return fire from both directions. Something smashed into his side and knocked him from his feet.
There was something so brutal, final and disastrous about being hit that he almost gave up the ghost. What the hell, he asked himself, was there anything here worth dying for? Would McAllister ask the ultimate sacrifice of him?
No time for answers. A man crashed through the undergrowth and, lying on his back, Charlie fired and levered, fired and levered. There was a slight movement off to his left and he turned his gun muzzle in that direction, still firing.
He heard a man yell and swear.
Undergrowth seemed to be crashing all around him. He doubted if he could make it to his feet, but he had under-estimated the strength of fear. He was up and going at a staggering run. He had not gone a dozen uncertain paces when he ran headlong into the bulk of an object in his path, an object that seemed to stagger back from his charge. He nearly fell over himself and then saw, to his utter astonishment, that he had run into his own horse tied to a tree.
Laughing like a crazy man, he tore the line free of the tree and heaved himself into the saddle. The horse must have understood his predicament, for, no sooner had his backside hit leather than the animal gathered its legs under it and jumped away. Charlie thought he heard the faint sound of shots behind him, but he could not be sure. He did not much care. When he looked back, nobody followed. He reined his horse around to the road, hit it within minutes and let the horse run east. With luck he would reach McAllister before he bled to death.
Chapter Thirteen
McAllister was not too pleased to see Charlie, nor was he satisfied that he had carried out his duties as a duly-sworn deputy.
‘Duly-sworn deputy?’ Charlie said in disgust as he lay bleeding on the ground. ‘When the hell was I ever duly sworn? All you ever did was shove a goddam badge in my face.’
‘And your wages,’ McAllister snarled. ‘Don’t forget your wages, you ungrateful son-of-a-bitch. You come running for help just because you got your fool self nicked in the side. I should of brought young Lige along; he’d have done the job better.’
Charlie said: ‘Do you fix me up or do I bleed to death? Don’t forget, if I die, the county pays for the funeral.’
McAllister’s mood changed and he laughed. ‘You’re sure unlucky, Charlie,’ he said. ‘You a
in’t going to die, boy. It’ll cost you your shirt. Get it off. And hurry, we don’t have all the time in the world.’ To show that he bore Charlie no ill-feeling, he offered him a pull from his bottle. It was not a large bottle and Charlie finished it, a fact which tried McAllister’s goodwill to the utmost. However, he tied Charlie’s wound up well enough and declared that if his evil living had not corrupted his body too much, there was a chance that he would live. ‘We’ll put you on the stage and the doctor in Caspar can sew you up good as new.’
‘Aw, hell,’ said Charlie, ‘I can sit a horse, Rem. I can track down one of the bandits.’
‘I’d hate to put your delicate frame to the test,’ said McAllister coldly.
Charlie said something which was both insulting and obscene. The sheriff ignored him. Not long after, the stage came along with an irate and murderous Horry Wanlace on the other end of the ribbons. The bandits had shot another horse, he told them. They had carried out the whole operation as smooth as silk. Wally Hunt had apparently simulated fear very well and not fired a shot. The robbers had taken the strong box and seen the stage on its way.
‘This,’ said Horry, ‘is the last time I play this game, Rem, and that’s final. Christ, I’m getting through horses so damn fast—’
‘This is the very last time, Horry,’ McAllister promised.
They packed Charlie into the stage, and the last McAllister heard of him, he was telling the passengers that he had held off a dozen wild outlaws with his gun.
McAllister mounted Oscar and, leading the mare, he set off back down the road. He did not hurry, because he knew that he might be facing several days of riding and he wanted his horses fresh. He was at the hold-up spot about one hour later. Dismounting and tying his horses at the side of the road, he took a leisurely look around at the tracks left on either side of the road. He wanted to read them well and he wanted to be sure of his facts before he decided to follow a set. Pretty soon he was confident that he would have plain sign to follow. As before, there had been four men in the hold-up and one spare horse. This horse had been employed to carry away the strong box. Two riders had gone with the box this time. They had taken the direction which McAllister had followed previously. It was simple reasoning to assume that they would go by way of the watersmeet where he had lost the tracks before. He would have liked to regain the gold this trip, but it was no good trying to tackle the impossible. One set of tracks went off almost parallel to the Caspar road. The other looked as if it was heading back into Black Horse Valley. This was the one he decided to follow.
That was his first mistake, maybe.
He walked back to his horse, thrust a foot into the stirrup iron and started to heave himself into the saddle. A voice behind him said: ‘Hold it.’
He did just that. There was no doubt in his mind that a gun was pointed at his spine.
The voice said: ‘Put one foot on the ground and stay right there.’
He obeyed, knowing that, in that position, he was pretty helpless. He heard the man take a few paces towards him, and the next moment the weight of his old Remington went from his side.
‘My, my,’ he said, ‘I thought I was too old to be suckered. How a man fools himself.’
The man said: ‘Cut out the talk. I’m the one who talks.’
‘You’re spooked,’ McAllister said. ‘What the hell do you have to be spooked about? You’re holding the gun.’
‘Cut it out,’ said the man. His voice rose a little in excitement. McAllister heard his sharp intake of breath and knew that a gun-barrel was about to land on his head. He tightened his grip on the cantle and horn of the saddle and heaved his weight up one inch. At the same time, he kicked back as hard as he could with the heel of his right boot. By the jarring sensation it gave him, he reckoned he caught the man on the breastbone. The man gave a deep grunt and his gun went off.
Now, there is nothing like fear either to concentrate a man’s thoughts and faculties or completely paralyze them. In this case, happily for McAllister, his senses were acutely sharpened by the fact that there was a gun in the hand of the other man, even though that man was going over backwards as McAllister got his foot out of the stirrup-iron and whirled. His sharp eye took the man in, seeing a heavily-made, square man who looked as solid as rock. Slightly below average height, but long in the arm. As he came in McAllister’s sight he was out of control, falling back onto his shoulders, dropping his own gun from his right hand, but retaining his grip on McAllister’s with his left. His fingers were around the chamber, not the butt. McAllister kicked savagely at the butt and saw the weapon spin away. He now stamped down hard onto the fellow’s belly.
Any other man would have been finished by the assault. As it was, though the air went noisily out of him, he grasped at McAllister’s booted foot with both hands and tore him from his feet.
McAllister had been thrown a good many times during the passage of a violent life, but he could never remember when his own large body had been treated as such light-weight stuff. He hit the ground badly, with one arm caught under him. He heard the man say in fury through his clenched teeth: ‘I’m going to kill you, you bastard.’ The fellow then climbed slowly and relentlessly to his feet, retaining his grip on McAllister’s ankle.
McAllister drove with his free foot at the man’s hands, cracking his hard boot-heel down on his knuckles. But he might have been punishing stone. The man then did something which McAllister thought could never happen to him. He was wrenched off the ground and found himself being whirled around in that powerful grip, circling with his face near the ground and feeling utterly helpless. He was not released until the nearest tree came up from nowhere to meet his chest. Then the man released him.
McAllister lay on the ground for a moment, feeling as if his chest had been crushed in and that every bone in his body loosed from its natural fastening. But his old alarm system was sounding. He looked up to see the man in mid-air, both boots descending.
Again, fear was his spur. He moved, and he moved fast, but managing no more than a half-roll before the fellow landed. No more was required. The man cracked down onto the ground and fell against the tree which had just so severely punished McAllister.
The big man slewed himself around on the ground, driving himself into the other man’s legs and knocking them from under him. The man hit the tree with his face and fell to the ground. He had suffered, but not enough to deter him. He rose to his feet at the same speed attained by McAllister. For a moment, they stood panting, two apparent equals, both with blood-splattered faces and punished bodies.
The man took a deep breath and managed: ‘Kill you.’
McAllister saved his breath. He hit the man twice. Both blows were delivered with his left. One landed on his mouth and the other on his nose. The last made a surprising amount of noise.
The man’s voice sounded a little mushy when he said: ‘That won’t do you no good. I’m still going to kill you.’
He aimed a kick for McAllister’s crotch. McAllister batted the foot aside and hit the man on his neck. The blow staggered him backwards.
McAllister said: ‘That’s not two-twenty pounds of muscle and bone you have there. You’re full of crap.’
The man charged and McAllister thought: If he gets those arms around me, I'm finished.
His opponent could move fast enough for a man half his weight. Those arms did get around McAllister, and at once his ribs began to crumble. McAllister rammed his feet against the man’s insteps and heaved himself backwards, turning as best he could as he did so. They landed on their sides, and the man retained his grip. McAllister thought he heard his ribs crack. He heard the man whisper: ‘Kill you, you bastard.’ McAllister tried to butt the man’s face, but his height was against him and all he could do was bang his chin on top of the fellow’s head. For his pains, he received that hard skull under his jaw. His senses started to waver. His sight did not seem so good either. The pressure on his ribs increased. The man’s breathing was shallow and fierce.
/> With a heave which seemed to drain the last strength from his body, McAllister rolled and got himself on top. Now he managed to get one elbow under the fellow’s throat and against his chin, and the contest turned into a test of strength against strength. Right at the start, McAllister knew he could not win. This man would crack all his ribs and then stomp him into the ground at his leisure.
Bright lights darted wildly before McAllister’s eyes. He wrenched and heaved in a savagely frantic attempt to get free.
‘Kill you,’ whispered the man.
McAllister was pretty sure now that the threat would be carried out in something like a half-minute.
He tried to increase his pressure on the other’s throat. He looked down and saw to his surprise that the man’s eyes were starting from his head. He tore his other arm free and gripped the man’s ears with both hands. The fellow tried to whisper his threat of death, but could not make it. McAllister started to lift his head and ram it down onto the ground. Luck had found him a tree root. The man gave a long low moan and his grip on McAllister started to slacken.
McAllister rolled violently to the right and found himself free, and he told himself: no more of this damn nonsense of man-to-man. He wanted a gun. He went after the butt of the Remington in a low long dive. And he knew from the sounds that the man had a similar idea. The road agent must have reached a gun first. Even as McAllister hit dirt and rolled, he heard the roar of the heavy gun. Something tore up the dirt by him and he fired blindly and cocked again for a second shot. He could dimly see the man up on one knee. He triggered a shot. The man grunted and put his other hand to the gun to heave back on the hammer, which seemed to be resisting him. McAllister fired again.
This time, the fellow went backwards, rolling over down the slight slope and coming up against the bole of the tree.
McAllister stayed very still, watching him kick a little. Then he sat up and found that he did not have the strength to move further. He started to shake.
McAllister 7 Page 7
