Gunsmoke for McAllister

by Matt Chisholm

  McAllister slept solidly till noon, his rifle in his hands, ready to go into action at the slightest warning of danger. But his sleep was blissfully undisturbed. He then set to work to rig some sort of gear for the pack-horse, using the rope and part of a tarp they had bought from Freeshaw. It was not too satisfactory, but it would have to do for a few days. He had completed it by the time Sam and Carlita appeared. They were both refreshed and Carlita was bright-eyed. As they saddled the horses and Carlita tidied her hair, McAllister said to Sam: ‘You ain’t doin’ too bad for a beat-up hombre.’

  Sam said: ‘A man needs his medicine, boy.’

  They mounted and rode out, heading north, watching for any of Rawley’s men who might be about and for Indians. Toward the end of the afternoon they came on Indian sign, but both McAllister and Sam reckoned it was more than a day old. They were both feeling better for their rest and good food, but neither could claim that he felt ready for the battle ahead. At the same time, they both realised that, for the sake of the prisoners in Rawley’s hands, they couldn’t afford to wait. If the man planned to pull out, it could be that they were all under death sentence now. Neither man fooled himself that the sheriff would hesitate to murder the whole bunch of them. They both knew that they would have to move fast and with utter ruthlessness. The meeting with the sheriff and his men would be violent and bloody, there would be no quarter asked or given.

  Sam said as they rode: ‘I don’t know how we’re goin’ to do it, but we have to whittle ’em down fast.’

  McAllister agreed and added: ‘It’s goin’ to be killin’ killin’ all the way. We don’t have no choice.’

  ‘Unless we knock a few off and the rest take fright,’ Sam said. ‘A killin’ can be mighty chastenin’. These fellows aren’t in it for the fun, only the profit. And there’s no profit dead. If we can get ’em on the run …’

  McAllister said: ‘Get Rawley and it could be finish.’

  Carlita put in: ‘Men will fight to the death for gold.’

  Sam nodded. ‘She’s right. We’re goin’ to have our bellyful of fightin’.’

  ‘The way I see it,’ McAllister said, ‘when the lead starts flyin’, Rawley’ll try an’ cut his losses. He’ll load up and hightail out for New Mexico.’

  They pushed on steadily for the war that lay ahead, two men and a woman.

  Chapter 7

  Nate Rawley was a man who had dedicated himself to evil at an early age. It was not a thing that he had done intentionally, but it had come naturally to him. At the same time he had always had a hankering for respectability. In becoming the sheriff of Eulalia County, Arizona, he had found himself in a position both to play out his evil parts and to be a member of respectable society. It seemed that at the time he had taken the road of violence and chicanery, he had also made an iron resolve to conquer the passions and weaknesses of the human spirit and, through the years, had made himself into something of an iron man. In consequence, he had almost rid himself of the encumbrance of conscience; loyalty was a weakness from which he had turned away forever; pity became absolutely alien to his character and ambition ruled his life.

  He realised, as have so many men before and since, that power mostly rested upon money. Or, to put it another way, there wasn’t much that money couldn’t buy. Not much, but he was to learn in the days that followed that it could not buy those things which are the essentials of human life. It could buy service, but not loyalty; it could purchase some sort of respect, but never love.

  The beginning of this lesson was starting now, though he was totally unaware of the fact. He was also learning that, though he had schooled himself to be cool and calm under the most trying circumstances, he had not schooled himself rigorously enough.

  He had been in town when the rider came with the disastrous news from the mine. Man and horse were in a lather, the man almost beside himself in excitement that came near to panic. Rich was lying in the cabin, back-shot and like to die. Two other men were lying around with lead in them. Two of the prisoners had got away and with them had gone the girl.

  It was then that Rawley exploded into blind rage. It was then that he shouted like a crazy man so that the messenger cowered back from him. The sheriff was plainly beside himself and the messenger, knowing the man’s capability of violence, feared for his life. It was then, when he learned that the girl had aided the two prisoners to escape that Rawley started to go wrong, to make mistakes.

  ‘Who were the prisoners?’ he demanded.

  ‘Sam Spur and McAllister.’

  Rawley stood in his office and pounded his desk with a clenched fist, his face transformed from its usual immobility into a grimace of fury, his cold eyes now suddenly afire. Anybody looking at him then would have taken him for the killer he was. It was then that he started to do foolish things. He thought he was thinking clearly, but he wasn’t thinking at all. Realising that this escape could be the death knell of his ambitions, he panicked. These two men who had escaped – they must be hounded down. But he couldn’t call out a posse against them. That might give the game away. Once men suspected that he had a gold mine in the hills that could be the end of everything. But it could be the end already … They would be running, trying to escape out of the country. In that case, they might try to sneak into town for supplies, or the girl might for them. He’d stop that. There were loungers outside the sheriff’s office. He went out to them with the tale. He had been bringing in two dangerous killers and they had escaped. If anybody spotted them, he must be told at once. Nobody was safe with them loose. He started to rage to the men and they looked at him strangely. Storming back into the office, he ordered the messenger to get fresh horses, to fetch his cohorts in the town. He was going to return to the mine in force. As he prepared himself for the trail, his mind seethed.

  The two men must be caught, that was essential to his scheme. But how? How could he lay hands on them before they spread the word about the mine? Was it safe for parties of men to scour the hills for them while Gato was out with his Apaches? The mine was safe enough from the Indians while they concentrated plenty of guns, but it was a different matter with small parties of men. The Indians would drop on them like hawks. And the men knew it. You could coax men to do a great many things for money, but risking death slowly at the hands of Gato’s crew was another matter.

  He seethed with furious impatience while the men were saddling the horses. In the end, he could stand the waiting no longer and went out onto the street to bellow for them. They came, cantering their animals down the street, Carlos in the lead. Rawley’s handsome sorrel behind him. Rawley shot his rifle into the saddleboot, heaved himself clumsily into the saddle and set off down the street without a word to them. The pace he set was hard without thought for the men or horses in the intense heat. He kept it until it was plain that the horses would soon be played out. It didn’t make sense to ride a played out horse with Gato around in the hills and his commonsense came to his rescue. He lessened the pace and halted at the first water-hole they came to. Now his men approached him and demanded to know what had happened. He told them and some of his worry rubbed off on them. They had good cause to be worried, for they were fixed to make considerable gain from the enterprise. Rawley was wise enough to know that men’s loyalty was equal to their profit. These men would risk a lot for the amount of gold that was due to them.

  Carlos told him: ‘Don’t you fret, boss. I find these fellers. I find them good, then we kill them.’

  ‘Find ’em?’ Rawley almost shrieked. ‘How can you find ’em before they start talkin’? They’ll be a day ahead of you.’

  No, he thought, the time had come to pull out. Better to cut his losses. He had a small fortune cached away in Santa Fé, New Mexico. This last shipment could make him a rich man for life. He would have to be satisfied with that. He thought about the prisoners and a curious savagery overtook him as though he could vent his rage happily on those innocent victims. Then he thought about the members of his crew with whom he could
dispense. Each man’s share was big. A bullet would cost next to nothing. And it was not just necessity that brought his mind with a certain pleasure to the matter of the killings, but the intense pleasure of power. To hold human lives in the palm of your hand was the essence of power. He looked at the men riding with him – him, him, little did he know he’d be dead before very long. Somewhere inside Rawley there was crazy laughter.

  They reached the mine before dark, were challenged by a guard on the rim of the basin and told to come ahead. They rode down the perilously narrow trail and Rawley rode up to the cabin. The mills were going full blast. As he dismounted, Rawley said: ‘I don’t want those mills stopped, not till I give the word. Hear?’ Carlos heard and hurried away to give the order. Rawley stamped into the cabin and found Rich lying there in a bunk looking like he was on the brink of death. Rawley went up to him and looked down at him. The man opened his eyes and stared at him dully for a moment.

  Then he said: ‘Boss.’

  ‘So you got it, Rich?’ Rawley said. ‘You goin’ to be all right. We’re pullin’ out, boy. I’ll look after you.’

  ‘I’m hurt bad. You can’t move me.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘The girl’

  That shook the sheriff. So Carlita had shot his best man. What had Rich been trying to do to her? What did it matter now? The man was as good as dead. He’d pay the girl when he met up with her.

  He wanted the halfbreed. He went outside the cabin and bawled for him. The man came loping from somewhere, knowing that when the boss bellowed that way, you hurried.

  Rawley said: ‘We’re goin’ to find Spur and McAllister. Sniff out their trail.’

  The man didn’t like the idea. He was too conscious of the Apache lurking in the hills.

  ‘Goddamn,’ he said. ‘Apache.’

  ‘Don’t you be scared of Apache, boy,’ Rawley said. ‘You be scared of me. Git, now.’

  The halfbreed got. He started from the rear of the cabin from where the three escapees had made their run and worked his way into the surrounding hills, armed to the teeth, his eyes as much on the surrounding countryside as on the sign he was following, fearful of the Indians, yet more fearful of the man in the cabin.

  As for Rawley, he roared his way into the mine tunnel, determined that nobody would rest till he had enough gold to pack out to New Mexico. The essential now was speed and he would maintain it if it killed the prisoners in his power. It didn’t matter–they were going to die shortly any road. He ordered the guards to use their whips and clubs mercilessly and the hardened crew who smelled that the end was near willingly obeyed him. He was all nervous energy, one moment in the tunnel bawling for the prisoners to hurry it up, the next in the cabin drinking and planning, yet again up on the rimrock of the basin, looking out over the land fearful of the Apache. But he had taught Gato a couple of bitter lessons in the last few weeks and that Indian, if he knew what was good for him, would steer a course wide around the basin. However, you never could tell with an Apache. Often when you thought you had him finished, he was at his most dangerous.

  One possibility never entered his head – that McAllister and Spur would be back. In his mind, he pictured them skulking through the hills, their guns run out on them, scared. When his fevered mind came to rest on the girl, he knew a kind of anguish. He had planned to take her into New Mexico with him; he had never known when he had fancied a woman more. He had taken her outside Euly for some minor offence and had built it into obstructing a peace officer in the course of his duty. She had seemed willing from the start. What he couldn’t believe was that it had all been a trick from the start. Her regard and attraction for him seemed so genuine. The blow of finding that she probably hated him was as much as he could bear. Never had he been attractive to women, in fact most had shown a deep aversion to him. Now, for once he thought himself successful with a woman and she had run out on him for the sake of those two saddlebums McAllister and Spur. By God, he thought, when I get her I’ll kill her. I’ll leave those other two sonsabitches so everybody’ll think the Apaches have been at ’em.

  That night he put double guards on the basin rim and kept every prisoner working around the clock. One died on him during the dark hours, but he gave the fact no thought. There were some thirty of them left and they would move enough ore by dawn to satisfy his needs. He took Carlos with him and checked the animals in the corral. He had kept them well fed and conditioned for such an eventuality. They were in prime condition. They were mostly mules, which would be ideal for the rough and mountainous country through which they would have to travel. Then he checked the mills and made certain that they were working to capacity.

  Around midnight, a flurry of shots came from the rimrock and he hurried in that direction only to find that a guard had fired at a shadow. Rawley returned to the cabin to pace up and down outside it, unable to identify the source of his acute tension, wondering if it could be pure animal instinct that was warning him of some unknown danger.

  The halfbreed came in, footsore and weary, having followed the sign many miles south. There was no doubt he thought that the two men and the woman were making their way toward the town. This took Rawley aback. It didn’t seem possible that they would be crazy enough to head for his town. He wondered if it would be smart to send a rider to town to warn folks that two killers were on their way, so that a posse could be formed to take them, but he decided against it. If there were Indians out, a single man might not get through and for the moment he was going to need every gun he had. No, his best bet was to clear out of here as fast as he could with as much gold as he could. He stood cursing McAllister, Spur and the woman till his face was a fiery red. The halfbreed who was used to him as a calm cold man gazed at him in some astonishment. Rawley went back into the cabin and took a strong drink. Never before had he felt the need for it.

  Just once he asked himself the question: Which way would the three escapees head after they reached town? Then another question: Would they talk? If they did, what harm would be done? Nobody would believe them surely. The girl had relatives in the district; they might swallow her tale. But if they did, surely there was little they could do about it. They were all lousy Mexes and they didn’t carry any weight. And if they did want to do something about it, who would dare the hills with Gato and his savages abroad? No, if he got out soon, no harm would be done. And nobody would find him in New Mexico under another name.

  He lay down on a bunk, listening to Rich’s groans, and tried to sleep, but sleep didn’t come. His mind churned on and on.

  Chapter 8

  McAllister lay on his belly, watching the man in the canyon below him, guessing what part he played in the drama, knowing that he was one of Rawley’s men sniffing out the trail of the two men and a girl who had escaped. He lay patiently, scarcely moving an inch, watching the man following the sign like an eager and frightened dog. McAllister could almost smell the man’s fear and knew the Indians were the source of it.

  The sign-reader worked his way a hundred yards past McAllister and then came back, walking with his eyes on the rocks to right and left of him, raising them frequently to scan the heights above, rifle ready in his hands. He was now going back to report. Pretty soon Rawley would know that the fugitives had headed back toward town. The realization didn’t worry McAllister. The storekeeper would tell Rawley soon enough that they had been there. He and Sam would hit the basin before anything could be done about it. The thought of taking on some twenty heavily armed men didn’t cheer the big man – he knew only too well what a gun could do in the hands of a man who knew how to use it. The possibility that he and Sam would not walk away from there alive was strong and he was only too well aware of the fact. Sam and he had to play this the Indian way. Or was it the Indian way or only the way that white men thought Indians worked? Indians sought for glory and fought emotionally. He and Sam would have to fight with their heads, ruthlessly killing one man here and another there until the fighting force in the basin was sma
ll enough to meet head on. And lying there under the broiling sun, it sounded to him like a mighty tall order.

  He lay motionless until the tracker went out of sight around a bend in the canyon, then he rose and walked back to the others. The horses stood around with their girths loose; Sam and the girl sat in the shade of a rock.

  ‘See any thin’?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Feller followin’ our trail out. I reckon he decided we was headed for town and now he’s gone back to tell Rawley.’

  ‘You reckon Rawley’s at the basin?’

  ‘By now, yes,’ McAllister said.

  Spur stood up and stretched. He looked a little more like his old self, though he was still pared down to skin and bone. However, that look of utter exhaustion had gone from his eyes and there was some show of the old iron there, the iron that had carried him through several stiff Indian fights and, to McAllister’s knowledge, at least three big-time gun fights with white men. The time that McAllister remembered most was when the two bounty hunters had thought they had the drop on Sam in E1 Paso. Sam had shot his way out of that and left one dead and one crippled man behind him. Sam wasn’t the fastest man on earth. He had that other essential that made a fighting man – nerve. It never entered his head that he could lose.

  ‘How do we play it, Rem?’ Sam asked now.

  ‘We hole up around here,’ McAllister said. ‘Then I take a look around the basin after dark.’

  Sam said: ‘Not alone, you don’t.’

  ‘Alone.’

  ‘Let’s have an agreement that neither of us start any heroics. There aren’t enough of us for anybody to go playing at heroes.’