McAllister 6

by Matt Chisholm

  Al Corby said: ‘There won’t be many more of these roundups, not the way things’re going. There’ll be fences and every man will keep in his own place. We’ll hardly need horses.’

  Mittelhouse looked at him in amazement. ‘You don’t mean that, Corby.’

  ‘I mean it, all right. You’ll look back on these days like a fallen angel looking back on paradise.’ This caused his boss to show further surprise. Corby explained shyly: ‘My old man was a preacher. I picked up some of his spiel, I reckon.’

  Sixteen

  One or two events took place in the next week or ten days which may be worth recording.

  First, a number of cattlemen, who normally came to town no more than three or four times in a year, came in and took a drink at Mark Tully’s bar. And it was no coincidence that Tully was the man holding the stakes for the great race.

  First there was the famous (or infamous) Glub Groos. He stood six foot six in his stockinged feet, weighed two hundred and sixty pounds and never looked fat. He was a mean and evil-tempered man who boasted, truthfully, that there was no horse in his remuda which was strong enough to bring him any more than halfway to town. Everybody believed him. Talk had it that it was he who had jumped a sheep outfit on Silver Mountain one moonlight night, killed a couple of Basque herders and run a thousand sheep over a cliff to their deaths. Men believed that, too. He paid low wages and worked his men like slaves. Riding jobs were not all that easy to come by and he was never short of hands, though they left him at an alarming rate. His whisper was like another man’s shout. He was the epitome, it seemed, of the larger-than-life Westerner. He hailed originally from east Texas, where his father had been a dirt-poor cotton cropper. Glub had first come up the trail at the age of fifteen. Now, at forty, he ran two thousand head of cattle and drank most of the profit he made on them. He had a silent wife, whom everybody liked, and who went through life apparently pretending that he did not exist. Which took some doing.

  Glub put away the contents of a bottle of whiskey and paid Mark Tully one thousand dollars cash. This took the breath of everyone present clean away. Not only had Glub never admitted to possessing such a sum of money, he had certainly never showed it in public. Having committed this act of madness, Glub stalked along the street to Colonel Ralph English’s Grand Union Hotel and disappeared into a private room which had been reserved for members of the Black Horse Cattlemen’s Association. There he attacked his second bottle of whiskey, and somehow forgot to offer any of it to his friends and neighbors.

  The second to arrive was Morgan Shafter. Like Glub Groos, Shafter was a cowman through and through, but he had nothing in common with Groos except cows and the fact of his being a Texan. Shafter was a West Texas man from the Nueces country, dried up like an old stick, cantankerous, bitterly sober and still behaving much as he did when he had fought off the Comanches as a boy. He looked on the world with suspicion; indeed as the world looked on him. Earlier he had stolen more cows than he’d had hot dinners, but now he was a strictly anti-rustler man. To the little men who hung on the periphery of his herds and who occasionally eked out their poor diet with a little of his beef, he was more fearsome than the deadly Glub Groos. In all his life he had shown but one weakness. You’ve guessed it-horses. Normally, he would have preferred a slow and painful death than to part with a thousand dollars for the purse. When he came into town he was telling everybody who wanted to listen, and a good few who did not, that he would see Mark Tully damned before he parted with one thousand beautiful dollars for a horse race.

  When he faced Mark across the bar it was to demand a remaking of the rules, a cut in the going rate; it was a goddam injustice, how could an honest cowman find that kind of money to put a horse in a goddam race? He had never heard such crazy nonsense in all his life. It had only been done because everybody knew that he did not have one thousand cents to his name, let alone dollars and that same everybody knew that he owned the finest running horse in the whole goddam West.

  ‘You have, Mr Shafter?’ said Mark innocently. ‘Which one is that?’

  The old man jumped on his toes. ‘How long have you lived in this country, boy?’

  ‘A sight longer than you, old man. I watched you drive your first herd in here.’

  That stopped the old man for about one second. ‘My horse Red Boy can out-run anything this side of the Missouri,’ he shouted, ‘and there ain’t a man here who don’t know it.’

  ‘How about Champion?’ somebody asked.

  Shafter spat the name out: ‘Champion! Jesus, that fancy dude of a thing! His legs’d break after ten mile. He’s a goddam woman’s horse.’

  McAllister said: ‘How about Caesar?’

  Now the old man was silent. He turned slowly to gaze at McAllister out of a cocked and malevolent eye. ‘Caesar,’ he said slowly. ‘You referring to that goddam California mustang crowbait? You don’t still fancy that horse against real horses, do you, son?’

  McAllister said: ‘I put my money where my mouth was. How about you?’

  The old man looked cornered. ‘How do I know this ain’t fixed? I never knew you do an honest thing yet, McAllister.’

  ‘Red Boy won’t make third,’ said McAllister.

  ‘I ought to take my quirt to you for saying that.’

  ‘Prove me wrong,’

  The old man made a rude noise and headed for the street door. There he stopped and returned to the bar. ‘Tully, I’ll write an IOU.’

  ‘Cash,’ said Tully.

  Shafter stood there apparently trying to slay him with a cold, hard stare. He seemed slightly at a loss when the saloon-owner merely stared back at him. Finally, the rancher said: ‘Son-of-a-bitch’ and stomped out of the place.

  Almost as soon as he had disappeared through the doorway, the door opened to admit another of his fraternity, Jolly Jack Dunbar. He greeted everybody there, walked across the saloon without swaggering and cracked a coin down on the bar-top. Tully slid him glass and bottle. He offered drinks to men to right and left of him, as common courtesy demanded. As it also demanded, they accepted and drank with him. He drank two whiskies, washed them down with a schooner of cold beer, and said to Tully: ‘Mark, put my Bluebird for the race.’

  The men who heard that all nodded. Finest little mare in the country, Bluebird. Never lost a race. She was nothing much out of nothing much, but she was all horse; a stayer and a flyer. She’d make a good race.

  Jolly Jack Dunbar said: ‘See you, boys,’ and walked from the saloon.

  McAllister thought: There’s the horse that scares me. She’s made for this kind of country.

  Dunbar followed Shafter into the room at the Grand Union. There were already a number of men there. A few were playing cards to pass the time. There was a knot in the corner, talking hard, arguing, with big Glub Groos in the center of it. Dunbar caught some of their words. Groos was preaching his usual gospel – force was the only kind of thing cattle-thieves understood; let a few of them dangle in plain sight for a few days. Somebody said, that had been tried already. Burn the bastards out.

  My God, Dunbar thought, is this what a man has to descend to hang on to land he don't have legal right to. I'll go to some lengths to scare others off, but I don't want blood on my hands for a stretch of grass. But he would have to watch his step. There were dangerous men here in this room today. They did not like what they called traitors. They might spend their time crying ‘law and order’, but they were most of them ruthless brigands themselves. It was ever thus. He saw Carl Mittelhouse in a corner by himself, taking a drink quietly. The millionaire was always something of a mystery to Jack.

  ‘Howdy, Carl.’

  ‘Hello, Jack, come in for the war talk?’

  Dunbar laughed. ‘Mostly to enter my horse for this crazy race. I heard you entered Champion. Don’t you think this ride might be a little rough for him?’

  ‘You’re the third man who said that to me. You wouldn’t be trying to discourage me, would you?’

  ‘You bet,’ sai
d Dunbar. ‘I seen that stud of yours go.’

  Somebody was banging on the table. Mittelhouse turned and saw that it was their president, Johnson Mavor. The man looked grim. Like Glub Groos, he was loaded for bear. He wondered how many sensible men would keep this thing balanced.

  Dunbar had laid a hand on his arm. ‘The horse race is their great opportunity, Carl. If it comes to it, I’m telling you here and now: I’ll only go so far.’

  They walked towards the row of tables and chairs. Mavor was saying: ‘Let’s come to order, gentlemen. It won’t take but five minutes, then we can all go have a drink.’

  Seventeen

  Mole Trusty rode into town shortly after dusk. He chose that time so he would not attract attention to himself. It was doubtful if he would have done that even in bright sunlight. Mole was one of those invisible men. He blended so well with various backgrounds that he only had to stay motionless and he was no longer noticed.

  Not too tall and not too short, and of a nondescript coloring. He might have been a prospector who had cleaned himself up and ridden in from the diggings. He booked in at a small unpretentious rooming house on Howard Street run by a respectable couple from Chicago. Almost as soon as he arrived, he announced that he would walk out to look at the town and take a little air. That was the way he spoke. They thought he was such a quaint fellow. No harm in him, of course, just a little quaint.

  He walked through town, taking note of this and that, and on as far as the creek. Here, near the willows, he met a shadow which turned out to be Cam Brennan. They greeted each other quietly and shook hands as soberly as respectable businessmen.

  ‘Glad you could come, Mole; said Brennan.

  ‘Nice to be working with you again, Cam,’ said Trusty. ‘I’m Walter Coulter here, Mole.’

  ‘Ah. I’m enjoying the monica of Andrew Sievers. Nice, eh? I chose that rather carefully. Now, what have you in store for me, Walter?’

  ‘Something to suit you, Andrew. A man to be followed. We’ll need a little patience, is all. But you’ll believe me when I tell you there is real good dough at the end of it.’

  ‘I believe you, Walter. You wouldn’t have brought me all this way for peanuts. That’s for sure.’

  ‘The man I want followed is the go-between in a deal I have set up here. He’ll come to my room at the hotel at midnight.”

  ‘What’s he look like?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Brennan explained the details of the last visit without giving away too many details of the killing he had been hired to carry out. The less Mole knew, the better.

  ‘My word, Walter,’ said Mole, ‘this ain’t going to be too damned easy, is it?’

  ‘I fetched you here,’ said Brennan, ‘because you’re the best.’

  ‘So I imagine. How much is there in this?’

  ‘No telling for sure, Andrew. Just as high as we can get it. Fifty thousand all told. Something like that.’

  That shook Mole. His pay came high, but this kind of money was in another league. His first thought was that there must be a fair amount of danger in a job covered by such a vast sum.

  ‘What would be my share, Walter?’

  ‘Would one third be fair, Andrew?’

  ‘More than fair.’

  They discussed the kind of moves Mole might have to make. The mark might be reporting to somebody here in town. He might live here in town. He might live out of town. Brennan wanted him followed to his contact here in town, if he existed, and he wanted the go-between to be followed wherever he went after the contact. Brennan needed a good thorough job. The more he knew, the stronger his position would be. He asked Trusty what his cover was here.

  ‘I just got in from the diggings over on Silver Mountain,’ he said. ‘I have a little gold dust. Not too much. Enough to buy myself a little land. Something like that. Or enough to homestead and develop a mite. How’s that?’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Brennan. ‘Not too spectacular. I like it.

  ‘How do I report to you?’

  ‘Openly. We could fall into conversation by chance in the saloon on Main. Run by a man named Mark Tully. Friend of Rem McAllister.’

  ‘McAllister?’ said Mole. ‘Jesus, he ain’t here, is he?

  ‘Sheriff,’ said Brennan.

  Trusty gave a dry chuckle and said: ‘Now I know why you offered me as much as a third, Walter.’

  ‘Cold feet?’

  ‘Just a little cautious.’

  ‘That’s how you should be. There’s high stakes here, Andrew, and in my book worth a little risk.’

  They spoke for a little longer, then Brennan said that he must be getting back. They shook hand and parted.

  Not hurrying, Brennan made his way back to the hotel, climbed the stairs and entered his room. He struck a match as he entered the room, looking for the lamp. A hand came out of the dark and knocked the match to the floor. A foot stamped on it. Brennan’s hand snapped down on to the butt of his gun, but a voice said: ‘Leave it. Just stay where you are, with the light from the hall on you so I can see you. There’s a gun pointed at your belly.’

  Temper flared momentarily in Brennan. He hated to be touched. He hated still more to be taken by surprise. It scared and shamed him.

  ‘You’ll do that once too often,’ he said, mastering his rage, ‘and get yourself killed.’

  Ignoring Brennan’s words, the man in the shadow said: ‘The Wallach girl is not back in town.’

  This was the moment Brennan had dreaded. His whole scheme would hang on what he said next. ‘I know it,’ he said, and was pleased to find that his voice came out even and calm.

  ‘An explanation is called for.’

  ‘Sure. Out there on the trail when I took the girl, circumstances were not right.’ Now he guessed wildly or just plain lied; he wanted to gain the right effect. ‘McAllister, the sheriff, was there. You don’t want a dead sheriff in all this, do you?’

  That stopped the man. That was a real winner. It held the man in thoughtful silence. After a pause, he said: ‘So what do you have in mind now?’

  That gave Brennan his chance. ‘I’m always prepared for eventualities. You have to be, in this business. I’ll get Wallach’s gun out, don’t you fret now. Everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Your patron is not too happy about waiting until after the race.’

  He let that lie with Brennan for a moment. Brennan said quickly: ‘The race is my real chance. It so happens there’s going to be a little gunplay after the race. Are you with me? Wallach will get himself shot. I guarantee it.’

  The man pondered that. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave it there for now. Walk to the bed and stop. Don’t turn around.’

  ‘Keno.’

  Brennan walked towards the bed and stopped. There was no sound of footsteps. The door softly closed. Brennan turned and hurried to the door, opened it and looked down the passage. There was nobody in sight. He could not help wondering how Mole would follow a man who could disappear like that. Well, he thought, if Mole could not, there was not a man on earth who could.

  Eighteen

  The attempted abduction of Deborah Wallach created a stir not only in town but throughout the Black Horse country. Cow theft and the stopping of stages coaches for illegal profit was one thing, laying hands on a decent woman was another. The whole country was outraged, or said it was. Even known horse thieves were heard to say that if they ever got their hands on the man who did it, it would go very hard with him.

  But if that created a stir after Lennie Wallach had written it up – and the operative word was ‘up’ – his writing up of the meeting of the Cattlemen’s Association created a storm. He wrote his piece as though he had had a representative present in the room at the time. He did not report the proceedings exactly verbatim, but he described the statements and reactions of the ranchers. And he must have come near to the truth, to judge from the furious reaction he got from the participants. McAllister foresaw that he was going to be busy unless he wanted to see Lennie
strung up on the tree just along the street from his office.

  ‘I could wish, Len,’ he said to his friend, ‘you could keep your big mouth shut or maybe lower your voice a mite, then maybe I could leave this town for just a few hours and go see to my horses.’

  Lennie grinned. ‘All in the cause of justice and freedom.

  ‘Justice and freedom my ass,’ said McAllister. ‘It’s just you like a goddam fight.’

  He reckoned that the ranchers would not act immediately against Lennie. Most likely before the next issue of the newspaper came out. So he took a few hours off to go home and look to his horses.

  Back at his place, which lay at the town end of the Black Horse Valley right alongside Howard Creek, he found his rider Lige Copley hard at work topping off a string of saddle- horses. Lige was pretty glad to see him. So was Lige’s father, Mose Copley the blacksmith. Maybe we should spend a few words telling you about these two. Without them, there would not be much more of a story to tell.