McAllister 3

by Matt Chisholm

  McAllister picked up the fallen gun and tossed it off into the brush.

  He said just three words: “Go home, Jolly.”

  Then he climbed the gully side and disappeared.

  Jolly sat up. He looked and felt miserable.

  “The bastard,” he said. “Aw, the bastard.”

  Meanwhile the tall man, Larkin, was on the move. He came down from his position on high ground and he was being very careful about what he did. He did not know exactly what had happened, but he knew that all was not well with his two partners. The attempt to hurrah this shirttail rancher had gone sour before it started. It didn’t seem possible, but there it was. Larkin had been raised to face facts. The chances were that he was now alone in the game with this man who had a formidable reputation. The realization did not throw Larkin, but it made him very cautious indeed.

  He reached Jolly without incident, which surprised him a little. Jolly was now on his feet and he looked terrible.

  “Give me your gun, Larkin,” he said. “I’m goin’ to gut-shoot this son-of-a-bitch. I’m—”

  “What happened?” Larkin wanted to know. “What happened to your gun?” The only reply he received was a string of obscenities. When he asked where McAllister was, he received only more foul words. So he provided the information: “I saw Smollet’s horse run off without a saddle.”

  “Christ,” cried Jolly in a fury of despair, “the bastard’s made monkeys out of us. He’s out there someplace, laughin’.”

  “I daresay,” said Larkin. “Well, we’ll have to make him laugh the other side of his face.”

  He climbed the gully side and disappeared. Jolly started looking for his gun. He felt a little like weeping.

  Larkin was looking for McAllister, experiencing the uneasy feeling that McAllister was likely to find him first. Which was something he did not want to happen. As he circled the house, Smollet came running from the creek, still dripping its waters.

  “He dumped me in the crick,” he yelled. “I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch.”

  Larkin yelled for him to stay clear, he’d settle McAllister’s hash. He had circled the cabin without anything happening. So the next place to look was inside. He doubted the man was in there or he would have shot at Larkin before this. Just the same, he had to make sure. He approached cautiously, ready for a quick shot, gun cocked ready in his hand. He kicked the door open wide and stepped inside.

  Nothing happened. Reassured, he lowered his gun. The place was small and there was nowhere a man could hide.

  Or was there?

  He heard a faint whisper of sound and whirled. Something very hard indeed struck him about one inch above his right ear. He gallantly tried to stay on his feet, but no gallantry in the world can overcome the effect of a blow from a large piece of firewood across the skull. Larkin dropped his gun to the floor and shortly joined it.

  He recovered a few minutes later. It was just as well that he did or he would most likely have drowned, for McAllister had dumped him in the creek.

  Smollet was walking around rather aimlessly begging non-existent bystanders for a gun so he could kill the son-of-a-bitch. Jolly watched McAllister as he walked up from the creek. He was wondering how he could get near enough to the man to do him some grievous physical damage without getting himself shot. He had an enormous respect for that old Remington hanging at McAllister’s hip.

  Ten minutes later, they were all in the saddle, looking the murder they were unable, at that moment, to perpetrate.

  “All right, McAllister,” Jolly said, “you got yourself a good laugh. Make the most of it because we’re goin’ to come in here an’ we’re goin’ to burn this goddam cabin over your head. If you stick around, we’ll have you inside it while it burns.”

  McAllister said: “If I see you back here, Jolly, you’re dead. An’ that goes for you, Larkin, and you, Smollet.” Neither man said a word. They just looked baleful. “Tell Tallin not to send boys to do a man’s job next time.”

  They turned their horses and rode away. When they reached the corner of the starve-out, Jolly turned in the saddle to bellow obscenities at him. He did not pay them much heed. It was time he ate a good breakfast. The thought of sizzling bacon made his stomach juices run riot.

  Three

  Tallin was pretty angry when he heard what had happened. He did not hear exactly what happened, of course. Men do not like to recount truly their own deep shame. All he knew was that this man McAllister had sent him a pretty insulting message. It amounted to a challenge. Tallin did not take kindly to that kind of thing. After all, McAllister was a little one-man outfit not worth a nickel. Tallin was range boss of one of the biggest personally owned ranches in the West. That made him pretty important and pretty powerful.

  He might have been angry, but he was not an over-hasty man. McAllister had to be thrown off his corner of the great range, but it did not matter if it happened today or next week. Just so long as he did not stay to establish himself firmly, just so long as his stand did not encourage others to follow his example. Once you let one shirttail outfit in, others would crowd in behind. Among such people there were always those who lived on other men’s beef. That was something that Tallin could never allow. If you didn’t keep your range clear of such vermin, you could expect to be robbed blind. How many big ranchers had gone out of business through being too tolerant of nesters and small-time cattlemen? But if he went in there loaded for bear and McAllister made a stand, things could get unpleasant. There was not much law in this country and what there was was over fifty miles away. Just the same, he had best watch his step. Sheriff Donaldson was a pro-cattlemen sheriff, but he would not stomach too much blood being spilled. A few cow-thieves hanged by “persons unknown” could be tolerated. But, from Tallin’s experience, it was more difficult to string up a man with a reputation like McAllister’s and get away with it.

  Tallin consulted with himself on whether he should go ahead on his own account or consult with the owner, Edward C. Larned. He decided that McAllister might be formidable, but he was after all only one man. If Si Tallin couldn’t settle one man’s hash with all the resources he had at his command, nobody could. Already he had the uprooting of twenty or so nester families to his credit. It never took much to make them move. There were not many who preferred to die rather than give up their land. In fact, so far, there had been none. A threat or two with some show of strength was enough. If that did not work, a burned barn worked miracles.

  A half-dozen good men with him should do the job. Even then, he thought he was maybe using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. A week or so later he would have revised that opinion.

  Anyway, he slept on it, as they say. In the clear light of the following morning, it still looked like a good idea to catch McAllister with his pants down and scare the living hell out of him. Tallin did not doubt that McAllister would scare. If he did not the first time, he would the second. All men scared soon or late. You just had to find out what scared them.

  He’d start the operation with something simple. Like fire. If a man woke in the early hours of the morning to find his home on fire around him, he was apt to spook. And Tallin would not blame him; he would do the same himself. He sat in his office and ran his mind’s eye down his nominal roll. In an outfit this size, you picked men in the first place for two reasons. Some you picked because they were damn good cowhands. Others you picked because they were damn good cowhands plus a few extra talents. When you were fighting a perpetual war, it was those extra talents which paid off.

  He’d take along Fred Jolly. He’d made a real mess over McAllister in the first place and if he had not done so, the existing situation would not have arisen, but that did not mean he was a poor hand. Under the eyes of a smart boss, Jolly was a useful man. He had grit and he obeyed orders.

  He’d take along Jolly’s lugubrious partner, Slim Larkin, who was the best hand with a gun on the place. The coolest man ever. Other names were looked at and rejected. Finally, Tallin had six men. H
e told them to rest up all day, he had work for them that night. He did not say what he intended, but there was not a man among them who did not have an idea what was afoot. Tallin had used them on numerous occasions before.

  They were a little surprised, therefore, when, as night approached, Tallin gave them their detailed orders. Sid Grimes, the little gun-handler from the Indian Territory, thought it was a lot of fuss to make over one man. “Hell, boss,” he said, “I could settle this two-handed without no sweat.”

  Slim Larkin said: “I saw this feller at work once—”

  “You mean he’s fast?”

  “Wa-al, it ain’t ezackly that. It’s just he’s—”

  “You mean he’s tough?”

  “Not so much tough as, aw, hell, he’s—”

  “What the hell is he then?”

  Larkin searched carefully for the phrase he wanted: “Maybe you could say he’s just an all-around Indian.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Wa-al, did you ever meet up with one of them fellers that don’t know when he’s beat, that just keep on a-comin’?”

  “No, I never. Is there such a feller?”

  “You’ll know there is when you meet up with this McAllister.”

  The six men set out from the Bar Twenty headquarters looking more like an army patrol than a bunch of cowboys about to unsettle a small-timer. They were all well mounted. The Bar Twenty always prided itself on its high standard of mounts for the men. Every man carried a revolver strapped on and a good supply of powder, shot and caps. They also carried carbines on their saddles. For these, they carried enough paper cartridges to fight a war with. The fact that they had enough ammunition and supplies for a week meant that they had the services of a good pack-mule. Their roustabout and general factotum was a boy called Ketch who generally worked on horses, guarding manadas and suchlike. One day, so Tallin reckoned, he would make a good cowhand. This boy had the mule and supplies under his care.

  Tallin said: “We set it up under cover of dark. You all know what to do. Brushwood and coal oil. Work quiet — I don’t want McAllister awake till dawn. If he runs, I want him running in daylight. Every man in position so that when he runs, we can’t miss him. It would be best if we took him alive. It ain’t come to killin’ time yet. We’ll charge him with beef-stealin’. We have a cowhide marked with the Bar Twenty brand, as usual.”

  Jolly asked: “Does Mr. Larned know about this, boss?”

  “He’ll hear all about it when it’s done. You don’t trouble Mr. Larned with this kind of trifle.”

  They rode out as full dark dropped over the high prairie country. It was a perfect night for riding. The wind had dropped, the stars and moon came out. Everybody there felt good. Somebody began a song about a lonesome cowboy meeting a pretty girl. They liked it; it was full of very proper sentiment.

  They rode due north-east, climbing slowly out of the rich and fertile valley to the saddle in the hills which was known simply as the Pass. The valley on the far side of the pass was far more shallow than this one, and wilder. Yet there was good grass there and Larned liked it for its good summer graze. It did not belong to anybody, unless you claimed morally that it belonged to the Indians and legally to the federal government of the United States. It was free range for anybody who cared (or was strong enough) to use it. Larned was strong enough so he used it.

  At the far end of this valley slicing into the steep wall to the north were the breaks. McAllister had built his small house on the edge of these breaks. Behind him, in the heart of the hills themselves on range which had so far been ignored by the big ranchers, were the small ranchers and some dirt farmers, known locally as grangers. Numerically, they might look the stronger; politically, they were the weaker. The cattlemen and their associations had the territorial government mostly in their pockets, many of the judges and all the county lawmen. Or so it seemed. As we go along in this story, you will perceive that all is not what it seems in this vale of tears. Which is, perhaps, just as well.

  This is as good a place as any to take a closer look at this man Tallin. He was a man who had done well. In spite of starting out in east Texas as the youngest of twelve in a poor white family, he was now considered to be a man of some education and a bright future. Occasionally, he was seen to read a book—which at once marked him as something of a professor among mostly untutored cowhands. They were impressed by the steel-rimmed spectacles he donned when he read. His eyes were becoming accustomed to long distances. He was, in fact, just past the age of thirty, though he still had a youthful and vigorous air about him. He was physically fit, mentally and physically hard and he had, in his own view, climbed almost to the top of his particular heap. His next step upwards in this world of beef was to own cows: cows, of course, being in the West the generic term for all bovine stock.

  In appearance, he was fair-haired, possessed rugged yet pleasing features and looked at the world from honest and clear grey eyes. He had, as somebody once rightly remarked, a whole lot going for him. To have the guardianship of the stock of such a big outfit at this age was a great accomplishment, no denying it. But it had not only been intelligence and toughness which had helped him to his present height; it had been something which, as the saying had it, money could not buy. This was loyalty. Always at a premium in any walk of life. He had given his word to serve Edward C. Larned and that was what he did. He would continue to do it till somebody killed him for doing it or Mr. Larned fired him. In short, he was within his own lights and those of many of his kind, an honest man. Nesters, squatters, Indians and small-time cattlemen would not have agreed with this assessment. Except for the Indians, they would have summed him up tersely as a son-of-a-bitch.

  As this Tallin rode easily through the night with his loins girded for battle, he was a fairly contented man. The chore ahead of him might prove tricky — he had heard of this man McAllister and knew that he was not a pushover — but he did not for one moment consider the possibility that he could not handle him. He did not, so far, think that he had “shooting trouble” on his hands. This moving on of transients, as he called them, had never in the past got to that stage. Sure, he’d hung a few professional cow-thieves. However, that did not trouble his conscience. The very men he had hung had expected such a fate if they were caught. If he had reprieved them, they would have marked him down as soft and promptly taken advantage of his softness. If they had been in his boots, they would have done what he did.

  There was maybe just one small smudge on Tallin’s horizon. This bore the name of Helena. She was twenty years old and, surprising for this country, still unmarried. Most women would have been married and borne their first child or two by that age. Even homely schoolmarms were up, married and pregnant within two years of coming here to bring enlightenment to the young.

  If you were to learn further that this Helena also bore the name of Larned, no doubt you would put two and two together and come up with something like thirty-six. If you did, you would be right. Si Tallin was head-over-heels crazy for the much sought-after young woman. He wanted her passionately and also coldly, in bed, out of bed, in wedlock and out of it, however and whichever way he could get her. This brought his two ambitions into conflict. If he kept his job and carried Helena off into the sunset, he’d be fired and would not keep his job, if you follow me. If he rejected Helena, he could keep his job and be the most unfulfilled and randiest man in all the great north-west. He cared for neither prospect very much, Helena without the job or the job without Helena.

  Like many men before him he had really decided in his mind to both have his cake and to eat it. In other words he waited for his smart brain to come up with an idea that would enable him to have both.

  There was only one snag in this whole affair, so far as he could see, and that was the fact that Helena herself had never really actually agreed that she had the slightest wish to become his one and only. Well, maybe she’d fluttered her eyelids at him a little—but she did that to anything in
pants that spoke with a voice below alto. She was aware of his being around, but it would hardly be true to say that she had not looked at another man since first meeting him. So far as Si could see it, what he had to do was: one, make Helena crazy about him; two, make her old man wish to have Si Tallin as a son-in-law. One could be evil-minded enough to suspect that Tallin found the girl’s fortune almost as desirable as the girl. Riches, be assured, have always had sexual connotations.

  ~*~

  The men reached the saddle and looked down on Black Horse Valley in the moonlight and it looked good. They could see the pale line of the creek cutting cleanly across country till it disappeared among the dark trees through which they could see the glitter of the pale lake. Maybe, thought Tallin, this would not be a bad place to start out with his own brand. After his years of loyal service, who knew but that Larned would show some generosity and permit him to take up range rights on what was after all public domain. Rich men, however, are odd creatures and generally are not inclined to be generous in the region of their own profits.

  They started down into the valley to the crunch-crunch of the horses’ hooves on the stony ground and the faint music of the bridle-chains. The singer was silent now. All was tranquility. It was enough to get to a man. How much better, thought Tallin, to be in the moonlight with Helena Larned rather than this hard bunch of hairy-assed cowboys. He was still thinking of the girl when they came down to the flat and pushed forward through the lush, stirrup-high grass. At the lake, they watered the horses. He allowed the men a smoke. He kept strict discipline among the crew. No drinking or gambling in the bunk-house. No man the worse for wear on duty after a night in town. No foul language. If there were any complaints, he never heard them. The grub was good, the pay was better. The Bar Twenty looked after its men and they knew it. It was like belonging to a strong and loyal family.

  The men were cheerful; they joked a little among themselves. They joshed Jolly and Larkin about their not being able to get the job done without help. The two men took it in good part. Tallin liked to hear the men joke. It was a good sign.