McAllister 3

by Matt Chisholm

  The location he had chosen was a prime one. Everybody remarked on the fact. Just what horses liked. Good rich grass, clear running water and fine shade from leafy trees. Men walked around, pipes and cigars smoking, looking knowledgeable and saying, sure, McAllister had picked himself a mighty pretty location, this was sure prime land. The saloon keeper placed a plank across a couple of upstanding barrels and was in business. Men drank beer, rolled up their sleeves and started in.

  Now, it must be said that the West, much like any other place in the world, however large or small, produced folks of all shapes and sizes, all kinds of tempers and temperaments. But its most outstanding characteristic was its generosity, just so long as the potential recipient had aroused their goodwill. The good folks of Black Horse were determined to see that McAllister’s house was erected before nightfall. Carpenters carpentered and stone masons set stone. Men dug and cut turfs for the sod roof. Women stitched curtains. The wagons were emptied of lumber and returned to town for more. Everybody was intent on the completion of the job. McAllister stood around, amazed, the only man whose labor was not demanded. He saw a sturdy rock foundation set, a stone chimney rise, the frame of the house stoutly in place. And all this by noon. Men knocked off for more beer and the picnics the women had in their baskets. They were allowed thirty minutes until the mayor, who had presumed on his exalted position and made himself commander-in-chief of the operation, ordered all back to work. There was no complaint. All were back at work again in an instant. The mayor was an authority on barns and such. He said that he would have a barn completed by nightfall or he would resign. Men sweated. Small boys ran this way and that.

  The sheriff took McAllister aside.

  “Me an’ Horace’ll keep an eye on you from here on in,” he said. “Never you fear. I can see the way public opinion is goin’. I’m a political animal, Rem, an’ I can feel the pulse of the people like nobody ever did. The county wants you here and, by God, here’ll you stay.”

  “Folks have done enough, Mai,” McAllister said. “It’s my affair after this. Just you put the cuffs on anybody I bring in.”

  The sheriff smiled. “I’ll do better than that,” he said. “I hereby appoint you a special deputy.”

  “That’s handsome of you, Mai,” McAllister told him. “I accept. You may be interested in this.” He brought a piece of paper from his pocket and added: “I did somethin’ else at the capital besides stake a claim.”

  The sheriff looked at the piece of paper and whistled. He looked at McAllister with new respect. “A deputy United States marshal, huh? How did you pull this?”

  “Wa-al, the territorial marshal was a governor-appointed sheriff down in Arizona one time. Him and me worked together. He owes me.”

  “Christ,” said the sheriff, “does everybody owe you, McAllister?”

  “Not as much as Larned,” the big man said.

  Mose Copley was cutting stakes for a fence. He worked like a man to whom this was a very personal affair. The doctor and his wife came in their buggy, drawn by their two blood horses. Bertha brought with her some goodies for the house, including a fine apple pie which she knew McAllister loved. Sam Todd was complaining that there was nothing really happening and whichever way you looked at it he had wasted his day. He wanted some gunfire to make a headline. Mid-afternoon saw the roof on. The stove was put into place and pretty soon the chimney-maker was fooling around testing the draught in the chimney.

  “Rem,” he said, “you’ll be having bacon for breakfast. Best chimney I ever built.”

  Towards the end of the afternoon, everybody stopped work because someone had spotted riders on a distant ridge. Eyes were strained. One man with glasses reported that he could see Si Tallin there. He ranged his glasses along the line of riders. Good grief, folks said when they were through counting—there must be thirty men up there. Now, the man with the glasses announced that Edward C. Larned himself was there. My God, there was going to be a battle.

  Now, thought McAllister, this is where they cut and run.

  But his cynicism was misplaced. He was mistaken in them. Men ran to their horses and wagons for needle-guns, shotguns, any firearms they could lay hands on. The sheriff and his deputy moved to the back of the crowd. A sheriff, said Mai Donaldson, had to be impartial. The doctor remarked to his wife, “This is where I get busy.”

  “Form a corral,” cried the commander-in-chief and folks remembered how they had crossed the Great Plains. Teams were hastily hitched. While the wagons were being laagered, a line of riflemen stood between the parking place and the line of horsemen. Larned should have no doubt in his mind that if he came down off that ridge, there would be a heap of dead men lying around. When the laager was formed around the new house and barn, the riflemen and everybody else retired behind the barrier of the wagons. Now the sheriff lost some of his nerve and he started to call out that he did not want any bloodshed. Let him talk with Mr. Larned if he came down off that ridge. Talk was better sense than fighting any day. One oldster cried out that if Larned came down off that ridge he would personally give him a new ass-hole. Stiff-necked sonsabitches like him had strutted around the high range country long enough. Somebody reminded him that there were ladies present.

  But Larned did not come down off that ridge and because he did not, the afternoon was something of an anti-climax for those who had blood in their eyes. Most, however, were pretty relieved. Nobody really wanted to blast holes in boys who, after all, were much like themselves. Like themselves! The warlike declared. Those goddam cowboys were not like decent folk. They were wild, rawhide Texas men. McAllister, who was something of a Texas man himself, did not much like such talk. Slowly, the long line of riders turned back. Even Larned could see that to brace the townspeople then would have ended in a blood bath. McAllister never doubted that he would see some more of the Larned crew, if not of Larned himself.

  Straightaway, everybody got busy again and, like a miracle, there were McAllister’s house, barn and corral, solid symbols of what a little neighborly cooperation could do. All McAllister could do was walk around and thank folks, shaking hands till his fingers ached. The saloonman declared that he was not taking a drop of beer back into town. Men drank before departing. McAllister seemed to take a drink with each and every one of them and he was thankful that he had a strong head for drink. Slowly the people began to depart. Doc Robertson and his wife came to ask how McAllister was feeling and he told them that he was never better. Robertson said that he must have a constitution like a horse.

  Sam Todd, backed by the formidable female, approached to remind McAllister to let him know if Larned made any attempt to move him on. He wanted another banner headline.

  “The town made a headline today, Sam,” McAllister told him. “If you can’t see it you must want new specs.” Sam said “maybe,” but he didn’t sound convinced.

  Mose Copley was given particular thanks. McAllister had not seen him since the night Mose had warned him of the men hidden in the barn.

  “Mose,” McAllister said, “I’d be dead now if it hadn’t been for you.”

  Mose said: “You’ll be dead if you stick around here on your lonesome. That Tallin is a ba-ad man.” Which was true enough so far as McAllister was concerned.

  The people disappeared into the darkness. McAllister listened to the sounds of them fading away into the night as he stood outside his new house. The sheriff was the last to go. He and Horace sat their horses and looked down at McAllister.

  “Say the word, Rem,” Donaldson said, “and we’ll stay.”

  He did not mean it and McAllister knew he did not. Neither did he blame him. Why should the sheriff and deputy put their lives on the line because of another man’s stubbornness?

  “I’ll call if I need help, Mai,” he said. “But thanks just the same. And you, Horace.”

  They told him not to mention it and that he was purely welcome. They wheeled their horses around and trotted off into the darkness. McAllister stayed still until their ho
ofbeats had died away. He turned and looked at his buildings and his stout corral. Life was full of surprises and he was a man who had prided himself on never being surprised. He realized that he had never expected such goodness to come from people. Well, he was pretty damn pleased to be proven wrong.

  Then he asked himself if the Bar Twenty men would ride in here tonight and he reckoned not. Just the same, he decided not to sleep in the house. The weather was holding and he would be comfortable enough outside with a blanket and tarp. He carried his bedroll and laid it out near the corral, where there was a slight unevenness in the ground which would provide him with a little cover if he should need it. He sat on the fence, smoking his last pipeful of tobacco of the day and wondered where that horse Oscar was at that moment.

  Eighteen

  Horses.

  He came out of his blankets and picked up his rifle in one move.

  Alarm fluttered through him.

  He had not expected them so soon.

  He looked at the sky and knew that he was several hours from dawn. It was a bright, clear night with a sky full of stars and with a light breeze coming in from the north. This carried the sound of the approaching horses clearly. It seemed that the sound of every hoof-fall reached him distinctly. A horse trumpeted, then another. He heard a man’s voice carried lightly on the wind and whisked away from him.

  He was about to jack a round into the Henry’s breech when he stopped. It came to him that these were not ridden horses, but a loose bunch of horses being driven. Who would be crazy enough to drive horses in the dark? Was this some kind of trick?

  He eased himself through the rails of the corral fence, so that he would have something substantial between himself and whoever was approaching. He got himself behind an upright and lay down, ears cocked for any other telltale sounds.

  Within a short while, the first horses came around the corner of the house. A man rode wide around them and came towards the corral. He seemed to be looking for something. What the hell?

  He found what he wanted. It was the gate. He leaned from the saddle and opened the gate.

  McAllister rose to his feet.

  “Hold it right there.”

  The man reined in his mount and stared in his direction. He began to swear in a dead all-hope-abandoned voice. Joy surged through McAllister. He couldn’t believe it.

  “Greg, you old bastard,” he said, and climbed through the fence.

  Talbot said: “This is the kind of welcome I expect. A goddam gun pointed at me.” McAllister caught a whiff of him downwind. “I brought your goddam horses back. I don’t want ’em is the plain truth. They been more trouble to me … oh, Jesus, why go over the miserable story?”

  “Let’s get the horses in and you can tell me it.”

  Together they threw the manada into the corral. McAllister counted them. They were all there—the magnificent stud, Lucy, his prize mare. McAllister reckoned that today had been too much for any man.

  McAllister found a bottle of whisky and they sat on the ground in front of the house and drank while Talbot told his story. There was not much to tell and he was never a man to make a mountain out of a molehill. Somehow, the Larned crew had learned that McAllister’s horses were at Talbot’s place in the hills. There had been no opportunity to wave McAllister’s bill of sale at them. They had come while Talbot was out hunting. Else they would never have got near his place. He would of shot their goddam butts off. McAllister knew that. They’d fired Talbot’s place. Well, they’d burned what they could of it. What they couldn’t burn, they had knocked down. They’d driven off his cows and, though they didn’t exactly steal McAllister’s horses, they’d driven them into the hills and scattered them all to hell. Fortunately, most of them had stayed together. But it had taken Talbot the best part of a week to catch ’em and show who was boss. There they were in his corral now, any road. And here was his bill of sale and he’d take his dollar back if McAllister could see his way clear to parting with it.

  McAllister handed over his dollar and he did not know what to say. Which was something of a change for him. He looked at Greg Talbot and Talbot gazed at the stars.

  “Greg,” he said, “I don’t know what I can say. I—”

  “Gawdamighty,” Talbot said, “if you’re goin’ to get goddam sentimental on me, I’m lightin’ a shuck for home.”

  “The least I can do is give you a hand to rebuild.”

  “As to that,” Talbot said, “I been studyin’ on it. The way I see it, them bastards has declared war on you ’n’ me. It’d be plumb crazy for us to divide our forces, as the generals used to say. I’ll stick around here till we have the varmints licked.”

  McAllister said: “I reckon we have come to the bad bit in this business. Next time the guns go off, there’s goin’ to be a man or two dead maybe.”

  “My own thoughts,” said Talbot. “Let’s make it them an’ not us.” McAllister took the warrant given him by the territorial marshal from his pocket and handed it to Talbot who handed it back, saying he didn’t have his specs with him. He’d be obliged if McAllister would read it to him. McAllister read it and put it away again.

  Talbot sat looking at him in awe.

  “I ain’t never,” he said, “not in all my borned days sided a lawman. Makes me feel kind of dizzy-like.”

  “Well,” said McAllister, “how does it feel to be a special deputy? I have the authority to swear you in.”

  “Is that a fact?” said Talbot. “I reckon this is a mite more’n I can swaller. Hell, me a deputy? It don’t seem natural.”

  “You’re sworn in,” said McAllister.

  Talbot ripped off a long and succulent obscenity and added: “I ain’t been legal, never in all my life. Say, I feel like I’m somebody now. Do I get a badge?”

  McAllister said: “I’m right out of badges.”

  “Pity. I’d of liked a badge. Folks’d look at me different.”

  They slept till dawn, one near the corral and the other to the west of the house.

  ~*~

  When they woke the following morning, McAllister reckoned it would be a good idea for them to go pick up the range horses and bring them in before the Bar Twenty scattered them wide. If they had not done so already. But Talbot held out against it.

  “You leave this place for one minute and they’ll burn it, boy. You think they ain’t watchin’ us right now?”

  There was something in that. After a good deal of argument, McAllister reluctantly agreed that Talbot should go and see if he could drive the animals in on his own. He would have gone whether McAllister agreed or not. When he went, he took the precaution of cutting around into the west in a wide circle to avoid running into any of the Larned men. McAllister felt pretty uneasy at letting him go. He went to work on the finishing touches to his house. Mid-morning, he saw a buggy approaching from town. There were three people in it and he saw, as they came closer, that Larned’s secretary was driving and the two passengers were Helena Larned and her mother. He wished he’d had a shave.

  He greeted them in front of his house and received a baleful glare from Billington. He was not left in any doubt which way that individual regarded him.

  “Howdy, Mrs. Larned. Miss Helena.”

  “Everybody else in town, Mr. McAllister,” Mrs. Larned said, “has been allowed a sight of your new house. Are we to be permitted the same privilege?”

  “Why, ma’am,” said McAllister, “they built it.”

  She twinkled. “I can see that Helena and I were amiss not to have helped. But, considering the situation …”

  He handed her down.

  Then he handed Helena down and received the pressure of the hand and the full smile that he was expecting. He did not invite the secretary and Billington did not stir.

  There were no chairs in the house, of course, but the coffee pot was on the stove, as ever. So the ladies shared McAllister’s only second cup and seemed delighted to do so. Mrs. Larned said: “This is the famous coffee which is said to be
powerful enough to float a horseshoe on, is it?”

  “That’s it, ma’am.”

  She laughed. “It certainly has character.” McAllister could see where Helena got her looks and her smile. He found himself warming to this woman. How the hell did she come to marry a pig like Larned?

  They talked and the talk was easy. They touched on a good many subjects lightly, but never once did any of them refer to the trouble between Larned and McAllister. They went and looked at McAllister’s horses and both showed themselves to be knowledgeable. They both declared that Lucy was a magnificent mare and exclaimed at the stud. When the inspection was completed, Mary Larned said to her daughter: “Helena, be a dear and go tell Billington we’re almost through and will be no more than a minute.”

  The subterfuge deceived nobody, least of all the girl. She gave McAllister an open smile and walked to the buggy. McAllister saw Billington’s face light up at the chance of having the girl to himself for a few moments.

  Mary Larned turned to McAllister.

  “Mr. McAllister,” she said, “time is short, so I’ll come straight to the point and shall be brief. No, don’t go on the defensive now. I approve of you. There, it’s said. In spite of first impressions that you are a somewhat raffish and wild character, I can fully understand how my daughter feels about you.”

  McAllister went to object, but she silenced him with a gesture. She knew what he was going to say before he said it. McAllister had the uncomfortable but rare feeling that the situation had been taken out of his hands.

  Mary Larned went on: “I know perfectly well that you have not taken advantage of her. And I hope you never will. Her intentions are honest, so let yours be the same. That’s all I ask. Larned will, of course, kill you if he knows. I put it bluntly, but I think you know that already. I fear he intends to kill you anyway. I ask this — do not take your relationship with my daughter any further until this affair between yourself and my husband has been settled.”