“Maybe you’re jumpin’ the gun, ma’am,” McAllister said. “I have only spoken to Helena once before today.”
“Nevertheless, you must realize she’s in love with you.”
“I didn’t know. But it sure changes the face of things.”
She laid a hand on his arm.
“I want my daughter to marry a man she loves,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I would be happy for her to marry anybody. I want her husband to amount to something and, despite what I have heard of you, I think that you will amount to something.”
“You can bet your life on that, ma’am.”
“Good. Take care now.”
He walked her to the buggy and handed both ladies aboard. Billington glowered. Helena was blushing.
“Well, ladies,” McAllister asked, “what do you think of canelos?”
“Beautiful,” said Mrs. Larned.
“The loveliest horses I ever saw,” Helena said.
McAllister was overcome by Texan gallantry. He looked at Mrs. Larned and said: “My range horses are bein’ driven in, ma’am. Maybe when I have my whole band here you an’ Miss Helena would come and choose one each.”
Helena said quickly: “No, we couldn’t possibly.”
“Quite out of the question,” Mrs. Larned said. “But we shall come just the same when such a thing would be more appropriate.”
McAllister gave his little bow and Billington lashed at the horses with his whip. The ladies turned in their seats to smile and wave as the buggy was whisked, bumping badly, around the house and out of sight.
McAllister went to the corral fence, leaned on it and stared at his horses. “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” he said.
Nineteen
Greg Talbot had not returned by the end of the afternoon. The beginnings of doubt nudged McAllister lightly, but he was not too worried, for it was possible that Talbot was having trouble with the horses and was being forced to take his time. McAllister’s instinct was to ride a way to meet him, but he knew better than to leave his place for any length of time at all. His sharp eye had caught the glitter of glass in bright sunlight up on the ridge where the Larned riders had looked down on the house-building. Once his rifle was off this place, those riders would come pouring down over the ridge.
Full dark came down and still Talbot had not returned. By now McAllister was anxious. Just the same, as he rightly told himself, the man could easily have been delayed by the horses for at least another day. He was most likely having his work cut out, driving those horses without help. If he had managed to catch and tail them, that would be another matter. When there was a small bunch of horses to be moved, some mustangers tied them head to tail, so that they could be more easily driven or led. But Talbot knew all the tricks of the trade. If anybody could make it, it would be him. He was a born survivor.
Then McAllister thought of the army of riders Larned had working for him. He needed that number to ride a range that covered most of this county and some of the next. That made the odds appallingly heavy. If they decided to go after Talbot in force he did not stand a chance. McAllister began to feel bad because he had not insisted that he go along. He sat in front of the house, smoking his pipe and waiting.
But Talbot did not come that night. He came in the next day from the west at a leisurely pace, leading a long line of horses which he had tailed. When McAllister asked him why he had been so long, he found a lugubrious grin.
“Had a run in with some of them Larned boys. They was lookin’ real tough. Wa-al, enough to spook a tenderfoot. There was five, six of ’em. They wasn’t too sure what to do next when I didn’t spook. Last night in the dark they got real bold and tried to jump me. Tried to run off the stock, too. But they lost their enthusiasm when I knocked one over.”
McAllister asked: “How bad was he hurt?” It was an important question. On the answer rested the shape this fight would take from here on.
Talbot replied: “I killed him dead, boy.” He saw the expression on McAllister’s face and knew what he was thinking. “You’re wrong, son. It’s killin’ time now. We been playin’ patsy with them bastards long enough. Now they respect us. The men’re thinkin’ about it right this minute. Nobody likes to be dead. Specially for wages.”
“Well, it’s done,” said McAllister, “an’ talk won’t undo it. Thanks, anyway, Greg. Maybe you should drift out of the country for a while till this blows over.”
Talbot hawked and spat.
“If you’re funnin’,” he said, “I ain’t laughin’.”
And that was that.
The rest of the day they spent cutting hay while the whole horse herd grazed free. Both men kept their saddle horses near, both to catch up stray horses and to head for the house if trouble came. They worked clear through the day without sight or sound of another human. Except for the watcher on the ridge.
Night passed uneventfully. Both men knew they were supposed to be lulled into a false sense of security. The following morning, they went further afield to cut hay. McAllister wanted to extend the corral and keep the whole caballada fenced for a while. That meant he needed plenty of hay. It was grueling work under the blistering sun, but they stayed with it, working their way further and further from the house. During the morning, a vehicle passed on the distant trail. Through his glass, McAllister saw Billington once more driving Helena and her mother. He thought the ladies waved. During the morning he strolled into a motte of trees and, under their cover, took a good look at the man on the ridge through his glass. It was a cowhand, all right, though the distance was too great for him to recognize the man in his prone position. McAllister was very curious about what lay on the far side of that ridge.
Later in the morning when both men were at least a half-mile from the house, McAllister, from behind a low ridge, once more put his glass on the watcher. Or tried to without success—the man was gone.
McAllister whistled shrilly.
Talbot straightened from grass-cutting and turned.
“Their lookout’s gone.”
Talbot did not need any second bidding. He started for his horse. Oscar obeyed the whistle at once and headed for McAllister. Within seconds, both men were in the saddle and racing for the house.
No sooner had they started off than McAllister shouted for Talbot to go ahead.
He cursed himself for a fool and turned back for the loose horses. Maybe that was just what Larned wanted—for him to leave the horses unattended. He whooped around the herd, getting them on the run. The old mare lined out for the corral. Already she knew where home was. The stud started acting the boss and they were on their way. As they neared the house, McAllister thought he heard the thin, slamming report of a rifle above the rattle and roll of the horses’ hooves. Talbot was piling from the saddle and running into the house, his carbine in hand. McAllister spotted a wisp of smoke drifting on the light breeze to the west of the house.
He looked at the he of the land, searching for movement nearer at hand. However, when he found it, it was not close but came from the ridge where the watchers had been stationed. Seven or eight men rode down from the ridge, crossed the flat at a steady run and disappeared into the trees and brush that lined the creek on either hand. An obvious move. Under cover of the creek the men could come within a quarter-mile or less of the house under cover. He had a little time. He led the old bell-mare into the corral and most of the other animals willingly followed her. A few lively geldings tried to duck out for freedom but he caught them at it and drove them back. Within a few minutes he had the whole bunch inside. He tied the saddle-horse to the fence and walked down to the creek. He walked along the creek bed for a hundred paces and waited, the bank at his left shoulder and the water by his right foot.
As they came around the bend in the creek, he shot the first man. The horse seemed to jump as the Henry delivered the bullet and the man was thrown clear and into the water. The water was churned to foam as men tried to get back under cover. Two men came back after a while and caught
the wounded man under either arm and bore him out of sight.
My God, McAllister thought, how many men have to get hurt before Larned pulls out?
He worked his way silently to the bend in the creek behind which the men had disappeared. The riders had pulled back a hundred or so paces and were now all dismounted. Two were facing McAllister, the rest seemed to be engaged in a fierce argument.
“Pull out, men,” McAllister shouted, “or we’ll end with a funeral.”
One of the men facing him, stood up, and fired, shouting on the tail-end of the shot: “Your funeral.”
McAllister ducked into cover. He knew the tall man who had fired at him. That was Slim Larkin. The man was a professional. Which meant that at least one of them could shoot. McAllister withdrew from the position, mounted the bank and went forward once more, now concealed by the trees and undergrowth from the men down by the water. As soon as he came to a gap in the green, he fired and quickly backpedalled. Then he lay flat and listened. He heard the men mounting and riding away. He wondered if Larkin had gone with them. He stayed still for a while and then worked his way forward, alert for an instant shot. But he found nobody. He crossed the creek, climbed the far bank, then worked his way to still higher ground. He could hear Talbot firing from the house. Larkin and the rest of the crew, one of them lying on his belly over a horse, were working their way up the ridge. A moment later he watched them disappear.
He walked back to the house and came under fire as he neared it. He climbed in a rear window out of sight of the marksmen and joined Talbot.
They exchanged shots till dark and then the shooting stopped. McAllister put on his moccasins and scouted the trees on the western ridge. He found signs where five men had been, but no sign of the men themselves. He circled a mile into the west and so home without finding any further trace except for their tracks going out.
Talbot said: “If that’s the best they can do …”
McAllister said: “I ain’t foolin’ myself that’s the best they can do. I saw Slim Larkin there. He’s a man who can learn a lesson.”
Twenty
For the first time in his life, Howard Billington was totally dedicated to an idea. It was to possess Helena Larned. He knew that tough, swashbuckling cowman, Si Tallin, had the same idea, but he felt that Tallin with all his force of character and rough charm would not pull it off. It would not be allowed by the father and was not favored by the daughter.
McAllister, Billington told himself, was something again. The disturbing truth was not only that McAllister had all the marks of a man who got what he wanted, but that Helena had marked McAllister down as her own.
McAllister, Billington told himself rather dramatically, would die before he possessed her. Now, that kind of thing sounds all very romantic and anybody who had overheard it could be forgiven for thinking the young man was all wind and no vinegar. Not so. Billington had made up his mind that he would gain both his fortune and the girl by one simple act: the pressing of a gun’s trigger.
Howie was gently bred, college raised and used to a comparatively gentle mode of life. He’d been spoiled as a child, had never wanted for anything. Consequently, his life as a minion in the house of Larned had been a painful and humiliating one. Even his few friends back east would have had to admit that Howard was not the most likeable nor the most generous of young men. He was, in fact, vain, self-centered and selfish. But nobody ever doubted that he had some grit and that he could perform a number of skills which were rightful to a gentleman. One was shooting and the other was the ability to ride a horse. True that back east he bestrode a saddle of postage-stamp proportions which would have made a Western cat laugh, but nonetheless he was a passable horseman.
On his departure to the West, one of his few friends had given him a revolver made by the firm of Smith and Wesson, a weapon with which he had made himself proficient. He had no high opinion of how these Western characters strode around with open holsters and free-riding gun-butts. Their frequency in firing their guns into the air to celebrate and into the ground to scare pilgrims did not impress him one little bit. Why not? Because Howard Billington knew that he could cut a man down with a single shot at over one hundred paces. Long paces at that. With a rifle, he was far better. If questioned about his courage and his ability to face an enemy and beat him to the draw, etcetera, he would laugh and say he never heard of anybody indulging in that kind of play. No, if he had to shoot somebody, he would do it as Westerners did it: he would shoot his enemy when he was not ready and preferably when he was not looking. He would shoot him from a good distance because, in his opinion, all these Western gunmen were good for was brawling in saloons and shooting men down at a distance seldom exceeding six paces. Now, we all know, much as none of us like admitting it, that there was a certain amount of truth in what he said. But not the whole truth. There were men who could shoot with a pistol well over one hundred paces. And Remington McAllister was one of them. He might not be the fastest man in the world in the art of producing a belt-gun from leather, but he certainly was among the nerviest. And that’s the test. To stand under fire. There were never many who could do it. Some were good and some were bad, and they were all rare.
So Howard Billington came to his decision.
~*~
The morning on which Edward C. Larned came into town from the range to sign papers in his office, he found his secretary not with his jacket off at his desk, which was his custom on a working morning, but fully clothed and with an ominous bulge in his jacket pocket. Larned interpreted the bulge as maybe the young man’s midday meal. If he had troubled to take a real look at his hireling he would have seen a look of resolution on his face and a somewhat wild light in his eyes. He was conscious, however, that Billington was not in the same position as usual. Usually, the young man was sitting behind his desk with his pen scratching industriously on the paper in front of him. As Larned strode in with his man of destiny look on his face, Billington would leap to his feet and cry with an almost fervent enthusiasm: “Good morning, Mr. Larned. Sir.” And Larned would nod. On a good morning, he would also grunt.
This morning, the great man was astounded to find his secretary standing not by his desk, but at the window. Larned jerked a look at him and quickly made up his mind that it would be unwise to recognize that there was anything different about Billington this morning. Inferiors should not have attention paid them.
Larned sat behind his desk, reached for his pen and discovered to his horror and acute annoyance that there was nothing there to be signed.
He raised his eyes and thus gave his attention to his minion. He was lost.
“Sir,” said young Billington, and Larned was cut by the social superiority of that voice.
Larned said: “Do me the favor, Billington, of getting behind your desk and continuing with your duties. Am I to believe that you have nothing for me to sign this morning?”
“That is perfectly correct, sir.”
Larned leaned back and put his fingertips together. Oh, well, he might as well destroy this morsel of the gentry which had drifted into his power. He smiled to himself at the thought. Everything about his affairs were going so disastrously wrong that it might put him in a better humor if he could rid his bad temper on an object such as this.
“Billington,” he began, “I took you off the streets—”
He was astonished to find that he got no further.
Billington said, white to the lips: “Let us not waste time on that, Mr. Larned. There is more at stake here than the subject of my being a charity boy.” Larned went to roar, but his attention was once again fully taken by the young man. His words came strongly through his rising anger. “I wish to speak to you, sir, about the problem of McAllister.”
“McAllister?”
“Yes. I am aware, as indeed is the whole country, including the county sheriff, that you have made a number of attempts at removing the man. So far with no success.”
“Now you see here, boy ...” Larned
was on his feet. He went to rush around the desk so that he could stand toe to toe with his toffee-voiced gent and shout his anger into his face. All his long-pent-up rage, all his frustration over this man McAllister, were coming to the point of explosion.
Before he could continue, however, the boy said quickly and loudly: “I have the solution.”
Larned laughed. Maybe not exactly laughed. But he made a very scornful noise and he stood there with his eyes mocking the upstart in front of him.
“You what?”
“I can get rid of the man for you.”
“You?”
He could see that his tone nettled the boy, but was surprised that the fellow showed no sign of wilting before him. Could he possibly have misjudged him? Or did all sorts start standing up to you when the going was hard?
“Yes, me. And only me.”
Larned suddenly saw a gleam of the truth. He simmered down. He walked back around his desk and sat down.
“Why only you?” His soft dangerous voice was now in use.
Billington hooked his thumbs into the armholes of his vest.
“For the very reason why you do not believe that I can solve it for you.”
“What in God’s name, boy, are you talking about?”
The boy’s confidence was increasing. The sight was rather pathetic and not without its comic side.
“You do not think me dangerous enough to get rid of McAllister. Am I right?”
“You most certainly are.”
“For the very same reason McAllister no doubt thinks the same. He would, that is, if he ever gave the matter a thought, which I doubt. Which strengthens my case.”
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