McAllister 6

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘There’s certain points you have to pass. There’ll be judges posted there. How you get from one point to the other is your affair. We’re going to need all the short-cuts we know against the horses the big boys are putting in. That’s where we have an advantage. Us three know this country like nobody’s business. And we have a horse made for it. Nobody’s going to risk a fancy horse worth a lot of money through some of that rough country. But you know Caesar, Lige – the rougher, the better. He’s a goddam goat.’

  Mose said: ‘Language in front of the boy, boss.’

  Lige said: ‘When’re you going to start treating me like a man, pa?’

  Mose considered the question. ‘How about when you wins this race?’

  McAllister said: ‘I second that. Tomorrow, the three of us will ride the course.’

  Mose slapped a thigh. ‘You can’t say we ain’t living through mighty stirring times.’

  Bella turned from the stove. It was time she interrupted. She’d kept her mouth shut for ten minutes. ‘What I like to know,’ she said, ‘is how them white boys is going to take to riding agin a black boy.’

  McAllister asked Lige: ‘Does that worry you, Lige?

  ‘Sure it worry me, but that don’t mean it going to make no difference.’

  ‘Any difference,’ said Bella.

  McAllister had a sudden misgiving. ‘See here,’ he said, ‘if you don’t want Lige to ride, why I’ll find another rider someplace.’

  ‘Aw, no you don’t, Miz McAllister,’ Bella said. ‘Lige is going to ride this race and he going to run the white asses off them white boys.’

  ‘Language in front of the boy, mother,’ said Mose. ‘Hell, he heard the word ass before.’

  Lige said: ‘When they see me winning, boss, they ain’t going to take too kindly to it, if you get my meaning.’ McAllister said: ‘Nobody’s going to touch you, Lige. My word on it.’

  Bella said: ‘You seem awful sure of that, Miz McAllister. How come?’

  ‘Because Lige’ll be in my sight all the way, Bella. I’ll be riding Oscar and Sally, turn-and-turn-about. There’s nothing in the rules to say I can’t follow a race.’

  Twenty-One

  About this time, Carl Mittelhouse was not feeling too happy. To everybody who knew him, he seemed to be the one man who had everything in life. He owned land, stock and a credit of several millions. Added to that he owned and was about to race one of the greatest horses of the West. Few of the betting public doubted that his Champion would win by several lengths at least. If any horse could conceivably beat the famous stallion, it would be his second horse, Triumph, which had shown himself to be at the peak of his form. Staying in his house, well-chaperoned, was the beautiful widow, Rosa Claythorn. Nobody doubted that she was as sensible as she was beautiful and would be marrying Mittelhouse before long.

  He had watched his two horses going through their paces, he had chosen the two jockeys, and for a while as he walked back, he forgot his anxiety about the woman. But, as he neared the house, he saw her on the gallery, reading. The girl she called her companion sat a dozen paces away, busy with her needle. He did not give her a thought. Indeed, he found it difficult to so much as remember her name. Yet she was discreet enough. She knew when to keep her distance so that he and Rosa could talk. Even so, he found with Rosa that he could not talk freely. He must face the fact that the damned woman had gotten under his skin. Which seemed to him ridiculous, because he had always had any woman he wanted.

  As he climbed the few steps to the gallery, she looked up from her book and smiled. He found the smile all too impersonal for his liking. If he had been honest with himself, he would have realized that his own smile never possessed the slightest warmth, nor conveyed any sense of recognition of another’s humanity. If only once, he thought, she could look pleased to see him. If he could only suspect that she might lose her self-control when he touched her. For a moment as he gazed down at her, he had the unexpected urge to brutalize her. The impulse was so violent that it shook him. She noticed something.

  ‘Carl,’ she said, ‘are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’ He sat in the rocker near her chair and looked at her profile as she gazed over the valley.

  ‘Well, Rosa,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time you committed yourself and told me what you think of the West.’ He glanced at the companion and saw that she had her head down over her sewing.

  Rosa turned to look at him. ‘You’re sure you want me to answer that.’ she said.

  ‘Quite sure.’ Just the same, he started to feel uneasy. His violent impulse had left him. He found that he was, as before, slightly in awe of her.

  ‘No holds barred, as they say? The honest-to-goodness truth and nothing but the truth?’ She was making a joke of it, but he knew that she was in earnest. ‘We shall dispense with the polite nonsense that’s passed between us so far.’

  It shocked him a little, hearing a woman like her speak that way. Or maybe surprised was a better word.

  ‘I would appreciate the truth, Rosa. I think that I have been very patient up to now.’ That sounded pompous and he knew it.

  ‘Then the truth you shall have, sir,’ she said. She looked out over the valley again. On the lush grass, the cattle moved in fairly tight bunches and there seemed to be a sea of them out there. She could see as far as the hills, now turned pastel by distance and bright sunlight. There roamed his great herds of sheep. Everything she saw reflected the power and the wealth of this man. Yet she could find no respect in her for him. That military noodle of a husband of hers who had bored her to paralysis during the five years they had spent together, had at least aroused a little respect in her. What he had, he had earned through his own efforts.

  She said: ‘I find the West crude and cruel. When I see the way your men handle the cattle and their horses, my stomach turns in disgust. There is a veneer of civilization here in this house, but beyond it is a rough and savage world which I cannot admire, as hard as I try. Is that enough, or shall I go on.’

  He wanted suddenly to shout at her, to make her understand. The only reality which he had ever known and which he could treasure was here on this ranch. He wanted to tell her how he felt when he stood here on the gallery and looked out over his land at sunset. When he was here, he never missed a sunset, that last look of the day. How could he convey his feelings to her?

  When he spoke, it was in his calm, cultured tones. ‘I imagine you’re telling me that you could not live here under any circumstances. We have not spoken about it, but we both understand that I had hoped we’d marry, Rosa. I have – kept my distance. I wanted you to make up your mind quite uninfluenced by emotions.’

  ‘That’s where you made a mistake. Carl. A woman can only make up her mind under emotion. I daresay it’s possible to imagine a situation where a woman would agree to marry a man even if she hated the country. I think you’ll agree that our circumstances do not amount to that.’

  He thought he saw some light. ‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that you find me a cold fish?’

  ‘My dear,’ she told him, ‘there’s only one way of convincing a girl you’re not a cold fish and that is not to behave like one. But I’m unkind.’

  He had to remind himself that it was he who was the marvelous catch and that this woman had nothing to offer but herself. But maybe she rated herself and her independence higher than his money and power.

  ‘I’ve made a real hash of it, haven’t I?’ he said, and felt rather like a small boy who had failed at his studies.

  ‘I don’t think so necessarily,’ she said. ‘You’ve impressed me as an honorable man, and I couldn’t say that for many. I think you’re kind. Unusually good-looking.’ Here she turned and smiled at him and then he could have struck her. He wanted to say something mannerless and shattering, but he could not bring himself to do it.

  Now she asked a question which took him off-balance: ‘Carl, how much of this land is actually yours?’

  He said
, after a small hesitation: ‘The whole of this eastern side of the valley and the hill grazing beyond it.’

  ‘Surely some of that is public domain?’ She seemed to ask it innocently.

  He was plain annoyed now, and said with a show of irritation: ‘Who’s been putting this nonsense into your head, Rosa?’

  ‘Carl,’ she said, ‘you can think of me as a cold woman, even a mercenary one, but I shall feel insulted if you think me a fool. The time we have spent together here has been to see if we suit each other for marriage. I am sure that you have enquired into my background, and indeed would not have admired you for omitting to do so. I have also been checking on yours. I find that where I was led to believe that you owned vast areas of grazing land, in reality you own very little – and that only because you bought the homesteading tracts from your men, who had staked claims for you.’ Now he was openly angry. ‘You don’t understand. It’s common practice. Cattlemen have always appropriated open range and held it against all comers. There’s no other way. It’s a well-tried and time-honored system.’

  ‘In twenty years it will be an anachronism. How long can you go on burning out the nesters who settle on your land?

  ‘What?’

  ‘I spoke to one of your employees today. His hair was singed and he smelled strongly of fire. I questioned him. Oh, he tried to evade my questions, but I got the information out of him just the same. There was a Swedish family on the southern edge of your range. Their home was set fire to while they were in it. Only a miracle prevented their being burned alive. You can’t go on doing that kind of thing forever, can you? Sooner or later, surely, the law will step in.’

  ‘The law,’ he said. ‘One man.’

  Then he thought: McAllister. He said: ‘You’ve been talking to McAllister.’ He shouldn’t have given himself away, but he could not help it.

  ‘McAllister?’ she said. ‘Who’s he?’

  Suddenly the companion’s voice cut through their conversation: ‘Rosa, you remember, dear. That’s that perfectly charming sheriff who was here the other day.’ Now anger exploded in Mittelhouse. He jumped to his feet and cried: ‘Do you mean, ma’am, that you have been sitting there listening to an intimate conversation?’

  ‘But, Carl,’ Rosa said, ‘that’s why she’s here.’

  May Harris was blushing deeply. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m deeply sorry.’

  It looked some kind of a woman’s conspiracy to Mittelhouse. He was so angry that he did not trust himself to speak. Without another word he stomped into the house. He crossed the large living-room to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a half-dozen fingers of whiskey. He put that down him in one, and wondered why the hell he had done that. He had never before in his life resorted to drink in a crisis. Was this a crisis? Wasn’t it just some woman silliness?

  But the Swedish family … What in God’s name was the woman talking about?

  He rushed back to the gallery again, and for the first time in his life he raised his voice demandingly to one of his employees: ‘Al-Al Corby. Corby, you come in here.’ He saw Corby come to the door of his house, and he raised his voice to a bellow: ‘Corby, you get yourself over here, fast.’ Mittelhouse stormed back into the house again. By the time his manager reached him, he had had time to drink another six fingers of whiskey. The manager looked so calm and self-contained, Mittelhouse could have hit him in the mouth.

  ‘Corby,’ Mittelhouse said, ‘what the hell’s this I hear about a nester family being burned out on our south line?’

  Corby just stared. ‘Nesters burned out?’ Plainly, he was puzzled, even incredulous.

  ‘You heard me. A Swedish family. Somebody put a light to their house while they were in it. While they were in it, goddammit.’

  ‘Believe me, boss,’ Corby said, ‘this is the first I heard of it.’

  Mittelhouse lowered his voice. ‘Well, it seems as if the owner and the manager are the last to hear of it. Get Cramer in here. I mean to get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘Cramer’s an hour’s ride off, boss, at roundup.’

  ‘Corby, I do not give a monkey’s copulation if Cramer is in goddam Chile. I want him here fast. If he drags his feet, he’s fired.’

  ‘Boss, I swear I—’

  Mittelhouse spoke then to Corby as he had never spoken to one of his people before. ‘Corby, get your ass out of my sight before I kick all to hell.’

  Corby left. Not long after, Mittelhouse heard a rider go away from the house quirting his horse. He sat down in one of the massive cowhide chairs and thought. His thoughts did not take him anywhere. He heard a faint sound and looked up. Rosa Claythorn stood in front of him. She dimpled at him a little and then went serious.

  ‘My God, Mittelhouse,’ she said, ‘you’re human after all.’

  He tried to get to his feet, but found that he was a little drunk. The discovery surprised him, but suddenly he found the situation was not without comedy. He gave a short laugh and said: ‘I’m not human. I’m drunk.’

  ‘Same thing sometimes.’ She stretched out a hand and took one of his. She hauled him to his feet and he found that she was surprisingly strong.

  He said: ‘Jesus, you don’t mean that goddam protectress of yours is not actually spying on us.’

  She grinned. ‘I told her if she stopped sewing and even looked up, she was fired.’

  He put his arms around her and kissed her on the mouth. She started to melt a little. He found that even a little with this woman was a lot. He had never had so much woman in his arms. What made it so marvelous was that she obviously enjoyed it, whiskey breath or not. Their bodies clung.

  When they released each other, he walked to the other side of the room, just so that he could see her more objectively. But it was hopeless and he knew it.

  ‘Does this mean,’ he said, ‘that you might alter your mind about marrying me?’

  ‘I never made up my mind one way or the other.’

  ‘Well, that’s better than being kicked in the belly by a mule.’

  ‘Coarse, but true. Humor me, Carl. Listen. I’ll marry you on two conditions: one, that you win this horse race; two, and this is the more important, you do something positive, something entirely of your own. It isn’t the West that frightens me. It’s the fact that you have had all this too easily. You never had to risk everything.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’ he asked, and knew that he had made a mistake as he said it.

  ‘If you have to ask it’s no good you trying.’

  He wanted to cross the room to her, but he held himself where he was. ‘Rosa,’ he said, ‘I want you like hell.

  ‘Between ourselves,’ she said, ‘I rather want you myself.’

  Twenty-Two

  Sammy Nolan was not on duty at the livery when Mole Trusty went for his horse. But the owner was. He was the mayor of Black Horse, Lon McKenna. Lon was one of those simple souls who are smart in business, but socially simple. He trusted nobody in business and trusted everybody sociably. He would sup with the Devil, unaware that he was not a saint. Now he beamed on Mole Trusty and started a long line of chat, from which Trusty extricated himself as best he could, mounted his hired horse and made it out of town. His quarry had made for the eastern trail and Trusty did not want to lose him.

  The night was fairly bright, what with moon and stars, and within fifteen minutes or so, Trusty picked up the hoofbeats of the man he was following. To do this, of course, he had to stop and listen, and he had to be careful that the man ahead did not hear the pursuit. It was never easy to follow a man at night in this kind of country, particularly if it meant doing so on horseback, but Trusty understood that the whole of this enterprise shared with Brennan might depend on his success. He may not have been an honest man, but he was a persistent one and he was thorough.

  The man he followed was heading straight across the valley. Keeping well back, Trusty stayed with him. When he had been in the saddle for nearly an hour, he stopped to listen and found that he could no longer hea
r the horse in front of him. This meant one of two things-either the fellow had heard him, or he had also stopped to listen, suspecting that he was being followed. Trusty felt the first small flutter of unease. He dismounted, ground-hitched his horse and walked away twenty paces so that he could listen without the distant sounds being drowned by the closer sounds of the horse.

  He heard nothing.

  The most sensible thing to do, he thought, would be to quietly go back to town. But this was no ordinary job and he reckoned a certain amount of risk was called for. He walked back to the horse and mounted.

  When he advanced once more, he did not go along the established trail, but left it and circled south. He exchanged the sound of the hoofs clattering on the hard trail for the swish-swish as they went through the long grass. Several times in the next ten minutes, he stopped to listen-and heard nothing.

  As he approached the trail again, however, he heard a whisper of sound to the east of him. He stopped and listened again. At once he was certain that he could hear the sound of the other horse being lifted into a canter. Now he turned along the edge of the trail and increased his own speed. He came down to a creek. To cross it, he had to make his way through a thicket of willows, then slow the horse to negotiate the water.

  It was then that the noose dropped over his shoulders. He felt it tighten about his upper arms. His horse continued on its way, and the taut rope heaved Trusty clean out of the saddle. He landed on his back in the shallows. They may have been shallow, but they were deep enough for him to get his head under water and his mouth full of the stuff. He came up out of the water spouting like a whale. To give credit where it was due, Trusty did not then lose either his nerve or his presence of mind. As he stumbled ashore, his knife was out, razor sharp and slashing at the reata.

  A voice said: ‘Hold it right there or I blow your head off.’

  Trusty took a chance. He gambled that there was no more than one man, that one man could not use a rope and a gun at the same time, and that this same man would not have roped him if he did not want to take him alive. As he cut the rope, he retained the end of it in his left hand. He heaved on it with all his strength, and saw the dark figure of a man blunder out of the willows down the slope towards him. He swung his knife forwards and upwards and threw the whole weight of his shoulder behind the thrust.