McAllister 3

by Matt Chisholm

  “Sure.”

  “I put my horse up in your barn.” The Negro smith’s eyes became wary. He did not care too much for white man’s trouble. He didn’t care much for trouble of any kind. He’d had enough in his life to serve him the rest of it.

  “Not for long, you ain’t,” he said.

  McAllister sighed. “All right, I’ll go put him someplace else.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Mose owed him and Mose knew it. But McAllister felt shabby keeping on reminding other men of their debts to him. But wasn’t that what life was all about a man paying all his debts as he went along?

  McAllister left Morrow by the same back alley, crossed a few backlots and came out on to Main. There were few people about. One or two people recognized him and turned to watch him curiously. By some means or other, the town knew what had happened at the far end of an obscure valley. One man wanted to ask questions, but McAllister pretended not to hear him and hurried on by.

  The lobby of the Grand Union Hotel was ablaze with light. Tibbs, the night man, was on duty behind the desk. It was a very plush lobby and the owner was rightly proud of it. The owner was Colonel Ralph English and he had won it in a poker game a couple of years before. McAllister’s flat-heeled boots walked on to soft floor rugs. They silenced his footsteps. Tibbs looked up and looked first astonished, then faintly alarmed.

  “Evenin’, Harold,” McAllister said.

  “Remington, I—”

  “Have you a room on the third floor?”

  Tibbs hesitated, as well he might. He knew the score and he didn’t like it. The Colonel was a formidable employer and jobs like Tibbs’ were not easy to come by.

  “I had the one to the rear before,” McAllister said. “Number thirty-four, I guess it was. That’ll do just fine.”

  Tibbs lowered his voice and leaned forward across his desk. “Remington, I heard about what happened down on Black Horse Valley. I sure did. Do you think it wise for you to take a room in the same hotel as Mr. Larned?”

  McAllister looked flabbergasted. “I’m not wholly with you, Harold. What has Mr. Larned to do with it? Some men burned me out, is all. I don’t have any idea who did it. By law, a man is innocent till proven guilty. You know that. Was I you, I should be mighty careful how I spread a yarn like that. Could get you into a lot of trouble, Harold.”

  Tibbs looked stricken. He bore the facial expression of a man who was greatly misunderstood.

  “The key, Harold. And have some hot water sent up to me right away, will you?” Tibbs handed over the key and said doubtfully: “Yes, sir.”

  McAllister took the key and walked up the stairs. He met nobody as he mounted to the third floor. He entered room thirty-four and straightaway opened the window and looked out. He overlooked the back yard of the hotel and could see the light coming from the kitchen. The kitchen window was wide and he could hear the murmur of voices from there. The yard was large enough to contain a shed with a dearborn in it and a horse. Piled in the yard were some barrels and crates. At the far end of the yard was a slatted fence about eight feet high.

  He closed the window and wondered if the news that he was in town had reached Larned yet. If it hadn’t now, it would soon. Harold would see to that. Men like Harold kept their jobs by doing the little obliging things for the strong that they did. He would get a pat on the head or a dollar for the service. McAllister wondered if he valued the pat or the dollar more highly.

  There was a tap on the door. Harold stood there with a jug of steaming hot water. McAllister thanked him. Tibbs retired without a word, his eyes wide.

  McAllister turned the key in the door and propped the single chair that was in the room under the handle. No sense in taking useless risks. The thought made McAllister smile. He went to the bed where he had thrown his bedroll and unfastened it. He took out his reata and placed it on the bed. Then he brought out his razor and soap and towel. When he had stripped off his coat and shirt he shaved with the sense of luxury invariably enjoyed by a shaving man who starts to remove his whiskers after several days. That done, he stripped to the buff and washed himself from head to foot. Every part of his body seemed to bear a scar, but he no longer noticed them. In his younger years he had been proud of his scars. There had been a good story attached to each one of them. But not anymore.

  With the towel around his waist, he wiped his boots clean with a damp rag. Then he slipped into a clean white shirt and fastened the neck with a string bow tie. When fully dressed, he did not look exactly like a real city gent, but he looked a damned sight better than he had when he came in. Last of all, he checked his gun and tried it once in and out of its holster. This he carried to the left of his waist belt, butt forward so that he could bring his right hand across in the cross-draw. Some did not approve of the cross-draw. McAllister shrugged at the thought. Every man to his own taste. He found two spare chambers for the gun and loaded them, slipping them into his jacket pocket.

  He crossed to the door, removed the chair and turned the key. As he left the room, he picked up the chair and carried it with him to the top of the stairs. He set it down in the hall to one side so that it would not be in anyone’s path. He walked down the stairs, watching his breathing, keeping it even. Calm was a man’s strongest weapon at a time like this. If he exhibited rage it must be make-believe — that was far more effective than the real thing and it did not warp your judgment.

  On the second floor, he opened the door to Larned’s office and found in it one male secretary who looked up from his scratching nib, vaguely annoyed at the interruption.

  “Yes?”

  “My mistake,” McAllister said and closed the door. He walked down the hallway and came to Larned’s sitting room. When he opened the door, he saw that there were three people in the room — a beautiful woman in her middle years, a very beautiful young woman and a middle-aged man with a red face and fierce eyes. There could be no doubt about who they were.

  Larned sat up straight in his chair and exclaimed: “What the—?” as if McAllister had committed sacrilege. The middle-aged lady looked poised. The young lady looked interested. McAllister felt behind him for the key, found it and turned it gently in the lock.

  “You,” said McAllister in his most neutral voice, “will be Edward C. Larned.” He turned to the ladies with a small but courteous bow, lifting his hat ever so slightly with his left hand. “Mrs. Larned. Miss Larned. Forgive the intrusion.” Oh, you smooth Texas man, you, thought McAllister.

  Larned was on his feet: “May I ask—?”

  “I thought it time, Larned,” McAllister said, “that we talked. Maybe you think I should deal with Tallin, but why talk with the boy when your business is with the man?”

  “Who are you? How dare you—”

  “As you know real well, my name is Remington McAllister. I am the man whose place was burned down.”

  Larned shot a glance at his wife that was not fierce at all. There was alarm in it. He said: “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss such matters, McAllister. Good grief, man, there are ladies present.”

  “Which is precisely what I intended,” said McAllister. “I want your lady wife and your charming daughter to hear every word of what passes.”

  “I absolutely forbid—”

  “You’re in no position to forbid anything.”

  “If you have come here to accuse me of having a thing to do with the burning of your place—”

  “I don’t know what gave you that idea, Larned. Why should I think you had anything to do with the burning of my place? It’s true that the men who did it were all men who are on your payroll. They must, surely, have been acting without your orders. I’m sure that Mrs. Larned here could not bring herself to believe that her respected husband would lower himself to an attempt to burn a man alive in his home.”

  Mrs. Larned looked at McAllister, calm as you please. He admired her for her coolness in the face of what must to her be something of an alarming experience. She said: “I
s what you say true, Mr. McAllister?”

  He said: “You only have my word on it, ma’am, but mostly that’s enough for folks who know me.”

  She said: “I’m inclined to think that it is enough for me also.”

  McAllister was slightly taken aback by her attitude. He looked at Larned, who seemed as if he were on the edge of throwing a fit.

  Larned now shouted, suddenly enraged beyond all control: “You will kindly confine yourself to your own female province, madam.”

  She turned to her husband with a coldness of expression that McAllister knew concealed a rage as great as his own, and he told himself with surprise: This woman hates her husband. He looked at the girl and found that she was excited by all this.

  Mary Larned was saying: “By female province, I presume you mean babies, kitchens and sewing. I assure you—”

  Edward C. bellowed: “I’ll ask you to kindly not bandy words with me in front of a stranger.”

  “Perhaps it would have been better in the first place,” said Mrs. Larned quietly and doggedly, “if you had refrained from burning down this man’s home.”

  Larned howled: “I categorically deny all connection with the incident. As God is my witness …”

  Mrs. Larned turned those cool grey eyes on McAllister again. “May I ask, sir, what your intention was in coming here?”

  McAllister said: “When the Bar Twenty crew attacked my place, I wounded three of them. A man can’t go on holdin’ back on a thing like that, ma’am. Sooner or later, somebody’s goin’ to get himself killed. Maybe we should talk before that happens. I don’t want myself killed an’ I don’t want to start killin’ men who only work for wages.”

  Helena spoke for the first time. The corners of her mouth were curling in humor. “Does that imply, Mr. McAllister, that you have no objection to shooting somebody who does not work for wages?”

  McAllister grinned. The two ladies were greatly taken with how his otherwise somber face lit up. “You could say that, ma’am.”

  Edward C. bawled: “You will stay out of this, missy. You heard the man threaten me. As God is my judge, I shall—”

  “If you have any sense at all, Edward,” Mrs. Larned snapped with an asperity that took McAllister by surprise, “you will sit down and talk with Mr. McAllister. It sounds to me that his shooting skill has earned him some kind of respect. You could have three dead men instead of three wounded ones. You should feel grateful…”

  Edward C. seemed to be unable to believe that he was hearing such talk come from his lady wife. He looked shocked, astounded and outraged. He clenched his fists and he gritted his teeth. McAllister felt sure that, if the man had been alone with his wife, he would have struck her.

  The rancher said: “I will not discuss anything with a ruffian. This man is like every other rag-tail outfit in the breaks country, he’s a cattle thief and a horse thief. It is time that the whole sorry crew was cleared from the hills, root and branch. If you do not leave this room this instant, McAllister, I shall have you arrested and thrown into jail.”

  “The county sheriff is fifty miles away.”

  “Then I shall make a citizen’s arrest.”

  “No,” said McAllister, “you’ll talk, Larned. I don’t leave this room till you an’ me have some kind of a deal.”

  “I refuse.”

  McAllister drew his Remington from leather and, while keeping the butt in his right hand, laid chamber and barrel in the palm of his left. It lay there for inspection, every gleaming old and tried ounce of it, a tool which had been used many times, butt smooth with wear, nothing fancy about it. A lethal tool in the hands of a master.

  The three of them stared at it. For the first time, now, mother and daughter showed signs of alarm. They said nothing. Larned himself stood silent also, staring at the gun. He raised his gaze from it to McAllister’s eyes and said in a kind of awed whisper: “By God, I believe you’re daring to threaten me.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” McAllister said. “You think because I’m one man that you’re safe. You were never wronger in your life. You’re far from safe. From here on in, it’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That’s the only talk you understand. You’ve burned my place, Larned. The next move is for me to burn yours. An’ you’d best believe I’ll do it.”

  It seemed that he had at last found something that could strike the man to silence. Larned was a man who found himself in a situation which had never faced him before.

  McAllister could almost hear the man’s brain working. It did not surprise him when Larned said: “You jumped the gun, McAllister. If you had talked before you shot, you would have learned that I was willing to buy you out.”

  “How much?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “Is that your method of purchase, Larned? Put the screws on and then make a man an offer? Five hundred is an insult.”

  “More money than you owned in your life. Most men would jump at it.”

  “If you made it five thousand, it wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Then there’s no sense in us talking.”

  “You pay me for the cabin and the barn, the corral. You compensate me for inconvenience and harassment. You silence me with money or I accuse you of attempted murder. Your men had every intention of burning me alive there.”

  Mary and Helena Larned drew in their breaths with horror.

  “I treat your accusations with the scorn they deserve.”

  McAllister said: “I’ll let you know the alternatives. I shall burn all your standing property. I shall cut down every one of your men who venture on to range in my use. Every man who rides beyond into the hills will do so at the risk of his life. How does that sound to you? Fair?”

  “Every hand in the county will be against you.”

  McAllister nodded. “That’s what I would expect. I’ve been here before, Larned. You’re not the first greedy cattleman I’ve faced down. You’re up against a professional. I never gave in to a pig like you in all my life. You think you can fight dirty, but, by God, you don’t know the first of it. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll wish you never drove a single cow on to public domain.”

  Larned listened to this in disbelief. Just the same he smelled a long-term unpleasantness here. He said: “I’ll make it a thousand dollars and that’s my last offer.”

  “To be truthful,” McAllister said, “you don’t have enough cash to your name to make me let you have that range, Larned. You’ve met a man who don’t surrender. Not ever. I’ll keep on a-comin’, Larned, till you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

  Mrs. Larned said in a whisper: “He means it, Edward. Listen to him.”

  Larned said: “The man’s nothing more than a saddle-tramp. I’ll see him in hell first. Get out of here, McAllister, and don’t ever dare to come into my presence or the presence of my wife and daughter again.”

  McAllister said: “Well, I ain’t beggin’, that’s for sure. So it’s war.”

  He put the Remington back into leather, touched his hat politely to the two ladies, turned the key in the lock and stepped out into the hall.

  Seven

  The secretary’s name was Howard Billington. He was the tenth son of a once-wealthy New York first family. When his old man lost all his money on fast women, slow horses and slower payers, the family did not rate worth a damn. So all the sons and daughters either went to work, were leeches on society or, in the case of some of the girls, sold their charms to the highest bidder.

  Howie had no talent at all and his only skills were those of reading and writing. Edward C. Larned felt boosted with gentlemen around him so he was glad to hire poor Howie at a pittance and board.

  Howie was madly head-over-heels in love with Helena Larned. Which was to be expected, I suppose. Helena quite liked Howie. He was not a bad-looking boy and quite appealed to her except when he forgot himself and his now humble situation and became insufferably arrogant. Howie lived to prove himself to the object of his pass
ion, looking forward to the day when he would make his fortune and claim her as his own. Meanwhile he kept a weather-eye open for any chance which would advance him in her father’s hard eye.

  When McAllister looked into the office and promptly withdrew, Howie’s keen little mind got to work. He recognized the man instantly, for he had been pointed out to Howie a month earlier on the street right here in town by Luke Divers, one of Mr. Larned’s riders. One of the toughest characters in the West, Divers called him. That made a deep impression on Howie because every other man in the country seemed tough to Howie who, though physically strong and able to take care of himself, had been gently reared and had not yet shown that hard center so necessary to a man when the chips were down.

  Howie followed this McAllister. First, through the open crack of the door, he observed the man enter the Larned’s sitting room. Directly the door closed behind McAllister, Howie went tippy-toe down the hall and crouched outside the door in the posture traditional to eavesdroppers. Within minutes, he heard not criticism of himself (which is also traditional with eavesdroppers) but something greatly to his advantage. Here was his chance to shine. Mr. Larned was being threatened. So, therefore, must be Mrs. and Miss Larned. His beloved Helena! He was not such a damn fool as to charge in there like a hero. That way, he knew, would only lead to his rapid demise. He tried the door gently, found it locked and straightaway sped along the hall, down the stairs and to Harold Tibbs, aforementioned. He told Tibbs, who sped for Colonel English, late Mississippi gambler and now proprietor of the Grand Union Hotel, Black Horse. Howie raced on for the saloon known as the Golden Girl, at the bar of which he found one Slim Larkin chasing whisky with beer and then beer with whisky till he knew not which was chasing what. Larkin, old hand that he was, was cold sober in an instant at the news, remembering at once what the man McAllister had done to his friends and comrades. He took three strides to the nearest card game and said just one name: “McAllister.” This brought two men to their feet, Ollie Paddock and Lew Hollis. Their opponents yelled for them to finish the game, but their only response to this plea was to hitch their guns into position and follow Larkin from the saloon.