McAllister 7

by Matt Chisholm

  Offdike walked across to Allison and, taking her chin in his left hand, raised her head so that she was forced to look up at him.

  ‘You just take a look at me, girl,’ he said. ‘I bet the touch and Teel of me makes your blood run cold.’

  True, the girl was shuddering uncontrollably.

  ‘Jesus,’ said old Joe, ‘this ain’t fair.’

  Offdike pricked the pale forehead with the sharp point of his knife. Joe saw the small spurt of blood. He started to struggle frantically against his rawhide bonds, but they would have held a man twice his strength.

  Stevenson watched him and laughed. ‘All you have to do, Joe,’ he said, ‘is tell us where the gold is.’

  Joe stopped struggling. ‘I’ll do a deal,’ he said.

  Lindholm had never experienced such relief in his whole life. He swore angrily when Stevenson said: ‘No deals. Just tell us where the gold is.’

  Lindholm said: ‘Maybe you don’t care for deals. But I do, Hank. I’ll do any kind of deal that gets us gold.’

  Stevenson glowered at him for a moment, then said: ‘Let’s hear it.’

  Joe said: ‘I got a whole lot of gold cached at the diggings. You keep the girl while I go get you some more gold. My God, there’s enough there for a hundred men.’

  Before Lindholm could say anything, Stevenson said: ‘No deal. You’re so gold-crazy, you’d take off and leave us with the girl.’

  ‘What guarantee do I have,’ Joe said, ‘that you won’t kill us both after you gets your hands on the gold.’

  Offdike laughed and said: ‘You don’t.’

  Lindholm said sharply: ‘Offdike, I’d be obliged if you’d remember that you are one partner in a partnership of five. Joe, you have my guarantee. Lead us to the gold. We’ll hold you while we get the gold out, then we’ll set you free.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Stevenson. ‘You may not trust me and Offdike, but you’ve got to trust Lindholm and Carla. They’re soft.’

  Joe lay there squirming, unable to commit himself totally. But at last he said: ‘All right. I’ll do it. Get these goddam rawhides off’n me and I’ll do it. But you keep away from the girl or the deal’s off. Hear?’

  Stevenson looked mockingly at Lindholm and then at Carla. ‘How about it,’ he said, ‘you agree?’

  Carla said: ‘I agree. We get the gold, then we set the two of them free. The only thing we’ll gain if we kill them will be the hatred of everybody in these parts.’

  ‘I concur with that entirely,’ Lindholm said.

  ‘All right,’ Stevenson said. ‘Let’s saddle up and ride. But, Joe you get tricky with us and I’ll forget all about the girl and maybe the gold too, because I’ll break your back.’

  He and Offdike went off to fetch the horses. Lindholm turned to Carla and said gratefully: ‘You were wonderful, my dear, and I shan’t forget it.’

  Allison Disart said: ‘We thank you too, Carla.’

  Carla said: ‘I’m soft when it comes to killing you in cold blood, Ally. But you won’t find me soft when it comes to getting the gold. You and the old man best not try fooling around.’

  When they were saddled and ready, Stevenson said: ‘The Kid’s on my mind. Something’s got to have happened to him. One of us should go back and check.’

  Offdike said: ‘That sounds like my line of work. If the little bastard’s leading them town boys to us, I’ll settle his hash, and theirs too.’

  ‘All right,’ Stevenson told him, ‘go ahead.’ He turned to Joe Ramage and demanded: ‘What direction you leading us in, Joe?’

  The old man hesitated. Then he said: ‘The gold’s not far from a place called the Eagle’s Nest. That’s a cave about one mile west of Blue Rock. Know it?’

  Offdike said: ‘I know it.’ He lifted his lines and moved his horse away.

  When Lindholm was in the saddle, he said: ‘You are trying my trust too far, Hank, by not telling either Carla or me where the stage gold is hidden.’

  Stevenson smiled disarmingly. ‘Hell,’ he said, ‘it isn’t any great secret, man. It’s kind of laughable really. It’s cached in a small side cave off the Eagle’s Nest. Seemed the right place. Me and Offdike have used the place as a hideout so many times.’

  Joe Ramage said: ‘This has to be one of life’s little jokes, me digging out my gold, toting it into town and you bringing it back up here again.’

  Stevenson swung around in the saddle and said through his teeth in sudden and unexpected rage: ‘By Christ, Ramage, you’d best not be playing another of life’s little jokes.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  McAllister stayed up on high ground until about four hours after dawn. Until then, the boy he was following had made slow progress and seemed reluctant to put his horse at any pace faster than a quick walk. Even then, the animal would occasionally stop, as if it were no longer under the control of its rider. It would wander from the trail and drift over to the dried and meagre grass which grew at its side in coarse clumps. Each time, the Kid would apparently rouse himself and guide the animal back on to the trail again. This happened a number of times until the boy pitched from the saddle and lay still. The horse jumped as it felt the weight of the rider go from its back, then once more went to grass and started grazing.

  McAllister turned his horse downhill.

  The Kid had by now left the Breaks themselves and was working his way along a wide gully into broken country which was a prelude to the foothills. McAllister hit what was little more than a goat track and within a matter of minutes reined in beside the unconscious Kid.

  The boy lay face downward with his head twisted to one side. Seeing the bunching of the bandage on the right shoulder, McAllister guessed the position of the wound. He rolled the Kid half over and propped him in a sitting position, holding him in the crook of his left arm and forcing water down his throat from his canteen. The boy choked and opened his eyes. They focused slowly and he said: ‘McAllister,’ when he recognized the man who held him.

  Very softly and very bitterly, he whispered: ‘You’re too damn late, McAllister. I’m at the end of my rope.’

  McAllister smiled rather unpleasantly. ‘You’re too young and too guilty to die, Kid. Let’s get this shirt off you and we’ll take a look at the wound.’

  When he saw the wound, McAllister did not think it looked too bad, though it did not look too good either.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you ain’t dead yet. I could fix it up for you if we do a deal.’

  The Kid looked anxious. ‘Is it turning bad?’

  ‘Only a little,’ McAllister told him.

  ‘You lying to me?’

  ‘You’ll never know,’ said McAllister, ‘till it’s too late.’ The Kid sat there, looking pale as death and thinking. McAllister thought he looked like a pretty well chewed up rat of a fellow. He was not yet twenty, if reports of him were correct, and already he was looking like a wizened old man. His eyes were pure evil. Finally, he said: ‘What kind of a deal?’

  ‘The simplest of all. I fix your wound and let you ride off. Just so long as you do ride off. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Tell me where Stevenson is headed.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ve been watching you. You haven’t been trailing anybody. You know where you’re going.’

  ‘I could lie to you.’

  ‘Sure, you could. But you’re not going anywhere too fast, Kid. I could ride you down wherever you are.’

  The Kid chewed on that awhile. There was something to chew on, too, because if he rode off now he would be saying no to an awful lot of gold. However, gold was no use to a dead man. And he had heard about McAllister. The man was all Indian.

  Finally, the Kid said: ‘All right. It’s a deal. They’re waiting for me not too far from Blue Rock.’

  McAllister said: ‘I’ll fix that shoulder for you.’

  A voice said: ‘You’re not fixing anything, McAllister.’ McAllister froze.
He knew the voice and he knew there was a gun pointing at his back. The man was in the cover of rocks about thirty paces to his rear. He stood about as much chance as a snowball in hell. So he waited. He looked at the Kid, who had raised himself on one elbow. The Kid and McAllister shared one thought at least-had Offdike heard the Kid tell McAllister where he was headed?

  ‘Reach,’ Offdike said, and McAllister raised his hands to shoulder height. ‘Higher. Strain yourself, man.’ McAllister straightened his arms. He heard the man pacing slowly towards him. He heard the quick intake of breath that always comes immediately before a man strikes a blow. He tried to duck away from it, but he was too late. Something hard caught him below the rim of his hat and he pitched forward over the Kid. The boy tried to throw him off, but he did not possess sufficient strength. McAllister rolled clear and looked up at the tall figure of the man between himself and the sunlight. The brightness was too intense for him to make out any of the details. His senses were reeling from the blow on the head.

  Offdike held a repeating carbine, McAllister could make out that much.

  ‘Take that gun from its holster with your left hand, McAllister,’ Offdike said. ‘Then toss it.’

  McAllister obeyed. He hated to treat a good gun that way. Offdike turned his attention to the Kid.

  ‘So you couldn’t even kill a man from cover, Kid,’ he said conversationally. ‘Christ, you’re not even any damn use to yourself. Well, you made a deal with McAllister, and you just dealed yourself a place in hell.’

  There was no pause, no hesitation. He shot the Kid through the heart. The act was so abrupt and so without warning that McAllister, experienced as he was in the ways of violence and death, was shocked to stillness. It took him a few seconds to collect himself. Offdike moved so that his features cleared. McAllister could see the expression on his face. It was untroubled. He would have shown no more compunction if he had shot an injured horse.

  McAllister wanted to know if he had anything to lose by resistance. If he had to die anyway, there was no point in not risking everything in an attempt to get away from Offdike.

  He stood up slowly and his head ached abominably. He had been hit on the head once too often recently.

  ‘If you can kill one of your own as easy as that,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll hesitate to knock me off.’

  Offdike said lightly: ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t hesitate. But for the moment, I can use you alive.’ He walked over to McAllister’s gun and picked it up. He tucked it in the front of his pants. Then he walked to McAllister’s horse and pulled the, Henry from its scabbard. Then he said: ‘Old Joe’s reluctant to tell us where his gold mine is. He has tried to mislead us with a lie. When he sees I have you, he will know he’s not going to be rescued. Besides, you are a man of common sense, McAllister. You know the kind I am and that I’ll stop at nothing. If you convince him that he should tell me the truth for his and the girl’s sake, I’ll let them both go free.’

  McAllister smiled. ‘But you won’t do the same for me.’

  Offdike grinned.

  ‘You’re a totally different proposition, Rem.’

  They found the others camped about one mile west of Blue Rock. They were now in the wildest country. Not even the small hill ranchers had been bold enough to push their tiny herds this far west. It was a tangle of ravines, scrub, brush and rocks. Water was plentiful. At every turn they seemed to come on long-falling mountain streams and torrents. And it was beautiful. Now the giants of the mountains seemed to hang over them, stooping with their mighty shoulders against the hard blue arc of the sky.

  They came on the others near dark, suddenly, tucked away in a ravine that looked as though it had never been trodden by the foot of man.

  Lindholm and Carla were on their feet at once. Dismay showed on the faces of the old man and the girl sitting stiffly in their bonds.

  Offdike dismounted wearily. Stevenson, puffing a cigar leisurely at the fire said: ‘What happened to the Kid?’ Offdike said: ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I killed him.’

  ‘Why the hell did you do that?’

  ‘He needed it.’ He turned to McAllister and said: ‘Get down.’ McAllister’s hands were tied behind his back. He threw one leg over the saddle-horn, kicked his foot from the stirrup-iron and dropped to the ground.

  Joe was so indignant at the sight of him that he found it hard to speak. But he did, just the same. ‘My God, McAllister, you was took like a goddam pilgrim.’

  McAllister nodded. ‘Can’t deny it, Joe.’

  He walked over to the prisoners and sat himself between them. The old man eyed him venomously. Offdike unsaddled the horses and slapped them to join the others on grass nearby. The grass was sparse and scattered. They had to stay free so they could search for feed. The road agents had no hobbles with them. McAllister sat there, taking in all the small facts of that camp. He knew that at most he was within a day of death. He looked at Allison. Now that he was close, he could see that she had sunk into a misery of fear. Joe Ramage was grey-faced, but he was not quite beaten. He had been faced by adversity through too many years for that.

  McAllister said softly to the girl: ‘Miss Allison, don’t you fret now. We’ll have you out of this in no time at all.’ Stevenson, seating himself on the ground on the other side of the fire, heard this.

  ‘You’re a damn liar,’ he said. ‘And you know it. The old man lied to us. There’s no gold of his near here.’

  ‘There is too,’ said Ramage indignantly. ‘You think I’d lie with the girl at stake?’

  Stevenson said: ‘I think you’d lie if your mother was at stake.’

  J. Howard Lindholm said earnestly: ‘I do implore you, Joe, to tell the truth. I really cannot stomach any more unpleasantness.’

  Carla said: ‘McAllister, make him see sense. Mr Lindholm and I won’t let any harm come to Joe or Allison if he tells the truth. I swear.’

  McAllister said: ‘I reckon that doesn’t count for too much, honey. I mean, you ain’t shown yourself exactly trustworthy this far.’

  ‘I’m sincere when I say I don’t want Ally hurt, believe me.’ McAllister turned to the old man: ‘Was I you, Joe, I’d reckon we were at the point when the fooling around has to stop. These boys mean business.’

  ‘Rem,’ said the old man, ‘I reckon with you caught, things don’t look too good for me. So, all right. This time it’s the truth. I’ll kiss a fortune goodbye.’

  Offdike strode up to the fire and heard this. ‘How far off?’ he demanded.

  The old man cocked his head on one side and said: ‘Couple of hours. No more’n that. Afoot.’

  ‘Hard going?’

  ‘I’ve led burros in and out. You could maybe lead horses.’ Stevenson said: ‘We start at daybreak. And this best be the real thing, Joe.’

  ‘It has to be the real thing. It don’t give me much of a chance. But it’s the only one I have.’

  McAllister gave a genuine sigh of relief. The old man had shown sense so much quicker than he had thought possible. Or had he? Was he still lying?

  Offdike said: ‘We’ll split the night into three guards. I’ll take the first. You second, Hank. Then Howie.’

  Lindholm took exception to the ‘Howie’. He said: ‘I shall not insist on being Mister Lindholm among colleagues and friends. But “Howie” is pushing it a little too far.’

  Offdike chuckled.

  McAllister said: ‘How about some blankets? There’s one behind my saddle.’

  Offdike said: ‘I hope you get your balls froze off, lawman.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  By dawn, McAllister, hard though he was, was stiff with cold. Joe and the girl had rolled close to him to gain and offer warmth. McAllister found the girl a more satisfactory bed companion than old Joe. During the night, he woke and kissed her on the neck under the ear and she wiggled. He liked that. Hell, he thought, if he was going to die he might as well have a pleasant thought to go out on. He even went
so far as to whisper a few encouraging words into her ear. She liked that. Maybe she felt the same as McAllister, because she lifted her mouth to his and kissed him full on the lips. He had never kissed a finer mouth. When Stevenson came close and inspected them, McAllister and the girl were lying back-to-back.

  On the far side of the fire, the banker and Carla were sharing their blankets with their arms around each other. The big man smiled to himself. Let them make the most of it – they would not have the opportunity much longer.

  Dawn found them hastily finishing their breakfast. They did not feed their prisoners, saying that they would be fed when Joe had led them to the gold. They were surprised when McAllister offered no protest. Offdike and Stevenson brought in the horses and saddled them while Lindholm and the girl packed their gear and supplies. There was an extra horse now the Kid was dead, and they packed what they could on its saddle to save their own horses. They fed Oscar’s corn to their own mounts.

  They had ridden for no longer than ten minutes when Joe said that they should walk from here on. Stevenson now organized his order of march. Joe Ramage go first, with Stevenson immediately behind him. Then would come Lindholm and Carla, leading the horses. Behind them, walked McAllister and Allison Disart. Leading his own horse and bringing up the rear was Offdike.

  They were high now and the early sun was failing to warm this upland world. McAllister began to wonder, as he stumbled through the rocks and brush, that there was gold so high. Maybe this thought was just his ignorance. He had never fancied gold-hunting and knew little more than he had heard from prospectors in saloon talk. They were climbing steadily all the time and the wind was finding them wherever they went, sighing and singing through the rocks. Clouds drifted so close above their heads, it seemed that they could reach out their hands to touch them. Allison’s teeth were chattering.

  Finally, they found their way on to a small plateau, and suddenly they could see a vast country spread out all around them. In spite of the situation in which he found himself, McAllister stood for a moment, awed by the sight. Allison expressed what was in his mind: ‘McAllister, you can’t believe there’s such things as thieving and murder when you see country like this.’