Blood on Mcallister

by Matt Chisholm

  Night came. The saloon filled, men came to buy McAllister a drink, McAllister bought them a drink, the whole world was a comrade. McAllister spared a thought for Gage and his virtuous teetotal life, felt pity and faded the picture out with another drink. The night roistered on and finally Frank decided he’d best go see if the town was behaving itself while he could still stand. McAllister thought that bed wouldn’t be a bad idea. Frank said he’d find him the best hotel in town, nothing was too good for his old friend Remington McAllister, but first he must hand over his gun. Sure, McAllister said, who needed a gun in a town policed by his friend Frank Deblon. Solemnly, the battered old Remington forty-four with the worn cedar butt was handed to the bar-keep and they wandered out of the Bull’s Head into the night.

  Frank led him to the Bradbury House on Lincoln after they had picked up McAllister’s gear at the livery and the proprietor gave McAllister the best room in the house overlooking the street. The big man was feeling pretty sleepy by this time and Frank heaved off his boots for him as he lay on the bed. He was snoring by the time Frank blew out the light and tiptoed from the room as silently as a raging buffalo bull.

  Three

  McAllister woke with a start and knew in that first instant of wakefulness that he was still drunk. That was warning enough and mentally he fought to pull himself together. He listened with drunken care. He was no longer alone in the room. He could hear a man breathing.

  Carefully, he slid his hand under the pillow and found nothing. He remembered handing his gun in at the Bull’s Head and cursed silently.

  A match scratched.

  McAllister froze and almost closed his eyes so that he could watch the room through his lashes.

  The match flame showed him a face.

  Harry Shultz.

  The man’s eyes were on him, watchful, fearful and mean at the same time. He raised the lucifer above his head, spotted the lamp and moved toward it. The match went out. Shultz swore and there came the faint sound of him searching for another. He found one and struck it, lit the lamp and straightway came to the side of the bed.

  His right hand slid away out of McAllister’s vision and a second later came into view again, this time with gleaming metal in his grip. A knife.

  The left hand came forward, touched McAllister’s pants’ pocket and came out with a bundle of notes in it.

  McAllister brought his clenched fist up and hit him in the side of the face with all his strength.

  Shultz fell across the bed, giving out a faint cry of alarm. McAllister drew back his leg to his chest and straightend it violently, kicking the man clear of the bed and across the room. He seemed to run backward with his legs going like a humming bird’s wings till he hit the wall so hard that the whole building shook.

  McAllister came off the bed fast, as near to sober as didn’t matter now.

  Crouched back against the wall, the squat and powerful Shultz gazed at McAllister out of shocked and wild eyes, the knife was held out point forward in front of his body. He looked as if he could use it.

  McAllister reached back for his own knife and drew it. It was a bowie given to him by his old man, Chad McAllister, and the old man had given a few lessons along with it.

  McAllister said: ‘I’m goin’ to have your guts for galluses, Shultz.’

  The man’s thick lips drew back in a brief and rather horrible smile from yellow teeth. He took a pace forward and flicked his knife expertly from his right to his left hand.

  McAllister heard a faint sound behind him.

  He tried to move to the right so that he would have the two men on either side of him, but something hard struck him on the back of his head. He dropped to one knee and made an ineffectual swipe at Shultz with his knife as the man jumped in. Shultz evaded the blow and lunged forward with his own weapon. The expression on his face showed that he enjoyed doing it. The man behind McAllister struck again and this time the big man stretched out on the floor.

  ‘Quick,’ Shultz said, ‘get the money and let’s get outa here. We don’t want to tangle with Deblon.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘He will be.’

  They moved fast, like shadows in the dim lamplight and within minutes they were out of the door, hurrying to the rear exit of the hotel as a man’s heavy steps sounded on the front stairs.

  McAllister groaned.

  A man said: ‘Mr. McAllister, are you all right?’

  McAllister snarled indistinctly: ‘Do I look all right to you?

  He opened his eyes and stared into the worried ones of the hotel proprietor.

  ‘I sent for the marshal. Mr. Deblon’ll be here any minute,’ the man said. He looked like an anxious comic dog with his drooping mustache and question mark of a cowlick.

  The big man got to his feet, looked for a moment as if he would fall, but managed to stay on his feet and staggered to the bed. He sat on the edge and held his head.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘it feels like my skull was busted.’

  The proprietor quavered: ‘You’re blood all over, Mr. McAllister. Your face, your head, your front, just all over, Mr. McAllister. Oh, my Gosh, that this should happen in my place. I never had anything like this happen before. I’ve always run the most…’

  McAllister stared at him and looked terrible. He put a hand down to his rib cage and his fingers came away covered with blood.

  ‘If you want to do somethin’ useful,’ he said, ‘git a clean shirt outa my saddlebag.’

  ‘Sure, sure, anything you say.’

  The man bustled, glad to be able to busy himself.

  The door was flung open and a man said: ‘What happened? Did somebody git hurt?’

  McAllister said coldly: ‘Somebody’ll git hurt if you don’t get the hell outa here and close the door when you do it.’

  The man closed the door and tramped away, his feelings suffering.

  McAllister got to his feet, picked up the jug of water on the stand, bent his head over the basin and emptied the jug over his head. Then he dried his hair on the towel and groaned a couple of times as he did it. It hurt like hell. His hair plastered to his forehead and tangled, he pulled off his shirt and took a look at his ribs. The left-hand side of the rib-cage was covered with blood that seeped from a wound that ran from the top of his belly to below his armpit. The ribs had saved his life.

  The proprietor came with the shirt and stopped in awe at the sight of the wound. He looked like he’d faint, but his eyes switched to the other marks on McAllister’s body. There was a puckered old bullet wound on the left shoulder, a deep and recent knife wound down the chest and the mark of a terrible burn. He wasn’t to know that the man in front of him had been tortured by the Cheyenne during the winter.

  Frank Deblon tramped into the room. He was as sober as McAllister by now and that was saying something. He took one look at his friend and reached a flat flask of whiskey from a hip pocket.

  ‘You’ll need this,’ he said.

  McAllister smiled.

  ‘A friend indeed,’ he said. He drank well and handed the bottle back. Frank drank. He took a sideways look at the hotel man and shoved the bottle at him saying: ‘You look as if you need this more’n we do, friend.’ The man accepted it gratefully.

  McAllister took the towel, twisted it into a tight roll and laid it along the fresh knife wound.

  ‘I’ll lie down,’ he said, ‘till the bleedin’ stops.’ ‘You’ll have a doctor,’ Frank said.

  ‘Hell, no. No call——’

  ‘You’ll have a doctor an’ like it. Christ, he’ll need a coupla yards of gut to sew that lot up. Charlie, go fetch the doc an’ if he ain’t sober, throw him in the horse-trough.’

  The proprietor high-tailed out of there faster than a jack-rabbit.

  Frank said: ‘You see who did this, Rem?’

  McAllister looked him straight in the eye and said: ‘Never saw him before in my life, Frank.’

  Ten minutes later, the doctor hurried in with his little black bag. He
was almost sober. His hands shook like the leaves of an aspen.

  McAllister gazed at them, fascinated.

  ‘You call yourself a friend,’ he said to Deblon, ‘an’ you’d let him near me with a needle? Why, I wouldn’t let him sew up a cowhide.’

  ‘Let me tell you,’ the doctor said indignantly.

  ‘Get on with it, doc,’ Frank said. ‘Don’t pay no heed. It’s just a way he has.’

  ‘I think I’m going to faint,’ the hotel man said.

  ‘Do it outside,’ Frank told him and wheeled him out of the door.

  ‘I smell whiskey,’ the doctor said. ‘Give me a finger. It’ll steady my hands.’

  Four

  Clanton lay ahead, the canelo hit an easy pace and McAllister moved to its motion. His side was as stiff as a Bostonian’s neck, but he felt pretty good. He thought about Billy Gage and his manager, Harry Shultz, and he wondered if Gage had been the man behind him during the attack in his room. He’d rather not believe that, because he had liked the man, but he knew it was possible. It was the kind of thing life produced to bewilder a man. Well, Clanton lay ahead and he might find out there.

  When he was a day out of Abbotsville, going along gently enjoying the spring, he came on cattle and started to idly note their brands. Most of them were marked with a Double B and seemed to be eastern barnyard stock crossed lightly with Texas longhorn. They carried more beef than the wild Texas cattle and, being a good deal tamer, merely stood and watched McAllister bovinely as he passed. To camp, he found a sheltered spot, for a cool wind had blown up that would freshen as the night progressed. There was no timber in evidence nor water so he made a dry camp. There were buffalo chips in plenty, but he didn’t bother to build a fire, but ate the contents of a tin of tomatoes which rode easily on the stomach that had been punished a little with the drink he had taken on board at Abbotsville. He rolled in his blankets with the canelo munching the good grass, thought a little of the welcome he would get from his friend Jim Rigby and his little girl Pat and fell asleep well content.

  He awoke with the dawn, forewent breakfast, except for a sip of water from his canteen, smoked a pipe of tobacco as he rode and headed on north-west. Toward noon, he came in sight of a house. It wasn’t much of a place as houses go but then nobody had been in the ranching business in this part of the country long enough to build well yet. Timber had been used to construct two corrals near the place and there was a bunkhouse. McAllister saw it as the headquarters of a ranch with a good hands riding for it. It had not been there when he had come this way the previous spring. Jim Rigby would tell him about the owner. He toyed with the idea of going down and cadging a meal, for his belly was starting to rumble ominously, but he never got around to making up his mind. Three riders headed toward him from the building and they came at a pace that showed they were men in an almighty hurry. He reined in on the ridgetop and awaited them.

  Being the horseman he was, the first thing he noticed was that their horses were bigger than the animals to which he was accustomed down in Texas. That would be the good northern feed; there was something in the minerals in the soil and the grass that put height and weight on a horse. The animals had plenty of run in them; they bounded with the energy and eagerness of good hounds. The men on their backs were the usual run of cowhands, mostly unshaven and garbed in rough range-clothes. They all wore guns at their hips and in their hands were carbines. This was enough to make him pay them notice. These boys constituted a war-party. He was a man who could take a hint—he wasn’t too welcome here.

  They brought their mounts to a running halt in a style that showed they were proud of their careless horsemanship.

  McAllister grinned easily. ‘Howdy,’ he said.

  The man in the center who seemed to have a cast in his right eye, said: ‘What you want here?’

  ‘Me?’ said McAllister who knew when he was out-numbered and out-gunned and decided to act accordingly. ‘Why, I don’t want a thing, mister.’

  ‘Then move on.’

  ‘That’s what I aim to do when you’re through talkin’.’

  ‘Where you headed?’

  ‘Clanton.’

  ‘What’s your business there?’

  ‘I don’t have none.’

  ‘Why you goin’ there?’

  The answer to that was that it was McAllister’s business, but those three carbines meant business and McAllister wasn’t aiming to argue with them.

  ‘I heard it was a nice place, I reckon. I’m a drifter an’ I’m driftin’. Is there a new law against it?’

  ‘Don’t get fresh, boy, or we’re liable to quieten you down a mite,’ the man told him. ‘You sure you ain’t hirin’ out to nobody around Clanton?’

  ‘Certain sure.’

  The three men looked at each other, undecided. Finally, the man in the center said: ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘McAllister.’

  A certain look came into the man’s face.

  ‘You any kin to old Chad McAllister?’

  ‘Son.’

  ‘I heard of you. Some kind of gun-hand, ain’t you?’

  ‘No kind of gun-hand.’

  ‘Maybe Mr. Brenell should ought to take a look at you.’

  One of the other men spoke. ‘Yeah, play it safe, Griff. Take him down to the old man.’

  The man Griff said: ‘We’ll do that. Get goin’, feller. Ride down to the house ahead of us and don’t try nothin’.’

  McAllister sighed, neck-reined his horse around and rode down the ridge at a walk. He heard the other men following behind. He knew he was on a cattle-baron’s land and his presence was resented. It was an old story. A little man had grown big and was enjoying his power. Yet there was more to it than that. This fellow Brenell was having trouble with his neighbours. Else why was he sensitive about gun-hands coming into the country? He began to feel a little depressed. He had come into this country for some kind of a vacation, some rest, to enjoy the home comforts of Jim Rigby’s ranch for a while and then to ride on. First there had been the unpleasant mayhem in Abbotsville and now this. Maybe, he could talk his way out of it. Maybe he couldn’t. Knowing the way his luck had of going, he thought probably he couldn’t.

  As they came down onto the flat and McAllister lifted the canelo to a brisk trot that hurt his injured side a little, a man man came out of the soddy and stared at him, shading his eyes against the bright sun with a hand. He turned to call something and a man working horses in the corral, turned and stared in the direction of the approaching riders. As McAllister came nearer, this man stepped through the corral fence and joined the first man. As he drew closer, McAllister saw that the two were undoubtedly father and son, both big, both broad in the chest and narrow in the hips. One in his mid-forties with a golden gray beard to his chest, the other the same age as McAllister, golden-haired and with a wild look about the eyes like that of an unbroken mustang. Neither wore guns, both wore range clothes. They were both arrogant and had the look of men who would ride opposition into the ground.

  ‘Who’s this?’ the older man demanded.

  ‘Found him on the west ridge, Mr. Brenell,’ the cast-eyed man said.

  The younger man said: ‘Get down and let’s have a look at you.’

  McAllister stayed still for a moment, considering. Then he stepped down from the saddle. The young man walked around him, inspecting him like he would a horse.

  ‘Just another saddlebum, dad?’

  The older man looked him over. Griff said: ‘Says he’s headed for Clanton. Says he don’t have no business there.’

  Brenell said: ‘Looks like a gun-hand to me. Tell from their eyes. Mean. This feller’s mean all right. What’s your name, boy?’

  ‘Remington McAllister.’

  The name meant something to them, McAllister could tell that at once. Their looks hardened.

  ‘A hell-raiser.’ The man stood staring at McAllister, thinking. He plainly did not know what to do next. If McAllister was a danger to him he wanted him out of
it. But he couldn’t kill a man out of hand.

  ‘You hiring your gun in Clanton?’

  ‘I never hired my gun in my life,’ McAllister told him.

  Young Brenell said: ‘Liar.’

  McAllister took his time about turning and looking at him. He smiled.

  ‘Call off your watchdogs,’ he said, ‘and say that again.’

  Young Brenell said: ‘And what would you do?’

  ‘Knock your teeth down your throat.’

  The young man looked eager, like a hound smelling blood. He turned to his father and said: ‘Let me take him, dad.’

  ‘No,’ said Brenell. ‘Boys, see him onto the Clanton road. McAllister, I see you sniffing around here again and you’ll get what you asking for. My men have guns and they’re there to protect my range. Hear?’

  ‘I hear,’ McAllister said.

  ‘Now, mount up and get outa here.’

  McAllister stepped into the saddle and said pleasantly: ‘Maybe I’ll meet you two when you don’t have three carbines backin’ you.’

  Young Brenell grinned.

  ‘The pleasure’ll be ours,’ he said.

  McAllister reined around and rode away west. He didn’t look back, but he could hear the plod-plod of the riders behind him and the soft music of their creaking leather and the chink of the bridle chains. They rode with him for five miles before they stopped. Still McAllister didn’t look back. He went straight ahead and there over the next rise he could see the smoke of the Clanton chimneys. He tracked now at an angle slightly to the north, went around the east of the town and, toward dusk, came to the softly moving waters of a full creek. This he found curved away into the west and he followed it at a steady pace. The canelo perked up a little now, knowing that there was good bait ahead. Another couple of miles and dark had settled down over the land and there ahead of him he saw the lights of a house. Soon he was drawing rein alongside the horse-corral and hailing the house.

  ‘Hello, the house.’

  He was surprised when the answer came not from the house but to his left.

  ‘Sing out your name.’