McAllister 6

by Matt Chisholm

  Lige’s lower lip trembled a little. With a grey grin that came and went quickly, he said: ‘Nobody ain’t going to come near me on Caesar.’

  Mittelhouse’s Champion was almost alongside them. McAllister glanced at the rider and saw that he was a hard-bitten little cowhand who had ridden for the Running M many times. An expert race jockey. His rig was a light version of the Western saddle. Too much saddle, in McAllister’s opinion, for a race of this nature. As he expected, Mittelhouse had entered two horses. The other was the horse which was almost as good as Champion. This was the gelding, Triumph. He was a highly strung horse and was acting up badly. Its rider, a small imported jockey, was having a bad time and was in a bad temper. He was sweating a lot and his face was red. The saddle was of a light Eastern model.

  There were plenty more fine horses there, mostly belonging to wealthy members of the Cattlemen’s Association. A magnificent black with a coat of satin and a wide full blaze down its face belonged to Harvey Emmett. A racy-looking chestnut with a little Mexican up belonged to Glub Groos, who massively almost topped the rider, even though the man was mounted. Glub was telling him in a voice that could be heard on the far side of the crowd in awful cow pen Spanish that if he did not win, he would have his heathen guts for galluses. The Mexican nodded his head vigorously and said: ‘Si, si, si, si, si, si, patrón.’ If Groos won, he’d find himself in jail again.

  When McAllister inspected the rest of the field, he thought all the other horses looked equally as good. For the first time, his confidence in Caesar was slightly shaken. It was not a pleasant experience. The fact that he had half the town’s savings on the horse did not help matters. As if to underline the fact, Doc Robertson called out: ‘Rem, don’t forget you have our life savings on that crowbait.’ Somehow, from somewhere, McAllister summoned a happy and carefree grin. He had the uneasy feeling that if he did not win he might as well ride out into the sunset and keep on going.

  The day was clear and hot, so hot that as McAllister looked across the valley at his own place, the house was hidden in the heat haze. This could be a good sign. The canelos all loved the heat, and Caesar was best on hard going. Champion, he knew, preferred soft going. Champion, he felt sure, was the most dangerous horse there-with Triumph close behind.

  He found that he was sweating.

  The colonel was bellowing: ‘Get ’em lined out, boys.’

  There was, McAllister saw with relief, no jockeying for position, an activity which might allow Lige to be bullied. The start of a race of this nature hardly mattered, though he did not doubt that old fool with the starting gun would make the most of it.

  ‘Make it a good line now, boys.’

  McAllister led Caesar forward and positioned him between Triumph and a blue roan which looked like a cross between a thoroughbred and a quarter-horse. Lige was patting Caesar’s neck and talking to him. Some of the excitement was getting to the stallion now, but not too much. No more than he showed normally before a run. There was nothing he liked more in life than a run. He could not know that today he would be asked to run his great heart out.

  Lige looked at McAllister. The boy’s face was grey. McAllister winked. Lige tried to say something, but not a sound would come from his dry throat.

  The crowd suddenly started to hush. McAllister glanced towards the starter and saw that the colonel had raised his pistol above his head.

  ‘That’s a goddamn awful line,’ the colonel grumbled, ‘but it’ll have to do. Be ready now because the next thing I’m going to do is fire this here gun.’

  The shot sounded and the crowd roared. The line of horses surged raggedly forward. McAllister stayed on the sideline just long enough to see Caesar all tangled up with the roan. On the far end of the line, three horses were in a tangle. There were loud curses; a quirt rose and fell. Champion shot away, clear to the head of the field, going like an arrow. Then Triumph, close on the heels of his stablemate, then the black – where the hell was Caesar? The answer to that was that the roan had turned broadside on to him and blocked his start.

  McAllister gave up. There was nothing he could do. He shouldered his way through the crowd and reached Oscar, vaulted into the saddle and rode clear of the crowds. The horses were all off now, angling across the valley towards the creek. He could not see Lige and Caesar, but he reckoned they were among the pack. He lifted Oscar into a run and headed straight down the valley. Already the racing horses were beginning to string out. One by one, they disappeared from view behind the brush and trees which bordered the creek trail. Behind him, the roar of the crowd died down to a murmur. Everybody stood and stared at the light pall of dust which rose to hang over the creek. A great number of people that day crossed their fingers and hoped.

  A movement caught the corner of his eye behind him, and he turned further in the saddle to see Mittelhouse and his two ladies riding down the slight slope of the valley, going in the same direction. Rosa Claythorn waved, and he returned the greeting, but he did not delay. Today, the race came before courtesy. As he neared Valley Butte, standing out from the mass of hills beyond it, he looked across the valley to the great isolated Lost Wagon Butte and saw the wisp of dust that indicated the racing horses were turning along the south side of the butte and were now heading across the valley towards him. Most of the riders, he knew, would be holding back a little at this stage, fearing that the grueling ride would soon be wearing down their mounts.

  As he slowed near to Valley Butte, he heard Mittelhouse and the two girls coming up behind him. There were one or two more mounted spectators coming along behind them. He found the rancher in a relaxed and friendly mood. The two girls smiled brightly as they approached.

  Laughing, Mittelhouse said: ‘Still living in hopes, McAllister?’

  McAllister smiled in return and said: ‘Already spent the winnings.’

  Rosa said: ‘Isn’t that counting your chickens?’ And May Harris said shyly: ‘I bet on your horse, Mr McAllister.’ This surprised the other two and they looked their astonishment. Rosa remarked: ‘May, you never said.’

  May said: ‘If Caesar does as you wish, Mr McAllister, I shall be one hundred dollars the richer.’

  ‘In that case, Miss May,’ McAllister told her, ‘he just has to win.’ McAllister took note of Mittelhouse’s new ease of manner and wondered what had happened between him and Mrs Claythorn.

  Now all their attention was taken by the line of riders streaming across the valley towards them. Champion, they saw at once, held the lead by about ten lengths. The magnificent horse was running with a long and reaching stride. The rider looked confident, as well he might. The second of Mittelhouse’s horses, Triumph, ran second, running with the same easy stride. Still further came the black and the grey. Bringing up the rear was Caesar, covering the ground with that hammering trot of his, an action which he could hold all day. As he passed, Lige turned an anxious face towards McAllister. McAllister signed that the boy was doing fine and Lige gave him a grin.

  The girls had moved their horses forward, and for a moment McAllister and Mittelhouse were alone.

  McAllister said softly: ‘The Association makes its move against the nesters and the rest today, Mittelhouse. I hope you ain’t mixed up in it.’

  The man gave him a startled look. His easiness of manner deserted him. ‘You know perfectly well that I have refused—’

  ‘I just want to be sure,’ McAllister said. ‘Every little counts at a time like this.’

  ‘But all the ranchers are here at the race.’

  ‘I know, cozy ain’t it? The bastards’re letting the hired help spill the blood. All I’m saying is: if the roof blows off, Mittelhouse, you sit tight and don’t join in — or I’ll have you inside that jail quick as you can spit.’ He touched Oscar with the quirt and headed for the Breaks. As he passed the girls, he gave them a cheery wave. They were surprised to see that their previously charming escort was now in a stormy mood.

  McAllister took the gelding west at an easy pace, for the race n
ow had a long hard run diagonally back across the valley to the creek and Indian Rock, which stood not far from it. He now found himself entering the dry and arid country which constituted the Breaks. There was grass and water in some of them, but for the most part they were unremitting rock and sand. The going was mainly hard. Here was Lige’s first real chance to steal a march on the others. Almost all of them would be forced to stick to the train down Main Break, but Caesar was well able to manage a short cut across the rough ground which could save him as much as a mile. All things being equal, Lige and Caesar should appear near the old Gregg Talbot place in the lead. The obligatory course here would take the horses north of a butte-like mass standing in the middle of Main Break and at the mouths of a number of lesser breaks.

  Fifteen minutes later, the speeding cavalcade sweep into view. Triumph had now pulled up to within three lengths of its stablemate, and the black was not far behind. There were signs that the riders were beginning to race for position, even though the race was not yet half-run. Caesar was now the last horse, a fact which did not displease McAllister. It would be good if Lige could turn off the main course of the race without the other riders being aware of it. That would make them doubly mad when Lige appeared ahead of them. Lige waved briefly at the sight of McAllister before he turned the stud for the rough ground. McAllister had ridden it a number of times with him, and the boy had learned it well, knowing exactly when to dismount and run to save time and trouble. If Caesar stayed on his feet, this could provide them with a valuable gain.

  Mittelhouse and his two ladies turned up to see Lige disappearing. Rosa and Mittelhouse said they thought this was not exactly fair.

  ‘It’s legal,’ said McAllister, ‘and that’s all that matters when there’s a purse of ten thousand dollars.’

  Mittelhouse protested: ‘But nobody would risk a thoroughbred over that kind of ground.’

  McAllister said: ‘That’s what this kind of race is all about. Maybe thoroughbreds should be kept for flat racing.’

  May Harris said: ‘I think it’s wonderful, Mr McAllister. Why, we could win.’

  McAllister beamed on her: ‘You’re an intelligent lady, if I may say so, ma’am. You and me’re going to clean up today.’ This was the moment when he raised his eyes and saw the tip of the black column of smoke to the north of them. His shock must have showed on his face, for the others at once looked in that direction.

  ‘A fire,’ Rosa Claythorn said.

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked May Harris.

  ‘It means,’ said Mittelhouse, ‘that war has started in this country. The damn fools.’

  McAllister, without another word, urged Oscar forward into the same rough country into which Lige and Caesar had disappeared. This brought him in a few seconds on to higher ground from which he could see out into the valley at the far end of Main Break. He fingered a small mirror from a vest pocket and at once began to heliograph his message to Charlie Stellino there. Communicating thus took a few minutes, because Charlie had to know directions. After a while, Charlie flashed back that he understood and was on his way.

  McAllister now rode almost directly due north, out of sight of the rancher and his two companions. He paused for no more than a moment to see Lige send Caesar at a steady run down to the flat near the Talbot place. The boy rode past the judge and a small bunch of men there, and McAllister saw the minute figure of the judge raise his hand in acknowledgement of the boy. A full minute passed before the main body of riders swept into view. By this time, Lige was on his way, heading into the very rough trail on the far side of Main Break which would take him on the perilous way through the high country and then on the long downhill run back to town. It was that downhill run which would sort the horses out. Now it was, McAllister knew, that Caesar would come into his own. There were two good cut-offs which the boy could use and gain time, cut-offs which no owner of a thoroughbred would risk. A broken leg up here was a dead horse, and a man did not easily kill an investment of that value. McAllister turned Oscar down a side break and went on north. He knew exactly where the fire was. It was at the Olsen place, which was the headquarters of the biggest sheep spread in this part of the country.

  At that moment, as the trio turned their horses down Main Break to watch the race go across the break into the rough up-country to the south, Rosa Claythorn inspected Mittelhouse from the corner of her eyes. She knew that she was assessing him against the man who had just left them. She did so with the supreme confidence of a woman who had always succeeded with men. Like so many whose main pleasure in life was affairs of the heart, she was able to sum up her men with a cool objectivity. This objectivity told her that while Mittelhouse could offer her a life of material comfort, he was incapable of providing her with those indefinable things which a woman of her character always craved for.

  She was not getting any younger, she told herself, and she must think of the future. Just the same, she could not help thinking of Remington McAllister. This was not a new phenomenon, although she was unaware of it. A good many women had done so in the past.

  She caught May Harris watching her, and she thought she saw a calculating gleam in that young woman’s eye. However, May being little more than the hired help, as you might say, she dismissed her without further thought.

  They saw, as the riders streamed by them, that McAllister’s black rider, Lige Copley, held the lead, but the big horse, Champion, was pressing him hard. As they neared the far side of Main Break, Champion overtook the canelo and seemed to streak ahead.

  Mittelhouse said: ‘It’s Champion’s race.’

  He and Rosa were surprised to hear May Harris said: ‘I have ten dollars says you’re a liar.’

  Up on the flat tableland above the Breaks, it was like being on top of the world. Up here, it seemed, was nothing but sky and chilling wind. McAllister buttoned his coat against the cold, and Oscar perked up as though he had been touched by a spur. McAllister stood in his stirrups, looking for Charlie Stellino. In five minutes, Charlie joined him on the horse McAllister had loaned him, a steady middle-aged gelding which had failed to breed true to canelo color and conformation^ It was a big chunky horse, mainly the cinnamon color of the true canelo, but with its hindquarters marked with heavy blotches of white, as if a mis-colored Appaloosa had gotten in among the canelo mares. The two men dismounted and loosened cinches to let the horses have a good blow. There was some hard traveling in front of them both.

  ‘Looks like the Olsen place,’ Charlie opined. He acted naturally enough, but the wrinkles around his eyes showed the tension in him. Charlie was no fool and he knew what he was going up against. Better men than Charlie would have felt the tension.

  ‘It’s too late to get away with bluff on this one, Charlie.

  ‘That’s the way I see it.’

  ‘All we can do is ride over there and see what’s what.

  ‘Chances are it’s the Texas gunslingers, Rem. Olsen has a good many men and it would take a lot to hurt him. Idea being, I reckon, if Olsen falls a lot of the little men will simply up stakes and go.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  They tightened cinches and mounted. Charlie asked: ‘How was the race going?’

  ‘If Lige keeps Caesar on his feet and has a bit of luck, it’s ours.’

  ‘I could use some cash. Of course, you know I’m going to kill you if we lose.’

  ‘I took that for granted, Charlie.’

  They laughed softly together and rode on north.

  Twenty-Seven

  Long before they came in sight of the place where the Olsen house had been, the column of smoke had died down to dark, intermittent whiffs. It had stood in a small valley alongside a creek which flowed all months of the year except the winter ones, when it froze solid. McAllister had visited there once before, when delivering a horse to old man Olsen. He could remember its massive timbers and the numerous extensions which had been tacked on to house the ever- increasing family.

  Mrs Olsen was
there, sitting dry-eyed among a few scraps of furniture she had been able to save. The gunmen had been rough here. They might despise men who followed the plough; they hated men who followed sheep. There had been no sheep at the headquarters to slaughter, so they had killed every other animal in sight. The bodies of dead horses and milch cows seemed to be everywhere. They had even killed Mrs Olsen’s hens. She was half-Indian and she did not weep. She waited to find out who would avenge her losses. She knew that it would not be Ole Olsen, her husband, because he was dead. The raiders had no choice. While Ole was alive he would do what he could to stop them in their destruction. So they had to kill him. Mrs Olsen acknowledged that. Just the same, she wanted an eye for an eye. That was only right.

  Alice Olsen, married to the elder son, Hube, wept. She did so mostly because she had been very frightened – which she had every right to be. She had lost everything, but not, she thought, her husband. He had been out there somewhere in the hills, visiting the eastern band of sheep. She prayed God that he did not meet up with the gunmen. Would McAllister hang them? That kind needed hanging.

  There seemed to be smudged-faced children everywhere. One little girl dragged a rag doll in the dust, a large smut on a cheek. A boy, too old to weep, wept helplessly, because they had killed the first pony he had ever owned.

  Olsen’s youngest daughter, pretty little Lou Olsen, wanted to know how such men continued to exist. They’re animals,’ she said, ‘all animals.’

  Old man Olsen lay on the ground near his wife. His oldest son, Henry, a tall, Indian-dark man noted for his taciturnity, lay dead beside him. Mrs Olsen had seen to it that the dead were gathered in and laid out together. There was something barbaric and horrifying about the scene that caught at a man’s throat.

  ‘Rem,’ Charlie Stellino said in awe, ‘I never seen anything like this in my life.’