McAllister 5

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘A woman like Ana?’ the man sneered. ‘What the hell do you know about Ana?’

  ‘Quite a bit,’ said McAllister. ‘She could have shot me the other day and she didn’t. She’s stayed awake and watched you. She kicked you awake. What more do I want to know than that?’

  ‘You’re sweet on her. So you want to know a lot more than that.’

  Suddenly McAllister thought: He wants to hurt Ana. So he’s going to tell me about her. He wanted to know about the girl, but he did not know that he wanted to hear it from this fellow.

  The prisoner was enjoying himself. His face quite lit up with the joy of what he was about to do.

  In Spanish, the girl said: ‘McAllister, you know that he is a liar.’

  ‘Talk a Christian language, girl,’ said the prisoner. ‘You know I can’t abide the dago tongue.’ He said it quite good-naturedly. Some of the weariness left his face. ‘The man I killed back there. Sullivan. He was not Ana’s husband. He could not be, because I am the only husband she ever had or is ever likely to have.’

  ‘You know he’s lying,’ said Ana, still in Spanish.

  McAllister stayed silent, slipping his gaze from the man’s face to the woman’s and back again, measuring and assessing every change however slight that took place there. As the man expanded, so the girl seemed to shrink. The acute misery on her face and in her eyes transformed her. McAllister knew a little horror at what he was seeing. Was this the girl he had made love to? About whom he had had serious thoughts, he, the infallible judge of men and women. Could he be so very wrong?

  ‘I think,’ the man was saying, ‘that I shall begin at the beginning. Well, maybe not right at the beginning—that would be telling tales and no mistake.’

  Using her own language still; Ana interrupted: ‘If he tells you what he has in mind, I think I shall die of shame.’

  ‘Where’s the shame,’ McAllister said, ‘if it’s lies?’

  She shot him an unforgiving glance.

  ‘For some years now, McAllister, you should know, Ana has been my reserve, as you might say. While I go ahead and do a job, she stays in reserve with spare horses, supplies et cetera, sometimes a very useful alibi. The perfect alibi is almost more useful to a criminal than the perfect execution of the crime. Would you agree? If I am captured, she is the means by which I escape. In situations such as this. Who will deny that, if she had the courage, she would have shot you?’

  ‘I chose not to shoot you and he knows it.’

  A jay, the ubiquitous camp-robber as he was called, alighted on a deadfall and cocked his head on one side, soliciting scraps. McAllister tossed him a piece of jerky and he swooped on it.

  The man continued: ‘This time she stayed at a distance from Black Horse while I went in to do the job. I set about it with my usual smooth efficiency, but it went awry through sheer ill-luck—which comes to all of us at one time or another, as I’m sure you’ll agree. Gerard Wilson was in town with twenty-five thousand dollars in his pockets to buy cattle. Did you know that?’ McAllister knew that Gerard Wilson was in town, but he knew nothing of the money or his reason for being there.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

  ‘I killed Wilson, as you know. I green-rivered him in his hotel room. Neat as you please. Not a spot of blood on me. One thrust and he was gone from us, brother. Passed over. Gone to his heavenly rest.’ The man chuckled. ‘I searched his room and found nothing. Would you credit it? Nothing more than the hundred dollars he had in his pockets. I was pretty damned mad, I can tell you. And who wouldn’t be, baulked of his just rewards? Then I’ll be damned if a fellow didn’t walk in on me. He saw Wilson lying there in his gore and went for his gun. I had to take the risk of a shot being heard. There was never a man faster than me with a gun. I drew and killed him with one shot. Then I legged it, I don’t mind telling you. Dropped into the alley and thought to get away in the dark. I guess my medicine was bad that night. As I came out into the vacant lot at the end of the alley, I ran into a woman and a boy. In bright moonlight. They saw me plain as day.’

  ‘This much,’ said Ana in Spanish, ‘is the truth I am sure.’

  ‘Don’t interrupt me when I have the flow of it,’ said the man primly. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes, the woman and child. I was always one to think and make decisions quickly. Without hesitation or sentimentality, I shot them both dead. That should have been the end of it. But, no, the forces of law and order had to pry and interfere so that there was further threat to life and limb.’

  He has to be insane, McAllister thought, nobody in his right mind would talk this way.

  As if his prisoner could read his mind, he said: ‘You have probably, at this stage, decided that I am out of my mind. But I do assure you that you would be hard put to prove it, Sheriff. The fact is that I have a degree of sanity above normal. It is equal to my intelligence. I have seen beyond common morality.’

  McAllister searched the man’s face for signs of madness, but there was none. His prisoner looked as sane as him or the girl. McAllister felt a chill run down his spine.

  He turned to the girl.

  ‘I reckon there was a time when you believed this crap,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘To some degree. But most of what he says is lies. Except for what happened at Black Horse. That I can believe. I have learned that he has no more feeling than stone.’

  McAllister rose briskly—‘All right, let’s hit the trail.’

  His prisoner looked up at him brightly. ‘Now, I give you fair warning, McAllister. Ana is now fairly back on my side of the fence. She will deny it, but I know that she will do all she can to help me. With her aid, I shall escape. If she does it well and quickly, I shall allow you to live. If she delays and is reluctant, I shall kill you.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten something?’ said McAllister.

  ‘It seldom happens,’ said the man, ‘but it’s possible. What have I forgotten?’

  ‘You have forgotten to tell Ana that she’s outlived her usefulness when she gets you free and you’ll kill her.’

  For the first time, the fellow looked taken aback.

  He gave them quick sly glances from under his lowered lids. He smiled like a fox.

  ‘I see your game, McAllister. It’s plain. You’re trying to turn her against me. You know it isn’t true. As she does, because she knows full well that she is the only human being I have ever loved.’

  Ana spat on the ground at his feet.

  ‘I hate you,’ she said.

  The prisoner showed his yellow teeth in a kind of happy malevolence. ‘You may fool McAllister, but you don’t fool me.’

  The rest of the day stayed clear. They made their way through in the mountains in brilliant sunshine. Towards the end of the afternoon, they began a slow descent. McAllister had ordered the prisoner into the saddle again so that he could increase the pace. His impatience to reach Black Horse had increased almost to the point of being alarming. Even the fact that the man worried him worried him. He faced the truth that the man came near to having him spooked. In his mind he was aware that he had begun to exaggerate the man’s prowess to himself. Several times that day he found himself checking the guns he bore and the key to the handcuffs which reposed in his jacket pocket. At the back of his mind was the suspicion that somehow the fellow would manage to get his hands on that key.

  When they camped, he hesitated to leave the camp site to put the animals out on grass, yet he did not want to show his worry by giving the chore to the girl. Instead, he left the prisoner standing, the rope still around his neck thrown over the bough of a tree and secured below.

  ‘Ana,’ he said, ‘don’t speak with him. Don’t go near him.’

  She was kneeling, emptying a gunnysack of gear and utensils. She looked around at him with wonderment on her face without saying a word, but the look she gave him was like an accusation. It shamed him and he grew a little mad.

  ‘Still you don’t trust me.’

  ‘For God’s sake—you pointed the gun at me.
Don’t try to tell me you weren’t close to pulling the trigger.’

  She stood up quickly and caught him by the arms. She was very close and he nearly instinctively put his arms around her, she looked so lost and vulnerable.

  ‘Just remember,’ she said passionately, ‘that it was I who told you to kill him. That is the only way you will stop him escaping and killing us both. I can see it in his eyes. Can’t you see—it is ambition? You caught him and he thought he could never be caught. If he doesn’t do it, he’s lost his pride.’

  He touched her cheek gently with his fingers.

  ‘Rest easy,’ he said. ‘We’ll come through this all right. My word on it.’ But he had never felt less confident in his life.

  The prisoner from thirty yards away called out mockingly: ‘Take your hands off my wife, you lecherous son-of-a-bitch. The world’s going to hear how the upright sheriff molested her against her will.’

  McAllister headed for the horses, saying over his shoulder: ‘Stay away from him.’

  When he had staked the animals on grass, he walked back to camp and found the girl building a fire. He unhitched the rope and lashed the prisoner to the bole of the tree. The man was silent. He looked completely bushed and that gave McAllister some satisfaction.

  They ate a silent meal. Afterwards, while the girl washed the dishes in the nearby creek, McAllister strolled around the camp area, finding good spots where he could doze during the night. Once when he passed the prisoner he saw that he was asleep. He woke him with a not too gentle kick in the ribs. When he walked over to the fire he could not prevent himself from slipping a hand into the jacket pocket containing the key to the handcuffs, just to make sure it was still there. He was of half a mind to throw it away. When the girl returned, she told him: ‘He’s asleep.’ McAllister went over and woke him. The man said: ‘You know this is torture, don’t you? It’s against all the rules of civilized society.’

  Sixteen

  McAllister woke with a start.

  He knew that tiredness had at last caught up with him and that he had been in a deeper sleep than he intended. The realization sent a shot of alarm through him. At once he flipped his blanket aside and rose to one knee with the Henry held ready.

  The moon was up, riding bright and cold in a serene sky. He could see the prisoner flat on the ground at the base of the tree. The fire had burned low. A great silence seemed to stretch out over the land. For once there was no wilderness sound except for the soft sighing of the wind.

  He looked to one side of the fire and saw the dark form of the girl.

  He rose and backed into the trees behind him, then slowly turned and looked cautiously all around him. A twig cracked faintly to his left and he dropped flat, going down silent as an Indian.

  A moment later he saw something moving stealthily through the trees, flecked by moonlight and shadow. He knew that it was the girl. He waited. She softly circled him in the trees, came to the edge of them not a dozen paces from him and seemed to be staring at the still form of the prisoner.

  Her next move surprised him. He had expected her to go towards the prisoner, but she crept silently instead towards the spot which he, McAllister, had occupied.

  His blood went cold. His first thought was that she intended to surprise him in his sleep. As she neared his sleeping place, so he quietly rose and stepped forward.

  ‘Ana.’

  She turned to face him with the sudden indrawn breath of a frightened woman.

  ‘My God,’ she said, ‘you scared me half out of my life.’

  He saw with an immense relief that both her hands were empty. He had expected a rock to crack his head.

  Observing his own reactions coldly, he saw how he was at once in reluctant sympathy with her. He knew as sure as God made little apples that she was tied in with this man, but just the same … There was something here that he did not know and that unknown might be her saving grace.

  ‘If you’ve got something to tell me,’ he said. ‘Say it.’

  ‘I’ve come to beg something of you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘First, I’ll give you the truth.’ She stood clear of him as though she did not want to influence him by her closeness. ‘That man is not my husband. He promised it, but it never happened. Over a year ago I ran away from home with a Yankee trader named Tom Leason. We went to San Francisco. We intended to marry. I think he was sincere in his intentions. Then we met this man. I won’t try to fool you. I at once came under his influence. He can be very charming when he wants. I lost my head over him completely. Very quickly I came to believe as he did that the whole world was our oyster and all we had to do was crack it open and take what we wanted. Maybe you don’t believe a woman can be influenced by a man this way.’

  ‘I believe it,’ said McAllister. He’d seen it happen.

  ‘I thought he was just a gambler and a confidence trickster. Most of what we did seemed a lot of fun. Then one night in a gaming house we met trouble. It was in a private room and he was playing cards with another man. They quarreled and fought. During the fight one of them dropped a gun. I grabbed it and this man here shouted for me to kill his opponent. I did that. Somehow we escaped from the place.’

  ‘And from then on,’ McAllister said, ‘you were a murderer and this fellow was protecting you.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But that isn’t all you have to tell me.’

  ‘No. All I want to tell you—and this is the most difficult part—is that anything I felt for him is dead now. I hate him. I’m begging you to get me away from him.’

  ‘I gave you the chance back there with the Hollys.’

  ‘I know that. But it’s now that I’m begging you. Leave him here. Let’s just ride. Anything to get away from him, McAllister.’ Now she came close and touched him, holding his arms tightly, craning her neck back so that she could look beseechingly into his face. He had the feeling that part of what she said was sincere. The trouble was that he did not know which part.

  He said firmly: The only way you’re going to get away from him, Ana, is for you to turn back or go on ahead. I wouldn’t feel too happy about you going either way. This could be bad country for a woman on her own. Right now I have my mind on one thing. The reason why I left town in the first place. This man has to be taken in for trial and I aim to do it.’

  She released him and walked away a couple of paces, her head low. The back of her neck looked pale and defenseless in the moonlight.

  ‘I don’t think you feel one scrap of love for me,’ she said.

  ‘You read it any way you like. It don’t alter the fact that I’m taking this man in.’

  She turned and faced him. ‘You’ll regret it,’ she said and he recognized it as a real threat.

  ‘Ana,’ he told her, ‘if you come between me and my prisoner, it could go hard for you. It don’t make any difference you being a woman. I’m giving the law the chance to hang him and anybody who gets in the way takes the consequences.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘that you and your damned duty come before anything.’

  ‘If you know that, you know everything you have to know.’

  She walked away from him out into the open moonlight and turned towards the prisoner at the foot of his tree. She kicked him. ‘Wake up. Why should you sleep when we don’t.’ The man cursed her. She turned and went back to her blankets.

  McAllister stepped back into the moon-shadow beneath the trees and slipped his hand once more into his coat pocket. At first he could not believe it. His searching fingers groped further. Was he mistaken on the pocket? He searched in his other pocket and found nothing. Could he have dropped it?

  All such questions were wasted. The girl had it. He knew it.

  Seventeen

  It was dawn.

  The girl was awake. She had washed at the creek, folded and rolled her blankets ready to be lashed behind her saddle. She had cooked breakfast. But McAllister had made no move to hit the trail, had not even brought the hor
ses in for saddling.

  McAllister ate his breakfast and laid his plate down on the ground. ‘Ana, I’m going to tell you something just the once. You do like I say. Hear?’ She nodded. He rose to his feet. ‘You don’t move away from this fire. Not an inch. My neck’s in the balance here and you being you and a woman don’t make a damn’s worth of difference. I hope you believe that.’

  Her eyes were angry. Impatiently, she said: ‘I believe it. For God’s sake don’t go on about it.’

  ‘It’s just I’d hate to shoot a woman. I want you to know if you don’t do like I say you’ll be hurt. I don’t have any choice.’

  Her expression changed then, as she realized that he was threatening her and meant it. She looked surprised that she could believe him capable of such a thing. Maybe she showed some respect too.

  He walked over to the prisoner who lay on his back, raised up on his elbows, watching him. He looked neither cunning nor cocky now; maybe a little apprehensive. He knew what stage the game had reached and knew that his life could be very precariously balanced now. He watched McAllister draw the Remington revolver from its scabbard. It pointed at his belly. For the moment he may have suspected that McAllister was going to carry out the girl’s advice and kill him. He licked his dry lips.

  McAllister said in an even voice: ‘Hold out your hands in front of you.’ He leaned forward and cocked the gun so that if the man struck out at him the weapon would go off instantly. The nearness of the cocked gun increased the man’s nervousness.

  ‘Get that goddam gun away from me,’ he said softly.

  ‘Hold your hands out.’

  The man obeyed. McAllister peered closely at the irons. Not satisfied, he carefully felt and tried them with his left hand. All the time, the man did not take his eyes from the gun. Finally McAllister stepped back. The handcuffs were still locked and they had not been tampered with.