The man sat and looked dumbly from one to the other of them.
‘Well,’ said McAllister, ‘go ahead, talk.’
‘Where do I start, for God’s sake?’ the man said. ‘You don’t know me, not the first thing about me.’
‘Try the beginning,’ McAllister suggested and noted that the girl was keeping a careful watch on the country. McAllister himself continually flicked his gaze across it. The man puzzled him. If he was a bad one, he showed none of the signs. McAllister put him down as a small rancher, maybe a farmer. The boots were low-heeled and did not carry spurs, but McAllister had known cowmen who favored that style. No quirt dangled from the strong wrist. The hands were gnarled and showed they were hands which had worked. This man had known hard physical labor since childhood. The face was all seamed and rutted like the face of a man who had worked hard, dry country. The blue eyes were faded and hooded like those of a man who had lived under a merciless sun. The pants were denim, the faded blue shirt was hickory, the neck-scarf cotton.
‘My name’s Ben Holly,’ he said.
‘Ben Holly?’ McAllister repeated and the name echoed down the long halls of his mind. ‘Wait now …’
The man’s tight mouth curled slightly at one corner in a glimmer of a smile. ‘You remember it, maybe. Some men do.’
‘I heard the name,’ the girl said.
‘You too, miss?’ said the man and seemed not displeased.
‘You were a good man with a gun,’ McAllister said. ‘You hunted buffalo, you drove cattle … wait … you were one of the few drovers who were not Texas men.’
‘You got me in one,’ said Holly.
McAllister found that it was possible to believe that this man was who he said he was. The great Ben Holly.
‘Tell it,’ he commanded.
Holly cleared his throat.
‘I been raising cattle quietly in the Dakotas,’ he began, ‘for a good few years now. Peaceable—except maybe for a smart of Indian troubles now and then. Didn’t do badly, didn’t do well. You know how it is. There came this chance of a spread this part of the country. New range. The temptation was too much for me. So I upped stakes, packed a wagon and hit the trail. Not like the old days this time, though. Now I have a wife, kids. Kids? The girl’s this young lady’s size, the boy’s up to your shoulder, McAllister. Reached this basin a week or so back and I knew right off this was the place for me. Never seen anything like it. You’re looking right at it, so you know what I mean. It has everything a cattleman needs—sheltered range, good grass, water. Kind of a cowman’s paradise. Made you wonder how the other fellers was crazy enough to overlook it. But there’s always a devil in Eden, ain’t there? I mean … that’s the way she goes.’
The man looked around him as if he wondered at his being here. When his eyes fell on McAllister, he showed a mild surprise at his presence.
‘Go ahead,’ McAllister said.
‘Two days ago, there comes this man. Two days? My God, it seems like an eternity. Anyway, this man comes. Softly spoken man. Couldn’t help taking to him. Always prided myself on being a judge of men. But this time, I was never more wrong. The only time it really mattered, I was wrong. And the whole family has to suffer for my one mistake. I should of knowed you can’t let up for one single minute, not in this world. It’s dog-eat-dog and God help the trusting. This man, he was the devil in Eden.’
Holly seemed for a moment to be lost in a bitter contemplation of this man.
‘What did he do?’ the girl asked softly.
‘Do? Something happened that I never thought could happen? I never took orders from anybody, not in my whole life. But I took them from him. It all comes about because of you, McAllister. The only reason why that man is here. He wants nothing in the world but you. My God, he must hate you.’
‘I’m the law,’ McAllister said. ‘I aim to hang him.’
‘You being what you are,’ said Holly, ‘has put my girl where she is right now, with a gun at her head. This man tells me if I don’t send you to him unarmed, he’ll put a bullet through her head. And I believe him. Don’t you believe him?’
‘Yes,’ McAllister said.
‘He would think no more of doing that than snapping the head off a flower,’ Holly said. ‘There’s more. If he kills my daughter, he then has my wife. There’s my son ... I can’t hardly believe it. This man is threatening me with a massacre just like he was ordering a meal in a restaurant. Casual.’
‘I know,’ McAllister told him. ‘I know him as well as I know myself. Holly, I know him so damn well, I can’t be sure if you’re against him or for him.’
The girl jerked a startled look at him. ‘But you can’t—’
McAllister stopped her. ‘I know what this man’s capable of. I know what he’s done. I saw what he did in Black Horse. I’ve been on his trail for more than a month. This man here could be Ben Holly and what he says could be the truth. It could also be lies. If it’s true, Holly could still have been sent in here to kill me in return for his daughter’s life. Anything to get me off his butt. I’ve nearly had him twice. He’s desperate. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do. Killing means no more to him than blowing his nose.’
Ben Holly looked a picture of quiet despair.
‘How can I convince you?’ he said. ‘It’s damn funny, ain’t it? All my life I’ve lived on my reputation. My word’s been good. I’ve had five thousand head of cattle handed to me at one time without my John Henry going on a piece of paper. Now I need to be trusted like I never did before, you can’t do it. I wouldn’t do it in your boots and that’s straight.’
‘And he knows it,’ said McAllister. ‘He’s laughing at the pair of us right this minute. He ain’t too interested in profit, only in winning with a few laughs along the way. They broke the mould when he was made, Holly. There ain’t another like him.’
‘So what do we do? You want him dead or alive. I want my daughter and my family safe.’
Ana interrupted: ‘The girl is a hostage. He has Mr Holly hogtied through the girl. Mr Holly wants a hostage for your good conduct. So that leaves me, McAllister.’
McAllister looked at her sharply.
He turned to Ben Holly: ‘What’s his exact terms, Holly?’
‘You ride down there, unarmed naturally, and give yourself up to him. Then he releases the girl.’
‘But we know him,’ said McAllister, ‘and we can discount that. He’ll only release the girl when it suits him if at all. He’s an animal, especially where young women are concerned.’ He was putting the truth as hard as he could to Holly. He could see the shock as the words struck—it showed behind the man’s eyes. ‘If I go down there unarmed, he’ll kill me on sight, we can bank on that. Unless he has a notion to have a bit of fun. In that case, he’ll likely gut-shoot me.’
‘I’m begging you, McAllister.’ Holly had never begged another man before in his life.
Ana exclaimed in a voice of horror: ‘You can’t expect a man to ride into his own death just like that.’
‘What alternative do I have but to ask that?’
McAllister smiled ironically. ‘All we have is trust, Holly. And not too much of that, because you just admitted under these circumstances you can’t be trusted. Just the same if I don’t trust you, I don’t have a goddam thing. Am I right?’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘If I go down there unarmed, you have to shoot him.’
‘Now, wait a minute—’
Ana flew to McAllister’s defense. ‘This is where we all wait a minute, for God’s sake. If you’re going to shoot him anyway, where’s the sense in McAllister going in there unarmed? He’ll be as good as dead. The slightest thing goes wrong and—’
‘Times like this,’ McAllister said, ‘everything has to go right.’
‘Holly has as good as admitted that he can’t be trusted. He has admitted it. I don’t blame him, but we can’t trust him. He’s as likely to shoot you as this man.’
McAllister looked at Holly w
ith a smile. ‘She’s dead right, ain’t she?’
Holly groaned and put his hands to his face. ‘Of course she’s right.’
‘So,’ Ana said, ‘we come back to me being Holly’s hostage.’
It was the hardest decision McAllister ever had to face. Whatever he did, it seemed, somebody would die. Every choice he could make would end in his own death. A hostage was the most deadly weapon an antagonist could have.
He could only be beaten by a man who was willing to sacrifice life, including his own. Once a hostage was taken, the game could be said to be over. So why trouble to make any choice? It all ended up the same way.
‘He has to see me come back with you, McAllister.’
‘Did he say what Ana has to do?’ McAllister asked.
Holly looked puzzled—‘No.’
So, thought McAllister, there’s the clue to what he has in mind. Somewhere, hidden in the fact that the killer had not included Ana in his demands, was his secret. McAllister drove his thoughts and came up with nothing. He gazed out on the smiling landscape as if hoping desperately to find the answer there. It went against his very nature to ride in helplessly to be shot down, knowing that the Holly girl most likely would not be freed then.
All that McAllister could do was take some kind of precaution. Anything, just in the hope that … Should he leave Holly here, bound and helpless? Maybe he had been assigned the capture of Ana by the killer. Maybe he had a gun hidden on his saddle and would jump McAllister later. The possibilities were endless. Holly’s whole story could have been a pack of lies from beginning to end. This man might not even be Ben Holly.
But, as McAllister had said already, trust had to start somewhere.
He knew that he had to decide something, firmly and fast. So he decided. He would have to use the girl, but she could be kept out of immediate danger.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I decided.’ The man and the girl had their eyes on him. ‘Holly, you stay here. We’ll take your horse.’
‘Now, wait a minute.’ Holly was on his feet, his face angry.
‘That’s the way it is. And don’t come any nearer or I’ll drop you.’ The man halted as if he had walked into a stone wall. If he had thought that he had gained something on McAllister’s soft side, he was mistaken. As for McAllister, the situation had suddenly gotten to him. The full implications of his position came home to him and now he fully realized that, if this man was telling the truth, he had a number of human lives on his conscience.
‘What about me?’ Ana asked. Her speaking reminded McAllister that she could be as suspect as the man who called himself Holly. Somewhere, some time, he told himself, he would have to behave as if he could trust one or both of them. And that would be the ultimate gamble.
‘You’re coming with me,’ he told her.
‘But—’ she started to protest.
He cut her short. ‘Make your decision here and now. Either you go along with me or you’re on your own.’ He knew how short a fuse he had burning. His nerves were starting to fray.
Turning to Holly, he said: ‘You’re out of this now, Holly. If you’re playing this straight with me, you can bank on me doing my damndest for the girl. If you’re playing tricks, God help you.’
‘For God’s sake, McAllister, have a heart. That’s my girl down there in that camp. Let me ride back with you.’
McAllister’s reply was: ‘Lie face downward, Holly, and stretch your arms above your head. Move now, or I’ll bend my gun barrel over your head.’
The man gave him a bitter look and lay down. McAllister quickly knelt by him and ran a hand over his clothes in search of weapons. The man had told the truth. There was not a weapon on him except for his sheath knife. McAllister drew that and tucked it away under his belt. ‘Get up,’ he told Holly. Holly rose to his feet and his face expressed a confusion of emotions, rage and panic the strongest. McAllister came nearer to believing in him then, but he knew that he dare take no risks. He told the girl to fetch the horses.
When he mounted, he had the lead-line of Holly’s horse in his hand. Holly called with a note of desperation in his voice: ‘Change your mind, McAllister, I beg of you.’
Beside McAllister, the girl pleaded: ‘Please, McAllister.’
‘You be still,’ McAllister said. Then he raised his voice to Holly: ‘What’s your daughter’s name?’
Was the man caught unawares for a moment? There was a moment’s hesitation for sure before he replied: ‘Emma.’ McAllister turned the mare down-slope and called to her. She set off briskly. Ana and her old plug followed. When they were down off the shelf and into the trees McAllister halted and inspected the gear on Holly’s horse. There was no gun there. Maybe he had been speaking the truth after all. As they headed through the trees McAllister was as wary as a cat. The girl noticed it and stayed silent. They covered several miles before they halted. The girl’s sense of direction told her that they had followed a circuitous route and had not ridden straight for the smoke they had seen from their little fortress.
She said: ‘Why did you bring me along?’
‘Because I can’t do this alone, not with Holly’s family in my man’s hands.’
‘So you believe Holly’s telling the truth?’
‘I have to act as if I did just in case he is telling the truth. My quarry knows my character better than his own. Goddam him to hell.’
‘You don’t have to go ahead with this,’ she said. ‘We have three horses. You could cut your losses and simply ride.’ He looked at her, genuinely curious to know if she really meant it.
‘I think you know the answer to that,’ he said.
‘I guess I do.’
‘Would you cut and run?’
She looked off into the trees. ‘Maybe I would. But I wouldn’t expect you to.’ She turned her gaze back to him. ‘So what do I do next?’
He handed her the Henry and asked: ‘How good are you with a rifle?’
‘As good as the average man. Is that good enough?’
‘It’ll have to be.’ He pointed into the north-east. ‘Holly’s camp lies that way. It’s amongst scattered trees and brush on the far side of a fairly open prairie. I’ll have to ride across the open country to approach the camp. We’ll change horses and you take the mare. She’s fast and she’ll take you safely away from any horse that chases you. I want you to come as close as you can, dismount and creep forward until you have sight of Holly’s camp. It’s risky and I know it. There’s nothing else that I can think of. I have to go in, there’s no getting out of that. I shall have to be unarmed. So my trust in you will be absolute. Once you fire a shot at our man, I shall go into action. Just how I have no idea. But a shot from you will be my cue. Can you do it?’
‘I can try,’ she said. ‘This sounds like you really do trust me.’
‘I have to.’
She smiled. ‘I hope we both come out of this alive, McAllister. I like being alive with you.’
He returned her smile and leaned from the saddle to kiss her. ‘You’re a good girl, Ana.’
‘And you’re a good man, McAllister.’
They dismounted and stripped the saddles from their horses. When they had resaddled, McAllister was ready to go. The girl whispered: ‘Luck, hombre.’
‘Watch out for yourself,’ he told her. He rode off through the trees, angling south-east so that he could make a straight approach to the Holly camp. He looked back once before the trees grew too thick for him to see her. She was standing with the rifle in her hands at Sally’s head. They lifted a hand to each other. He rode on through the trees—larch, birch, here and there pines, alder thickets. In a short while, he rode out into the open, almost directly south of the smoke. He headed across the prairie, eyes and ears alert. He had to admit to himself that his nerves were playing hell with him. For all he knew, his quarry would cut down on him at sight. After all, the whole purpose of this action so far as the enemy was concerned was to have McAllister off his back-trail.
He must have ridd
en for about fifteen minutes when he came suddenly and unexpectedly on the wagons. For some reason or other he had expected no more than one. There was a light ranch wagon and a giant Conestoga. Off to the right was a roughly erected corral of stakes and brush in which the wagon teams and some saddlers stood. Of people at that moment he could see only one: a woman by the smaller wagon. She appeared to be standing unnaturally.
Even when he rode near she did not move, but stayed where she was, immobile, watching him. He reined in and looked around. A typical camp site, gear scattered around, a tripod with a large kettle hanging from it, something bubbling within it. The fire was a long narrow one, kept in shape by stones. Nearest to McAllister a dutch oven was mounted on them.
‘Mrs Holly?’
The woman nodded briefly and did not take her eyes from McAllister’s face. She had the look of a woman bereft of her senses. McAllister said: ‘Your husband came to me, ma’am, and he told me how things were here. He said if I didn’t come here, your daughter would be shot. First off. And then the rest. Is this true?’
‘If that’s what Ben said, it’s true.’ She said it as if it were unarguable.
‘Where’s the rest of your family?’
‘They went off into the trees. They’re around some place.’
‘Are they prisoners?’
‘Emma is.’
McAllister stepped down from the saddle and tied the horse to the smaller wagon. There was a curious air of stillness about the place which was eerie. Yet the sun was shining and it was a wonderful day. The woman had turned her head to watch him. She was a nice-looking woman, some ten years younger than Holly. She had lived a hard ranch life, but she had kept her looks and figure. Now she was at the end of her line, but she still looked a handsome woman. There was character there in the eyes, and intelligence. ‘Why’d you come, Mr McAllister?’ she asked.
The question startled him. He thought a little and replied: ‘Couldn’t think of anything else to do, Mrs Holly.’
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