McAllister 3

by Matt Chisholm

  Horace, who was three drinks ahead and therefore somewhat less sober, said: “Izzatso, Mai?”

  The sheriff inspected him a little more closely.

  “You’re drunk,” he said.

  Horace took a long time and a good deal of concentration to turn his head and stare owlishly at his superior.

  “Who me?” he said, astonished. He thought about it and added: “Yeah, you could say I am. Let’s hang one on, Mai. We ain’t been drunk in a coon’s age.” The sheriff poured himself a healthy drink and shot it down his throat.

  “Not right now, Horace,” he said. “We have work to do.” He told the whole sad story, repeating a sentence now and then because Horace was inclined to go a little deaf when in drink. When Donaldson was through, Horace said with great solemnity: “You an’ me’s in the shit an’ no goddam mistake, sher’f.”

  “Let’s go see this McAllister,” said Donaldson.

  “Let’s,” said Horace and tore his gaze reluctantly from the sauce bottle.

  They walked out on to the street and looked it slowly up and down. Horace said with drunken deliberation: “If I was McAllister, I’d of killed a few of the bastards. Burnin’ a man’s house down!” The sheriff nodded. “Don’t sentimental on me now, ole timer.”

  They made their way slowly along the street. They both hoped to hell they were not walking into gunplay.

  At the doctor’s house at the far end of Morrow, they were greeted by Bertha Robertson. Her bright smile wilted a little when their aroma of whisky reached her.

  “We would like, ma’am,” said the sheriff, “to have a word with doc.”

  “Right this minute,” she told them, “my husband is with a patient.”

  “Yeah,” said the sheriff, “we want to see the patient too. If you’ll excuse us, ma’am.” With that, the sheriff politely but firmly edged Mrs. Robertson to one side, entered the house and made his way to the doctor’s office. They both entered as the doctor dropped the ball from McAllister’s shoulder into a kidney dish. When he looked up and saw who the intruders were, to do him credit, he hardly missed a breath.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “As you can see, I’m busy at the moment. If you’ll sit down and wait, I’ll come to you in a minute.”

  Donaldson came over and stood beside the doctor looking down at the unconscious man on the table. McAllister lay face downwards with his head turned to one side. His dark face was ashen. The sheriff inspected the open wound and made a sound of shock with his lips. He ran his eyes over McAllister’s back.

  “My God,” he said, “and it ain’t the first time ole Rem’s tooken on board a load of lead.”

  “Which makes me think,” said Donaldson, “that it’s likely he’ll recover from this.”

  “Makes sense,” said the sheriff.

  “It’s a sight,” said Horace, “that sure do make a man need a drink.”

  The doctor jerked his head in the direction of a bottle standing on the top of a cupboard.

  “Help yourself,” he said. Both men did not need a second invitation.

  Having drunk, the sheriff produced a pigtail of tobacco, cut off a hunk and shoved it into his cheek in lieu of breakfast. When he had chewed a few times and was able to speak, he said: “It don’t look like our ole friend, Remington there, is a-goin’ anywhere.”

  The doctor, dressing the wound, agreed —“You could say that, Mai.”

  “If I want him where’m I likely to find him?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if the answer to that was right here,” said the doctor.

  “In that case, doc, we’ll get out of your road. I’ll be wantin’ to put a few questions to him before I’m through, I wouldn’t wonder,” said the sheriff.

  With that, the two lawmen walked from the house.

  It would seem, to a reasonable man, that is, that the McAllister-Larned affair was at a standstill until McAllister was up and about and, therefore, in a fit state to be caught, tried and hanged. Or so it looked from Edward C. Larned’s viewpoint. But then, Edward C. was not everybody. There were some who took very different views on the matter.

  One of them was Remington McAllister himself.

  As soon as the sheriff and his deputy had departed from the house, McAllister opened his eyes and, bright as a new penny, said: “If it’s all the same to you, doc, I’ll have another taste of that whisky.”

  “You’ve drunk enough at my expense already.”

  “Just put it on your bill.”

  “Which you won’t pay anyway.”

  “The New World don’t seem to have cured you of any of your bad old national characteristics, Robertson.”

  The doctor chuckled. “You’re well enough, McAllister.” He handed over the bottle. McAllister took a swig and smiled happily. The doctor finished the dressing, looking at it proudly. Nothing he liked more than to see a neat dressing. He called Bertha in to take a look at it while McAllister sat on the edge of the table.

  Bertha almost burst out laughing. “A short while ago,” she said, “you came in here more dead than alive. You must have the constitution of a horse.”

  McAllister said: “Talkin’ of horses, doc. How would you like one in lieu of payment?”

  That stopped them both. They both knew that McAllister did not run any poor stock. All his horses were worth something. The doctor said: “Good God, Rem, you don’t have to take my joshing seriously. You never did pay me, so why should you start now?”

  McAllister got down from the table. “Because this time I owe you my life.”

  Bertha said: “If my old man won’t take a horse. I will.”

  McAllister said: “Done,” and started to pull on a shirt, pulling faces as he did so. Bertha took the shirt from his hands.

  “You don’t need a shirt where you’re going.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Bed.”

  “Now see here,” said McAllister, looking nettled. “I have a—”

  “The sheriff will be back and most likely Larned and Tallin with him,” said Robertson. “When they do that you have to be in bed hovering near death.”

  McAllister studied on that a while. If he could rest up today in safety, maybe he could slip away under cover of dark tonight. He said: “You’re right. I’m far too weak to ride now.”

  Bertha said: “The rear bedroom. You know where it is. Get into bed and I’ll bring you something to eat.”

  McAllister grinned happily again —“Could you see your way to makin’ that a steak, ma’am? I’m surely starved of red meat.”

  She laughed and said that she would see what she could do. The doctor added, unsmilingly: “You’d best make that a damn big horse, Rem.”

  ~*~

  Meanwhile, as they say, the sheriff was in the midst of a somewhat painful interview with Edward C. Larned.

  “Mr. Larned,” he was saying, “I swear to you, and Horace here will be my witness, that Remington McAllister will not move from his sick-bed inside a week. He has a hole in his shoulder you could put your fist in. He’s lost so much blood that he looks a sight whiter’n the shirt on your back. Am I right, Horace?”

  Carfax said loyally: “You was never righter, sheriff, and that’s a gospel fact. Why, I never saw a man closer to death in a grave.”

  Just the same, Larned demurred. “You should officially put him under arrest.”

  “I would prefer,” said Donaldson, “if I could have a few words from the accused first, sir. With respect.”

  Tallin said: “I wouldn’t trust that McAllister if I was watching him with my own two eyes. No, sir, Mr. Larned, that a man’s as slippery as an eel.”

  Larned said: “I’m inclined to agree with you, Tallin. Have the house watched around the clock.”

  “Yessir.”

  He marched from the room and they heard his spurs clinking down the stairs.

  “Well,” said the sheriff, “if we’re through here, I’ll go about my business.” Larned looked at him coolly. “I presume
you mean you’ll resume your drinking, sheriff. I seem to have interrupted it.”

  The sheriff looked slightly aggrieved, but he said nothing. He jerked his head at Horace and together they stalked from the room with what dignity they could muster. In the lobby, they passed Larned’s wife and daughter. They touched their hats to them and the two ladies returned charming smiles. Out on the street, Horace remarked: “Can you tell me, Mai, how a cantankerous son-of-a-bitch like that Larned come to have a wife and daughter like that fine pair?”

  “No, sir,” said the sheriff, “I cannot. That remains one of the wonders of the

  They repaired to the saloon where once more the whiskies and beers were set up. The sheriff grew philosophical as men are apt to when they are drinking on empty stomachs and when one takes into consideration that strong liquor had not passed their lips for a week. He said: “Takin’ it all together, Horry, this ain’t a bad life you an’ me lead. I mean, one way an’ another. By an’ large. If you get my drift.”

  “You’re about right,” said Horace. “It’s a pretty good life till some rich bastard like ole Edward C. comes along and starts nit-picking.”

  “All ole Remington ever did was to give him his comeuppance, when all’s said an’ done.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “Say Rem was to come to his senses and get the notion that it ain’t safe for him in town. Which it ain’t. Both you an’ me know that. Say he ups and tells hisself he should ought to light a shuck out of town while all honest folk sleep the sleep of the just. Are you with me?”

  “Right there, sheriff.”

  “Good. Now if he does that he’s liable to run into some gunhawk on Larned’s payroll.”

  “Sure as God made little apples, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Wa-a-a-l, if I ain’t nothin’ else, Horry, I’m a just man.”

  “I get your drift, Mai. Some lil bird should ought to drop a stray crumb of information in said Remington’s presence. Am I right?”

  “Goddam right.”

  “Drink up, the day is young.”

  Eleven

  A number of short but revealing conversations took place in Black A.V. Horse City that day.

  The first was between Doc Robertson’s wife Bertha and Mose Copley, blacksmith, not so very long before a slave in the state of Missouri. It went something like this: “Good morning to you, Mr. Copley.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “Are we entirely private here, Mose, or are we likely to be overheard?”

  “Lije, boy, you stand at the door there an’ you sing out if anybody come.”

  “Mose, my husband has been treating a mutual friend of ours who was shot when leaving town in a hurry.” Mose nodded and looked wary. In his book, white folks were the origin of most of his troubles in life. “This party’s saddle and gear are hidden not so far from here. If it was to be hidden again in your barn for a very short while, do you think you could see your way clear to putting it on one of your best horses? This horse would later be returned to you safe and sound.” She wasn’t too sure of the last statement, but she prayed it was true.

  Mose remarked that he wasn’t liking what he heard too well. Bertha remarked that she had heard from a reliable source that a certain cattle baron, who would remain unnamed, had every intention of putting a noose around the neck of her husband’s patient and pulling it tight enough to extinguish life.

  The blacksmith rolled his eyes and opined that kind of put a different light on the whole matter. He would see that the horse was saddled and ready for the trail.

  Bertha Robertson put a hand on his arm and said: “God bless you, Mose.” Mose looked at her, a little surprised, and saw that she meant it. She said that he did not stand to lose for his gesture.

  “Ma’am,” he said with some dignity, “that man is a friend of mine. It don’t call for payment.”

  At about the same time, Larned with Tallin following and with the sheriff and his deputy in attendance, made his way to the doctor’s house and demanded to see the wounded miscreant. The doctor unhesitatingly led the way upstairs and showed them into Mrs. Robertson’s spare bedroom, all bright and cheerful with sunshine and colored chintzes.

  Larned stood by the bed and looked down at the still, pale form of Remington McAllister.

  “By God,” he said, “I could only wish that the colonel had shot a mite lower and somewhat to the left, then this cow-thief would now be dead and no longer a problem.”

  “Amen,” said Tallin piously.

  “How do I know this man is not playing possum?” Larned demanded.

  “You don’t,” said Robertson aggressively, “nor do you have to. You have my word on it.”

  Larned shot him one of those fierce glances which had as much effect on the doctor as water on a duck’s back. He said: “It you’re playing me false, doctor, I assure you that your future in this country is a dark one.”

  Robertson smiled unpleasantly. “I trust you have taken steps not to fall ill while you’re in my territory.”

  Horace Carfax laughed outright and hiccupped.

  Larned said: “I shall return again tomorrow, doctor. You will be with me, Donaldson, and you will question and charge him.”

  The doctor grimaced comically and said: “Charge him with defending his property, sheriff. He’ll never get out of that one.”

  Larned made a contemptuous noise and strode from the room. Tallin remarked to the doctor: “You’re steppin’ out of line, doc. You could pile up a heap of trouble for yourself.” He followed his employer from the room.

  The doctor said mildly: “I think I was just threatened.” He walked out, followed by the deputy. The sheriff hovered for a moment by the bed, then leaned down so his mouth was near McAllister’s left ear.

  “McAllister, Larned has a man back and front. You’re safer here.”

  With that he strode from the room and joined the others downstairs.

  Down at the hardware store Mr. Shultz held court. Attendant upon him were four ladies, including Mrs. Lamed and Helena, two small boys and his assistant, Harry Burns, who according to Shultz was a good-for-nothing who ate Shultz’s good food, lazed away the day and would have been in an orphanage had it not been for Mrs. Shultz’s large and generous heart.

  “I happen to know,” Shultz was saying, “the true story behind McAllister. Just no denyin’ it. It is a fact that McAllister is widely known in Kansas as a counterfeiter and horse-thief. He ran a gang of villains such as the state has never known. Every one of them an infamous cut-throat in his own right. My oath on it, ladies.” McAllister had squatted on Mr. Larned’s land and he had bushwhacked Mr. Larned’s riders. At least two of them had died with bullets in their back. But that was nothing compared with what the ruffian had done amongst the poorer settlers. He had stabbed a farmer foully in the night and assaulted (here a certain look came into Shultz’s eyes) the farmer’s wife and daughter. A nod was as good as a wink. The ladies gave out gasps of shock and horror. “And to think,” Shultz concluded, “that this rascal is here in this very town, lying in bed in the doctor’s house. He should be in jail.”

  Mrs. Larned asked sweetly: “Do we have a jail, Mr. Shultz?”

  Miss Larned asked, just as sweetly: “Wouldn’t it save us all a lot of trouble and time if we hanged him this very afternoon?”

  ~*~

  It was no trouble at all for the doctor to retrieve McAllister’s gear. It was a common sight for the doctor to be coming or going from town either on a horse or driving his famous pair of blood horses in his buckboard. The two horses were his one extravagance. Like so many men at that period, he took a keen interest in the blood lines of horses and would spend hours discussing the merits and demerits of particular breeds. His strong link with McAllister, in fact, was his admiration for what McAllister was doing with the California canelos.

  During the afternoon of that day, doc had an emergency call out to a farm not more than three miles north-east of town. It was a complication in childbir
th and it required him to spend over two hours at a farmer’s house. This brought him down the Black Horse trail as dusk was overtaking the land, and enabled him to cross the creek by a ford about a half-mile north of the bridge and pack McAllister’s gear aboard his vehicle without being seen. He crossed by the ford again and came into town across the bridge.

  There was nothing remarkable in his stopping at Mose Copley’s smithy. Here he and Mose unloaded the gear and stowed it away under straw in the barn back of the shop. The doctor then proceeded home and was able to inform both his wife and McAllister with some satisfaction that the chore was done.

  Bertha said: “I still think you’re crazy to attempt it, Remington. You know the house is being watched. Give yourself a few more days at least to regain your strength.”

  “She’s right, Rem,” the doctor added. “Give the shoulder a chance to heal.”

  But McAllister had made up his mind. As old Chad McAllister had said, The back of a horse …

  Twelve

  McAllister was ready to go. The doctor had redressed his wound and checked it. It was, he said, doing fine, but riding a horse and helling around generally would not do it much good. Bertha said that he was a stubborn fool.

  By the time he was dressed, he was inclined to agree with her, but he was not about to change his mind. He was worried about his horses and he knew that, as time passed, his claim to the land he had preempted would weaken in the eyes of the surrounding people. When he had a cabin and barn there for all to see, it gave him some right to demand protection from the law. The longer he drifted around without any roots, so the law would regard him as little more than a saddle bum. That might not be what the law itself said, but that was the fact of the matter. He wondered just how strong a man Sheriff Donaldson was. Dare any sheriff buck a man as powerful as Larned in a country where the big cattlemen were kings?

  He asked his host and hostess if they would go and sit in the parlor. He needed no more than a half-hour.

  Bertha came and kissed him. An unusual display of affection for her. Robertson seemed to pretend that he was just going out for a stroll. He patted him on the shoulder and said casually: “See you soon.”