McAllister 7

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘Gold?’ Lindholm seemed to come a little closer from a long way off. But as yet he was not really a part of the scene. ‘Gold?’

  ‘What gold do you refer to? I thought all the gold had been shipped out.’

  Lindholm’s eyes began to come back into focus. ‘Ah,’ he said, eyes wary and scared, ‘we always keep some gold at the bank. Naturally. It would be that the thieves were after. Did you get clear sight of them, McAllister?’

  ‘Their leader was a tall man, dressed in grey and riding a sorrel horse. I’ve seen him some place, but I’m damned if I can place him. The other was a dark fellow with a scar down his right cheek.’

  ‘My God,’ cried the banker, quite taken off balance and scarcely knowing what he was saying: ‘Stevenson and Cutter.’

  McAllister gave a glad cry. ‘That’s them. I’m grateful, Lindholm. I would have placed them eventually. But, say, you’ll catch your death dressed like that.’

  Lindholm looked down at himself. ‘I must get in there and save what I can,’ he said.

  ‘Everything’s being done,’ McAllister said. ‘You know who your friends are at a time like this. There’s neighbors of yours in there risking life and limb on your behalf.’

  Lindholm swallowed. ‘I’m grateful.’

  Ham Stoppard loped up and gazed mournfully on the burning remnants of the bank.

  ‘Oh, my God, Mr Lindholm, sir,’ he said. ‘Everything’s gone.’

  ‘Everything,’ said Lindholm.

  Ham began to make a strange noise. McAllister could not tell if he was laughing or crying.

  McAllister said: ‘Take Mr Lindholm home, Ham. We’ll clear up here.’

  Five or six horsemen clattered down the street. Two of them were almost too drunk to stay in the saddle. McAllister gathered that they thought they were chasing Indians. Ham Stoppard took Lindholm away. The banker was saying over and over: ‘I’m finished, Ham, I’m all washed up.’

  ‘Looks like it, Mr Lindholm, sir,’ said Ham, a shade too cheerfully, Lindholm thought.

  Chapter Twenty

  They put the gold under the hay in Lon McKenna’s big barn without a guard. The gold and money which did not belong to Whiskey Joe they carried to Lindholm’s house and handed over to the banker. Lindholm was dressed and he looked like hell, haggard and old. He must have drunk a half-bottle of whiskey since they last saw him. He couldn’t check what was there because there were no books to check it against. He still apparently had a few of his wits about him.

  He said to Mark Tully, McAllister and the few others who toted the safe’s contents to his house: ‘Doesn’t it strike you as strange that the thieves only took gold and not money?’

  They all agreed they thought that was strange.

  When they had gone and Lindholm went into his room to find the girl, he said to her: ‘Carla, there’s something mighty odd here. All those thieves took was Joe’s gold. Everything else seems to be intact.’

  ‘McAllister described Stevenson to you, Howard,’ the girl said. ‘Do you think it’s at all possible Stevenson did rob the bank?’

  ‘After tonight I’d believe anything was possible.’ He looked at her searchingly. ‘Does this mean you and I have no future together?’

  ‘You must think me a pretty shallow sort of creature, Howard. I’m not the kind of girl to desert a man just because he’s down.’

  That was just what he had thought. Now he said: ‘Does that mean you care a little for me for myself?’

  She smiled cutely. ‘Sure, I do, but I’m not forgetting either that Joe has plenty more gold where that came from.’

  He gazed at her, wonderingly. ‘You’re some girl, Carla. You really mean that, don’t you? You mean for us to go after Joe’s claim.’

  She came and sat beside him on the bed. She had not dressed, only covered her nakedness with a thin silk dressing-gown. He could see the faint lines of her breasts, and they told him that paradise was still there for the taking. He was so grateful to her for this saving hand that he put an arm around her and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘I guess,’ he said, ‘with you and me together, anything can be done.’

  She kissed him back with a show of real affection. ‘Howard, we’ll be rich yet.’

  ‘I’m not really the man to ride the mountains hunting up a gold claim, my darling.’

  She showed her strong white teeth. ‘You and me are not going to stir from this town, Howard. Remember, you’re still old Joe’s adviser and friend. I know you can persuade the old fool to tell you where the claim is. Then you start using Stevenson. I don’t care if he stole the gold or not. He’s greedy and he’ll go after the mine. We have to fix it that he brings the gold to you. Or even a percentage of the gold.’

  He struck a fist into a palm. Here he saw difficulties. ‘But can it be done?’

  ‘You’re forgetting. Between us, we can do anything.’

  He saw it all then, like an inspiration. This night was not the end for him. It was a beginning. He could pull off his coup after all. He would have money and this woman.

  He laughed and pulled her back onto the bed, quite deftly opening the front of her dressing gown as he did so.

  ‘How’s this for starters?’ he said, and she giggled delightfully.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  This was not the end of Josiah Ramage’s troubles, and nobody knew it better than McAllister. But first things first. Two of his people had been injured in the brand new millionaire’s service and he must pay for the fact. A millionaire’s values are money, and it is as well to recognize the fact, if only out of courtesy to him.

  McAllister washed and shaved in his office and walked around to Joe’s for breakfast.

  ‘By the great horned toad, McAllister,’ cried the millionaire, jumping a little on his chair, ‘what in hell’s going on around here?’ He could see with interest the black rims around the sheriff’s eyes where he had failed to remove the remains of the burned black powder from the explosion. ‘How much was taken from the bank? Did they catch any of the thieves?’

  ‘None of the bank’s cash was taken,’ McAllister replied. ‘Only your gold.’

  Joe wrung his hands a little. The real Allison Disart sat there and looked at McAllister with an expression on her face commonly worn by young women when they are not quite sure what kind of a fellow a man is. Then she turned her attention, maybe a mite reluctantly, to her new-found uncle, who seemed to be on the brink of openly weeping. A distressing fact in a land where only women and Mexicans were expected to weep. In a voice all broken up with emotion, Joe said: ‘My God, this is terrible. What’s the country coming to? Huh? Can you tell me that? When an honest gold prospector can’t put his hard-won gold in a safe place?’

  ‘Calm down, Joe,’ McAllister said. ‘Your gold’s as safe as it ever was.’

  ‘Safe?’ whined the millionaire (for, as you see, wealth makes cowards of us all). ‘How in tarnation can it be safe if it’s stole?’

  ‘It’s safe in my keeping.’

  Joe was on his feet, knotted forefinger pointing quiveringly at the sheriff. ‘If that’s supposed to be a comfort to me, you got another think coming.’

  ‘You ungrateful old-man,’ said McAllister, out of deference to the feminine company and the manners of his period, which forbade naughty words in front of what was called the ‘gentle sex’. ‘Half this town went out last night and blew the bank to-ah-kingdom come and risked their necks and reputations to save your fool gold.’

  ‘Where’s it at right now?’ quavered poor old Joe.

  ‘Under the hay in the mayor’s barn.’

  The millionaire went white. ‘I wouldn’t trust that thieving son-of-a-bitch as far as I could throw a goddam pyeanny.’

  ‘Lady present,’ said McAllister.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ said Allison.

  Joe did not. ‘You get that gold in here’s fast’s you can rustle yourself, McAllister,’ he cried.

  McAllister was firm. ‘Get a grip on yourself,
Joe. You’re talking wild. Everybody’s been working to save your gold and your life. We put you and your gold together and you’re asking for trouble. No, we keep the gold for you, and if you have any sense at all, you’ll pack your grips and take Miss Allison and yourself clean out of the country to some safe place.’

  ‘Like Hell I do.’

  ‘I can’t guard you twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘You couldn’t guard a goddam hen house from coyotes.’

  After that, their conversation became somewhat heated and McAllister could sincerely wish that he had kept his mouth shut and allowed the old man to believe that his gold had been stolen by persons unknown. He checked that there was somebody guarding the gold in the livery, had Charlie Stellino help him tote the gold over to his office and put it in a box which stood in plain sight of anybody who cared to view it. Charlie said he might as well go out on Main and hand it around to the worthy citizens. McAllister rode out to his place to take a look at Mose Copley.

  Mose was looking pretty sorry for himself. He had every right to. But he was cheerful enough. That could not be said of Bella Copley, who acted as if she owed McAllister a pretty bitter grudge. And he could not blame her for that. She was right. This was none of Mose’s affair and McAllister should have left him out of it.

  The blacksmith knew what was in McAllister’s mind. ‘Don’t you pay no heed to Bella now, boss. She get over it.’ Mose sat on the stoop and smoked his corn-cob pipe. ‘I watching that trail yonder. Soon or late, one of the men you want is going to ride along there. Stands to reason. When I see him, you’re going to know.’

  McAllister found Bella in the kitchen of his house, baking bread. ‘Bella, I suppose it ain’t no good saying I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, it ain’t,’ she said. ‘I’m mad and I aim to stay mad.’ So he got out of there and watched young Lige working a green horse in the circular pen. After a while, the boy dismounted and tied the horse to the snubbing post. He sauntered his lank form across the pen to McAllister and grinned. He said: ‘I reckon my old lady sure gave you hell in there, boss.’

  McAllister wanted to wipe that grin off his face. ‘You go to hell,’ he said, and went and saddled his mare. He reckoned he had had just about enough of humanity. He rode back to town, unaware of the truth that men are blissful in their misery. Humanity had a good deal more in store for him.

  That night, two horsemen rode quietly into the thickets which lay north of town, dismounted, tied their horses and quietly walked the remainder of their way. They used shadow to its full advantage and came by the rear way to the house of J. Howard Lindholm. One man tapped on the kitchen door with the butt of his quirt, and they waited. Then he tapped again, and a moment later the door opened and showed them a darkened room. They stepped past him and, guided by the light from the hall, walked to the rear parlor of the house. The man who had admitted them shut and locked the kitchen door and followed them.

  Sitting in the parlor, they found the girl who had impersonated Allison Disart. She ignored the smaller of the two men, but found a smile for the taller of the two.

  Henry Holst Stevenson bowed. He looked very different now from the man who had surveyed the Black Horse street from the bank window. He was dressed in a blue hickory shirt and mackinaw coat, with striped California pants tucked into knee-high boots. The gun at his right hip had a used looked to it. His old hat had seen years of service.

  His companion was dressed in levis and chaps. In the crook of his left arm he carried a short repeating carbine. He was young and looked harmless; both were his stock-in-trade. He had played on them for years. He had been the greenhorn in Mark Tully’s back room. His name was Wallace Harms, but it was a long time since he had been called anything but the Kid.

  Stevenson was saying: ‘It’s nice to see you, Carla. It’s always nice to see a beautiful woman.’ He would have followed this with the usual flow of nonsense he produced for any woman, but the banker came bustling into the room and at once turned on him fiercely.

  ‘Well, Hank, this is a fine kettle of fish. My God, have you gone out of your mind? The bank is a total wreck. You must be crazy to do a thing like this without consulting me. I am angry. I am very angry.’

  The other two looked at him in astonishment.

  Stevenson said: ‘J. Howard, I do not have the remotest idea what you’re talking about.’ He turned to the girl. ‘What the hell’s he talking about, Carla?’

  The banker spluttered: ‘Don’t know what I’m talking about? My God, I never want to live through the last day again.’ He looked from one face to the other. ‘You mean – you mean you honestly don’t …’

  The girl said: ‘Somebody blew the bank up.’ She could not help laughing. ‘It don’t bear thinking on.’

  Lindholm said: ‘The bank was blown up and nothing was taken except Joe Ramage’s gold.’

  Now Stevenson and the Kid looked at each other. Stevenson said: ‘This smells to high heaven.’ He stood there, thinking, his heavy chin resting on his powerful chest. He slowly raised his head and stared at them. He said in a slow thoughtful voice: ‘This is the point where everything starts to fall to pieces around us. If we don’t get a right grasp on it.’

  Lindholm said: ‘Just what do you—’

  ‘Didn’t you hear Jim Barker was shot?’

  The banker’s voice rose to falsetto. ‘Barker shot? Oh, my God.’

  The girl said: ‘Who did it?’

  Stevenson said: ‘We don’t know for sure who did it. Nobody saw it. I think it has to be McAllister.’

  Lindholm was doing some fresh thinking now.

  The panic which had taken hold of him since the blowing up of the bank started to subside under the demands of his will. This was still the chance of his lifetime and now was not the moment to lose his nerve. He must harden himself. Vast fortunes were not won by men who were ruled by the gentler emotions. He heard himself say in a cold voice which he scarcely recognized as his own: ‘I think it would be better for all of us if this McAllister was killed.’

  Stevenson raised an eyebrow in surprise. What Lindholm said made sense, but Stevenson had never expected him to say it.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune, Lindholm,’ he said.

  The banker said: ‘The game’s changed. It changed the moment Barker was killed. It could be any of us next. I know this town. Like all such towns, it’ll follow a strong leader, but it’ll go to pieces without him. Kill McAllister, and we can finish this job while they’re all catching their breath.’

  The Kid said: ‘This sounds more and more like my kind of business.’

  Stevenson said half-mockingly: ‘So you’re volunteering to knock McAllister over?’

  ‘Sure,’ said the Kid, who liked to look tough in front of women. ‘You think he can’t be killed or something?’

  Stevenson said: ‘It’s been tried a good few times before without any notable success.’

  The Kid smiled. ‘Maybe his luck just ran out.’

  Lindholm nodded. ‘That’s good, so far as it goes. Now, the gold. If the Kid takes risks and we put ourselves in jeopardy by killing a sheriff, it must be to good purpose. We have to locate Ramage’s main source of gold.’

  ‘Put a gun to his head and offer to blow his brains out,’ the Kid said. ‘It’s simple and it works like a charm.’

  Stevenson said: ‘Ramage knows we can’t afford to kill him. Not before we find the gold.’

  Lindholm said, liking himself in his new calm and master of destiny part: ‘So let’s all have a drink and talk about this.’ Stevenson laughed. ‘I never heard of a better idea.’

  A number of incidents took place during that night and the following day which are pertinent to this story.

  First, the Kid.

  He knew a thing or two about McAllister. Who did not, in his trade? He knew that the man was tough and capable and incorruptible. But he knew that the strongest factor McAllister had going for him was his luck. And the Kid believed in Luck with a capital L as if she wa
s a goddess. To beat a man’s luck when it was strong, you had to have powerful odds on your side. The best odds the Kid could think of was a powerful long-distance rifle, a few shells and surprise. Nothing on earth, except for an act of God, could guard a man against that combination.

  So the Kid thought about it. The easiest shot he could get at the sheriff was right here in town. But that was risky. A man could get himself caught too easily in a town. He needed a location where space and distance were his allies. Which meant somewhere near McAllister’s ranch. There was good cover on the high ridges above the place, and he could ride hard from there to comparative safety. The ranch was the one place where McAllister would go, sooner or later.

  Having made up his mind to this, the Kid eased out of town under cover of dark and took up a position on a ridge between the ranch house and the high ridges on the far side of the road. From his hiding place, he could run with equal ease down the length of the valley to the hills beyond or back on to the wooded ridge, where he would have good cover and could knock over any pursuit. He would have liked a weapon with a longer range than his Spencer carbine, but there was none other than available.

  As for the others in the banker’s house-they had a problem. The girl, Carla Blount, for whom J. Howard Lindholm had such definite plans, had been in his house a number of days without daring to put her head outside for fear of being seen. So far as the town was concerned, she had disappeared into thin air. There was no future for her shut up in the house, and she was growing increasingly restless and uneasy. She voiced her need to get clear of the town, and Stevenson suggested that if they could get her to Caspar, she could travel on to Chicago without too much trouble. But she was having none of that and bluntly told them so. She had a stake in this enterprise and she did not mean to take her eyes off her colleagues until the gold was in her hands. When Stevenson ventured: ‘But you can trust us, Carla,’ she laughed, and he did not press the claim.