Tough to Kill

by Matt Chisholm

He glanced over his shoulders and saw that the nearest trees were a good thirty yards away. If he got to his feet and made a dash for them he could be hit a half-dozen times over that distance.

  When he glanced back at the two men, they were on their feet with their rifles ready for firing. From that raised position, they must have had a good view of him in the grass. Again, he aimed at Foley.

  It seemed that the three of them fired together.

  Something scraped his shoulder violently and it felt as if his flesh had been burned to the bone.

  Even as the sound of the shots died away and he moved out of the stench of his own smoke, he heard Foley cry out. The man stood for a moment, his rifle dropped, clutching his face.

  The other man was frozen, staring at him.

  McAllister raised to his knee, swung the Remington in an arc and triggered off a shot. Startled, the man he aimed at jumped and dropped into the cover of the grass.

  McAllister didn’t waste any time. He reared to his feet, turned and ran.

  A shot winged after him. He stumbled on rough ground and went down. Hauling himself to his feet, he ran on again and in a moment was in timber, safe behind the bole of a tree and panting to get breath into his starved lungs.

  He looked across the shelf.

  The man still on his feet tramped across to Foley who was now hidden by the terrain from McAllister’s sight. Then to McAllister’s astonishment and disappointment, Foley got to his feet. One hand still held his face and McAllister guessed that maybe his shot had grazed the man’s cheekbone. Certainly the wound wasn’t serious.

  Watching the men, he thought on what he must do now. Somehow, he had to get past the two men, reach the canyon and regain his horse.

  Foley and his companion had not moved. They seemed to be talking together. McAllister moved off through the trees. He had lost his hat back there in the grass and his shoulder was sore. He had examined the wound with his fingertips and he thought that the bullet had done no more than graze and break the skin. It was bleeding a little, but he reckoned he could attend to that later. Right now the only thing that mattered was putting distance beween himself and those rifles.

  He started out through the trees, worked his way several hundred yards to the south till he came to the finish of them and found that once more he had to cross open space to reach the lip of the shelf. From where he was now both the terrain and some brush hid both men from his sight. Even had they been able to see him, he doubted that he was within range of their rifles.

  He started out into the open. He kept a lookout for the men, but saw nothing of them. When the edge of the shelf was reached, it took him a little time to find a way down. By the time he found a track, he felt the tension rising in him. He did not think that his hitting Foley had turned the two men from their purpose. Going down the narrow track onto the flat below, he would be an easy target for a rifleman above.

  But he had to make the horse and he started down, knowing that nothing would be gained by waiting, except that, if he waited for dark, he might be safe enough under its cover. But it would have been possible then for the two men to come on him and down him with their superior firepower.

  The way down was difficult and it had to be taken slowly. If he hurried he would die of a broken neck instead of a bullet and he would have preferred not to die in any way at all. It took him every bit of fifteen minutes to reach the flat and once there, he sat down to regain his breath, for the flat to the rimrock of the canyon would have to be covered at a run. Speed would be the essence then, for he knew that if the riflemen had any sense they would be up above waiting for him to break cover. That is, if they knew the dun was hidden in the canyon. Luck might just be with him and they might not be aware of the whereabouts of the horse.

  He got his breath back, tied the Remington down in the holster with the retaining thong and got to his feet. He experienced a certain reluctance to break out into the open.

  But it was no use delaying it. He braced himself and shot out into the open.

  A dozen yards and nothing happened.

  Another dozen and the first shot came. It almost parted his hair. He knew from the sound of it that it didn’t come from above, but from the flat. Glancing to his right, he saw the two mounted men put spurs to their horses and head for him at a dead run.

  11

  He thought: I’m a dead duck.

  He measured the distance between himself and the rimrock, the distance between himself and the two mounted men and he knew that he couldn’t make it.

  He didn’t slacken pace, but ran on and prayed for a miracle, slipping the thong from the Remington and pulling the gun from leather.

  Then he thought: I’ll bet them two jaspers can’t shoot a rifle from a running horse.

  He hoped he was right, because if he wasn’t, he would be a dead duck after all.

  The men were yelling now like wild Indians, turning their horses with skill around first one piece of rough ground and then another. They were jubilant, for they thought they had him. He was running and a running man was a scared man.

  Suddenly both the men and the rimrock were twenty yards away from him.

  He stopped and turned, raising the Remington. In that blurred moment of action, he could not tell one man from the other, but fired at the first one to come in his sights. The big gun boomed.

  The result was startlingly violent. The horse screamed, drove its muzzle into the ground and somersaulted. The rider was hurled, all loose arms and legs like a rag doll, from the saddle. Almost from nervous reaction, McAllister snapped a shot at the man and missed.

  In a second, the other rider was on top of him. McAllister jumped to get out of the way, but was too late. The shoulder of the horse caught him and bowled him over with a force that drove the wind from his body. He hit the ground hard, feeling that the landing had broken every bone in his body, but at once, knowing the danger he was in, he made an attempt to get to his feet. As he did so, he sighted the rider turning his horse.

  The man’s face came into his badly focused sight. It was Foley, his features distorted with exertion and rage.

  McAllister found that he still gripped the Remington in his right hand. As the horse was jumped in his direction he fired. And he knew that he had missed. Foley’s gun blossomed dark smoke, but no lead smacked into McAllister’s flesh and then the horse was on top of him again.

  He sidestepped, grasped at Foley as the man went past, found a grip on his clothing and hung fast McAllister gripped the ground with his moccasined feet and hauled back on the man with all his weight. Foley yelled and came out of the saddle, was dumped on the ground and howled like a scalded cat.

  McAllister cocked his gun and said: “Get up.”

  The horse ran on a few paces, shied wildly from his fallen companion and ran off across the flat.

  Foley got to his feet. His face was covered in sweat and dirt. He looked at McAllister as if Apache torture would have been too good for him. He looked also as if he were choking.

  “Christ!” he said through his teeth. “McAllister luck.”

  McAllister said: “I ought to kill you for what you pulled, Foley. I seem to be takin’ an awful lot from you lately.”

  “Shoot an’ be damned,” Foley said softly. “I’ve taken more from you than I can stomach.”

  McAllister said: “A low-down bastard like you don’t have no right to have guts too.”

  A voice to McAllister’s right said: “Drop the iron, Mack, or I drop you.”

  McAllister turned his head and saw the other man standing not a dozen paces off with a gun in his hand. He felt suddenly depressed. Chasing women must have taken the smartness out of him. When he had Foley in his sights, he had clean forgotten the other man.

  “Drop me,” he said, “an’ I’ll drop Foley.”

  It was a bluff. He knew it and the man with the gun knew it.

  He said: “Not with a bullet through your head.”

  “All right,” McAllister said. “It’s
your play.” He dropped the Remington and felt a further depression hit him because he had dropped a fine clean gun into the dust.

  Foley gave a lopside smile.

  “I think I owe you one, Rem,” he said. He walked up to McAllister drew back his fist and let it go. McAllister moved his head to one side, the fist passed close by his face and he butted Foley right on the nose. The man’s face was already bloody from the bullet from McAllister’s gun that had grazed his cheek. To this was now added blood from his nose. His eyes watered and he stared at McAllister unbelievingly.

  The man with the gun said: “Stay still or I’ll drop you.”

  McAllister said: “Try again, Foley, you ain’t doin’ so good. Maybe you ought to hog-tie me before you do it.”

  Foley stooped and picked up McAllister’s gun. His own lay several yards away in the grass. He made a backhanded swipe at McAllister with the barrel and brought the foresight across his face. The big man cursed and fell back a pace. Foley grinned.

  “How’d you like that, Rem?” he asked. He turned to the other man. “Get your rope, Ransome.”

  The other man went to his fallen horse and took the rope from the saddle.

  Foley said: “There’s timber a-plenty up yonder for hangin’ a man.”

  McAllister gave him a close look and saw that he meant it. Like master like man. Markham was a hanging man and so was his straw-boss. They had pulled in the same harness for years.

  McAllister said, without thinking that he could do himself any good: “There’s law in this country now, Foley. You’d never get away with it.”

  Foley grinned unpleasantly and said. “For me, the old ways are the best ways. In the old days we hung coyotes like you that molested women.”

  Ransome flicked his rope and the noose fell over McAllister’s head and tightened around his neck. The first real flutter of fear went through him. The two men were looking at him with savage pleasure.

  Foley jerked his head toward the shelf and Ransome pulled on the rope, forcing McAllister to walk forward. A cool feminine voice spoke.

  “Drop that gun, Foley.”

  They all stopped and turned their heads. McAllister was no less surprised than the other two. Carlotta Markham stepped out of the cover of some brush with a small lady’s pistol held steadily in her right hand. As she spoke, she cocked it. Never had a sound seemed more like pure poetry in McAllister’s ears. Never had the sight of a woman been more welcome. She was flushed and her eyes were bright and she looked as resolute as a man.

  When Foley got over the initial shock, he said: “Quit foolin’, Miss Charlie, an’ put that gun away.”

  “I’m not fooling,” she said. “Drop that gun or I’ll shoot you, Foley.”

  Ransome said: “No woman could do it.”

  Carlotta made a little grimace as if she were eating and had come on a bitter taste. She squeezed the trigger and the little gun bucked in her small hand. The dirt flew up at Foley’s feet and he jumped back in alarm.

  “By God,” he said.

  “Drop it.”

  He dropped it. McAllister wrenched the rope out of Ransome’s hands, scooped up the fallen Remington and took the rope from around his neck.

  Then he stood and looked at the woman.

  “It’s your play,” he said. “Give your orders.”

  She looked a little surprised and said to Foley: “Both of you get on that horse and go home.”

  “What about my saddle?” Ransome wanted to know.

  “Come back for it some other time.”

  The man looked bitter.

  “Markham’s goin’ to have somethin’ to say about this,” Foley put in.

  Carlotta smiled.

  “Markham has something to say about everything,” she said.

  Foley hesitated for a moment, gave McAllister a baleful look and started walking across the flat to his grazing horse. Slowly Ransome followed. When he had gone a short way, Foley stopped and turned.

  “It’s the only way you could of done it, McAllister. With a woman’s help,” he said.

  McAllister didn’t say anything, but just looked at him bleakly. He and Carlotta watched the men walk to the horse, mount double and go slowly along the base of the mesa into the north. Finally, she turned to him.

  “It sticks in your craw, being saved by a woman.”

  Without a smile, he said: “Why should it? I’m always bein’ saved by women.”

  “Rem,” she said, “was I supposed to stand by and watch them hang you?”

  “You were supposed to be on your way home so those two wouldn’t talk about you. Now your name’ll be bandied about in every cow-camp in the country.”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Had it been any man but you I would have cared. But it was you.”

  McAllister knew that he should have felt good when he heard that, but he didn’t. He felt like he had been suckered in some way.

  “All right,” he said. “I owe you one life.”

  She came close to him and touched his face with a cool hand, smiling up at him.

  “That’s the life I want.”

  He softened to her a little then and said: ‘It’s just I usually make things happen. This time things happened to me. It ain’t so good for my confidence. You spoiled everything, Carlotta. Now your brother’ll know you rode out to meet me. You’ve given him a weapon against you.”

  “I don’t give a damn for my brother. At last, I’m not afraid of him any more.”

  He put an arm around her and she rested her head against his shoulder.

  “You can’t go back,” he told her softly. “You’d best come into the hills with me.” She looked up at him.

  “That would be wonderful,” she said. “But that’s not the way we’ll do it. I’m not running away from Markham. I have to beat him.”

  “It’s your decision,” he said. “Now I’ll ride aways with you.”

  “You’ll do no such thing. You’re in enough danger without riding straight for it.”

  “I respect your decision not to come into the hills with me,” he told her. “You gotta respect mine to ride along with you.”

  She didn’t argue. Night was coming down fast and she knew there could be safety in darkness. He went down into the canyon to fetch his horse, she walked across the flat to the mare. Shortly, they were riding side by side through the starlight. He rode with her till they saw the twinkling lights of Markham’s headquarters and then she halted.

  “No further,” she said. “Turn back now.”

  “You’ve got to face an awful lot of music down there.”

  “I’m familiar with every note of it.”

  “If you can’t take it, ride into town an’ take a room at the hotel. Jess Rose, the boy at the livery’ll bring word to me. I’ll come an’ fetch you.”

  She rested a hand on his.

  “It’s all right now you’re around,” she said.

  He bent from the saddle and kissed her.

  “I never thanked you for savin’ my life,” he said.

  “It was a life I wanted,” she told him and rode slowly forward into the darkness.

  McAllister stayed still until the sound of horse had died away, then he wheeled the dun and set off south at a brisk trot. He felt like singing.

  12

  Markham set down his glass.

  He heard the sound of a walking horse.

  Slowly, he walked out onto the stoop and peered into the starlight night. He heard the horse come along the edge of the corral and stop at the door of the bunkhouse.

  “Who’s that out there?” he shouted.

  “Foley.”

  He saw a dim shape get down from the horse and then another. Two men on one horse. He bristled.

  “Come here. Both of you.”

  They tramped across the yard and he knew from the way they walked that they were bitter men. They came into the light of the lamp hanging on the stoop and gazed up at him out of bleak eyes.

  “What happened?” />
  “We followed Miss Charlie like you said we should.” “You bet your sweet life you did. When I order a thing done… Where is she?”

  “Back yonder someplace near the mesa.”

  “Alone?”

  Foley stared at him in sullen silence for a moment before he said: “No, with McAllister.”

  Markham looked like a man stricken.

  “Jesus,” he said, “there’s two of you, ain’t there? You have guns, don’t you?”

  Foley’s anger flared.

  “We had a gun on him. We had a rope around his neck.”

  “Why didn’t you hang the varmint?”

  “Miss Charlie threw down on us.”

  For a moment, Markham was speechless. They didn’t know if he was mad at Carlotta or them or both.

  Finally, he said: “A woman! You let a damned woman take a man away from you?”

  “It don’t matter who holds a gun,” Ransome said, “it can still cut you down.”

  Markham turned on him like a wounded bull.

  “Don’t you sass me, boy, or I’ll knock your head off’n your shoulders.”

  Ransome went white to the mouth.

  “Well,” Foley asked, “what do we do?”

  “Do?” Markham bellowed. “You don’t do nothin’. You lost a horse, a man an’ showed you couldn’t handle a woman even. Get to your bunks an’ stay outa my sight. I’ll handle this from here on in. The only way to get anythin’ done right around here is do it your Goddam self.”

  They turned and walked away. He whirled and stalked back to his office and poured himself a stiff drink. Never had he needed one more. He sat at his desk and stared at the quirt lying on its top. He would like to use it on Carlotta. He had watched over her carefully through all those years and now she had turned out to be a common whore. By God, he would use it on her. He’d make an example of her to the other two girls. He took the bottle and the quirt and sat on the stoop waiting for her to return.

  It was late when he heard the sound of her horse. He tensed and was surprised by the emotions that flooded through him. They came so violently that, violent man though he was habitually, he was shocked by their strength. Memories of their mother and father came back to him. They had both been no good; they had been shiftless and incapable of making money. He often wondered how two such indifferent folk had managed to bring a man of his drive and character into the world. Just as he wondered how they could have managed to produce a woman as beautiful as Carlotta.